THE OBSIDIAN MOUNTAIN TRILOGY

The Outstretched Shadow

To Light a Candle

When Darkness Falls

BY MERCEDES LACKEY AND JAMES MALLORY

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THE OBSIDIAN TRILOGY

BY MERCEDES LACKEY AND JAMES MALLORY

The Outstretched Shadow

To Light a Candle

When Darkness Falls

The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy (Omnibus)

ALSO BY JAMES MALLORY

Merlin: The Old Magic

Merlin: The King’s Wizard

Merlin: The End of Magic

TOR BOOKS BY MERCEDES LACKEY

Firebird

Sacred Ground

DIANA TREGARDE NOVELS

Burning Water

Children of the Night

Jinx High

THE HALFBLOOD CHRONICLES

(written with Andre Norton)

The Elvenbane

Elvenblood

Elvenborn

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Notice

Also By the Authors

Book 1: The Outstretched Shadow

Chapter One - In the City of Golden Bells

Chapter Two - Dark Lightning

Chapter Three - The Books of the Wild Magic

Chapter Four - Music in Chains

Chapter Five - The Courts of Nightmare

Chapter Six - A College of Magicks

Chapter Seven - Magic Unmasked

Chapter Eight - By the Light of the Moon

Chapter Nine - Facing the Outlaw Hunt

Chapter Ten - Hunters of the Dark

Chapter Eleven - Reborn to Magic

Chapter Twelve - Apples and Apparitions

Chapter Thirteen - The World Without Sun

Chapter Fourteen - Storms and Bright Water

Chapter Fifteen - Darkness and Lies

Chapter Sixteen - Revelry and Ashes

Chapter Seventeen - Into Elven Lands

Chapter Eighteen - The City Never Sleeps

Chapter Nineteen - The Fruit of the Tree of Night

Chapter Twenty - A Circle of Silver Fire

Chapter Twenty-one - Beyond the Elven Lands

Chapter Twenty-two - Visions of the Past

Chapter Twenty-three - Allies and Enemies

Chapter Twenty-four - A Pause Before the Storm

Chapter Twenty-five - Battle at the Cairn

Chapter Twenty-six - Storm Wind and Silver Feather

Book 2: To Light a Candle

Chapter One - In the Forest of Flowers

Chapter Two - A Healing and a Homecoming

Chapter Three - The Banquet in the Garden of Leaf and Star

Chapter Four - In Training at the House of Sword and Shield

Chapter Five - Secrets in the City of Golden Bells

Chapter Six - The Room of Fire and Water

Chapter Seven - Discord in the City of a Thousand Bells

Chapter Eight - Prisoners of Darkness

Chapter Nine - The Council of fear

Chapter Ten - The Return of the Dragons

Chapter Eleven - The Road Through the Border Lands

Chapter Twelve - To the Crowned Horns of the Moon

Chapter Thirteen - Ondoladeshiron at Last

Chapter Fourteen - Blood and Sorrow

Chapter Fifteen - At the Siege of Stonehearth

Chapter Sixteen - Ghosts upon the Wind

Chapter Seventeen - On the Wings of Dragons

Chapter Eighteen - The Price of Power

Chapter Nineteen - The Wisdom of Betrayal

Chapter Twenty - The Order of Battle

Chapter Twenty-one - Blood on the Moon

Chapter Twenty-two - Smoke and Storm

Chapter Twenty-three - Journey’s End

Chapter Twenty-four - Shadows of the Past

Chapter Twenty-five - Gifts and Promises

Chapter Twenty-six - Against All Odds

Epilogue

Book 3: When Darkness Falls

Prologue - The Surface of the Mirror

Chapter One - A Thousand Shades of Darkness

Chapter Two - Against All Odds

Chapter Three - The Winter City

Chapter Four - The Smoke of That Grat Burning

Chapter Five - The Best of All Beginnings

Chapter Six - The Stars and the Light

Chapter Seven - The Sword of the city

Chapter Eight - Hare and Hound

Chapter Nine - A Lifetime in a Moon

Chapter Ten - The Xaique Board Underground

Chapter Eleven - To Live in the City of Distance

Chapter Twelve - To Build a Bridge

Chapter Thirteen - To Redeem an Ancient Pledge

Chapter Fourteen - In the Room of Autumn Birches

Chapter Fifteen - The Road to Armethalieh

Chapter Sixteen - The Battle for Armethalieh

Chapter Seventeen - Sealed to the Light

Chapter Eighteen - The Light at the Heart of the Mountain

Chapter Nineteen - In the Temple of the Light

Chapter Twenty - To Honor the Fallen

About the Authors

Copyright

The

Outstretched

Shadow

The Obsidian Trilogy:

Book one

Mercedes Lackey

and James Mallory

The

Outstretched

Shadow

Chapter One

In the City of Golden Bells

THE GARDEN MARKET positively thronged with people, clustered around the wagons just in from the countryside. What a fuss over strawberries—you’d think they were made of solid ruby.

Perhaps—to some—they were. Certainly the number of superior kitchen servants that filled the streets of the Garden Market, their household livery enveloped in spotless aprons, pristine market baskets slung over their arms, suggested that the gourmets of the City treasured them as much as if they were, indeed, precious gems.

Kellen Tavadon supposed it was all a matter of taste. The strawberries were said to be particularly good this year, and there must have been a hundred people waiting impatiently for the three ox-carts in from the country to unload the second picking of the day, great crates full of the tender fruit, layered in fresh straw to keep from bruising the delicate flesh. The air was full of the scent of them, a perfume that made even Kellen’s mouth water.

“Out of the way, young layabout!”

A rude shove in Kellen’s back sent him staggering across the cobbles into the arms of a marketplace stall-holder, who caught him with a garlic-redolent oath just in time to keep him from landing face first in the cart full of the man’s neatly heaped-up vegetables. Behind Kellen, the burly armsman dressed in purple-and-maroon livery and bearing nothing more lethal than an ornamental halberd dripping purple-and-maroon ribbons shoved another man whose only crime was in being a little too tardy at clearing the path. This victim, a shabby farmer, went stumbling in the opposite direction, and looked far more cowed than Kellen had. A third, a boy picked up by the collar and tossed aside, saved himself from taking down another stall’s awning by going into the stone wall behind it instead.

All this rudeness was for no greater purpose than so the armsman’s master need not be jostled by the proximity of mere common working-folk who had been occupying the space that their superior wished to cross.

Kellen felt his lip curling in an angry sneer as he mumbled a hurried apology to the fellow who’d caught him. Damn the idiot that has to make a display of himself here! He picked a fine time to come parading through, whoever he is! The Garden Market couldn’t be more crowded if you stood on a barrel and yelled, “Free beer!”

Then again—maybe that was the point. Some people couldn’t see an opportunity to flaunt their importance without grabbing it and wringing every last bit of juice out of it.

Father, for instance …

Kellen turned just in time to see that the Terribly Important Person in question this time was High Mage Corellius, resplendent in his velvet robes and the distinctive hat that marked him as a High Mage and thus a creature of wealth, rank, and power. Quite a hat it was, and Corellius held his scrawny neck very upright and stiff supporting it—a construction with a square brim as wide as his arm was long that curled up on the right and the left. It had three gold cords that knotted around the crown and trailed down his back, cords ending in bright golden tassels as long as Kellen’s hand. Corellius’s colors were purple and maroon, and they suited him vilely. Not only did the shades clash, they made him look as if he had a permanent case of yellow jaundice, which condition was not at all improved by the wattles of his throat and the mottled jowls hanging down from his narrow vulpine jaw. His beady little eyes fastened on Kellen just long enough for Kellen to be certain the smirk on the thin lips was meant for him, then moved on, recognizing Kellen and dismissing him as a thing of no importance.

Kellen flushed involuntarily. Which I am, of course. Father’s position and glory hardly reflect on his so-disappointing son. And if I were as properly ambitious as I’m supposed to be, I wouldn’t be wandering about in the market in the first place. I’d be at my studies.

The official ranks of Magecraft progressed from the Student at the very beginning of the discipline, through Apprentice, to Journeyman, to Mage, to High Mage. Kellen, as a student, was beneath Corellius’s notice under the usual circumstances. But Kellen was no ordinary Student. Not with the Arch-Mage Lycaelon—head of the High Council, and therefore Lord of all the Mages in the City—as his father.

Kellen glowered at the High Mage’s back. There was no doubt in his mind Corellius had recognized him, even dressed as he was. How could he not, considering who Kellen’s father was?

“That’d be a High Mage, then?” asked the stall-holder, conversationally. “Don’t suppose ye know which one?”

Kellen shrugged, not at all inclined to identify himself as someone who would know High Mages on sight. He’d worn his oldest clothes into the City for just this reason.

“Maroon and purple, that’s all I know,” he replied untruthfully. “Don’t know why a High Mage would be barging through the Garden Market, though.”

“Wondered that myself.” The stall-holder shrugged, then lost interest in Corellius and Kellen, as a housewife squeezed out of the press, positioned herself under the man’s red-striped awning, and began to pick over the carrots.

Kellen moved on, taking a path at right angles to Corellius’s progress. He didn’t want to encounter the High Mage again, but he also didn’t want to fight his way through the wake of disturbance Corellius had left behind him. The Garden Market, with its permanent awnings that were fastened into the stone of the warehouse buildings behind them and unfurled every morning, was full every day, but other markets were open only once every Sennday, once a moonturn, or once a season. The Brewers’ and Vintners’ Market was open today, though, over in Barrel Street, for instance. The brewers were in with Spring Beer today, which, along with the new crop of strawberries, probably accounted for the heavy traffic here in the Market Quarter.

Probably accounts for Corellius, too. Kellen knew the High Mage’s tastes, thanks to overheard conversations among Lycaelon and his friends. Corellius might pretend to favor wine, a much more sophisticated beverage than beer, but his pretense was as bogus as—as his apparent height! Just as he wore platform soles to his shoes, neatly hidden under the skirt of his robe, to hide his true stature, his carefully cultivated reputation as a gourmet concealed coarser preferences. His drink of choice was the same beer his carpenter father had consumed, and the stronger, the better. He might have a reputation for keeping an elegant cellar among his peers and inferiors, but his superiors knew his every secret “vice.”

They had to: only a convocation of High Mages could invest a Mage into their exalted ranks, and it behooved them to know everything about a potential candidate. Little did Corellius know that a frog would fly before he was invested with the rank he so coveted. The High Mages would have understood and accepted a man who clung to his culinary roots openly—but a Mage who dissembled and created a false image of himself might find it easy to move on to more dangerous falsehoods. So Lycaelon said—loudly, and often.

So Kellen steered clear of the Brewers’ and Vintners’ Market. Corellius would be in there for bells, tasting, comparing, pretending he was buying for the table of his servants, while brewers fell over themselves trying to impress him and gain his patronage. And as long as the Mage dallied in the market, no one else would be served, which would make for a backlog of a great many impatient and disgruntled would-be customers.

But they would just have to wait. This was the Mage-City of Armethalieh and only another Mage, senior in age or higher in rank, could displace Corellius from his position of importance. Mages had built it, Mages ruled it, and Mages were the only people of any real consequence in it, though it had nobility and rich men in plenty.

It didn’t matter if Armethalieh traded with the entire world and held rich merchants within her walls, or that she could boast nobles whose bloodlines went back centuries, some with more wealth than any ten merchants combined. When it came to power and the wielding of it—well—Mages were the only men who had it, and they guarded their privileges jealously.

Not that they didn’t earn those privileges. Magick infused and informed this City, often called “Armethalieh of the Singing Towers” for all of the bell spires piercing the sky. Magick ensured that the weather was so controlled that—for instance—rain only fell between midnight and dawn, so that the inhabitants need not be inconvenienced. Magick kept the harbor clear and unsilted, guided ships past the dangerous Sea-Hag’s Teeth at the mouth of it, and cleansed the ships that entered it of vermin. There was magick to reinforce any construction, so that (in the wealthiest parts, at least) the City looked like a fantastic confection, a sugar-cake fit for a high festival. The City stretched toward the sun with stonework as delicate as lace and hard as diamonds, be-towered and be-domed, gilded and silvered, jeweled with mosaics, frosted with fretwork. Things were less fanciful in less exalted quarters, but still ornamented with gargoyle downspouts and carved and glazed friezes of ceramic tiles. Magick reinforced these, too, and nearly every block boasted its own bell tower, with still more magick ensuring that all of the songs of the towers harmonized, rather than clashed, with each other.

Magick set the scales in the marketplace and ensured their honesty. Magick at the Mint guaranteed that the square coins of the City, the Golden Suns of Armethalieh, were the truest in the world, and the most trusted. Magick kept the City’s water supply sweet and uncontaminated, her markets filled with fresh wholesome food at every season, her buildings unthreatened by fire. There were entire cadres of Mages on the City payroll, dedicated to magick for the public good. If they were well paid and well respected, they had earned both the pay and the respect. Even Kellen, no friend of Mages, had to admit to that. Life in the City was sweet and easy.

As for the private sector, where the real wealth was to be made, there were far more opportunities for a Mage to enrich himself. There was virtually no aspect of life that could not be enhanced by magick. Domestic magick, for instance. If you had the money, you could hire a Mage to thief-proof your house or shop, to keep vermin out of it, to keep disease from your family, and to heal their injuries. If you had the money, you could even hire a Mage to create a winter-box where you could put perishables to keep them from spoiling. And there were even greater magicks to be had—magicks that melded brick-and-mortar into a whole more solid than stone and harder than adamant. Magicks that kept a ship’s sails full of favoring wind no matter what the real conditions were. Money bought magick, and magick made money, and no matter how lowly born a Mage was—and the Magegift could appear in any family, regardless of degree of birth (Corellius, for example)—he could count on becoming rich before he was middle-aged. He might become very rich. He might aspire to far more than mere wealth, if he was powerful enough: a seat on the High Council, and a voice in ruling the City itself.

Most important of all of the folk of the City were the Mages, and the most important of all the Mages were those High Mages who formed the elite ruling body of the City, the High Council. They were considered to be the wisest of the wise; they were certainly the most powerful of the powerful. If there was a decision to be made about anything inside the walls of the City, it was the High Council that made it.

And that was what stuck in Kellen’s throat and made him wild with pent-up frustration.

If there is a way to fetter a person’s life a little further, it is the High Council that puts the pen to the parchment, Kellen thought sourly as he made his way past the Tailors’ Mart and the stalls of those who sold fabric and trimmings. His goal was the little by-water of booksellers, but he would have to make his way through most of the markets to get there, since Corellius was blocking the short route.

Kellen was seventeen, and had been a Student for three years now, and although that was probably the acme of ambition for most young men in this City, he would rather have forgone the “honor” entirely. It would have been a great deal easier, all things considered, if he had never been born among the Gifted. On the whole, he would much rather have been completely and utterly ordinary. His father would have been disgusted.

And I could have gotten out of this place. I could have gone to be a sailor … It would have gotten him as far as the Out Islands, at least. And from there, who knew?

Mages weren’t always born to Mage fathers, and certainly not only to Mages, but in Kellen’s case, if he hadn’t been among the Gifted, Lycaelon would probably have had apoplexy—or gone looking for his wife’s extramarital interest. Or both. The blood in Kellen’s veins contained—as he was reminded only too often—the distillation of a hundred Arch-Mages past, half of whom had held the seat of a Lord of the High Council at some point during their lifetimes.

That was difficult enough to live up to, but he was also the son of the Arch-Mage Lycaelon Tavadon, ruler of the City and the current Arch-Mage of the High Council.

That made his life so unbearably stultifying that Kellen would gladly have traded places with an apprentice pig-keeper, if there were such a thing to be found within the walls of Armethalieh.

Wherever Kellen went in his father’s world, there were critical eyes on him, weighing his lightest deed, his least word. Only here, in the “common” quarters of the artisans, the shopkeepers, and the folk for whom magick was a rare and expensive commodity, here where no one knew who he was, did Kellen feel as if he could be himself.

And yet, even here, the heavy hand of Arch-Magisterial regulation intruded.

For these were the markets of Armethalieh, and Armethalieh was the greatest city in the world, after all. This should have been a place where wonders and novelties abounded. The harbor welcomed ships from every place, race, and culture, and caravans arrived at the Delfier Gate daily laden with goods from every conceivable place. There should be a hundred, a thousand new things in the market whenever it opened. And yet—

And yet the High Council intruded, even here.

They, and not the merchants, determined what could be sold in the marketplace. And only products that had been approved by the High Council could make an appearance here. Inspectors roamed the streets, casting their critical eyes over the stalls and stores, and anything that looked new or different was challenged.

In fact, there was one such Inspector in his black-and-yellow doublet and parti-colored hose just ahead of Kellen now. The Inspector was turning to look at the contents of a ribbon-seller’s stall with a frown.

“What’s this?” he growled, poking with his striped baton of office at something Kellen couldn’t see.

The stall-holder didn’t even bother to answer or argue; he just slapped his permit down atop the offending object. Evidently, this Inspector was a fellow well known to the merchant.

“Council’s allowed it, Greeley, so take your baton off my property afore you spoil it,” the man growled back. From his look of offended belligerence, Kellen guessed that the merchant had been targeted by this particular Inspector in the past.

The Inspector removed his baton, but also picked up the permit and examined it minutely—and managed to block all traffic down this narrow street as he did so. Kellen wasn’t the only one to wait impatiently while the surly, mustachioed official took his time in assuring himself that the permit was entirely in order. Granted, some merchants had tried—and probably would continue to try—to use an old permit for a new offering, bypassing the inspection process, but that didn’t mean the old goat had call to block the street!

“It’s in order,” Greeley grunted at last, and finally moved away from the stall so that people could get by again.

“Interfering bastard,” the merchant muttered just as Kellen went past. “Even if it wasn’t, what difference would a new pattern of woven ribbons make, for the Eternal Light’s sake?”

Kellen glanced down curiously to see the disputed objects that had so raised the Inspector’s ire. The merchant was smoothing out his wares, and Kellen could easily see why the Inspector’s interest had been aroused. The ribbons in question were of the usual pastel colors that custom decreed for female garb, but the patterns woven into them were angular, geometric, and intricate, like the mosaics made from square ceramic tiles by the Shan-thin farmers of the north. There wasn’t a hint of the flowers and leaves usually woven into such ribbons, and although he wasn’t exactly the most expert in matters of lady’s dresses, Kellen didn’t think he’d ever seen ribbons like this before. Well! Something new!

And the merchant was right—what difference could this make to anyone?

Despite the Council’s eternal restrictions, the Market Quarter was still a lush, rich place to wander through, from the heady scents of the Spice Market to the feast for the eyes of the fabrics in the Clothworkers’ and Trimmers’ Market.

But though there was a great deal of abundance, and it was all wonderfully extravagant (at least, in the markets that Kellen’s class frequented), creating an impression of wealth and plenty, it was all the same as it ever had been, or ever would be, except in the minutest of details. It was the same way throughout the entire City—throughout Kellen’s entire life—tiny meaningless changes that made no difference. A pattern here, a dance step there, a scarf added or subtracted from one’s attire—someone who had lived in Armethalieh five hundred years ago could come back and be perfectly at home and comfortable now.

And if the High Council continued to govern as it had, someone who would live here five hundred years hence could return and find nothing of note changed.

Is that any way to live?

Somehow, that chance encounter with the Inspector had given form to Kellen’s vague discontent. That was what was wrong with this place! That was why he felt as if he was being smothered all the time, why he was so restless and yearned to be anywhere but here!

Abruptly, Kellen changed his mind. He was not going to the Booksellers’ Market. Instead, he would go to the Low Market. Maybe among the discards of generations past he might find something he hadn’t seen a thousand times. He hadn’t ever been to the Low Market, where (it was said) all the discards of the City eventually ended up. It was in a quarter inhabited by the poorest workers, the street-sweepers, the scullery-help, the collectors of rubbish, the sewer-tenders—people who had a vested interest in allowing those merchants of detritus to camp on their doorsteps twice a sennight.

Yes, he would go there and hope to find something different. And even if he didn’t, well, at least being in the Low Market would be something akin to novelty, with the added fillip of knowing that if Lycaelon found out about where his son had gone, he would be utterly horrified.

THERE were no “stalls” as such in the Low Market, and no awnings sheltering goods and merchants, only a series of spaces laid out in chalk on the cobbles of Bending Square. The “square” itself was a lopsided space surrounded by apartment buildings of four and five stories, centered by a public pump. Within each space each would-be merchant was free to display what he or she had for sale in whatever manner he or she chose. No Inspectors ever bothered to come here, and in fact, it wasn’t even “officially” a market.

Some of the sellers laid out a pitiful assortment of trash directly on the stones; some had dirty, tattered blankets upon which to display their findings; some presided over a series of wooden boxes through which the customers rummaged. The most prosperous had actual tables, usually with more boxes piled beneath. Kellen stopped before one of these, inspecting the seller’s wares curiously.

He fingered an odd piece of sculpture made of brass with just enough silver in the crevices to tell him it had once been plated. The table was heaped with odd metal bric-a-brac, doorknobs, hinges and latches, old keys, tiny dented dishes meant for salt, pewter spoons.

“That there’s a knife-rest, sor,” said the ugliest cheerful man—or the cheerfullest ugly man—Kellen had ever seen. He picked up the object that Kellen had been examining with puzzlement, a sort of two-headed horse no longer than his finger. “Gentry used to have ’em at dinner, so’s not to soil the cloth when they put their knives down.” He set the object in the middle of a minuscule clear spot, and demonstrated, setting a knife with the blade on the horse’s back and the handle on the table.

Well—something I never heard of! Kellen thought, pleased.

“Fell out of fashion, oh, in my great-great-granddam’s time,” the man continued, looking at the object with fondness, and Kellen conceived an irrational desire for the thing. It was absurd, a foolish bit of useless paraphernalia to clutter up an already cluttered dinner table, and he wanted it.

“How much?” he asked, and the haggling began.

Irrational desire or not, Kellen wasn’t going to be taken for a gull, if only for the reason that if he paid the asking price, every creature in the market with something to sell would be on him in a heartbeat, determined not to let him go until every coin in his pocket was spent.

It was only when the knife-rest was his that Kellen gave it a good look, and discovered it wasn’t a two-headed horse at all—but a two-headed unicorn, the horns worn down by much handling to mere nubs. For some reason, the discovery made him feel immensely cheered, and he tucked it in his pocket, determined to have it re-silvered and start using it at dinner.

And his father wouldn’t be able to say a word. There were no edicts against reviving an old fashion, after all, even a foolish one, only against starting something new. The little sculpture rested heavily, but comfortably, in the bottom of his pocket; it felt like a luck-piece.

Maybe I won’t use it. Maybe I’ll just have it plated and keep it as a charm against boredom.

At the farther end of the square, Kellen spotted a bookseller—one of the prosperous individuals who had tables and boxes of books beneath. The errand that had originally sent Kellen to the Booksellers’ Market had been to find a cheap edition of one of the Student Histories—Volume Four, Of Armethalieh and Weather, to be precise. Lycaelon’s personal library had one, of course—how could it not?—but Kellen wanted one of his own that he could mark up with his own notes in the margins. This was a practice that infuriated his tutor, Anigrel, and frustrated his father, but as long as he did it in his own books, rather than in the pristine volumes in Lycaelon’s library, there was nothing either of them could really say about it. He was, after all, studying.

I might as well see if there’s one here. It’ll be cheaper, and besides, if it’s full of someone else’s notes from lectures, I might not need to take any of my own.

Besides, it might be amusing to read what some other Student had thought of the Histories.

He didn’t go straight to the bookstall, however, for that would be advertising his interest. Instead, he worked his way down the aisle between the chalk lines, examining a bit of broken clockwork here, a set of mismatched napkins there. It had the same sort of ghoulish fascination as watching the funeral of a stranger, this pawing over the wreckage, the flotsam and jetsam of other people’s lives. Who had torn the sleeves out of this sheepskin jacket, and why? How had the hand got bitten off this carved wooden doll? What on earth use was a miniature funeral carriage? If it was a play-toy, it was certainly a ghoulish one. If those rusty stains on this shirt were blood—then was that slash a knife wound?

People came and went from the apartment buildings surrounding the vendors; tired and dirty and coming home from their work, or clean and ready for it. One thing living here did guarantee—that you had a job, a roof over your head, and enough money to feed you. If the roof was a single room and you crammed yourself, your spouse, and half a dozen children into it, well, that was your business and your problem. At least the building was going to be kept in good repair by your City taxes, your spouse and your children could find work to bring in enough to feed all the mouths in the family, and just perhaps one of your kids would turn out to be Gifted and become a Mage—and support the whole family.

Eventually he got to his goal, and feigning complete disinterest, began digging through the books. The bookseller himself looked genuinely disinterested in the possibility of a sale; from his expression, Kellen guessed that he was suffering either from a headache or a hangover, and would really rather have been in bed.

Luck was with him, or perhaps his new little mascot had brought it—Kellen found not only the Volume Four he was looking for—in a satisfyingly battered and annotated condition—but Volumes Five, Six, and Seven, completing the set. They had stiff, pasteboard bindings of the cheapest sort, with the edges of the covers bent and going soft with use and abuse. They looked as if they’d been used for everything but study, which made them all the more valuable in Kellen’s eyes, for the worse they looked, the less objection Anigrel could have to his marking them up further. And the more Lycaelon would wince when he saw his son with them.

I can hear him now—“We’re one of the First Families of the City, not some clan of rubbish-collectors! If you must have your own copies to scribble in, for the One’s sake, why couldn’t you at least have bought a proper set in proper leather bindings!” And I’ll just look at him and say, “Are the words inside any different?” And of course he’ll throw up his hands and look disgusted.

Baiting his father was one of Kellen’s few pleasures, although it had to be done carefully. Pushed too far, Lycaelon could restrict him to the house and grounds, allowing him to leave only to go to his lessons. And an Arch-Mage found enforcing his will a trivial matter—and one unpleasant for his victim.

He was about to get the bookseller’s attention, when a faint hint of gilding caught his eye. It was at the bottom of a pile he’d dismissed as holding nothing but old ledgers. There were three books there, in dark bindings, and yes, a bit of gilding. Rather out-of-keeping with the rest of these shabby wares.

Huh. I wonder what that is—

Whatever it was, the very slender volumes bound in some fine-grained, dark leather, with just a touch of gilt on the spine, seemed worth the effort of investigating. At the worst, they’d turn out to be some silly girl’s private journals of decades past, and he might find some amusement in the gossip of a previous generation.

If he’d been in a regular bookseller’s stall, Kellen might not have bothered. But …

It might be something interesting. And it’s bound to be cheap.

If it wasn’t a set of journals, the books might even do as a present for his father if the books were in halfway decent shape. An obsessive bibliophile, Lycaelon was always looking for things for his library. Literally anything would do so long as it wasn’t a book he already had, and his Naming Day Anniversary would be in two moonturns.

It would be a bit better than the usual pair of gloves I’ve gotten him for the past three years.

It took Kellen some work to get down to the three volumes on the bottom of the pile, but when he did, he found himself turning them over in his hands with some puzzlement. There was nothing on the spine of each but a single image—a sun, a crescent moon, and a star. Nothing on the cover, not even a bit of tooling, and the covers themselves were in pristine condition—

Odd. Definitely out of keeping with the rest of the wares here.

He opened the front covers to the title pages.

Handwritten, not printed, title pages …

The Book of Sun. That was the first, and the other two were The Book of Moon and The Book of Stars. Journals after all? He leafed through the pages, trying to puzzle out the tiny writing. The contents were handwritten as well, and so far from being journal entries, seemingly dealt with magick.

They shouldn’t be here at all! Kellen thought with a sudden surge of glee. They looked like workbooks of some sort, but books on magick were very closely kept, with Students returning their workbooks to their tutors as they outgrew them, and no book on magick that wasn’t a part of a Mage’s personal library was supposed to leave the grounds of the Mage College at all.

Perhaps some Student had made his own copies for his own use, and they’d gotten lost, to end up here?

But they weren’t any of the recognized Student books, or anything like them, as far as Kellen could tell. The handwriting was neat but so small that the letters danced in front of his eyes, and the way that the letters were formed was unfamiliar to him, slightly slanted with curved finials. But it seemed to him that he recognized those three titles from somewhere.

Father be hanged. I want these. Without bothering to look through them any further, he put them on the top of his pile and caught the stall-holder’s eye. The poor fellow, sweating furiously, heaved himself up out of his chair, and got a little more lively when Kellen made only a token gesture at bargaining. Profit, evidently, was the sovereign remedy for what ailed him.

He got out a bit of old, scraped paper and even began writing up a bill of sale with the merest stub of a graphite-rod, noting down titles and prices in a surprisingly neat hand.

“Ah, got younger sibs at home, do you?” the man asked when he got to the last three special volumes.

“No—” Kellen said, startled by the non sequitur. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, children’s stories—” The man gestured at Kellen’s three prizes. “I just thought—” Then he shrugged, wrote down three titles and prices, and handed the receipt to Kellen, who looked down at it in confusion.

There were his Student’s Histories, Volumes Four, Five, Six, and Seven—but what was this? Tales of the Weald, Fables of Farm and Field, and Hearth-side Stories?

There was nothing like that, nothing like that at all, inside the covers of those three books.

He thought quickly. Perhaps he had better go along with this …

“Cousins,” he said briefly, with a grimace, as if he was plagued with a horde of small relatives who needed to be amused.

“Ah,” the man said, his curiosity turning to satisfaction, and stuffed the purchases in the carry-bag that Kellen handed to him without a second look.

There was something very odd about those books … and Kellen wanted to get home now, before his father returned from the Council House to plague him, and give them a very close examination. An examination that could be made without any danger of interference. Armethalieh held many magical oddities, but where had he ever heard of a book that could disguise itself? How was a very interesting question—but more pressing than that was—

Why?

THE house of Lycaelon Tavadon was not set apart from the street by a wall. It didn’t need to be. The two great stone mastiffs on either side of the walkway to the front door were not mere ornaments, but guardians. Anyone not invited, or not belonging to the household, would be … discouraged from entering. And as one long-ago thief had discovered, a knife has very little effect on a stone dog. Lycaelon’s guardians were very, very good.

The front garden, a geometric arrangement of walkway, sculptural shrubbery, and guardians, was not particularly large. The back garden was larger, but no more inviting. The former served to isolate the house from the common thoroughfare and as an ornament against the white stone walls of the mansion. The latter—well, Kellen would have thought that a back garden should be a private place to relax; a spot insulated and surrounded by greenery, to enjoy a bit of sun away from the prying eyes and the noise of the City. Lycaelon’s back garden, home to tall, dark, somber cypresses planted along the wall, kept it too shaded for that, and far too cold except in the heat of summer when the sun was overhead. No grass grew there; only careful, somber evergreen plantings in raised beds, separated by gravel, and more statuary, though at least the statuary in the back garden wasn’t animated. There was nothing to sit on, in any event, except the edges of the beds or the gravel. There was a single water-spike of a fountain that stabbed up at the sky. Not even birds could find anything to like in this place—though it was possible that, to spare his statues, Lycaelon had worked a little spell to chase the birds away.

Kellen carried his burden up the walkway between the stone mastiffs. As he passed them, there was, as ever, the faintest suggestion of movement; the barest tilt of neck in his direction, the tiniest twitching of stone noses as the household guardians tested him, the hint of the glitter of life in those deeply carved and polished granite eyes.

As always, the back of his neck crawled when he passed them. But he refused to go around by the back entrance just because the damned things intimidated him. He hated the sight of them, though—they were too like the worst aspects of their master, hard and cold, unchangeable and unyielding.

The ebony door, inlaid with silver runes, swung open at his touch, and closed behind him without any effort on his part. More magick, of course; you could hardly do without ostentatious use of magick at every possible opportunity in the home of a High Mage. And when that High Mage was the head of the Council, well, it was actually more surprising that Lycaelon had human servants at all.

He could have done without them, had he chosen to—but it would have meant a great deal of work on his part. Nothing came for free, after all; magick servants in the form of simulacra or homunculi were difficult to create and required an endless supply of magick to keep them working. The alternative, literally making dust vanish, food appear, clothes to clean themselves, was even more time and effort-consuming. Lycaelon would dispense with servers if he had an important gathering of his fellow Mages here, animating a single simulacra that he kept on view, serving double-duty the rest of the time as a chaste statue of a shepherd-boy, but with no one here to impress but his son, human servants were cheaper, easily replaced if they gave offense, and took very little thought on his part—only orders.

On their part—well, the servants knew who they had to please. Lycaelon was generous with his money, but not with forgiveness if anything went wrong. Kellen, however, mattered not at all—except as Lycaelon ordered.

As soon as Kellen set foot in the entryway—black and white marble floor, the pattern being square-in-square rather than checks, white walls, a few tasteful black plinths with tasteful black urns standing against the walls at aesthetic intervals—one of the servants materialized, dressed in the household livery of black and white. An oh-so-refined and elegant livery; hose with one black leg and one white, black half-boots, black, long-sleeved tunic coming to the knee, crisp, white shirt beneath it. The careful, rigid correctness of the man’s expression relaxed a trifle when he saw who it was.

“Good afternoon, Kellen,” the servant said. He did not offer to take Kellen’s book-bag from him. There was nothing about Kellen to command fear or respect from the servants, and no real consequences if they didn’t offer him deference. Politeness, yes, they would be polite to him. If they were cheeky, it was possible that Lycaelon would come to hear about it, and then they’d find themselves on the street without references. But they regarded him, Kellen suspected, as a damned nuisance, and did their best to encourage him to stay out of their way as much as possible.

Politely, of course.

The servant turned and vanished before Kellen could return his greeting. Kellen shrugged, and followed in the man’s footsteps, into the vast and echoing reception room at the end of the entryway. Here the decor was varied a trifle from the stark black and white of the entryway by the addition of two shades of blue. The ceiling was dark blue, with little Magestars glittering above, mimicking the movement of the stars in the night sky. And the three long, low couches and the discreet scattering of chairs were upholstered in satin a slightly paler shade of the same color. All the tables, ornaments, and other accoutrements (including a fireplace big enough to stand or lie down in) were white or black—alabaster and ebony. Even the famous simulacrum, standing on (what else?) another black marble plinth, looked like the finest white alabaster.

There wasn’t anything alive in this room; sometimes the rare female visitor would look about, smile knowingly, and say something about the place needing a “woman’s touch.” Such ladies were never invited back a second time. It was quite true, though, that Kellen couldn’t remember flowers ever being in the vases, and the air in here never seemed to warm, no matter how the fire in the fireplace roared.

There were no apparent doors, no openings into this room, other than the one by which he had just entered. Not even windows; the light came from glowing panels set high on the walls, which was how anyone who could afford Magelights would generally illuminate a windowless room.

The servant was nowhere to be seen, which was no great surprise; having ascertained that the master was not the one who had just entered the front door, he considered his duty discharged. Kellen took a few echoing steps into the reception chamber, then turned right and went straight toward a panel of white marble set in the wall between two blue-and-ebony chairs. At a touch, it dissolved before him and he stepped through and onto a fine, handsome staircase.

The panel was keyed to him and other members of the immediate household, of course; a stranger would still be facing a blank slab of marble. He was now in his own portion of the house; House Tavadon was a vast mausoleum, and there were probably sections he had never been in and never would have access to until Lycaelon died and the magic doors all opened. He had never been in his father’s wing, for instance, and wasn’t even quite sure where it was. He could come and go as he liked within his own rooms—bedroom, separate small library and study, magical workroom, bathroom—and within the set of public rooms comprising the main library, dining chamber, reception room, his father’s “public” study—and he could make free use of the guest quarters, which were in this wing below his rooms, reached by a separate entrance from the reception chamber below. Kellen also knew from experimentation that he could also get into the servants’ quarters and the kitchen, cellars, and storerooms, but he was usually ushered summarily back to the “proper” parts of the Tavadon manse if he was found in any of those areas.

And the Chapel, oh, the Light forfend I should forget the Chapel! The Chapel had a wing all to itself, and differed from the rest of the house in that it was not done in black and white, but in honey alabaster and gold, as befitted the Eternal Light. Such a tasteful Chapel that it was, so pure and refined in style, with the Everburning Flame on a simple altar, and all the niches for the ancestral ashes set into the walls so that no one could ever forget just how many generations of important men had borne the familial name …

Oh, no, never.

Kellen hardly knew for certain how deeply his father believed in the Eternal Light—but he certainly believed in the name of Tavadon.

He climbed the stairs to the third floor, where his own rooms were. Here things were no longer in stark black and white—in his own suite, he had a certain say in the way things were decorated. The walls were still white, the floors black and white marble again, but there were colorful tapestries on the walls, and fruit in a dish on a plinth beside the top of the stairs, perfuming the air with the scent of apples. He took an apple as he passed it, and got as far as the door to his room, when another servant materialized behind him.

“You’ll be having a bath, Kellen?” said the man—Kellen didn’t know his name; he wasn’t encouraged to learn the servants’ names. All women except Cook were “my girl” and all men were “my man.” Lycaelon didn’t approve of familiarity with the servants.

Kellen had never even known the names of the succession of nursemaids he’d had as a small child; they had only been “Nursie,” an endless series of interchangeable middle-aged women with gentle hands and soft voices, the last of which had left when he turned five. Then he’d been on his own in his rooms, his nights filled with loneliness, his days turned over to a succession of tutors who had schooled him according to his father’s expectations until he had started attending the Mage College at fourteen.

Servants tended only to impinge on him when they had orders concerning Kellen. Like the bath.

Kellen would have been perfectly happy to do without that bath, but it had not been phrased as a question. This was one of his father’s rules, and there was to be no argument about it—when one went out into the streets, among the common folk, one had a bath immediately on return. Lycaelon’s abode must not be soiled with the common dust of Armethalieh; the air must be as pure as a breeze passing over an alpine glacier, with no hint of the City outside brought within the walls.

“Of course,” he replied with resignation, and left the book-bag just inside the door to his room. At least the fellow wouldn’t touch it if he wasn’t specifically ordered to—the servants served Lycaelon out of fear and awe rather than loyalty, and seldom did things voluntarily. Lycaelon’s standards were exacting enough to make plenty of work, with no need to look for more of it, Kellen supposed.

The bathroom was something he had never figured out how to decorate; as a result, it was entirely white, entirely marble, and as chill and uninviting as being in the center of a cube of snow. The square marble tub sunk into the floor was already full. The water was, as he had expected, cold. It was always cold. Even in the dead of winter, it was cold. He scarcely remembered what a hot bath felt like—he hadn’t had one since the last incarnation of “Nursie” had gone, never to return, no matter how much he wept at night for her.

Kellen knew he never got hot water for his bath on purpose, and it wasn’t only because the servants were disinclined to stir themselves on his behalf. His father felt that this was an incentive to Kellen’s mastering his lessons so that he could heat his own bathwater with magick—as Lycaelon probably did. And Kellen was just stubborn enough that even if he had mastered magick enough to heat the water, he might not have done it, just out of spite.

Well, at least after a long walk followed by the three-story climb, a cold bath wasn’t as much of an ordeal as usual. But it certainly didn’t make one inclined to linger …

RECLOTHED—in the fresh and considerably more ornate garments the servant had left for him—Kellen was still shivering when he closed the door of his room and unpacked his book-bag. His father wouldn’t be home for bells, Kellen knew from long experience. Lycaelon’s long bells at the Mage Court kept him away from home most of the time. He usually left after a leisurely breakfast, but often didn’t return until well into Night Bells.

And now that the tub had been drained, Kellen wouldn’t see a servant in his suite unless he called for one. He was more or less used to being alone most of the time when he wasn’t studying, but now and again, it felt eerily as if everyone in the world had forgotten his existence. Sometimes Kellen fantasized that he himself was like a mouse wandering through a giant machine, which would run just the same whether he was there or not. It seemed to him that nothing he ever did made any real mark on the place—that House Tavadon existed for empty display and heartless show, and was less a home than an extension of one of Armethalieh’s great public buildings, or Temples of the Light.

Or just a bigger version of Lycaelon’s simulacrum-servant.

Although other rooms in this suite had only been opened up for him as he grew older and needed them, this room had been his for as long as he could remember. It had begun as his nursery, with his Nursie sleeping in the same room, or the one adjoining. His cradle had been here, and the box-bed that prevented his falling out as a toddler. The tapestries on the wall covered whitewashed plaster that had been laid over the painted animals of his childhood. The floor was wood, not marble, and brown, not black. The wardrobe, the bed, the chests and bookcases, all were the same pieces he’d had since he was a boy, all were fine pieces, but plain—expensive, but an honest golden brown, not black, not white, and just a little battered by hard use at the hands of an active child. Thick, brightly patterned rugs were on the floor, multicolored cushions were piled in a corner, and there was a single window that looked out on the street. He could see out, but due to the same magic that hid the passages from the reception room into the other parts of the house, no one could see in. His fireplace was of reasonable size, and when it was not in use, it held scented candles that he had selected for himself in the Perfumers’ Market. This was the only room in the house that he ever felt warm in.

He never felt entirely undisturbed here, not since the day that he’d found one of the servants clearly rummaging through his wardrobe, but at least he could relax to a certain extent here. Lycaelon might send servants in here to spy, but he never troubled to come himself.

For a moment Kellen paused in his unpacking. He’d forgotten about the servants, and the way they periodically went through his belongings and reported the results to his father. How was he going to hide those books—

Then he laughed. Stupid! They’re going to hide themselves, of course. These books clearly didn’t show their true nature to just anyone. Probably only a Mage would see them for what they were—and there were only three Mages that ever entered this part of the house, and of the three, two, Lycaelon and Anigrel, never entered this room.

So he put his new acquisitions in with the old, battered storybooks from his nursery days. If they’d disguised themselves as children’s stories before, they probably would again. No one would ever notice that there were three more books on that shelf than there had been before.

What he wanted to do was to open the books then and there and try to read them—but there were rules in the house of Arch-Mage Lycaelon, and one of those rules was that of routine and schedule.

He heard the sound of Noontide Bells begin to ring—the high clear note of the crystal bell of the Temple of the Light struck first, followed by the bells of the other towers in the City, and last of all the great bronze bell atop the Council House added its deep note to the chorus.

A blind man could tell time—and even the season of the year—in Armethalieh, for the intricate pattern of her bells told the hour of the day, the season, and more.

The only towers that rang all the bells were the Temple of the Light and the Council House. You could actually tell which bell of the day it was by the sound of the ring: at Midnight Bells, only those two rang together, making a beautiful and eerie sound. At Evensong, Noontide, and Morning Bells (a few bells later than actual dawn, fortunately for light sleepers), all the towers in the City rang out. And at every bell and season, the pattern changed: it was one of the duties of the Mage Council to set the towers by magic.

From Evensong until Midnight Bells, fewer and fewer towers would ring each bell, until the Temple and the Council House rang alone. Then, slowly, a few privileged towers would add their voices to each bell through the rest of the night—first the Mage College, then the Great Library, then the Merchants’ Guild—until all the towers throughout the City rang out Morning Bells, as they would ring each bell throughout the day, until Evensong, when once again, they began to fall silent.

By the sound of the bells—the pattern of the ring would have told him it was the Noontide Bells, even if he hadn’t been able to see the sun—and by the emptiness of his stomach, Kellen knew it was time for dinner. Even though the Arch-Mage himself might not be home for it, dinner would be served. And if Kellen wanted anything to eat before supper, he’d better be there when the plates went on the table.

Just as he left his room, the soft gong that announced that very fact sounded through the corridors.

Down the stairs and out into the reception chamber he went, and from there to another blank panel that let him into the main part of the house. When Lycaelon entertained, this panel was left open, and the suite of enormous “public” rooms beyond it, a music room, the library, the dining room, and a garden room were all lit and furnished with anything that a guest could conceivably want. Now they were all left in shadowy half-darkness, with curtains drawn, except for the dining room at the very end of the corridor.

The same color scheme of black, white, and blue held here. The enormous ebony table, stretching the length of the room, could easily seat thirty or forty guests; there were two place settings laid as usual. One at the very head of the table was meant for Lycaelon—he appeared only rarely, but woe betide the servants if they weren’t prepared for that eventuality!—the other, roughly halfway down the table, for Kellen. A series of covered dishes waited on the sideboard; a single liveried servant stood there, waiting to serve them.

In silence, Kellen took his seat, and the meal began.

One by one the dishes were presented to Kellen, and he either shook his head or nodded acceptance. Hot food stayed hot, and cold nicely chilled, thanks to more small magicks on the depressions in which the dishes rested. Kellen’s bath might be cold, but his father didn’t have to share that particular discomfort, whereas he did share Kellen’s meals. Lycaelon spared no effort or expense when it came to the pleasures of the table.

Kellen ate with a good appetite, and was not particularly surprised to find that the meal ended with a dish of strawberries, beaten cream, and white cake. He helped himself, thinking wryly that if he’d looked closely at the mob in the Garden Market this morning he might well have seen his father’s black-and-white livery on one of the servants there.

The entire meal took place in total silence, except for the faint clink of cutlery and the sounds of plates being picked up and set down. Kellen was used to it; even when his father was here, there was no conversation during a meal. Lycaelon did not believe in conversation at mealtime. He had to put up with it when he entertained, but when he and Kellen were alone, silence prevailed. And certainly in Lycaelon’s absence, Lycaelon’s servants would not presume to begin any conversation with his son.

When he was finished, Kellen pushed his chair away from the table and left the footman to clear up. The library—I should go look through the books in the library, he thought. I’ll bet that’s where I found those references to my books. If I go check now, I should have plenty of time to look in the likeliest places long before Father gets home.

Books that hid their nature …

Lycaelon apparently had never even noticed that Kellen used his library on a regular basis. I think I’d like to keep things that way, too, he thought as he walked in through the library door and headed straight for the curtains, to pull them wide and let pale sunshine stream in through the windows. In fact, he had been reading the books on magick for a very long time now—and he was at least familiar with a great deal more than his father or Anigrel suspected, even if he couldn’t yet manage to put his knowledge into practice.

And I know things that neither of them want anyone under the rank of High Mage to know about, he thought, pulling one of the ladders over to the bookcase that housed some very esoteric volumes on the top shelves—volumes that, had Lycaelon or anyone else known he was poking around in the place, would surely have been removed or locked up. There were a lot of things on those shelves that were not meant for a Student’s eyes.

It didn’t take long at all for Kellen to find what he was looking for, because the more he thought about his finds, the more convinced he became that they were books that were hiding their nature for a very good reason.

Sure enough, he found the reference precisely where he’d begun to suspect it was, in the Ars Perfidorum, the Book of Forbidden Acts.

Kellen wasn’t even supposed to be aware that the Ars Perfidorum existed, much less have leafed through it. For that matter, he didn’t even think his tutor was supposed to know about it; knowledge of this particular book was, if he recalled correctly, restricted to members of the Council and specific senior Mages. And the reason Kellen knew that was because Lycaelon had once allowed one of his fellow Council members to use the library, and the fellow had carelessly left the Ars Perfidorum and two other similarly restricted books out in the music room where he had been reading them. The resulting explosion when Lycaelon found them there had been memorable.

Lycaelon had not been aware that Kellen was anywhere about, and the entertainment value of hearing his father swear and curse the stupidity of another adult—a High Mage at that!—had been so great that Kellen took his chances on being caught in order to eavesdrop. He made very sure to get back to his own rooms as soon as the coast was clear—but after that he’d been afire to find those books and see them for himself.

He vividly recalled his disappointment at finding them to be deadly dull. It had seemed to him that a book with such an exciting title should have been full of horrors—bloodcurdling examples of Forbidden Acts, in excruciating detail, so that Mages down the centuries would know exactly how to recognize a Forbidden Act when they saw it. In fact, Ars Perfidorum was a mealymouthed prude of a book, more intent on outlining the punishments to be meted out for each perfidious deed than describing the deeds themselves. It was—it was a clerkly sort of book, and sent him off into a near-doze when he tried to read it.

Maybe I thought that book was dull then, he thought, swiftly leafing through the text, but that was before anybody shoved the History of the City in Seven Volumes under my nose—hah!

There they were—just as he remembered. His three books—titles and all.

He leafed back a page.

“The Foule and Invidious Practices of Wilde Magick.” Now what in the name of the Light is that supposed to mean? Kellen wondered, frowning.

The chapter in question didn’t exactly answer any of his questions, although Ye Boke of Sunne, Ye Boke of Moone, and Ye Boke of Starres were named as the “prime texts of the heinous practitioners of those who seek anarchy and chaos.” In fact, except for that single item of hard fact, the chapter was singularly unhelpful. It railed at great length against the “Wilde Mages,” suggested any number of unpleasant means to deal with them, and attributed all manner of evils to them (always prefacing the accusation with the words “it is said”) but it didn’t say anything about what this “Wilde Magick” was, or why it should be so bad.

In fact, the worst accusations that the author seemed to be able to come up with were that it was unpredictable, that it could not be controlled, and that some of the so-called lesser races such as Centaurs and fauns were known to practice it. “And well we knowe that these creatures are closer to the Beaste in nature than to Noble Manne—”

Huh. “And in particular, Wilde Magick is the greatest seducer of Womyn, who are weak in Mind and Spirit and inclined to Corruption.” Now what did that mean? That women could and did use it—or that it could be used to seduce women?

Hmm … Now there was a possibility that had all manner of pleasant ramifications …

Well, at least he knew now what the books were, and why they were passing themselves off as children’s tales. He put the Ars Perfidorum back in its proper place, taking care that it fit exactly into the place where he’d pulled it down from, then moved the ladder back to where he’d found it. It looked as if the only place he was going to find any answers about the books was within their covers.

He grinned to himself. And what good luck that he had the entire rest of the day free! I got just what I wished for, Kellen thought with glee, something new—something new—at last!

NIGHT had fallen over the City while Kellen puzzled his way through the Books’ peculiar crabbed handwriting in the safety of his room, although it was never really dark here. Lamps, magickal and otherwise, kept the darkness at bay all night long, in every season. Lamps illuminated the streets and decorated the gardens; lamps even lit alleyways to discourage the presence of thieves. Not that anyone would be foolish enough to attempt to rob the household of a Mage of any sort. Not twice, anyway.

He’d skimmed through all three of the Books once quickly, finding little that made sense to him. The Book of Sun was composed partly of philosophy, partly of spells, but the spells were not of a kind that he recognized, and Kellen was doubtful that they could actually work. They seemed to verge on wondertale superstition. Burn this leaf. Say those rhymes. He could imagine nothing further from the abstruse disciplines of the High Magick.

But at least The Book of Sun did contain things Kellen recognized as magick. The Book of Moon didn’t even seem to contain any actual spells, just hints at spells—as far as he could tell from a quick skim, it was something halfway between an etiquette book and a philosophy text—and The Book of Stars made no sense to him at all. He had the odd feeling, though, that there was something there, if he could only figure it out.

The house was utterly silent, with all of the household in bed, from which comfort no one would stir until they had to. That Lycaelon was a stern master was no secret; he did not approve of his servants “prowling,” as he put it, during the bells of proper sleep. This included Kellen, of course, and after having been caught by Lycaelon once or twice, he kept to his own part of the mansion when restlessness kept him awake.

Tonight was one of those nights.

He had his shutters open on the small balcony that overlooked the gardens, and across the gardens he could see the lights of the other homes of the Mage elite. Soft globes of pastel colors lit their gardens—you could tell where one garden took over from the next by the color of the lamps. Only a few lights were burning in the homes themselves, and those were probably night-lights, not an indication that anyone was wakeful or working. In the distance he could see the Council House, facing the Delfier Gate that opened onto the forest road.

The Council House stood symbolic guard over the gate and access into the City. Or was it more than merely symbolic?

There were a few farming villages in that direction—the City claimed extensive lands outside itself. Certainly soldiers were sent out there, and tax collectors, the latter to feed the City’s prosperity, and the former—perhaps to ensure the City’s prosperity?

But Kellen had never been there, and emigration between village and City was strongly discouraged, or so he’d been told, though never why.

He could understand why the Council wouldn’t want too many people trying to move into the City; conditions were crowded enough without adding more people. But why keep citizens from leaving if they wanted to?

It was a puzzle for which he had no answer. Unless it was simply that City-dwellers had few, if any, skills that would be of use in a rural or agrarian society. Perhaps the idea was merely to save them from inevitable failure …

Still, shouldn’t people be allowed to learn this for themselves?

If would-be City-folk-turned-rustics came trailing back with their tails between their legs after failing some bucolic experiment to the ridicule of their former neighbors, surely that would be more effective than any reprimand from the Council.

The Council House itself was ablaze with light, for Mages worked there all night, every night, weaving spells for the good of the City. It was the only place in the City that never slept. Of course, all those lights so nearby meant that the stars were hard to see from the gardens of those living nearby.

Someday Kellen would spend his nights there too, if his father’s plans for his future went according to Lycaelon’s oft-expressed wishes.

A night owl by nature, that hadn’t seemed so bad in the past, for he would be well out of Lycaelon’s purview most of the time once he went to night duties—but for some reason now, the thought seemed stifling. As stifling as the High Magick itself had seemed of late, for it required a finicking obsession with detail that, applied to anything else, would be considered unhealthy. Kellen had come to realize of late that High Magick was boring, that—once certain tools of memory and power manipulation were mastered—it was entirely composed of written spells that were descriptions of the change in reality that the Mage would like to produce. Very exact descriptions, very minute descriptions, down to the smallest detail, written in a kind of mystical shorthand and forced into the face of reality-as-it-was by magickal power.

Frankly, if the simple spells were enough to induce yawns, the advanced spells that he’d managed to glimpse looked to Kellen a very great deal like abstruse mathematical problems expressed in words and symbols of the sort that drove schoolboys mad—“If A leaves his house on the corner of Bodhran Street and approaches Taman Square at the same time B—”

Learning how to read, write, and thoroughly comprehend this sigil-language and apply it to the world in the form of memorized spells was what the Mage-in-training first learned. Only then was he allowed to do anything with his knowledge.

It was bloodless and terribly boring, when it came right down to it. There was so much preparation and memorization and detail required to do even the simplest thing that by the time you actually accomplished what you’d set out to do, you were probably so bored with the process that the accomplishment came as an anticlimax. And in any case, the tiny things Kellen was allowed to do now—and so far, all he’d managed to do successfully was light a candle once or twice—were so simple and so insignificant that he hardly knew why anyone had ever bothered to write down the spells for them.

He looked out at the City, looked at what little he could see beyond the City walls from his third-floor balcony, and it gradually came over him that not only was he not happy, but for most of his life, save only a few stolen moments, he had never been happy. Other people were happy—why wasn’t he? Why wasn’t any Mage, really?

He knew they weren’t.

His father wasn’t, and his father was Arch-Mage, the highest and most powerful rank any Mage could attain. But Lycaelon was perpetually dissatisfied. When was the last time he’d ever seen his father enjoy anything? Other than finding an excuse to browbeat his son, that is …

And none of Lycaelon’s colleagues seemed any more content with their lives, even though they had wealth and power and the envy of everyone in the City who wasn’t them. When was the last time he’d seen any of the Mages take pleasure in anything, other than humiliating one another?

Being a Mage doesn’t make you happy, Kellen realized with something very much like fear.

He’d never thought about it before.

He hated the lessons, was bored by the memorization, and didn’t like his fellow Mage Students very much. But he’d always, well, sort of assumed that he’d get through all of it somehow, become a Mage, and things would get better.

What if they didn’t?

Suddenly, staring out at the brightly-lit Council House, Kellen confronted his own life, and the prospects for the future, and he didn’t like what he saw. And the more he pondered it, the less he liked it, and he began to come to some uncomfortable conclusions.

One of which was that his studies were going to drive him mad before too long, all this obsession with pointless detail. He brooded on the view without seeing it, wondering why anyone would choose to be a Mage when a Mage had so little room in his life for life. If he did as Lycaelon wanted, Kellen would only trade the stultifying life of a Student-Apprentice for the tedious life of an Apprentice, and then for an even more restrictive and obsessive life of a Journeyman, and then what? Spend his entire life like his father, with a fantastic home he never saw, a garden he never went into, possessions he never used, and colleagues—not friends—he couldn’t stand? Was he to live a life so measured, so controlled, that all the juice was sucked out of it?

He shuddered, appalled by the prospect of becoming like one of them—with a dry little mummified excuse for a soul, spending his days contriving ways to control other people’s lives for them, his evenings spent building baroque and convoluted spells, or equally baroque and convoluted schemes for the downfall of his political rivals. Where was the joy, the life, the pleasure in that?

There had to be some other alternative …

His mind turned naturally to the Books of the Wild Magic, which seemed, from the little he’d managed to understand so far, to be all that the High Magick was not.

And if they were—if they were, in fact, the very opposite of High Magick—it would be very surprising indeed to find that Lycaelon looked upon them with favor … Furthermore, there might, there just might be something in them that would lead him to freedom.

And that alone decided him. He got them from his hiding place, lit a single, well-shielded candle, and began to read The Book of Sun in earnest.

Chapter Two

Dark Lightning

THE ARCH-MAGE Lycaelon Tavadon was a very busy man. Arch-Mage of the High Council of Mages that, in turn, governed all the lesser Mages who kept the Golden City running smoothly, his days were filled, not with spells and magicks as the commonfolk might think, but rather with the tedium of endless paperwork. A pile of unread reports sat now at his left elbow, teetering dangerously. A far smaller pile—read and annotated in his crabbed scholar’s hand—waited for his secretary to come and bear them away. And at that, a day devoted to such tedium was a welcome change from the endless rounds of judgments and formal hearings that his rank demanded his attendance upon. Arch-Mage! The least of his Journeymen, it seemed, spent more of his time in practice of the Art than did Lycaelon these days.

But we all serve the City, each doing his part in service to Armethalieh the Golden, the Arch-Mage reminded himself.

He took a moment to indulge in a bit of pardonable pride in himself; not for him the plaints of lesser men, who bleated about the fettering of their great gifts to the rock of bureaucracy, the loss of their personal time, the sacrifice of their relationships and families on the altar of Duty. He had never once complained, and did not begrudge such sacrifice, though his late wife had shown her displeasure in no uncertain terms. But then even the best of women were lesser creatures, and could hardly be expected to understand when sacrifice for the greater good of all was required of a man. Which was only one more reason why they could never understand, nor be permitted to practice, High Magick, for they could never be depended upon to act selflessly when sacrifice was called for. Lycaelon often wondered why the Light had created them at all except as a vehicle for the perpetuation of a man’s line.

If only a man didn’t need them for that purpose! How much easier, how much more serene and well tempered a man’s life would be without the tears, the hysterics, the white, clinging arms that held him back even as they held him close …

Not that females didn’t have their uses, and their bodies certainly gave pleasure, but a well-made and finely crafted simulacrum would do as well, and could be left on a plinth or in a closet when not needed. Unlike a wife.

He toyed with the notion for just a moment of finding a spell that would allow a Mage to reproduce himself without the intercession of a woman—say, perhaps from his own essence, making an exact duplicate of himself in infant form.

But—no. That was forbidden magick. Only the Light could create life, and any attempt for a mortal to do so would invite in the Darkness. He gave up the idea with regret, and turned his attention back to the reports of the Mages of the Water-Works.

He scribbled his recommendations on the last page, then paused for a moment to stand and stretch the kinks out of his back, looking down the length of his imposing work chamber.

The Arch-Mage’s private offices were in a wing of the Council House itself, so that he could be summoned at any moment to join the Council in its deliberations. No Magery had been spared in its construction; his desk, of a rare blood-red wood, was situated atop a dais elevated above the rest of the floor so that to reach it required ascending three steps of black marble. Few received such an invitation, least of all such supplicants who found their way to this office, but it was good to have that extra level of intimidation here in case it was required.

The walls were of white alabaster, intricately carved in elaborate geometric patterns at the bidding of some long-dead Arch-Mage, giving the whole room the look of a chamber deep inside some enormous machine. The floor carried out the pattern begun upon the walls, only here the pattern was repeated in colored marbles, giving the illusion of texture and depth. Non-Mages had been known to trip upon that disorienting floor, to Lycaelon’s private amusement. Fools of un-Gifted, not to be able to accurately see what their eyes presented them—it was fortunate for all concerned that they had the High Council to rule them!

At the end of the chamber, the pattern repeated again upon the far wall, only this time in an enormous window of colored glass wrought of hues so piquant and intense that Magery must have played a hand in their crafting, for each pane was flawless and brilliant, a rainbow of colors framing the large disk of pure clear glass at its center, through which Lycaelon could see the Delfier Gate set into the City wall across the square from the Council House, and the Western Road beyond it. As always, the gate stood closed and barred: the only time it opened was to allow the entrance of City buyers bringing the fruits of trade caravans or the produce from the outlying villages that served the Golden City to the City warehouses.

Once they had allowed farmers and traders to enter the City itself, but that course of action had proven … unwise. Now City buyers went out and brought the produce into the City, where it was kept fresh and vermin-free under spells of containment until the Merchants and Provenders Council was ready to release it to the City markets. Under their guidance—advised by the Mage Council, of course—all ran smoothly, with neither glut nor famine to disturb the steady workings of the City. Only a few choice items were permitted to enter the markets directly from the fields, to create an illusion of scarcity and a kind of aura of festival—the first crop of early-summer strawberries for instance, and Spring Beer. Such occasions were necessary to give the populace something to look forward to. Gorging on strawberries once a year was hardly harmful, and allowed the masses a chance to feel that they were indulging themselves. Indulgence bred content, and a content population was a quiet one.

As for the traders …

They traded now in Nerendale, the closest of the farming villages, less than a day’s ride from the City gates, offering goods to a Journeyman-Undermage who acted as broker. Those that were on the Approved List—or which Armethalieh’s broker thought might be approved—were sent on into the City.

It was much tidier.

Lycaelon settled himself in his chair again and reached for his jade teacup, then drew back his hand when he realized the cup had grown stone cold. It would be the work of an instant to summon enough Magefire to warm it, but reheated tea was an abomination. Better to send servants to the kitchens for fresh.

He was reaching for the bell-pull when the door to his office opened, and his confidential secretary, Chired Anigrel, entered. Anigrel was as fair as Lycaelon was dark, and many decades younger than his master, but both men bore the unmistakable stamp of Mage breeding: the narrow saturnine features, high forehead, and slender, long-boned build that set them apart from ordinary men. Anigrel wore the dark grey robes of a Journeyman-Undermage; in a few years, he would be a Master Undermage, released from mundane tasks such as this and on his way to the years of study that would lead to full Magehood. But for now he served and learned.

But given his somewhat elevated position as Lycaelon’s assistant and tutor to Kellen, Anigrel was permitted something other than plain grey robes. Although he was not allowed any variation in color, his robes were made of somewhat finer materials than most, and were tastefully ornamented with cursive grey embroidery. It did not suit Lycaelon to have his personal aide taken for an ordinary Journeyman; not when Anigrel carried his master’s word and prestige. It had only taken a single instance of Anigrel wasting half the day cooling his heels in some officious little noble’s hall instead of discharging his errand and returning to his duties before Lycaelon had ordered the change in wardrobe.

“Master,” Anigrel said, folding his hands and bowing his head submissively.

“There is a problem?” Lycaelon asked, attempting to mask his irritation. Anigrel knew better than to interrupt him with trifles.

“A … small problem. But one that can be handled by no one else, Arch-Mage.”

Lycaelon sat back in his chair, sighing. He trusted Anigrel’s judgment—or else the man would not have long survived in his current post—but he loathed being interrupted.

“You may continue,” he said grudgingly.

“A merchant family has lodged a complaint—of sorcery within their home,” Anigrel said reluctantly.

Lycaelon leaned forward. “Sorcery? Uncontrolled Magery? Piffle! More likely their cook has been using the wrong sort of mushrooms in the stew—and if it is sorcery, any trained Undermage could deal with it. You could deal with it!” He glared at the secretary.

Anigrel cleared his throat nervously. “Forgive me, my lord Arch-Mage, for not making myself entirely clear. The family involved is the Tasoaire family. Apparently this … sorcery … has been going on for some days. They are quite distracted, if I may say so.”

He hummed under his breath for a moment, then added, reluctantly, “Actually, things are at a bad pass with them, by the report they have given us. It is my opinion that it should be … dealt with, immediately. They are not of exalted status by birth, but they are … influential.”

And very, very rich. Lycaelon added what Anigrel was too tactful to mention aloud. The Tasoaires were one of the wealthy trading families who controlled much of Armethalieh’s material wealth, and paid a great deal in taxes for the privilege. Whatever the true nature of their problem, they were important enough to need their feelings soothed by having no less a personage than the Arch-Mage himself deal with their problem, whatever it was.

He focused his attention on Anigrel again. “Very well. You were quite right to come to me with this. I will go to see them. And now you may stop quaking in your slippers and tell me what else you know about this problem, the part you are certain I will very much dislike.”

Anigrel swallowed hard. “Naturally we did a preliminary investigation of the complaint—without bringing it to the attention of the family, of course. There does seem to be some actual cause for alarm. And the focus of the disturbance seems to be the, ah, daughter of the house …”

A scant quarter-chime later, Lycaelon Tavadon strode down the main thoroughfare of Armethalieh, his heavily embroidered black-on-silver Arch-Mage robes belling behind him with the force of his passage, and the wide-brimmed, pointed hat that matched them held on to his head by a clever cantrip. The afternoon sunlight flashed off the bright ornament at the tip of his Staff of Office, its gold-and-crystal finial meant to depict the Unbounded Light in all its glory. He could certainly have taken his carriage, or a sedan chair, or even a horse, but he knew he needed the walk to clear his head and calm his feelings, or else he’d risk blasting the entire family to ashes where they stood, and wouldn’t that set the merchant families fluttering like chickens with the fox among them! Not so easy to deal with at the next Trade Council meeting, half of which seemed to be spent soothing ruffled feathers and smoothing over imagined slights at the best of times.

The crowd parted before him, giving him a wide berth even without the need for his retainers to clear the way. In fact, people pressed back against the walls as he passed, their faces blank, transfixed with awe and a little fear. They might not know one Mage from another, usually, but everyone knew what his staff of office looked like, and knew by extension who the bearer must be. Their deference soothed him, but only a little. Anigrel was right, he could not delegate this particular task, much as he would like to: Arch-Magisterial oil was needed to calm these waters.

But …

A girl! A puling insignificant maggot of a female, Tradeborn to boot, working magick, or trying to. Of course it had gone wrong! And now he must come in and deal with it, and calm their superstitious fears—for as Anigrel had reminded him several times, the Tasoaires were the wealthiest of the merchant families, terrified beyond reason by this firebird in a hen’s nest, and fear could quickly turn to anger …

Anger was the bane of every Mage, from the lowliest Student to the Arch-Mage himself. No one, not even a street-sweeper, much less a wealthy merchant, should ever look upon the works of a Mage with anything other than the deepest and most profound gratitude, a gratitude all-important and all-encompassing. The City could not survive without that gratitude, though the citizens knew it not.

These idiot Tradeborn fools—they would never, ever guess what the Arch-Mage had saved them from, besides their folly, that is, when he finished with this mess. For there was a worse thing that the girl could become if she continued down the path she was on; something so dreadful he dared not even hint at it to anyone outside the most trusted of the Mageborn.

There were times when he wished devoutly to sink every female in the world to the bottom of the Selken Sea. Only a female could create such havoc with so little effort!

So. He took a deep breath, and another, willing himself to be calm in the face of this mortal insult to his Art. No one would see his inner feelings. He went to pacify, not to frighten. We all serve the City, each doing his part in service to Armethalieh the Golden.

Although sometimes only the Light can see how!

HE would easily have found the Tasoaire home even without the uniformed servant who was waiting at the nearest cross-street to lead him to it. The man was wearing a livery more suited to a captaincy in one of Armethalieh’s little-used cavalry regiments than to a footman of a proper merchant family, but the Tasoaires had done more than well for themselves, and were not averse to letting the world know it. Wealth had long since outstripped good taste, and though the Tasoaires were not so blind to all good sense and common decency to think of moving out of the Merchants’ Quarter, they had certainly let their good fortune seduce them into making such extensive changes to what had once been a modest and sensible home that Lycaelon could almost have imagined for a moment that it was one of the mansions of the Mage aristocracy, grotesquely distorted and crammed into a space far too small for it.

As Lycaelon followed the man to his destination, he kept his face from showing the disdain he felt. The house stood out from its fellows in a way that was almost—Lycaelon’s lip curled—foreign. Honest timber and stone had been replaced with golden marble that would not have been out of place in Lycaelon’s own courtyard (and so was very much out of place here), and instead of the neat stone walls and colorful glazed pots filled with seasonal flowers that graced the forecourts of other merchant houses, the Tasoaire home was enclosed by a fanciful iron gate with gilded accents behind which a fountain—small, but still far too large for the space it occupied, and covered with vulgar imported colored tiles besides—sprayed jets of water into the sky. Anyone approaching their door, tradesman or guest, was sure to receive a soaking, regardless of the weather.

But “anyone” was not the Arch-Mage Lycaelon Tavadon. He paused for a moment before the gates, and concentrated on a simple Binding Spell, drawing on the stored power in the Talisman around his neck and one of the many simple cantrips he had memorized years before. There was a stuttering sound from deep beneath the earth, and the arcing jets of water drooped and died.

The servant stared up at him, wide-eyed and anxious. Lycaelon allowed himself a thin smile. Let them all wonder—or, if they thought about it at all, perhaps they would blame the fountain’s sudden failure on the madness they were harboring within their own walls. The madness he had come to end, and the sooner, the better.

Straightening his robes, Lycaelon tapped the butt of his staff meaningfully on the paving. The servant stopped staring and scurried to open the gate. The Arch-Mage’s escort peeled off to stand at strict attention on either side of the gate, while the Arch-Mage entered.

Before Lycaelon had taken three steps up the walk, the door of the house was swinging open at the hand of an even more ornately uniformed personage than the footman who had guided him to the house. Correctly identifying this apparition as the Tasoaires’ butler, Lycaelon surrendered his cloak, hat, gauntlets, and staff. He imagined the servant looked embarrassed to be seen in such an outfit—as well he ought, in such a hideously indecent household! Wealth, like power, belonged only in those hands suited to wield it properly.

It occurred to Lycaelon that perhaps something could be done about the Tasoaires’ improper good fortune. Some gradual readjustment of their affairs—for the good of the City, of course. He would look into it once he got back to the Council House. But at the moment, he had a more immediate problem to solve …

“I am expected,” he announced austerely.

“Of course, Lord Arch-Mage. If you will accompany me?”

Lycaelon followed the butler into the house, amusing himself by attempting to discern the bones of the original building beneath the veneer of its clownish makeover. It was like walking through a jackdaw’s nest—there was no regard for taste and balance, only for vulgarity and expensive display. And he was certain that at least a few of these items had made it off the Selken ships without the Council’s imprimatur.

He was also interested to note that there seemed to be gaps—prominent, but irregular—in the overabundance of tawdry ornament, as if broken items had been hastily removed and the survivors had not yet been rearranged to hide the absence. Apparently the girl had indeed broken most of what was breakable in the Tasoaire household, for which he held himself much in her debt.

But to Lycaelon’s faint disappointment, the room to which he was led seemed to have suffered the least from the Tasoaires’ new wealth. The heart-room of the house still displayed its timber and plaster walls unchanged, and the large tiled fireplaces at each end of the room were lovely and tasteful examples of merchant-class craftsmanship. Small-paned windows, open to the unusually warm spring day, showed glimpses of a small back garden that was very much as it ought to be. Carved oak settles, their wood honey-dark with years of beeswax polishing, flanked each hearth, and there was a small writing desk under one window, angled to catch the natural light. There was a sideboard on the wall facing the windows, and Lycaelon was interested to see that where he would have expected to see fiery cut-crystal, he saw instead a pewter jug and a collection of mismatched pewter cups, badly dented but polished to a satiny gleam.

But the seemly and modest effect was spoiled by an enormous gilded chair with a scarlet velvet cushion that squatted in the middle of the room, obviously carried in for his benefit, with a painted and gilded table beside it that was undoubtedly more suitable to a whorehouse than a merchant’s townhouse.

The two people awaiting him arose from their seats on one of the settles as the door opened, and moved hesitantly forward to greet him.

Lycaelon recognized Ioan Tasoaire from his many appearances before the Council, and the painfully overdressed woman beside him must be his wife, though Lycaelon didn’t trouble himself to recall her name. Both were upholstered in so much satin, multicolored brocade, gold lace, and velvet piping that they looked like a pair of overstuffed chairs designed by a madman. Both of them looked worn and frightened. Lycaelon smiled, radiating charm—a simple enough cantrip, really, among the many every High Mage always kept in readiness for situations such as this.

“Come, Ioan, you know me,” Lycaelon said, injecting good humor and warmth into his voice. “I’m here to help. And who is this lovely young thing? Surely this isn’t your daughter?”

Ioan Tasoaire smiled, and Lycaelon could see that it cost him some effort. “Nay, Lord Arch-Mage, this is my wife, Yanalia.”

“You can help her, can’t you, Lord Arch-Mage? Help our Darcy?” the woman burst out. “You do know what it is with her, don’t you? Don’t you?”

“Hush now, Yana,” Ioan said, pulling his wife back before she could approach Lycaelon. “I’m sure the Arch-Mage will do all he can.”

“Of course I will,” Lycaelon said, settling himself in the garish throne-chair, inasmuch as seemed to be expected of him. “I came as soon as I heard there was trouble—in fact, I’m a little hurt, Ioan, that you didn’t come to me sooner. What are friends for, if not to help one another?”

Yanalia began to weep in harsh strangled sobs, clinging to her husband. Lycaelon forced himself to keep his face smooth, his expression benign. Puling and weeping with hysteria already, and he hadn’t been in the house more than a few moments! How like a woman!

“We were afraid,” Ioan said slowly.

Lycaelon composed his features into an expression of hurt regret and bowed his head. “If that is the case … if that is truly the case … then I have failed you, failed all the people of Armethalieh. How can I help you, if you won’t come to me for help? Look at me, Ioan.” He spread his hands, a sad smile on his face. “I’m a Mage. That’s all I am. That’s all I do. I don’t plant crops, or spin cloth—or make gold out of thin air like you do, Ioan!” He allowed himself a rueful smile at the small joke, and was pleased to see Ioan smile in return. “All I do is help people. That’s all any Mage does. That’s all the Art Magickal is for. But when people won’t come to me for help, then, well … I’m useless. I can’t help you if I don’t know that you need help, and my Gifts go to waste.”

He lowered his head again, as if meeting their eyes was too much for him. Had he overplayed his hand, laid it on too thick? But no. They were distracted, afraid, and from the looks of things hadn’t been sleeping well at all. If he could get them feeling guilty as well, they should be supremely easy to manipulate.

“It weren’t—it wasn’t that.” Ioan had made his way up from the laboring classes and married a minor merchant’s daughter, taking her name, as was customary when marrying into a higher-ranked family. When he was upset, his low-class origins showed in his speech.

“We thought it would go away. It didn’t, but then we thought she’d get better!” Yanalia burst out, her voice still thick with tears. “But it’s only gotten worse, Arch-Mage. The fires, and the breaking things, well, at first we thought it might be a spirit or something, not her—we had a Light-Priest in to bless the house, and it stopped for a while, but then it started up again. Then I began thinking about old tales and when we realized it was her, not a spirit, we thought it would get better …” Her voice faltered, and for a moment Lycaelon thought she was finished speaking, but she composed herself with an effort and went on. “After all, don’t all Apprentices have trouble when they start learning magick?”

Only years of self-discipline and iron self-control kept Lycaelon’s features composed in a benign mask. He even managed to smile at the witless creature. “Perhaps you had better begin at the beginning,” he said smoothly. “Tell me everything. Leave nothing out.”

It was an old and not unfamiliar story, a mainstay of the romances so beloved of the lower classes. A child of humble parents—a merchant, a tavern-keeper, or perhaps even a farmer—begins to find bizarre things happening around him at the same time his body begins changing from child to adult. Things vanish, only to reappear in strange places. Stones rain down on his house. Plates, cups, and other small objects fly through the air around him as if thrown, though no one seems to have touched them. Mysterious voices are heard, music, odd sounds. Sometimes spontaneous fires start, or the boy sleepwalks, going into trances and speaking of things he has no way of knowing. And then, to provide the story with a happy ending, just as things seem darkest, a Mage comes, and recognizes the child’s power, and takes him away for training in the Art Magickal, elevating him into a world of privilege, duty, and entitlement.

These people had heard such stories a hundred times, and when the same things started happening in their home, and they eliminated the possibility that it was some spirit of mischief, doubtless had visions of the glory that having a Mage in the household would bring them.

But it is always a boy of whom the storytellers write and sing. Because there never has been, and never would be, a female Mage in the Golden City of Armethalieh.

“And you say there have been fires?” Lycaelon asked smoothly, when it became clear that the story Ioan and Yanalia had to tell was degenerating into a recital of a long series of boring incidents, and they had no more real details to give. Fires … well, that put the cap on it. If there were fires starting, it wouldn’t be long before what was happening inside these walls would migrate outside, endangering far more than a few trinkets, no matter how strong the Protection Spells on the surrounding buildings were.

“They started a day or two ago,” Ioan said, sighing heavily. “And now Deglas says the fountain has stopped running as well, and where will we get the water to put out the next one? Lord Arch-Mage, what can we do? Protective amulets just shatter. Beating the girl does no good—it only makes matters worse!”

“Broke all my best dishes after that,” Yanalia said, dabbing at her eyes. “Oh, not her—but they flew around the kitchen like bats for half a bell, all smashed to flinders, and the cook left and both the scullery-maids; I haven’t been able to keep a girl since! You must help us! Please! You must take her now!”

“Take her now.” The Light preserve us. The daft woman really does think we’ll take the wretched creature and make a Mage of her!

“Rest assured, Goodlady Tasoaire; your problems are at an end. You and your husband have done the right thing by coming to me.” He kept his voice soothing, although his own emotions could best be described as “seething” rather than “soothing.” “I will deal with this myself, here and now. Your Darcilla will never again be troubled by these strange and unwelcome visitations. I will see to it that her energies are redirected into some other activity that is more suited to her sex,” Lycaelon told her, though in truth, he wanted to grab the idiot creature by the brocaded shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled for being such a fool. “Obviously, since it is a girl-child involved, and not a boy, we will have to take action before she harms herself with this—unnatural power. Quite impossible for any girl to use such a thing, of course. Quite, quite impossible. Now, if you will send for the girl …”

“But why aren’t you going to take her and make her into a Mage?” Yanalia asked, taken aback. “I thought—the stories all say—she has such power …”

Lycaelon stared at her, too stunned for a moment to retain his mask of avuncular calm. Was it actually possible that despite what he had just told her, this cretinous female was going to insist that her daughter be taken in and trained by the Mages?

Clearly, she was not listening. And he was going to have to take a stronger stand. Much. In fact, he was going to have to be disagreeable with her. He got to his feet, frowning sternly. “My good woman, try not to be any more featherbrained than absolutely required by your female nature. Do think, will you? Have you ever seen a female Mage in this City?”

Yanalia cowered back, aware that she had somehow offended the Arch-Mage but not quite sure what she’d done.

“Well … no,” she admitted. “But I don’t see …”

“Precisely. You don’t see. Because, my good woman, you are not a Mage. But surely you have eyes.” He waved his hand around. “Look at the shambles she’s made of your house, and imagine what a disaster she could make of the City were she turned loose upon it. It’s the simple truth that women lack the emotional detachment necessary to master the High Magick; a truth that has been proven time and time again, and sometimes with tragic results. Their gifts lie elsewhere—in the arts, in business, in the home. She is as unhappy now as you would be, madame, should I ask you to strap on sword and armor and patrol the City walls. Bring her to me and I shall heal her of this inconvenient fever, and you will all be more comfortable for it.”

“She’ll be all right?” Ioan asked uncertainly.

Lycaelon smiled at Ioan, man-to-man, allowing a faint undercurrent of magic to speak to him, silently. Your wife, as you have always thought, is a fool. You and I know better than any mere female. You must be the master in your house. Put your foot down with her, put her in her place, and your world will become infinitely more comfortable and harmonious. “It will be as if this last moonturn never happened. She’ll be your own happy grateful child once more. Peace beneath your own roof, Ioan, what more could any man ask for, eh?”

Ioan smiled, letting out a long sigh of relief. “Ah, that’s that, then. Go and fetch the girl, Yana.”

Yanalia Tasoaire still looked doubtful, but not quite uncertain enough to be willing to argue with her husband in front of the Arch-Mage of Armethalieh. She bobbed a hasty curtsy and left the room.

“She’ll be a while,” Iaon said, with the air of one who has had long experience with wives and daughters. Whatever he was like normally with his wife, he had drunk deeply of the spine-strengthener supplied by Lycaelon, and was acting accordingly. He stepped to the sideboard. “Care for a stiffener while you wait?”

“Ah … no. My Art prevents, you will understand.”

While it was partly true—no Adept of the Art Magickal partook of senses-clouding substances lightly, least of all when about to perform magic—it would have been a simple matter for Lycaelon to change the contents of the cup until it was no more potent than spring water. Refusing to drink with his host was all part of a certain mystique the Mages wove about themselves, a dance of etiquette designed to set them apart from the average citizens whom they governed. The people of the Golden City must never be allowed to forget that their servant-Masters were woven of finer cloth than they themselves were.

“But do go ahead,” Lycaelon said generously. “I imagine this has all been quite a strain for you and your good lady.”

Ioan laughed raggedly. “Like a wondertale come to life—and not one of Perulan’s, where you know all will end well!” He poured himself a full cup and drank, and Lycaelon smelled the rich scent of good brandy.

“I must admit, I was never convinced that Darcy was ever going to control this—”

“Inconvenient fever,” Lycaelon supplied smoothly.

“Cursed inconvenient. It just kept getting worse, not better. But my wife—” He coughed. “You know how women are. They get harebrained notions and nothing will shake them loose of it.”

Lycaelon judged it time to change the subject. “Tell me, Ioan, this Darcilla of yours, what are her interests? Will she be following you into the business?”

“Nay, not she—that’s for her older sister; Mora’s been mad for the counting-house ever since she could hold a string of tally-beads. No, for Darcilla it’s always been the music.” The man looked bemused. “Even before she could walk or talk, it was the music.”

Ah. Lycaelon felt a small spark of satisfaction. So the girl had some small spark of talent for music, did she? All to the good. It would make what he was about to do that much easier; music required some of the same abilities and talents as the Art Magickal, so redirecting the girl’s interests wouldn’t be as painful or difficult as it could have been.

“Conservatory isn’t cheap,” Ioan went on, “but what’s money for if not to spend, says I?”

“Indeed,” Lycaelon agreed smoothly. And you will have every opportunity to spend a great deal of your money on this daughter of yours. I shall see to that.

The door opened again and Yanalia entered with her daughter. Though barely out of childhood, Darcilla Tasoaire was already taller than her mother, with something of her father’s dark good looks. She was clean, though slatternly dressed; a worn pink house-tunic, several sizes too big for her, dragged, unbelted, on the floor, and her long dark hair hung lank and uncombed down her back. Darcilla’s cheeks were flushed, and her eyes flashed dangerously; she and her mother had obviously been fighting over how she should appear before this important guest, and the lightnings of uncontrolled Mage-potential crackled around her like the warnings of a storm to Lycaelon’s finely attuned senses.

For a moment he felt a flash of pity for the young victim. Who knew what would happen if things were allowed to go on as they were? Powers such as the girl now possessed didn’t simply go away, and no mere female could possibly learn to control such subtle and powerful energies. She could only be led down the paths of madness and chaos, dragging the Light knew how many innocents in her wake. Curse her parents for letting this go on as long as they had out of foolish pride and misplaced pity! It only proved once again how unfit ordinary folk were to involve themselves in any dealings with High Magick.

And females. Most especially females.

“Now I must ask you to leave us alone together for a short time,” Lycaelon said, rising to his feet.

He saw Yanalia brace herself to argue, but Ioan was already moving toward her, detaching his wife from his daughter and moving her briskly through the open door. The door shut behind them, and the Arch-Mage was alone with Darcilla Tasoaire.

“You would do well to heed me,” Lycaelon said in a slow, deep resonant voice quite unlike the one he had used with her parents. The words themselves were unimportant; he actually had no interest in speaking with the girl. Speaking was only a way of catching her attention, to key the prepared cantrip that would place her into a trance so that he could do the work that must be done.

He saw the girl’s lashes flutter as she fell quickly into trance—those with the Gift were far more susceptible to it than those with no talent whatsoever, oddly enough—and he moved to catch her before she fell. Under his guidance, she walked over to the enormous gilded chair and seated herself docilely in it.

He took a moment to prepare himself, just as a surgeon does before making the first incision. Like a master surgeon, this was an operation the High Mage had performed hundreds of times, for not all of those born with the ability to learn the High Art, despite what the talespinners said, were suited to practice it, either for reasons of temperament or birth—or sex. For the good of the City, it was often the unpleasant duty of a Mage to protect both the Art and the people by removing the Gift from an ill-suited practitioner, as well as to perform other delicate operations on the mind. Armethalieh had no prisons. There was no need of them, in a city ruled by the Mages who wielded this most delicate and subtle of all the High Art’s Gifts.

With quick deftness Lycaelon entered the girl’s mind. To his Magesight, the parts of her brain that sensed and handled Mage-energy glowed brightly, as brightly as a diseased organ beneath a surgical spell. He drew upon his Talisman, focusing its stored Mage-energy upon each of those centers in turn, burning and destroying them until they were cold and dark.

It would not affect her normal functioning. No one but Mages used those parts of their brain, after all. With Magesight he watched carefully as their glow faded like the embers of a dying fire, vanishing away into darkness. And when all the glow was gone, there was nothing left but a perfectly ordinary girl, like hundreds of others throughout the City.

Now that part of his task was done, Darcilla could no longer sense, evoke, or work with any of the energies called magick.

But her memories of doing so remained, and to leave them in place would be to leave his task half-finished. The desires that had turned her toward magick in the first place were still there, and if they weren’t attached to some new interest, they would fester and lead to anger and discontent. She would be angry with her parents for turning her over to the Arch-Mage and “robbing” her of what she undoubtedly considered her “rightful” powers. She would be even angrier with the Arch-Mage, and it was truly said that there was no creature more dangerous than a woman bent on avenging a personal grudge; she was young, and she would have a long, long time to plan her revenge. He could not leave such a dangerous creature loose and unfettered—what if she decided that the way to repay the “wrong” was to ruin Anigrel or subvert Kellen?

He was here in the first place because her father was a powerful man, with a seat on the Trade Council. He could not allow an embittered child to jeopardize that delicate political balance, either. Let Ioan be grateful for this day’s work, and the City would run that much more smoothly … best for everyone if the girl was subtly molded into a shape more pleasing for all concerned.

Slowly, carefully, like riffling through the pages of a book, Lycaelon sought through Darcilla’s memories. Each time he found one attached to magick—even one so seemingly innocuous as listening to a song, attending a play, reading a book—he reached in and changed it, erasing some parts, changing others, connecting all of them with music. Slowly he rebuilt her personality, making only tiny individual changes, but attaching all her interests, her drive, her will, to music. She would, without a shadow of a doubt, become as great a musician as he had promised her father—she now had the dedication and the drive, as well as the talent. He’d made sure of that. And if she seemed a little obsessed with it for the next few moonturns, well, that would pass as the spell settled into place, and what silly young girl wasn’t obsessed with something or other at this age? Her parents should thank him for ensuring that she wouldn’t be climbing out of her window every night to keep a rendezvous with some pimply young laborer intent upon marrying into wealth, just as her father had! No indeed, if—no, when, for Lycaelon would see to it that an invitation to audition came from the Conservatory by the next Sennday—she entered the Conservatory as a student, that single-minded obsession alone would guarantee her success. In the practice of music, like the practice of magick, success went to the single-minded, those who devoted the most time to practice.

He had done her the greatest favor possible. She might have become just one more featherwitted girl of wealth, unfocused, bored, and restless, with no other prospects than marriage. Now she would become a rising star in the Conservatory, and eventually a great artist. Eventually, she would be as great, in her own sphere, as any Mage. She would certainly have more public acclaim.

His task complete, Lycaelon withdrew from her mind, and sent her from a trance into a deep sleep. She’d awaken in a day or so unable to remember her part in any of what had happened, feeling that she was just as she had always been, her memories an unbroken line from her earliest days till now. The Tasoaires would engage a new flock of servants who had not been around during the recent unpleasantness, and all would be well.

The Arch-Mage stepped back, gazing down at the sleeping girl with a certain satisfaction. Everything had been set right. Things were now as they were meant to be. Trouble had been avoided for the good of the City, what was wrong had been set right, and in fact, the world would be a better place for his actions. Thanks to him, the City would now nurture a budding artist of exceptional ability, who would one day bring pleasure to thousands.

Straightening his robes, he went to give final instructions to her parents.

Chapter Three

The Books of the Wild Magic

“KELLEN, YOU’RE NOT attending.”

Three mornings a week, Kellen went off to private lessons with his tutor in one of the heavily warded private workrooms at the Mage College of Armethalieh.

The Mage College was a complex of buildings set among beautifully landscaped grounds in the heart of the Mage Quarter. It was surrounded by the homes of the Mages, and no one who was not himself a Mage or a Mage-to-be had ever set foot upon its grounds. Many of the wondertales circulating about the City dealt at great length with a young Apprentice’s first sight of the College. All were completely inaccurate, as none of the fabulists had ever actually seen it.

Kellen regarded the fables with a mixture of disgust and amusement. The reality was nothing like they imagined: no talking fountains, no trees bearing every kind of fruit out of season, no herds of animated statuary in every conceivable shape and color wandering over the lawns, no beds of jeweled flowers wafting jets of strange perfumes into the air, no kindly elderly Mages wandering the grounds, trailing clouds of rainbows and Magelights …

No kindly elderly Mages at all. Crotchety, arrogant Mages in plenty, though.

… and no circles of eager Apprentices standing about chattering among themselves as they worked on great spells …

Lots of Apprentices scurrying from class to class, but that’s about it.

And certainly no strange collections of Other Races, kept here out of sight of the common run of Armethaliehans.

Everything was just ordinary. And boring.

The only statues that might possibly be animated were the two lions that flanked the main gate, and Kellen had never actually seen them move, though rumor had it that if a non-Mageborn ever tried to pass between them, they would leap down and rend him to bits. It was unlikely that a non-Mageborn would ever get that far, though. Not only would custom and common sense—and the Constabulary—keep ordinary citizens away, there were simple wards all around the grounds, to turn back the drunk, the sick, and the mad.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard he’d tried, Kellen had never been sick enough to be turned back.

He stared blankly at his tutor, Undermage Anigrel. He stared blankly because he knew better than to stare with challenge in his gaze. Anigrel looked like a younger—and blond—version of Kellen’s father; tall, lean, and saturnine, with just a hint of pointed beard and a pencil line of moustache. All the Mageborn were slender and fine-boned, their bodies shaped by no physical labor more arduous than lifting a wand or a pen. Their coloration was vivid; black, blond, or red hair running strongly in particular Mage families. They were elegant.

Kellen … wasn’t.

His classmates called him “farmer” and “laborer” behind his back, and in truth, he did tower over most of them, especially since his last growth-spurt. Muscles meant for use, and honed by climbing walls and trees, and simply walking for miles through the City, bulked the fabric of his tunic and the loose-fitting trousers he preferred to the fashionable hose worn by some of his more daring classmates. He bet Anigrel wore hose—not that he’d ever seen his tutor without his grey Journeyman robes, or was likely to. Or wanted to, come to that.

Chired Anigrel wasn’t from a prominent enough family to have family colors, and as a Journeyman-Undermage he wasn’t yet entitled to colors of his own, so he wore the universal uniform of the Mages of the City, the long grey robes and sleeveless, floor-length vest that would someday—if he was fortunate and worked hard—bear the colors of a full-fledged High Mage. Anigrel was in high favor with Lycaelon, however, which meant that his personal fortune stretched to a finer style of clothing than most—soft grey linen in this weather, with a discreet trimming of darker grey and equally discreet silver-grey geometric motifs in fine embroidery on the front and back panels of the vest.

It occurred to Kellen at that moment that he hadn’t ever really noticed the way that the differences between those who were in favor with someone of high position and those who were not were subtly displayed despite the plain grey “uniform” that was supposed to be identical for every Mage, regardless of class or social background. Once again—as usual—fine words fell short of reality where the Mages were concerned.

“Begin again, Kellen,” Anigrel said crossly, and Kellen sighed and raised his Student wand. Anigrel began to chant the names of the sigils that Kellen was supposed to have memorized.

“Eleph. Vath. Kushon. Deeril. Ashan …”

As Anigrel spoke the name of the sigil, Kellen was supposed to trace it in the air. In this order they were meaningless, and not even the magick stored in the wand did more than permit them to glow in the air for a few moments before fading. But assembled together in set orders, they would make the key components of the first-level spells that every Student Mage had to master before moving on to the next level. Kellen was only a Student-Apprentice; not even a full Apprentice. He was unable to cast even the simplest spell of the High Magick—or at least, he was supposed to be unable to.

Kellen was very well aware that he should be long past memorizing sigil-lists by now. He should, in fact, be mastering the first-level spells and well into the groundwork for second-level spells, which involved more complicated structures of sigils and words of Power. And in fact he actually had mastered one or two second-level spells, even though he didn’t really know the groundwork—though that was something he kept to himself.

The trouble was, of course, that all this business with tracing sigils in the air without much result was boring. When he’d been a lot younger, there had been a certain excitement in seeing the sigils glowing with magick as they hung in the air before him; there was even a kind of aesthetic pleasure in creating them, for like ornamental writing, they were pretty in an austere, yet baroque fashion. But that had been a long time ago. These days, Anigrel kept finding all manner of little defects to correct in the sigils he’d mastered, and lists of new sigils to learn. He was tired of it; tired of rote memorization and repetition without any results.

His mind kept drifting off to the very different sort of magick that he had found in The Book of Sun. There was substance there, a kind of magick you could get your teeth into. And it was a magick anyone could understand. There didn’t seem to be any nonsense with memorizing books full of sigils and words of power.

The Book of Sun was the easiest of the three Books to understand, a primer on personal energy and how magick actually worked. It was the first time he’d ever seen anything about how magick worked. The High Mages didn’t want to explain anything—at least to a lowly Student like Kellen—his studies consisted of endless drill, and he was supposed to take it on faith that someday the endless round of memorization would make sense.

Not like the Books of the Wild Magic. They actually told you things; how things worked, why they worked, why they didn’t work. Even better, they had actual spells.

He’d discovered that the back half of The Book of Sun was mostly full of little cantrips and minor spells to make things happen—everything from lighting a candle to sending a one-or two-word message to scrying what was happening at a distance.

If these Books were intended to serve the same purpose for young Wildmages as his textbooks on High Magick, they were certainly a lot more straightforward—and you actually got to do something besides memorize!

“Kellen!” Anigrel said sharply. “Your line is drifting to the right—I’ve told you over and over: you must keep your sigil centered directly in front of you! Now, again—retrace that Methra—”

Kellen sighed; he didn’t think he was off-center. He began retracing the sigil.

Well, while it was true that you could start doing the Wild Magic immediately, there also seemed to be—ramifications. The spells in the three Books didn’t seem all that different from the basic High Magick spells he’d been learning (if not actually using), but now that he’d finished the first Book he was starting to get an idea of why the Books were anathema to the High Mages. Wild Magic seemed to be utterly unpredictable.

And oh, how the High Mages hated the unpredictable! Absolutely hated it! As far as they were concerned, everything ought to be regulated, measured, moderated, and controlled, and Wild Magic just … wasn’t. You could cast your spell, set the process in motion, and as far as Kellen could figure out, there was no telling just how your end would be accomplished, or even if it would be attained at all. That point was made over and over again in The Book of Moon. Spontaneity, variety, unpredictability, all linked into that most powerful of things, magick—the High Mages couldn’t possibly do anything other than hate the Wild Magic, now, could they?

And despite the fact that you might not get what you wanted, that was part of what Kellen found so attractive about Wild Magic, just when he was the most unhappy with his life and the future his father had all planned out for him.

It was very strange, finding the Books in the Low Market like that, though perhaps it would be better to say that they found him. Perhaps that was just one more demonstration of how unpredictable Wild Magic was.

Perhaps he had been practicing Wild Magic even before he’d found the Books, even without knowing it, and because of that he had sensed the Books and been drawn to them just when he had been longing for the new and different, for excitement and change. Maybe his longing had become the instrument of Wild Magic …

Or Wild Magic had used him …

And that sudden thought made him just a bit uncomfortable.

“Xota. Jald. Eron. Batun,” Anigrel chanted, as Kellen traced sigil after sigil, each one more complicated than the last. The first set had only glowed with a single color; now that he was into the more advanced of the sigils, the lines that he drew in the air boasted three different—though always harmonious—colors, or three shades of the same color. And now the sigils themselves pointed out where he went wrong, for the colors would not be quite right if his tracing was off even a little. And if they were wrong altogether, well, he’d often get vile shades that set his teeth on edge.

I wonder what would happen to a color-blind Mage? Kellen thought suddenly. That would hardly be a problem for a Wildmage, now, would it?

Of course, there were other difficulties with Wild Magic … .

His mind wandered again; there was something else that had occurred to him that made him more than a little uneasy about his three Books.

The Books, if they had not actively sought him out, had surely picked him—or something connected with them had. Probably they had sat in that merchant’s stock for years, and before that, perhaps in some other merchant’s stock or some forgotten library. So. What was it about him that had made them pick him? Whoever had copied out the three Books had set a spell on them to enable them to stay together as a set, and must have set a second to ensure that only someone who was “right” for them would find them. The question in Kellen’s mind was—just what was it about him that was “right”?

Obviously the Books knew they had to go to someone who wouldn’t automatically turn them over to the High Mages, which probably ought to bother him more than it did. And they had to go to someone who had the personal energy to be a Wildmage. But what else was involved? Was it only that the person had to be willing, even eager, to accept something that was different, someone who was tired of the endless sameness enforced by the Council? Or was there something more to it than that?

Was it a weakness in him? Something, as the Ars Perfidorum suggested, corruptible?

And of course, he had another worry altogether. Whether or not the Ars Perfidorum was correct about the Wild Magic being bad, there was still the law. The three Books were anathema; there was no arguing with that. At the very least, if they were discovered in his possession, they’d be taken from him and burned. At worst … well, he wasn’t sure what the worst would be. He had to hope that the Books would continue to hide themselves—but what if he was found out?

He tried to picture his father coming across them. Asking where he’d gotten them. Asking if he’d read them. Just how much trouble would he be in?

He wanted to think that it couldn’t be that bad; after all, they were only Books. It wasn’t as if he’d done anything, even if he had read them. Right?

Nevertheless, he had the horrible feeling that it would be a lot worse than anything he had ever gotten into before.

UNDERMAGE Anigrel felt a headache coming on.

Being appointed as the tutor to the only son of Arch-Mage Lycaelon was a great honor, one he had fought tooth-and-nail for.

Life had not been easy for him, although it also had not been particularly difficult, either. He’d been just wealthy enough to see true wealth and long for it; just exalted enough in status to know what real status was and crave it. Perhaps, in a way, that had been worse than being born impoverished and ignorant.

Chired Anigrel was the grandson of a tradesman. His father had shown Magegift and been taken away by the Mages to be trained. Anigrel knew nothing of his father’s family, and little more of his Mageborn mother’s, who had cut her off completely when she had married the son of a tradesman, even though he was a promising young Mage. She had died bringing Anigrel into the world, despite all that High Magick could do, and after that, Torbet Anigrel’s fate had been sealed. He had been a wealthy man by the standards of the City, but in comparison to the fees the High Mages could command for their work, he’d been a pauper, and his dead wife’s family had made it crystal clear that Torbet Anigrel would never rise above the ranks of the plain, common Mages who labored at the thankless jobs of the City.

If Anigrel had learned one lesson from his father’s life, it was not to let family stand in his way. His father had died untimely early, while his son was still at his own magickal studies, and once his father was dead, Anigrel had sold the house and everything in it and set about erasing every link that bound him to the tradesman’s son, the upstart Mage who had killed a Mageborn daughter. Everyone would still know, but they would admire the effort he used to try to make them forget.

The money after the estate was settled hadn’t gone far, but it had bought him a new set of friends, ones with more important fathers, important enough to counteract everything that his mother’s family could muster to pull him down. At length, Anigrel was on his way up in the world—the only world that counted, the one ruled by Mages, and if his mother’s family was no help to him, they did not go out of their way to hinder him, either. With time, the path of friendships and carefully tended connections had led to the House of Tavadon, to the Arch-Mage himself. The Arch-Mage had a young son, and young sons grew, and needed tutors …

Anigrel knew Kellen’s bloodline, knew his potential, and had cherished daydreams of great reward from his father when he turned over to him a polished and accomplished young Apprentice to follow in the Arch-Mage’s footsteps.

The trouble was, Kellen wasn’t cooperating. Light knew he’d done his best to make things easy for the boy—he gained nothing from producing a failure, after all!

But no matter what he did, Kellen would not apply himself to his studies. Would not memorize the basic groundwork, the framework upon which the architecture of High Magick must be built. And without that, Anigrel could do nothing. In fact, as the years passed, Kellen actually seemed to manage to unlearn some of his lessons, if that was possible!

As time passed, he felt the unspoken pressure from Lycaelon and the increasing resistance from Kellen and felt very much as if he was being squeezed between the two.

Well, of the two, Kellen was the one he could break the easiest. Much depended on it.

“Kellen,” he said, tinging his voice with heavy disappointment layered with an artful coloring of scorn, “I am not certain what your difficulty is today—if I didn’t know how intelligent you are supposed to be, I’d consign you to the ranks of the useless dullards. And I fear that your father would not be at all surprised.”

The boy flushed, and his mouth took on that pouting downturn that made him look even more sullen than usual. Anigrel scowled. Kellen was a singularly unpromising specimen, all things considered. He had nothing of the look of the Mageborn—there was some scandal there, something to do with the Arch-Mage’s late and unknown wife, but Anigrel was far too clever a social-climber to ever touch on such a sensitive issue. In his private hours, however, Anigrel sometimes wondered what the nameless female might have had to recommend her to the Arch-Mage’s attention.

Undoubtedly she had been a beauty, but surely a Mage would seek for more than that in a marriage alliance that would produce sons? The features that commended themselves to masculine attention upon a female face could be unfortunate when passed on to male offspring, after all. That girlish face and pouting mouth might be quite beguiling on a young maiden, but Kellen was far too heavy-featured to make them into assets. In fact, Kellen seemed to take no pains with his appearance at all. Above heavy eyebrows was a thatch of curling brown hair that always looked a little too long no matter how often or expertly it was cut, and never looked neat. Kellen loomed above his peers, with hands and feet too big for the rest of him, and even the most expertly tailored robes and tunics never seemed to quite fit. He was nothing like his elegant father—no ambition, no drive—and Anigrel was more than tired of Kellen’s constant sulking.

Well, it was time to pass some of that irritation back to the appropriate recipient.

“Sit down, and take out your notes,” Anigrel continued. “You can take notes, can’t you? Your mind hasn’t gone so dull that you can’t write your letters?”

The boy flushed again, and this time there was a flash of anger in the dark eyes. Good. He’d finally struck a nerve.

Anigrel waited while the boy took his seat at the small table just under the single window in the workroom, and took out the book of blank pages in which he was supposed to take notes while Anigrel lectured. Anigrel regularly inspected this book to be certain that the boy understood the lectures delivered to him—or at least understood enough to note down the salient points of each lecture. And to be certain the boy wasn’t just doodling or writing nonsense.

“Power,” he began, pacing slowly back and forth while he spoke, “and by that I mean magickal power, does not arise out of nothing. As you know, every Mage has his own personal reserves of power, and this is all very well for small matters, but for greater Workings, power must be pooled. This is part of every Mage’s training, how to cooperate and meld the power each one holds into a greater whole. But even this is not enough to supply the needs of our City and its people. Therefore, in the distant past, the Arch-Mages discovered and learned to harvest a still greater source of this power.”

He paused in his pacing to glance aside at his pupil, whose head was bent over his book, his pen scratching diligently on the pages.

Well, regardless of how absentminded the boy was today, the information that Anigrel was about to give him should certainly wake him up.

“You know that every Mage has his own personal reserve of power,” Anigrel continued. “But you may not have realized it is not only Mages who have stores of this power. All people have it, although of course they can never use it themselves.”

The boy looked up sharply at that. Anigrel smiled slightly. It was about time that the boy began to understand how the world really worked! Perhaps some inside knowledge would give him the motivation to succeed! “Yes, you may well stare! Now, do you know why a Mage needs to learn how to share his power with others?”

Kellen shook his head mutely.

“Because, boy, only one born to the power of a Mage can resist someone trying to take his power from him, and he instinctively does so when he feels his power being drained from him. It takes training and will to overcome that instinct. The ordinary person, one who has no notion that he has this power, does not resist when it is harvested. And that is what we do, we Mages in the service of the City. Fully half of us spend all our waking time harvesting the power of our citizens to serve the City itself.

“Not, as you may have thought, in using our own little stores of power in long and involved spells that make the maximum use of tiny amounts of it, in order to do the work that we must. No, we constantly harvest the power of the people of the entire City, storing it, so that we need not deplete ourselves in order to do the work of the City.”

Rather elegant, he’d always thought; like an invisible tax. Take from the citizens to do the work that they insisted in having done: purifying water, destroying vermin, creating the Golden Suns that Armethalieh spent so lavishly in trade with the outside world. And if the Mages siphoned off a bit here and there to make their own lives easier, well, that was only fair. Nothing in life was free.

The boy gaped at him, as if he didn’t quite understand what he had heard. “You mean, you take it from them? Without asking? Without them even knowing?” he asked incredulously.

“And what would be the point of telling them?” Anigrel demanded sharply. “Half of them wouldn’t believe it, and the other half would want to be paid for it, somehow—as if living in the City weren’t payment enough. Ridiculous—they don’t use it, they can’t use it, they don’t miss it, and if it weren’t harvested, it would just drain away, accomplishing nothing. All things have their price, and the good of the City is paid for by the power of its citizens. Why should we deplete ourselves for them, when they can supply the power instead?”

“But—we should tell them, at least,” Kellen persisted, then shut his mouth as Anigrel frowned at him furiously. Had the boy no higher instincts at all?

“Stupid sentimentality!” Anigrel snapped. “They are beneath us; uneducated, without the wisdom that knowledge gives to us; they are not fit to make decisions in this regard. Yet they are pleased to accept all the benefits that living within the walls of Armethalieh brings. They must pay for it somehow—just as they pay other taxes, this is a tax that they must pay to the Mages and the Council. That they do not know they pay it is irrelevant. Everything has a price. Everything. And that is the way that the real world works.”

KELLEN bent his head back down over his book and scribbled Anigrel’s words down verbatim, hiding his unease as best he could. So this was how all the magick of the City was fueled! He was very certain now that none of the Mages ever used his innate personal power for anything except his own personal needs. Why should they, even though the Mages benefited as much as anyone else from all of the municipal magicks, when they could save their own power for themselves and use the power of the citizens instead?

The problem was, The Book of Moon seemed to say that whenever you were the one who benefited from magick, you were the one who had to pay the price. Maybe that was only true in Wild Magic, but Kellen had to wonder. Wasn’t all magick essentially the same, all governed by the same underlying rules?

He guessed that was why High Mages and Wildmages—if there still were any—couldn’t agree about anything, if they couldn’t agree about that. From his lessons with Undermage Anigrel, Kellen already knew that the larger the effect of the spell you cast, the higher the price in terms of raw power you had to pay for it, and where High Magick was utterly indifferent to the possibility of a personal price, Wild Magic seemed to say that not only was there always one, but that it had to be paid, and by the person casting the spell.

He bet the High Mages hadn’t liked hearing that, if anyone had ever told them.

It had taken him a good part of last night to get his mind wrapped around that concept, but once he’d managed it, it seemed both logical and inevitable, if not precisely something that made him comfortable.

The personal price wasn’t directly related to what was being done—that was what had been so hard to understand. So in Wild Magic, the more powerful the spell, the more likely it was that you’d have to do something besides supply your own personal power—like copy out and bespell those three Books, for instance, in exchange for, perhaps, creating a well or healing an injury.

The thing was—yet another concept he’d had trouble with—there was just no way of telling in advance what the price of any given spell would be. And if paying the “price” for a spell involved casting more spells, you could spend all your time in an endless cycle of “Magedebt” to the Wild Magic that way, always trying to “pay off” obligations for magick you’d used to pay off previous obligations! My head hurts, Kellen thought. It all seemed so complicated!

The Book of Moon said that the reason the price was never the same was that the caster of the spell wasn’t the same person he was the last time he cast it, which seemed, well, kind of an odd thing to claim. How could you be a different person today from the one who’d cast, oh, say, a Finding Spell yesterday? People didn’t change overnight!

Kellen knew that people changed, of course. He wasn’t the same person at seventeen that he’d been at seven. But that was normal. Everyone changed while they were growing up.

But then they stopped. His father had been the same person for as long as Kellen had known him, and if Lycaelon lived another fifty years, Kellen was sure that he wouldn’t change a single habit or opinion.

Kellen tried to imagine people continuing to change all their lives—and for that matter, changing quickly. It would be like, like …

Like waking up one morning and finding you were living in a strange and unfamiliar house.

He felt a faint thrill of excitement at the thought. Could the Wild Magic make that happen? What if the prices you had to pay somehow changed you? What if the price was to change?

That would be another thing the High Mages wouldn’t like. As far as he could tell, the whole point of High Magick was to keep anything from changing. Ever.

Anigrel blatted on about how the citizens of the City owed their energies to the Mages, his face set in an expression of self-satisfied arrogance that just made Kellen sick. He didn’t want to listen to it. Didn’t the Mages get rewarded enough, being paid for the work they did, and handsomely, too? There wasn’t such a thing as a poor Mage in the entire City—once you were a full Mage, you had as good a house, servants, food, and clothing as any well-off merchant in the City, and for a lot less work, too! A nice life … no wonder everyone wanted it.

Everyone but Kellen, maybe.

“Kellen!”

The sharp tone of Anigrel’s voice brought Kellen’s attention back to his tutor, and the annoyance in Anigrel’s face made it very clear that while he’d been thinking, his pen hadn’t been moving …

“I do not know what could possibly have gotten into you, boy,” Anigrel said with smoldering irritation, “but you clearly are not prepared to pay attention—and I am not prepared to waste my valuable time on a pupil who doesn’t wish to learn.”

Oh, grand. Father is certainly going to hear about this, Kellen thought with a sinking feeling. And what could he say? That he didn’t like the way the City was run? But he had liked it, mostly, up until now.

He guessed …

Anigrel made a shooing motion with his hands, frowning exasperatedly. “Get out of here, boy. Go play, since that is obviously the only thing you’re fit for today. I shall attempt to salvage something out of this morning while you idle your way about the City, child that you are. Be grateful I don’t call for a nurse to take you to your room to play with toys.”

Release, but with a sting in it.

Kellen picked up his notes and strode out of the room before Anigrel changed his mind.

Release—but at the cost of being treated like a child, like an infant, at being insulted and abused by a fatuous prig who thought he was owed everything he got!

Kellen set his chin stubbornly and left the workroom.

He stopped on the way out of the College and deposited his books in his locker, hoping he wouldn’t run into any of his year-mates at the Mage College who would wonder why he wasn’t still at his morning’s lessons with his tutor—or worse, that he wouldn’t run into his father, who sometimes visited the College between Council sessions to check up on some of the more promising senior pupils.

He thought of going home, but the thought of going back to Tavadon House, to the chilly corridors and grudging servants, nearly made him ill. He had to get out, somewhere far from here, from there, from Mages and magick. He needed free air and—if there was such a thing in this City—free talk.

There was only one place to go for both of those things.

Kellen opened his locker again and pulled off his robe, wadding it up and stuffing it in atop his books and tools. Where he was going, it would be a disadvantage to be recognized as a Student-Apprentice of the Mage College of Armethalieh.

A definite disadvantage.

WHEN the foreign ships from the Out Islands and the lands beyond the bounds of those claimed by the City were in, there was one place in Armethalieh where there was little or no chance that anyone would recognize him for who and what he was. The docks were the one place where Mages didn’t go if they could help it.

Sailors distrusted them, captains did not like having to depend on the magicks that they bought at such high prices from them—the Talismans that brought fair following winds, the Amulets that directed storms to move out of the path of a ship, the Runestones that dispelled fog, the Wands that warned the man at the tiller of shoals and dangerous rocks. Yet those who failed to purchase such aids often came to grief—far oftener, said the whispers, than mere bad luck could account for …

And as for the merchants, well—it was the Mages who dictated what could and could not be sold. It was hardly to be expected that they would welcome the sight of those who restricted their ability to profit.

Foreign sailors were confined to the area of the docks; only the merchant-captain of a ship—or better still, his City-born representative—was allowed into the City proper to present samples of the cargo for inspection or deliver promised goods. The dock even had its own market, plenty of taverns and inns, and in any case the sailors were kept busy enough even in port that they didn’t have much time to spend wandering the streets of Armethalieh.

The citizens were not encouraged to wander the docks, either, and generally everyone had heard tales of drunken sailors quarreling with peaceful citizens, starting fights, and generally behaving in an uncivilized manner. That was enough to keep most folk away. But Kellen had learned—by going there himself—that very few of those stories were true, and of the rest, well, people got drunk and got into fights, robbed and were robbed across the breadth of the City every day. Sailors and foreigners were as apt to be victims as victimizers.

But the area of dockside was a rough neighborhood, and a Mage who wandered in there, if he kept his nose in the air as most did, was apt to be greeted with jeers and rudeness. If the sailors and travelers weren’t welcome in the City proper, well, they returned the favor in their own territory. So when Kellen went to the docks, he was careful to do so wearing inconspicuous clothing. He watched what he said and who he said it to. Mostly, he just looked and listened, and tried to stay out of the way.

The boundary dividing the dockside from the rest of the City was nothing more than a very wide boulevard, but it was patrolled by regular City Guards, who questioned anyone who crossed that particular street quite closely, and turned back anyone going in either direction if he didn’t seem to have appropriate business where he was going. And “I’m just going to look around” was not considered to be appropriate business.

However, there were other places the guards didn’t bother to check; one of them was a section of large warehouses that, rebuilt after a great fire a hundred years ago, had spread across the boulevard into the City. There was always so much coming and going there, wains being loaded and unloaded, men and boys heaving bales and barrels of goods about, that the guards couldn’t have questioned everyone, and didn’t bother trying. Kellen slipped across the border there, along with a gang of men and an empty wain; once on the dockside, he separated from the group and headed for the wharves.

He knew by now how to move out of the way of the stevedores and stay out of the way, and before too very long, he was perched on a piling in a disused slip, with the salt breeze blowing his hair away from his face, looking out at the harbor and the sea beyond.

If he squinted into the sunlight, it was possible to see a sort of shimmer across the mouth of the harbor—if he had used the spell that allowed him to see magick in action, he’d have seen what that shimmer really was. A curtain of power hung across the mouth of the harbor, the result of a spell that protected the harbor from the waves and winds and storms—but could also be “tightened” to keep everything, including ships, out … or in.

It could have been made completely invisible, of course, but the Mages of the City didn’t want that. They wanted the foreign captains and their sailors to see that faint shimmer, to feel a little tingle as they crossed it, and know that while it protected them, it could also exclude them if they became too troublesome. The City was a huge, voracious creature. It devoured entire cargoes, disgorging in return other goods and minted gold coins so pure and so exact in weight that they were the standard against which all other currencies everywhere in the world were measured. The square Golden Suns of Armethalieh were accepted everywhere, for thanks to the special magicks worked at the City Mint, they could not be melted down, debased, shaved, or otherwise adulterated—unless another Mage broke the spell, at which point they lost their stampings and ceased to be Golden Suns, becoming only blank shapes of gold.

The foreign ships were in, and Kellen watched the pre-approved cargoes being unloaded. The wharf was full, every mooring place taken, and the masts of all the ships formed a kind of leafless forest, stripped of the sails that had carried them all this way. In their holds were things that would never be allowed to leave the confines of the ships; perhaps perfectly ordinary things, perhaps wonderful things. Kellen would never know, for he would never be permitted to see them. No one except the Mages of the Council would ever be permitted to see them. He could only wonder what might be there.

Still, even to be close to so much freedom made him feel better. He took a seat on a piling, out of the way, and watched the sailors of the ship nearest him unloading their cargo. Are there things in that hold that Wild Magic made? he wondered. Or things that Wild Magic has touched? He wouldn’t be able to tell, not from here, not with the aura of High Magick everywhere, overwhelming anything subtle. And Wild Magic was nothing if not subtle. Did anyone outside of the City know about Wild Magic? Surely they must.

High Magick—the Mages were more disciplined than the soldiers of the Council’s Army, and they imposed their will upon the cosmos to the exclusion of any other possibility with the iron of that discipline. There was no room for error, for creativity, even for much experimentation in High Magick. A Mage could work for years, decades, just to develop a single variant in an existing spell, and even when he had spent his life upon it, it still might not be approved by the Council.

Kellen was supposed to feel comforted by this; the fact that nothing changed, nothing would change, was supposed to make people feel secure. But he wasn’t—

The slip next to the one that Kellen sat beside held a slim little trading vessel of the sort that specialized in speed rather than bulk to make a profit. It rode high in the water, and was in the process of being loaded with small casks—probably distilled spirits—and wooden boxes—which would be spices, incense, and medicines, particular specialties of Armethalieh. The ship’s master himself was at hand, helping to load the cargo; a vessel like this, Kellen had learned, seldom had a crew larger than ten, with perhaps a passenger, and since it dealt in cargoes of small valuable objects easy to steal, the crew never allowed anyone to load or unload but themselves.

The Dock Patrol—a detachment of the City Guard that regularly worked the dock area—came down the pier, eyed the ship and her crew, then cast a glance over at Kellen. But Kellen was prepared for them. He had a stick and a string he’d picked up from the rubbish waiting for the trash collectors, and the moment he’d taken his seat on the piling, he’d tossed the string into the water. It looked enough like a fishing-rod at a distance to fool the guards, and anyone could come down to the docks to augment his dinner with a little fish, if he chose.

It was odd, considering how much trouble the regular City Guard went to to keep citizens away from the docks, that the Dock Patrols so rarely chased people away from the wharves, but Kellen had found, to his surprise, that it was true. But perhaps it wasn’t so odd after all. Only the poorest of Armethalieh’s citizens would risk the social stigma of coming here—no one with any money at all would stoop to gleaning “trash” fish from the harbor for their suppers—and there was always the possibility of being “contaminated” by alien ways that would keep any Armethaliehan with a pretense of respectability far from the foreigners. Perhaps the Dock Patrol thought it was easier to keep an eye on the usual visitors to the docks than to simply try to keep them all out. Perhaps they relied on the fact that the regular City Guard, or the Constables of the Watch (who generally patrolled only the residential districts of Armethalieh), would turn back any really suspicious characters before they reached their patrol area. For whatever reason, the Dock Patrol favored Kellen with no more than a single glance before turning away to resume their patrol of the wharf.

He was just as glad that he’d worn his oldest clothes beneath his Student robes today. He’d found out a long time ago that nobody at the College cared what you wore beneath the stiff, bulky, light blue Student robes that covered the Students—Student-Apprentices, Apprentices, Entered Apprentices, and Student Mages—from neck to ankle, and Kellen took great advantage of that freedom. Once he’d pulled off his robe and stuffed it into his locker, his clothing didn’t mark him out—at least not too much—from anyone else in the City. Anyone who wasn’t a Mage, at least.

It was only when the Dock Patrol was well out of sight that a newcomer slipped out of the cover of an alley, and hastened over to the captain of the trader. Kellen was careful not to turn, careful not to draw attention to himself. Another “respectable” citizen of the City—here! One who was neither an Inspector nor a merchant, nor—from his dress—a member of the lowest classes. What could he be doing here?

The newcomer was a young man, perhaps a year or two older than Kellen. His clothing was of good quality; he carried a bag and wore a harried expression.

He did not seem particularly well-to-do, although he was perhaps a cut or two above a common laborer—perhaps a tradesman. He was a little older than Kellen, but the look of stifled, sullen dissatisfaction on his face was—oh, that was very familiar. It was the one Kellen saw in his own mirror nearly every day.

The ship’s captain spotted the young man on the dock as he stood looking up at the ship with mingled hope and doubt. Mutual recognition appeared on both their faces, and relief as well on the young man’s as the captain hurried down the gangplank to meet him.

Kellen remained very still, willing them to ignore him.

It seemed to work.

The captain reached out his hand, and clasped the one the newcomer extended to him. “I’m pleased that you haven’t changed your mind,” he said. “I was afraid that you might. Many do. When the time comes to leave the City forever, they find it isn’t worth the sacrifice.”

“Not me,” the young man said, his chin thrust forward stubbornly. “I can’t go back in any event. I’ve been thrown out by my father, disowned by my mother—”

“Ah,” the captain said. “Your mother—that’s different, then. Mothers forgive nearly everything, but when your mother disowns you, there’s no going back.”

“Hmph.” The young man shook his head. “They don’t forgive it when you’ve besmirched their social standing by insulting the most important person they’ve ever managed to lure to the dinner table, I can tell you that.”

Since Kellen had wanted to do just that, and more than once, his admiration for the young man soared. But the captain was most concerned with the reactions of the man’s parents, it seemed.

“So what did they say exactly?” the captain persisted.

“That I was to leave and never return, never use their name, never intimate that I even know them, much less am related to them. It was more than just saying it,” he continued bitterly. “They made quite a production of it, gathered all the servants and my brother and sister, and threw me out with what I’m carrying.”

All this only made the captain more cheerful. “Ah, good!” he exclaimed. “Then there won’t be any problem!”

“Problem?” The young man seemed confused.

So was Kellen. The captain, apparently, was in a mood to explain.

“Here, take a seat.” The captain took his own invitation, and perched himself on a nearby piling. “It’s like this—the way things are, here in this City of yours, your Council wants everybody happy with the way things are, so that everything runs smooth as fine sailing. So they go out of their way to keep everybody happy. Now, a lot of times, young fellows like you get itchy feet, get the idea of traveling outside the City walls, maybe even have a bit of a to-do with their parents and decide they’d be better off somewhere else. Well, that may be so, but their parents aren’t any too pleased if they find ’em gone, and it could be they’ve got skills or they’re doing a job that needs doing here. So”—the captain shrugged—“when someone like me takes ’em aboard, sometimes there’s trouble. Sometimes there’s a search before we leave the dock, sometimes before we leave the harbor, and sometimes, if the lad’s got an important enough family, those magick barriers that keep the storms out keep us in until we’ve handed the lad over.”

I knew it! I knew it! Kellen thought. I knew the Mages were keeping people from leaving, somehow—

But there went any hope he had of escaping. Not with Lycaelon as a father. If he went missing, well—Lycaelon would probably keep anything larger than an ant from getting out of the City until Kellen was found and brought back.

“But for you,” the captain continued, looking positively gleeful, “well, your parents have done it, haven’t they? And the Council knows that tryin’ to keep their paws on a restless lad like you, cast out of his own family and liable to cause trouble, even if he doesn’t mean it, well, that’s not going to make for a peaceful City. Bet you’ve been doin’ a bit of tavern brawling, hmm? Been in trouble with the Watch, just a bit?”

The young man flushed. “And if I have?” he demanded.

“Now, don’t come all over toplofty on me!” the captain remonstrated. “Really, it’s all to your good! Council knows they’re better off lettin’ you go! And you aren’t the only one, not by a stretch! There’s a steady leak of young fellows like you, and a few older ones too, all heading for the Out Isles like you, or the Selken Holds, or maybe through the gates for the farms, I don’t know. Not a lot of you, maybe, but it lets the steam out, so to speak. Council knows they’ve got to do that, or face trouble, later.”

The young man took a deep breath, then let it out, his anger going with it. “All right for me, then, I suppose. I shouldn’t take it amiss. And I won’t.” His expression cleared. “No, I won’t! It’s a gift, and I’ll take it.” He stood up, and slung his bag over his shoulder. “Mind if I come aboard, then?”

“Be my guest,” the captain replied genially. “We sail in an hour—that’s half a bell to you—our cargo has already gotten its inspection, and there won’t be anyone by to look at it before we leave,” the captain said. “We’ll be under way as soon as we get this lot loaded.”

The two of them went up the gangplank, still oblivious to Kellen. He might not have even been there.

Or had it been the Wild Magic helping him? It could have been, easily enough, even though he hadn’t actually done anything with it. The Book of Sun said that it might act on its own, through him or on him, when it wanted something done. It might have wanted him to know that escape was possible. It might also have wanted him to know that he would not be able to get out as easily as the young man he’d just seen.

Suddenly Kellen lost his taste for the docks, and for gazing out at a freedom he could not have.

There was money in his pocket, and a tavern nearby. Not that he was going to get drunk … No, but if he bought a round of drinks, he’d soon find someone willing to tell him tales of their travels in return for more drinks. Perhaps he could steer the conversation in the direction of magick, if he was very careful. He might even learn something more about the Wild Magic that way.

He tossed string and stick into the water, and left his perch, weaving his way carefully among the dock laborers until he came to the door of what passed for a respectable drinking establishment out here. It was dark, reeked of fish, and the furnishings were crude benches and tables. The only food available was battered, fried, and highly salted to encourage thirst. As he entered, the half-dozen sailors perched at the tables eyed him with suspicion. Kellen ordered a fish-roll, and after a careful look around at the clientele, a round of beer for the house.

His generosity was greeted with an upwelling of warmth, and Kellen took a seat across from a fellow who looked as if he was a bit more intelligent and observant than the rest, and might have a tale or two to tell.

“Workingmen got to stick together, eh?” he said as he sat down and clinked mugs with the weather-beaten sailor. “Came down here to get a bit of sun and fresh air on my day off, and what do you think happens?”

The sailor spat off to the side. “Guard gives you trouble?” he asked, though they both knew it wasn’t a question.

Kellen grimaced. “Too true, mate. Dunno what they thought I was gonna get up to—I told ’em I had a fancy for fried fish, and was there a law against that now?”

The sailor guffawed. “Good answer. What’s your trade?”

“Scribe-in-training. Got a letter you need written? Don’t mind doing a favor for a tale or two,” Kellen said quickly, knowing he would never pass for an ordinary laborer. But a scribe was a workingman, no higher in rank than the laborers he served, since no one of any means at all needed them. “I’d leave if I could—but my mother—” He shrugged helplessly. “If I can’t leave, I’d as lief hear a tale.”

“Aye, that’s a fair trade,” the sailor said cheerfully, and called for pen and paper, which the bartender brought, and which the sailor paid for himself. He dictated his letter, a common enough epistle. Kellen read it back, and the sailor took possession of it with great satisfaction. “I’ll hand it off to someone on the Sea Sprite,” the man said, looking pleased. “They’re on the inbound leg, and my Evike will be right glad to get a word of me so soon. Now, young friend, you were after a tale. Well, I mind me of something that happened two voyages back, on a dark night with no moon, when we were near dead in the water …”

Kellen settled back to listen with an intensity that his tutor Anigrel would have been surprised to see.

Chapter Four

Music in Chains

THE CHAMBER IN which the High Council of Armethalieh met was a vast space devoted by day to meetings of the Council. By night, it was used as a secure chamber for the workings of the High Magick that guaranteed the smooth functioning of the City of a Thousand Bells. The enormous circular chamber occupied most of the center wing of the Council House, and was easily the largest single enclosed space in the entire City. Save for a star-shaped ring of windows at the apex of its vast domed golden ceiling, it was windowless, its enormous interior space lit by the sourceless blue-white glow of shadowless, unchanging Magelight. The soft directionless light made day and night as one: the only hint of time’s passage was the movement of the sunlight or moonlight that spilled through the windows at the apex of the dome, and the muffled chiming of the City bells.

Few of Armethalieh’s ordinary citizens ever saw this place, for a hearing before the assembled High Council was reserved for those occasions when every other means of resolving a situation in accordance with the City’s ancient Laws had been exhausted—for that, and for the few necessary dealings of Armethalieh with foreigners. And for these reasons, and others not known to most of the inhabitants of the Golden City, the chamber’s designers, in the long-ago time of the City’s first founding, had taken great care to make the High Council chamber as stark and intimidating as possible.

The walls of the Council chamber were of featureless white marble, polished so perfectly that their smooth curve gleamed like a dull mirror, broken only by two golden doors set into their surface at opposite sides of the circular chamber. Each door was wrought with the symbol of the Eternal Light in gleaming high relief, so that the planes and angles of their exquisite surfaces glittered, even in this diffuse light, as if they were aflame. The floor was inlaid in a complex pattern of polished black and white marble—to the uninitiated eye, no more than a slightly disorienting decorative pattern, but in fact a series of keys that allowed Adepts to keep their proper places during the nighttime Workings. It was a singularly cold room, designed to chill the spirit and numb the ability to think. It took some time for even a Mage to become accustomed to these surroundings and work unaffected by them.

At one end of the windowless room, its curve echoing that of the curving wall behind it, there stood a judicial bench of black marble twice the height of a tall man, behind which the thirteen members of the High Council sat to make their solemn deliberations. The Arch-Mage of Armethalieh, chief of the High Council, Lycaelon Tavadon, sat at the center of them, the back of his unadorned thronelike chair of black marble rising high above the other seats, a stark silhouette against the white wall behind him. Six unbreathing stone golems, seven-foot statues given life and motion by the High Magick, stood guard in the room to protect the Mages from their supplicants, their mirror-polished grey granite skin reflecting the softer stone of their surroundings. The elaborate and distinctive embroidery on the thirteen Mages’ formal grey robes of Judgment—from which those who were versed in such things could discern not only rank and family, but much of that Mage’s personal history and record of achievement and awards as well—was the only spot of color in the entire room—and of course, since Lycaelon’s “colors” were black and white, he looked of a piece with the room, and scarcely more human than the golems.

Yesterday the Selken trading fleet had docked, and as was traditional, Undermages from the Customs House had gone aboard to inspect the cargoes, releasing those items that had been approved on previous voyages to the traders’ warehouses for inspection and sale. But the traders were always bringing new wares to offer to the City of a Thousand Bells, and so today, as had been set down in custom from time immemorial, each trading captain must bring samples of his new merchandise to the Council House to see if it might also be approved for sale in Armethalieh.

As the merchant-captains stood in an apprehensive gaggle several yards away in the center of the room, Lycaelon and his fellows conferred over the sample wares. No matter how many times some of them might have stood there, Lycaelon was pleased to see the foreigners never lost their proper awe of the High Mages of Armethalieh. A Spell of Judgment, carefully cast over the chamber before the captains had been allowed to enter, allowed each member of the council to share the feelings at the surface of the others’ minds, projecting them so that each member of the Council could be aware of the opinion of all the others, whether favorable or otherwise.

The High Council had spent the morning on cloth, ribbons, beads, and dyes—simple enough matters all, but each was new to the City, and each must be carefully weighed and judged for its possible impact on the well-being of the populace before being released into the marketplace. Changes in fashion should be subtle things; it was difficult for most men to imagine what difference something like a change of sleeve or ornament might make—frankly, most men wouldn’t even notice—but women were profoundly influenced by such things. If one woman snatched up a new ornament to set a radical new fashion, it wouldn’t be long before the desire to replicate or better her effort would spread through the City like a fever, begetting an orgy of spending, a frenzy of stitching and cutting, and then—well, then the rot would set in, the wish for change, just for the sake of change, which would spread at last from the women to their men. All from a new bead, a new color, a new ribbon, something that the ordinary man would think was insignificant.

So the Council was careful, very careful, even with something as tiny as a bead or a button. Beginning with dyes, they had moved on to perfumes and spices. Most of the perfumes had been rejected out of hand for being simply too foreign, and of all of the senses, the most subtle and most open to unconscious seduction was that of smell—but the spices were a more difficult matter.

Lycaelon touched his finger to his tongue, and took up a small amount of the brownish powder on the twist of paper before him. He held it beneath his nose for a moment, then touched it to his tongue. It had a sweet, nutlike flavor, elusively familiar, tasting of anise and cinnamon. It was enough like both that its introduction into City marketplaces would cause no disturbances in the even tenor of City life; earlier this morning, before it had even reached the Council, an Undermage had inspected it by magick for narcotic properties and other dangerous side effects, and found none. Had Lycaelon not known this, he might have suspected some tranquilizing property in the stuff, for his reaction to it was to find the taste curiously comforting. Well, a feeling of comfort was something to be cultivated among the populace. Comfort bred contentment, and a disinclination to change.

“Interesting. What do they call this?” he asked, leaning toward his nearest colleague.

“Rendis,” Mage Volpiril said. The Magister-Regnant very much wished to succeed Lycaelon as Arch-Mage of Armethalieh, and regarded his superior with an interest that Lycaelon found simple to interpret, even without High Magick’s aid: Should Volpiril express approval? Disapproval? Which would best further his own interests?

“I call the vote,” Lycaelon said formally, ending the period of inquiry by raising his right hand, palm out, to signal approval of the new spice. Palm down would indicate disapproval.

Unsurprisingly, Volpiril raised his own hand in the same fashion, and the rest of the Council unanimously followed suit. A public vote was a matter of show for their trader-audience, really; if a matter really required a discussion to reach a consensus, it would hardly be dealt with in front of foreigners.

But, as with so many things the Mage Council did, it was good to preserve an illusion of open discussion before the foreigners. If any of the Council had serious reservations about something brought before them, something that could not be projected into the Judgment Spell, he would use his Art for a moment of Silent Speech with Lycaelon, who would simply defer the “vote” if the matter truly seemed to warrant it. Before foreigners, the Council would always present a united front. That was the path of Power.

An Undermage came to clear away the small packets of spices and to serve the Council small cups of strong kaffeyah to clear away the lingering scents. The next class of items was usually a difficult one—whole manufactured items of foreign origin—so to keep the Council from becoming overtired in its deliberations, it was interspersed with something quite simple: book approvals, both new works by current City authors, and reprintings of old tales. While naturally books by foreign authors, containing as they did foreign and dangerous notions, could never be allowed into the City, often the trade ships brought foreign editions of books by approved City authors, frequently authors who had been so long out of print in the City that their works were a novelty again. These exotics sold very well, but it was the Council’s job to be certain that there had been no disturbing additions made to them in their foreign manufacture.

But before the books, some difficult decisions needed to be made. “What is the first item?” the Arch-Mage asked his page, who was standing just behind his chair of state with the long list of items that needed to be approved in today’s Council session.

“A … ‘cittern,’ Lord Arch-Mage,” Auronwy said, stumbling over the foreign word. “It is a stringed instrument for making music, I have been told. The captain has asked to be allowed to demonstrate the item to you.”

Lycaelon suppressed a faint spark of irritation. Really, the presumption of these Selkens was truly amazing. No matter how much liberty the Council granted them, they always demanded more. Still, a show of mercy and fair-dealing was one of the City’s greatest strengths, and each time the Selkens overstepped the bounds of civility and good taste, they only harmed themselves and strengthened Lycaelon’s own position.

“Very well. Have him approach.” And watching barbarians caper should do a little something to relieve the tedium, at least.

Auronwy descended the steps behind the judicial bench and approached the waiting captains. He spoke briefly with one of them, who came forward and retrieved a peculiar instrument from the pile of trade goods that waited beneath the watchful eyes of the motionless guard golems.

The cittern appeared to Lycaelon’s eyes like some sort of giant, misshapen lute—flat on both sides, its sound box pulled into a sort of peculiar sand-glass shape. The neck was grotesquely elongated, and it seemed to have only half the proper number of strings. No fretwork covered the hole in the soundbox, either; if you stood close enough, you could probably see all the way down into the body of the instrument. How crude it looked, and how unfinished! Lycaelon steeled himself; surely this instrument’s sound would be as unpolished as its appearance.

The captain slung the cittern’s strap over his shoulder, plinked a few strings hesitantly, and began to play.

Lycaelon resisted, though with difficulty, the impulse to cover his ears, and felt the wave of disgust from his fellow Mages through the Judgment Spell. It was like nothing any of them had ever heard—not like the lute, nor the harp, nor the viol, nor any other stringed instrument known in the City. It was loud. It jangled. It was infernally cheerful. Very raucous, barbaric, and not in the least bit calming. If the drinking songs caterwauled in taverns could have been turned into an instrument upon which they might be played, this was it.

As the captain himself seemed about to break into song (which only confirmed the Arch-Mage’s impression of the instrument), Lycaelon raised his hand.

“That will be quite sufficient,” he said firmly. He shook his head very slightly, not needing to look to the rest of the Council to feel their agreement and relief. This decision, at least, would be an easy one, with no dissension and no need for a discussion. “The Council regrets, we cannot permit you to sell this … ‘cittern’ here.”

“But why?” The captain looked honestly surprised—and hurt, as if he’d offered them a rare treat and been spurned. Lycaelon sighed inwardly. The Light blast all overemotional thin-skinned barbarians back to the First Cause and beyond! If there were some way for the City to do without the trade ships, he, personally, would weave such a spell as would seal Armethalieh’s harbors off from the outside world for a thousand years …

“Please understand,” Lycaelon said, projecting a warmth and regret he did not feel into his words. Beneath them, he let an undercurrent of magick flow outward toward the captain: If it were my choice alone, I would welcome this innovation. But we are both of us at the mercy of forces greater than ourselves, and cannot always act as we choose. You and I, we must both make hard choices for the good of those we serve. “I am certain that this ‘cittern’ is a lovely instrument, cherished in your homeland. But we of the City have never heard anything like it. It would require new compositions to be written for it, new musicians to be trained in its use. Our City simply isn’t ready to accept so great an innovation, we regret.”

He saw the captain step back, glancing toward the rest of the Council, confusion, acceptance—and regret—plain on his features. He would return to his ship, convinced that the High Council—and especially Lycaelon—acted out of hard necessity, but were themselves good men.

As it should be. As it must be—for the good of the City.

“Perhaps next time you might have a new lute to demonstrate instead.”

The captain still looked as if he might be about to protest, but one of his fellows caught his eye, shook his head slightly. The first fellow clamped his jaw shut with a visible effort, bowed, and withdrew, taking his abominable instrument with him.

Lycaelon let him go without comment. “What is the next item on the agenda?” he asked briskly.

“A new illustrated edition of Pastoral Poems of Golden Days by a Gentleman of Leisure, printed and illustrated in Bariona,” Auronwy announced smoothly, setting the book before Lycaelon with a practiced gesture.

TWO more books—both passed—then a music box that was found acceptable both in form and content, then two more books, one of which was found to have entirely unsuitable illustrations. Why the publisher had chosen to dress the characters in the costumes of the Lothien Archipelago when the book was intended for the City baffled Lycaelon; he must have known they would never allow depictions of barbarian dress within their walls! It was most peculiar.

The Council was preparing to consider an item that its importer assured them was a new timepiece of heretofore impossible accuracy, when a Senior Undermage from the Printers Council appeared in the doorway.

Without being told, Auronwy hurried over to him, and was back in a moment with his message, which he whispered into Lycaelon’s ear.

“Lord Arch-Mage. A few days ago Citizen Perulan brought his latest book to the Council to receive his license to publish—”

Though everywhere else in the City the degrees of class and birth were closely noted and observed in forms of observance and address, here within the Council chamber there were only two classes: Mages and citizens. And Perulan, no matter to what class he had been born, now belonged unequivocally to the latter.

Perulan was a fabulist whose popular pastoral fantasies of a magickal idealized life in the farming communities west of the City had gained him fame and following over the last several years. His latest book had been eagerly awaited.

“Challenged on first reading by Banarus, wasn’t it? Unpublishable. Nothing like his usual work. Pity,” Lycaelon said softly, leaning back in his chair. The acoustics of the Council chamber were such that nothing said behind the judicial bench would carry to those standing in the center of the floor, though the rest of the Council would be able to hear him if he wished them to.

“He demands a hearing before the High Council, Lord Arch-Mage,” Auronwy said, equally softly. “He is … not in agreement with Undermage Banarus’s decision.”

While it was every citizen’s right to take any grievance, no matter how minor, to the High Council itself, it was a right rarely invoked. But artists had no sense of proportion or reality. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it was a waste of the Council’s time and annoyed them to boot. But artists had no sense of proportion or reality; they saw things only in terms of their own “vision,” regardless of what was good for the City.

“Is he here?” Lycaelon asked, hoping that the answer was “no.” This was likely to become a very unpleasant scene, one he was certainly not going to begin in front of the foreigners.

“Outside, my lord. With his manuscript,” Auronwy confirmed.

Lycaelon felt his jaw tense. Why was it that these artists always had to have an audience, even for their tantrums? “He can wait until our proper business is completed. See that he remains.”

Auronwy bowed and withdrew.

Lycaelon returned his attention to the approvals.

IT was nearly Evensong Bells by the time the Council chamber was cleared of the day’s legitimate business. Banarus and Perulan entered, Perulan clutching a leather-wrapped bundle.

Perulan was tall and slender, his pale hair going to grey. He had been born into a Mage family, a younger son, and while it had been something of a scandal for him to turn his back upon the High Art and follow his passion to become a teller of tales, it was only a small scandal, and his success had done nothing to bring real disgrace upon his family. Perulan lived suitably and modestly in the Artists Quarter of Armethalieh upon a small allowance his family made him and the revenues from his writings, and had made no trouble … until now.

If the man had followed proper procedure, he was now holding the only copy of his manuscript, having destroyed all notes and drafts once he had made the fair copy. They would see.

“Who comes before the Council?” Lycaelon asked.

“Perulan, son of Nadar, of House Arbathil,” Banarus answered formally.

“What justice does Perulan Arbathil seek?” Lycaelon responded, equally formally.

“Lord Arch-Mage,” Banarus said, bowing. “Citizen Perulan seeks a license to publish for his latest work. The Printers Council has reviewed it and found it … unacceptable. Citizen Perulan challenges this decision, as is his right.”

“Let the manuscript be brought before the High Council for fair, final, just, and merciful irrevocable judgment, as is the right of every citizen of Armethalieh,” Lycaelon said.

Banarus took the manuscript from Perulan’s arms and brought it to the end of the bench. Auronwy accepted the hefty bundle and brought it to Lycaelon, setting it on the polished marble before him.

Faintly curious now, Lycaelon untied the leather covering and exposed the first page. The title was written large, in Perulan’s flowing clear scribe-hand: Golden Chains: A Tale of the City.

Not an auspicious title—why should an author of pastoral fantasies now choose to write about the City? And the Arch-Mage did not in the least care for the sound of “Golden Chains” either. Unless, perhaps, it was a romantic tale, of the sort that foolish women devoured, and the chains were those of love? Lycaelon frowned, and marshaled a small cantrip, one foolishly relied upon far too often by Student-Apprentices: Knowing That Which Is Written. While Knowing would not allow one to master the intricacies of a thick technical volume of Magecraft, no matter how many times it was cast, it was certainly sufficient to put a Master Mage in possession of the contents of a simple work of fiction, no matter how long.

In moments, the contents of the book rushed into Lycaelon’s mind. And he was appalled.

It was a saga of love indeed, among other things, and unhappily unlike any other Perulan had ever written. People died unhappily and for no reason at all, true loves proved false, Priests of the Light were corrupt, servants betrayed and were betrayed by their masters for personal gain, masters repaid the loyalty of lifelong servants with indifference, discarding them to poverty when they were no longer useful …

In short, it was “reality,” and not fantasy, unvarnished, unmasked, and horribly uncomfortable. It was not the escape that the readers of Perulan’s previous tales would expect, and in a lesser author, disgust would lead a disappointed reader to fling the book across the room. But Perulan was skilled, highly skilled, brilliant even. No, the reader would persist, drawn into the story against his will, and when he was finished—

Discontent. Unhappiness. Restlessness and a sense of injustice that would seek an outlet.

This cannot possibly be published! Lycaelon thought in stormy shock, and felt the assent of the Mages around him as his knowledge of the manuscript spilled into the Judgment Spell. This was nothing less than an attack upon the City itself!

“Is this your only copy? You cannot re-create this book? Answer truly,” Lycaelon said.

Out of Perulan’s line of sight, Banarus’s fingers went up to touch the Talisman around his neck as the Undermage cast a Truthspell upon the writer, cued by Lycaelon’s demand for the truth. Perulan’s next words would be the whole and complete truth, whether he wished to tell it or not.

“Lord Arch-Mage, this is truly my only copy of the book. I burned all my notes and drafts. I spent years writing it—it comes from my heart—I can never re-create it. It is my finest work—a work of truth—the truth that no one wishes to see.”

The truth-aura around him burned blue and steady to Lycaelon’s Magesight. Perulan was telling the truth. In all things. The foolish man really believed it was a masterpiece, the crowning achievement of his career.

Idiot. He was Mageborn; he should have known better. Of all things, the Mages could not tolerate discontent. Just as there could be no new and strange goods in the markets to startle people and make them think that other places might be better, there could be no new thoughts in books, no new ways of painting a picture, no innovations in music, because all of those things would wake up the imagination. There must be nothing within the walls of the Golden City that might make her citizens think, wonder—and start to look outside the walls.

For only within these walls could there be safety. Without lay chaos, madness, and anarchy, the years of Blood and Darkness awaiting the spark that would kindle their rebirth. To open Armethalieh to change was to court her destruction.

“It cannot be published,” Lycaelon said flatly. He held out his hand over the manuscript and spoke a simple spell: Magefire. There was a bright flash, and the manuscript and its leather wrapping were gone, burned away to a few wisps of ash.

Perulan cried out, once. It was a heartrending sound, not loud, but so full of pain that it gave even Lycaelon pause for a moment. Half protest and disbelief, half wail of despair, like a mother who sees her child murdered before her eyes. Perulan’s face went grey, and he swayed unsteadily on his feet.

“How could you?” he whispered in a shaking voice. “It was my life! All my skill—all I knew …”

“It was not suitable,” Lycaelon told him sternly. “Why, when it is unsafe to go outside the City walls, should you write some poisonous fable to make the people of Armethalieh doubt that their rulers know what is best for them? Why should you seek to make them believe that their betters rule only for the sake of gain, and not to make them safe and happy? Why, above all things, should you write something that was calculated to stir rebellion in their hearts and discontent in their souls? They might begin to believe that other places are better than here; they might begin to believe that they would make better rulers than those who are wiser than they. And, in their profound ignorance, they might seek to put themselves in our places, and that would be—not to be thought of. Go, and write something more pleasing next time—or don’t write at all.”

Perulan only stared at him, eyes wide with shock, as if he had not heard—or did not understand—Lycaelon’s words. The Arch-Mage gestured impatiently, and Banarus half led, half carried the writer from the Council chamber. Perulan accompanied him like a man in a trance, moving as unsteadily as one who has received a mortal wound.

What a fuss to make over a few scraps of paper and a silly story! Just as well Nadar excised the Magegift from his mind; the man was far too emotional to ever have been trusted with the disciplines of the High Art …

Lycaelon dismissed the matter from his mind. Banarus would see to the man, and do all that was necessary to conclude the matter properly.

“Well, that was unpleasant enough,” Lord-Mage Perizel said sourly when the door had shut behind the pair.

Lord-Mage Meron, sitting beside him, nodded his head. “Won’t be the end of it. You mark my words, my lord Mages. Talespinners! Always scribbling something, and all of it nonsense.”

There was a general murmur of agreement, and Volpiril leaned close to Lycaelon. “If you will permit, my lord Arch-Mage, perhaps someone should be placed in Perulan’s household? He might bear further watching—just to make sure he doesn’t do something foolish, of course.”

There was no expression on his bland face, but Lycaelon, who was about to order the same thing, wondered why Volpiril felt it necessary to suggest such a move before Lycaelon could do so.

“Of course,” Lycaelon said, keeping his own countenance as bland as Volpiril’s. “Are we all in agreement on that? I will leave you to see to it, Mage Volpiril.”

And I will remember that you will bear further watching, as well, my lord Volpiril …

He glanced down with sudden distaste at the mass of ashes and crisped leather on the table, and added, with just a touch of venom, “And someone clean up this mess!”

AS the shadows lengthened and the cool spring air filled with the music of Evensong, Kellen realized, with resignation and great reluctance, that it was time to be returning home. It wouldn’t do for him to be anywhere but his rooms when his father arrived—Lycaelon had made it clear on several memorable occasions what he thought of a scion of House Tavadon wandering the streets of Armethalieh like one of the common folk.

But with any luck, his father would still be busy at the Council House, and Undermage Anigrel would have found something else dull and boring to do as well—something that would keep him away from both Tavadon House and Lycaelon. No one needed to ever know that Kellen hadn’t gone straight home after his unfortunate early dismissal from his lessons. With further luck, Anigrel might even forget to tell Lycaelon about the whole incident, though that was probably too much to hope for.

Kellen approached Tavadon House through the mazelike network of back and side alleyways that ran between the great houses of the Mage Quarter. It was easy to get lost here—there were no signs, and nothing to distinguish one seamless Magecrafted stone wall from another, but Kellen had no difficulty in finding his way. He knew the back alleys of the Mage Quarter as well as any refuse hauler or rag-and-bone dealer did; the narrow streets were much used by those vendors and tradesmen whose business was not quite appropriate for the front doors—or even the main service entrance—of the imposing houses of Armethalieh’s Mageborn aristocracy.

The Mageborn preferred that the messier aspects of life be tended to invisibly, and the noble and wealthy aped their habits. Kellen doubted that any of them had ever seen a refuse hauler in their lives.

But in his seventeen years of life Kellen had discovered, as many had before him, that there was no privacy to be had in a house full of servants, and if he did not want to alert everyone in House Tavadon to all of his comings and goings—most of which weren’t supposed to be taking place in the first place—the best thing to do was to find a more private way in and out of the house. Though he could not use it too often without drawing attention to it, the small side door at the bottom of the kitchen garden, where the garbage from the kitchen was left every morning in neat bins, filled his needs nicely: he could let himself in and out whenever he wanted without alerting the servants, and if anyone missed him and wanted to make a fuss, who was to say he hadn’t simply been somewhere in the formal garden—or the house—the whole time he’d been supposedly “missing”?

Though of course the door was warded against intruders, as a son of the house, Kellen could pass through those wards without triggering them. And although it was kept locked from the inside, Kellen simply took the key with him when he went and left the door unlocked behind him. The servants rarely had business in the garden, and the gardener never bothered about anything that close to the house itself. So far his tampering had gone undiscovered, and Kellen had been able to come and go as he pleased.

He reached his destination—a nondescript (though, of course, costly and well-made) wooden door set into the tall, plaster-covered brick wall—and confidently gave it a shove, expecting it to swing inward, revealing the sere Tavadon garden.

The door didn’t move.

Kellen tried again, pushing more slowly and with greater force. Still nothing. The door was locked. Sometime in the last several bells, some overzealous servant must have come down into the garden and locked it.

Well, that was all of a piece with the way his day had been going until now. Kellen sighed, reaching into his belt-pouch for his key, only to discover that his bad luck was still in full flower, and likely to get worse.

His key wasn’t there.

Oh, no—

Now what was he to do? Never mind that Anigrel had virtually ordered him to go hare off on his own. Anigrel would be certain to deny it, and say he’d meant Kellen to go home and study, and certainly that was what an obedient son of House Tavadon would have done. If anyone found out he’d actually been wandering around the City until Evensong, he’d really be in for it!

Not yet in a panic, but not far from that state, Kellen spun around, gazing around the empty alley wildly, as though by some miracle the key to the garden door might suddenly materialize.

Think, you cloudwit!

He was sure—he was almost sure—he’d had it with him when he’d left for his lesson with Anigrel this morning. Could he have dropped it somewhere? It was a big heavy brass key; he was certain he would have noticed the sudden absence of its weight from his pouch, or heard the noise it would have made when it fell to the street.

Unsurprisingly, the key was nowhere to be seen; after all, he hadn’t left by this door. And retracing his steps—well, that was an exercise in futility; a key that big would have been found and picked up, for the value of the scrap metal if nothing else …

Kellen sighed gustily, running his hand through his disorderly mop of long brown curls distractedly. Where was the Light-forgotten thing?

All right. No need to get in a state. Nothing’s going to happen just yet. If the garden door was locked, there was still the front door … but that meant going in past the mastiffs, and that would rouse the servants—there’d be no chance of sneaking in. And if his father or Anigrel had left instructions that he hadn’t been here to receive … well, it would mean an unpleasant scene at the least. If his father found out he hadn’t gone straight home from his morning’s lesson, Lycaelon would want to know where he’d been, and if he couldn’t think of something innocuous and impossible to disprove, he’d be in deeper trouble yet.

Why is it that everything I do ends up with me in trouble?

No. He’d find another way.

He looked up at the wall, gauging his chances of simply scaling the wall. But the wall had been plastered smooth to discourage just such a possibility, and the errant coil of bramble-rose vine that trailed down just above his head was far too slender—and prickly—to serve as a climbing rope. He couldn’t use a cantrip to unlock the door from outside, either, even if he knew the right spell, because the locks were counterspelled against just that.

But there was another way. He had his new magick. And if he couldn’t use it to unlock a door (and so far there didn’t seem to be an Unlocking Spell anywhere in the three Books, or at least not one that he’d discovered), he could use it in some other way to get in. And the simplest was—to find that blasted key.

With the Wild Magic, he could cast a Finding Spell, get his key back, open the door, and slip inside. He’d be safe in his rooms before Lycaelon arrived, and no one would be the wiser about just how long it had taken Kellen to come home from lessons. And a Finding Spell was such a small magick—harmless. All it involved was getting back what was his in the first place. What could that hurt? No one would see, and no one would know. And he had everything he needed to cast it right here: his desire—and a drop of his own blood was easily come by, with the bramble-roses to help.

Pleased at his own cleverness at finding so simple a solution to a potentially embarrassing problem, Kellen reached up and pulled the bramble-vine down toward him. He selected a particularly large and sharp-looking thorn and drove it into the ball of his thumb, wincing at the sudden pain, and as the bright drop of blood welled out, he focused all his will on the key to the garden gate and his need to have it in his hands.

There was a faint tingle, as if someone had thrown a handful of snow-flakes at him, and he held his breath in anticipation. What would happen? Would the key just appear? Would someone bring it, looking for the owner?

But—nothing. The tingle faded, and nothing whatsoever happened. Nothing changed, not even the faint stink of produce past its prime that came up from the sunbaked stone of the alley. Obscurely disappointed, Kellen let go of the vine—it snapped back into place with a dry shaking of leaves—and sucked at his injured thumb, walking absently up the alleyway.

I might as well give up, and use the front door, and take my chances …

Wait. Where am I going?

As he’d started walking he’d told himself he’d given up and was going around to his front door, but then he found himself turning away from the house, in a direction he’d never gone before, unable to stop or turn back. The more he tried to fight against this compulsion, the faster he went, until he found himself running, losing track of the turns he made, until he was entirely lost in the warren of Mage Quarter back alleys.

And still he ran on, as if there was something pulling him—or chasing him. The Wild Magic had him, he had no doubt whatsoever of that, and it wasn’t going to let go!

He was finally allowed to stop in front of another wall elsewhere in the Mage Quarter, but whatever force had taken possession of him when he cast his Wild Magic spell of Finding wasn’t through with him yet. The walls here were green with ivy, providing easy access to the garden beyond to anyone who cared to climb the wall, and to his horror and amazement, Kellen found his arms and legs acting as if they belonged to another person, sending him up the ladder of vines as if he were a squirrel.

Over the top he went on his belly. He slid down through the thick mass of ivy on the interior side and froze, holding his breath. If anyone caught him here, if he couldn’t talk his way out of this … they’d turn him over to the City Constables, or at the very least, they’d summon his father out of his Council meeting, and what could Kellen possibly say to explain what he was doing trespassing in some other Mage’s garden? He didn’t even know whose garden this was! And if it belonged to one of his father’s many political enemies … Oh, Light defend him! What could Kellen possibly say to explain? He was trapped by his own decisions to cast a Wild Magic spell. What had he done to himself?

As he stood frozen, trying to figure out what had just happened to him, Kellen became aware that somewhere nearby someone was crying—the choked, grief-stricken sounds of someone terrified and in complete despair, but equally afraid of being overheard.

A very young someone; from the high voice, it must be a child.

And at that moment, Kellen stopped worrying about himself; his own predicament could wait. Whoever was making that sort of weeping sound was in more trouble than he could ever possibly get into. He knew the difference between the way a child sounded when it was crying angrily over a hurt, real or imagined, when it was crying out of self-pity, and when it was crying because it was truly, deeply, in despair. And this was the latter.

As silently as he could, Kellen moved away from the wall and toward the source of the crying.

Coming out from behind a screen of bushes, Kellen saw a little girl—no more than seven or eight—wearing the simple clothing of an under house servant. She wasn’t old enough to have much responsibility; she was probably a kitchen maid—children usually apprenticed in the kitchens of a Great House, where there were fewer things to break, and much fetching and carrying to be done—which meant she certainly had no right to be in the master’s garden at all.

Her shoulders drooped with fatigue, and her little body trembled with each suppressed whimper. She was kneeling at the base of an enormous magnolia tree that was the focal point of the garden, looking up into its branches. He stepped on a bit of gravel that crunched under his boot, and she swiveled around, her round, tear-streaked face white with fear. The moment she saw him, she got to her feet with a strangled sob. In a moment she would run, and he knew, without knowing how or why, that she was the reason he was here.

“Don’t be afraid,” Kellen said quickly. “I’m not supposed to be here either. I climbed over the wall. In fact, if anybody sees me, they’ll probably run for the nearest Constable. I heard you crying—will you tell me what’s the matter?” He bestowed his most winning smile on her, the one that had usually gotten him out of trouble with every one of his “Nursies.”

The girl hesitated, then stood where she was, shifting her weight from foot to foot, regarding him doubtfully. She had certainly been told to be wary of housebreakers and thieves, but even dressed in his oldest clothes, Kellen figured he didn’t look very much like either one.

“I live nearby,” he said coaxingly. “Won’t you tell me why you’re so unhappy?”

That seemed to decide her, and her face regained a little color. “Can—can you help me, goodsir?” she asked hopefully. She gestured up at the branches over her head with a slim little hand. “Milady is in the tree—she got out of the kitchen and climbed up, and if Mistress finds us here, she’ll have me whipped—and she’ll drown Milady!” Fresh tears began to roll down the girl’s face.

“I know she will, I know she will, and Milady—”

—Is probably the only friend this little one has, Kellen supplied for himself, feeling a surge of anger at a woman he didn’t even know, who would be so heartless as to snuff out the life of a child’s pet because it did what any cat would do. When she’d first started to speak, he’d wondered if Milady might be a child of the house that the girl was supposed to be watching, but if the girl was afraid that Mistress would drown her …

It had to be a cat—though the Light help him if it turned out to be a white squirrel, or a monkey, or a ferret, or some other form of outlandish pet. A cat he could probably coax down; with an exotic, he’d probably wind up with a handful of sharp teeth.

“Hush now, don’t cry.” Kellen rummaged inside his tunic for a clean handkerchief—reasonably clean, anyway—and handed it to the girl. “Blow your nose and dry your eyes. I’m sure we can do something about your problem.”

He approached her; she wasn’t going to run now. “Can you show me where she is?”

The girl stood beside him and pointed up into the tree. Kellen looked in the direction she indicated, squinting against the last rays of the setting sun. High in the tree, perched on one of the topmost branches, he could barely make out a small grey fuzzy kitten, its fur nearly the same color as the slippery bark of the tree. It edged back and forth on its branch, which shifted dangerously with every move it made.

Kellen sighed, just a little. Still, he couldn’t leave the little thing up there to get all three of them in trouble. And he couldn’t just leave the poor little girl here to try to coax it down. Kittens had the bad habit of climbing into inaccessible places, then being too frightened to get down by themselves.

He glanced over his shoulder. A high hedge of ornamental shrubbery screened the bottom of the garden from the view of the house, and at this chime, the inhabitants would be dressing for dinner and the staff would be preparing it. For a little while, at least, it wasn’t likely that they’d be found here. He thought hard, coming up with a plan.

He patted her clumsily; she didn’t seem to mind. “Now look here, I’ll see if I can’t help you out. I’ll climb up and get your kitten down. If anyone comes while I’m up there, you must scream as loud as you can, and point up at me. Don’t say anything, just scream. Do you understand?” Kellen asked.

The little girl looked puzzled. “But why?”

Kellen smiled ruefully. “Well as to that, sweeting, I think you’re far too pretty to be whipped for wanting to save your kitten. If you make a lot of noise, they’ll all think you came out in the garden chasing me, and you’ll be a great heroine.”

“But what about you?” she asked. She might not be very old, but she was evidently wise enough in the ways of her household to know that if she acted as if he were an interloper rather than someone who’d come to help her, he would be in serious trouble.

Then again, anyone who had spoken so casually of being whipped knew plenty about punishment.

“Oh, I’ll think of something,” he said airily. And thought: I just hope I don’t have to.

And keeping that thought in mind, Kellen turned away from her, put foot and hand to the trunk of the tree, and began to climb.

The lower branches were easy, though the fine-grained bark was as slick as polished wood. The flowers had an overpowering sweet and slightly unpleasant scent as if they were just on the wrong side of decay, even in the cool of the evening, and he dared not get any of their fleshy, greasy petals between his hands and the bark. Once he was higher in the tree he could hear the kitten mewing—hoarsely, as if it had been doing it for some time—but with the leaves in his face Kellen could no longer see it. He did know it was still somewhere above him.

“Here, kitty-kitty-kitty,” Kellen muttered, mostly to himself, for he doubted that the cat could hear him over its own plaintive cries. As a matter of fact, at the moment he felt like making a few plaintive cries of his own …

The tree was very tall. He looked out once, and found himself on a level with the third-floor windows of whatever Mage-house’s gardens he was trespassing in, and fought down his vertigo with an effort. After that, he kept his eyes firmly focused on the trunk of the tree and the branches in front of his face.

Then, at last, the cries were near at hand. He moved aside a branch while clinging desperately with his other hand, and there it was.

And it was not at all happy to see him. Rather than regard him as a rescuer, it apparently thought he was there to eat it. He reached toward it—and it backed away, then scrambled off down a side branch, forcing him to leave the trunk and follow.

Then began a pursuit that would have been comical if Kellen hadn’t been so petrified of falling. Several times he was almost within reach of the kitten. Each time it regarded Kellen’s outstretched hand in pop-eyed horror and retreated out of reach, either around the trunk or out along a limb. Several times it fell, slipping to a lower branch to glare at him in affronted indignation before bouncing off—just out of reach—to resume its piteous cries for rescue.

You stupid lint-brained furball! Can’t you see I’m trying to rescue you? Kellen thought with something more than irritation.

Finally, he’d gone as high as he could go without falling himself. The tree trunk itself swayed slowly with his weight, a slow sickening motion that would surely give away his presence here if anyone bothered to look. The kitten was just above him, on an even narrower branch.

And for one brief moment, all its featherbrained feline attention was devoted to keeping its balance. Kellen lunged, grabbed it around its middle, tore it loose from its perch, and stuffed it down into his tunic as deep as he could, wrapping one arm around himself to keep it from struggling free.

Kittens, Kellen discovered at that very moment, might be small and helpless-looking, but they had a very large number of very sharp claws. The claws weren’t big, but they made up for their lack of size in degree of sharpness. He was being lacerated by needles. He clamped his mouth shut on a yell, which would only have attracted unwanted attention.

Gritting his teeth and trying to concentrate, he turned toward the trunk, feeling with his foot for the branch below.

And slipped.

His descent from the tree was much faster and far less comfortable than his ascent. Kellen grabbed one-handed at everything he could to slow his fall, but his weight and the speed of his fall tore the branches from his fingers almost as soon as he grasped them.

At last he stopped.

Abruptly. On his back.

He struggled to breathe for a moment, and his vision greyed out, then returned as he managed to gasp in a breath.

Kellen lay on the ground, panting, taking in huge gulps of air, looking up at the tree. He was dimly aware of something struggling free of his tunic and worming its way out through the neck-hole.

I’ve broken my back. Father will have a fit.

A healing-Mage could mend a broken back of course, and it wasn’t as if Lycaelon couldn’t afford the best there was—but oh, what he’d have to say about it!

He twitched feet and hands experimentally, then moved arms and legs. They all worked, and no movements produced any stabbing pains …

Oh, good. I haven’t broken my back. Or anything else, I guess.

Groggily he sat up, shaking his head. Leaves, flower petals, and bits of twig rained down on him from his hair and from the hole he’d left through the branches as he fell.

He looked up at the little kitchen maid. She was clutching the kitten beneath her chin and beaming at him, her tears forgotten. The kitten was purring loudly and looking smug. Wretched little monster. For a brief moment Kellen could see why someone would be tempted to drown it.

Maybe I should have left it up there …

But—no. The tear streaks remaining on the child’s face reminded Kellen of why he really didn’t mean that last thought.

“Are you all right?” the girl asked anxiously.

“I think so,” Kellen said, though he really didn’t think anything of the sort. He shifted, and heard something crackle beneath him as he moved. For a moment, he was afraid it was his spine after all.

But if his spine had made a noise like that, he wouldn’t have been able to move. Kellen got to his knees, pulling the object out from beneath him.

A bird’s nest. A big one, the size of a soup plate, woven of sticks, and full of … junk?

“A jackdaw’s nest,” Kellen said aloud, identifying the item. “I must have knocked it free when I fell.”

Jackdaws were notorious thieves, attracted to anything that was colorful or shiny. Curious, he began to pick through the jackdaw’s trove.

Bits of tinsel and glass. Faded hair ribbons. Pieces of painted tin, relics of the last Festival day. Among the junk, a real treasure—a gold and emerald chain.

“That belongs to Mistress!” the little girl gasped, staring at it. “She was looking everywhere for it!”

“Here,” Kellen said, tucking it into a pocket in the girl’s smock. “Tell her you found it somewhere. Um—tell her that you saw the jackdaw carrying it off and you threw stones at the nest until it came down. That will explain this mess, and it should save you and Milady from a few whippings in the future.”

There was one more thing at the bottom of the nest: a key.

Kellen’s key.

When he held it in his hand, all his unease at the Wild Magic and the geas its spell had cast upon him came rushing back. “All magic has a price,” it had said in The Book of Sun. Kellen had thought his blood was the price of the magick, but he’d been wrong. That was only the price of the spell. Rescuing the kitten had been the price for finding the key, because if he hadn’t rescued the kitten, he’d never have found the key.

But I chose to rescue the kitten, didn’t I? Kellen wondered uneasily. Magick didn’t make me do it.

He’d thought the Wild Magic was just like the High Magick, just with fewer rules: you did the spell and you got the result. But it wasn’t. The spell had only brought him here. If he hadn’t cared about the girl and her kitten, he’d never have found the key. It was what was in him, what he was, that made the magick work the way it did—as if, when he looked into the Books of the Wild Magic, somehow the Wild Magic was also looking into him, and judging him.

I don’t like this, Kellen thought apprehensively. What if I weren’t me? How would the magick work then?

He got to his feet, putting the key into his pocket.

“I’ve got to go now,” he said, feeling uncomfortable. “Could you show me where the garden door is?”

He hated to involve the girl in any more trouble, but the way he was feeling right now, another climb over the wall was the last thing he could manage.

“It’s right over here. No one will see you. And … thank you, goodsir.”

“Thank you, gentle miss. I learned a lot here today,” Kellen said honestly. More than I wanted to learn, if the truth be told.

She led him across the garden—Kellen limping along behind her—and when the door had closed behind him, he wasn’t really surprised to see he was in an alley he recognized, only a few turnings from home.

IT was full dark—first Night Bells had rung—by the time Kellen reached his own garden door once more, for he had been moving rather slowly as he’d left that garden gate. He was lucky not to have any broken bones or bad sprains from his fall, but by tomorrow morning he’d have a rainbow of bruises, and he felt stiff all over. He was thinking longingly of sneaking down to the laundry for a long soak in one of the spell-heated washtubs as he crossed the garden—there’d be nobody there at this time of night, and the water in the washing vats was always hot—and he wished he could soak out the memory of the Wild Magic as easily as he could soak out the stiffness of his bruises.

Why did it work the way it did? How could it work the way it did? If it worked like this for a simple Finding Spell, what would happen if he dared to cast one of the greater spells described in the Books? What sort of price might the Wild Magic ask then?

Kellen was so engrossed in his own thoughts on his way to his room to pick up fresh clothes for after his bath that he failed to see his father on the stairs leading to his suite. And unfortunately, Lycaelon saw him. Apparently Lycaelon had gotten home early for once—and had been looking for him.

“Kellen!”

Kellen froze where he was, stunned. It had never occurred to him that he’d run into his father now—Lycaelon was rarely home before midnight, and sometimes not before dawn, if he was participating in a Greater Working, not just a Council session. Kellen wished suddenly that he was a Mage out of the wondertales—one who could stop time, turn himself invisible, or simply teleport himself away with no more than a thought. But Mages like that only existed in stories, not real life.

Lycaelon reached the top of the stairs, a ball of blue Magelight hovering behind his left shoulder. As its cerulean radiance reached Kellen, the boy saw his father’s expression change from one of irritation to actual anger.

“I see. What have you to say for yourself?” Lycaelon said.

He always starts arguments in the middle and expects me to play catch-up! Kellen thought, becoming angry in turn. He sees what, exactly? He felt his mouth settle into a sullen line, and said nothing. What was there to say, when he didn’t even know what he was being accused of. Except it’s always the same thing, isn’t it—not being him, not being the kind of son that would be happy to be a mindless little copy of him? A model of exemplary behavior to be held up to every other Mage who has a son?

“Undermage Anigrel told me you’d shirked your lessons today to go off and wander around the City again like an out-of-work laborer—and from the look of you, you’ve spent that day rolling around under hedges. Mend your ways, or you will be dead weight, Kellen, dead weight—and the City has no place for dead weight!” Lycaelon thundered.

Thundered? Maybe he thought he sounded impressive, but to Kellen’s ears, Lycaelon’s voice was pompous, not awe-inspiring. He sounded more like the outraged patriarch in a bad play, the one that the lovers were going to outwit, no matter what he did.

“It isn’t—” Kellen tried to interrupt. I didn’t SHIRK them! He sent me away! But I don’t suppose he bothered to tell you that part, did he? Oh, no, whatever happens, it’s always MY fault, isn’t it? Light blast it, I can say the truth, that I was rescuing a little girl’s kitten, without giving away what happened! He’s always telling me to be more responsible, and isn’t that the sort of thing he means?

It wasn’t though, and Kellen knew it. Now, if he’d rescued the kitten of a wealthy, noble, or Mageborn child, oh, that would be entirely different …

Lycaelon raised a hand. “No! I have coddled you long enough. I spend my days in long and thankless labor to keep the City running smoothly, and you spend yours attempting to destroy everything I’m trying to build for your future! You cannot just step into a position such as mine by simple right of birth—it takes a lifetime of preparation and study—preparation which you do not seem willing to make! A person in our position in society has duties as well as privileges—he must behave suitably as an example to those below him, for the good of the City, and this is a responsibility you have so far ignored. How are you ever going to take your proper place in society if you keep shirking your obligations this way?”

Duties—obligations—suitable behavior—meaning suitably arrogant, suitably deceptive, suitably oh-so-superior to any poor fool who doesn’t happen to be Mageborn! Kellen thought mutinously. And somehow he just couldn’t hold his feelings in any longer.

“You’re always bleating at me as if I want people bowing and scraping to me all day and looking for new ways to humiliate themselves! Well, maybe I don’t! Maybe I don’t want a place in your precious society, if to get it I have to stick my nose in the air, act like a prig, and turn into a slavish copy of you!” Kellen burst out. He turned away and stormed into his room, slamming the door behind him.

Chapter Five

The Courts of Nightmare

THE WORLD WITHOUT Sun was a wonderful place, just as vast and far more beautiful than the Bright World. For centuries Queen Savilla had ruled over its lightless halls and shadow caverns, its vast subterranean seas and darkling plains.

But like all rulers, she loved her palace best, for here all the good things in her world were distilled to their ultimate perfection. Here, in the Heart of Darkness, she tended the strands of her web of knowledge and power, patiently awaiting the day when the Tree of Night would bear that fruit whose harvest would prove so bitter to the Brightworlders.

Once—twice—the Endarkened had not been so patient, and He Who Is, their master, had chosen to teach them patience, allowing them to be defeated in their battles for mastery in the World Above. In the last battle—called in the Bright World the Great War—their defeat had been so profound and all-encompassing that they had been swept from their every stronghold in the World Above, forced back into their most secret strongholds, there to lie hidden, recovering their strength—and their numbers—for centuries.

But they had not been defeated. No. Let the haughty Elves, the foolish Centaurs, the arrogant humans think that. Let them revel in their false victory and turn in their false peacetime upon each other, dissolving their ancient Alliance and retreating each to his own place. That suited Savilla’s plans very well. From the very moment of the Endarkened’s last retreat, while the wings of dragons still blackened the sky and the music of the victory horns still sounded among the armies in the World Above, Savilla had begun to plan for the day that now, at last, seemed so near. Centuries had passed before she had first dared to send forth her agents into the Bright World once more, but she had waited patiently, and now her plans began their final, ever-accelerating plunge to fruition at last.

Did not the humans isolate themselves in their Golden City, certain that they were the masters of the world and that all lesser races must bow before them?

Did not the Elves retreat to their Forest of Flowers, too content with their own ways to look outside themselves and see how the world had changed?

Had not the dragons vanished altogether, seen never by humans, seldom by others, and only at a distance?

Were not the other races so fragmented and harassed by the humans of the Golden City that it was far more likely that they would abandon the City to any enemy that should appear than to ever ally themselves with it?

So it was.

And ancient allies became present enemies—with the help of the Endarkened and their agents—insulated, isolated, each in his own petty world, each nursing exasperations and minor grievances to the exclusion of intelligence and common sense, each combating problems he was certain were his and his alone and were the most important and terrible difficulties in the universe.

Each with misfortunes that could be solved by the other, did he only know it. And that was the beauty, the artistry of her plan—that salvation should be within the grasp of each, and that they would turn a blind eye to it, choked by their own baseness and pride, until they died of it.

Savilla smiled, exposing long gleaming white fangs, as she reclined on her royal couch, prodding the quivering mass at her feet with one taloned foot, still preoccupied with her thoughts of the Endarkened victory to come.

It was wonderful to contemplate the suffering of her enemies, and still more delightful to know that none of them even suspected that the Endarkened were the architects of their quiet misery and diminution, moving against them even now. Nor would they suspect it, until it was far too late. This was the way to win a war. Not on the battlefield, with banners, bright swords, and brave words, but by weakening a foe until he destroyed himself. That was where the former ruler of the Endarkened, her predecessor, King Virulan, had made his fundamental errors; he had counted on brute force to ensure his conquest.

That was why he was the former ruler.

Perhaps she would even set her ancient enemies to warring with one another. It would not matter who won that war … the victor would be weak, exhausted by his battles, easy prey for her Endarkened legions and their subject-allies. Whoever triumphed would fall to her, and after the great city-states had gone down into defeat and shadows, then would fall their shattered exiles and former enemies. She would pick them off, one by one.

And then the world—both worlds—the World Without Sun and the Bright World—would belong to the Endarkened and to He Who Is.

Savilla regarded her surroundings with complacent approval before turning her attention to the treat before her. Work was done for now, and it was time for pleasure. To the Endarkened—those whom the Brightworlders in their bigoted ignorance called Demons—torture was the highest art, one requiring the most luxurious setting. Where a mortal or even an Elven ruler would have ornamented his throne room, libraries, or law courts with fine paintings and sculptures, the Endarkened lavished all such skills and embellishments on their torture chambers. The devices that could cause hideous pain and damage were crafted of precious metals, rare woods, and ivories, inlaid with a jeweler’s skill, and the walls of such chambers were lined with comfortable couches and divans, so that favored friends and confederates could come to spend a pleasant afternoon listening to screams of pain and whimpers for mercy and release as masters plied their most refined arts upon their victims.

Every Endarkened noble had a private torture chamber, but Queen Savilla’s was the most beautiful of all, its painted and jeweled walls covered with detailed and elaborate depictions of agony, its vaulted dome crafted of black crystal mirror, and its lovely mosaic floor an intricate inlay of gold and polished skull-ivory, so that Savilla could walk upon the bones of vanished victims and cherish the memory of their deaths.

She reclined upon her satin couch—black, to enhance the deep warm scarlet of her skin—and stroked the arm lovingly. It was inlaid with a pure spiral of unicorn horn, harmless to her now with the death of its owner. How well she remembered the wonderful months she had spent torturing the magnificent creature slowly to death, for the Endarkened did not rush their pleasures, and even the death of a magicless mortal could take a very long time. The Endarkened were master magicians, and all magic must be paid for. They gained their power through the pain and suffering of others, and there were so very many sorts of pain that could be inflicted, even before the first welt had been raised upon the skin.

Savilla looked around herself, regarding her courtiers complacently. Only a favored few had been invited to witness this very special day—those who stood high in her esteem … or those who needed a very special lesson in what it meant to lose her favor.

In the Courts of the Endarkened, it was often difficult to tell ally from enemy. Savilla knew. She made it her business to know. But those who had eagerly accepted the invitation to this particular treat could not, themselves, be certain why they had been invited, and that undercurrent of uncertainty only added to her pleasure. Mental cruelty, emotional suffering—there was a saying among the Endarkened: Each tear shed is Power gained.

Tanilak was far beyond tears.

Savilla looked down at the body lying on the velvet cushion at her feet, taking a deep breath of pure delight. She had taken the Endarkened noble as her lover over a year ago, knowing when she first welcomed him to her bed that the affair would end in the scene now playing out here. She had raised him high in her favor, plied him with honors, and then sent him into the Bright World to accomplish a small—but very difficult—task for her.

It would have been lovely had he been able to accomplish it to her satisfaction, and in fact he had done far better than Savilla had expected, for Tanilak had honestly wanted to please her. That was the beauty of it. The anguish of his failure, the terror of his punishment, the horror of going as her prey and victim to that place where he had gone so many times as a spectator, all were heady wine to her Endarkened senses. He might have hoped for mercy, for allies to engineer his rescue. But Tanilak had no friends at Court. She’d made sure of that as she’d engineered his downfall. By raising him high and encouraging arrogance, she had invoked jealousy and resentment in even those who once had allied with him. He’d left no grieving hearts behind to make trouble later.

When she’d had him seized, he’d done everything he could think of to save himself. For weeks she’d fed his hope, letting him think it was possible. She’d even engineered—and foiled—an escape attempt, tactics that would not have worked a few weeks before, but Tanilak was maddened with fear and hope, credulous as a child. When she’d come to him in his cell, he’d clung to her skirts and wept, clutching her barbed tail, kissing it and begging to be allowed to do something, anything, to prove himself, in the name of the love they’d shared.

Savilla smiled reminiscently at the memory, flexing her clawed toes in remembered ecstasy. How wonderful that moment had been, to see his yellow eyes well up with tears, their slitted pupils wide in the dimness, to see the moment when all hope died. She shivered with remembered delight, rubbing her hands over her bare gold-dusted arms.

But then, at last, it had been time to move on, to show him the engines that he knew so well, to explain what she would use on him, and how, and when, to savor his utter despair and feel his desperate search for a way to kill himself before she began. That, too, she frustrated.

And then, when he thought himself unable to feel anything more, Savilla proved him wrong again. Once more they were united in bonds of flesh and blood, until he yielded to her more completely than any lover possibly could.

And now, the last and sweetest consummation.

It was something impossible save with one of their own flesh, for in the case of another Endarkened, when at last the victim had been reduced to a quivering mass of agonized protoplasm, the final outcome was to be absorbed completely by their torturer—to yield up everything—life, soul, spirit, memory—knowing at every moment what was happening, feeling the slow and inexorable death of the “self” as it was taken away to feed the life and power of the one it had come to hate and fear and worship.

Her skirts swishing about her slender ankles, Savilla rose gracefully to her feet and knelt beside the body before her, furling her delicate membranous wings tightly against her back.

Only its scarlet skin revealed that this had once been a noble of the Court. Horns, tail, ears, nose, teeth, eyes, fingers, and toes had all long since been removed, and all the rest reduced to a jellylike consistency, held together only by the skin. The shapeless mass was far smaller than Tanilak had been in the days of his glory, but deep inside, what had once been Tanilak was still aware, was still himself. And now she was going to devour him.

Savilla leaned forward and placed her lips against his skin, biting down just enough to pierce the surface with her fangs. She began to suck gently. The taste of his essence filled her mouth, as warm and delightful as the taste of a fine brandy.

She sat back, sighing with pleasure. It had been too long since she had partaken of this particular delicacy. Her enjoyment was heightened by the sight of her Court favorites seated upon divans about her, watching her with greedy envy. It was rare that any of the Pure Blood transgressed so thoroughly as to render themselves prey for the rapacious appetites of their peers.

As she bent to sip again, her attention was caught by movement on the far side of the room, and she heard excited whispering among the Endarkened gathered here to watch her finish Tanilak.

Prince Zyperis had entered the Heart of Darkness, but he was not here to observe his mother’s pleasure—or not entirely. Zyperis had brought a companion with him—a human.

The Prince towered over the human, and his scarlet skin made the human look as pale as a glistening grub. Zyperis was a truly beautiful creature, with waist-length hair as black as Savilla’s own, curving golden horns, an elegant barbed tail, and large, graceful ribbed wings—a mark of his noble blood. He was dressed all in white and gold, from his elegant sandals to his flowing silk trousers, gilded codpiece, and diaphanous jeweled sleeves. A large pearl drop glowed in one ear, and his hair was held back from his face with a set of matching pearl combs.

His companion, Savilla was pleased to see, was clean and well fed and dressed in the most opulent of human finery. Zyperis had a fine touch with the Art, and would ensure that his own offering to the Art lasted a very long time. For now, the human’s every physical need was being fully met, while Prince Zyperis played upon his mind and nerves. Bringing him here today was only the first step in the campaign that the Prince would wage upon those citadels, Savilla thought proudly. Zyperis would extract every ounce of torment possible from the human’s fear and uncertainty before moving on to the first taste of physical pain.

She bent forward and let Tanilak’s essence fill her mouth again, drinking in his memories, his long-buried desires.

PRINCE Zyperis regarded the human beside him with pleasure and interest. Henamor Lear had been of little use in the fashion he had sworn he could be, but the man would yet have his opportunity to repair that insult—and provide Zyperis great entertainment into the bargain.

“If you will only give me another chance, Exalted One,” Henamor whimpered desperately. He was barely able to keep his attention upon the Prince, for Henamor Lear had never seen so many of the Demonkind in one place together, and certainly he had never before been so deep within their realm. He only hoped he could still escape alive—for if he did, this was the end of his dealing with Demons!

Zyperis smiled, knowing full well the direction and content of his captive’s thoughts. Yes, let the man still hope for a reprieve … for a time … even though his fate was irrevocably sealed. There were so many humans, after all, each willing to exchange freedom and safety for the powers of Darkness. With so many eager to take Henamor’s place, the human was entirely disposable.

“But why should I do that, when you failed so dreadfully on your last attempt? You assured me it would be so simple, so possible, to find a dragon and bond with it through your spells, O Great Magician,” Zyperis said playfully.

“But it is—it will be!” The human whispered, shrinking in upon himself, as one of the nearest Endarkened turned her gaze away from the Queen and rested it upon the human. “Only let me draw near to it, and it will fall prey to my spells—then you will have all its power—and mine—for your own, to use as you choose!”

“But I already have you, and all your power, Henamor,” Zyperis pointed out with mock-obliviousness. “How could I possibly be greedy enough to wish for anything more?”

“Only let me try again,” Henamor begged. “It must have detected me somehow, hidden itself before I could discover its den. I have done all that you asked, Exalted One—for years I have been your eyes and ears in the Bright World, doing all that you asked of me, growing in your power, working your Dark Arts. I have given you many slaves, even my own wife and children—”

“But you promised me a dragon,” Zyperis said in jesting singsong tones. “And you didn’t give me a dragon. Now why should I give you a second chance to fail at what you didn’t manage to accomplish once? I really don’t think another failure would be at all good for you, my Henamor. Now come. You have always been curious about our secrets. Let me show you the heart of our power.”

He put an arm around the human’s shoulders, and drew him close to his side, savoring the shudders of fear that Henamor tried hard to suppress, drawing ever-so-delicately upon that anguish. Zyperis directed his agent’s attention to the wall paintings, as if to praise their beauty, knowing the man would only see their subject, the endless and exquisite ways that the Endarkened had devised for their victims to die, and think of his own fate. He summoned a servant—one of the Lesser Endarkened, its hoofed and scaled form such that the Brightworlders found especially hideous—and pressed wine upon his guest, before directing his attention to a pair of golden boots. They stood upon a long wooden rack beside several other sets of oddly shaped footwear, all metal.

“Are they not lovely? Rather bulky, I’m afraid, but that is because there are hollows built into the outer shell that can be filled with boiling oil. And the wonder of it is that even filled, they are light enough to dance in. Imagine!” Zyperis smiled proudly at his guest. The Court ladies in attendance upon the Queen giggled approvingly, flirting their jeweled fans as they tried to catch the young Prince’s eye. “Have you ever seen such craftsmanship, such cunning?”

“A-amazing,” Henamor whispered. He gazed pleadingly at the Prince, begging silently for mercy. Zyperis pretended not to see.

“It is a wonderful thing to have a creature entirely at your mercy—but I need hardly tell you that, my friend,” Zyperis said. “You, too, have accomplished great things in your time.”

“And I will do more, if you will permit me, Master,” Henamor gasped, seizing the opening. “I know I have failed you—”

“Now, now—what are two old friends such as we to talk of failure?” Zyperis said chidingly. “Still, I should so very much have liked to have had a dragon … But perhaps another time. Please allow me to show you the flaying knives. They are so wonderfully sharp and thin that it is quite possible to remove a man’s skin in one piece, you know, though it can take weeks—sennights as you call them—to properly loosen the skin of the face. I understand that the best method is to make a small incision and then to inject brine beneath the skin—did you not tell me you had done that once?” Zyperis allowed his brow to furrow, as if in thought. “Oh, yes, now I remember. You said the man died of the pain, but I assure you, that won’t happen here,” the Prince added, in soothing tones.

Like all the so-called Masters of the Dark Arts with whom Zyperis had dealt in his lifetime, Henamor was brave enough when inflicting pain on others, but the mere thought of receiving such treatment himself made him weep like a child. Zyperis reveled in this delicious foretaste of the banquet to come—and the beauty of it was, the human had no notion his Demonic host was already siphoning off his pain and despair, while leaving its wellspring intact. Patience; that was the essence of success. Queen Savilla was right; patience won all, with patience, one could create a feast of fear and pain that would satisfy the most finicky of appetites.

Henamor was weeping now, quite frantic with terror, and Zyperis judged that it was time to offer some small modicum of relief, lest matters progress too swiftly.

“But I am sure that you will want to tell me more of what you know about the dragons, leaving nothing back,” Zyperis said, drawing the human away from his horrified contemplation of the crystal cases filled with slender glittering knives.

When Henamor had come here, the man had intended to withhold some of his information, to use it to bargain for his freedom, or at the very least, to persuade the Prince of his continued usefulness. Now he found himself telling everything he knew, or guessed, or suspected about the caverns where the dragons might be found—how to seek them out, the spells that might be used to compel them, how to force a bond upon one of them.

Zyperis listened intently, sipping the fear that radiated from the human just as he absorbed the information—though this was hardly the last time he would have this information from Henamor’s lips before the Mageman died. If only he could use it himself—but unfortunately, his race was unable to make an alliance with the dragons. Only a Mage could bond with a dragon, and only a human could become a Mage. But once bonded, a dragon was psychically and emotionally vulnerable to anything that its rider was vulnerable to, and humans were so very, very vulnerable …

As he listened, he watched Queen Savilla at her feast, savoring Tanilak’s destruction nearly as much as she did. Though she had not taken him into her confidence, he had guessed her plans from the moment she had first begun to show favor to Tanilak, and had secretly been delighted when he was proven right. Zyperis had never tired of watching the two of them here together in the Heart of Darkness, glorying in the anticipation of the moment he knew was to come.

Henamor’s words faltered to a stop, his eyes following the direction of Zyperis’s gaze. “What … is that?” he whispered.

“That is my mother the Queen,” Zyperis said, pretending to take offense. “The most beautiful and accomplished of all of the host of Endarkened—”

“No!” Henamor protested frantically, terrified of causing new trouble for himself. “I meant no disrespect! I meant … with the Queen.”

“Ah.” Zyperis smiled, and allowed himself to be pleased. Henamor had recovered his equilibrium, and was ready to be frightened once more. “That was once a noble of this Court, who failed to give satisfaction in a far more trivial matter than you have, my dear friend. The Queen’s abilities in the Art far exceed my own, and as you see, she has quite destroyed poor Tanilak. Now she consumes him utterly.”

Already the scarlet pulsing mass had much decreased in size, while Queen Savilla glowed with increased power and life. Zyperis felt the intimate tug of her beauty.

“She’s … eating him,” Henamor moaned.

“So she is,” Prince Zyperis said, as if he’d only just discovered that fact. “And do you know, as she does, she is consuming every one of his memories, and his soul as well. There will be no rebirth for Tanilak upon the branches of the Tree of Night.”

The frisson of despair that jolted Henamor played deliciously on all of Zyperis’s senses, and he luxuriated in it. Not quite so delicious a vintage as the essence of Tanilak, but savory in its own small way. Let Henamor believe for as long as possible that this could be his own ultimate fate. Humans were so short-lived that they set great store by their souls’ fates.

And even though it was not possible for Zyperis to do to Henamor precisely what Queen Savilla was doing to Tanilak, the Prince had plans for the human Mage’s immortal spark. Plans that he would reveal to his victim at the appropriate time in their relationship …

“But come,” Zyperis said. “I know that our afternoon together has tired you, and you will wish to spend some time alone meditating upon your numerous failings and considering how you can best please me. Although of course,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “I can think of no way that you can save yourself from your fate.”

He turned away, knowing that in Henamor’s wearied and distracted condition it would take several seconds for the meaning of his words to sink in, and raised his hand. One of the Lesser Endarkened hurried over, its hooves clicking against the glittering mosaic floor. It bowed low before the Prince, casting a greedy glance toward the human.

“Return my guest to his rooms and see that he has food and drink, for I anticipate many long hours of pleasure spent in his company in the future.”

The Prince turned back to Henamor, who was only now beginning to realize what Prince Zyperis had said. He would still deny it to himself, and hope he had heard wrong—Zyperis meant to fan the flames of hope and uncertainty for many days yet, before dashing those hopes forever.

“Please—Prince Zyperis—Your Highness—”

“Your company grows tedious, my friend. Do not make it entirely offensive,” Zyperis said gently. He watched as Henamor reluctantly allowed himself to be led away by the Lesser Endarkened, and heard the sibilant sound as it whispered to the human, telling him horrors—on Prince Zyperis’s orders, of course—that would cause Henamor Lear a long and sleepless night.

The Prince smiled, and returned his attention to the enchanting tableau before him. Tanilak was so diminished by now that the Queen could cradle what was left of him in her cupped palms like a malign scarlet fruit, and as Zyperis watched, she sucked him in with one last deep swallow.

A murmur of appreciation passed through the watching Endarkened, and a ripple of gentle applause.

Zyperis approached, bowing low.

SAVILLA regarded her son with approval. He had handled the ugly little human splendidly, feeding from him so subtly that the human Mage probably wasn’t even aware that the vampirism had taken place. Now he knelt before her, flushed with power—and quite the most attractive member of her Court, at least since the day, so many years ago, when his father went the way that Tanilak had just gone. Dear Urallesse—in so many ways he had been her equal, save in guile, and there was no one in all the Court these days to match him.

Save Prince Zyperis. Strong and handsome, ambitious and utterly merciless … he was her peer, almost her equal.

She rose gracefully to her feet, regarding him through lowered lashes. He stared back at her with a hot-eyed gaze of frank admiration, as drawn by her increase in power as she was captivated by his youthful charms.

She held out her hand. He took it, first kneeling gracefully in homage, then rising to his feet and bringing her hand to his mouth, kissing first the palm, then the wrist where the pulse of stolen life beat strongly. Their eyes met, and there was no doubt between them where this unspoken conversation would lead.

“I shall be in my chambers for the rest of the afternoon,” Savilla announced, leading Zyperis toward the door that led to her rooms. “My … private chambers.”

Chapter Six

A College of Magicks

KELLEN WAS SURE there would be further repercussions from the quarrel in the morning. He’d rarely dared to contest his father’s will openly in the past—certainly he’d never before gone so far as to raise his voice to his father—and the punishment for not falling immediately into line with whatever Lycaelon had planned for him had always been swift, unpleasant, and crushing.

But to his faint surprise and great relief, Lycaelon seemed disinclined to pursue the matter this time. Maybe having his offspring talk back to him had taken him by surprise. Or maybe he just hadn’t yet managed to think of a punishment commensurate with the “crime.”

Whatever the reason, Lycaelon was already gone by the time Kellen came downstairs in the morning. Second Morning Bells were ringing throughout the City, and the breakfast table was cleared. The servants didn’t seem to have any “special orders” regarding Kellen, so he resorted to his usual morning habit of sneaking into the kitchen and filching leftovers from the sideboard, then hurried off to class.

Fortunately this wasn’t one of the mornings that he had to face his tutor. Having seen Anigrel yesterday, he wouldn’t see him again until tomorrow. All he had to suffer through was the regular round of classes and lectures that were the lot of every Student Apprentice in Magecraft.

PASSING through the main gate of the College, Kellen entered the Quadrangle. At this time of day it was filled with bodies—Students in their plain blue robes, Entered Apprentices in grey robe and soft cap, Journeymen in grey robe and tabard, Mages in their colors, all hurrying (in the case of Student, Apprentice, and Journeyman) or going leisurely (in the case of Mages) about their business.

The principal buildings of the Mage College were grouped around the Quadrangle. Just as the wondertales told, there was a fountain in the center of the Quad, but it was of the most mundane sort, a statue of a triton with water spewing from the tips of his trident. The Library and the Chapel of the Light were on the left, the imposing building that held the classrooms and lecture halls on his right. Straight ahead was the building that held the offices of the College, and the tutors’ workrooms that had been Kellen’s destination yesterday. Beyond that—and most carefully and thoroughly warded—was a building containing another series of workrooms, where senior Apprentices and Journeyman Mages practiced and tested their work in spellcraft. They certainly didn’t do so in public on the lawn—another thing the wondertales always got wrong. Though Kellen supposed it would make a very pretty picture—if the Mages had actually been the sort of people the wondertales presented them as being …

Elsewhere on the grounds—though not near the Quadrangle, which tended to be noisy—were the residence halls of those Mages who, for whatever reason, did not wish to either live with their families or put themselves to the trouble and expense of keeping a house. For the few children from non-Mage families who were discovered to be worth training, other arrangements were made.

As Kellen crossed the Quadrangle, the bells in the carillon of the Temple of the Light began to chime Third Morning Bells. The sound was picked up by towers throughout the City—though of course the Temple of the Light began every ring, as was only proper—and Kellen realized that if he did not hurry, he’d be late for his first class. And that was the last thing he wanted to be today. He hurried, and was in his appointed seat before the last echoes of Third Bells had sounded.

THE course was “History of the City,” and here at the College, that meant it was the history of the High Mages as well, for as Mage Hendassar, the Master Undermage who taught them, had told them over and over, the Mages were the City, and the City was the Mages. Kellen generally found the lectures not only pointless, but painful, for Mage Hendassar delighted in humiliating those of his Students whom he could catch unprepared, and Kellen was usually among them.

But today, it seemed, Mage Hendassar had chosen another victim.

“Come now, young Master Cilarnen. Surely you can recite for me the names of the Arch-Mages who have led the High Council since the founding of the City. Or perhaps thoughts of romance have distracted you from your studies … ?”

Kellen glanced up, and saw Cilarnen slide down in his seat as far as he dared, looking uncomfortable. He wondered what was going on. Cilarnen was the son of a high-ranking Mage family—his father was the High Mage Lord Setarion Volpiril—and until now he’d been one of Hendassar’s pets.

Hendassar turned away from Cilarnen and strode to the front of the room.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “Behold before you a young man of flawless birth and impeccable breeding—and heretofore undeniable gifts—who believes that there is something more important than serving the City! Now, can any of you imagine what that is?”

Kellen shrank down in his own seat in sympathy. Whatever Cilarnen had done, it must be awful.

All twenty blue-robed Students regarded Mage Hendassar with silent fascination.

“Women—!” Mage Hendassar said in hushed disgusted tones.

Several of the bolder members of the class burst into stifled snickers.

“Now, of course, women are important. Most of you will—eventually—marry, in order to breed strong Mage-sons to serve the City. And of course, your wives will produce daughters as well, since Mages must marry Mageborn daughters in order to keep the bloodline pure. However, we must never forget that women are essentially unimportant to the life of a Mage, unable to participate in or even understand the actual concerns of his life: the practice and study of the Art Magickal.”

Hendassar broke off to glare at Cilarnen again.

“There is a time and a place for everything. And certainly when one should be devoting all of one’s energies to the mastery of those concerns which will occupy one’s entire future, one should not be occupying one’s energy in writing love poetry to Lady Amintia. Such as this example.”

Mage Hendassar reached into his sleeve and withdrew a slender scroll.

Oh, no. Kellen groaned inwardly. He didn’t like Cilarnen particularly—he didn’t even know him. Lord Volpiril was one of Lycaelon’s rivals on the Council just to begin with, and Lycaelon had disliked his son fraternizing with lesser beings—and in Lycaelon’s mind, even his fellow Mages were lesser beings—but Kellen didn’t like to see anyone publicly humiliated.

Mage Hendassar began to read out the poem, playing it for laughs—which he got. Kellen didn’t know a lot about poetry; he guessed it was pretty bad, but still, nobody deserved to be treated this way. If Lord Volpiril didn’t want Cilarnen to see Amintia, why hadn’t he just told him so, rather than doing something like this to him?

At least Kellen’s father had never made him into a public spectacle. He supposed he ought to be grateful for that much. But he knew it wasn’t because Lycaelon cared about him in any way. It was because Lycaelon couldn’t bear the thought of seeming less than perfect: the perfect Arch-Mage with the perfect—and perfectly obedient—son.

By the time Mage Hendassar had finished reading out the poem, the rest of the class was roaring with laughter, and Kellen was filled with an odd cold anger.

Why were Mages supposed to be so different from ordinary folk? Kellen had spent a lot of time—much more than either Lycaelon or Anigrel suspected—in the poorer quarters of Armethalieh. He’d had to learn to be handy with his fists, to earn his place among the children there, but once he’d won a few street-fights—his size and strength had served him well, there—they’d accepted him as more than a nasty interloping Mageborn brat, and he’d learned a lot about how the “other folk” lived.

For instance, he knew that at among tradesmen and laborers—and even among a lot of the non-Mage nobles—people were courting and marrying. Yet the Mageborn weren’t even supposed to think about such a thing until they had reached Journeyman Undermage rank at least, if not Master Undermage—and that could take another decade of studying.

And where did they find the women they were supposed to marry? If Kellen had stayed where he was supposed to stay and only gone where he was told to go, he knew, he doubted he’d ever even see a woman. As a child, he’d played with children in the parks and made friends with them when he’d been under the care of his “Nursies,” but all that had changed as soon as he was deemed old enough and Gifted enough to someday become a Student-Apprentice. Then, Lycaelon had done his best to cut Kellen off from all human contact. If Kellen had not continued to sneak out onto the streets—and carefully concealed the fact—and managed to make friends of his own, however fleeting, he’d have grown up completely alone, for he had no friends among what his father would have called “his own kind.”

As he’d grown older, Kellen’s own attitude to the hypocrisy he saw in the Mages that were his father’s cronies, as much as the growing rivalry for future place among their sons, had done much to keep him isolated by his own wish, even from those who would have sought to curry favor with the Arch-Mage by cultivating a friendship with his son.

Kellen did not want friendship on those terms, even if Lycaelon would have permitted it. But it did make him wonder where Lycaelon thought his future daughter-in-law was going to come from. He knew that some of his fellow Students had sisters—they must have, from what Mage Hendassar had said, but …

There was no point in thinking about it. It wasn’t, after all, a subject that actually interested Kellen very much. And he didn’t need another thing to get himself into trouble about.

Eventually Mage Hendassar relented, and restored the class to order, assigning Cilarnen a long punishment essay—due at the beginning of the next class—on the History of the Great Arch-Mages. With a few more blighting remarks on the irrelevancy of females to a Mage’s life, he returned to his scheduled lecture.

After that, it was hard for Kellen to keep his mind on the assigned subject, but he was safe at the back of the room, and Mage Hendassar didn’t seem to be looking for any more victims today. Kellen let his mind drift back to more familiar questions.

The map of the City, ancient and yellowed, hanging on the wall behind Mage Hendassar caught his eye. Though he’d seen it a thousand times before, today an errant beam of light fell on the legend “Delfier Gate.”

What was beyond the Delfier Gate? What lands did the Selken Traders sail to? Where were the Out Islands, exactly? Somewhere beyond the mouth of the harbor, but where?

Like every other inhabitant of the City, Kellen knew—vaguely—about the Home Farms, the villages that grew the food the City consumed. He knew the Mountain Traders brought things down from the High Hills that made their way into the City in the trading caravans—furs and spices and medicinals—but the High Hills were no more than a name to him. He knew there must be lands beyond the sea that produced the goods that came in the Traders’ ships and appeared in the City markets. But those places weren’t even names.

Why not?

He’d never thought about it before.

He’d been carefully encouraged not to, Kellen realized, just as he’d been encouraged not to think about marriage and family and Mageborn girls—about anything outside of his studies, in fact. The only histories he’d learned were the history of the City and its inhabitants and the history of the High Magick. As for geography … he could draw a map of the better quarters of the City from memory, but set him one foot outside its walls, and he’d be lost.

That wasn’t right.

Was it?

Surely the information existed somewhere, even if it wasn’t being taught.

After History came Geography—another boring useless class—and then Natural Philosophy. And then the day’s lessons were done. Kellen headed for his locker to put away his books and then headed quickly out through the gates, his robe bundled beneath his arm, intent on finding the answers to at least some of his questions.

Though the information he sought might very well be archived within the walls of the Library of the Mage College, there was no possibility of Kellen’s getting at it there. No one below the rank of Entered Apprentice was allowed beyond the small first-floor Student Reference Library, and Entered Apprentice was a rank Kellen had yet to reach—he was still a lowly Student-Apprentice, not yet allowed to exchange his humble blue robe for one of magickal grey.

But there was more than one library in the Golden City …

Without anyone noticing, he made his way to the Great Library that stood at the center of the City, across from the Main Temple of the Light. The two buildings had been designed to complement each other: Wisdom and Knowledge marching hand in hand.

Uneasily, Kellen touched the Talisman he wore around his neck on a heavy gold chain, the golden symbol of his citizenship. Though they might wear it on a leather cord or a cotton string or a silver chain or one of gold and jewels, every citizen of Armethalieh wore the same gold rectangle, marking them as a citizen of Armethalieh. Each month you brought it to the Temple of the Light and exchanged it for a new one. You came to the Temple of the Light for your new Talisman on the moonday on which you had been born, so that everyone didn’t end up coming on the same day. Kellen had been born on the eighth day of the moon, and so, ever since his Naming, when he had received his first Talisman, he had been brought—or later, came alone—to the appropriate Temple of the Light (the main one in the City Square, of course; Lycaelon’s social consequence would admit of no less) to receive a fresh Talisman.

The ceremony was simple: the old Talisman went into one bowl, the new Talisman came out of another, was blessed by the Arch-Priest, and placed into the worshiper’s hand. As the bowls filled (or emptied) they were taken away by Deacons of the Light, and new bowls were brought.

Then you stepped aside, and someone else took your place. There were always a dozen young Deacons of the Light standing around to help make sure you could get your Talisman back onto its keeper-chain again without trouble, and to be sure you were wearing it when you left.

It had always seemed like a great deal of unnecessary fuss, when keeping the same identification Talisman until it wore out, was damaged, or was lost would surely have served the City’s purposes (so he’d once thought) just as well. He’d never questioned why—like so many things in the City, it was just the way things were, and custom was custom, not to be questioned.

But now, after what Anigrel had told him, Kellen wondered if he could ever do it again, could ever face the Light-Priest and hand over his Talisman with the same calm acceptance, knowing that when he did so he was giving up a part of himself? How could he, knowing that the Mages fed upon him, upon all the citizens of Armethalieh, as if they were no more than a herd of milk-cattle?

It was disgusting. No, worse than that. It was sick.

And worst of all, Kellen didn’t see a single thing he could do about it.

Gritting his teeth, Kellen turned away from the Temple of the Light and strode up the steps into the Great Library.

It was City Law that one copy of every book that came into the City had to be kept available here. Most people who used the Library had to go to one of the Reading Rooms, fill out a request, and wait for the books they wanted to be brought to them, but there were some advantages to being the Arch-Mage’s son. Kellen was greeted personally by the Chief Librarian, and after a few vague comments about needing to do some research—Kellen didn’t say for what, and if the Chief Librarian assumed it was for his magickal studies, well, he didn’t say anything to correct the man’s mistake—the Chief Librarian presented him with an “All Access” pass to the stacks.

Kellen hung the square silver tag around his neck so that it would be plainly visible, thanked the man politely and profusely, assured him he would remember him to his father the Arch-Mage, and made his escape into the stacks.

THIS was not the first time he’d been here—Anigrel had brought him once or twice before—but it was the first time Kellen had been here unescorted. Panels of Magelight illuminated the long shelves of books in the windowless corridors, and the faint hum of Preservation Spells, endlessly renewed, made the air sleepy and thick. Fortunately, the Great Library used the same cataloguing system as the smaller Student Reference Library at the Mage College did, so Kellen knew where to look for what he wanted.

He began with travelogues. Surely there would be some information there about the lands beyond the City.

But though he made a promising beginning—all the books in that section were marked “Do Not Circulate,” which meant they must contain something interesting—Kellen discovered to his disgust that every single one of them was fiction. Tales of travel to the moon, beneath the sea, to ridiculous wondertale kingdoms at the center of the earth. None of them had anything to do with the real world.

By the time he finished his investigations, the closing bell had rung—joined, he could hear faintly, by the echoing bells of Evensong sounding throughout the City. Kellen tucked his pass inside his tunic—he had no intention of giving it up just yet—and hurried out of the Library. He was far from finished.

BUT his experiences the following day mirrored those of the first. As soon as his lesson with Anigrel was finished, Kellen returned to the Great Library—making sure the key to the garden was safe in his pocket, this time. Now he turned his searches to books of geography, to anything with maps, and was similarly disappointed. Either the books were missing entirely from the Library’s shelves—although you really couldn’t say they were missing, when it was obvious they’d never been there in the first place—or they were obviously fantasies. And even the fantasies were marked “Do Not Circulate,” as if someone didn’t want the citizens of Armethalieh—or at least, the ones who couldn’t afford to buy books of their own—to even think about the possibility of a world beyond the City walls.

Growing more frustrated—and just a little frightened, something he wasn’t quite prepared to admit to himself—Kellen began delving into any book that might contain even a passing reference to the world outside the City walls. Each day, once his lessons were done, he returned to the Great Library—it was a safe enough destination, should Lycaelon ever discover he hadn’t actually been at home. A little odd, perhaps, but scholarship was a respectable thing for one of the Mageborn to be engaged in, and there were a lot of perfectly reasonable things Kellen could have been looking up.

As the days passed, he continued to return to the Library. Kellen consulted histories of the City, plays, popular fiction, looking for anything that even mentioned the fact that there was a whole world that didn’t stop at the Delfier Gate and the harbor mouth.

And he found nothing.

At last, after a whole sennight of fruitless searching, he set the book he’d been looking at back in its place on the shelf with a disgusted sigh. There was no point in going on. He’d spent a sennight here, and if he spent a dozen sennights, if he read every book in the Great Library cover to cover, he knew he wouldn’t find anything different.

It was as if the world stopped at the City walls, and nobody cared. At least, nobody cared so long as the strawberries and beer came in through the gates in their seasons, and they had hot water and vermin-free kitchens.

Nobody but Kellen Tavadon. Or those few people who were lucky enough to be parentless, or to have their parents disinherit them, so that they could get passage on a Selken ship out of the City.

Well, if the Library couldn’t help him, he had other resources.

He had the Wild Magic.

Kellen had done a lot more reading in his three Books while he’d been working his way through the contents of the Great Library—not only The Book of Sun, but also The Book of Moon, which explained a lot more about what he’d gone through with that first Finding Spell. He realized that he’d actually gotten off pretty easily, all things considered, and now that he’d actually done a Wild Magic spell, he understood a lot more about it than he had when he’d just been daydreaming about it during Undermage Anigrel’s lecture.

While High Magick and Wild Magic were alike in requiring a “payment” for their working, with the Wild Magic, the payment was not just the personal or group energy involved in setting the spell, but a further personal cost that could not be determined in advance. For the Wildmage, the more powerful the spell, the more likely that the price of actually getting what he wanted would require the Wildmage to act as a human agent of the Wild Magic’s “desires.”

And whatever the personal price might be, there was a good chance it wouldn’t be the same thing twice. He’d actually read that part before, but he’d been, well, careless. He’d thought that a Finding Spell was small enough to be exempt from that personal cost, but he’d obviously been wrong about that.

That led to all kinds of questions, and Kellen had no one he could possibly ask. Was the Wild Magic alive? Did it “want” things—and if so, why did it “want” things—and even more importantly, what did it want them for? How could getting a servant-girl’s kitten out of a tree be a part of anything, well, bigger? The Ars Perfidorum in his father’s library talked about how dangerous and terrible the Wild Magic was, and Kellen hadn’t really liked having his will taken away like that, but once he’d gone over the garden wall, he hadn’t felt the compulsion any longer. He’d just acted naturally, and in the end he’d gotten what he’d asked for, and been able to help someone else, too, almost by accident.

Except that this was magick, and in magick there were no accidents. So the Wild Magic had meant him to help the girl, while helping himself at the same time.

Kellen shrugged, staring at the shelves of books that hadn’t answered any of his questions, and shook his head. He didn’t understand it, but nobody had gotten hurt, and so he was willing to risk trying it again. The Library had told him nothing—but somewhere in the City someone had to have the answers he needed! All he had to do was find them.

With the Wild Magic. Finding answers was a Finding Spell, after all. How much could it cost him?

He left the Library, stopping to turn in his pass at the Chief Librarian’s office and thank the man for all his help. There’d been no classes—and no tutorial—today, so Kellen had gotten an early start at the Library. He still had most of the day before him. Plenty of time to cast a spell and see where it took him.

He spent a short time searching for a secluded place where he wouldn’t be disturbed; easy enough to find here in the center of the City on the Light’s Day. As before, the Finding Spell took him only a little time to cast. This time he wasn’t as specific: he wasn’t asking it to find a specific object, only information—about life outside the City, or, failing that, why the information couldn’t be found. The Books said that the less specific you made your goal, the lower the price that would be asked of you, and the more likely you would be to gain what you sought.

This time, when the compulsion took him, Kellen didn’t fight it, simply following where the pull led him.

He was surprised to find himself drawn down into the Artists’ Quarter, where the painters, poets, musicians, and writers of Armethalieh tended to gather. It was one of the oldest parts of the City—the streets here were narrow, with taverns, boardinghouses, printing shops, and kaffeyah-parlors all crammed in together. Music floated through the air as musicians practiced their craft or gave lessons in upper rooms, and the sharp smells of drying paint and turpentine were strong in the cool air.

I could live here, Kellen thought hopefully. He didn’t know what he could do to earn a place for himself here—he had no particular talent for the arts—and he wasn’t sure he’d fit in, but at least these people didn’t look as if they were spending their lives practicing for their own funerals and hoping to attend the funerals of their rivals first.

Distracted from the spell-geas by the color and gaiety, he slowed down to peer into a shop filled with colorful pottery, but the pull of the spell drew him onward, and Kellen reluctantly obeyed, promising himself to return another time.

Urged onward, he turned a corner, then another, and found himself on a quiet back street with fewer shops and more houses. This street wasn’t as well kept up as the others he’d gone down, and large grey creatures scurried out of his way as he approached.

Ugh. Rats.

At last he felt the compulsion to move on lift as he reached the end of a dead-end street. He looked around. He was on a narrow street of shabby two-story brick houses that had seen better days. The City services that kept the better quarters of the City clean and orderly were less in evidence here—such services cost money beyond the house tax that paid for the City Watch and for the spells that kept house fires from spreading out of control, and those who lived in places like these rarely had the ready coin to pay for them.

A scent of brackish water and rotting garbage assailed his nostrils, and he traced it to an old cistern in an empty corner lot beside one of the houses. Once it might have been used to catch rainwater, or even have been used as a communal well, but now it was choked with garbage and trash, and was obviously a clubhouse for the local rats.

Kellen felt a sensation inside himself as if a key had turned in a lock, and realized exactly what he had to do. He didn’t understand how cleaning the cistern out and filling it in with clean dirt would lead him to the information he sought, but he had no doubt that this was the price the Wild Magic wanted him to pay.

And me in my good clothes, he thought with a sigh.

He stripped off his tunic and undertunic, folding them carefully and setting them to one side, and got to work. He couldn’t finish this task in a day, and he’d be sure to bring tools and wear more suitable clothes when he returned tomorrow. But the Wild Magic had brought him here, so he’d better start now.

Hesitantly, Kellen approached the cistern.

“YOU! Boy! What are you doing there!”

Kellen had become so involved in his task—he’d started by dragging away the heavy boards that were balanced precariously at the top of the trash heap that covered the cistern, and when he’d pulled the first of them loose, several rats had bolted out of the cistern, squeaking angrily as they ran—that the shout took him entirely by surprise. He dropped the board he was holding (narrowly missing his own foot) and turned in the direction of the voice.

A man in a yellow tunic—he had the look, but hardly the manner, of one of the Mageborn—was leaning out the side window of the house, staring at him in surprise. Kellen stared back for a long moment before realizing he really needed to come up with an explanation. A good explanation. One that didn’t involve the Wild Magic.

“I’m, uh, cleaning out your cistern, goodsir. It’s full of garbage, you see, and, well, there are rats …”

“I know there are rats! Their squeaking keeps me up half the night—but will the Council do anything about it? No! They say it isn’t on public property, so it isn’t their responsibility! You’re not from the Council, are you?”

“Me? No, I’m just … me,” Kellen said. “But I really want to clean it out,” he added hastily.

The man in the window stared at him for a long moment, as if attempting to judge just exactly how crazy Kellen was. “You ought to have work gloves,” he said after a moment. “Wait there.”

He withdrew from the window, leaving Kellen staring after him, wondering what he ought to do. After less than a tenth-chime, the man returned with a pair of heavy leather work gloves in his hand.

“I knew I still had these somewhere. Mind you put them back on the front step when you’re finished for the day.”

He tossed them out the window. They landed at Kellen’s feet.

“Yes, goodsir,” Kellen said meekly. “Ah, goodsir? I’m going to have to come back tomorrow. And maybe for a few days. To finish.”

“Well, see that you don’t come too early,” the man said, and closed the window firmly.

Well, he’s an odd one, Kellen thought to himself, going to pick up the gloves. They were a little small, but he was able to force his hands into them. They made the work go a lot easier, and he was careful to leave them just where the man had said when he’d done all he could for the day.

I wonder who he is? Kellen thought as he left.

THE next day Kellen came back just after Second Morning Bells wearing his oldest clothes, with a pick and shovel and some burlap bags he’d taken from the gardener’s hut at the bottom of his garden. Even a garden that was home to nothing but gravel required constant tending, Kellen had discovered, and the tools were going to come in handy.

The gloves were where he’d left them the night before, and he put them on and set to work.

As Kellen dug, he sorted his “finds” as best he could—rotting garbage (which went into the bags), clean garbage (broken pottery, small bits of wood or bone), which he could use when he filled in the cistern again, and large unidentifiable things, which would have to be hauled away somehow, unless he could manage to break them up into small pieces with the pick or shovel. It was hot, dirty work that kept him stooped over, and he didn’t dare step down into the cistern to work from there. Not yet, anyway. He had no idea how deep it went, and even though he was now wearing heavy work boots, he had no desire to slice his foot open on a piece of rusty metal or glass that had been steeped in rotting garbage.

It certainly explained why the cistern hadn’t been cleaned out before now. If the Council wouldn’t pay to have it done because it lay on private land, the land’s owner would have to pay someone privately to do it, and Kellen could hardly begin to imagine how much someone would charge to do this work. A lot, probably. More than someone down here had, almost certainly.

At least most of the big stuff seemed to be near the top, where he could hook it with the pick and drag it up.

“You! Boy!”

Kellen heaved his latest “find”—a tangled mass of bailing wire—to the edge of the cistern, and looked toward the house. The man who had given him the gloves the day before was looking out the window at him again. This time the tunic was red, its sleeves spotted with old ink stains.

“Yes, goodsir?” Kellen said politely. He assumed the man was a “goodsir,” and not a “gentlesir,” for all his aristocratic looks. It was not unknown for Mageblood to appear elsewhere in the City—that was where lowborn Mages came from, according to Mage Hendassar. Perhaps this man’s sire or grandsire had been a Mage on the wrong side of the blanket. It did happen, though hardly as often as the wondertales claimed.

“I suppose you’re going to dig all day?” the man said.

“Yes, goodsir, I think I am,” Kellen said, glancing down at the cistern. With the largest of the objects removed, he could now see that the cistern—a stone circle about six feet across—was full of an inky black sludge starting about three feet below its lip. Kellen had no idea how far down it went.

“And I suppose you didn’t bring any lunch with you?” the man asked waspishly.

“No, goodsir,” Kellen admitted sheepishly. He’d forgotten about that until just now.

“Well, come around to the back of the house, then.” The man withdrew and the window was shut once more.

Kellen gazed at the closed window for a moment, then meekly did as the man said, picking up his discarded tunic—one of his most disreputable—on the way. The man was waiting at the door with a tin bucket and a towel.

“Rinse yourself off and come in. You’ve done a good day’s work so far; I won’t have you fainting dead away from hunger before you finish.”

Kellen took the bucket and stepped back to pour its contents over his head and shoulders. The icy shock made him gasp, and he shook his head, toweling his head and chest quickly dry before slipping into his tunic. He followed the man inside, setting the bucket and the damp towel down just inside the door.

“Come—come!” his host urged, more cordially now, and Kellen passed through the kitchen into the room beyond.

It was a parlor, dominated by a large table covered with a white cloth upon which had been set a sizable plain luncheon. His host was seated at the head of the table, and gestured for Kellen to sit beside him.

“My boots—” Kellen began, stopping at the edge of the rug.

“It’s only a little mud,” his host said graciously, “and my girl hasn’t enough to do just looking after me. My name is Perulan. And yours?”

“Kellen,” Kellen said, sitting as he’d been bid. Perulan poured him a large beaker of cider, and Kellen drained it thirstily, then, at Perulan’s urging, poured himself another, of water this time. He’d gotten very thirsty digging outdoors all morning.

The servant-girl Perulan had mentioned a moment before entered, carrying a large china tureen of soup, and for a while there was silence while Kellen satisfied the hunger honed by several bells of hard labor. There was hot thick vegetable soup, hefty slices of cold mutton, large chunks of golden cheese, and thick slices of warm bread with fresh butter. Perulan watched him eat, a faint approving smile on his face, but restricted himself to no more than his soup and a little cider.

“So, Master Kellen,” he said when Kellen had slowed down a little, “what do you do when you aren’t cleaning out cisterns for … former … writers?”

“You’re that Perulan?” Kellen asked without thinking. He suddenly wished he’d curbed his tongue, for the older man winced, as if Kellen had spoken of something very painful. “I mean, I’m a Student, Gentlesir Perulan,” he said hastily, trying to remember if it should be “gentlesir,” “noblesir,” or “lord.” “I study.”

“Just ‘Perulan’ if you please, Master Kellen. My family has disowned me long since, and I have no patience with empty honorifics, nor do they have any place between friends. As for study … it can be a broadening thing, if a bit dangerous,” Perulan said. “You must be careful in your studies, Master Kellen. You might learn things you didn’t wish to discover.”

“I know,” Kellen said, sighing. “Look, I was wondering if you could tell me … do you know how deep that cistern is?”

Perulan had obviously been expecting him to ask something else: his face first showed surprise, then relief. “I believe it goes down about ten feet. Certainly not much deeper.”

“And … do you know if it feeds into a spring? Or is it solid at the bottom?”

Perulan smiled. “Quite solid, young Kellen. When I was a young man, and first bought this house, that cistern was still empty. I recall making plans to turn it into a fish pond, or something of the like, but those plans, like so many others I made as a young man, came to naught. But I think it best if you fill it in now, or people will simply come and throw more garbage into it.”

“That’s what I plan to do,” Kellen said, relieved to have Perulan fall in so easily with his own plans. “It needs doing.”

AFTER lunch, he worked for a few bells more, marking time by the distant echo of the carillons that sounded faintly over the roofs of the City, for the nearest bell tower was several streets away, and had not paid its bell tax in some time. He would have continued working far longer, but Perulan called him back into the house and insisted on giving him tea before sending him home for the day. It occurred to Kellen that the old man must be lonely, and he wondered if Perulan might be the source of information the Wild Magic had sent him to.

He wondered about that all the next day as well, while shoveling smelly black muck out of the cistern. From somewhere, Perulan had provided a bucket and wheelbarrow for his use: Kellen would fill the bucket, use it to fill the barrow, wheel the barrow to the back of the lot, and dump the contents into an ever-growing, stinking pile. Maybe the sun would dry the sludge out into something he could use. Maybe he could dig it into the ground and bury it when he dug up fresh earth to fill in the cistern.

As he worked, he wondered if it would be just too cold-blooded to ask Perulan what he wanted to know about the City and the lands beyond. He liked Perulan, and he didn’t want to make trouble for him, and Kellen had already come to realize that there were some questions meant never to be asked—or answered.

But even without asking outright, Kellen found out some things that, just as Perulan had warned, he would have been happier not knowing.

“SO you’re from a Mage family, young Kellen?” Perulan asked. “I would not have thought it. You haven’t the look, as you are no doubt long tired of hearing.”

Kellen choked on his lunchtime cider, managing (with an effort) to swallow decorously. “But how did you know?” he asked when he was able.

“Come come, young sir. A writer must be observant, and I was born into a Mage-family myself, as you are certainly aware. While you have a talent for hard labor, you’re no laborer, and a member of a Trade family would be hard at his apprenticeship at your age. What does that leave?”

“Mages,” Kellen said bitterly.

Perulan raised his eyebrows and smiled faintly.

“Ah, speak softly of our beloved rulers—or else they’ll find what you love best and cherish most, and turn it to ash before your very eyes.”

Kellen stared at him.

“I’m Perulan the Writer, as you know—only Perulan the Writer’s last and greatest work was denied a publication license, and so it was destroyed by the High Council before his very eyes. For the good of the City, of course. It is always for the good of the City.” The smile faded, and Perulan stared bleakly off into space, contemplating something Kellen couldn’t see.

“Do you think it really is?” Kellen asked before he could stop himself. “How can they know? Aren’t they just trying to—well—make all of us quiet and fat and not think, just so we’ll want to keep things as they are, like them? So we won’t want to even think about leaving the City? But the City isn’t the only place in the world!”

“No,” Perulan agreed. “There are other places—across the sea, across the forest—and they do things very differently there. To be different is not to be wrong, or even inferior. Only … different.”

“Can you—” Kellen said, and stopped himself.

“Can I tell you about them?” Perulan asked. “Yes, and perhaps I will, if you are certain that is what you wish. But not now. Think about whether you really want to know, Kellen-of-a-Mage family, and ask me again. Perhaps you will come to dinner, and we will talk, once you have finished with my cistern.”

IT was the backbreaking work of several more days, but at last Kellen had dug down to bare stone, and then filled in the cistern again. From somewhere a load of old brick appeared to greet him one morning, and on another day, an iron-bound cistern cover cut to size—Perulan’s doing, Kellen supposed. Kellen tumbled the bricks into the hole, layering them in with fresh-dug clean dirt from the lot and stamping on each layer to pack it tight as he put it in. He buried the muck and trash he’d dug out of the cistern in the hole he’d dug to get the fill dirt, and stacked the bigger pieces of trash to be hauled away.

Last of all, he used the back of the shovel to bang the heavy wooden stakes that would hold the cover in place into the dirt around the edges of the cistern, then stepped back to admire his work.

No more rats, no more garbage, no more stink.

He was done.

“Excellent work, young Kellen,” Perulan said. The older man came to stand beside him, gazing down at the cistern cover. It was the first time Kellen had seen Perulan leave his house. “I suppose now that your task is done, our fair neighborhood will no longer be graced with your presence?”

“I …” In truth, Kellen hadn’t thought much past getting the cistern filled in.

“No matter,” Perulan said graciously. “I think I shall not be here much longer myself. And now, the time grows late. Would you care to join me in my evening meal?”

Looking around, only now did Kellen realize that he had grown so engrossed in his task that he had not even heard the sound of Evensong Bells. In fact, he had stayed later at Perulan’s house than ever before. The sun was westering, and it was already almost too dark to see. But his father wouldn’t be home yet—and even if he was, what would it matter? Whether Kellen tried to do what Lycaelon wanted or not, the end result was the same: these days, it seemed, they always ended up arguing.

“Sure. I mean, I’d like that, gentlesir.”

Dinner was a more elaborate meal than the lunches Kellen had enjoyed at Perulan’s house, with a large hot meat pie brought from the local cookshop, roast fowl and potatoes prepared by Perulan’s all-but-invisible maidservant, baked apples roasted on the hearth, and candied fruits and wine to follow.

The parlor was mellow in the golden light cast by the fat white candles in the fixture hanging over the table, and warmth radiated from the tiled hearth tucked into one corner.

“You asked me once what I knew of the world outside the City,” Perulan said when the servant had cleared away the dishes and retired to the kitchen. “Would it surprise you to know that when I was a young man, I had a correspondence with, well, let us call them Folk From Away?”

Kellen stared at him, a piece of candied ginger halfway to his lips. “But how? That’s not possible!” he stammered.

“Not quite impossible, merely difficult, my young Student. The Selken-folk smuggled my letters out, and smuggled my correspondents’ replies back in. It can be done, with trust, and for a price—the Selken-folk have no love for the Mage Council, and are happy to trick them if they can. And I was young and adventurous—just as you are now—and wanted to know everything about the world and all it contains.

“But—alas!—then I grew famous, and well regarded, and had more to lose than when I was a hungry young struggling writer. I thought of that and became cowardly. I stopped writing to my friends across the sea because I feared the risk of discovery.”

Perulan stopped, and took a long drink from his wine cup, staring down into it broodingly. “But now … I no longer have anything to lose. Now, I think, I will pay my Selken friends to smuggle me away. It will hurt to leave Armethalieh, but if I cannot write the books I want to write, I might as well be dead, and in the face of death, exile holds no terrors.”

“But—But—Why can’t you just go live in the country if you don’t like the City anymore?” Kellen asked, floundering to accept this torrent of new ideas. It was one thing to see someone leave, to dream of leaving himself, but to actually talk to someone about leaving …

Perulan smiled sadly, shaking his head.

“My dear young Kellen, have you ever heard of anyone who did? The villages exist to serve the City with their crops and their taxes and their labor, as much our beasts of burden as the horses who pull our carts. Citizens and villagers don’t mix and never have, despite the foolish fables I have written. If I were to go out into the villages, the villagers would know me for a citizen and hate me for it—and for the hope of reward, cheerfully turn me over to the Council’s soldiery to be returned to the City. No. If I am to leave, I must leave Armethalieh entirely: leave the City and all its lands.”

“But couldn’t you just go openly?” Kellen asked. It was true that he’d never heard of anyone doing that, but surely some people …

He realized that, deep down inside, even though he had imagined leaving, buried in that daydream had been the surety of coming back someday. As much as he hated the restrictions Armethalieh placed upon its citizens, hated the thought of living the life his father had planned out for him, the City was the only home he had ever known.

Perulan laughed bitterly and patted his hand. “Dear boy! I forget how young you are! I assure you: the Council would never let someone go forth to bear tales to ‘unknown enemies.’ No, Armethalieh the Golden hoards her treasures—and her people—for always. But I hope, if the Light is kind, that there may be a way for one of her Golden Children to escape her …”

Kellen turned his head, distracted by a flicker of movement at the kitchen door. But when he looked, there was no one there.

“But how?” he asked, turning back and forgetting the momentary distraction. “If the Council won’t let you go—?”

“It is best that I tell you nothing more. What you do not know, you cannot reveal, even under Truthspell, and more lives than mine are at risk upon this venture. But though we may see one another again, I think it best if we say our true good-byes now. I have enjoyed our friendship, Kellen, and allow me to offer you one last piece of advice: if you ever think to leave Armethalieh the Golden, go quickly, go far, and trust none of her citizens with your intentions.”

“I won’t,” Kellen said, getting to his feet. “Good-bye, sir. May the Light go with you.”

“And with you,” Perulan said gravely.

IT was nearly midnight when Kellen reached home, for he had gone slowly, his thoughts full of his conversation with Perulan. To leave the City! It was one thing to stow away on a ship as a young man of Kellen’s age, like the fellow he’d seen down at the docks. But for someone as important, as well connected, as Perulan to be contemplating it …

Where did they go, the ones who successfully escaped Armethalieh’s golden chains of privilege? What other lands did the Selken ships trade with? What was beyond the Delfier Forest, beyond the City lands whose farms fed the City?

The Council didn’t want anyone to know.

Why not? What was so bad about them? And if the places over the Sea and Beyond the Forest were so bad, why did Armethalieh trade with those places? Yet they did: by ship and trading caravan both.

It didn’t make sense.

Nothing made sense.

The house was dark when he eased open the unlocked garden gate, carefully locking it again behind him in case someone should check in the morning. This was no time to rouse the servants. He’d remembered to bring the pick and shovel with him, and groped his way down to the gardener’s cottage to put them away. He didn’t think they’d been missed in the last sennight, and as long as they were back now, there shouldn’t be any trouble about them having been gone in the first place.

Mission accomplished, Kellen headed up to the house. He’d better find some way to get rid of the clothes he’d been wearing all this time as well—even if he washed them, he didn’t think they’d pass muster as something suitable for a son of the House of Tavadon.

HE knew something was wrong the moment he came through the servants’ quarters into the main part of the house—knew without having any way to forestall whatever disaster was to come. All he could do was just walk right into it, and hope the consequences weren’t too terrible.

“Don’t you know that people talk?”

His father came out of his first-floor study—just like an adder out of its hole, Kellen thought unkindly—just as Kellen entered the reception chamber. Kellen froze, his hand on the panel of white marble that led to his staircase, then turned back to face his father. Lycaelon was standing in the doorway of the study, backlit by the yellow glow of candles.

“Why is it, do you suppose, that you have plenty of time to spend digging ditches and wallowing in muck but not one moment to attend to your studies?” Lycaelon asked him, in the same voice Kellen’s professors used when they asked him a question they didn’t really want an answer to.

Kellen stared at his father in dawning horror. He’d been so focused—obsessed, really—with getting the cistern cleared, with paying the price the Wild Magic asked, that it hadn’t occurred to him until this moment that he’d simply disappeared for a sennight—cut his regular lessons at the Mage College, missed his private sessions with Undermage Anigrel, everything! What could he possibly say?

“I was busy,” he muttered. “I’ll do better, I promise.” He winced inwardly at the sound of his own words, knowing they were a feeble and inadequate defense.

“You’ll forgive me, Kellen, if I don’t think your promises are worth very much. Promises, excuses—all they are is evasions—evasions of your duties and responsibilities! All you care about is yourself and your own pleasures,” Lycaelon answered scornfully.

“That’s not true! You think cleaning out a clogged cistern is a pleasure? It wasn’t—but at least it helped someone, and it was more constructive than sitting around repeating sigils that I’ve done a hundred times already and listening to useless lectures! You don’t know me—you don’t know who I am or what I think about!” Kellen burst out angrily.

“ ‘Think’?”

He should have known better than to try to justify what he’d done.

Lycaelon obviously wasn’t listening. He’d probably been planning his little lecture for bells now, and he was going to deliver it intact no matter what Kellen said to him.

“ ‘Think’? I don’t believe you think at all. You certainly don’t act as if you do. Don’t you know that people see you—and talk? Don’t you know that everything you do reflects on my position? Don’t you know that you have a tradition to live up to?”

Every time he tried to talk to his father, it always came back to this: duties, responsibilities, behave like a good little Tavadon-golem to make everything easy for the great and powerful Arch-Mage! It was all about Lycaelon Tavadon, and nothing about Kellen!

“Don’t you think,” Kellen shot back, angrily mimicking his father’s tone, “that if you care so much about things like that you’d be better off not having a son at all? Or why don’t you just make a son with magick, so you can get one that’s exactly what you want?” He turned away, opened the panel, and ran up the stairs, ignoring his father’s angry shouts to return.

Kellen slammed the door to his room behind him and leaned against it, half afraid—and half hopeful—that his father would come after him. Why couldn’t they ever just talk? He knew his father only wanted the best for him, just as Lycaelon wanted the best for the City, but for the past few years, ever since Kellen had started studying the High Magick when he turned fourteen, it seemed they couldn’t even say “good morning” without arguing about Kellen’s behavior.

Not that Kellen had many opportunities to say “good morning” to his father. For as long as he could remember, Lycaelon Tavadon had been Arch-Mage of Armethalieh, spending more bells at the Council House than he did in his own home. Kellen had been raised by a succession of servants, each staying for a few years before moving on. He saw more of Undermage Anigrel than he did of his own father!

When it became clear that once again Lycaelon was not going to pursue the matter, Kellen sighed and moved away from the door. He stripped off his dirty, sweaty clothing, and gave himself an unsatisfactory sponge bath from the bowl and pitcher that stood on his night table. At least he’d gotten a good dinner at Perulan’s.

It was while he was pulling his nightshirt on over his head that it occurred to him Lycaelon must have known more or less where he’d been all week—that crack about “digging ditches” had been pretty close to the mark, after all.

He frowned for a moment, and then his brow cleared. Well, Perulan had known he was from a Mage family, and had probably just been too polite to admit he knew which one. Gossip was gossip, after all, and gossip was the one thing that could run through the streets of the City of a Thousand Bells faster than a Mage-spell. Probably someone had mentioned to someone else that he was down there, and it had gotten back to his father somehow.

Mystery solved to his satisfaction, Kellen flung himself down on his bed and slept.

Chapter Seven

Magic Unmasked

THE EARLY MORNING sunlight woke him only a few bells later, and the music of First Morning Bells echoing through the City told him just how early it was. For a moment Kellen contemplated just pulling the covers over his head and going back to sleep, but with a deep sigh, he changed his mind. He was going to prove to his father that he wasn’t the self-seeking irresponsible wilding Lycaelon seemed to think he was. He’d get up and go off to the precinct for his morning lesson with Undermage Anigrel—and get there early for once! He’d even let the Undermage bore him silly with all the dustiest cantrips in all the High Magick repertoire without a single yawn of complaint. He’d apply himself to his studies, he’d pay attention …

And maybe—just once—his father would admit he was proud of him.

For once, Kellen paid attention to his clothes, dressing with particular care in his best green velvet day-tunic and cream linen undertunic, a new pair of low kidskin City boots, and a pair of fawn trousers so form-fitting they were almost hose. He added his usual belt, and after a moment’s thought, added two items he’d never worn before, an elaborately ornamented pencase and matching coinpouch—Naming Day gifts from his father, never worn until now. He transferred some personal items from his old pouch and case to the new one—his pens and knife, some small money, the unicorn knife-rest that he carried as a luck-piece—ran a comb through his unruly hair, glanced at the result in the mirror, and sighed. Time for another haircut, he supposed. Well, Father would have nothing to complain of in his clothes, at least.

Kellen’s hopeful mood lasted until he reached the kitchens. Though breakfast would have been laid out in the sunny morning parlor for his father, Kellen was usually up too late for it, and made a habit of picking over the remains of the dishes after they’d been returned to the kitchen. The servants turned a blind eye to this particular intrusion into their domain, as it made less work for them than setting out a second breakfast service would, something Kellen would be well within his rights to demand. And as such a demand would reflect directly upon Lycaelon’s own consequence as master of Tavadon House, it would have been enforced, unlike so many of Kellen’s other wishes.

Seeing the butler’s sideboard empty, Kellen realized that for once he was too early for leftovers and was about to retreat when he heard the servants talking around the corner.

“—such a shame about that poor man! And him a writer! Criminal, it was.”

He wasn’t sure who was speaking; thanks to Lycaelon’s efforts, Kellen had only the vaguest notions of the size and composition of the household staff. He heard the clink of cups and plates, and knew that the upper servants must be having their breakfast during this lull in the day’s activities; he knew that the servants ate before their masters. Kellen pulled back farther into the shadows, out of sight—but not out of earshot—of the gossiping servants.

“Drowned at midnight. It’s like something out of a play,” a woman said, sounding pleased.

“Well, what I want to know is, what was Lord Perulan doing down at the docks at midnight? Nothing decent—you may take that from me.” Kellen recognized the voice of the house’s butler.

Perulan—dead? The servants were unlikely to be misinformed—houseservant gossip was generally a fast and reliable source of information about everything that went on in the City.

And he knew, he knew, that this was no coincidence.

It’s my fault.

Every time he used those three Books of the Wild Magic, every time he cast a spell, something happened that just seemed to make Kellen’s life darker and more uncertain. If he’d never met Perulan, never talked to Perulan, maybe the writer would have gotten over his loss. Maybe he would have decided it was worth writing again, and gone back to his wondertales. He would have stayed safe in his little house, and not gone down to the docks for a reason Kellen could well guess. And he’d still be alive.

That does it. That’s it. I’m never, ever casting another Wild Magic spell!

He turned to leave the kitchen, but the thought of running into his father somewhere in the house stopped him. If he saw Lycaelon now, Kellen knew, he’d only say something unforgiveable. His father would never understand what it was about Perulan’s death that upset him so.

You burned his book—and he killed himself!

No. He couldn’t say that to his father. His father had only been doing his job.

I have to get out of here. I have to calm down. I have to think.

Almost running, Kellen hurried through the kitchen, past the startled servants, out through the garden, and out through the garden gate into the street.

IN the sunny breakfast parlor, Arch-Mage Lycaelon Tavadon sat over his morning tea, wondering, without any real expectation that it would come to pass, if his errant son would come to join him at the morning meal.

He should have dealt with the boy firmly last night, but there had been no time. He had been needed at the Council House to oversee the Working, and once it was over, had spent the rest of a long sleepless night brooding over the current problem before the Council. And now Kellen was lying abed as usual. Just as well, Lycaelon supposed, for he had much to occupy his mind this day.

At dawn, a messenger had come to let him know that the Working in the matter of the writer Perulan had run its course. Just as Volpiril had suggested, a spy had been set in Perulan’s house the very day Perulan had come before the Council. A serving-girl; men of Perulan’s sort never took any notice of what their servants did, and the girl had been able to listen and hear much in the days that followed. She had been able to inform the Council that Perulan meant to flee the City; to escape by ship through the help of contacts cultivated in former years. The Council had been given no choice but to act.

To give water form and then life was a difficult business, requiring both great skill and great power, but the High Council of Armethalieh possessed both in abundance. They had sent a water golem to follow Perulan once he reached the docks, to make sure he never spoke with any of the Selken captains … or indeed with anyone else, ever again.

Once it had completed that grisly task, it had left Perulan’s body where it was sure to be found, for if Perulan were simply to vanish, there were sure to be others infected with his sickness who would believe he had managed to successfully escape. And that could not be allowed.

No one escaped from Armethalieh. Even those few fools who managed to bribe the Selken-folk to smuggle them out—and Lycaelon knew that there were a few such reckless and determined folk, every year—would mysteriously sicken and die within a few moonturns, at the very most, after they had passed beyond the magickal barrier at the edge of the harbor. The spell was a simple one, renewed each moonturn at the same time their power was harvested through the exchange of the City Talisman each citizen wore about his or her neck.

And should anyone be rash enough to try to flee overland—a far more difficult proposition to keep secret—there was no need for a similar spell upon the Western Gates. The farmers in the surrounding villages well knew the terrible price of doing aught but holding such a fugitive prisoner to face the City’s swift justice. Escape by land was even less possible than escape by sea.

No, Armethalieh’s greatest treasure—her citizens—were hers and hers alone. Hers to keep. Forever.

But with all his heart, Lycaelon wished there had been some other way than the unpleasant course of action he had been forced to permit. Why couldn’t Perulan have taken the opportunities the Council had given him to live out his days in peace and happiness here among folk who loved and understood him? Armethalieh was the best place in the world, his home, filled with people who cared for him. Even at the last, his family would have willingly taken him back. The loss of a single book was no great matter—he should have looked upon the experience for what it was, a necessary correction to his thinking, a lesson in responsibility! Then he could have returned to penning the bucolic tales that were the proper exercise of his talent!

But instead of seeking healing, Perulan had hugged the sickness of his despair to himself like an addiction and let it destroy him. He’d turned away from everything good, becoming a danger to himself and to others—like a mad dog. And like a mad dog, finally Perulan had to be put down for the good of the City.

And Kellen had been with Perulan in the last sennight of his life. Only Lycaelon’s influence had kept Kellen from being brought immediately before the Council to be questioned about his knowledge of Perulan’s intentions, and that only because Lycaelon promised to handle the matter himself. But influence—even the influence of the Arch-Mage of Armethalieh—could only extend so far. It would be a grave transgression of the oaths he had sworn in defense of the City for Lycaelon to blind himself to evil beneath his own roof out of misplaced familial loyalty.

That, as much as anything else, had kept him from acting last night, dearly though he had wished to strike the boy down for his unthinking insolence. He owed House Tavadon better than that. He must be strong. He must be clear-sighted and calm. It was his duty—both as a father, and as Arch-Mage—to consider the matter carefully before he acted.

Was Kellen going down the same dark road of anarchy and chaos that Perulan had? The boy was young yet, but it was also true that Kellen’s behavior had become increasingly erratic and disrespectful of late—not only to his father, but to his tutor, and to others, highly placed and deserving of his respect and deference, as well.

I have given him every advantage—every warning—and it has done no good! Lycaelon thought; his sense of anguish tempered by his sense that justice needed to be dispensed, regardless of whom it fell upon.

In fact, rather than seeing the error of his ways and moderating his wild, improper behavior, Kellen only grew worse—actively seeking out Perulan only a few days after the writer had been censured by the Council, constantly wandering the streets of Low Town (to meet with who-knewwhat other disreputable elements of society?), neglecting his studies in a fashion that showed his utter contempt for the Armethaliehan way of life. The boy seemed intent on rejecting everything about his upbringing—for surely, if Kellen felt he could not confide in his father or his magickal tutor, he would at least seek counseling from a Priest of the Light?

But Lycaelon had made inquiries among the Priesthood, and none of them reported speaking with his son.

There must be a reason!

All of Lycaelon’s life was built on a foundation of reason, and truth, and Law. If Kellen was behaving in this heretical fashion, there must be a reason for it. Lycaelon would make one last attempt to discover what it was before resorting to stronger measures.

Kellen would certainly still be in his bed at this bell. He would go, rouse the boy out of bed, and get to the bottom of this once and for all, for both their sakes.

And for the good of the City.

BUT when Lycaelon reached Kellen’s room, Kellen was already gone. Lycaelon stood for a moment in the middle of the teenaged disorder—Kellen having forbidden the servants access to his rooms a year and more before—and stared at the empty bed, pondering what to do.

Surely, if there was a clue to the soul-sickness that had befallen his son, it would be here.

Hesitantly, and then with increasing fervor, Lycaelon searched his son’s room. Though he was thorough, opening every drawer, shuffling through every paper and book, he found nothing inappropriate, and after a tenth-chime of searching Lycaelon realized that this was only a sign that things were worse than he thought. No rude, high-spirited young man slowly turning bad—like Kellen Tavadon—left no signs of the cause of his dissipation! Where was the stash of brandy bottles; the hidden box of dream-smoke herb so beloved of the laboring classes; the stash of gambling winnings or record of debts; the bundle of perfumed love letters from some cozening lowborn female looking to snare a Mageborn son? Something was at the root of Kellen’s increasingly antisocial behavior, and if the boy was taking such pains to hide it, that something must be very bad indeed—worse than anything Lycaelon had thought of so far. Kellen’s room had been his own as a boy, and Lycaelon was familiar with its “secret hiding places,” but so far, every hiding place he’d found was empty, or obviously hadn’t been used for years, containing such outgrown boyish treasures as dried frogs and old birds’ nests crumbling away to dust.

At last Lycaelon did as he knew he ought to have done from the first. He called upon the power stored in his Arch-Mage’s Talisman and cast the strongest Illusion-Dispelling Spell he knew, one that would counter every form of magic designed to conceal or misdirect, one that would bring all hidden things to light.

He spoke the Word that held the whole of the spell in concentrated form, and for a moment Time itself seemed to slow, as the ripples of the spell spread outward from Lycaelon, washing over every object within its radius, making the outlines of every object appear momentarily sharper and more real. When the spell settled, Lycaelon looked around.

The old bookshelf, filled with ancient tattered picture books from Kellen’s nursery days, drew his attention strongly. With a sinking heart, he went to it and riffled through the volumes there one more time. Tucked casually in among the outworn relics of childhood were three small books.

Filled with dread—knowing already what he would find—Lycaelon reached out and picked them up. He knew them by reputation, knew of their unclean glamouries that kept all but their intended victim from seeing their true nature, and kept even that victim from seeing his danger until far too late.

The Book of Moon.

The Book of Sun.

The Book of Stars.

Lycaelon felt his heart swell with grief and fury. This was far beyond anything a father, no matter how indulgent, could overlook or ignore. He must bring these Books before the Council at once, and tell his brother Mages all.

For the good of the City.

THIS was, bar none, the most soothing and engrossing class of Kellen’s studies. Maths … he thought with a feeling of comfort as he settled into his seat.

He was on time; the rest were late, and took their places with an air of resignation. Most of Kellen’s fellow Students hated Maths. At one point, Kellen had, too. It had seemed only one more set of things to learn by rote for no reason. But that was before the lessons progressed beyond simple Maths to the elegance of geometry.

Here, as nowhere else, he found something that made absolute sense, followed clear rules, where A plus B always equaled C and the equation could be applied to the ordinary world; a science that described the visible world and could be used to do things. Useful things.

It was the one class he seldom skipped. And, as was all too often the case in his life, it was the one class that was held only once a fortnight. The instructor was the least-regarded Mage in the entire Mage College; an old, old man, an Undermage all of his life, an Undermage still, who would die an Undermage. His robes were plain and uncared for, and though clean, were threadbare about the hem; his eyes were distant and a little sad beneath his heavy white brows. There was a dispirited air about him, a sense that he had given up long ago, and was merely marking time here, teaching the one thing he knew well to Students and Apprentices who did not value it, until the Council would permit him to retire to a little set of rooms somewhere.

And die.

Not that anyone would ever notice. Possibly the old Mage himself might not notice.

But he was very good at teaching Maths. It probably was the only thing he was good at. And even if Lycaelon wasn’t impressed by Kellen’s high marks in the subject, the old man seemed to revive just a little whenever his eyes fell on his prize pupil.

Kellen had thrown himself into work on the hardest problem they’d ever been set the moment he had arrived in class—because while he was working on the pure rightness of the puzzle, he didn’t have to think about anything that had been happening to him. He could forget his father, forget the Wild Magic and the three Books, forget what had happened to poor Perulan. Everything between the covers of his workbook was a matter of figures, line, and angle, and there was only ever one right answer.

But his concentration was interrupted when he was only halfway through the complex calculation by a heavy hand falling on his shoulder.

Startled, he looked up, for the old Mage had never gripped his shoulder like that before.

It wasn’t his instructor.

The burly, sallow-faced fellow in the uniform tabard of a servant of the Council looked down at him with an unreadable face.

Kellen clamped down on his jolt of fear.

It wasn’t just the lack of expression in the man’s face that made him unreadable, it was the feeling that this man had only a trifle more life and thought in him than one of the Council’s stone golems …

“Kellen Tavadon?” the man asked, completely without inflection except for the slight rise at the end of the two words that made it a question instead of a statement.

Kellen wondered what the man would do if he denied being himself; considered doing just that for one fleeting moment, then nodded, reluctantly.

“You are summoned to attend the High Council at the third bell of afternoon.”

By now the rest of his class was staring at him—and at the stony-faced apparition that had delivered the Council’s message. It was the most attention he’d gotten from his fellow Students in moonturns. Some of them were whispering to each other. The poor old Mage just looked confused.

“The third bell,” the man repeated.

“I—understand,” Kellen managed to say.

A cold hand closed around his heart, and a cold finger traced its way down his spine. The Council! This could only be Lycaelon’s work. So he was to be punished for last night’s rebellion after all.

“The third bell.” With a thud, the messenger let fall something on Kellen’s workbook. Kellen picked it up; it was a heavy brass plate engraved with the Council sigil, the sign that he had been called before them. Having said his piece and delivered his burden, the Council’s retainer turned on his heel and left. Kellen picked up the little brass plate and shoved it into his pocket, then tried to go back to his Maths problem, but he had completely lost the ability to concentrate.

What do they want? Surely my having an argument with Father is no matter for the Council?

Unless Father makes it one …

The rest of the members of the class murmured to each other as he bent his head over his paper.

The sound of the voices, though—there was nothing in their tone to warn him that they had any notion why he was being summoned.

But he did. Oh, yes, he did. He just didn’t want to even consider it.

But he had to; even if you were the Arch-Mage of Armethalieh, you didn’t hail your son in front of the High Council just to deliver a lecture on filial duty. Besides, for Lycaelon that would be tantamount to admitting that he was a failure at bringing his offspring to heel, and Lycaelon could not bear admit he was a failure at anything.

No, there was only one thing that Kellen could think of that would cause the High Council to haul him in for a confrontation.

Wild Magic.

The Books.

Father found the Books.

After all, Lycaelon had known he’d been talking to Perulan, and that meant the Arch-Mage was keeping a watch on Kellen somehow. If he’d learned that, he surely would have learned other things.

Or he decided to search my room.

He knew he shouldn’t have left early this morning! If he’d been there, surely Lycaelon wouldn’t even have thought of searching the room—or if he had, he’d have left it to the servants, who would, as usual, have found nothing.

And though the three Books could disguise their nature from ordinary servants, they probably couldn’t hold up their glamourie against the magic of the Arch-Mage of Armethalieh.

So Lycaelon knew about the Books, and if he knew, the whole High Council knew. Lycaelon would never keep something so illegal, so potentially scandalous, secret.

But if anyone here at the Mage College had any idea why Kellen was being called up before the High Council, they wouldn’t be whispering, they’d be getting out of their seats and trying to get out of the room before the dangerous criminal noticed them.

So no one here knows, and the High Council has decided not to say anything yet, Kellen thought with a faint pang of relief. Rumors usually spread through the Mage College like wildfire, so there wasn’t a rumor. Yet.

Which doesn’t mean a thing. The High Council was perfectly capable of being closemouthed when it suited them.

Kellen gave up on trying to concentrate, or even pretend to, shoved away from his desk, and stood up to leave. The whispering stopped, and every eye in the room was riveted on him. Even though the appointed time was bells away—probably calculated that way by Lycaelon, to allow his son to stew and fret until the appointed time—everyone knew that a summons before the High Council had to be answered immediately. In fact, they were probably wondering why he hadn’t gone already.

Kellen stalked out of the classroom, keeping his back rigid and his head held high with a bravado that was entirely feigned.

THE other Students and his teacher would probably assume that he would go straight to the Council House to cool his heels in one of the waiting rooms and reflect upon his sins. That, however, was not what Kellen had in mind.

He stopped at his locker—probably for the last time—to deposit his books and his robes. He spared a moment of thanks that today he was dressed in his best clothes beneath the all-concealing Student blues: to think that only this morning he’d been planning to start afresh, to impress his father and Anigrel with his devotion to the ways of the Mage life, to study and conform and be a good son of House Tavadon!

He’d been so stupid.

For the first time ever, he went openly to the harbor, glaring defiance at the Watch as he crossed the street into the harbor district.

The Constables didn’t try to stop him, but perhaps because he was dressed as ostentatiously as any City noble, they thought he was there on some legitimate business. The more fools they.

He stalked across the street and plunged in among the offices of the various shipping companies and merchants, giving the Constables about as much attention as he would a piece of statuary. His pencase and coinpouch bounced against his thigh as he strode angrily along—oh, he looked a proper son of House Tavadon today. All he lacked was a cloak and sword, and a pair of ornamental gloves thrust through his belt to be the image of a proper petty lordling. And who cared?

He did. If there was something Kellen knew he didn’t want to be, it was that.

When he reached the wharves themselves, Kellen took a moment to simply breathe in the fresh salt air and get his bearings. He wanted to remember this day clearly—every sight, every sound, every smell. After all, this might well be the last time he would be able to come here.

Might? That’s a virtual certainty. If I’m lucky, I’ll only be confined to my room for the rest of the year. If I’m not, it’ll be the rest of my life …

There were several ships in today, and more waiting outside the harbor to come in; their sails tacking back and forth just over the horizon. It was a busy day, one that usually meant a lot of work for the High Council … which meant that the High Council considered his situation to be a serious one, worth interrupting their day over.

Not good.

Kellen picked a spot out of the way of anyone working around the ships, and watched a new vessel sail in and tie up. He was full of restless energy, discontent, and a sick undercurrent of fear that he tried hard to ignore. Never had he felt so much raw envy for the Selken-folk, or for the few nameless Armethaliehans who managed to escape on their ships. He watched the half-naked sailors bringing a ship skillfully in to its mooring, scrambling up into the rigging and furling the sails, heaving ropes over the side and tying up to the piers. Wood creaked; the wood of the dock, and of the ship. Men called to each other, up in the rigging, and a group of them, hauling on a rope wrapped around a capstan, chanted in unison. Their captain shouted orders at them, punctuated by strange, wild oaths, and waves splashed against the pilings and the sides of the ship. The air smelled of fish, tar, sunbaked wood, and salt, with an undercurrent of strange scents too faint to be identified.

On another ship, a little farther down the dock, another crew was unloading their ship’s cargo. They traded insults with the crew of the new arrival while Kellen watched and listened, and tried not to think too hard about how much he wished he could just saunter aboard and sail away with them when they left.

I don’t suppose there’s a chance that Father would disinherit me and let me go with them … Kellen thought wistfully.

No. Not Lycaelon. The Arch-Mage’s motto should have been, “What I have, I hold.” No matter what Kellen did, Lycaelon would never let him go.

The anger and discontent swelled in him until he thought he would burst from it. Probably the only thing that did keep him from bursting was the fear he felt inside … for he knew now that there was no place for him in the City unless he conformed to every one of his father’s wishes. He could never escape what Lycaelon wanted, not even if he tried to renounce his own Mageborn talents and turn common laborer. No matter what he did, Lycaelon would have him followed and brought back, and once again, there would be the edict: Obey. If he didn’t do so of his own free will, he’d be forced into it.

Conform—or—

Well, he’d butted heads with the “or” many times in his seventeen years, but this time the “or” had more than just his father behind it. This time he was going to face the entire High Council. And although he had no doubt that whatever they decided to do with him would be what Lycaelon had already decided, their edict would be enforced by Constables, Council retainers, and if necessary, other means. And the High Council had a great many options under that last category.

One of the farther ships pulled away from the dock even as he watched, and began its slow, graceful tack toward the harbor mouth. Its sails filled with a Mage-conjured breeze, belling out like great white wings, carrying its crew away from Armethalieh and out to freedom.

Freedom that he was never going to taste.

The ship passed through the shimmering curtain of magick, its own outline shivering a little as if seen through a heat haze. And at that moment, Noontide Bells rang out. Kellen felt a surge of guilty nausea. He just had time to get to the Council House before the appointed hour.

Glumly, he trudged out to meet his fate.

THE Council House was at the opposite side of the City from the docks, facing the Delfier Gate in the west, and Kellen realized, as he trudged up the almost-empty avenue that led to the Council House and the gate beyond, that he had never actually seen the Delfier Gate open. Citizens were not encouraged to linger near the gates when the farm carts and trade caravans were moving in and out—not that citizens were encouraged to linger in the Mage Quarter in the first place.

Not for the first time, Kellen wondered what it would be like to go through those gates and take the road that led into the forest and what lay beyond.

Perulan had said that no citizen had, that none could. But Perulan had been referring to trying to take shelter with the villagers out there. What if someone decided to live out in the forest itself? Could anyone be found who really wanted to hide out there?

Don’t be an idiot, he scolded himself. You aren’t exactly a woods-wise forester out of a wondertale. How, exactly, would you live out there? What would you eat? Roots and berries? Have you ever even seen a berry that wasn’t already picked and in a basket?

Crumbs, he hadn’t even ever cooked for himself. Just how did he think he was going to survive in a forest?

But, oh, the idea was so tempting …

Anywhere but here, Kellen thought to himself. Anywhere has GOT to be better than here!

THE Council House was a tall, round white marble building with a domed and gilded roof, and it was much bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside. Magick, of course. A little glamourie to let it look important and imposing, but not too important or imposing, of course. Kellen’s teachers had explained that this was to ensure that every citizen felt free to come before the Council, whether of his own will or if summoned. Now Kellen wondered if there was another reason for the spells entirely.

To keep the ordinary citizen from knowing just how little freedom he truly has? Or to keep him from realizing just how much power over him the Mages have?

Both, probably.

It was as if—now, when it was too late to do him any good—fear suddenly made Kellen able to think of the questions he’d never been able to even think of before.

The gleaming bronze doors, ornamented with the portraits of the greatest Arch-Mages of the past, were guarded by two stone golems, seven feet tall and looking just like the animated polished black granite statues that they were.

The Mages of the High Council preferred golems as guardians. Any jumped-up merchant could hire a small army of human guards and spear-carriers, but no one but a Mage could have a golem to guard his door. And besides, nothing short of being shattered into a hundred thousand bits would stop a golem in the course of its duty. If that duty was to rend interlopers into component parts, well, too bad for the interlopers if they hadn’t hired a Mage who’d come prepared with counterspells (assuming anyone could find a Mage who would work against his fellow Mages) or brought a big contingent of followers with stone-breaking hammers.

The golems allowed Kellen to pass unmolested when he held up the Council sigil he was sent with his summons. If passing between the stone mastiffs at Tavadon House made his flesh creep, walking between the two utterly silent human-shaped statues, their eyes glittering malevolently at him as he entered the gilded door, made every hair on his body stand up.

Once inside, the door swung shut behind him with a thunderous boom. It had been dark and shadowy when the door opened, but now the place was flooded with light, and he blinked in surprise.

He was standing inside the Council chamber.

How had he gotten into the Council chamber from the main door? When he’d been here before, at the age of twelve, when he was first made a full citizen, he’d come with a gaggle of his Mageborn year-mates. Then they’d passed by the door of the Council chamber, and the Council chamber had been at the end of a long corridor, not right inside the main door. This time, magick had brought him straight to this room, without passing through any of the intervening spaces. Why? Did his father not want anyone to see him but the High Council? Then why go to the trouble of tracking him down at his lesson and presenting the summons in public in front of all his classmates?

To overawe me, Kellen thought sourly, unimpressed. To make sure I know what they’re capable of—as if I didn’t know that already.

He looked around. White marble walls, a black and white marble floor; facing him at the far end of the room was the High Council sitting at a high horseshoe-shaped black marble table, their aides standing behind their chairs.

High up so they can look down upon their victims, he thought. And he shuddered, frightened in spite of all of his attempts at bravado. Was this what poor Perulan had faced, in defense of his book? He was braver than I thought … .

Arch-Mage Lycaelon, tall, saturnine, and imposing in his robes of state, stared down at his son, his face as expressionless as those of the stone golems outside, but his eyes glittering just as dangerously.

“Kellen Tavadon!” he said, his voice echoing hollowly in the vast chamber. “You have been summoned here by the High Council on a matter of gravest concern to all good citizens of the City. Step forward!”

Much as he would have liked to disobey, Kellen knew better than to try. Reluctantly, he walked across that vast expanse of black and white marble until he stood just below the dais.

Lycaelon glared down at his son for a moment, looking as if he’d never seen him before, then pointed a monitory finger at him. “Kellen Tavadon! Three forbidden Books were found in your quarters. Do you deny that they are your possessions?”

Lycaelon’s voice boomed and echoed in a most imposing fashion; even though Kellen knew it was all a trick of acoustics and clever architecture, it still made him want to grovel.

But he was too overcome with the nightmare feeling that his worst fears were about to be realized to even make the attempt.

For the offending Books were brought forth by another golem, a smaller one this time. It was scarcely six feet tall—about his own height—but it was no less intimidating for all that; its feet clattered like steel-shod hooves against the marble floor, and he could see the chessboard reflection of the floor against its highly polished grey skin. In its hands were three small shabby books. Kellen felt himself grow sick with dread; he had no difficulty in recognizing the Books that the golem carried. The Book of Sun, The Book of Moon, and The Book of Stars, his three finds, that had hidden their nature from all eyes but his.

Or at least, they had until now.

Father searched my room. And he used magick to do it.

Just as Kellen had feared.

“I see by the guilt and shame on your face that these are yours,” Lycaelon said with disgust and utter contempt. “Where did you get them?”

Kellen clamped his mouth shut. There wasn’t much he could do right now, but at least he wasn’t going to get that poor old fellow in the Low Market in trouble—not when he knew very well that Lycaelon would make some sort of scapegoat out of him.

Instead, he just stared at the marble at his feet. He would have liked to have stared defiantly into his father’s eyes, but he knew that if he did that, his father would know just how to get every bit of information he wanted out of him.

“Speak!” Lycaelon roared, his voice echoing in the chill room. “Be aware, we will find the criminal that supplied them to you! Was it Perulan?”

Kellen stared at his own boots. That was a thought that hadn’t occurred to him. And they couldn’t hurt Perulan any more than they already had. He was Mageborn too. That’ll stick in their throats. He recognized most of the faces behind the dais from his father’s infrequent entertainments: Volpiril, Lycaelon’s particular enemy; Isas and Harith, who his father considered spineless allies; and the other nine, any of whom would be glad to step into the Arch-Mage’s seat and probably saw today as a stepping-stone to that end.

“What if it was?” he replied sullenly, still staring at the floor. “What are you going to do? Dig him up and use necromancy on him?”

A gasp from his left told him that he’d struck a nerve. Necromancy was as forbidden as Wild Magic, if not more so. He wondered if they would have tried it, maybe one or two of them, in secret … if he hadn’t said something about it. Now they wouldn’t dare. Not with the other ears in the room, their aides, and servants, and the ears that were probably outside, pressed to the door.

“If you hurry,” he added nastily, “he probably won’t smell too much or lose too many body parts while you question him. Of course, in this heat, you never know—”

“Enough!” Lycaelon roared, going red and white by turns. “Wretched boy! Do not presume on our patience, and confine your speech to answering our questions! Have you been practicing this foul perversion called Wild Magic?”

He could claim that he hadn’t, and unless they had someone using a Truthspell on him, they’d never know any differently. He could claim that Perulan had given him the Books at their last meeting, and that he hadn’t had time to look at them yet.

But if he did that, they’d just take the Books and destroy them, punish him anyway, and aside from being punished, nothing else about his life would change. Aside from being punished? What was he thinking? From this moment on, he’d probably have a watcher with him every moment, waking and sleeping! But if he didn’t—

You wanted something that would make your father disinherit you, didn’t you? Well, this is probably it. Your one chance to get on a ship and escape.

And besides, they probably had someone casting a Truthspell on him anyway.

Better to remain silent about it, though—not confess, but not deny it either.

He raised his eyes to his father’s face and summoned as much defiance as he could. “What do you think?” he asked, keeping his voice even with a great effort.

Lycaelon began to turn a striking shade of cerise.

“Boy,” interrupted Lord-Mage Vilmos, “Wild Magic is anathema for a good reason. It is totally unpredictable. It offers you your desires, but grants them in its own twisted fashion—affecting not only you, not only those you know, but innocent parties who have never met you and certainly do not deserve to be caught up in your spells and have their lives ruined by your foul meddling.”

Perulan, Kellen thought, and suppressed a wince. Was it his fault that Perulan was dead?

“It is a perverted form of true magick,” Vilmos continued, managing to sound both angry and pompous at the same time. “It requires no study, no discipline, no thought at all, thus appealing to inferior persons of inferior intellect and no sense of proper responsibility.”

That stung. And Kellen, goaded, replied just as angrily. “Inferior by your standards, maybe! Just because they don’t want to waste their lives learning to lick your boots for a taste of what you’ve got! I don’t think so! And I don’t think that the mere fact that Wild Magic isn’t predictable was ever a good reason to outlaw it then, or to ban it now! This place could do with a little less predictability! Maybe it would stop being a stagnant suck-hole that chokes the life out of anything that’s new and good!”

The startled and offended glares he got from every live creature in the room would have been funny if the situation hadn’t been so serious. This was not what the Mages in general and his father in particular wanted to hear from him—they had expected him to be terrified and penitent.

Well, I’m not! And they can damn well deal with it! He felt energized and alive in a way he hadn’t been for longer than he could remember. He felt ready to take them all on, singly or together! Stupid, hidebound old fools, it was their fault Perulan was dead, not his, and how many other people did they kill or ruin every day, refusing to change, refusing to see what was right in front of them? A fire built in his gut, and he matched them glare for glare, prepared to say and do anything to wipe those looks of smug superiority off their faces.

“Maybe I haven’t done much of any kind of magick,” he snarled, “but I’ve read all three Wild Magic Books from cover to cover. Have any of you? Do you really know what it is that you’ve outlawed, or are you just flapping and squawking like a lot of mocker-birds, repeating the decisions of a bunch of people afraid of their own shadows, people dead so long that you don’t even remember their names?” He snorted derisively. “Mockerbirds! You aren’t even that! You’re a bunch of old hens, cackling and shrieking about nothing because every other old hen is cackling ‘Danger! Danger!’ at the top of her lungs!”

Mage Isas was sitting there with such a stunned look on his face that Kellen wondered if he was about to fall out of his chair. Harith worked his mouth, but no sound came out.

The rest were various shades of interesting colors, from white to purple, his own father included.

“And just what is wrong with being unpredictable, with change, with innovation?” he flung at them. “Just why is it that everybody has to be protected all the time? Last time I looked, the rest of the world didn’t need all of that protection, and they were getting along just fine!”

Finally Mage Breulin managed to get to his feet, his stiff silver beard waggling with the force of his indignation. “You don’t see any reason, do you, you mutinous young puppy? And of course, you are so very learned, you who cannot even produce an adequate understanding of the history of the City, much less that of the world!”

How am I supposed to have an understanding of the history of the world when you don’t let me see it? Kellen thought angrily. “You—” he began.

“I have an answer for you, insolent brat—Wild Magic is the magick of chaos and anarchy; using it brings down the darkness of confusion, and there is no room for anarchy and confusion in a civilized world!” Mage Breulin had the wind in his sails now, and was prepared to run down anything in his path. “Where there is chaos, evil finds a way in, as it did before. No one who dares to practice Wild Magic can remain untainted by evil!”

And you’ve got every incentive to lie to me, and none to tell me the truth. “You don’t know that!” Kellen shouted back. “There’s a whole world outside the City, and I bet some of them know Wild Magic! And most of them don’t give a toss about High Magick—look at the Selken-folk! They do without you just fine, and they can’t all be evil, or you’d never even allow the little trickle of trade with them that you’ve got! You’re just afraid that if you let people see there’s a different way possible, they’ll decide they can do very nicely without you, and you’ll all be left to have to make an honest living for a change!”

“Enough!” Lycaelon bellowed, the acoustics of the place giving his voice far more strength than Kellen’s. “We aren’t here to listen to the ignorant nonsense of children. Kellen! You will either make a public apology, personally burn the books, and renounce your wayward behavior, or—you will face Banishment! Not mere disinheritance, you miserable, ignorant brat—though, by the Light, I swear I should disinherit you no matter how sincere your apology—but Outlawry, you puling whelp! To be cast out through the Delfier Gate into the forest with nothing but the clothes on your back and provisions for a single day!”

Lycaelon’s face was so suffused with anger it had become a mask indistinguishable from the golems’ carved faces. “Light save me, would that I had never had a child at all, would that you had died with your mother, would that she had died in infancy, rather than spawn you!”

Kellen could hardly recognize his own father in this rigid, unyielding, intolerant demagogue, thundering down judgment as if he thought he was a god—

Right, then, Kellen thought furiously. You wish I’d never been born, well so do I! I’d rather starve to death in the forest than eat another bite of food at your table!

“Kiss my foot,” Kellen sneered, in a voice he hardly recognized as his own. “You don’t want me? Well, I don’t want you, old man. I’d rather have a wolf for a father.” He thrust out his chin, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Go ahead. Banish me.”

Lycaelon barked a single word in the tongue of the High Magick, and before Kellen could wonder what it meant, his arms were seized from behind. And in the next moment, he was pulled off his feet and dragged out of the Council chamber by two of the stone golems.

And behind him, as the doors closed, he could hear the chamber erupt into a tumult of noise as all the members of the Council began to shout at once.

KELLEN staggered forward, thrown off-balance as the golems thrust him through the open doorway. He’d thought the room beyond would be larger, for some reason, and as he fumbled against the far wall of the cell, too stunned to quite understand where he was, he heard the door of the cell close behind him with an awful finality, cutting off most of the light.

There was no point in crying out in protest. The golems lacked the power to answer him.

In fury and outrage—the only things keeping his growing despair at bay—Kellen whirled and stared at the six-inch square opening in the door. Its grill admitted the unwavering pale blue Magelight of the corridor, providing the only light in his cell.

He stood as rigidly still as if he were made of stone himself, listening to the clatter of the golem’s footsteps as they walked away, slowly rubbing his arms where they had gripped him. Hard enough to bruise, not hard enough to break bone. Not quite. But it had hurt, and the pain had shocked him in a way that nothing else had, not even hearing about Perulan’s death. No one had ever manhandled him before; not even his father. Punishment had always meant being confined to his room on a diet of nourishing gruel and water. The implied violence in the golems’ treatment of him caught him right in the gut.

The footsteps faded away, and slowly Kellen became aware that the only sound was his own shallow frightened breathing. He forced himself to move, to take a step, to breathe deeply, and to see what he could of his surroundings.

The cell was even smaller than he’d thought. Smooth grey stone, a cubicle a bit less than eight feet square, a stone bench at one end, all with the perfect seamlessness of Magecrafting. When Kellen looked up, the ceiling was lost in darkness, too far away to see. A cell—and not a Mage’s meditation cell, either!

This was a prison cell. So there were cells beneath the Council House to house people the Council deemed inconvenient. Another thing to mar the pretty picture the High Council painted for the people of Armethalieh of how things worked. How many people before him had stood in this very spot? Kellen wondered. What had been their crimes—and what had happened to them?

Reflexively, his hand sought his golden City Talisman for comfort, but when he touched it, he recoiled as if he’d been burned. No. Not after what Anigrel had told him about the Talismans and their real purpose.

He forced himself to take a step, to turn his back on the door. The Council—his father—wanted him to recant, to humiliate himself in public, to help them destroy the first breath of fresh air the City had seen in a thousand years, to say he’d been wrong to study the three Books of the Wild Magic. To go back to them and be a good little Kellen-golem and do whatever he was told, and believe whatever they told him to believe.

But he hadn’t been wrong in what he’d done. Kellen knew he hadn’t. And he wouldn’t say he had. Lycaelon searched my room. He used a spell to find those Books—he had to have! If anyone’s done something wrong, it’s him! Wasn’t he, wasn’t everyone entitled to privacy? Wasn’t he old enough to make up his own mind about the world? Everyone says that Armethalieh is a city of Law—but where’s the Law in the things that the Council’s done lately? The Mages live off the citizens like leeches, they destroyed Perulan, and even if they didn’t kill him they put him into a state where he went where he would get into trouble and they probably knew he would! How many other people have they destroyed? They do what they want to because they can, that’s all. That’s the way it’s always been.

Let them Banish me if that’s what they want now. I won’t play their games anymore.

It was an easy vow to make, and a harder one to keep in the forefront of his mind as the time stretched on, seamlessly, and with no way to mark its passing, down here in the dark. Did the Council mean just to leave him down here and forget about him? He couldn’t even hear the City bells, and he hadn’t thought there was anywhere in the City where you couldn’t hear the bells of Armethalieh.

He paced until he got tired, then he sat down in a corner with his back against the wall. How long had he been here? Did the Council mean just to leave him down here and forget about him so that he could just vanish quietly? Somehow that frightened him more than the idea of Banishment. The cell was just chilly enough to be uncomfortable, and Kellen could stand and think, or sit and think, but either way he was as much a prisoner of his own thoughts as of the stone around him.

If he had wanted a demonstration of the absolute power the Council could wield when it chose, he was receiving it now. Everyone at the College had seen him receive the summons. No one would be surprised if he simply disappeared, not really.

And nobody would talk about it, either, at least not openly. That wasn’t the way the citizens of the City did things. After all, the Council knew best, didn’t they? They only acted for the good of all citizens. If there was no announcement that he had been Banished—and Kellen suddenly realized just how embarrassing such an announcement would be for his father—well, everyone knew how rebellious he was, and what a poor Student he was. There might be some idle speculation, but most of it would be around the suggestion that Lycaelon had sent him away to someplace where he’d “learn proper discipline.” And in time, people would forget about him.

He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts and fears—with very little sense of how much time had passed since the golems had shoved him roughly into this dark, chilly stone box—that at first the renewed sound of footsteps didn’t penetrate Kellen’s gloom and self-absorption. But he was quickly summoned to full awareness by the sound as it came nearer: not the heavy impact of stone-on-stone, but the softer sound of leather City-boots on stone floors.

Someone—a person—was coming.

Despite his best intentions of standing up to his captors and showing a defiant face, Kellen backed away from the door as far as he could, his heart beating faster.

The door swung open, filling the cell with light from the corridor, and a robed Mage, accompanied by a hovering ball of Magelight, stepped into the cell.

“Kellen,” Arch-Mage Lycaelon said, inclining his head. He made a small gesture, and the blue ball of Magelight soared up to hover several feet above their heads, bathing the whole cell in its even unchanging brightness. Somehow that made the cell seem both larger and smaller, all at the same time. The height of it made Kellen feel insignificant; the length and width so small as to give him a feeling of claustrophobia.

“Father,” Kellen answered evenly. Too many emotions to sort out filled him all at once. Relief that someone had come—anger, at the Mages and at Lycaelon personally—a sense of betrayal so intense that it made his whole body tremble.

“I trust you’re as well as possible under the circumstances? The golems were not intended to injure you. But they are, when all is said and done … stone,” Lycaelon said.

Kellen recognized his father’s “public” voice, smooth and confident. Why was Lycaelon here? Surely his father had said everything to his wilding son he intended to say back in the Council chamber? Why this display of parental devotion now, when nobody was here to witness it?

Or maybe what had gone before had been the public act … and this was to be the private truth?

“I’m fine,” Kellen said crossly. He rubbed his arms, wincing again as he touched the developing bruises. He saw Lycaelon sigh, watching the gesture.

“In a way, Kellen, it is … unfortunate that you were halted in your studies when you were.”

Kellen stared at his father. He’d expected more threats, more denunciations. Not this. Despite everything, he felt a tiny spark of hope.

Lycaelon smiled thinly. “You accused us of never having read the Books of the Wild Magic, Kellen—and it is true that no Mage of this generation has done so, but do you think that no student of the High Art ever has fallen afoul of them, in all the years since the founding of the Golden City? Why in the name of the Light would Wildmagery then be so grave an offense? No, Kellen. The Council isn’t as arbitrary as it seems to you. Our ancient brothers in the High Art studied the Books of the Wild Magic in full, to their peril and their cost, and discovered what I believe you would have discovered yourself with only a little more time.”

“Then why can’t I have that time?” Kellen burst out. “If—”

Lycaelon raised a hand. “Please, my son. Hear me out. The risk is too great—not only to you alone, but to all those you might endanger through studies that seem innocent now. Think hard, and answer honestly: In all the time you have studied and worked with those Books, have you never felt even a little uneasy about what you do?”

Kellen blushed angrily, hanging his head. He thought of every time he’d vowed to set The Book of Moon, The Book of Sun, and The Book of Stars aside forever. Hadn’t both the spells he’d done spiraled out of control, involving him in things he never would have gotten into if he hadn’t cast them?

“You need not speak aloud,” Lycaelon said soothingly. “Nor are you to blame. It is the very nature of the Books of the Wild Magic to seem—at first—nothing more than an innocent and powerful tool, capable of being used for good. But the Wild Magic is as seductive as the Elvenkind, using the Wildmage for its own secret purposes, luring him slowly away from his own path, and into convoluted schemes of its own, plans of darkest Evil. There are Mages who recognized them for what they were and rejected their lure in time to save themselves … from what you do not say, I pride myself that you would have soon realized that what they purport to teach are not lessons, but tainted fantasies, foul sorcery that is the enemy of the Light, and rejected their false teachings before it was too late. But now, I must burden you with knowledge normally given only to those far above your rank.”

Really. How … privileged I feel, Kellen thought sardonically.

Lycaelon, of course, read a willingness to listen into his silence.

“For centuries we of the City attempted to tame the power of the Wild Magic … and failed. In time, the High Mages realized Wildmagery could not be practiced safely, even by Master Mages—not even by the Arch-Mage himself. If you had gotten further in your legitimate studies, you would have been taught to recognize the Books, and taught why they must be destroyed wherever they are found.”

So just how is it, then, that they keep popping up? Kellen wondered silently.

“You see, Kellen, every single Mage who worked with the Wild Magic without rejecting it not only went to the bad, but lost his mind into the bargain, ultimately destroying not only his own life but the lives of those around him. You have already seen that the Wild Magic seems to have an ultimate purpose of its own, one that it hides from you. In ancient days, we discovered to our sorrow what that purpose is. Practice of the Wild Magic leads to conversation with Demons, monstrous creatures who are the enemy of all Light and Life, and any Mage who deals with Demonfolk is inevitably corrupted and seduced by the Darkness, in the end betraying his own kind to the Demons’ embrace. The High Magick is an alliance with the Light, and the Wild Magic is its opposite, an exaltation of Darkness. And so, in the end, the Wildmage becomes the tool of Darkness.”

Demons? Kellen fought to keep his face expressionless. He had thought his father might bring any number of arguments to bear on him, but he never would have dreamed that Lycaelon would use the terror of the nursery as a serious ploy.

“Nursie” had terrified Kellen with tales of Demons as a child … to scare him into behaving. They were supposed to belong to the Darkness that was the opposite of the Light, but the Priests of the Eternal Light actually tended to discourage belief in them, saying that Demons were only a children’s tale, that the Light, which was all-powerful, would certainly not permit something as dark and twisted as Demons to exist, and in fact, they weren’t even discussed in his magickal studies or his Natural Philosophy courses. Kellen had read far deeper in the Art Magickal than either Lycaelon or Anigrel suspected—and there was nothing there about Demons, either!

But Lycaelon continued speaking, oblivious to Kellen’s expression—if he’d even noticed it.

“And so the Council was formed, to cast out the Wildmages forever, to banish the Demon-taint from Armethalieh, and to let the Light shine free and unfettered over the Golden City and all her people. And the greatest gift of all the gifts we have given them is freedom from the memory of those terrible ancient days. Only we of the High Council retain any access to the histories of so long ago, and because of that we know that the Black Days when Demons walked the land were so terrible that any risk, no matter how slight, of the Demons’ return is too great. Wildmagery opens a door to that return, and for that reason, the Council cannot tolerate the taint of Wild Magic, the barest possibility that Demons could get a toehold in this City again. No mercy can be shown, not even when the Mage in question is my own son.” Lycaelon bowed his head for a moment, and drew a deep breath.

“I know this is terribly hard for you to believe now, when the Wild Magic is helping you find lost objects and light candles, and other seemingly innocent pastimes, but even the most treacherous mountain has soft and pleasant foothills. You do not know what your future holds if you do not renounce your present course, Kellen. I beg you, my son. Turn back. There is still time. If you will not do it for your own sake, then, please—do it for the sake of the City, for your honor here as a Tavadon, for the glory of our ancient name—”

KELLEN grimaced in self-disgust, shaking off the spell of his father’s words. For a moment he’d almost believed Lycaelon, and he hated himself for it, and for hoping, even for a moment, that his father had come down here to talk because his father cared for him. But no. It was more of the same practiced tricks that Lycaelon used on everyone to get what he wanted—and at the end, the Arch-Mage hadn’t been able to resist throwing in that last turn of the knife, about doing it for House Tavadon, and that proved all the rest was a lie, didn’t it? Lycaelon would do anything rather than suffer the humiliation of having a Wildmage for a son, including coming down here to try to feed Kellen a pack of lies as if he were seven instead of seventeen!

Demons—why hadn’t his father just said “bogeymen” and had done with it? Kellen should have recognized the plot line of this particular story a little sooner—it was right out of the Ars Perfidorum, after all—with the addition of “Demons” to make it more interesting.

So. His father hadn’t even bothered trying to talk to him as an adult. He’d come down here with this wondertale to try to scare Kellen into doing what he wanted, and it wasn’t going to work. If there were such things as Demons, wouldn’t there be at least some sign of defenses against them? I wouldn’t imagine that mere walls would keep them out. You’d think that someone, somewhere, in all the books in Father’s library would have let something slip about how to protect yourself from them!

But no. And that was because nobody created a counterspell against something that didn’t exist. His father had come down here with this nonsense to try to scare Kellen into doing what he wanted, just so Lycaelon could look good for the Council. The mighty Arch-Mage, so persuasive he even managed to turn a budding Wildmage back to the paths of order and obedience and Law! Well, Kellen was tired of performing that particular function in his father’s life, thank you very much. The Wild Magic had never really hurt anybody, which was more than Kellen could say for the Council and its tricks. In fact, everything it had made him do had helped other people! Even Perulan: it wasn’t Kellen’s fault that Perulan had decided to flee the City—from what Perulan himself had said, the writer might very well have decided to try to escape the City long before Kellen ever came on the scene.

He stood silent, head down, no longer meeting his father’s gaze. Kellen thought he’d been angry in the Council chamber; now he knew he’d only been disgusted. He was furious now, and more. Emotions he did not want to name boiled up within him, and with all his strength, Kellen fought to keep from letting any of them show on his face. All his concentration was focused on one thing—to keep from lashing out at his father with words and fists, to keep from giving back one iota of the pain his father had given him with his contempt.

Contempt. Yes. That was the word. Long, long ago, Kellen had learned never to expect love or even kindness from his father. But the realization of the utter contempt in which Lycaelon held him was a sharp new blow, more painful than any bone-bruise given by unliving stone golems ever could be. Only a man who truly despised his fellows would attempt to manipulate them the way Lycaelon was trying to manipulate his son.

I’ve never been anything more than an object to him; a trophy, something to show off to the other Mages. The proof that his bloodline breeds true.

The realization carried with it a sense of loss so intense it shocked him, for Kellen had thought he had nothing left to lose, and the realization that he did took him by surprise. But it was true. Lycaelon did not even treat his servants as badly as he treated his only son. He only ignored his servants, and sent them away if they displeased them. He’d showed his son no such mercy. For Kellen there had been no escape from that constant torture in all the years of his life.

Until now.

Now Kellen saw an escape. And he was going to take it.

“HAVE you nothing to say?” Lycaelon said, his voice growing harsh and impatient. “I see,” he said after a pause that Kellen did nothing to fill. “You persist in your ignorant defiance. No doubt you have some childish romantic notion of Banishment, of making a life for yourself outside the City. Allow me to disabuse you of one more infantile delusion. I shall explain to you precisely the terms of your Banishment, and you shall have one last chance to recant.”

You’d like that, wouldn’t you? After all, if I don’t recant—you lose. You lose the game, you lose face, and you lose me. Surprise, Father. You lost me a long time ago.

“At sunset, you will be stripped of your Talisman, don the Felon’s Cloak, and be set outside the walls of the City. The terms of Banishment are these: that you have until sunrise to be outside the boundaries of the City lands, or face the Outlaw Hunt. At dawn, the City gates will open again and the Outlaw Hunt will fare forth to hunt you down and tear you to pieces if you are still within our bounds. But I will tell you one thing more: the Outlaw Hunt will certainly reach you.”

Lycaelon took a step nearer. Another. And his voice descended to a sinister growl.

“Do not delude yourself about that. No power under the heavens could carry you to the edge of the City lands in a night—not the fastest horse ever foaled, were you permitted to claim a horse from the City stables, could bear you beyond the boundaries of the City lands. Banishment is a death sentence. No one has ever escaped an Outlaw Hunt. No one!”

Kellen glanced up then, shocked at the triumph in his father’s voice, and caught Lycaelon’s smile of victory. The Arch-Mage was certain he’d won, certain that now Kellen would give in, give up, submit tamely to punishment and public humiliation.

But he hadn’t counted on the depth of Kellen’s anger.

“I’ll die then! I’d rather die—it’s better than living on your terms, as your lackey, as your nothing, as less than a dog that eats your scraps!” Kellen shouted. He took a step forward, unable to control himself any longer, fists clenched until they ached.

In the cool azure Magelight, he could see the dark blood fill his father’s face until Lycaelon’s complexion was nearly purple. The Arch-Mage took a step backward, raising his hand.

“By the Light, I should have known you’d live down to your bad blood!” Lycaelon roared, his voice thick with fury. The Arch-Mage whirled, flinging the cell door open with a gesture, then cast a killing look over his shoulder at Kellen. “There’s bad blood in you from your mother’s folk—you’re just like your sister, and you’ll come to the same end!”

Lycaelon stepped out into the hallway. The door of Kellen’s cell slammed between them so hard the wood groaned and protested, the sound deafeningly loud in such a small space. The echoes of its crash blotted out any sound Lycaelon might have made in his departure.

Kellen stood where he was for a long moment, his heart hammering in his chest until he thought it might burst. At last he drew a deep breath and moved shakily over to the stone bench, sitting down carefully. He’d won—he thought he’d won—but it didn’t feel like it. The unleashed anger of Arch-Mage was more than a temper tantrum. It could have serious consequences for everyone in his presence. Kellen felt ill with more than the aftermath of his own fury. He leaned his head against the cold stone of the wall and tried to slow his racing heart.

After a few moments he felt better. Lycaelon hadn’t been trying to hurt him at the last. Why should he? According to him, by morning, the Outlaw Hunt was going to rip the Arch-Mage’s inconvenient son to pieces.

Just like it had his sister.

Sister?

Puzzled, Kellen forced himself to concentrate on Lycaelon’s parting words, setting aside his other painful thoughts. “You’re just like your sister,” Lycaelon had shouted … but Kellen didn’t remember having a sister, and it wasn’t the sort of thing you just forgot.

Although she’d probably died before he’d been born. Died, another victim of the Outlaw Hunt, probably spending some of her last bells in this very cell.

He wondered what she’d done. He hoped, whatever it was, that it had been something really, truly excessive. Not something like theft or murder—but something bold and brave, a strike against Lycaelon and for freedom.

Something worth dying for.

He looked up. The Magelight was still there, hovering near the ceiling. Lycaelon had been so furious when he left that he’d forgotten to summon it to follow him. Well, it would have to stay there until Lycaelon or some other Mage came back to retrieve it.

Kellen grinned irrepressibly, his spirits recovering a little. Maybe it would stay there forever. Lycaelon had been so furious when he left that he’d probably forgotten about it completely, and nobody was likely to remind him.

He guessed whatever his lost sister had done to merit Banishment, it had been pretty annoying after all.

Chapter Eight

By the Light of the Moon

A SHORT TIME later, two Constables in the deep scarlet uniform of the City Watch opened the door to Kellen’s cell once again. Both carried the long halberds that—along with the truncheons slung at their belts—were the only weapons of the Watch. Kellen supposed he ought to be grateful the Council hadn’t sent the Guard and a couple of detachments of the Militia as well. Then again, there wouldn’t be enough room for them down here.

“Time for you to go, boy,” the older one said, not unkindly. Despite the gentleness of his tone, Kellen noticed the man did not look directly toward him. Neither of them did. It was as if Kellen had already begun to cease to exist.

The Constable tossed a leather day-pack to the floor of the cell. It skidded across the smooth stone floor until it bumped gently against Kellen’s feet.

“Best you check that all’s accounted for there. I’ll have no one saying that prisoners are ill done by on my watch.”

Because it seemed to be expected of him, Kellen leaned over from his seat on the stone bench and picked up the pack. It was cheap leather, held shut with crude horn toggles. He opened it. Inside was a flat loaf of penance-bread—of the sort that minor criminals condemned to bread-and-water punishments were forced to subsist on—and a waterskin. He hefted it experimentally. It sloshed, full.

Kellen replaced both items in the pack and closed it, and put it back down on the floor, his throat suddenly tight. He looked up and nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

This was no game. They were really going to do it. This was supposed to be food and water for the journey, to preserve the fiction that there would be a journey of Banishment, one that didn’t end with sunrise and the release of the Outlaw Hunt.

He wondered if either of the Constables knew that every Banishment ended in death. He wondered if either of them would believe him if he told them. Or care. After all, he was a lawbreaker, or he wouldn’t be getting Banished right now, so how much consideration did a lawbreaker deserve?

“And this.” The Senior Constable tossed a bundle of bright yellow cloth toward Kellen. It landed in the middle of the floor. Kellen got slowly to his feet and picked it up. His legs were still a bit shaky, and he took a deep breath, refusing to show these two strangers any hint of what he was feeling now.

It was a thin hooded cloak of coarse weaving, its fabric of the cheapest possible material. The black symbol of Felony had been painted on its back with thin tar, making the fabric there stiff. It tied at the throat with a drawstring.

“You’ll be wanting to put that on before we go. But first, we’ll be needing your Talisman. You don’t belong to the City anymore,” the Senior Constable said, a little less patient now.

Slowly Kellen worked the golden rectangle up from beneath his clothes and slipped the long golden chain off over his neck. He tossed the Talisman, chain and all, to the floor. It struck the stone with a high sweet ringing sound, and even though he knew what the Talisman really represented, being without it made Kellen feel oddly naked.

The Junior Constable reached out with his halberd and scooped the Talisman across the floor to where he could pick it up, transferring it to a pouch that hung at his belt. His face was set in firm lines of disapproval. The Senior Constable just looked tired and old.

Kellen felt paralyzed with inertia. As if, as long as he just stood here, it wasn’t real, and nothing would happen.

“Well, go on, boy. Sun’s westering, and you’ve got to be out of the City by dusk,” the Senior Constable said. He stared, not at Kellen, but at some place on the wall just behind Kellen’s shoulder.

Setting his jaw, Kellen bent down and picked up the pack, slipping it on over his shoulders. He picked up the cloak next—shoddy workmanship, the coarse cloth barely suitable for sacking vegetables, for all its lurid color, but at least it was clean, having obviously never been used before—and flung it over his shoulders. He resisted the momentary urge to pull the hood up over his face. He had nothing to hide. It was the Council that should be hiding their faces in shame, not him! He’d done nothing he was ashamed of, while they—they’d lied, cheated, stolen … and the worst of it was, most of their victims didn’t even know it.

He straightened and faced the two Constables once more. Both of them held their halberds in front of them, as if they were afraid he might be tempted to attack them. The Junior Constable was unable to keep from flicking suspicious glances upward at the ball of hovering Magelight, as if he suspected Kellen of having something to do with it.

Not me. Blame that one on the Arch-Mage.

Silently they stepped back, indicating he should go before them through the open door of the cell.

In silence, Kellen preceded the two Constables down the hallway along which he’d been dragged by the stone golems such a short time earlier. He felt numb, still unable to completely believe this was happening to him, even with the harsh dye-smell of the Felon’s Cloak tickling his nostrils, and the lying weight of the day-pack tugging at his shoulders, filled with rations for a journey he would not live to complete. He, Kellen Tavadon, was being Banished from the Golden City!

Only it wasn’t really Banishment, was it? It was execution, a death sentence carried out in such a way that the High Council could pretend to be merciful, so that their victims could cherish hope until the very last moment, so that the citizens of Armethalieh would never know that they were being governed by a pack of murderers.

At the foot of the stairs that led to the surface he stopped, wanting to say something, to tell them the truth, only to receive the sharp prod of a halberd point in the small of the back.

“None of that,” the Senior Constable said quietly. “Don’t say nothin’, lad. You’re not to talk to us.”

In mutinous silence, Kellen climbed the stairs. He wasn’t surprised to find that this time they led directly to the outside world. He was in the courtyard directly outside the Council House, a short walk from the Delfier Gate. The lesser gates of gilded bronze, set into the Great Gate that hadn’t been opened in all of Kellen’s lifetime, stood open, glowing gold in the last rays of the setting sun, and as he took a step toward them, the bells of the City began to ring the Evensong.

First one bell—the great crystal bell in the Main Temple of the Light—began to toll, in long ringing notes that hung in the air, and then, at its signal, every bell in the City joined in, each with its own special tone and cadence, until the air was filled with sound. Last of all, the deep-throated golden bell of the Council House itself joined in, so close that Kellen’s bones vibrated with every stroke.

If he turned and looked, he could see Tavadon House from where he stood, but another jab in the back discouraged that impulse before it was fully formed. Herded forward like a pig to market, Kellen approached the Delfier Gate, feeling more alone than he’d ever felt in his life.

Beneath his feet were the usual eight-sided granite cobblestones that covered most of the better City streets. At the gate, they stopped abruptly, as if to underscore the fact that here Civilization ended. Beyond was a wide well-used dirt road, hammered smooth by generations of trade caravans and farm carts. Conscious of the two Constables at his back—and the round dozen uniformed City Guards waiting to close and bar the gates—Kellen walked out of the City.

For the first and last time.

THE lesser gates—together only large enough to admit a single cart at a time—clanked shut behind him, and through, the chiming of the City bells, Kellen heard the booming of the bolts being thrown home, cutting him off from the City forever.

He looked back.

On the inside, the walls and gates of Armethalieh were lavishly ornamented. The gates were gilded bronze, covered with bas-relief sculpture depicting the joys of living in the City. The walls themselves were glazed and colored tile. Even in the poorest quarters of the City, the City wall itself was a work of art, beautifully painted if nothing else.

Outside was a different matter, so it seemed.

Here the gates were plain unadorned bronze, the wall itself plain dark stone, its true color difficult to tell in the twilight. Automatically, he pulled the thin yellow cloth of his Felon’s Cloak tighter around him and shivered, although he wasn’t really cold. Not yet.

This was the face that the City showed to outsiders. And Kellen was an outsider now. Cast out by the City, cut off from the only life he’d ever known. He’d never felt so completely alone in his life.

As he stared at the blank forbidding walls, out of the corner of his eye he caught a flicker of movement high above him. He glanced farther up, and saw one of the City Guards staring down at him, grinning nastily.

Kellen quickly turned his back to the City, blotting out the sight of the guard’s gloating expression. The sunset was a thin line of gold through the trees toward the west. In less than a tenth-chime more, the sun would set completely.

He was cast out. Banished—from the City and all its lands. And in the morning, when the first rays of the sun rose to gild the dome of the Council House, the Outlaw Hunt that the Mages would have spent all night enchanting would be sent forth through the very gate he had just walked through to rip him to shreds if he was still within reach.

Without conscious thought, Kellen began to move, heading down the Western Road at a fast trot.

This was the road the farmers from the villages used to bring their produce to the City. Though it was only used during harvest season, it should be smooth and even enough for him to make good time on, even in the dark. And the moon was full tonight—that was another stroke of luck. It would be rising in a bell or two, and a full moon would surely give him enough light to travel by.

Kellen winced, listening to the direction of his own thoughts. He slowed to a walk, and then stopped, realizing it had become too dark to see, at least for running. He risked a glance back over his shoulder. The Evensong Bells were silent now, and he could no longer make out the City behind him, though he knew it would probably be visible in daylight. The walls blocked off all sight of the buildings—and their warm and comforting lights—from outside.

All at once the enormity of his situation seemed to settle over him like a far heavier version of the Felon’s Cloak. Who was he trying to kid? Even if he could manage to run full-out all night long there was no way he could reach the edge of City lands by dawn. He didn’t even know how far they extended—or where this road led. He could use the moon to keep himself heading due west, though there was no guarantee that the road would oblige him by going the same way.

For once his father had been telling the simple truth, just as Perulan had. “My dear young Kellen, have you ever heard of anyone who simply LEFT the City?”

No, Perulan. Not even you, Kellen thought mournfully.

Banishment wasn’t banishment—it was murder. Banishment was just a convenient and innocuous way for the Council to explain how they got rid of troublemakers. A bloodless death sentence that the Council could claim—assuming anyone ever dared to ask—represented a fair chance for the victim. And until his father had told him the truth down there in the cell, Kellen would have believed them, just like everyone else in the City believed in the myth that the Banished just went elsewhere to live. Of course they did. The High Council was wise and kind; the Mages wouldn’t condone anything that wasn’t in the best interests of everyone involved. As for the Outlaw Hunt, well, that was just to make certain that the Banished didn’t sneak back inside the City with the farmers to make more trouble, of course.

But Lycaelon had given him the reality behind the pretty myth. And no matter how much Kellen was inclined to doubt everything his father had to say, there was something about standing all alone in the middle of a dark forest on a road that led to nowhere that made Lycaelon’s words ring with truth. “Banishment is a death sentence. No one has ever escaped an Outlaw Hunt. No one!”

Banishment was murder.

How could anyone find the edge of the City lands when no one knew where they were? In all his fruitless days of searching the City Library for information about the lands outside the City, Kellen had never even encountered one scrap of information about the extent of the City lands beyond the City walls—nor had anyone volunteered to provide that vital piece of survival information to a Banished Outlaw.

So that much of what Lycaelon had told him must be true.

Kellen began walking again, more slowly now, as furious with himself for believing the High Mages’ lies so easily as he was with the Council for having lied to him—to all of them—for all these years. Why couldn’t they just be honest enough to admit they were executing people? Why did they have to play at being merciful?

Because if they didn’t people would object to the killings. And there would have to be more executions. And then people would see them for what they are, a small voice inside Kellen said reasonably.

It was all part of a pattern of life in the Golden City. The Council saw to it that there was nothing new that might make people think. Nothing to excite people, or upset them. Nothing that would make people question the way things were, or question the fact that the High Council acted for the good of all, always. Nothing that would make people question the way things were. In the City, anything unpleasant or distressing simply … disappeared.

Just the way Kellen was going to disappear now.

“Oh, Kellen? I remember him. Lycaelon’s son. He wasn’t happy here, so the Council Banished him, for the good of the City.” And everyone would nod their heads, thinking of how wise, how just, how kind, how merciful the High Council was. And life would go on, following the rules the Council laid down for it.

But at least I have until morning before they release the Hunt. They’ll have to work all night to enchant the stone Hounds, and even if they’re ready early, the Council will abide by the letter of its decree and not release them until morning. If there was anything left for Kellen to be certain of among all the lies and betrayal, it was that. Why should they put themselves to the trouble of breaking one of their endless petty rules when the Outlaw Hunt could find him wherever he went, and they knew there was no way for Kellen to escape them?

But they were wrong. Lycaelon had been wrong. Kellen did have a way. He just wasn’t sure he was going to use it yet. He needed to think very carefully about it first, and he wasn’t yet certain, really, truly certain, deep in his gut, that he’d come to the point where he had no other options.

He walked on until it was too dark to see at all, stumbling several times on the wagon-rutted road before he tripped over some unseen obstacle and landed heavily on his hands and knees. That was the point that almost broke him; tears of fear, frustration, and anger welled up in his eyes and despair enveloped his heart as the Felon’s Cloak enveloped his body, and at last he was finally willing to admit that he’d reached that point. Groping carefully around himself, Kellen sat down in the middle of the road, facing back the way he’d come.

There was nothing to see. If he’d hoped for a glimpse of the lights of Armethalieh on the horizon, he was disappointed. There was nothing there to see—not even the lights of the highest towers, for some reason. Nothing but more darkness, and more shadows.

It was spring, but it was still early enough in the season that the temperature dropped sharply at night this close to the coast. Kellen shivered now in earnest, pulling his inadequate cloak tighter around himself. If he’d known when he got up this morning that he was going to be arrested and Banished, he’d have dressed more warmly and worn stout walking boots at the very least.

At least there was nothing there he’d really miss. Everything he’d owned had been bought as part of Lycaelon’s idea of what Lycaelon’s perfect son should have. The few things he’d bought on his own, from the allowance that was also a part of what Lycaelon’s perfect son should have somehow never managed to stay around very long if they were deemed too unsuitable. Kellen had learned very early not to get too attached to possessions.

Still, he had a good pair of heavy boots there, and a warm sturdy cloak that would come in handy right now. If the Council had really wanted to even pretend to be fair, they would have let him get proper clothes from home. But the Council only wanted to make a good show for its citizens, not for its victims, and right now Kellen had other concerns. Right now he had to think—hard—about what to do next.

He didn’t have his Books of the Wild Magic with him. The Council had those. And they probably thought that without them he was defenseless, but he actually didn’t need them. He’d been right when he accused the Council of not having any idea of how the Wild Magic worked, and despite all Lycaelon’s fine words about how they’d studied it a long time ago (he bet they hadn’t) they were assuming it was just like the High Magick they were familiar with.

But unlike High Magick, which needed so much calculation, preparation, tools, and endless memorization of stock formulas, Wild Magic, as Kellen had already learned, was driven far more by the intent of the caster than by calculation. He didn’t need pages of written-out spellcasting—a grimoire, a temple full of tools and furniture, and rigid observance of planetary hours—to be able to use it. He could cast an effective spell with what he already knew and what was around him.

But what kind of a spell?

What did he want?

To stay alive was the easy and obvious answer, but maybe it was a little too easy. There was always a price, and for a need this big, the price would be high. That much Kellen knew already. What price would the Wild Magic ask for the gift of his life? How would it answer such a request?

Was it a price he was willing to pay?

He hadn’t, after all, been willing to pay Lycaelon’s price for remaining in the City, so Kellen already knew that some prices were too high.

Better not ask for just staying alive, then, Kellen decided warily. He thought carefully about all he’d read. The three Books were less about spells than about the principles behind them—the physics, not the ethics. Ethics, apparently, was something the Wildmage had to work out for him or herself.

But as he recalled from The Book of Moon, the less you specified in Wild Magic, the better your response was likely to be. Getting specific meant getting selfish—thinking too much, and at the same time, not thinking enough.

I guess … maybe … if when you ask for something from the Wild Magic you’re always promising to give something in return … the easier you make it for Something to give to you … maybe the easier it becomes for you to repay in return?

Or maybe I’m completely wrong! I have no idea what I’m doing here! he thought in frustration.

Kellen sighed. What was the smallest, simplest, least thing that he needed? The less he asked for, the less he’d have to give, after all. Or so it seemed to him right now.

To be out of City lands by sunrise. I need help to be out of City lands by sunrise. I don’t care how, or where I end up, but that’s what I need—REALLY need. And I don’t care what I have to pay for it—no, that’s not true, I won’t murder to pay for it, and there are probably other pretty horrible things I wouldn’t do, but something personal probably wouldn’t be a problem. And that’s what I need—REALLY need.

He felt a great sense of relief, as if he’d managed to solve a riddle correctly. That was what he needed, and that was what he’d ask for. And how badly awry could the spell possibly go? According to The Book of Stars, if he didn’t specify a payment limit, he would be granted the chance to turn down what he was offered—with no hard feelings, as it were. For instance, if he was asked to murder someone …

Because some things, as Kellen was already discovering, came at too high a price. And if, just if, as Lycaelon claimed, there were Demons involved, Kellen knew there might be a price worse than that of giving up his own life.

With the matter settled to his own satisfaction, Kellen waited some more, this time with a purpose. At last the moon rose through the trees, shedding its dappled light through trees rustling with the new leaves of early spring. Finally, he could see where he was, and what he needed to get.

The Calling Spell he intended to try was a bit more elaborate than the simple Finding Spell he had cast twice before, and required more ingredients. Fortunately the trees were already in leaf, and those simple ingredients were easy enough to find. Two chimes’ search allowed him to collect leaves from each of three trees: an oak, an ash, and a thorn tree, and to amass a good handful of tinder and dry sticks from the forest floor to build the fire to burn them.

Returning to the center of the cart track, he piled his kindling and tinder carefully in a heap, then took the strongest of the sticks he had gathered and carefully drew a circle around himself, digging the line as deeply as he could into the rutted bare-earth surface of the road. He broke up the stick and added it to the pile, and then with a flick of his fingers, set the small pile of sticks and tinder alight.

It was such an easy spell—the first one in The Book of Moon, the first one that the Student of High Magick studied—that for a moment Kellen wasn’t sure which method he’d used to summon the flames. He felt disoriented, caught between two paths: the rigid discipline of the High Magick, the fluid inspiration of the Wild Magic.

There’s still time to back out.

But there wasn’t. Not really. There was going forward, or there was giving up and staying where he was out of fear. Those were his only real choices just now. The City would not take him back. When morning came, the Outlaw Hunt would kill him.

He bent down and picked up the three leaves that he’d set aside. There was one last thing he needed to cast the spell. Still holding the fresh green leaves between the fingers of his left hand, he opened his pencase and pulled out his little penknife. Holding it carefully in his right hand, he cut a shallow scratch along his left palm. They’d taken none of his possessions from him except his Talisman—he even still had the key to the back garden. He wondered if Lycaelon would miss it and change all the locks.

The blood welled up, pooling in the palm of his hand. He wiped the penknife dry on his pant leg and replaced it in the pencase, and took each leaf in turn, dabbing it in the blood until each had been marked. Probably there wasn’t any need to make quite so much of a mess, but he wanted to be sure he was doing everything right.

Then he dropped the leaves—and his blood—carefully into the fire, willing his spell, his call, as they burned and sizzled, sending up a thin plume of peculiar-smelling smoke. Help to leave the City lands by daybreak. Nothing more. Help unspecified, for a price unspecified.

Kellen had expected—or at least hoped—for fireworks and drama, but there were no bright lights, no mystic bells. The fire was small, and a few minutes later it had burned away to embers and ash. Kellen rubbed it out with the sole of his boot. His left hand itched, and he licked it clean, then rubbed it gingerly against his velvet tunic, wary of starting it bleeding again.

Still nothing happened. Kellen stalked back and forth, stopping automatically at the edges of his circle. The moon was above the trees now, and he could see his shadow on the ground pacing him as he turned, but though he strained all his senses, he heard nothing more than the cry of a night-hunting bird, the faint rustle of its prey, and the rhythm of the wind through the trees, and he saw nothing at all.

How long do I wait?

Emotionally battered by the events of the day, Kellen couldn’t stop himself from wondering: What if there had been truth in more of his father’s words than he wanted to believe? What if the Wild Magic was … unreliable? What if it was going to betray him now, just as everything else in his life had?

No.

Kellen wasn’t sure where that conviction came from, but it was deep and sure. The response to his attempts at spellcasting might not be exactly what he’d like—it might be downright scary in fact, confusing, unexpected, utterly puzzling, but the Wild Magic was not a cheat and a lie.

Finally he stopped fidgeting and looked up at the moon. It was still rising. Kellen wasn’t sure how long it had been since he’d cast the spell—at least half a bell. No matter what, he knew he couldn’t simply stand here all night, waiting for help that might never come. Maybe the spell hadn’t worked—that wouldn’t be the Wild Magic’s fault, after all. He wasn’t exactly a full-fledged Wildmage, was he? Maybe he already had all the “help to get out of City lands by daybreak” he actually needed. Maybe he could reach the edge of City lands on his own two feet, unlikely though that seemed. Lycaelon might have lied about that, hoping to make him give up without trying.

He sighed. Might as well start walking, anyway. If help is coming, it can find me wherever I am. No harm in that.

He was about to step out of his circle when he saw a flicker of something white and glowing heading toward him from the west. It looked as bright as the moon itself, but it was clearly coming through the trees toward him. The hair on the back of his neck rose. Was this the answer to his call? Was it a ghost, or some other noncorporeal creature?

Kellen took a deep breath and resolved to stand his ground.

It approached cautiously, as if, whatever it was, it was as wary of him as he was of it. As it came closer he could see that it had four legs—a deer? No, a horse.

Then it stepped through the trees and out onto the road, and Kellen saw that it was neither.

It was a unicorn.

The unicorn was about the size of a small pony, but there the resemblance to anything equine ended. It had long slender legs and a long, lithe, slender—almost feline—body, covered with short plush silvery-white fur, fluffed out against the nocturnal chill. It had a lionlike tufted tail—which it carried, catlike, curled up and away from its body—and narrow pale cloven hooves, like a deer’s or a goat’s. It had a long slender neck, with a short roached mane that stopped just short of its horn. Its head wasn’t really shaped like either a deer’s, a goat’s, or a horse’s, though a little like each.

But its horn … !

The unicorn’s horn was the most beautiful thing Kellen had ever seen—like polished diamond, or perhaps silver, if silver were somehow transparent. The horn was set in the middle of the unicorn’s wide forehead, between its large dark eyes, and seemed to drink in the moonlight from the air around it and glow with a blue light that came from within. It was spiral-shaped, like the narwhal-teeth the Selken-folk sometimes brought to the City for sale, but where they were blunt, the unicorn’s horn tapered to an elegant point sharper than any needle …

“If you’re quite through staring,” the unicorn said acerbically, “I believe we need to get on with this.”

Kellen blinked, then stumbled back in alarm. While he’d been gawking in awestruck wonder, the unicorn had walked right up to him and stopped, close enough to reach out and touch. Its eyes were on a level with his own—deep fathomless pools of spring green, fringed with long thick silver lashes. Its small elegant ears flicked back and forth as it spoke, signaling amusement—or was it annoyance?

“Well,” the unicorn said. “You know why I’m here, Wildmage.”

Finally it seemed as if Kellen was able to think again, and not just stare. Not only a unicorn—but a talking unicorn. It was too much to comprehend all at once. “You’re—going to get me out?” Kellen suggested feebly. “Of the City lands?” he added, stammering.

“Yes, but—you know why I am here,” the unicorn said implacably.

Kellen suddenly remembered something he’d read about unicorns and felt himself blushing hotly. Unicorns only came to virgins. A virgin could tame a unicorn; non-virgins got skewered if they approached too closely or threatened one.

“There is a price for my help, and it is this: that you will remain chaste and celibate—you do know the difference?” the unicorn asked, interrupting itself.

There was a pause. Kellen realized that the unicorn was waiting for him to answer. Fortunately his lessons with Undermage Anigrel had been of some use, and he did know the difference. Celibate meant simply that he wouldn’t marry. Chaste meant that he also wouldn’t have sex, or engage in sexual or erotic practices of any sort. He nodded, swallowing hard to cover his embarrassment at the topic of the conversation.

“—for a year and a day from now,” the unicorn finished. “If you break this promise …” It lowered its head and brandished its horn meaningfully. The tip—just as sharp as it had looked—whispered against the front of Kellen’s tunic, barely touching it, below the belt line.

Up this close, now that he wasn’t just dazzled by its eldritch beauty, Kellen could see that the unicorn was male. Its implication was clear: break his promise, and he wouldn’t be any longer. Well, he hadn’t had any trouble staying a virgin until now, and it didn’t seem like a price that would be particularly difficult to pay—or one that would hurt other people if he paid it.

You can still back out, a small voice inside him said.

“I … yes. Okay. I agree,” Kellen said quickly.

“Then by the blood you have sacrificed, Wildmage, you are bound by your vow,” the unicorn said formally. “Now get on my back—quickly. We have a long way to go before sunrise.” It turned sideways, lashing its tufted tail just like an impatient cat.

Awkwardly, Kellen stepped forward. He was worried about hurting it—it was so small, so graceful, and thinking about getting on its back was like thinking of riding a deer, or a foal—but refusing to do as the unicorn asked was impossible now, and Kellen had to suppose it knew what it was doing. With only a little difficulty, he managed to scramble onto its narrow back. The thick fur was just as soft as a cat’s fur—and just as slippery. Feeling the flex of its muscles between his thighs, Kellen realized the unicorn was much stronger than it looked.

It was also much harder to stay aboard than any horse Kellen had ever ridden, bareback or otherwise. Kellen began sliding sideways on the oil-slick fur just as the unicorn went from a dead stop to a full-out running plunge into the forest. He grabbed at its mane, but found no handholds in the short coarse bristles, and barely managed to fling himself forward and wrap his arms around the unicorn’s slender neck in time to keep from falling off altogether as the creature broke into a clearing.

Its fur smelled like cinnamon.

If he’d thought about riding a unicorn at all—and he hadn’t—Kellen would have imagined that it would gallop like a horse.

It didn’t.

Once it reached its top speed, the unicorn bounded like a deer in full flight—not that Kellen, child of the City, had ever seen a deer except in carefully tended City parks—launching itself directly into the deepest part of the forest. It bounded over fallen logs and through thickets, occasionally running flat-out for a minute or two before gathering itself to spring into the air once more. Every time it sprang forward, Kellen thought he’d slide right off the back, and when it landed, he nearly broke his nose on the unicorn’s neck.

Speed seemed to be its only concern. It paid no attention to the branches that whipped and tore at Kellen’s flesh and clothing, lacerating him as if he were running a gantlet of riding-crops wielded by sadistic riders. He buried his face in the unicorn’s neck, low against its shoulder, to protect his eyes, and was very glad he had—brambles plucked at his arms and legs, ripped his clothing, tore at his hair, and once, for one terrifying moment, the hood of his cloak caught on something, threatening to strangle him or drag him from the unicorn’s back. He clung to its neck with all his strength as the unicorn strained, until at last the cheap cloth of the Felon’s Cloak gave, tearing free to be left behind.

And still it ran, tireless, faster than the fastest horse Kellen could imagine. He knew from the burning along every exposed part of him, the outsides of arms and legs, and to a lesser extent his shoulders and back, that he was bleeding from a thousand scrapes and scratches all along his arms and legs—if he had not shed enough blood to seal the pact between them before, he was certainly shedding it now.

His chest was bruised, he was battered from neck to toes by collisions with branches, and he was having trouble breathing as his arms and chest muscles began to ache from the sheer effort of holding on. Battered and breathless with sheer speed, Kellen wondered if he’d specified anything in his spell about reaching the boundaries of City lands alive—this almost seemed worse than anything the Outlaw Hunt could do to him.

When the unicorn seemed to have settled into a straightforward bounding motion—and Kellen hadn’t been hit by anything for a while—he decided to risk a glimpse at his surroundings. Raising his head cautiously, he looked around.

They were out in the open, and up ahead, Kellen could see the flicker of moonlight on water. There was a stream ahead, its flat surface glistening in the moonlight, a stretch of water perhaps a hundred yards wide. He loosened his stranglehold on the unicorn’s neck, assuming he was going to dismount and wade across.

“Don’t do that,” the unicorn said briefly.

It didn’t slow down.

Kellen watched in horror as the unicorn approached the river at top speed and launched itself from the bank with an enormous leap. It hit the water with a splash that drenched both of them, but the river was only a few feet deep and it forged quickly across through the chest-high water while Kellen clung on for dear life. It lunged up the other bank and was running again before Kellen had even managed to catch his breath from the icy shock of his dousing.

Fortunately, that was the widest of the streams they had to cross that night, because, as Kellen quickly discovered, the unicorn did not mean to stop for anything. It jumped ditches and logs and rivulets; what it could not jump it climbed. What it could neither jump nor climb it went through, leaving Kellen to cling to its back like a tick, and fend for himself as best he could. He was chilled to the bone, with every scratch tracing a separate line of fire along his skin, and every bruise aching with every jolt.

They soon found themselves back among trees again. Kellen had long since buried his face against the unicorn’s neck once more, risking only occasional quick glimpses of his surroundings. Even so, he got the impression that the ground was rising, and that their path was becoming even more difficult. Once or twice the unicorn actually had to slow down, as if it had to pick its way carefully, and a couple of times it came to a complete stop before launching itself vigorously into space. At those times, Kellen was just as glad he couldn’t see where they were going. He certainly wasn’t eager to look down at any point.

He could tell that it was getting colder, though, even if his stream-soaked clothes had long since been air-dried to no more than a faint clamminess by the speed of their flight and the heat of the unicorn’s body. There was a sharp different smell in the air; the scent of pine trees.

Nothing had hit him for the past chime or so, so he raised his head cautiously again and looked around. It seemed they had been fleeing forever.

Once again, as his arms complained that he had been holding on for far too long, he noted that they seemed to be moving through a more open area, one where it might be safe to risk a look around. Cautiously—very cautiously—he raised his head again.

By now Kellen had lost all real sense of time, but he knew they’d been going for a long time—bells, and not just a few chimes. Every muscle he possessed cried out with cold and stiffness as it flexed; he was utterly spent, but if he was exhausted from nothing more than clinging to the unicorn’s back all night, how much more weary must the magical creature itself be? It had never slowed its hectic pace for more than a tenth-chime; even now it moved forward as fast as a galloping horse, its footfalls eerily muffled by the bed of fallen pine needles. The trees on either side were little more than a dark blur as they passed.

The forest through which they now rode was mostly evergreen, with little in the way of treacherous underbrush to attack Kellen. He sat up as far as he could while still holding tightly on to the unicorn’s neck and realized that when he looked back through a gap in the trees he could see down into the valley behind. He could see for leagues.

Surely they’d reached the edge of the City lands by now?

He looked up, into the sky overhead, and could no longer see the moon, only the bright unfamiliar stars of the darkest part of the night. He looked ahead, and when he could not see the moon through the trees, Kellen realized it must be low in the western sky. It was setting. The night must be nearly over. In a bell—less—dawn would come.

And with dawn, the Outlaw Hunt would be released.

The horror of the thought made him flinch. He would certainly have lost his grip on the unicorn’s neck then except for the fact that by now his clenched hands seemed frozen in place.

A low-hanging branch brushed his cheek, and Kellen quickly ducked his head again.

AFTER that, if possible, the terrain over which they rode got even rougher. They seemed to spend as much time going down as up, over territory that would have made a mountain goat think twice. Half the time, Kellen was hanging over the unicorn’s shoulder, the other half, trying to keep from sliding off the unicorn’s rump. He’d have offered to walk, but there was no way he, a City-bred boy whose only experience in climbing was in climbing stairs and the occasional wall or tree, could have kept up with the unicorn. Their path led them down into deep ravines, into which the unicorn slid as much as galloped, and up the other side, with Kellen dangling from its neck, his whole weight hanging from his aching arms. He tried to wrap his legs around the unicorn’s narrow torso, but the slick fur didn’t give him much to grip on to.

The unicorn pushed its way through thickets that reopened the crusted scratches on his arms and legs and gouged new ones, and once, leaping some obstacle Kellen couldn’t see in the dark, it landed badly, slipping and falling and rolling over and over down a slope covered with the rotting remains of last year’s leaves, Kellen tangled up with it and desperately trying to avoid its razor-sharp horn and thrashing hooves.

He thought he’d been in pain before; he realized in that moment that he’d had no idea of how much pain a single person could be in. It felt as if every bone in his body was being systematically broken; he yelped with every impact until the moment when a boulder hit him square in the stomach. He finally rolled free and landed against a rock—hard—gasping in protest as the breath was knocked out of him.

He sat up, blinking and shaking his head, trying to see where they were. He was liberally smeared with mud and last year’s rotting leaves; they had a sour smell, like the dregs of cold tea left too long. This was much worse than falling out of the tree back in the garden.

“Come on. Get up,” the unicorn said remorselessly. It was standing a few feet away. Kellen could see it, faintly glowing in the darkness exactly as if it were the ghost of a unicorn, but he could see nothing else. If it had been injured at all in the fall, it certainly didn’t sound like it.

Kellen shook his head. Stars danced in his vision, and pain lanced through his head and ribs when he moved. In that moment he hated the unicorn, hated magic, hated everyone and everything that had brought him to this place—bruised, aching, and essentially alone in the freezing dark. He didn’t know where he was, or what he was doing here, he didn’t know how any of this would end—he was cut off from both the future and the past, and he had no way to predict what might happen next.

“Don’t tell me you can’t,” the unicorn said nastily. “If you’re still alive, you can.”

With a snarl, Kellen used the rock to push himself to his feet. He staggered through the slippery stinking mush of last autumn’s leaves toward the unicorn, certain that when he reached it he would use the last of his strength to throttle the life out of the maddening creature. But when he reached it, he was too tired—

So there was nothing to do but drag himself onto its back once more, gasping hollowly with the dull, bone-deep ache of hot new bruises that screamed in agony when he moved and throbbed with pain when he didn’t. His muscles shook as he forced his arms around the unicorn’s neck once more.

And they were off again.

At that point, in the midst of the pain and the dark and cold, Kellen felt tears prickle at the back of his eyes—not because of the fall, or the pain, but because he knew that somehow he was going to get through all this. Thanks to the unicorn, he was going to live to see the border and beyond. And then he’d be out of City lands, in a whole new world, and—

And then what?

He had no idea. Where would he go? What would he do?

This was all just too much. He couldn’t do this, whatever it was. He didn’t know what he’d meant to do when he’d faced down his father and the High Council, but it hadn’t been this.

The unicorn, paying about as much attention to Kellen’s internal turmoil as Lycaelon ever had, kept running.

Kellen’s world narrowed to one of utter physical misery, and his mind centered on one thought only: Don’t fall off.

Don’t fall off, because he knew he couldn’t find the strength to mount the unicorn one more time.

Don’t fall off, because falling off the unicorn again would hurt more than he could bear.

Don’t fall off, because the Outlaw Hunt was somewhere back behind him, and if he fell off, he’d never get to the border.

Everything hurt. And he very much feared that what didn’t hurt, didn’t work anymore. He closed his eyes and clung on, grinding his teeth with every jolt and leap. Then, finally, there were no jolts and leaps …

After a very long time, Kellen opened his eyes, feeling dull and stupid with pain, and realized two things.

The unicorn had stopped moving.

And the sky was light.

He sat up with a startled gasp, struggling as if he were trying to wake up from a long nightmare, and instantly fell off the unicorn’s back.

“Don’t get comfortable,” the unicorn said tauntingly, looking down at him. “This is just a very brief stop to rest, nothing more. We’ve still got a long way to go to get out of the lands claimed by your City.”

“It isn’t my City anymore,” Kellen muttered under his breath, getting stiffly to his knees. He blinked and looked around, rubbing his eyes.

It was just dawn. They were at the edge of a stream, and the sound of running water made Kellen’s throat convulse with thirst. He knelt over the flow on hands and knees and scooped up palmfuls of the icy water, drinking thirstily before remembering he had a water-bottle with him. Moving a little less stiffly now, he shrugged the backpack off his back—somehow it had managed to survive the night’s ride—and pulled out its contents, the leather water-bottle and a loaf of bread. He’d fallen on the bread several times that night, but it was still in pretty good shape, considering. He emptied the water-bottle into the stream—for the water was stale and musty by now, and there was no reason to drink it when there was fresh at hand—and then refilled the bottle and used it to drink from. The water still tasted a bit of boiled leather, but it was faster than using his hands. Downstream, the unicorn was quenching its thirst as well.

He drank and drank until he couldn’t hold any more water, then sat back on his heels to look around.

There was no sign of the sun; from the treetops upward, the sky was a uniform shade of pale grey and mist shrouded the tops of the trees and sent little wisps down into the gaps between them. The air was damp and chill, with fog scent in it, and this little stream ran down a long, rocky slope from some point above them. The trees were a great deal taller than the ones in the gardens of the City, they seemed to be mostly conifers, and they had a wilder, gnarled look to them, as if they often had to contend with storm winds.

They were up in the hills—to Kellen, an unimaginable distance from Armethalieh. Everything around them was mist-shrouded, and the nearby pine boughs were thick with heavy dew, turning them green and silver. The boulders of the stream bed were scoured bare, but ones on the banks were heavily covered in moss, with tiny ferns growing between them. All around was the sound of dripping water, interrupted by the occasional clear birdcall.

Kellen stretched and yawned, getting to his feet, working more of the kinks out, and wincing as he discovered new bruises. Now that he wasn’t acquiring new lacerations with every passing moment, and now that his arms weren’t being jerked from their sockets, he realized that he wasn’t—quite—as badly hurt as he’d thought. Though he certainly hurt. And with every movement, he wanted nothing more than to crawl first into a hot bath, and then into a bed. His good clothes and thin leather boots—just fine for a morning of school in Armethalieh—were ruined beyond repair. The skin beneath the tattered clothing was covered with scratches and bruises, and the low soft boots were torn completely through in a couple of places. He pulled off the day-pack, then pulled off his overtunic—there wasn’t much left of it after the night’s ride and the roll down the hillside—and after soaking it in the stream, used the makeshift washcloth to clean away some of the caked dirt and blood from his arms and legs. As he did, he caught sight of the deep livid hand-shaped bruises on his arms where the stone golems had gripped him, and felt a faint weary spark of anger. It seemed a lifetime ago, but the bruises were black and fresh. Rinsing the tattered cloth clean one last time, he washed his face, wincing when he encountered a deep gouge over one eye. He hadn’t known that was there! He ran his hands through his hair, dislodging a small shower of leaves and twigs, and felt his ribs experimentally. Nothing grated, and he only aroused the dull pain of bruises, not the sharp one of a broken bone. Things could be worse. They could, most certainly, be better, but they could also be worse.

His stomach rumbled, reminding him he’d missed the last several meals, and he returned to the day-pack. He was a little surprised to find that the bread, though coarse and a little stale by now, was perfectly edible, but then he realized there was actually no reason for it to be otherwise. Most of those involved in his Banishing must have really believed they were preparing him to spend his life as a hunted Outlaw. The Council would certainly have done everything in its power to maintain the fiction of Kellen’s possible survival, after all, just as it pretended that every Banishing was merely that—and not murder in disguise.

Though Kellen could cheerfully have eaten twice as much as was there, he carefully divided the loaf in half. For the first time, he thought—really thought—about the unicorn. It had gone through just as much as he had tonight, and more: it had been the one doing the running, and with him on its back, as well.

And it hadn’t had to do it, any of it. The unicorn hadn’t been Banished from Armethalieh, after all. It had come to save Kellen’s life of its own free will, and what had it gotten so far for its trouble? A litany of complaint.

Despite his fear and weariness, Kellen felt his ears burn with shame. He’d thought he was so much better than everyone in Armethalieh, and the moment things got rough, what did he turn into? A spoiled City brat!

Only you aren’t a citizen of Armethalieh now, spoiled or otherwise.

“There’s food,” he said, holding out half the loaf to the unicorn. “And, look, I …”

His voice died in his throat as he turned and took a really good look at his companion for the first time.

If possible, the magical creature looked even more improbable in the daylight than it had by the light of the moon—at one and the same time, ethereal as the mist and as solid and present as the trees. He stared at it in fascination, both self-pity and good resolutions momentarily forgotten, for in all of Armethalieh, known for its magick, he had never seen anything quite so—well—magickal.

Its downy coat was fluffed out against the morning chill, and dew sparkled on its silver-white fur, making it shimmer like the most expensive silk velvet. Its head was as long, proportionately, as a horse’s, and the ears were much the same shape as a horse’s, but there was more space for intelligence behind the wide speaking eyes, the muzzle smaller and more delicate in comparison. And there all resemblance to a horse ended.

A unicorn. I’m looking at a REAL UNICORN.

It wasn’t that Kellen had ever been told that unicorns didn’t exist, or anything like that, because they certainly existed in wondertales and were discussed in the history of the City and in his magickal texts. As a Student at the Mage College, he’d studied them, just as he’d studied other creatures of magick and the inferior Other Races that the Light had seen fit to create in his Natural History courses.

But he now suspected that the Natural Histories he’d studied had been written by people who’d never seen one, since they compared unicorns to horses, deer, lions, and even goats! Now that he’d actually seen one, Kellen didn’t think you could really compare a unicorn to anything besides another unicorn.

And he suspected that no one in the City had seen one for a very long time.

“No,” the unicorn said in answer to his offer, nostrils flaring. “But I thank you for the thought. You should eat it all. You’ll need your strength.”

Kellen did not need to be told twice. He sat by the stream and wolfed down the rest of the coarse loaf quickly, along with a great deal of stream water, then filled and stoppered the water-bottle for later use, putting it carefully into the knapsack. He’d once heard someone say that hunger made everything taste good, but to tell the truth, he was so busy cramming the bread into his stomach that he didn’t taste it at all.

He decided to use the damp remains of his overtunic to make a sort of handhold or collar, so he wouldn’t need to cling so tightly to the unicorn’s throat. Provided, of course, that the unicorn didn’t object …

“Now what, unicorn?” Kellen asked, getting to his feet again and stretching.

“Now, Kellen, we go on,” the unicorn answered, picking its way carefully among the moss-covered boulders, so that Kellen could mount once more. “And—since we are bound together in this, you might as well call me by my name. That would be—Shalkan.”

NOW that there was light, Kellen could at least see when to duck, and Shalkan was not going nearly as fast as he had been while it was dark. Kellen’s makeshift handhold worked fairly well; with the rags of his over-tunic looped around the unicorn’s neck, he could hold on to the knotted ends and sit almost upright, instead of lying along Shalkan’s back.

“Are you sure we’re still in City lands?” Kellen asked tentatively. All he could see in any direction was trees: climbing up the rocky slopes, trailing down them, their tops vanishing into the dawn mist—trees so enormous they’d stifled most of the undergrowth beneath their canopy.

“I’m sure,” Shalkan said. “And next you’re going to ask me how the Outlaw Hunt can possibly find us all this long way from the City.”

“No I’m not,” Kellen protested, stung—although that had been the question on the tip of his tongue. “It’s enchanted. It has magick. Like bloodhounds, I suppose; the Mages would give it some kind of scent and turn it loose.”

“But you have no idea of what it actually is. Have you ever seen an Outlaw Hunt?” Shalkan asked.

“I … no,” Kellen admitted sheepishly. He wasn’t sure anyone had. He doubted anyone had been Banished from the City in his lifetime. Or—at least, not that he’d heard. There was the matter of the sister he didn’t remember … “Have you?” he said boldly.

“Let us say I have a certain experience with the Hunt, just as you are about to, unless we are very lucky.” Shalkan shook his head, and the sharp tip of his horn seemed to give off a little more light. “So, allow me to enlighten you. The Hunt is composed of Hounds—stone statues in the shape of hounds, animated by the Mages just as they animate statues of humans to do their bidding.”

“Stone golems,” Kellen said aloud. He thought of the stone guardians in front of House Tavadon, and shivered.

“Exactly so.” Shalkan continued, his voice sounding dispassionate and pitiless. “The Hounds are tireless, relentless, and voiceless. Give them the scent, and they pursue until they catch their prey—or until they reach the borders of the lands claimed by the City. And when—if—they catch you, they will tear you to ribbons.” Shalkan cocked his head to look back over his shoulder at his rider. “And me, of course,” he added, matter-of-factly. “I’m helping you, after all. They’ll kill anything that stands between them and their prey. Your City Mages have gone to a great deal of trouble to ensure that not only do those who have been Banished not survive the experience, but to discourage anyone outside of the City from even considering helping them.”

“But of course, it’s all out of sight of the Mages who sent them, so their hands and consciences are clean,” Kellen added bitterly. He thought about a pack of the same Hounds that guarded the front of House Tavadon running silently along his trail, and winced inwardly. Somehow, knowing exactly what was after him made it worse. He wondered if somehow he’d always known he was going to end up this way, and that was why he’d particularly hated the mastiffs, then dismissed the thought with a shrug. It couldn’t matter now.

But he couldn’t help wondering why, if Shalkan knew what was coming, the unicorn was trying to get him to safety … Did Shalkan owe a debt to the Wild Magic? Or was this just another instance of some poor innocent bystander being dragged into his problems?

Like Perulan …

Shalkan flicked an ear back in his direction again and suddenly seemed to quiver all over. “The Hounds have been released,” he said abruptly. “They’re behind us somewhere, running free. I can feel them. The question is, which of us will reach the border first?”

A few moments later, the unicorn had resumed his headlong bounding gait to the west.

Chapter Nine

Facing the Outlaw Hunt

KELLEN WAS ALMOST used to the way that Shalkan bounded through the forest by now; he was beginning to get the rhythm of it and move with it. They’d left the deep forest behind a few hours before and were now in an area that was—well—mountainous, if the descriptions in the proscribed wondertales he’d seen in the Great Library were anything to go by, with jutting granite outcroppings, sheer drop-offs, and pocket canyons. The mist had either lifted, or they had passed out of the region where it lingered, and the sun shone down on them with a cheer that was all out-of-keeping with the grimness of their situation. Here the trees grew in thickets, easy to avoid, and they rode through bright cloudless daylight. In full sunlight Shalkan was even more dazzling than he had been by moonlight and morning mist: his thick white fur had the same crystalline dazzle as the winter’s first fall of snow, and his spiral horn had the prismatic fire of polished crystal. Yet Shalkan was undeniably as much a palpable living creature as Kellen was: real and earthly (though obviously magical), and not an illusion that might vanish at any moment. And not much like that little silver-plated mascot Kellen still carried, except as to general shape. The heat of the day intensified the spicy scent of the unicorn’s fur, making Kellen’s stomach rumble and causing him to think longingly of bakeshops and plates of fried sweet cakes.

More bells—as the City he had left reckoned time—passed as they fled, and as they continued to climb, Kellen was able to look back and see the hills spread out behind them; thousands of acres of land that seemed to be completely uninhabited—at least by humans.

Yet Shalkan said it was all City lands, and undoubtedly the unicorn was right.

Why did the City claim so much territory? The two of them must have covered hundreds of leagues in their escape, or at least it seemed that way. They were heading almost directly west, and they still weren’t out of reach of the Outlaw Hunt.

“Why?” Kellen said aloud.

“Why what?” Shalkan responded, dropping back to a trot. The unicorn was looking from side to side, as it had been since midmorning, as if it were searching for something specific. A landmark?

“Why does the City claim so much land?” Kellen asked, repeating his thoughts aloud. “The farmlands, okay, I can see that—we need the farmlands for the crops, but this isn’t farmland—”

“Because they’re greedy idiots,” the unicorn said bluntly.

Kellen flinched. He knew he shouldn’t care. The City had condemned him to death, after all. He was an Outlaw. But at this time yesterday he’d been heading down to the docks, with no real idea any of this was going to happen. And somehow he could not help but feel obscurely guilty that his former home was so cordially disliked as to evoke that sort of response from the unicorn. Fine, it wasn’t Kellen’s fault, but he still felt guilty, tainted by association.

Shalkan sighed. “Kellen, I’m sorry. You deserve a better answer, and I don’t have one. Ask me something else.”

“How long until we reach the border?” Kellen asked.

There was a long silence, and from it, Kellen could already read the answer that Shalkan didn’t want to give.

“The Hounds will reach us first, won’t they?” he said quietly.

Shalkan stopped and looked back at him. “They’re about an hour—four chimes—behind us. The border is … farther than that. We need to find a place to make a stand. That’s what I’ve been looking for. I’m sorry, Kellen, but it’s going to come to a fight after all.”

Shalkan turned back to the trail and put on a burst of speed then that surprised even Kellen, who dropped his makeshift rein and went back to clinging tightly to the unicorn’s neck with both arms in order to hold on.

At last the unicorn stopped again, so suddenly that Kellen’s whole body was flung forward against his neck.

“Here.”

Kellen raised his head and looked around, blinking at the brightness that confronted him.

He was facing a sheer wall of white granite. It reflected the midday sun with a bright eye-hurting intensity. A gentle slope of gravel and granite chips led up to a shallow opening in the rock, as if two blocks of granite had been eased a few feet apart by some master hand. The trail they’d been following led on around the edge of the cliff, and the path Shalkan stood on was only a few feet wide. The ground dropped off into a steep, brush-filled gully on the far side of the path, and beyond, the ground sloped sharply away in a tangle of granite outcroppings and barren sloping hills, all bathed in harsh, cloudless spring sunlight.

“We’re running out of time, and this is the best we’ve got. They can’t get behind us there, and we’ll have room to fight. But you’ll need a weapon.” The unicorn raised his head and sniffed the air, and added, “Quickly. We probably won’t hear them coming until it’s too late.”

Kellen slid from Shalkan’s back, his hand automatically going to his belt. But his penknife was a tiny thing, suitable for sharpening quills and cutting paper, not to doing battle with monstrous stone dogs.

He cast a frantic look around. At the end of the path was a conifer tree, its trunk gnarled and twisted by years of exposure to the elements in this hostile place. The branches should have been covered with green needles, but instead, they were bare and stark. Dead. Maybe dry enough to break off a piece, but not so brittle the piece would be useless. Kellen ran toward it.

When he reached it, he saw that it had been struck by lightning, shearing away most of the trunk and burning the core to charcoal. One thick smooth branch, solid and heavy as iron, the bark long polished away by the wind, came away easily in his hands. He returned, panting, with his makeshift club.

“Good,” Shalkan said brusquely. The unicorn turned and lunged up the slope. Kellen scrambled after him, slipping and sliding on the loose rock that covered the ground. The uncertain footing would be another advantage for them when the Hounds came for them.

Once Kellen had armed himself, the two of them climbed to the cleft in the granite wall. It was shallow and narrow—only four feet deep, narrowing to a point at the back, and a bit over a yard wide at the opening. No room for a Hound to get around them and come at them from behind. Though the mountain air had a cool bite to it, the pale walls of the pocket canyon radiated heat, as warm as living flesh to the touch.

Kellen clutched at his wooden club tightly, aware in the sudden stillness that he could hear a scrabbling sound, like rats in a rockfall, disturbing pebbles as they ran, only much louder.

It was the sound of rock on rock. The Hounds.

The next thing he saw was the bright flash of sun as it struck a polished surface, and then Kellen saw his first Hound, surging up over the edge of the gully.

It charged up the gravel slope at a dead run, as unnervingly silent as Shalkan had warned. It looked exactly like the ones outside his front door, aside from being carved from a different color of granite, and that somehow added an element of horror to the whole situation, as if this were a strange waking nightmare. It made him feel as if he and Shalkan were being attacked by the City itself.

The Hound was the shape and size of a regular mastiff, carved all out of mirror-polished red granite, lovingly detailed by its maker-Mage down to the studded collar about its neck. Its red, blank eyes, like featureless marbles, glared unseeing in their direction; its red tongue lolled between its red teeth; its red lips were drawn back in a red snarl; and it lunged up the treacherous slope with those polished granite eyes fixed unblinkingly on Kellen’s face.

Behind it came more—a dozen, twenty, too many to count. All identical to the first save for the color of the granite from which they’d been carved: red, white, black, grey. All silent, save for the thud of their stone feet against the ground, the clatter of stone paws on more stone, the clicking of dislodged gravel rolling downslope, or the smack of their granite flanks against each other as they jostled for position. How many were there? Two dozen? More?

Kellen had a moment for one pang of terror—when Shalkan had first described the Hunt, he’d thought there’d be only a few Hounds, six, perhaps, or eight—before the first one reached him. Then there was no more time for thought at all, as the Hounds surged up the graveled slope, the red one in the lead, fangs bared for his throat.

He swung his club, aiming low at the first Hound’s brittle and vulnerable legs. Once, when he was a child, he’d seen a stone golem slip and break. He knew that even though they were enchanted, the Hound golems were still as fragile as the carved stone they really were, and for all its bulk, a Hound’s legs were comparatively slender in proportion to its size.

His club connected with a dull impact of wood against stone. With a pang of savage delight, Kellen saw the Hound’s foreleg break off with a crack, and the three-legged Hound lost its balance and rolled backward down the slope, bowling over several of the Hounds behind it with dull tombstone thuds. They milled and snapped at each other just as if they were dogs of flesh, making a sound like boulders tumbling together.

But a moment later, they seemed to recall their task, and surged in a body up the hill—and they just kept coming.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flicker of magick. One of the Hounds had reached Shalkan. The unicorn had reached out and touched it with his horn, and the Hound had stiffened, becoming a nonmagickal stone statue once more. It tumbled down, just like any other boulder, away from the canyon opening. Bits of it cracked off and went flying in all directions as it fell.

A flash of memory told Kellen what had happened. A unicorn’s horn could purify anything it touched, and break all magick, Kellen remembered from his studies, and felt a sudden flash of hope. Because of that, at least they had a chance.

But as fast as Shalkan was, the Hounds were faster. If one of them got its jaws around Shalkan’s throat, the unicorn would be dead.

Shalkan’s hooves were all-but-useless here; only his horn was going to be at all effective.

Another Hound leaped at Kellen. This time Kellen was too slow. He missed when he swung at it, and Shalkan had too many problems of his own to come to Kellen’s rescue. Kellen found himself with his arms full of writhing, silently snarling stone Hound, heavy as granite yet horribly alive.

Its jaws snapped inches from his throat as its clawed paws scrabbled at his arms and stomach. He dropped his club. A second Hound had darted in beneath it; he felt its jaws closing on his leg. One good snap—and his leg would be useless, broken, and it would all be over.

With a shout of fear and pain, Kellen kicked at the stone face of the second Hound, keeping it from getting a good bite in, and shoved the first Hound away from his face. Somehow, he grabbed it by its hind legs; it tried to escape him, but this was a smaller Hound, about the size of a greyhound, and a lot lighter than its fellows. He used the Hound itself as a club, swinging it at the head of the second Hound golem until its jaws shattered and the legs in his hands snapped off. He flung and kicked them both away, screaming wordlessly. He snatched up his club and hammered at the next one as it rushed him, sweeping low with his club, then turned to protect Shalkan.

Out of his line of sight, Kellen heard the dull impact of stone on stone as the Hounds now tried to rush them in a pack, and those that missed slammed against the granite walls to either side of the canyon opening. Some slid back to the bottom of the slope. Others tried to rush in from the side. Their jaws clattered as they snapped at Kellen and missed, and when he looked, he could see them barking, or at least their jaws working as if they were barking, but there was no sound other than the impact of stone on stone, and wood on stone, and the faint sizzle as Shalkan managed to disenchant another of the Hound golems.

If the Outlaw Hunt had been smarter than the mastiffs they resembled, Kellen and Shalkan would have been dead in the first few instants of the attack. But the stone Hounds were only stronger, and faster, and tireless, and nearly invulnerable.

Nearly, that was the key thing. Mastiffs weren’t the brightest dogs in the world, and these stone versions seemed even dimmer. They didn’t even try to protect themselves, and they didn’t learn from the mistakes of the ones that were eliminated. That was what gave him and Shalkan a chance. A slim chance, but a real one, and a far, far better one than any of the Mages would have believed, back in the City. Quickly their strategy evolved—Kellen stood in front, beating the Hounds back, breaking their legs off when he could, protecting Shalkan so that the unicorn could dart out and destroy each one permanently. Even if Kellen managed to break off two legs, or a lower jaw, the maimed-but-still-enchanted Hound would just keep on coming, crawling up the slope as long as it could still move in order to get at its prey.

He could not kill the creatures, but he could cripple them—Shalkan couldn’t hurt them, but he could destroy them. The Hunt climbed over its weaker members, trying to get at him and Shalkan indiscriminately, not realizing that of the two of them, Shalkan was the most dangerous. The two of them took advantage of that.

And slowly, slowly, Kellen and Shalkan winnowed the pack, until the Hounds coming against them were few enough to count, and all of them were chipped and battered by previous attacks.

As their numbers diminished, the Hounds seemed to sense the fact—their leaps grew more frantic, their assaults more desperate. Once Kellen was bitten: the Hound’s jaws closed over his forearm, its teeth just about to break the skin before Shalkan turned the Hound into lifeless stone. But even so, Kellen had to batter the stone body against the wall of the pocket canyon to loosen its unliving grip from his flesh.

And in that moment of distraction, two more attacked.

“Kellen!”

One was missing one of its forelegs. The other had lost its lower jaw and half its head. Kellen managed to knock the three-legged one sideways, away from Shalkan, before the other leaped into the air and bore Kellen down.

His head hit the ground with an impact that jarred his teeth, and then the Hound, shaking its head like a terrier with a rat, hit him across the side of the head with the ragged remains of its muzzle.

It could not bite. But it did not have to bite to kill him. All it had to do was batter him to death with blows from its flailing stone head—or hold him, helpless, while others of its pack arrived to finish him.

“Hold it still!” Shalkan shouted, and Kellen, grimly, struggled to obey.

There was a jarring impact, and the Hound flew off his chest as the unicorn pivoted and kicked. Kellen heard the sound of breaking stone.

“Up!” Shalkan cried desperately.

Kellen dragged himself to his feet, scrabbling for his club. He staggered, dazed and unable to see as dark spots filled his vision. His nose was bleeding, and he snorted, spraying blood. He swung wildly, and felt the blow connect, felt the jarring hardness of wood against stone as he knocked one of the golems flying.

They fought on. If there was a Hell, this was surely it …

Finally—silence.

No thudding of stone-on-stone, no dark bodies rushing at him, no more Hounds were coming up the slope. Exhausted and drenched in sweat, his clothing in rags, Kellen looked around. The ground was littered with broken stone statues that had once been the Hounds of the Outlaw Hunt. Not one of them was whole.

Horribly, there were lots of bits that were still moving, still writhing, still trying to get at their quarry. But nothing that could do him or Shalkan any harm.

“We did it—” Kellen said in dull and weary disbelief. He wanted to feel relief, but—well, perhaps there was a spark of it. He hadn’t the strength to sustain more than that little spark, though. Every muscle hurt. He would have given up long since except for the need to protect Shalkan. “We—”

“No,” Shalkan said bleakly, interrupting him. “Listen.”

There was the sound of scrabbling stone feet over rock.

“No …” Kellen said in angry disbelief. More Hounds. “No. That’s not fair!”

A second pack of Hounds swarmed into view, a pack even larger than the first.

Kellen stared, watching them come, frozen in shock.

The City had sent a second Outlaw Hunt. Against all Law and Custom, they’d sent a second pack of Hounds, a second Hunt, to kill him—to kill them. They’d hated him enough to do that—his father hated him enough to do that—and not only was he, Kellen, going to die here because of that, Shalkan was going to die, too, because of the spell Kellen had cast and the vow Shalkan had sworn, to take Kellen over the border of City lands. Shalkan would not leave him, and the Hounds would kill Shalkan too.

His fault. Because the Council cheated. His fault. Because the Council lied. His fault. Because Lycaelon Tavadon had cheated and lied. His father, the noble, the honorable, the respected Arch-Mage of Armethalieh. The trusted leader of the High Council.

Someplace in the back of his mind, Kellen had still believed in Lycaelon, believed at least that the Arch-Mage would keep his word. Perhaps even believed that, no matter what had passed between them, there was still something binding them together, and that his father would, in all decency, allot him some sort of fair chance, no matter how tiny. But Lycaelon could not bear to be contradicted, could not bear to be defeated, and clearly would do anything to revenge himself on the person who had done both.

A vast fury filled Kellen—if there’d still been love there between the two of them, father and son, that love had been betrayed and defiled so utterly and completely that it left a terrible vacuum; and this rage rushed in to take its place. It swept away Kellen’s pain and exhaustion. In his rage, he felt nothing but the need to destroy this terrible thing, this thing that should not be. He stepped forward and struck at the first of the Hounds, tears of grief and fury streaming unnoticed down his face. In his blind, berserker anger, he felt nothing but the need to destroy.

There was not even room in his mind for thoughts, only a focused and diamond-hard rage, white-hot, searing away everything else. He stepped forward and struck at the first of the Hounds with a strength he didn’t even recognize as his own. His eyes blurred and cleared; there was wetness on his cheeks. His tears were irrelevant. All that mattered was the enemy before him and the weapon in his hand.

He’d ridden all night and fought off one pack of Hounds already. Kellen didn’t care. He was beyond thinking. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Rage filled him but did not overmaster him. He was beyond thinking, but that only freed him to act. As if he, too, were made of stone, he fought, drawing on reserves he did not know he had and did not question the source of. He could not lose this fight—whatever the cost, whatever the price he must pay later, he could not lose. His whole world narrowed to the few feet of space just before the mouth of the canyon. Whatever entered that space he hit.

Afterward Kellen retained only a blurred and confused body-memory of disjointed moments of the fight, as though once the picture of what had happened had been whole, then someone had smashed it and left Kellen with nothing more than a handful of jagged pieces.

He remembered doing things that were impossible, and doing them because he had to.

He remembered batting a Hound out of the air, feeling as if he had all the time in the world to strike the blow because the creature just seemed to hang there, as if Time itself had stopped.

He remembered the feel of stone jaws closing on his flesh. No pain, just a crushing coldness, as if the cold of the stone had somehow transferred itself to his body.

He remembered forcing his fingers once again around the shaft of the club, seeing that one of them wouldn’t move, seeing that it was broken, closing his other hand over it and forcing the broken finger into place. He did not feel the pain.

He remembered how quietly the Hounds’ legs sheared away, how the place where the stone broke glittered like fresh-spilled salt in the afternoon sun. He remembered how the light flashed off their polished skins, making the moving pack flicker like the surface of the harbor on a bright day when the wind was blowing over the water, and in the back of his mind, Kellen could almost hear the faint scream of gulls. He did not remember his own screams, how as the battle wore on, his voice cracked and broke, and became only a whisper of unyielding fury.

And still the Hounds came. And still Kellen fought.

“KELLEN. Kellen.”

Someone was calling his name.

“Kellen. KELLEN!”

Dazedly, Kellen tried to raise his club once more, and realized that at last he had no strength left. His muscles shook; a slow constant tremor as if he were wracked by fever-chill, but he felt almost as if he were floating, somehow distant from his body, as if everything he had done, he had done almost in his sleep.

He was staring at the ground. He couldn’t raise the club, because he wasn’t holding the club. The world around him was silent, without the clack and rattle of living stone moving to attack. Somehow there was a wrongness to that, and Kellen felt a faint pang of alarm. Where was his club? Where were the Hounds?

He raised his head, slowly. The effort made him nauseous and lightheaded. He blinked. It took a conscious effort, and his eyes felt gritty and dry. He knew, obscurely, that he should be in pain, but he wasn’t yet. Just—numb. Exhausted, and numb.

Shalkan was standing beside him, gazing at him with a worried expression. The unicorn looked rumpled, his head hanging with exhaustion, but there was no blood on his silver fur.

Kellen raised his hand to touch that fur, and gasped as shooting pain lanced through his body, shocking him back to himself. He looked down. Swollen and bloody against his forearm was the deep print of mastiff jaws.

“We have to go now,” Shalkan said gently, raising his head with an effort. The unicorn’s voice was hoarse, and Kellen felt a dim flare of alarm for his companion.

“But the Hounds,” Kellen said. His voice sounded clumsy and strained, as if he’d forgotten how to speak. He looked around, blinking at the brightness of sun on stone.

“They’re all dead,” Shalkan said flatly. “Or if they aren’t, they’re no danger to us.”

The ground around the pocket canyon was littered with the lifeless broken statues and scattered limbs that had been the Outlaw Hunt—and worst of all, here and there, the limbless bodies of still-animate Hounds, helpless but still attempting to reach their prey, squirming like hideous caterpillars of stone.

“Get on,” Shalkan said again, taking another step closer to him. “They’ll have figured out by now that we’ve managed to get rid of the first packs. They’ll be creating more. Fortunately, it will take them some time, and the new packs won’t get here until morning. But we’re only safe over the Border. Get on. You have to get on; we have to get out of here.”

“I can’t do that again,” Kellen said in a ragged whisper. “I can’t.”

“Kellen,” Shalkan said harshly. “Are you listening to me? Get on. We have to go now. We have to get over the border before they send another pack.”

Kellen finally turned toward Shalkan, but when he moved, his knees buckled and he fell. The unicorn moved forward quickly, so that Kellen fell half across his back, stomach down.

Shalkan stood steadily beneath his weight. Kellen sprawled there for a long moment, his body suddenly aware of how much it hurt, and wondered how he would ever find the strength to lift his leg across the unicorn’s haunches.

But he had to. Because if they stayed here, another Hunt would come. And this time, they’d both die.

He couldn’t let that happen to Shalkan.

Gritting his teeth, Kellen swung his right leg across Shalkan’s back.

The bolt of sudden unexpected agony shocked him back to full consciousness. He realized that there was a deep welling bite high on the outside of his right thigh, and that his left ankle had been bruised between a Hound’s jaws sometime during the fight. It twisted beneath him as he put his full weight on it to mount, and he grabbed Shalkan’s shoulders, gasping for breath. As he did, his broken finger momentarily hurt worse than all the other injuries put together, and he gasped and coughed, choking on the pain. Shalkan half crouched, and suddenly Kellen was on his back, sprawled astride. There was no way he could hold on—but at least he was in place. More or less. For now.

“Comfy?” the unicorn asked sardonically, shifting his weight to settle Kellen more securely on his back. And somehow, that single word—or perhaps the tone, laden with heavy irony—brought a little more life back into Kellen, though he could not have said why. Maybe because, if Shalkan was feeling strong enough to be sarcastic, there was still hope.

Kellen laughed raggedly, feeling blood from his thigh starting to trickle down his leg and into what remained of his boot. “Oh, yeah.” His voice was hoarse and cracked, and his throat hurt.

“Don’t fall off,” Shalkan advised.

“Right.”

Shalkan picked his way carefully down the slope, avoiding the still-moving bodies of the crippled Hounds, and continued along the trail, still at a slow walk. All the grace and vitality of the unicorn’s gait was gone now. Forget bounding across the forest, Shalkan moved as ploddingly as if each step was an effort. Kellen empathized with his friend—for at some point during the fight, Shalkan had become just that—but at the same time a small selfish part of himself was grateful, because he could not possibly have managed to stay on Shalkan’s back if the unicorn had set any faster pace. As it was, each footfall jarred him all the way through, making everything hurt afresh with each step Shalkan took, and Kellen bit his lip to keep from crying out as they moved slowly down the trail. He realized as he did so that he’d bitten it before—or something had. His face was a mask of blood. His nose felt swollen and hot; he started to touch it, and thought better of doing so. Maybe it was broken. It was a lot easier to breathe through his mouth.

As the combination of adrenaline and stupor wore off, Kellen gradually became aware of just how extensively he’d been hurt. The bite on his thigh was only the bloodiest of his injuries; Kellen had been bitten in half a dozen places during the battle; crushing or tearing wounds that burned and throbbed, the bruising almost more agonizing than the pain. The hand with the broken finger was swelling and starting to turn dark, making his right hand stiff and almost impossible to use. His muscles ached with strain; his head hurt as if it had been hit—hard—several times … in fact, he didn’t think there was any part of him that didn’t hurt just now.

“Do you suppose they’re poisoned?” Kellen asked, to distract himself. “The Hound’s teeth, I mean?” Talking still hurt, but he found he really wanted to know.

“The strangest things entertain you,” Shalkan said, but Kellen could hear a note of relief in the unicorn’s voice that he was asking the question—or any question at all. “No, I don’t think so. But cheer up—there’s always the chance of infection. Or gangrene. Or maggots. Now why don’t you see if your water-bottle survived intact and have a nice drink?”

Kellen had forgotten about his backpack—though he’d fallen on it a couple of times during the fight—and completely forgotten about the water-bottle he’d filled at the stream at dawn today. Balancing himself carefully on Shalkan’s back, he managed to get the backpack off and open it with his good hand.

The water in the small waterskin was warm and tasted of leather, but Kellen had never in his life tasted anything so delicious. He drained it in a few thirsty swallows before replacing the bottle and shrugging the backpack carefully into position once more. It hurt, but it was worth it.

It was the last halfway pleasant experience of the afternoon.

Kellen’s sense of victory at having defeated and escaped the Outlaw Hunt swiftly disappeared in the presence of the grinding pain of his injuries. His entire body slowly became one throbbing, feverish ache, interrupted by unexpected lances of fiery agony. As the pain increased, the afternoon sun seemed fiendishly bright, the cool air of the high hills alternately freezing in the shade, or a choking furnace heat in the sun.

“I have to get down and walk,” Kellen said at one point, barely aware of what he was saying. He knew that Shalkan was as exhausted as he was, though he didn’t think the unicorn had actually been injured in the fight. He had a vague notion that it would hurt both of them less if he walked; he’d managed to forget that he was too badly hurt to take even a few steps.

“No you don’t. Just hold on,” Shalkan said soothingly.

Kellen leaned forward, resting his whole weight against the unicorn’s neck and awkwardly embracing it. It was easy enough to do; the unicorn’s head hung low now, his neck parallel to the ground. Shalkan’s bristly mane dug into Kellen’s neck and chest, pressing now against bare skin, because his undertunic had been reduced to rags by the Hounds’ attacks, but Kellen barely noticed that small discomfort. Dimly, he remembered that there were things he ought to be doing, things he should be worrying about, but the pain was like a vast thick liquid that was slowly submerging him, taking away his ability to reason, to think.

They crossed the ridge and went down into forest again. Kellen’s head ached fiercely, the pounding pain throbbing in time with his heartbeat. He groaned aloud, unable to understand why they were back among the trees—were they going back to the City? Why?—but glad to be away from the bright sunlight. Sometimes he heard Shalkan speaking to him, repeating the same words over and over with weary patience, but he was unable to rouse himself enough to make sense of what the unicorn was saying. Sometimes he tried to answer, not sure if his answers made any sense, but finally he was unable to make even that much effort, and sometime after that, Shalkan stopped talking to him.

An eternity seemed to pass as they walked—slowly—toward the setting sun. Kellen never lost consciousness, not completely. A tiny part of his mind was always aware that he had to hold on, though at times he wasn’t sure where he was or even, near the end, what he was holding on to. When he felt himself drifting too far into unconsciousness he fought to bring himself back by forcing his broken hand into a fist, or slapping it against Shalkan’s shoulder—making the unicorn stagger—and that worked for a while.

But at last he lost the strength for even that.

“WE’RE across.”

The pain ebbed, a little. Just a little. Just enough for Kellen to understand that the unicorn had stopped moving. “We’re across,” Shalkan repeated. The unicorn staggered to a stop and stood splay-legged, swaying.

Kellen opened his eyes. Either it was dusk, or his vision was failing. He closed them again, and tried not to move.

Something was pulling at him, dragging him from the unicorn’s back. In his mind, Kellen struggled wildly, but his body had no more left to give. He tried to see his attacker, but it was too dark, or his vision was gone at last. He felt himself being pulled upright, away from Shalkan. His feet brushed the ground and he cried out, a hoarse cawing sound, as pain lanced upward from his ankle to the crown of his head, making the world flare lightning-bright for a brief moment. Then the oblivion he had been fighting against all day swept over him in a sudden wave.

And then nothing.

He roused again at the touch of cool patient hands. He was lying down somewhere dark and shadowy, but he could tell nothing beyond than that. He blinked, trying to force his eyes open, but he couldn’t make them focus. All he saw was a vague shape, dark against dark.

“Rest,” a soothing voice told him. “You’re safe here.”

Kellen was too tired to disbelieve. He lay back, letting the hands and voice do as they wished.

“Drink.”

There was a cup at his lips, and Kellen was terribly thirsty. It was cool, and only when he had drained the cup did he realize that it wasn’t water, but something foul-tasting and bitter. He choked and tried to push it away, but it was too late, and he was far too weak to fight. The darkness was back, carrying Kellen away with it.

Chapter Ten

Hunters of the Dark

KELLEN DREAMED, AND his dreams were anything but pleasant.

There was no sun nor moon, but somehow he could see everything clearly.

He looked around, and saw without surprise that he was back in the canyon, but the lush woods in the distance had been replaced by the lifeless, shattered corpses of trees, and sere grasses tufted the ground beneath them. This time, he was alone.

When he looked up, the sky was a swirl of ugly colors, the red of drying blood, and bruise-purple, and the sickly green of an infected wound. It glowed; the strange dim light of the foxfire found in rotten stumps. The breeze carried the scent of carrion.

The Hounds were coming; he saw them plunging among the blasted remains of the trees, hard, shining claws tearing up great clots of dead turf as they ran. Their eyes glowed, the furnace-red of embers. He could see them swarming toward him, not dozens this time, but hundreds, and as they came closer, they began to change. They sprouted long curling yellow horns, their tails became long and barbed, and their smooth granite skins bubbled and erupted until they were covered with scales. And at the last, leathery wings burst from their shoulders and unfurled in an obscene parody of butterflies emerging from a cocoon.

With a shock, he recognized what they had become. They were Demons, just as Lycaelon had promised. He’d summoned them with the Wild Magic, and they’d come.

They reached for him with their clawed hands, dove at him from above on their leathery wings. They were all around him now, circling around him, laughing mockingly. His sanctuary was gone.

“Wildmage—you summoned us with your magic—Wildmage—”

He swung at them with his club, but it changed in his hand into another Demon, writhing around and sinking its fangs into his arm.

He flung the club away and ran.

HE was back in the City, at Perulan’s house in the Artists’ Quarter. Kellen’s heart leaped with hope as he ran up the steps and hammered on the door. There was still time. He could warn Perulan not to leave, not to go down to the docks—

Perulan opened the door. He was wearing his favorite red tunic, smiling as he saw it was Kellen. But as Kellen watched in horror, the cloth became tight and shiny, spread quickly all over the writer’s body and turned to scales, as Perulan became taller, fanged and clawed and winged.

“I was waiting for you, Wildmage. Come in …”

The Demon lunged, laughing. Kellen turned and ran.

HE was running through the forest. It was night. Thorns and brambles ripped and tore at him, and behind him he could hear the howling of the pack as they followed. Just ahead was the canyon, if he could only reach it. But he had to have a weapon to defend himself with.

He stopped, frantically searching, but saw nothing he could use. At last, far ahead, he spotted a branch that he could tear free. But when he reached it and pulled it away from the tree, he saw that it was old and rotting, crumbling away to splinters in his hand. Useless.

And then the first of the Hounds was upon him, leaping onto his back, tearing at his clothes with paws that turned to taloned fingers as it giggled in his ear.

“Wildmage—Wildmage—Wildmage—”

HE woke up.

He was in his own bed in his own room back in House Tavadon. It was all a dream!

Relief so intense he nearly swooned filled him. All a dream! The discovery, the trial, the Banishment, and everything that followed, only a dream! A warning, and he’d been lucky to receive it. Now he could—

But when he flung back the covers, he saw that the sky outside was the color of blood and darkness. Green fire laced across the sky, and by its light he could see the Hunt, racing across the garden toward his window.

He ran for the door, but the door was gone. His father had taken the door away, because his father meant him to die here, die with the Demons he’d summoned.

He picked up a club …

HE was standing over a Demon. It was dead, and its blood was all over him. He wiped it away, but the harder he scrubbed at it, the more it spread, and everywhere it spread his skin turned black—black and scaled. Demonskin.

He was a Demon, too.

Kellen ran.

THE Hounds pursued him, and Kellen ran. They turned into Demons, laughing at him, mocking at him, until, most horrible of all, somehow Kellen was one of them, running with the Hunt, chasing himself, howling with glee as he ran through eternal night on leathery clawed paws, hunting himself down. He would always run, always hunt. He would never be free …

Tainted. Unclean. Because of the Wild Magic, just as Lycaelon had said.

Lycaelon had been right. He’d been right about the Banishing, and he’d been right about this. Why would the High Council send so many Hounds, send not one Hunt, but many, if Lycaelon had not been telling the truth about the Demons …?

At last Kellen spiraled down into a deeper sleep, one without dreams.

WHAT seemed a very long time later, Kellen woke up.

It was day. He stared incuriously at the ceiling for a long time, aware of being awake but without feeling the slightest need to do anything about it. He realized that he’d felt this way before—once, as a child, he’d caught the Spotted Sickness and run a very high fever for almost a week. When the fever had finally run its course he’d felt just like this, as if all his energy had been burned away by his body’s fires. He wasn’t sure where he was, and had no clear idea of how he’d come here, nor did it really matter to him. To think, to remember, to feel, all would take more energy than he had.

It was a pleasant sort of lassitude, a comforting exhaustion, where the body said to the mind, you will rest because you have no choice, you will not think, nor worry, because you will not have the strength.

He was lying on a bed in a small room with walls completely made out of unpeeled logs chinked with white river clay. He could see the ceiling—thatch over timbers—and parts of two walls. There was a window in one of the walls, its shutters thrown open to admit light and air; he had a view of green tree branches, and heard a chorus of birdsong, and the air smelled verdant and sweet. To see anything more would involve moving, and Kellen wasn’t ready to do that yet.

He was not completely certain of how he’d gotten here. The unicorn … was Shalkan real, or was he a part of the vivid fever-dreams? Memory thrust itself into his present with the sudden unwelcome pain of a thorn in the foot. Remembering made Kellen shudder weakly—but those dreams—the Hounds, the fight—they couldn’t have been real, could they? He’d been wounded nearly to death, and nothing hurt now. He was very weak, but he wasn’t in any pain.

But I am here, not in my room—I’ve never seen anything like this room in the City. So I was Banished, and I escaped the Hunt, so Shalkan must be real…

Just then, he heard soft footsteps behind him, and a young woman came into his field of vision. She was carrying a small wooden tray. Her arrival jarred Kellen further out of his drifting mood of acceptance, for she looked nothing like any female he had ever seen before in his life, dressed as she was in garments that no City-dweller, even the most desperate day laborer, would have contemplated wearing for even a moment. She was … she was un-Citified. More proof, assuming Kellen had needed it, that he was actually outside the City.

The stranger was wearing a sleeveless calf-length dress that looked as if it were made of some kind of soft golden leather, and her long dark hair was parted in the middle and pulled back into two braids wrapped and tied with leather as well, worn down as no adult woman of the City would ever consider wearing hers. She had a curious face, which reminded him of a cat; perhaps because it was shaped like an inverted triangle, perhaps because her expression was very certain, and very self-composed. He’d never seen a female who had such an air of self-confidence about her—but then as a member of the Mageborn aristocracy, Kellen hadn’t met very many females at all. Her soft violet eyes, which seemed large for her face, were fringed by the longest darkest lashes Kellen had ever seen—and suddenly he was positive, not only that Shalkan was real, but that the vow of chastity and celibacy that he had so recklessly sworn to gain the unicorn’s aid was going to be more difficult to keep than he’d ever actually imagined.

His body’s response surprised him—surely he was far too weak and sick to be thinking of something like that at a time like this?

All this went through his mind in the moment it took for her to turn her gaze on him and smile.

“Oh, good, you’re awake. I was starting to worry; it’s been more than a sennight,” she said. Her voice was low and friendly, and strangely familiar—where could he have heard it before?—and her smile warmed her eyes. “Do you think you can sit up?”

Without waiting for an answer, she set the wooden tray on a table beside the bed and moved toward Kellen. Slipping one arm behind his shoulders, she pulled him into an upright position with easy strength. As the bedcovers—a thin wool blanket covered by several supple, beautifully tanned animal skins with the hair still on—slipped away, Kellen realized he wasn’t wearing a single thing beneath them.

Reflexively, he grabbed for the blanket, pulling it up around his waist, and gazed at his hands and arms in puzzlement.

There were no wounds. No bites, no bruises, not even any of the scratches he’d gotten riding Shalkan through all those thornbushes on their flight from the City before the fight with the stone Hounds. He didn’t even see the bruises from the way the stone golems had handled him, dragging him out of the Council chamber.

For a moment reality slid dizzyingly around Kellen. Without the proof of his injuries to anchor him, he wasn’t sure what to believe. What was real, and what was just a fever dream?

But Shalkan was real. He was sure of it. And the City had sent an Outlaw Hunt to kill him and anyone who dared to help him escape the City lands—the Hounds. He remembered almost everything now. But where were the bites, the wounds—the proof of his flight? He didn’t even have scars.

“Eat now, then we’ll talk,” the woman said firmly, seeing his confusion. “You’ve been asleep for a long time.”

But not long enough to heal without scars, Kellen thought with a faint pang of fear.

The strange woman sat down on the edge of the bed and helped him feed himself. He was weaker than he’d expected to be, and clumsy; she had to guide his fingers around the wooden mug and help him hold it to his lips, and he could not manage the bowl and spoon at all for very long. The strength just went out of his arm and hand, and his hand shook so much he had to give up on the notion of doing without help. She just waited while he came to that conclusion by himself, then took up the spoon and continued where he had left off.

Defeated, he lay back and let her feed him, but when he had finished the meat broth and the mug of herb tea with honey, he felt much stronger. Strong enough to worry about where Shalkan was, and about what came next, at any rate. He was free of the City, and now he had to figure out what to do next. In fact, he had his entire life to figure out now, and the prospect was daunting.

Free. In all his seventeen years of life, Kellen had never imagined the word could have such a bitter taste. For the rest of his life he was going to have to live with the consequences of a decision made in the flush of youthful bravado and adolescent anger. He was an Outlaw—barring a miracle, he would never see Armethalieh or his father again. And now that he was in this position, he realized that he missed the City more than he’d ever imagined he could.

Or—did he really miss the City, or only the comforts and certainty it represented? It was not going to be an easy thing to make his way alone outside the City walls.

For one thing, how was he going to live out here? Unless something extraordinary happened, and this young woman decided to allow him to live with her, he was completely without resources now. He didn’t even have clothing at this point! No food, no clothing, no place to live, and no idea how he was to get any of those things. He knew nothing about farming, hunting—

Maybe Shalkan could help him. If Shalkan was all right—if the unicorn wasn’t in worse shape than he had been … Kellen had a vague recollection of seeing Shalkan’s white fur saturated with blood; it couldn’t have been the Hounds’, and he couldn’t remember if it was his …

“Your friend is fine,” the woman said, as if she could guess the direction of at least some of his thoughts. “And he was in much better shape to begin with than you were when you arrived. The unicorn says that your name is Kellen, you’re a Wildmage, and that you fight remarkably well, but he doesn’t know much else. Now, since all I know about you is that you escaped the City and the Outlaw Hunt, and that you arrived on my doorstep in a rather pitiable condition, let’s begin at the beginning. Tell me, Outlaw, what’s your full name?”

He didn’t really want to tell her his life story, but—well—she’d more or less earned some answers by taking him in and caring for him without knowing anything about him.

“Kellen … Tavadon,” he admitted reluctantly.

His rescuer looked startled, as if she almost suspected him of playing some kind of a trick on her. Her eyes widened, then narrowed, and her jawline tensed.

“Son of Lycaelon Tavadon?” she asked sharply. “The Arch-Mage of Armethalieh?”

“Yes …” Kellen admitted warily. It suddenly occurred to him that if the City enforced its rules by such drastic means as the Outlaw Hunt within its borders, it might have enemies outside them.

She knows Father’s name. What has he done to her, to her people? Is she going to hate me, because Lycaelon’s my father? Or demand some sort of reparation from me? Or throw me back to the Hunt?

“I’m afraid so. Though I’m not exactly in good odor with him, since he’s the one who Banished me.”

The woman smiled sardonically, looking enormously like Lycaelon all of a sudden.

“A Tavadon—and an Outlaw to boot. Well, I guess Mother’s Mountain blood runs true, little brother.”

Of all the responses Kellen had tried to anticipate, this was not one that had even crossed the threshold of his mind. It was his turn to be startled, and for a moment he wasn’t certain he’d heard her correctly.

“Brother?” Kellen said blankly.

“Didn’t our loving father tell you?” the woman asked. “That you had an evil sister, and that you’d turned out just like her? I would have thought he wouldn’t be able to resist casting that in your face, if he was Banishing you …”

Suddenly Kellen remembered. His last night in the City—in the cell—his father had said he would come to the same bad end that his sister had. But his sister was dead, killed by the Outlaw Hunt years ago!

If Kellen had been confused before, he was at the edge of panic now, as too many new ideas and too much information crowded in on him all at once. It was one thing to say—back behind the safety of the City walls—that he’d welcome new ideas and complete freedom. It was quite another thing, Kellen was discovering, to be handed both things on a platter.

“Uh … yes. Sort of. Not exactly,” Kellen stammered. “If you—Are you—” He shook his head just a little, trying to make his thoughts come clearer. “He said I had bad blood, all right; he said that I’d end up just like my sister. I guess you’re … that sister?” he finished meekly.

“Typical of him,” the woman—his sister!—muttered cryptically, staring fixedly at nothing for a moment.

Kellen felt an unsettled mixture of confusion and relief that did much to restore his composure. Confusion, oh my, yes. It wasn’t every day that you woke up to discover entirely new family members existed. But relief as well, for this meant one thing for certain; he wasn’t completely alone out here. He had a sister—and a beautiful and competent one at that. She must be kind; she’d taken in an Outlawed stranger and had tended him. If luck was with him, she’d let him stay with her until he got something sorted out about making his own way out here. She wouldn’t throw her own brother out of her house, would she?

And another sort of relief as well, for the moment that she had named herself as his sister, every bit of desire for her had just—vanished. At least this way—since she was his sister, even if he didn’t really know her—his promise to Shalkan would still be easy to keep.

He studied her more closely, trying to see a resemblance between them. But her hair was dark and straight where his was light and curly, and her eyes were violet to his grey. Still, now that he was looking for it, he could see something of their father in her—more than anyone could see in him, anyway.

He had a sister, right here in front of him. And she was alive. Kellen did his best to get used to both ideas.

“He didn’t tell me your name,” Kellen offered hopefully.

She sighed and shook her head with disgust. “Typical. He probably drove it right out of his memory. I’m Idalia—just Idalia. I don’t claim his name. Pleased to meet you, Kellen—again.”

She held out her hand, and Kellen shook it solemnly before he took in the full sense of her words. “Again? But we’ve never met. You were Banished before I was born. You must have been. That’s why I don’t remember you.”

“Wait. I’m going to find you some clothes. I’ve had plenty of time to prepare them while you were asleep. Then we’ll talk. You aren’t going to like some of what you hear, so you might as well be patient—and dressed.” She got up, then looked back over her shoulder and added, “You’ll feel less vulnerable when you’re dressed, too, and that will make it easier for you to hear some of it.”

Idalia went into the other room and came back with an armful of leather of the same sort and color that she was wearing. She shook it out, revealing it to be a pair of pants—leggings, really—and a long voluminous shirt.

“I wanted to salvage your clothes, but all that was left by the time you got here was a pile of bloody rags, barely enough to make smallclothes with. This should be a good fit, though.” She held out her hand to him. “Come on, now, I’ll help you stand up.”

“But—” Kellen felt himself blushing. He hadn’t been dressed by a woman since he was … well, a whole lot younger than this, anyway.

Idalia dropped the tunic and leggings on the bed and regarded him, hands on hips, an amused smile on her lips. “Oh, come now, brother mine, who do you think cleaned you up, treated your wounds, and put you to bed when you got here? And I bathed you and put you to bed every night until you were six; that ought to count for something.”

“But—” Kellen swung his legs over the edge of the bed—still clutching the blanket to him—and stared up at her. “Idalia, I don’t remember you,” he blurted, feeling the fear begin to well up within him once more.

Idalia sighed, and tugged on one of her braids. “I know, Kellen,” she said gently. “Father told me he’d do that, just before the Constables came. Look, just think of me as—as a servant, and we’ll get this over with.”

Kellen flushed. “I still don’t remember you. And you don’t seem old enough to—to have gone away when you said.” Everyone who had cared for him in his childhood had been very, very old; he remembered that much. And his last “Nursie” had departed when he’d been five, not six.

She shook her head. “But I’m not; I’m only ten years older than you are. I left the City when I was sixteen, a year younger than you are. Banished, just as you were. You were born when I was ten. You were six when I left, old enough to remember me and ask embarrassing questions, since I was almost your sole caretaker until then. So after I was gone, Father tampered with your memories, erasing me from them.”

Wildly, Kellen cast his mind back over his childhood. He remembered growing up—alone—in the vast gloom of House Tavadon under the indifferent care of a succession of nursemaids and nannies—none of whom had been Idalia. He remembered falling off his first pony when he was four, and the grand celebration—with fireworks in the garden—when Lycaelon had become Arch-Mage.

He did not remember Idalia. Somehow, Idalia had been taken out of all those memories, and a series of strangers put in her place.

“He couldn’t do that!” Kellen gasped in shock as he realized just how extensive the changes must have been. He WOULDN’T do that, his mind cried inwardly, clinging to that last hope.

“Well, of course he could; it’s a simple enough Working,” Idalia said with calm reproof. “The Mages use it all the time to take traumatic—or inconvenient—memories away from people. It’s all for their own good, of course—and the good of the City.” Idalia smiled again, her violet eyes suddenly hard and dark, and once more Kellen could see their father in her. “And if you’d been a good little boy, and agreed to do what they told you, they’d have taken away all the memories that made a rebel out of you and replaced them with memories of conforming. They would have told themselves that it would make you infinitely happier and better off.”

“They would?” he asked numbly. “They do?”

The revelation rattled Kellen to his core—but after all he had been through, it didn’t really surprise him. Only now was he beginning to understand how utterly ruthless the Mages were. If they could kill a man, surely killing his memories would be a minor issue for them.

Idalia toyed with the end of her braid as she watched him closely. “That was one of my problems, you see, all the things that the Mages do to the people for their own good. The other was that we mere females are not allowed to become Mages. We’re too emotional, you see.” Her lips twisted in an ironic half smile. “As if the Mage Council isn’t ruled by every petty emotion there is. Hatred, fear, jealousy …”

Kellen barely heard her. He was feeling more than a little sick at the thought of Lycaelon—his own father—using magick on him without his knowledge. That was worse than spying on him, lying to him, searching his room to find his Books. He’d been invaded, manipulated, changed. And why? Just to eliminate a child’s inconvenient questions?

Or to help cover up the fact that Idalia had ever existed at all, to make sure that her influence over him was gone?

Kellen swallowed hard. He’d thought there’d never been an Outlaw Hunt in his lifetime, before his. He’d obviously been wrong. And the question now was, how many Hunts had there been? How many of Armethalieh’s citizens had been torn to pieces by enchanted stone Hounds—for the good of the City? How many memories had been erased so that no one would even remember the folk who’d been Banished had ever existed?

Kellen shuddered, feeling queasy. Idalia put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Those memories that are gone—can they be put back?” he asked urgently, looking up into her face, and hoping he could regain this much, at least. Something more precious than things—something lost, something taken from him, something that was his by right. Something he wanted back.

Idalia met his gaze, and now there was pity in her eyes. “Oh, Kellen, no,” she said softly. “What is cut away by Magecraft is gone forever. It can never be regained. But come on, let’s get you dressed,” she added briskly, ending the discussion. “You’ll feel better, trust me.”

Kellen, still stunned by what she had just told him, made no further complaint as Idalia helped him into the snug buckskin trousers that laced up the sides, and the long, soft leather shirt that fell nearly to his knees. Both were as soft as the finest velvet, and supple as silk, of a warm, golden color, the only ornamentation being the fancy stitching over the seams. They were beautifully, if simply, made.

“You’ll need boots, too, of course. I’m working on a pair. They’ll be ready soon, but you won’t be needing them today. Now lean on me, and let’s see if you can walk a few steps,” Idalia said. She put an arm around his shoulders and lifted him to his feet with surprising strength.

The floor underfoot was wide pine planks, sanded smooth. Standing made Kellen feel dizzy and light-headed, but with Idalia’s firm support he was able to make his way by slow steps into the other room of the cabin.

The outer room was even smaller than the sleeping room, and windowless, but a narrow doorway stood open into the spring sunshine. Most of one wall was taken up with a fireplace made of smooth grey river stones, and a small pine table, a ladderback chair, and a stool filled the rest of the compact space. The room reminded Kellen a bit of what he imagined a ship’s cabin must look like, with everything carefully built-in and tucked away to conserve valuable space.

“That fireplace took me all of one summer to build, but it gets cold up here in the winter,” Idalia said, nodding at the fireplace as she lowered Kellen into the chair. “When the snows come, you’ll be glad of it, believe me.”

Kellen was breathing hard, even after walking only a few steps, but he thought he could already feel his strength returning. In a day or two, he was pretty sure he’d be fully recovered. Surrounded by so much newness, he barely even registered Idalia’s calm assumption that he’d be here—still here—when the snows came.

From his seat, Kellen could look out the door into the world outside the cabin. The area immediately around the cabin was packed earth, scrubbed clean even of grass. Farther away the ground was covered with scrub and bushes, and then the trees began. The cabin seemed to be set in the center of a woodland clearing, without any other cabins—or for that matter, a road—anywhere in sight. In the center of the cleared area, Kellen saw a ring of large stones with an iron brace built over it. Hanging on the brace was a large copper kettle, its sides blackened with soot. Near to where the trees began there was a large flat tree stump with an axe stuck in it, and some neatly stacked firewood—far more, it seemed to Kellen, than anyone could possibly use.

The whole arrangement seemed neat and orderly and well thought out. Everything he had seen so far impressed him with Idalia’s competence, even expertise, in living out here beyond City walls. She would be a good mentor to have.

He’d known her … before. He’d been six when she disappeared. He remembered being six. But he didn’t remember Idalia.

Don’t think about it now, an inner voice warned him. Now is not the time. Later, when you’re stronger. Not now.

Kellen heeded the inner warning, and carefully turned his mind away from the new wound he’d just been given. Idalia was here now, after all. And there were plenty of things around him to concentrate on.

Without thinking about what Lycaelon had done to him. What else Lycaelon had done to him—and all these years, he’d never suspected …

As he gazed out at the trees, he saw a flash of white moving through them. Shalkan stepped out of the trees into the clearing, head held high as if scenting the air. He saw Kellen and tossed his head, locking eyes with him to be sure Kellen saw him as well, then trotted back into the trees, tufted tail held high.

“I saw Shalkan!” Kellen exclaimed, nearly losing his balance on the chair. And he’s all right. A knot of tension Kellen hadn’t known he was holding within himself eased. Idalia had said Shalkan was all right, but hearing it wasn’t the same thing as seeing it.

“Your unicorn friend? Is that his name? I guess he’s sticking around to keep an eye on you, then,” Idalia said, unsurprised. She’d gone over to the hearth and filled two wooden mugs, adding a generous dollop of honey to each and stirring briskly. She returned to the table, setting one of the mugs in front of Kellen and sitting down on the stool. “Friendly enough, but won’t have much to do with me.” She flashed him a smile. “And if you think about it, you’ll realize that there’s an obvious reason for that.”

Kellen stared at her uncomprehendingly. Idalia shook her head, dismissing the subject.

“Now. Suppose you tell me what you’re doing here,” she said. “The long version, this time. You might as well start at the beginning, even though the beginning is obvious.”

“I was Banished,” Kellen said, picking up his mug. He was very thirsty, despite what he’d already had to drink, and the sweet tea tasted good.

He looked up and found Idalia gazing at him, obviously waiting for more. The story had seemed complete to him in that sentence, but Idalia apparently felt it wasn’t, so haltingly, Kellen began to tell her the rest. He hesitated about telling her why he’d been Banished, but Shalkan would not have brought him to this particular place if anything bad could happen to him here, and he had already begun to suspect that nothing he could tell Idalia could possibly surprise her. So he took a deep breath and told her everything—about finding the three Books of the Wild Magic; his first hesitant experiments with them; being brought before the Council when the Books were discovered in his room; casting a Calling Spell to gain Shalkan’s help in exchange for a year of continence; their fight against the Hounds.

“I don’t remember much after that. And I’m not sure it could have all happened the way I remember, because all the bites and everything are gone,” Kellen finished, confused again.

“Oh, they were there, right enough,” Idalia said. “Bites—gouges—lacerations—bruises—scratches—broken bones—you looked like you’d been through—well, an Outlaw Hunt. Lucky you were near to my cabin here, when you crossed the border; I’m the only one out here who could have put you two back together again.” She tilted her head a little and looked thoughtful. “The unicorn probably had something to do with that; it’s no secret where I live, and he must have known that after that last border increase, you two would have to face the Outlaw Hunt, and afterward you’d need help, and I was the logical person to offer that help.”

“I don’t understand,” Kellen replied, shaking his head. “I mean, I understand that we’d need to find someone and quickly, but I don’t understand why it particularly had to be you—”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’m well known as a Wildmage and a Healer out here; it would make the best sense for Shalkan to head straight for me—especially once you were actually injured.”

Kellen stared. Idalia … a Wildmage? A female Wildmage? But women couldn’t do magick!

Or could they?

Was that just another of the Mages’ lies?

What if it was?

Idalia didn’t seem to notice his shocked expression, any more than she’d shown any particular surprise or amazement at hearing about his involvement with the Wild Magic, although he supposed she’d had plenty of time to get used to that idea already, since he’d come in riding Shalkan, something only a Wildmage would be likely to be doing. He regarded his newfound sister with increased respect.

His sister was a Mage … a Wildmage!

“How did you think all your injuries disappeared so fast? I healed you—yes, with genuine, women-can’t-possibly-do-it magic,” Idalia said. “Wild Magic.”

Kellen gaped blankly at her, still trying to get used to the idea of meeting a Wildmage. Another Wildmage.

“Of course,” Idalia went on, “it was only Wild Magic, so I suppose that doesn’t count for the Council’s purposes …” she added mockingly.

“And now I suppose you have a right to hear my side of the story,” Idalia continued, “but to tell it properly I’ll have to go back a good deal further than you did.”

She brooded for a moment, and Kellen took the opportunity to drink as much of his tea as he could before his hand began to shake.

“I suppose it begins with our mother, Alance. Father didn’t need to tamper with your memories to make you forget her. She left when you were still a baby, and from what little I remember of those days, he never let her see much of you at all. I suppose after he saw how I turned out, he was afraid her Mountain blood would contaminate you.” She sighed. “Sometimes I wonder what the two of them ever saw in each other, but I suppose everyone wonders that about their parents. Still.”

She shook her head. “I would like to believe that at least at some point they loved one another, but for all I know, it was a political alliance for him.”

“But you were old enough to know her—” Kellen ventured cautiously. “He always said my mother was dead …”

Idalia grimaced, dismissing Kellen’s half-voiced question. “Here’s what I do know for sure. Alance was the daughter of a Trader from the Mountains. The Mountain Traders used to come right down into the City, but after Alance left the City again they stopped and started trading only through Nerendale village. I’m not sure why, or if her leaving had anything to do with that. I’m also not really sure why Father didn’t try to make me forget her, either—maybe he thought it wasn’t worth bothering with, me being a mere female. And then again, perhaps he was right about the ‘bad blood’ in both of us coming to us through her: if Mother really was a Wildmage, perhaps she was able to cast a spell to make him simply forget about it. Anyway, no matter how it came about, I remember her, and what she told me about how they met.

“Before Father was Arch-Mage, Alance came into the City with a trading caravan of the Mountain-folk. He was already on the Council then, though not yet Arch-Mage, overseeing the licensing of new goods for the markets. She said she fell in love with him, and when her caravan left, she stayed. I was born, and then, ten years later, you were born.”

Kellen was putting together the chronology in his mind. “Was she happy? I mean, I can’t see F—Lycaelon with a wife.”

Idalia gave him a measuring look. “I suppose they must have been happy at first, but once you were born, he changed toward her—I was only a child, but I do know he became very strange around that time. He separated us from her, did everything he could to keep me away from her, and put both of us in the care of a nurse I didn’t much like. The nurse was very strict, always lecturing me about how I needed to be a proper lady if I was going to grow up to marry well.”

Idalia laughed, but there was little humor in the sound. “Now, up until that point, I had always assumed I would become a Mage like Father. When the nurse came, I was swiftly disabused of that notion. And when I demanded to know why not, I was informed that it was the destiny of a Mageborn girl to marry a Mage—since only the finest Mageborn son would do for Lycaelon’s daughter—and produce lots of sons to grow up and become Mages. You can imagine how much I enjoyed hearing that!”

Kellen winced. “I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly.

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now. Anyway, Mother came to me in secret one night when you were about a year old—there was a tremendous party for your Naming Day, and of course I wasn’t let to attend. I’d thrown a furious tantrum over it and been sent to bed without supper, locked in my room so I couldn’t sneak out and cause trouble. I cried myself sick, of course, and then in came Mother, dressed in the strangest clothes I’d ever seen, with a pack on her back just like a street merchant.

“She told me she was going away—”

“She ran away?” Kellen gasped.

Idalia nodded. “Not dead, no matter what you were told. She ran away. She told me she was going away, and that I would never, ever see her again. She told me that she loved me, and you, and it was not because of anything that either of us had done, but that she must go, because she had come to realize that Lycaelon loved his magick and his reputation more than anything else in the world, including her. She said I must be brave and careful, and that no matter what happened, I must never, ever speak of her again to anyone, even to you, because that was the only way you and I could be safe.”

Perhaps because Kellen hadn’t known his mother, he found it easy to sympathize with her plight. Perhaps because he knew now just how vindictive Lycaelon could be, he understood. But he saw the masked pain in Idalia’s eyes, and heard the hurt in her voice. It had been different for her …

“I begged her to take me with her, but she said that Father would never let me go, because I was his daughter, and that this was the only way. Then she kissed me and left. I tried to follow her, but she’d locked the door again. There was nothing I could do but cry myself back to sleep.”

“I’m sorry,” Kellen said again, wishing he could make some of that pain go away.

But Idalia shrugged, and a kind of veil dropped over her expression. “In the morning, as soon as I could get away from the nurse, I sneaked into Mother’s rooms, but they’d all been tidied away, and every trace of her was gone, as if no one had ever lived in those rooms at all. I waited sennights for someone to even mention that she was gone, but no one ever did. Ever.

“I was so frightened by their silence that I did exactly as Mother said, and never said a single word about her, so perhaps that was why Father didn’t think he needed to bother with erasing her from my mind. Or perhaps there was a spell after all. Or perhaps a little of both—you already know how mysteriously the Wild Magic works.”

“Oh, yes,” Kellen agreed bitterly. “And things are always, ‘out of sight, out of mind’ for Lycaelon. As long as there’s no reason for him to act, he’s far more concerned with all that business of being important than with anything in his household.”

“I’m not surprised,” Idalia replied. “Well, after that, I devoted myself to making life hell for a succession of governesses and to protecting and taking care of you; Father devoted his to becoming Arch-Mage; and you grew up into an adorable little boy. And the one thing I wanted most in the entire world was to become a Mage myself.

“Of course it was unthinkable. I’d been told that, loudly and repeatedly. Nevertheless, it was the one thing I wanted most in the entire world.”

Kellen eyed her with speculation. “Why is it that I just know you wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer?”

She smiled thinly, but continued without a comment. “Of course it was as unthinkable when I was in my teens as it had been when I was a child. I’d heard all the arguments—women were too emotional, too frivolous, not smart enough, but they all boiled down to one: there’d never been a female Mage in Armethalieh before, and so of course there could never be one now. So I sneaked into the Records Room of the Council Hall to search through their archives, since unlike the Library at the Mage College, which I knew I’d never be able to get into, the Council Hall isn’t surrounded with wards to keep any mere mortal from setting foot in it. All I had to do was make sure I went on a day when the place was full of foreign Traders. That was easy enough; some of them always get lost, and if they were triggering wards all over the place there’d be no peace for the high-and-mighty overlords of the City!

“Besides, it was the records of the Council itself I was after. I figured if I could find a record of a female Mage in the Council Histories, that would be enough precedent for my own training, and if I could find no record that any woman had ever been apprenticed and failed, I could always argue that if there had never been any female Mage-candidates, how could the Council possibly know that women didn’t make good Mages and couldn’t control their emotions?

“That was when my Books came to me. I found them there on the shelves, crammed in among a bunch of bound copies of minutes from some ancient meeting.”

“Your Books?” Kellen gaped at her. “There? In the Council Records Room? What did you think they were?”

She gave him a sidelong look. “I knew exactly what I had of course—I’d read all the way through Father’s library by the age of twelve and I knew the Ars Perfidorum practically by heart. I knew they were supposedly Anathema, but I didn’t care. If the Council and Father were so wrong about females, why should they be right about this? And unlike High Magick, I wouldn’t need tutors, or textbooks, or special equipment, or years of practice before I could become a Wildmage. I started practicing Wildmagery before I even finished reading The Book of Stars.”

“You did?” Kellen felt his estimation of his sister rising again. Brave and fearless Idalia!

Idalia finished her tea, and put the empty cup down on the table. “Yes. Stupid of me, I know. Of course the Council caught me, and pretty quickly, too. I was lucky not to be executed out of hand, but the Council does love its pretense of fairness and mercy. Just as you did, I found myself tried and Banished, standing outside the City walls, waiting for sunrise and the release of the Hunt. Since I was a female, and not terribly important to them or to Father, I wasn’t given the option to recant, either, just a half-chime trial, a couple of bells in the cell, and out the gate like the trash I was.”

Kellen winced, imagining the scene very clearly. Idalia didn’t see it; she was looking down at her empty cup.

After a moment, she went on. “Unlike you, I’d done a little more digging in the Council archives before I’d found my Books. I knew exactly what was going to be coming after me when the Outlaw Hunt was released, and I had no intention of being anywhere that the Hounds could go. So I did a more specific spell. I asked for the power of flight, so that no matter what happened, the Hounds couldn’t possibly reach me.

“Of course, since I’d made such a specific request of the Powers, things didn’t work out quite the way I expected them to.”

He saw a tiny change in her at that moment, a subtle relaxation. Well, the painful part of the narrative was probably past, now.

“It never does, you know. You’ll find that out soon enough if you haven’t already. I found myself transformed into a Silver Eagle, and the price of the spell was that I must remain in that form until I could find a mate and raise a brood of chicks before I could transform back again. What made that difficult—other than having to wait for mating season—was having to find a Silver Eagle mate. Silver Eagles live in Elven lands, and even there, they are very, very rare. It took me three years to accomplish the task. But—oh!—being able to fly …”

Idalia stared off into space, her expression dreamy as she remembered. Then her eyes focused on Kellen’s face again, and she smiled teasingly, reaching out to pat his hand.

“I rather enjoyed it. Once I got used to it, of course. Eggs are certainly a better way of having children than the way we do it. At any rate, once my price was paid, I was free to change back whenever I wished, so I went to the Elves, made my situation known, and changed back to myself—which is a lot better than ending up stark naked on a cliff in the middle of nowhere, don’t you think?”

“Better than I did,” Kellen said glumly, staring into the dregs of his now-cold tea. He’d almost gotten himself and Shalkan killed. All Idalia’d had to do was spend three years flying around Elven lands as an eagle, probably having all kinds of interesting adventures.

“I don’t think so,” Idalia said, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “The essence of proficiency at the Wild Magic is economy of price. Your price was rather minimal compared to mine. It’s hardly your fault or Shalkan’s that the Council lost their minds and sent so many Hounds after you. I’ve read their records, after all. A regular Outlaw Hunt is thirteen Hounds, one for each member of the Council, and from what you’ve said, it sounds like they sent five or six times that number after you, and Shalkan said—and he should know—that they were preparing more. You ought to be flattered.”

“But I got Shalkan involved, and I almost got him killed!” Kellen burst out.

Idalia held up her hand. “Wait a moment. Think. These things don’t happen by accident. There are no accidents in the Wild Magic. Now, I don’t know anything about Shalkan, and it’s impolite to ask, but I suspect that helping you was his price, either for something that Wild Magic did for him in the past, or for something that he’s asked for in the future.”

Once again, Kellen stared at Idalia in surprise. That notion had never even occurred to him.

She smiled. “In any event, you ought to be flattered that the Council cared enough to try to kill you so thoroughly. Father must be furious, losing both his children to the Wild Magic this way. I guess Wildmagery runs in our blood. I really do wonder if Mother practiced?”

Kellen said nothing, and Idalia shrugged, dismissing the question. “I suppose we’ll never know.”

“I suppose,” Kellen said, sounding sulky despite himself. “Not that it matters if Wildmagery runs in my blood or not. I’ll never know any more about the Wild Magic than I do now. My Books are back in the City. The Council’s probably already burned them.”

“Think so?” Idalia said, grinning now, with the look of someone who knows something. “Your pack’s under the table here. Look in it.”

Kellen ducked his head under the table. There on the floor, next to the bloodstained remains of his old boots, which Idalia was using as a pattern to make new ones, was the scraped and battered day-pack that Kellen had carried out of the City. Amazingly, considering everything, it was still in one piece. He dragged it toward him and pulled it open.

There was a compartment in it that he hadn’t noticed before. He pulled it open. Inside were the three Books. His three Books.

Kellen pulled them out and stared at them in disbelief. They were his; the same ones he’d bought from the vendor at the Low Market in the City. He knew every crease and dent.

“But—” he said, even though he was getting awfully tired of saying it. They weren’t here. They couldn’t be. The Council would have been insane to send the Books off with him instead of destroying them—and besides, he’d opened that backpack several times since he’d left the City, and before that, in the cell. He was sure he would have noticed the compartment, and the Books.

Wouldn’t he?

Idalia smiled as if she’d just given him a present—and in a way, she had. Kellen was amazed and astonished—and comforted in ways he hadn’t expected—to have his Books back. He wasn’t finished learning from them yet—he wasn’t sure if he ever would be.

“Once the Books find you, they can’t be parted from you for long,” Idalia said. “That’s the way the Wild Magic works. Even if someone tries to burn them, they’ll survive and get back to you somehow. Only you can choose to give them up.”

Kellen stared down at the three slim handwritten volumes in his hands. He didn’t doubt her, though it was an amazing revelation. The Books would find him no matter what happened. The Books would look after him.

That being true, in a way they were almost alive—like the power in the Wild Magic that chose the price the Wildmage would pay for each spell, the Books themselves were part of some intention so large and hidden that Kellen had no idea of what it might be.

The thought made him subtly uneasy, though he wasn’t quite sure why, and suddenly he remembered the terrible creatures in his dreams. Demons.

Abruptly, in the same way that he knew when he cast a spell of the Wild Magic how to pay the Mageprice for his spell and what it was, Kellen knew that Demons existed. Never mind the fact that he’d never encountered any mention of them in his unauthorized reading through Lycaelon’s library, nor that Anigrel hadn’t mentioned them during any of his tutorials, nor that he’d never encountered any Defense Spells against them, Kellen suddenly knew the creatures from his fever-dreams were real, at least in some way.

And try as he might, he could not forget what Lycaelon had told him back there in the cell—that practicing the Wild Magic led inevitably to involvement with Demons, to madness and alliance with the Dark. It had been easy to scoff then—but he’d still been safe behind Armethalieh’s walls.

There’d been truth in his nightmares. He knew that much.

Had Lycaelon Tavadon lied—or hadn’t he?

I don’t know, Kellen thought miserably.

He looked at Idalia.

If anything in Lycaelon’s words had been true, she was the last person in the world he could turn to for help.

She said Shalkan won’t come near her. Is that why—the real reason?

“You’re awfully quiet all of a sudden,” Idalia said.

“I guess I’m just tired,” Kellen answered awkwardly.

“Well, let’s get you back to bed, then. I should have your boots finished by tomorrow, and then we can try something really strenuous, like a walk outside,” Idalia said cheerfully.

HE hadn’t actually felt tired—that had only been an excuse to be alone with his thoughts—but the walk back to the bed really did take the last of his strength. Kellen was half-asleep before Idalia helped him out of the leather clothing. He was only barely aware that she had pulled the covers up over his shoulders, and was completely asleep only moments afterward.

He half woke later, hearing her moving around in the room, and tried to speak, but found he couldn’t make his mouth form coherent words.

“Go back to sleep,” she told him as he stirred sleepily. “I’ll make up a bedroll here on the floor.”

Well, if that was what she wanted to do … it was her home, after all. Kellen gave no further thought to it, and let sleep take him.

Chapter Eleven

Reborn to Magic

WHEN HE WOKE again it was morning, and wonderful food smells filled the air. For a moment Kellen was disoriented, unable to remember how he’d gotten here and why the Morning Bells hadn’t woken him, then everything settled into place as memories came flooding back. Banishment, the Hunt, awakening, discovering he had a sister. This was Idalia’s cabin, outside of City lands. And he would never hear the bells of the City of a Thousand Bells again.

Reflexively, his hand went to the Talisman around his throat.

It was gone, of course, stripped from him the night of his Banishing, and its absence made Kellen oddly uneasy.

It’s gone. That means you’re free now, he told himself sternly. But without it he felt more naked than he did without his clothes, despite the fact that now that he knew what it was, he hated the very thought of it.

He put the thought from his mind, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. Idalia had left his new clothes where he could find them, and he was able to don the unfamiliar garments without too much difficulty. He was much stronger than yesterday, though still a little light-headed, but he was able to walk to the other room unsupported.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Idalia greeted him cheerfully from where she knelt at the hearth. “I thought you were going to sleep the day away!”

Kellen looked around, puzzled. From the position of the sun, it wasn’t that much later than he usually woke!

She laughed, seeing his baffled expression. “Country ways, little brother! Up with the sun; no Magelight here, and you can’t do chores by candlelight. But don’t worry; I don’t plan to put you to work right away. Come on, sit down. I baked this morning—in your honor, I might add—and I want to see how these boots fit.”

When Idalia had mentioned boots, Kellen had been expecting something like the horsemen’s boots he’d seen in the City—knee-high gleaming high-heeled things of brightly polished hard-finished leather—but what she brought him was something more like leggings with feet. They were identical to the ones she was wearing, and Kellen realized he should have expected that, but he still hadn’t fully come to terms with what living outside of the City truly meant.

No shops. No merchants. No one to buy things from—it was either make it yourself, or do without. Unless you could find someone who would trade with you for what you wanted. Would anyone traffic with an Outlaw?—Two Outlaws?

The boots were flat-soled, with several thicknesses of leather pierced and sewn to heavy deerskin uppers. A long wide tongue of leather came almost to his knee, and the long outsides of the boot wrapped over that. Flat buttons, made of disks of polished antler, were sewn up the sides of the outer flap; at first Kellen had thought they were for decoration, but Idalia showed him how to take a long narrow piece of heavy buckskin and wrap it around the boot, using the horn buttons to keep it from slipping. At the top, she tied it and tucked the trailing ends under neatly.

“Now you do the other one,” she said, getting to her feet.

As his sister busied herself by the fire, Kellen struggled with the other boot. He couldn’t seem to keep the sides in place as he wrapped the garter around it; though the leather was thick, it was soft enough not to stand by itself. It was evident, however, that Idalia intended to let him work it out for himself, and after several frustrating tries, Kellen finally managed to secure his second boot.

As he straightened up again, Idalia set breakfast on the table in front of him—hot stew and tea. There was a flat loaf and stone crocks of butter and honey already on the table.

“Go ahead—I ate hours ago.” Idalia sat down opposite him, carrying her own mug.

It was good food, and Kellen was hungry, but it wasn’t what he was used to seeing at breakfast, and somehow that just seemed to underscore what a big change there’d been in his life. He wasn’t ill-mannered enough to complain, but Idalia seemed to have no trouble sensing his thoughts.

“It’s a big change from life in Armethalieh, isn’t it, Kellen?” she asked—kindly, but shrewdly.

He nodded, spooning up stew to save himself from having to articulate a reply. He was alive, and that was a great gift—so great, that it hardly seemed polite to grumble about the terms.

The food was good—if unfamiliar—and the more he ate, the more he realized just how long it was since he’d had a decent meal. He reached for the bread, breaking the loaf open and loading a piece with butter and honey. The honey was thick and dark, unlike the pale golden stuff he was familiar with.

“Wild-gathered,” Idalia explained. “I’ll show you how, when the proper season for it comes. The butter comes from goats, not cows—I trade for that. It’s not a bad life, Kellen. Just different from what you’re used to.”

“And you live out here all alone?” Kellen asked, swallowing a large mouthful of bread and honey.

“Hardly,” Idalia said. “But you’ll have plenty of time to meet the neighbors, so to speak. First we need to knock some of that City polish off you. And there’s a lot more you need to know about the Wild Magic before the next time you have to cast a spell.”

Well, he had no doubt of that. In fact, the more he saw of Wild Magic, the less he felt he knew about it.

“Finished?” she asked. He nodded. “Good. Come on outside. There’s a few things I want to show you right now, while you’re still fresh and alert.”

Kellen got to his feet, his hands still sticky with honey, and followed Idalia out of the cabin. At the door she picked up a large wicker basket, its contents hidden beneath a length of mottled woolen fabric, and pointed to a wooden bucket where he could wash his hands.

“No indoor plumbing here.” She sighed. “Of all of the City luxuries, all the things I actually learned to get along without quite nicely, I do miss that, and a lot more in winter, let me tell you. Well. The necessary pit is over there—see that cairn of white stones? That’s so you can find it in the dark, if you need to. I’ll be over there, by the chopping stump.” Her eyes twinkled. “That will give you a little privacy, anyway.”

Kellen blushed, then followed her pointing finger and took care of what needed to be taken care of, though the accommodations were hardly what he was accustomed to. And he couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like in the dead of winter …

When Kellen arrived at the stump, Idalia was kneeling beside it, the wicker basket at her side. She motioned for him to sit.

“First lesson: keystones. You know what a keystone is?”

Kellen sat, feeling the warmth of the stump even through two layers of leather. “No,” he said. Despite the fact that everything around him was different, this bore an odd family resemblance to his lessons with Undermage Anigrel. He’d hated them. He’d never imagined that he’d miss them. But he did; not that he’d want to go back to them … but it was something he was used to, and it didn’t seem right, the middle of the morning, not facing Anigrel.

Idalia smiled. “The funny thing is, you wore a keystone, or a kind of one, all your life, until the day you were Banished, and so did I. At its simplest, a keystone is a device for harvesting and storing power. The Talismans the citizens of Armethalieh wear are designed to harvest and store the tiny amount of power the average non-Mage possesses—when you take your Talisman to the Temple of the Eternal Light each New Moon and trade it in for a new one, the Mages harvest the stored power and use it for their magick.”

“Anigrel told me that,” Kellen muttered. I didn’t like it then, and I still don’t. “They’re a damned cheat!”

“Yes,” she agreed heartily. “They are. But like all the things that the City Mages use to harm people, at root they’re just a tool, and tools can be used for good or ill.”

He thought about that statement; he decided she was probably right. Even taking someone’s memories could be used for good, if the memory was of something so terrible that it would drive them mad. But you would have to be so careful about that, because pretty soon, if you didn’t hold yourself to the strictest of standards, you’d be meddling with people’s minds in other ways … “for their own good” … which was what the Mages were using as a rationale for everything they were doing now.

“Since you know what the Talismans really are, you’re halfway there,” Idalia said cheerfully. “Our keystones are a little different, though. For one thing, we don’t steal the power from the unknowing like a swarm of leeches.”

She reached into the basket and took something out. She took Kellen’s hand and drew it toward her, palm up, uncurling the fingers so she could place the object in his hand.

“This is a keystone,” Idalia said.

Kellen looked down at it. It looked nothing like the elaborate golden Talisman he’d used to wear around his neck; in fact, it didn’t look magical at all. It was a small white quartz river stone, perfectly ordinary. He held it up to the sun, looking for runes and carvings, and found nothing. Only the surface was frosted; through gaps in that, he could see down into the clear inside of the stone. He looked at Idalia inquiringly.

“A rock?” he asked dubiously.

“We can use almost anything, but crystals and gemstones are easiest to work with,” she told him. “Keystones—even if the Mage Council does use a version of them—are not in themselves a bad thing. We can use them, too. High Magick and Wild Magic both require payment, even if they don’t call it ‘payment’ in High Magick. The power to change things has to come from somewhere. In High Magick, it comes from the citizens of the City as well as from the Mages themselves—which wouldn’t be so bad, if the citizens were told about it and given some choice in the matter.” She shook her head.

“You probably already know that part of managing the costs of a spell of the Wild Magic can be done by banking personal energy against a future request. The way to do that is by storing your personal energy in a keystone—or several keystones, as each one will only hold so much energy—and then emptying them at need. Of course, using a keystone costs more in banked energy than if you cast a spell in the regular way—probably because stored energy isn’t ‘coming from the heart,’ but sometimes, especially for small things, it’s just more practical to use a keystone in order to avoid Magedebt.” She smiled. “After all, you don’t want to have to go out rescuing a nest of fledgling birds, as it were, every time you want to use a little Finding Spell! So I’m going to show you how to make a keystone.”

“Now?” Kellen said, recoiling. After what it had taken to get here, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to have anything to do with magic—High, Wild, or any other kind—ever again.

“Relax,” Idalia said, looking amused at his skittishness. “It won’t hurt. And it isn’t a spell, so there’s no question of paying a price for the work. Just relax. This won’t hurt. If there was ever anything harmless in magic, this is it—why, once you’ve made the stone, I won’t be able to use the power in it. You, and only you, will be able to access it.”

Unlike the Talismans …

“What you need to do is feel your way into the stone. Pour yourself into it, the way water pours into a cup, and when you pull back, just leave a little of yourself behind.” She gave his hand an encouraging pat. “I’ll show you now.”

Kneeling before him, she clasped her strong callused hands over his, folding his reluctant fingers around the stone. “Relax,” Idalia repeated firmly. “This stone has been used before. It knows the way.”

For a long moment nothing happened. Kellen felt awkward and a little silly; all he was aware of was his surroundings—the sunshine, the fresh air, the birdcalls, and the unfamiliar trees. Despite his previous experiences with the Wild Magic, a part of him insisted that this wasn’t magic. Magic was incense and incantations done in the hours of darkness, long elaborate memorized rituals and hours of painstaking preparation. It couldn’t be this simple, this natural.

Then the stone seemed to grow warm in his hands, as if the blood that flowed through his veins were flowing through the stone as well. He felt a faint distant tugging—and then, as if some instinctive part of him had gotten the idea—he pushed …

—And then Idalia’s hands were on his shoulders, steadying him as he slid sideways, suddenly dizzy and weak. He leaned against her, blinking dazedly, feeling as if he’d just run for miles.

“Too much too soon, little brother!” Idalia said, laughing and ruffling his hair. “You don’t do anything by halves, do you?” She plucked the keystone from his fingers and dropped it back into the basket.

“I guess not,” Kellen said weakly. He took a deep breath and sat up again, pushing the dizziness away with an effort of will. “So that’s how you charge a keystone?” he asked, trying hard to sound as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Usually it’s not so dramatic,” Idalia answered dryly. “Usually, the Wildmage doesn’t try fully charging a stone when he’s still recovering from a mauling. But yes, that’s how it’s done. They won’t replace the personal price the Wildmage has to pay for the larger spells, of course. But they’re a help.”

“Idalia.” Kellen hesitated, then plunged on. He had so many questions, and even if he wasn’t completely sure he could trust her answers, there was no one else he could ask. “Why is that? Why does the price … change? Why is it so, well, peculiar? I did two different Finding Spells, and both times, the price was … well, it was nothing like anything I ever studied in the High Magick. And I didn’t exactly get what I asked for, either.”

“I think it’s all a matter of balances,” Idalia answered slowly, as if she had to think hard before she spoke. “I’m not sure. I’ve worked most of this out from The Book of Stars, which—as you’ve probably discovered—is the most difficult to understand of the three Books. I believe that what our own power does is enable us to make our requests of—some Great Power. I can’t explain it any better than that.”

“The Eternal Light?” Kellen asked stumblingly. The Eternal Light was the only Great Power he’d ever heard of.

“Nothing that bloodless and impersonal,” Idalia said dismissively. “The High Mages like to make everything abstract and completely removed from the real world, but I don’t think the Powers that made us are anything like their Eternal Light. The Elves have their own explanations and names for it all, and they’re nothing like the Eternal Light. Better, I think.” She brooded for a moment. “Let’s just call them ‘the Gods,’ and leave it at that. And I think the Gods need people here in the world to make minor adjustments now and again to keep things running properly; the Elves say that They don’t meddle in the affairs of mortals lightly, and that when they choose to, They need mortal hands to do those things—but that They will neither command nor compel, only make an exchange. That’s why we end up doing what we do to pay for our spells.

“As for why we get what we need rather than what we specifically ask for … I’d say it’s a little more like a gift than a business transaction, even though we do have to pay for it. They’re looking out for us. Helping us—I don’t know—become better. Or at least giving us the tools to become better, if we want to be.”

She paused for a long time, looking thoughtful. “I also think—though, mind, I don’t know for sure—that when we use keystone energy to pay for spells, that energy is used by the Gods to some other purpose of Theirs elsewhere. So They need what humans send Them, but it isn’t being directly returned to our world in any way we can see. Not like when you cast ‘from the heart,’ and pay in this world with a task the Gods set.”

Like promising a year of chastity to a unicorn, Kellen thought. Try as he might, he couldn’t imagine how that was going to be of any use to anyone, including him.

“It makes my head hurt.” And he’d thought the High Magick was mind-numbingly esoteric!

Idalia smiled. “Tell you the truth, it makes mine hurt too, sometimes. I haven’t met very many Wildmages who really understand it. But that’s enough theory and practice for one day. I’ll tell you something you never heard in Armethalieh: magic can be fun. That’s another reason to store power in keystones; so you can use it to have a little fun.”

“Huh,” Kellen said disbelievingly. It hadn’t been fun so far. Exciting, yes, but looking back, there had not been a lot of what he’d call fun.

“Seriously. I’ll prove it,” Idalia assured him.

She got to her feet in one smooth motion and reached down into the basket once more. She lifted out the folds of fabric—as she swirled them through the air, Kellen could see it was actually an ankle-length hooded cloak of thin grey wool—and draped it around herself.

And vanished.

“Hey!”

Kellen jumped to his feet in alarm, staggering just a little in the hasty movement. Idalia was gone.

“Like it?”

She reappeared behind him, the cloak draped over one arm. Kellen stared at her, knowing he was gaping at her like a country fool in a wondertale but unable to keep from doing it. This was magic—magic of the sort that only existed in books and scrolls and Festival-day plays!

“It’s a tarnkappa—a cloak of invisibility. I made it a while back when I was still thrilled by being able to create things with the Wild Magic whenever I wanted to, with no one around to care whether I did or not. When I’m wearing it, no one can see me—or hear me, or smell me. Oh, it has its practical uses. I use it to take game in the dead of winter, when quarry is scarce and easily spooked. It’s about the only magical contrivance I have at the moment,” Idalia said, her eyes dancing with glee at his reaction.

“Why?” Kellen asked bluntly. “I mean, if you can make more things like that, why don’t you? Make indoor plumbing, if you miss it?”

Idalia shrugged. “The thrill wears off, once you get used to the idea that you can work Wild Magic openly, whenever you like,” she said simply. “I have everything I need now, and luxuries—well, they don’t seem as much of a priority. But that’s enough about magic for one day,” she said briskly, folding the tarnkappa back into the basket. “Wait here, and I’ll bring you something to do.” She grinned now. “If you’re going to eat my food, brother mine, you’re going to have to help me put it on the table.”

She walked off toward the cabin, carrying the basket.

Kellen watched her go, frowning faintly. After a few moments he sat back down on the stump again, thinking hard. Idalia, he was coming to realize, was very good at changing the subject when it started to get into matters she didn’t want to discuss.

And Kellen—as he was also starting to realize—was very good at thinking about forbidden subjects.

Take the Elves, for example. They’d gotten off that subject mighty quickly when Idalia had been telling him her history! But something about everything she’d told him about how she’d ended up here just didn’t make sense. Why was Idalia living out here in the middle of nowhere—in a cabin that didn’t even have indoor plumbing—when she could be living with the Elves in their Elven city? Everybody knew that the Elven cities were places of fabulous luxury and decadence, where Elven enchantresses practiced their forbidden wiles on any human men unfortunate enough to fall into their perfumed clutches. And, Kellen supposed fair-mindedly, Elven men did the same for human women, if they could catch them.

So why wasn’t Idalia still living there? It obviously wasn’t because the Elves had a problem with Wildmages. She’d gone to them for help when she turned back into human form, so they were evidently familiar with the Wild Magic and its effects. She must have lived with them at least for a little while afterward. Why hadn’t she stayed with them?

Kellen knew a little about Elves from his studies in the City—though, just as with unicorns, when he came to think about it straight on, he didn’t know much. And most of that was from wondertales.

Fiction. Probably not a reliable source.

Not that anything he’d learned in Armethalieh—he was coming to suspect—was very reliable.

So what had he learned from his lessons?

He thought carefully. Not much there, either.

What he did know that might be considered potentially reliable came not from his schoolbooks and histories, but from his religious instruction in the Temple when he was much younger. Elves were one of the Nonhuman Races strictly banned from City lands. Occasional Elven trade goods did still arrive in Armethalieh, by way of the Mountain Traders, though their price was beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest of the Mageborn. Elves lived for a very long time, maybe forever, in forests far to the west. They didn’t have any particular magical abilities—not like human Mages—but they were enchantingly beautiful, and if a human ever saw one, the Elf would use that supernatural beauty to lure him to his doom, because, like all the Nonhuman Races, they were essentially inferior and corrupt, poor copies of humanity allowed to exist by the Eternal Light for instructional purposes.

Only they didn’t seem to have lured Idalia much of anywhere, now that Kellen came to think of it. And if the doctrines of the Eternal Light were as false as the rest of the teachings of the Mages, then Kellen thought he’d better consider the rest of what he’d been taught pretty carefully before trusting—or acting on—any of it.

“Here you are.”

Kellen looked up as Idalia returned with a sack and a small iron pot. “Emya roots. They need to be peeled for stew. When you’re done peeling them, take them down to the spring and wash them, then fill the pot with water and bring it up to the cabin. I’ve got some other chores to do, but this should keep you busy and out of trouble. There’s bread and apples inside if you get hungry, and—try not to injure yourself too badly at this chore while I’m gone, brother mine. And remember, a little work is going to help you recover faster.”

With that she walked off, leaving Kellen staring down at a knife—his own penknife, as a matter of fact—an iron pot, and a burlap sack half full of lumpy brown roots.

They were going to eat these?

He picked one up and inspected it dubiously.

“Good eating, those.”

Shalkan appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, reached over Kellen’s shoulder, and plucked the root delicately out of Kellen’s hand.

“Mmm … crunchy,” the unicorn observed, mouth full.

“Hey! I’m supposed to be peeling those for dinner,” Kellen objected.

“Then I suggest you get started,” Shalkan said imperturbably, mouth still full.

Kellen looked around. Idalia was nowhere to be seen. He sighed and reached for another root, watching Shalkan out of the corner of his eye lest the unicorn steal this one, too.

Shalkan looked perfectly healthy. Idalia hadn’t said anything about healing him; either she hadn’t needed to, or she hadn’t felt it was worth commenting on.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Kellen said, feeling awkward. “You … are okay, aren’t you?”

The unicorn, mouth still full, let Kellen’s question pass without comment.

I guess that’s a “yes,” Kellen decided, and bent his head to the task at hand.

He quickly realized what Idalia had meant by her parting comment. The brown exterior of the root was slippery and tough, hard to cut into. It was going to be quite easy to cut himself while peeling these things if he wasn’t careful. The interior was waxy and white, smelling faintly of apples and onions. Kellen supposed that cooking would improve it.

“So,” Shalkan asked when he’d finished chewing. “Is freedom everything you hoped it would be?”

“It’s different,” Kellen said, hoping he didn’t sound too grudging about things. Shalkan’s continued presence in his life was another thing he wondered about. It was all very well to assume that the unicorn was here to make sure that Kellen kept his half of the magical bargain he’d made, but surely Shalkan had other ways of knowing that, even from a distance? Was there another reason that Shalkan was sticking so close by—and was there even the faintest possible hope that Shalkan might tell him what that was if Kellen asked him directly?

Probably not.

“And now that you have it, you don’t like it?” the unicorn asked archly.

“I said—ow!”

In his moment of irritated distraction, the knife had slipped, scoring a thin slice across the end of one of Kellen’s fingers. Kellen stuck the wounded digit into his mouth and sucked on it mutinously. “I said,” he mumbled around the finger, “that it’s different.”

The pain subsided. He removed the finger from his mouth and inspected the cut. It wasn’t very deep, and the bleeding had already stopped. Kellen took a deep breath, knowing already from the unicorn’s tone that Shalkan wouldn’t stop prodding at him until he was properly answered. “I don’t know yet whether I like it—being free and out of the City—or not. I don’t know much about it yet. But I know one thing; it’s better to be here than dead. And I know another; it’s better to be myself, with all of my memories—or most of them, anyway—and my mind intact, than to be Lycaelon’s obedient puppet with half my mind gone. Now, since I don’t have a lot of choice about being here and ‘free,’ I guess I’d better try my best to like it, hadn’t I?”

“A good answer,” Shalkan said, nodding. “And lesson number one about surviving in the Wild Lands, Kellen: always pay attention to everything around you and especially to the task at hand.”

Then Shalkan added, soberly, “Even—or perhaps especially—when people try to distract you from your purpose.”

WITHIN a few days, the rhythm of the days with his sister had settled into a pattern. They rose at an earlier hour than he would ever have considered possible in the City, but Kellen rapidly came to appreciate the sheer beauty of the dawn here in Idalia’s forest. There were no bells, but every day began with a chorus of birdsong long before the sun was visible, with mysterious threads of fog weaving among the quiet trees. The light gradually increased, and there was a sense of anticipation in the air as the new day began. Then, suddenly, the glory of sunrise—and Idalia took care that they both paused for a moment to appreciate and evaluate it, for the sunrise often gave a clue to the weather for the coming day.

Then he joined her in putting together breakfast, watching and learning the art of cookery, which at the moment was as esoteric for him as that of magick would be for the common Armethaliehan. Then—then the day’s work began, a series of alternating chores and lessons in various aspects of the Wild Magic. And even if he didn’t consciously remember her from his childhood, there was some sort of visceral memory remaining that made Kellen feel more comfortable with Idalia than he had ever felt with anyone else.

That was a bit unnerving at first, but it did make life with someone who was otherwise a total stranger a lot easier. Though life in the Wildwood was hard, based on unremitting physical labor dawn to dusk, Idalia didn’t ask any more of him in the way of physical labor than he could do, though she certainly didn’t ask any less, either.

On the other hand, when he watched her swinging an axe, chopping the wood for the fire that cooked their food and warmed them at night, Kellen felt rather guilty that a lot of the time he was lying about doing nothing while a woman did the work, and was just as glad, all things considered, when she did give him things to do.

And every day, as she showed him some other small and practical use of Wild Magic, he began to realize that she’d been telling him the simple truth upon his arrival: here in the Wildwood, she was particularly noted for Healing Spells. Given how she had healed him (and presumably Shalkan), Kellen didn’t find himself actually surprised to learn that, and slowly, almost without his noticing, his amazement that a female could do magic faded completely away.

Of course women could do magic. Didn’t he see his sister doing magic every day?

“WILD Magic is especially good for healing—almost anything is a Healing Spell when you come right down to it,” Idalia told him a sennight after his arrival, as she used Wild Magic to heal the ankle he’d strained while fishing in a rocky-strewn brook, explaining to him that she was also going to strengthen it so that he wouldn’t repeat the injury.

Though Kellen had thought he was in pretty good physical condition from his rambles about the City, he wasn’t used to clambering about on the uneven ground out here in the wilderness, much less in the treacherous streambed of the shallow stream that ran behind the cabin, and had turned his foot on a hidden stone. As usual in these lessons, he sat on the chopping stump, and she on the ground, looking up at him. He wondered if that was a deliberate choice on her part, to make the lessons as little like the ones with Anigrel as possible, though of course she could have no idea what those had been like. Anigrel had always looked down at him from a position of authority. Idalia managed to have the authority without needing to make an issue of it.

“Something like this is trivial, and I can use a keystone to supply all the power I need, but for more substantial injuries, sometimes there is a substantial price to pay. Now, that’s often paid solely by the Wildmage.”

She held her hands around his ankle, and Kellen could feel a soothing warmth radiating from them that was far more than just the heat of her hands.

“That hardly seems fair,” he objected. “The Mage isn’t getting anything out of it!”

“Ah, not necessarily,” she corrected. “The Mage—or Wildmage—often gets paid in goods or services; that’s part of the whole system of barter out here. Now, as it happens, besides that payment, or instead of it, the Wildmage can share out the price the Wild Magic asks for the healing with her patient, if the injury is severe enough,” she explained. “Providing the patient is conscious, able to think clearly, and willing, of course. For that matter, the ‘cost’ can actually be shared among several ‘people,’ such as the patient’s friends or relations.”

He blinked at that. “Really?”

“Well, think—it’s not that different from using Talisman-power to do something that really does benefit everyone in the City,” she pointed out logically as she let go of his ankle and flicked a curious insect away with one hand. “There—try standing on that foot now.”

He did, and was delighted to discover it didn’t hurt and really did feel stronger.

I wonder what the cost was of healing me after the Hunt, though, he thought, when he suddenly remembered how badly he’d been hurt. He hadn’t been conscious to consent to accept part of the cost—nor had he had a crowd of “friends and relations” to share it with, either. What had the cost been to Idalia?

“And you know, of course, that the High Mages of Armethalieh do a fair amount of healing; at least, the common ones do. The difference between what the Wildmage does and what the High Mage does now is that the Wildmage is bound to tell the patient and anyone else potentially involved in a spell that she would like help in sharing the cost, and then ask formal permission to do so,” she continued. “Whereas the High Mage just uses Talisman-energy he’s already taken and stored, without asking permission.”

Something about the way she phrased that caught his attention. “What do you mean, now?” he asked.

She looked up at him thoughtfully. “I’m not altogether certain that the High Mages have always just taken power without the knowledge or permission of the people of Armethalieh,” she admitted. “Maybe in the past, when the population was lower, they used to ask—” She shrugged. “But to get back to what we do, precisely because of the emotional connection, when the price is shared among a number of those who are connected with the patient, the price that the Wildmage pays is minimal.”

“What’s ‘minimal’?” Kellen asked suspiciously, sitting back down again.

“It depends on the extent of the injury, and how quickly it needs to be healed.” Idalia watched him from under her long lashes. “If it doesn’t need to be mended quickly, just mended without scarring or other permanent changes, then even the cost to the Mage is minimal, and it’s all keystone work—which is one of the reasons you slept for a sennight, brother mine. If, however, it needs to be healed right that moment, then the cost is a lot higher, and a circle of supporters is a necessary thing. The more supporters, the lighter the cost, and it amounts to pain-sharing, usually, some personal energy lost, and a lot of weakness, because their strength is given to the patient just as their life-energy is—”

“Ahem,” Shalkan said from his usual observation point across the clearing. “I believe that you are going to have an opportunity to demonstrate that very point in a moment.”

Idalia looked at him sharply, but before she could ask any questions, the underbrush at the edge of the clearing rustled and parted.

And Kellen had to stop himself from staring and gaping like a farmer on his first visit to the City markets.

He’d never even seen one unicorn before he’d summoned Shalkan. Now here was a whole herd of them! They slipped into the clearing, moving with the same uncanny silence that he’d come to expect from Shalkan; there were a dozen of them, at least, all dazzlingly white, all incredibly beautiful—

Except for the one in the midst of them, supported by a larger unicorn on either flank, and hobbling on three legs. The fourth leg dripped dark blood, and dangled uselessly.

“Kellen!” Idalia snapped. “Go help that colt—I can’t touch him—”

Kellen started, and hurried forward to lend his shoulder to the injured colt, who was quite young indeed, surely not even a yearling. The unicorn colt was clearly spent; his eyes were glazed with pain and exhaustion, and the glory of his coat and budding horn dimmed.

Idalia ran back to the cabin to collect a basket of herbs and other things. Kellen helped the poor trembling thing to kneel, then lie down; the left hind leg was broken, horribly so; two jagged ends of the bone had come through the flesh and the whole thing just hung limply in a way that suggested the pain must be nearly unbearable.

“He stepped into a rabbit hole while galloping, Wildmage Idalia,” one of the adults said gravely as Idalia knelt at the colt’s side. “Can you—?”

“Of course, and much more easily since my brother is here.” She nodded at Kellen. “Little brother, I can’t touch this young fellow without consequences; I can do the healing, but you’ll have to do the manipulation to put the bones back into place.”

“Manipulation?” Kellen gulped. The mere sight of the mangled leg was making him feel sick, and he cringed inside each time it whimpered in pain. He’d been hoping he could sneak away; surely she didn’t mean him to—

She did. “You’ll have to straighten the leg and align the bone and hold it in place while I work,” she said, and it was clear from her tone of voice that she expected him to agree.

The colt made a pitiful mewing sound that wrung his heart, and he found himself saying “Of course,” even though inside he was thinking, Oh, no!

“And you?” she asked, looking at the adult unicorns.

“The usual, of course,” said the spokesman, and the others all nodded. “He’ll lose the leg, else, if not his life. What else are families for?”

Kellen watched closely as Idalia created a pocket-sized fire and quickly brewed something over it, then, at her direction, he held the colt’s head up and helped it drink the warm contents of the bowl. After that, Idalia used a touch of the Wild Magic and a keystone to make it sleep, and Kellen breathed easier as its keening whimpers died away to soft snores.

But his work had barely begun.

Now Idalia produced splints and bandages from her workbag—since, as she explained for Kellen’s benefit—the healing would go much more quickly and easily if the bones were close to where they were supposed to be, and Kellen, working at her direction, set the leg.

What he had to do nearly made him faint for a moment, feeling the unicorn’s blood on his hands, pulling the leg this way and that until all the broken pieces of bone slipped back beneath the skin, feeling—and hearing the shattered pieces slip and grate over each other. He thought it would never be done, and he really did come awfully close to losing his control over his stomach more than once. If the colt had been conscious and writhing in agony, he would never have been able to bear it, he knew, but through it all the young unicorn slept peacefully.

At last Idalia was satisfied, and talked Kellen through the process of splinting the leg to hold it steady. When he was finished, Kellen sat back on his heels, sweating heavily, feeling as exhausted and light-headed as he had after the initial flight from the City with Shalkan.

“Kellen, you’ve done enough; I won’t ask you to share in the price of this healing,” Idalia said then, as he sat there, nauseous and sweating, his hands and arms covered in blood, wanting to leave and unable to move. “But if Shalkan—”

She glanced over at Shalkan, who shook his head. “Not possible,” the unicorn said, with genuine regret.

She didn’t question that, though Kellen was a bit annoyed; why shouldn’t Shalkan help, after all? Wasn’t this a colt of the same species? Instead, after Kellen had rested for a few moments, she had him collect one hair from the tails of each of the adults and the colt, added a hair of her own, and dabbled the entire bundle in the blood that had pooled beneath the colt’s leg. Kellen took the opportunity to back away, but not very far. He simply didn’t have the strength.

Then she pricked the ball of her thumb with her knife, and squeezed out a drop of her own blood, holding the now-bloody bundle of hairs under her hand so that the drop of blood fell on it and mingled with the unicorns’.

As Kellen watched, curiosity overcoming nausea, Idalia closed her eyes, then held up her hands, palms out, at shoulder height, and for a moment, he wondered just what it was that she was up to. This was nothing like anything the two of them had done together.

Then Kellen suddenly felt power flare up all around them. And just as he did, a fainter wall of power sprang up, encircling them.

A wall? Not quite—as he stared at it, startled that he could see it at all, he realized that it wasn’t so much a wall as half a sphere, inverted over them like the bowl of the sky. It shimmered like heat haze in the sunlight, like the barrier that protected the harbor of Armethalieh.

Now Idalia dropped the bundle of hairs on the fire, and instead of the stench of burning hair that Kellen had expected, a scent not unlike that of incense arose from the coals.

Idalia closed her eyes again, held her hands palm-up in her lap and her lips barely moved as she whispered some spell Kellen couldn’t hear.

And at that moment, Kellen sensed something that was entirely outside of his experience, with High Magick or Wild Magic—

It was the sense that Something was with them, inside the half sphere with them, and it was speaking to them. But not to all of them, only to Idalia and the adult unicorns. He, Shalkan, and the colt were left out of the conversation—if conversation it was—entirely.

Then the Presence was gone, winking out as if it never had been there at all. Idalia spread her hands over the colt’s leg, and they began to glow with a verdant green fire, so rich and powerful that it made Kellen long to gather up two handfuls for himself and eat it like a double handful of sweets. There was a heady aroma in the air, of new-mown hay, of the breeze after a rain, of every flower in the world in bloom at the same time. And there was energy free-flowing all around them—a wonderful energy that filled Kellen with a sense of incredible well-being.

Right before his eyes, through the gaps in the splint, he could see the raw flesh of the colt’s leg knit together; he heard a faint grating sound, and sensed that the bones were knitting in a way he would never have thought possible. So this was what Idalia had done for him … who was, at that point, a mere stranger!

In a shorter time than he would have thought possible, it was over. Idalia made a gesture, and the half sphere surrounding them vanished, and with it, the energy that had swirled inside that sphere. She smothered the little fire, and there was nothing to show that she’d ever done anything, except for the blood on the colt’s leg.

She poked Kellen. “Well, go on. He won’t be needing that now.”

“What …? Oh.”

Kellen scuttled forward, still on his knees, and quickly removed the splint he’d so painstakingly applied such a short time before. The colt’s fur was still matted with dried blood—there was something so wrong about seeing blood on a unicorn!—but now the flesh beneath was whole and unblemished, as if the injury had never occurred at all. He backed away again.

The adults nudged the youngster awake, and the colt got unsteadily to its feet.

“Wildmage, our thanks—” the spokesman said with such fervent sincerity that it brought a lump into Kellen’s throat.

“It was my privilege, bright ones,” she replied gravely. And a moment later, they were all gone, vanishing just as Shalkan was wont to vanish, passing into the forest without being seen.

“Well,” Idalia said, sounding tired, but very satisfied. “That was a major healing. What did you think?”

He asked the first question—blurted it, really—that came into his mind. “Why couldn’t you touch them?”

And Shalkan brayed with laughter.

In fact, the unicorn was so convulsed that he literally fell to his knees and gasped for breath. “Why—why—why—” Shalkan panted, and every time he glanced over at Kellen’s increasingly indignant face, he went off again.

Idalia had her face hidden in both hands, and her shoulders shook, but she was not, as Kellen momentarily feared, weeping. When he touched her shoulder, she raised a face full of mirth to his.

“Kellen!” she managed, around her own choked laughter. “Think! Why can’t I get near Shalkan? What happened when I was an eagle?”

For a moment he just stared at her, unable to see what being an eagle had anything to do with not touching unicorns. Then it hit him. She’d had to find a mate—raise a clutch—

“But—you were an eagle!” he spluttered. “That couldn’t count—you were a bird!”

“Oh, believe me, it counted,” she choked. “It surely counted!”

Of course she couldn’t get near Shalkan, or the other unicorns. She wasn’t a virgin. Idiot that he was, she’d told him that was the reason—well, almost told him—that first time he’d been awake, and he’d been too dense to take the hint.

And all this time, he’d been afraid it was because the Wild Magic had somehow tainted her …

He felt his face grow hot with embarrassment, as much over that unfair assumption as for his stupidity.

“Mind—” she said, between stifled snorts of laughter, “virginity is as much a state of mind as it is of the body. Someone who is physically still virginal but is thoroughly nasty-minded could no more touch a unicorn than I—and someone who was still utterly innocent mentally could, no matter what had happened to their body. It’s a matter of knowledge, too, I suppose—” She took one look at his face—which was probably an accurate reflection of the shock he was feeling—and convulsed into peals of giggles again.

Kellen wasn’t sure whether to be furious, embarrassed, or just to go into the cabin and stay there for the rest of his life. How could he possibly have been so thick-witted? How?

“Ah—” he said, trying desperately to change the subject—his turn to want to do that now, because he really did not want to find out anything more about his sister’s sexual adventures—“if it’s not violating some promise or something—what was the price of the healing this time?”

Idalia—eyes streaming with mirth—took a deep breath, obviously deciding to take pity on him. Shalkan was still snickering and shaking his head in wonderment, though the unicorn had managed to regain his feet again.

“Ah. The price. My part is to clear a fouled pond of the dead deer that has fallen into it; the unicorns can’t purify it until the carcass is gone, and they won’t be staying in this area for very much longer,” she said, quickly getting herself under control. “Most unicorn families like to travel, you see; they were lucky they were close-by—relatively speaking—when the colt was injured. I can’t tell you what the price was for the colt’s friends and relatives, but it was trivial compared to the healing.” She looked fairly satisfied, actually; surprisingly so for someone who had just agreed to a task probably easily as nasty as cleaning that cistern had been …

“I’d like to help. If I’m allowed that is,” he added hastily.

Idalia looked a little surprised but quite pleased. “Why, Kellen, that’s very kind of you! I accept, but I want to go find the pond first and see what kind of tools we’ll need. Meanwhile, there’s something else you can do, right now—”

She got up off the ground and went back to the cabin with her basket of herbs and whatnot, scooping up the bloody bandages and splints as well. Kellen had already learned that here in the wilderness you didn’t throw things away lightly. Anything that could possibly be reclaimed and reused would be, as it was almost always easier to reuse than to make new.

She returned with a couple of empty baskets and a leather bucket and handed them to him. “If you’d be so kind, go off with Shalkan and see what you can find in the woods. It’s summer—there might be berries, and if you can find enough we’ll have pancakes and berries for dinner. I always find that I’m as hungry as a wolf after a healing, and especially hungry for sweet things.”

“Of course,” he said, wondering if she was trying to get him out of the way for some reason …

But no, probably not.

“Anything else you’d like me to look for?” he added.

She looked wistful “Oh—mushrooms—if you’re lucky enough to find mushrooms … I haven’t had a good mess of stuffed mushrooms in so long …”

It was his turn to laugh, and he did. “I’ll look. And I’ll see what else I can find to eat, too.”

“You won’t need to worry about picking anything poisonous, not with me with you,” Shalkan said, a little smugly, coming a few steps closer. “And I daresay I’m as good as one of those truffle-hunting dogs at sniffing out nice bits to eat.”

“Truffles?” Idalia asked, the longing so naked in her voice that both of them laughed. “Now, I won’t hold you to that, and I won’t get my mouth set for anything in particular. Whatever you bring back will be more than we have already. And the walk will do you good, strengthen that ankle some more, and give you more woodscraft practice.”

“Then, we’ll be off,” Kellen said instantly. Having just embarrassed himself so thoroughly in front of Idalia—and found out things he’d just as soon not know, come to that—he’d just as soon be somewhere else for the next little while. “We’ll be back when we’ve got something to show you.”

And without waiting for her answer, he strode off into the woods, making Shalkan trot to catch up.

Chapter Twelve

Apples and Apparitions

THIS WAS THE first time Kellen had been very far from the cabin since his recovery, and even with Shalkan by his side, he felt rather alone. It was a different kind of aloneness than the kind he had faced in the City, where he’d been surrounded by people every waking moment, and his constant quest had been for privacy. But there, at least, irritating as it had been, he’d been protected—by the City Watch, by the fact of being the Arch-Mage’s son. He couldn’t have gotten into trouble—not real, point-of-death trouble—in Armethalieh, not really. The Watch was always keeping an eye on things, and if he’d really gotten in badly over his head, all he would have needed to do was reveal who he was, and everybody within sight would have been crawling all over themselves to do whatever he wanted and see him safely home. Oh, he might have gotten his pocket picked—that had happened to him a number of times in his early days—but that was just about the worst thing that had ever happened.

But here it was different. Except for Idalia … and Shalkan, of course … there didn’t seem to be another person for miles. It seemed very odd never to see any other people, not to hear the sound of voices all around him, the sound of horses, and carts, and the City bells.

And the problem was that he really was alone, both physically and mentally, more alone than he’d ever been in his life, grappling with a problem no one could solve for him. Not Shalkan, and not Idalia.

Kellen was pretty sure by now that he could trust Idalia, trust her intelligence and her judgment, even if she didn’t always tell him everything. After all, why should she? He was ten years younger than she was, and she had a lot of experiences behind her that maybe she wouldn’t want to talk about to someone like him. He liked her a lot—more each day. He was in awe of her—not only her magic and her woodscraft abilities, but her plain common sense.

The trouble he had was that even though all those tales of Demonkind had seemed like nonsense back in the City, they weren’t anything to be laughed at anymore. There’d been those dreams, for one thing. And for another, Idalia herself had said something in passing, but with a wary look over her shoulder, about Demons.

Now, if Idalia spoke of Demonkind without any irony—and given those awful dreams—Lycaelon must have had something behind his warnings, after all.

Idalia had been working with the Wild Magic for a long time—at least ten years more than he had, so if it was going to turn her to the Dark, it had certainly had plenty of opportunity to do that already, and if it had, surely he’d have seen some sign of it by now. And Shalkan did like her. It was just that Idalia wasn’t, well …

After the healing this afternoon, Kellen could hardly believe how stupid he’d been. Shalkan didn’t avoid Idalia because she was a Wildmage gone bad (and it should have occurred to him that Shalkan wouldn’t have brought them both straight here if there had been something wrong with her) it was just that Idalia wasn’t, well, a virgin. (Kellen winced. How in the name of the Light had he managed to miss that? But she’d been a bird. Being a bird didn’t count …)

Resolutely, he turned his thoughts away from the subject. He had his vow to consider. He shouldn’t even be thinking about things like that! Anyway, Idalia just wasn’t. And that mattered a lot to unicorns, apparently—look at the way she’d been unable to touch the colt, even though it would have made things a whole lot simpler in the healing today if she hadn’t needed Kellen’s help. And what if he hadn’t been there? What would she have done then?

Really, he should have put two and two together the moment the whole herd appeared, looking for help.

Sometimes I am so dense …

But no matter how hard he tried, he still couldn’t get his father’s parting words out of his head, and the fact that Idalia wasn’t any kind of Demonspawn or Darkmage didn’t solve Kellen’s problem, not really. Lycaelon’s words and his own fever-spawned nightmares still haunted him and plagued him with doubts to which there didn’t seem to be any easy solution.

Because out here, outside the City walls, nothing was simple or straightforward anymore. Every answer turned out to be a gateway to more questions, more ambiguities. And instead of being given rules to follow, he was presented with choices. Idalia had said that the Gods used the Wild Magic to give Wildmages the tools to help them become better—if they wanted to become better. But that meant that down deep inside, it was still up to each of them to choose how to use those tools. That meant Lycaelon could still be right—that the Wild Magic might open the path to Demonkind by giving Wildmages the power to choose to be good or evil, and the freedom to make the wrong choice.

And Kellen wasn’t really sure he knew himself well enough to be sure he was safe—that in becoming a Wildmage, he wouldn’t end up exactly the way his father had said he would. Surely nobody started out using the Wild Magic intending to get involved with Demons? So how could you know you were going to get into trouble before it was too late to turn back? He already knew he’d made some really stupid decisions in his life. What if choosing to become a Wildmage was another one?

What if—not now, but in ten years, or even fifty years, if he managed to live that long—he did something really really horrible just because he didn’t have the sense to stop using the Books now? How could he know? How could anybody know? Was that why the High Council forbade the study of the Wild Magic? Were they actually (for once in their twisted little lives) right? What if the Wild Magic really was dangerous—not for everyone, but just for a few people—and you couldn’t know who those people were going to be until it was too late? If that was true, wasn’t it best to just forbid everyone to use it, just in case?

But what if that wasn’t true? Why should the Council be right about this when they were wrong about everything else?

How would he know before it was too late?

Maybe it was already too late.

Kellen sighed glumly, which earned him a sidelong glance from Shalkan, although the unicorn didn’t comment. Once they’d left Idalia’s cabin behind, there was no sign of civilization at all, and he was startled to find how much he missed the familiar walls and roads and buildings he’d grown up with all his life. Even in the large parks in the City that were designed so that all you saw were trees and flowers—no buildings at all, not even the City towers—everything was carefully planted and manicured and designed. You never forgot that someone had planned it. Out here, everything was just growing with no plan or pattern to it. Trees fell down, and nobody came to tidy them away. Flowers grew wherever they wanted to. No rules, no order, and no sign that any human had ever done anything here. It was all …

“Messy, isn’t it?” Shalkan asked. “No, I can’t read your thoughts,” he added, regarding Kellen’s guilty and startled expression. “Or, let’s say, I can’t read them in the normal course of things. But you wear your thoughts on your face, City-child.”

“As bad as that?” Kellen said despondently.

“You’ll learn,” Shalkan said kindly. “And there’s no reason for you to expect to like something you’ve never seen before, just because you think you ought to like it. Give yourself time.”

“But what if I don’t like it?” Kellen burst out. “What if I never like it? What if I always hate it? What if I should have stayed in the City after all?” He looked around at the forest, at the untidy ramble of trees and vines and flowers. Everything was in full leaf, the season racing forward toward high summer. Maybe it was pretty, maybe it was even beautiful, but his eyes longed for patterns.

“Do you think that’s likely? There’s beauty and wonder here beyond the stunted dreams of City-folk. And things you never knew existed. You only think that you know all that’s to be found out here. Look.”

Shalkan was pointing with his horn. Kellen looked sharply in the direction that he pointed.

At first all he saw was a patch of blue sky framed by the branches of two large oaks, but then, as he stared, it seemed to shimmer and glisten, becoming half-solid, shining like glass or water, with the merest hint of rainbow. For a moment he thought he glimpsed a spectral shape, winged and vaguely human, but then it vanished again, and there was only air.

“That—What—” Kellen gasped inelegantly. “I saw something … didn’t I?”

“A sylph,” Shalkan confirmed. “A creature of the winds. They ride the currents of the air, and with their help, you can influence the weather. She’s not the only creature out here that you’ve never seen before—and that wouldn’t ever go near the City walls. But come along—I know where there are some nice juicy apples.”

“It’s too early for apples,” Kellen protested automatically.

“Come and see,” the unicorn said with a wise and amused glance. “You just saw a sylph, are you going to disbelieve in my apples?”

Well, when Shalkan put it that way …

To Kellen’s surprise, Shalkan led him to a wild apple orchard, where the trees were indeed heavy with ripe red fruit. Kellen started forward, hefting his basket, but Shalkan immediately stepped across his path, blocking his way to the trees.

“You might want to ask the owners if they’re willing to part with some first,” Shalkan said gently.

Kellen looked around, wondering if he’d missed seeing a hut or cabin concealed in the undergrowth.

“Look harder. Look at the trees. Remember the sylph,” Shalkan said, giving Kellen a warning nudge with his shoulder.

Kellen did as he was bid, and suddenly he could see them—women, sitting in the trees, looking down at him with amusement. Their skin was pale green, like new leaves, their long hair the emerald of the leaves of high summer. They were crowned with apple blossoms, and every single one of them was quite naked. They appeared to be perfectly comfortable in that state, and for a moment, Kellen had the disoriented feeling it was he that was the one who was foolish for being clothed.

“Oh … no,” Kellen whispered, appalled.

“Apple-dryads,” Shalkan said matter-of-factly. “Tree-spirits, tree-guardians. Not all trees have them, of course, or we’d be up to our hocks in dryads; no, only a few select trees are inhabited by dryads, though they do a certain amount of tending of all the trees in their domain. This is their grove. And their apples, of course.”

The dryads came down from their trees; not so much climbing as gliding, and began pacing deliberately toward him. Their long hair swirled around them with a life of its own, now concealing their bodies, now revealing them, a breast here, a thigh there. Kellen would have turned to run, but now Shalkan backed around him, blocking his retreat. They clustered around Kellen, plucking at his clothes as if in perplexity, and giggling at his horrified embarrassment.

“I—I—I didn’t know,” Kellen stammered, blushing hotly. To his horror, he was surrounded by naked grove-maidens and not quite sure where to look. “I’m sorry.” The head of the tallest of them barely came up to his shoulder, and their pale green skin had the hard glossy sheen of a polished, unripened apple. Unlike the sylph, which he hadn’t been quite certain he was seeing, the apple-dryads seemed as solid and real as Idalia.

“Ladies, this is Kellen,” Shalkan said, and Kellen would have been willing to swear the unicorn was smiling. “He’s new here; he’s Wildmage Idalia’s brother—and he’s under a vow of chastity, so have pity on him.”

The apple-dryads drew back a little, regarding Kellen and Shalkan gravely out of dark eyes the color of apple-tree bark. Kellen had recovered his composure enough to realize that they weren’t quite naked—or rather that they were, but that they weren’t quite human; their slender nakedness, while giving the strong impression of femininity, was the featureless androgyny of a sculpture, or a doll. Vaguely, he supposed that only made sense. After all, they only looked human. He cleared his throat, awkwardly.

“I’m sorry I was going to steal your apples,” he said. “I mean, I wasn’t going to steal them. I was just going to take some, and I didn’t realize that they were yours. I mean, Shalkan brought me here, and I figured he wanted some, and I knew my sister would like them …”

One of the dryads—she seemed to be the leader, though Kellen couldn’t quite say how he got that impression—spoke. Her voice was like rustling leaves, and contained no human words, though Kellen felt that his apology was accepted.

*A gift for you, human child, and for your sister, on whom be honor.* This time he heard the words clearly inside his head, as though she were making an effort to be sure he understood her.

Suddenly the dryads whirled and went sprinting away, each to her own tree. There was a wild rustling of leaves and a great deal of giggling that sounded more like bubbling water than girlish laughter, and a few moments later several of them returned, carrying apples, which they reached out and placed into his basket amid much jostling and amusement. Before he could even begin to stammer out his thanks, the dryads had dashed away again, leaving him staring down at their gift—not as many apples as he might have gathered for himself, but all of them gleaming and juicy and without flaw.

He looked around, but now, no matter how hard he stared, once more the orchard was only an orchard, with no dryads to be seen. He looked at Shalkan, doing his best to make sense of what had just happened. Without the apples in his basket, it would have been easy to dismiss the last few minutes as an especially vivid waking dream, an aftermath of his injuries.

“What can I do in return?” he asked. Gifts required gifts in return—that was the first lesson both of magic and good manners.

“Bring them water in a dry year,” Shalkan answered approvingly, as though Kellen were an especially apt pupil. “Not this year—the rains have been good. But always respect the forest.”

“I will,” Kellen answered humbly. Humility seemed in order; and so did a lot more consideration than he had been giving to his surroundings! Things weren’t what they seemed here—and he’d certainly never look at an apple the same way again!

AFTER that, the two of them moved onward, deeper into the forest. Now that he was getting used to looking, Kellen realized that the forest was not the empty unoccupied place it had first seemed to be. In fact, the creatures that were only hinted at in his High Magick lessons seemed to be everywhere, and Kellen was sure that he and Shalkan were constantly being watched. Gathering cress by the bank of a stream at Shalkan’s direction, Kellen looked down into the water and found more than his reflection looking back. Something that could only be an undine stared into Kellen’s eyes for a long moment before flitting away.

Undines and sylphs … that’s two of the four Elemental Powers that I remember from my lessons in the High Magick. The other two are salamanders—fire—and gnomes—earth. He wondered where dryads fitted into the scheme of things. I’m not sure I’d want to meet a salamander in a forest, but I wonder what gnomes look like? I would have paid more attention to my lessons if Anigrel had ever said the Powers were real live creatures … but the High Magick always taught that they were abstract concepts, symbols of the elemental forces of Creation that Mages work with, not … real. It’s like Idalia said. The Mages take everything and squeeze the life out of it, turn it into entries in a ledger. No wonder the High Magick is so bloodless and boring!

But it still works. Kellen remembered the Hound-golems and shuddered.

While gathering mushrooms—holding each one up for Shalkan’s approval before adding it to his basket—Kellen came across a door in the base of an oak tree. It was only six inches high, but aside from that, it looked just like any other door that Kellen had ever seen. He straightened up and turned to Shalkan.

“How did they get here? What are they all doing here?” he demanded, making a sweeping gesture that took in the door, the dryads, the sylph, and everything else he’d seen in the forest.

“Your folk don’t own the world,” Shalkan replied reprovingly. “They just claim they do, sometimes.” He shook his head. “Creatures of Magery are far more vulnerable to Magery’s effects than humanfolk are. They’re here because they were driven outside the bounds of City lands by spells, some of them. Your—ah, pardon me, not your—the High Mages don’t care for creatures that they can’t control, and they don’t care for things that might remind their citizens that they don’t own and rule the world of nature or the world of spirits, and that they share the world with creatures that don’t abide by their rules. Most of the Otherfolk here in the Wildwood were chased out by Hounds. None care to remain where they aren’t welcome.”

Kellen looked back at the minuscule door, wondering which of the half-mythical creatures from his neglected studies lay behind it. Something tiny that built doors just like human doors, at any rate. Maybe someday he’d get to meet it.

Reluctantly, he turned and followed Shalkan.

He’d thought that by escaping the Outlaw Hunt and leaving City lands he’d be outside the influence of the City, but it didn’t look like that was the case. If the City had pushed these creatures out of their homes by claiming so much land, then that was an influence, too, one that could be felt far beyond the bounds of the City. What if the City kept claiming more land? Where would they all go?

It wasn’t fair.

IT was midday when they reached Shalkan’s goal; an immense clearing in the center of the forest, filled with a vast welter of thornbushes that bore a suspicious similarity, to Kellen’s eyes, to those Shalkan had charged through so many times during their escape. He regarded it dubiously.

“What’s that?”

“Blackberries,” the unicorn answered happily. “Oh, come now, City-child. Where do you think black-cap jam comes from? It doesn’t grow on trees in little pots. It comes from bushes like these—well, not quite like these. This particular patch is special. It bears fruit out of season, and the most delicious fruit in the whole Wildwoods, I’ll wager. Come along. There’s plenty for everyone.”

“There aren’t going to be any more dryads, are there?” Kellen asked suspiciously, still holding back.

“No,” Shalkan answered. “Only brambles—but that’s why you’re wearing all that leather. And a few scratches are a small price to pay for blackberry jam. And blackberry pie. And blackberry griddle cakes. And—”

“Okay, okay—I get the idea,” Kellen said, laughing. He was starting to suspect Shalkan of having a sweet tooth, and even Kellen could smell the sugary scent of the fruit from where he was standing. Unlike some of the things he’d gathered today—including what Shalkan said were truffles, which Kellen couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to eat!—it actually smelled familiar—like the baskets of the blackberries sold in the City markets. But instead of reminding him of home and all that he’d lost, the scent of wild blackberries made the forest seem like home—or like a place that could come to be home, anyway.

He set down the large shallow gathering basket and unslung the berrying bucket from over his shoulder, advancing warily toward the berry bush.

“Bears and birds have gotten most of what’s on the outside,” Shalkan said helpfully, “but there are still plenty of berries inside the thicket.”

Resigning himself to a few scratches, Kellen got down on his knees and began pushing his way inside. He quickly realized that this wasn’t just one bush, but a cluster of bushes grown together—and Shalkan was right; though the outsides were picked almost clean, here inside the bushes were still heavy with fruit. It wasn’t as difficult to get inside as he’d feared, either; the way the bushes grew together made a sort of tunnel for him to push his way into.

He quickly stripped a handful of berries from their twigs and popped them into his mouth. They were warm with the sun, and the flavor was intense, piercingly sweet. Greedily, he wolfed down another handful, before reluctantly realizing he ought to share his bounty.

The next several minutes were occupied with Kellen feeding himself and Shalkan, as he stripped the fruit from all the bushes within reach. The unicorn took the fruit directly from his hands, and Shalkan’s lips were soft against his palm. Soon berry juice had stained Shalkan’s muzzle a startling red-purple, and Kellen’s fingers—and probably his mouth, he imagined—were much the same color.

“I suppose I ought to pick some to bring back, too,” Kellen said when both of them had eaten their fill.

“I suppose you ought,” Shalkan said with mock sternness, swishing his tufted tail back and forth. “I don’t think you’re really the container Idalia meant those berries to come home in. It shouldn’t take you more than an hour or so—that’s half a bell to you, though you’re really going to have to stop thinking in City measures. I’ll be back before then, and we’ll still have plenty of light to get back to the cabin by. You’d better tuck that gathering basket in with you, though—you wouldn’t want squirrels to get those apples.”

From the look on Shalkan’s face, Kellen doubted that squirrels were what the unicorn was thinking of, but Kellen was in no mood to ignore good advice, no matter how cryptic. He crawled out from under the brambles and dragged the heavy gathering basket back in with him deep under the bush—it would have to be a very determined squirrel who went after its contents now—and concentrated on filling his leather bucket.

He heard the unicorn trot off, but intent on his task, Kellen didn’t pay much attention. Shalkan wouldn’t leave him here alone if this was a particularly dangerous place, and so far nothing he’d met in the Wildwood had seemed likely to offer him harm. He’d seen deer and rabbits, and supposed that where there were deer and rabbits there must be things that ate them—foxes and wolves and bears and even mountain tigers—but so far he hadn’t seen so much as a paw-track, and he knew from things Idalia had said that the great predators tended to be shy and unwilling to exert themselves, not attacking unless they were wounded and starving, or the odds ran very much in their favor.

The bucket filled slowly, even though Kellen now conscientiously tried to keep from eating the berries instead of collecting them, and he slowly worked his way toward the center of the patch, lying almost full-length in order to reach the lowest twigs, where the unharvested berries were thickest.

He was totally engrossed in his task, focused entirely on the world a few inches from the end of his nose, when suddenly several terrifying things happened at once.

Kellen felt something seize him by the back of his pants and drag him out of the thicket—straight through the brambles. He dropped the bucket, flailing for purchase as he was swung through the air and dropped rudely to the ground beside the thicket.

A voice—a booming, baritone voice—rang out above his head. “Oh, ho, you grubby little thief! What do you mean by sneaking in here to steal Cormo’s berries?”

Kellen stared up at his attacker, and for one blurred befuddled moment he thought he was seeing a man on horseback. Then he realized what he was really seeing.

A Centaur.

The Centaur towered over Kellen. Though from his hooves to the crown of his head he was not very much taller than Kellen, his horse limbs were stocky and heavily boned, and his human torso was muscled like a blacksmith’s. Like the apple-dryads, once you took a good look, he didn’t look quite human—the proportions were a little off, somehow, though Kellen didn’t think this was quite the time for a detailed inspection—and his face was flat and wide with a heavy brow ridge and flat cheekbones. His eyes were black, narrowed now with anger and suspicion.

He wore a sleeveless tunic of goatskin, with the hair left on so that the brown goat hide blended with his chestnut flanks, wild hair, and heavy beard. He stamped one massive hoof menacingly, and Kellen scrambled backward, out of reach of immediate peril.

“I’m very sorry,” Kellen gasped. “I didn’t realize—” He stopped himself just in time. Cormo had said these berry bushes belonged to him, but Shalkan would never have brought Kellen here to pick berries if these bushes belonged to anyone. After all, he’d been careful to warn Kellen about the apple-dryads. Was this a bluff? He got to his feet, watching Cormo warily. “Perhaps we can work something out? I’d be happy to—”

“Perhaps you will give me what you stole, and I will let you escape without the beating you so richly deserve!” Cormo snarled, taking a menacing step closer. Those hooves looked as large as dinner plates, and very heavy. “Everybody knows these bushes belong to me! Everybody!”

“But that’s the thing,” Kellen said, thinking quickly. “I’m new here. My name’s Kellen. I’m staying with my sister Idalia down at her cabin—maybe you know it? I don’t know a lot about the forest, and I certainly wouldn’t want to trespass in anybody’s farms or gardens. Or berry patches.”

“Idalia.” Cormo suddenly looked worried, but tried to hide it. “She’s your sister, you say? Well—”

Just then Shalkan arrived, vaulting a fallen log at the edge of the clearing with the grace of a leaping deer. His sides worked as if he’d been running hard, but when he walked up to Kellen he sounded almost bored.

“Is there a problem here?” Shalkan drawled, sounding for all the world in that moment like one of the Senior Apprentice Undermages back at the Mage College—a particularly dandified fellow who cultivated a pose of great world weariness and took great delight in making trouble for the Student-Apprentices.

He tilted his head to the side, and his horn flashed in the sun. “I see you’ve met my friend Kellen, Cormo. Idalia will be interested to know he’s encountered you.”

Cormo took one look at the unicorn and backed up, shaking his head as if bees were swarming about it. “There’s plenty here for everyone, I always say,” Cormo muttered, turning and stomping away. “Don’t know why everyone has to make such a fuss.” He crashed off through the underbrush, still muttering to himself. Kellen couldn’t make out all the words, but thought he caught something about “damned unicorns.”

He turned to Shalkan, light-headed with relief. “Glory, am I glad to see you!”

“It looked like you were handling things well enough on your own,” the unicorn observed. “What happened?”

Kellen explained. “—and when I mentioned Idalia, he suddenly got very cautious. I think he would have let me keep the berries, even if you hadn’t shown up.”

Shalkan snorted derisively. “There’s no ‘let’ about it—Cormo doesn’t own this berry patch, and he knows it! He’s a notorious bully—and a lazy one at that, to want you to do his picking for him. He comes from the village a few miles from here—the one that Idalia trades with. It’s a human-Centaur village, actually. Most of them are good quiet farmers, just like folk anywhere, but a few of them are like Cormo. Once he found out you were Idalia’s brother, of course, he didn’t dare offend you. Well, to be honest, he didn’t dare do anything that would offend your sister.”

“Why not?” Kellen asked curiously.

Shalkan chuckled. “Centaurs can’t learn magic. It’s not a case of an old wives’ tale or a Council proscription or tribal custom—they really can’t. Some think it might be because they’re closer to beasts than humans are—not in reasoning power, or intelligence, and certainly not because they don’t have a soul, but in their natures—and obviously the beasts can’t do magic at all. Mind you, they’re so strong, they don’t need magic most of the time! But if they need serious healing from something that might well injure them permanently or even kill them, they need to come to a Wildmage like Idalia—and there’s no other Wildmage anywhere closer than the High Hills that I know of. Except maybe you.”

Kellen laughed. “All I’m good for is finding lost cats, and getting myself kicked out of Armethalieh.”

“We’ll see,” Shalkan said. “You’re young yet. And now there’s been quite enough excitement for one day. We’ve got plenty of foodstuffs, and I think it’s about time to be getting back.”

It took less time to gather up the spilled berries than it had to pick them, and now Kellen was very glad the other basket had been hidden in the brambles, as he suspected Cormo would certainly have been happy to steal it.

So even though there’s magic here, that doesn’t mean everyone is good and perfect. Still … unicorns and sylphs and undines and dryads and Centaurs … what next? Dragons?

KELLEN and Idalia spent the next day—starting out well before dawn—clearing out the fouled pond, a nasty task that reminded him more than a little of clearing Perulan’s cistern. Kellen could smell the pond long before they reached it—it smelled like food gone bad. Worse than food gone bad, actually.

“I can see we’re going to find someplace else to have our picnic,” Idalia said, wrinkling her nose at the stench. “But once we clear the muck out, the pond will bring itself back fairly quickly.”

“What do we need to do?” Kellen asked, looking at it with disgust. The bloated, rotting carcass of the deer floated, half-submerged, in the center of the pond, surrounded by green scum and the half-eaten decaying bodies of dead fish. More dead fish were washed up against the edges of the pond, and the reeds and grass were brown and withered. They’d both come wearing heavy packs containing the tools they’d need—seines and buckets and rope and shovels—but Kellen wasn’t sure anything short of a miracle could revive this place.

“First, let’s get our tools in order. Then, you get to move the deer. Drag it a good way from here. Trust me, someone or something will want it, even if we don’t! If nothing else, the vultures will. I’ll leave the fish closer by—they’ll stink, but most of the folk and the furred and feathered around here won’t mind that, actually. And they’ll be gone back to the earth in a day or two—or into somebody’s belly.”

Kellen grimaced, looking at the floating corpse. He hated the thought of actually touching it, but as it turned out, he didn’t have to. One of the things Idalia had brought in her pack was a coil of light rope. After a few tosses, she managed to get it around one of the hind legs, and then handed the coil to him.

Then she took a keystone out of her pocket, and held it between her palms for a moment.

A thread of light—scarcely brighter than the sunlight, and just barely visible—wound rapidly around the carcass, until it had spun into a sort of cocoon.

“There. Now it won’t fall apart while it’s being dragged away,” Idalia said. “Remember what I said about keystones? This is the sort of thing they’re good for; making something to take the place of something we could do with a physical object like, say, a net. Except that we don’t want to touch that thing, and the spell is very temporary, so it won’t need much power.”

He nodded; that made perfect sense.

Idalia motioned to him to start pulling. “You’re stronger than I am. Drag it off someplace—away from water. Just keep the rope taut, and shake it free when you’re done.”

To Kellen’s relief, Idalia’s plan worked. He was afraid that the carcass was going to be too heavy to move, but once it was out of the water, he was able to keep going in what was more or less a straight line. He dragged the gruesome corpse several hundred yards into the forest, wondering where an appropriate location to deposit it would be. Mindful of Shalkan’s lessons, he didn’t want to be a bad neighbor and leave garbage in front of somebody’s house. But it was very hard to tell just what was a house and what wasn’t, here in the Wildwood.

Finally he came to a place that looked reasonably deserted to him. “Is this okay?” he asked aloud, feeling just a little foolish. “Does anyone mind me leaving this here?”

There was no response. He took that as assent—or else there wasn’t anything living here but ordinary wildlife. He dragged the body to within a few feet of him and then shook the rope vigorously. As Idalia had promised, the loop widened again, and after a few tries, he was able to flip the rope free and coil it up again.

When he returned to the spring, Idalia had unpacked and laid out the rest of their gear, and was busy pinning her long braids up on top of her head. Except for a tight band of linen around her breasts and a hip wrap, she was naked. He gulped, and tried not to stare. She seemed oblivious to his embarrassment.

“Well come on,” she said, “get your clothes off. You don’t want to get your leathers all mucky. Cleaning them of this stuff would be almost impossible—and they’d smell like dead fish forever!”

He was just glad he had something on under the leathers!

The pond was dead, unfortunately. He wasn’t sure how long the deer had been in it; long enough to kill everything that couldn’t escape, anyway. Once they’d used the green willow sieves to seine the dead fish and most of the scum and dead water plants out of the water, it was time to switch to shovels to dig up the dead plants surrounding the pond—muddy work, but easy. Fortunately, the pond hadn’t been a very large one to begin with.

“Now what?” Kellen asked, when that was done. By now the day was well advanced, and he was glad enough to be wearing as little as he was.

“Now,” said Idalia gaily, “we bail!” Picking up one of the buckets, she waded carefully out into the middle of the pond.

Kellen watched as she scooped up a bucket of murky brownish water and flung it toward the trees, then shook his head and followed suit. If there was anything more useless than trying to bail out a spring-fed pond, he couldn’t imagine what it was, but if that was what Idalia wanted, then that was what he was going to do. Cautiously, he followed her into the water.

At least it was cool, after what they had been doing, and kind of fun, as the two of them competed to see who could throw the contents of his bucket highest and farthest onto the dry earth beyond. And after a few minutes, Kellen could see that the level of the water in the pond was actually starting to drop.

“When it fills again from the spring beneath, the water will be fresh,” he said, finally realizing what Idalia was doing.

“That’s right. And when it’s fresh enough, we’ll restock it. Now keep moving, lazybones!”

Idalia wasn’t satisfied until the soft silt was showing in places at the bottom of the pond, then she finally called a halt, wiping her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand.

“Okay, that’s enough for now. Let’s go for a swim and have lunch while it fills. There’s nothing more we can do here till then.”

“Swim? Where?” Kellen was intrigued.

“Come on. I’ll show you. You bring the food. I’ll bring our clothes. I’m not getting dressed until I’m clean again.”

As both of them were mud- and silt-covered over most of their bodies, and hot and sweaty as well, Kellen could only agree with that plan. He followed Idalia, and received another surprise.

She led him through the woods, and soon he heard the sound of rushing water. They came to a place where a small waterfall spilled down into a deep rocky catch-basin, which in turn overflowed to make the stream where he had seen the undine the day before. The whole basin was in full sunlight. Idalia sighed happily.

“It’s a good place to swim—and it’s warm!” She dropped their clothes in a careless bundle and ran forward, arcing into a graceful dive that made almost no splash as she entered the water.

Kellen eased the pack off his back and set it beside the clothes. Though Armethalieh was a coastal city, no one swam in the ocean, but Kellen had learned to swim in the huge public swimming baths that were kept full of spell-purified seawater, and he’d enjoyed it. This was an entirely different matter, however. He’d gotten used to drinking wild water—but swimming in it?

You were just wading in much worse—and you couldn’t even see the bottom there! he told himself sternly. Here the water was crystal pure all the way to the bottom, where sunlight played over a bed of tumbled white river stones. Kellen suspected he’d discovered the source of Idalia’s keystones. He shrugged, and jumped in, far less gracefully than his sister had.

She’d said it was warm. It wasn’t. It was cold—Kellen sank all the way to the bottom, where the water was cold as winter rain—and the force of his inelegant plunge forced cold river water up his nose, adding insult to indignity. He flailed to the surface, coughing and sputtering.

“I forgot to ask if you could swim!” Idalia called from the other side of the basin, laughing at the expression on his face.

Kellen shook his head, snorted, and struck out experimentally for the far side of the basin. The fresh water wasn’t as buoyant as the salt water he was used to, but his swimming skills served him just as well, and he had to admit, the water wasn’t that cold.

“It’s nice,” he said when he reached her. “And I can swim.”

“Good,” Idalia said. “Then you won’t mind if I do—this!”

She ducked under the water, swift as an otter, and an instant later, Kellen felt a tug on his ankle as she yanked him sharply beneath the surface.

A spirited game of tag ensued, one that didn’t end until both of them were breathless and clean. Finally, panting happily, Idalia flung herself out on the bank to dry.

Kellen joined her, prudently unrolling one of the blankets they’d brought and spreading it to sit on, but there was no need of a towel in the warm summer sunlight. He sat cross-legged on the coarse wool, savoring the peaceful moment.

“Nice, isn’t it?” Idalia said without moving. Her eyes were closed, and her skin, tanned a deep bronze, undoubtedly by many days like these, made her as much a part of her surroundings as the trees of the forest.

“You weren’t happy in the City,” Kellen said without thinking.

“Not for a moment,” Idalia answered, without hesitation. “I hated it. Everybody always telling me what to do, and say—and think. I suppose it’s different if you happen to be born male. But not much different, I imagine, if you’re a thinking person at all.”

Kellen wondered. Maybe he just wasn’t a thinking sort of person. He’d been happy enough for most of his life—he’d still be happy there, if he’d been lucky enough not to have been born into a Mage family, he imagined.

He frowned. Or would he? The restrictions might be subtler and less obvious for the non-Mage families, but they were still there. There were rules and restrictions for everyone, when it came right down to it. And the basic idea of the City was wrong—lying to people for some fraudulent notion of “their own good.” Taking away their ability to choose for themselves, so deviously that they didn’t even know it was being done.

“The Mage Council is evil,” Kellen said.

Idalia sat up and opened her eyes.

“Well, there’s a merry thought! Where did you come up with that one on a day like this?”

But Kellen was not going to be distracted now that he had things figured out in his own mind. “The Council is evil. The way they run the City is evil. They don’t let the people choose for themselves. They just herd them, like—like sheep!”

“And you think they ought to be free—like we are?” The question sounded casual, but was it?

“Well … yes,” Kellen said stubbornly.

“Do you think that’s what they want?” Idalia asked.

I don’t care what they want—I want what’s best for them! Kellen was about to say, when it occurred to him that the Mage Council probably would use the very same argument in its own defense. He grimaced.

“I don’t know what they want. But I do know that they haven’t got any idea of what the Council does, or how, and if they did know, a lot of them probably wouldn’t like it very much. I think they ought to be able to choose. I think they ought to be able to buy anything they like in the markets, or read any books they like. And I think that if they want to leave the City, they ought to be able to.”

“All you want is to change the whole world, eh, younger brother?” Idalia smiled, and reached out to tug at his damp curls. “Mind you, I’m not saying that you’re wrong. I’m just reminding you that things need to be thought through before you do them. And if you’re going to change something that has been going on for as long as the way they do things in Armethalieh has, you’d better have something ready to put in its place that is something everyone can agree is an improvement. Remember what it says in The Book of Stars: ‘If you would change a thing, first understand why it exists.’ ”

She rolled onto her knees and pulled the pack over to her, lifting the flap and beginning to remove their lunch. “Come on, let’s eat. I’m starved.”

AFTER they’d eaten, they were both dry enough to dress, though neither of them bothered with their shirts. They went back to check on the progress of the pond, which Idalia judged to be refilling nicely. The last of the muck had settled on the bottom, and the water was a little murky, but not so much that Kellen didn’t think it would clear.

Some of the fish they’d tossed out on the ground were already gone, and a lot of the stink had blown away. Idalia sniffed the air experimentally, and then suggested a walk through the woods.

“I want to introduce you to some of the neighbors, and see where I can find some water plants to transplant to the pond,” she told him.

“I’ve never planted a pond,” he offered. “What are we looking for?”

“Sedges, reeds, catkins, marginal plants—and water lilies. If we put in just a few clumps, the marginals will spread by themselves, but the lilies all died, and since the pond’s in direct sunlight, the fish will need something for shade, and to give them protection from predators. We’ll have to get some help to find and plant lily bulbs. In the meantime, maybe we can find some floating plants to shade the fish. The frogs and turtles can find their own way back,” she added darkly. “I’m not catching frogs, even with selkie help. You can spend days chasing frogs,” she said, in a voice that seemed to come out of hard-won experience.

“Selkies?” Kellen asked, fascinated. That was a new name—he wondered just what kind of creature belonged to it.

“Selkies,” Idalia confirmed. “Selkies and undines live in the stream—and otters, too, of course, though they’re not Otherfolk. In the woods you’ll find dryads of various species, not just the apple-dryads you found the other day.”

She gave him a sidelong glance, and he felt his cheeks growing warm.

“That’s what Shalkan said,” he replied, hoping she hadn’t noticed his blushes.

“Well, they’re by no means the only thing that lives in the forest. Pixies, fairies, brownies, and fauns—they’re very shy, so I’m hoping they’ll come out when they see I’m with you. It can take a long time to meet everything that lives here—some folk only come out at night, some sleep through the summer. Some you wouldn’t want to meet, like duergar and goblins and trolls, though I don’t think any of them have stayed around here. They were pushed out of the settled lands by the Great War, and even after all this time, I don’t think they’d be foolish enough to come back.”

“What was the Great War?” Kellen asked, at the same time Idalia said:

“Oh—look!”

Kellen looked where she was pointing. A butterfly—no, a hummingbird. But it glowed, with a light softer than a firefly, though still bright enough to be visible even at midday, as it hovered among a bank of wildflowers.

“A pixie,” Idalia said in a quiet voice. “Some people think they’re fairies, but they’re not.”

As Kellen watched, the first tiny glowing figure was joined by three more. He blinked. Was that a—a humanlike body attached to those rainbow wings? They hovered among the flowers for a moment, then darted off. Idalia sighed happily. “I’m glad they’re still here. There was a bad storm earlier this year, before you came, and I was afraid their nest had been destroyed. They make a kind of honey that I use in some of my medicines—it puts the patient right to sleep. I wouldn’t want to use it in my breakfast tea, though.”

“Can you talk to them?” Kellen asked, fascinated.

“With patience and practice,” Idalia said, moving on.

As they walked, she pointed out other landmarks, including another tiny door like the one he’d seen before. It was, Idalia explained, the door to a brownie’s house. She didn’t know much about them, as they were terribly reclusive, but they seemed to live very much as humans did, in homes that were miniature copies of human dwellings—except for being built into the bases of oak trees. According to Idalia, a long time ago they had lived with humans, doing household tasks in exchange for food, but both of them found that hard to imagine.

He wanted to ask Idalia about Demons, since she seemed to be in such an expansive mood. In Armethalieh, they’d always been a nursery tale to scare little kids into behaving. But then Lycaelon had spoken of the Demons as if they’d once walked the streets of Armethalieh and might be back at any moment. And then there were the dreams. The Demons in Kellen’s dreams were not very much like the Demons that were whispered about to frighten children into good behavior. The creatures in his nightmares were to those bogeymen as a sparrow was to an eagle. Since having those fever-dreams, Kellen was disinclined to scoff at the notion of Demons.

If Lycaelon had been lying in a last-ditch attempt to scare Kellen into submission, Idalia would tell him the truth, he knew. But somehow it had never seemed to be the right time to bring the subject up. But Kellen was starting to think there was never going to be a perfect time, and today seemed better than most.

He’d just opened his mouth to say something when he heard the sound of heavy hooved feet coming toward them. He stopped, but Idalia didn’t seem at all concerned. She continued walking forward.

A female Centaur appeared on the path before them, a set of panniers slung across her back.

Like Cormo, she had a broad, heavy-boned, swarthy face and black eyes, but there all resemblance ended. Her chestnut hair was neat and combed, braided and held in place with a set of elaborately carved wooden combs. She wore a pleated linen shirt with bright woolen embroidery along the low-cut bodice and sleeves, and her tail was braided with bright ribbons.

There was a necklace of the sort called “beggar-beads” in Armethalieh about her neck—a long necklace of multicolored glass and stone beads, no two alike, looped several times around her throat and dropped into the cleft between her heavy breasts. Under the panniers, she had a colorful hand-woven wool blanket with heavy fringes flung over her haunches.

“Merana!” Idalia said cheerfully. “How good to see you! Did you see? The pixies are back!”

The Centauress smiled. “Indeed I did, Idalia—I’m going to their tree now to trade for dream-honey …”

Her gaze traveled past Idalia to Kellen and she regarded him with frank—and open—admiration. It might be difficult to judge Centaur ages, but Kellen got the feeling that she wasn’t very much older than he was.

“So … this is Kellen. We’ve heard rumors about him, Idalia, as I’m sure you figured. Tell me, when are you coming to Merryvale again—and bringing your handsome brother?” Merana smiled and licked her lips.

Kellen blushed hotly. Centaur or no, she made him think things he knew very well he ought not to be thinking, not with the promises he’d made to Shalkan! And the more he tried to untangle his thoughts and make them travel in chaste and continent directions, the more lurid they became, until all he could do was stare at his feet and hope he was struck by lightning. Soon.

To his relief, Idalia laughed and walked up to Merana, linking arms with her and strolling with her ahead of Kellen—he could hear the two of them talking as they headed up the trail, and only hoped they weren’t talking about him. It was bad enough that Shalkan had told the dryads about his vow—if he was going to have to tell every female he met about it for the next four seasons, well, he didn’t think he could bear it.

I’ll go back to the cabin. I’ll lock myself in the bedroom, hide under the bed, and Idalia can feed me through the window for the next thirteen moonturns, that’s all. Or I’ll find a deserted mountaintop where nobody goes and live there, he told himself desperately.

A few minutes later, Idalia was back.

“She’s an awful tease, isn’t she?” Idalia said, winking. “She’s got all the boys in the village chasing after her—frankly, I don’t see how she has the time to flirt with all of them, but she does. She’s the apprentice to the village Healer—plenty of work there, between bringing babies—human and livestock both—and setting bones. But I saw she was embarrassing you, so I figured I’d give her a little gossip, then get rid of her. All I had to do was remind her that Master Eliron would be wondering what took her so long to send her on her way.”

“Thanks,” Kellen mumbled, still flustered. “I guess this vow isn’t going to be as simple to keep as I’d thought.”

“That’s sort of the nature of them,” Idalia agreed gravely. “Come on. We’d better go looking for those plants.”

Catkins were easy enough to find, and Idalia assured him they only needed one or two clumps, since the plants would spread quickly to take over their new home. While she gathered the fat roots with their swordlike leaves and their trailing root stems, Kellen dug out a few clumps of grass and reeds, digging deep to make sure he got most of their roots. And they were lucky; in a little pond they found enough water-cabbage that it covered the entire surface; Idalia quickly pulled in plenty of the leaf clumps with their trailing bundles of hairy roots, heaping them carefully in her basket. Armed with their bounty, they returned again to the pond.

“Just about full enough to stock,” Idalia decided, floating the water-cabbage out into the center of the pond. They’d quickly begin to “calve,” sending babies out on shoots that would break off when the baby got big enough, and naturalize in their new home.

Kellen was left with the muddier task of planting the reed bundles, and once he was done, felt his labors had earned him a question or two.

“Idalia,” he began hesitantly, “I’ve been meaning to ask you. You talk about the Great War, something I’ve never heard of, and the Otherfolk that were driven out of the settled lands by it. Those creatures … does that include … Demons?”

“Hush!” Idalia said fiercely, rounding on him. “Never mention them here!”

“I—But—” Her sudden vehemence took him by surprise. “You don’t mean you believe in them, do you?” he said. Suddenly, once again, such a belief seemed so childish, so unreasonable. Demons were things for nursery shadows and wondertales, not the bright light of the forest.

“Of course I do,” Idalia said in a low voice, taking a step toward him. “They’re real. Kellen—”

“They are!” an aged voice whispered fearfully. “Oh! Terrible real, they are!”

Crouched among the bushes at the edge of the trees was one of the Otherfolk. From Idalia’s references, and his own studies, Kellen guessed it to be a faun. It was a creature about the size of a two-year-old child, humanlike to the waist, but with a goat’s haunches. Its pointed ears were long and hairy, and goat horns grew from its brow, curling back over its skull. A small neat beard edged its jaw, adding to the goatish appearance. Unlike the Centaurs, whom Kellen could imagine to be very civilized despite their hooves and tails, the faun wore no clothes, and seemed far closer to the wild creatures of the forest than it did to the forest’s more civilized and humanlike inhabitants.

Though he had no real experience with the races of the Otherfolk, even Kellen could see that the faun was very, very old. Its curling horns were as dark as winter leaves, and its hair and pelt were streaked with grey. Its face was as withered and dark as an old apple, and long ago it had been terribly injured—one eye was gone, leaving a web of white scars behind, and the faun’s shaggy haunches were dappled with white scars, relics of terrible wounds.

And it was so frightened that it trembled all over, so frightened that Kellen could hardly believe that it was still standing there, speaking to them. The horror in its single, wide eye sent a chill down Kellen’s spine, and out of what depths of its soul the faun found the courage to remain and warn them, Kellen could not imagine.

“Never speak of Them,” the faun begged, quivering in terror. “Never speak of Them—never! Or They will come here, where it is safe, and pleasant, and turn it into—I dare not say!” Having frightened itself thoroughly, the old faun turned and ran, vanishing into the undergrowth as if it burrowed its way into it.

Idalia sighed, watching him go. “You see? Poor old thing. He came over the mountains years ago—long before I settled here. Something terrible must have happened to him there, but Piter never talks about it. I wish I could heal him—but he would have to ask, and he never has. I think he’s afraid of hurting me—if I healed him, I’d find out how he was hurt, you see, and I would be as terrified as he is—or so he believes.” She sighed again. “Poor creature, to be so afraid. Every year I wonder if this winter will be his last.”

She turned away and began assembling their packs, but Kellen kept staring in the direction Piter had fled. The faun’s terror had been so real that Kellen felt his own heart beat faster in response, and for the first time in a long time the memories of his fever-dreams were sharp and urgent.

“Can we—talk about this?” he asked his sister timidly.

“Definitely. But later.” She cast a look over her shoulder, as if to make sure they weren’t still being overheard. “Later, when it’s—safer.”

And it did not escape Kellen’s attention that she said “safer,” not “safe.”

Demons were real. Lycaelon Tavadon hadn’t lied.

And if that much was true, maybe the rest of what he’d said was true in some way as well.

Chapter Thirteen

The World Without Sun

UPON ARISING EACH day, Queen Savilla first took a cup of spiced xocalatl to warm her, then allowed her slaves to dress her in a diaphanous chamber-robe, cut low in the back to allow freedom for her wings, and low in the front to expose her … abundant charms.

The Endarkened did not sleep, precisely—not as the Bright World races understood the term—nor did they age and die, save by misfortune and violence. He Who Is had granted them the boon of endurance, but like all such boons, it must be paid for, and so, at regular intervals, adult Endarkened retreated for a period of deep contemplation that might—were a human to witness it—be likened more closely to death than to sleep.

Their young had no need of this sort of rest, of course, and even the oldest Endarkened could set the need for rest aside, for a time, without ill effects. But to forgo it altogether was to court first madness, then the loss of power.

It was best not to be foolish.

Without the lights in the sky of the Bright World to mark the passage of days, time passed in its own strange way in the World Without Sun, its course marked by the magic that was the very heartbeat of the Endarkened, and by the rhythms of the bones of the Deep Earth that was their place.

When the Queen went to her rest, so did her Court. In the World Without Sun, Queen Savilla was the Sun and the Moon, the dark radiance from which the world took its light.

Each rising, as her slaves dressed her hair, and buffed and gilded the talons on her hands and feet, Savilla heard gossip and petitions … first from Court favorites, then from the Ministers of her Realm.

All information was important to Savilla, and she despised no source of it.

The softbodied Brightworlders that could not adapt to life in the World Without Sun—and the absence of those Bright World lights—sickened and died. Fear and pain kept them healthy for a time, of course, but even the hardiest of Brightworlders were brief-lived and fragile.

It was always necessary to acquire more.

And that was a matter constantly in Queen Savilla’s thoughts from her first waking moment, since for her plans to proceed against the Brightworlders required the constant expenditure of magic.

Not the great and terrible magics of days gone by, that had caused the Brightworlders to cringe and tremble and fear the power of the Endarkened … and to organize against them. No, Savilla’s plans involved subtle webs of treachery, no less effective for that they went quite unnoticed by the soft stupid Brightworlders. Like the slow dripping of water that could wear away stone … or build mighty pillars beneath the earth, her magics worked unseen and unnoticed by their victims.

But magic required energy. Energy came from blood and pain. Blood and pain came from the torture of slaves … and where did the slaves come from?

Raids upon villages in the Wild Lands and the High Hills were simple enough to plan, but must be conducted with care, lest the Endarkened bring themselves to the attention of the Wildmages who lived there.

Isolated wanderers, whether travelers, traders, or outlaws, could always find themselves lured away from safety, whether by one of the Endarkened in disguise, or by one of their human agents. That was simple enough, and always entertaining, but the numbers of slaves gained were far too few for the purposes of Endarkened magic.

Slaves could certainly be bought outright, for not every land abhorred the concept of slavery—but again, the constant disappearance of slaves into the north might eventually attract unwelcome attention.

And there was something so spiritless, so unsporting, about simply buying one’s prey!

She would have to consider the matter.

Carefully.

“—SO you see, my Queen, while it is not precisely a crisis, it is, perhaps, awkward,” Cerbael said charmingly.

Cerbael was Queen Savilla’s Master of Revels, his business the orchestration of the public ceremonies and entertainments of the Endarkened Court. He was entertaining and inventive, and had never, in all his long centuries of service, first to her father, and then to her, sought any higher position. He was, as he had once told Savilla with as much honesty as any of their kind could summon, already king of the only realm he cared about, and no one could give him anything he wanted more than what she had already given him.

She would destroy him if he ever failed to amuse her, of course. And he would turn on her if she withdrew her favor and support. But until that time, they trusted one another … in their fashion.

“M’mn.” Savilla stroked the head of the goblin at her feet and did not reply directly. Its bulging silver eyes were closed to slits in the dim light of the chamber, and its blue-grey skin glistened with gold-infused oil. Erlaon had given the creature to her as a present, and Savilla had decided to be amused at the obvious and clumsy attempt to court her patronage.

One of her human servants approached the goblin too closely, and the little creature, startled, hissed and spat. Green venom spattered the slave’s grub-pale skin, and the Brightworlder fell to the floor, writhing in agony. Moments later, its pale body stilled.

“There,” Savilla said in pleased tones. “That should solve a few of your problems, Cerbael.” She put her hand on the goblin’s collar to keep it from moving toward the corpse. Goblins were greedy creatures, always hungry, and Ixit was perfectly capable of eating the entire Brightworlder all by itself.

Cerbael laughed appreciatively at his Queen’s jest. “I do not think Filendek would be content with this for long—and it’s hardly worth his greatest efforts, don’t you think, Majesty?”

“True,” Savilla admitted with a fond smile. “We shall have to find him something worthy of his skill. Well?” she demanded of her other slaves, who cowered back, staring in horror at their fellow. “Will you clean this up? Or will you join it?”

Her dressing-slaves scuttled to obey.

After Queen Savilla had heard all Petitions of the Dressing Chamber—and acted upon those which it pleased her to act upon—she allowed her surviving slaves to dress her more formally, and went, as was her custom, for a walk in her gardens.

Of course nothing grew here. Savilla would have been quite offended if it had. Elsewhere in the World Without Sun there were vast farms of strange pale fungus in their infinite varieties, tended by slaves and hosts of the Lesser Endarkened. There were soft writhing worms and lakes of glowing blind fish and tunneling insects for whom the kiss of the sun was fatal, all of which the Endarkened considered delicacies.

But Savilla’s garden was different.

Here colored crystals had been coaxed from the ground by magic, in much the same way that flowers sprang from fields of rot and decay in the World Above. And within each crystal, Savilla had trapped some moment of agony of one of her special victims, so that she could cherish it always.

She strolled along the twisting paths, brushing her fingers along the stones and wakening the stored memories into life with a touch of her magic.

—Here, the moment when one of her pet Darkmages had torn the horn from a living unicorn. No Endarkened could touch the creature without dying, and so the beast had thought itself safe enough, but it was not safe from Savilla’s Darkmage. How it had begged, pleaded, reasoned with the man, telling him what his own eventual fate would be! But all in vain …

—Here, the Darkmage’s own death, when Savilla had grown tired of him. How she had enjoyed taunting him, reminding him of how he had killed the unicorn, reminding him that everything it had told him had been true, that he could have saved himself had he only listened to it instead of killing it …

It was so perfect, placing these two stones next to each other, so that they could stand in rebuke to one another for all Eternity, though the minds and souls and deaths that had gone to make them were long expended, gone to fuel her magic.

Which reminded Savilla, once more, of her problem.

She seated herself on a bench cunningly wrought of human bones—some of the younger members of the Court made quite a hobby out of crafting things of what the Endarkened’s victims left behind, and some of their pieces were quite artful—and devoted herself to considering the problem.

Problems, really. A ruler had so many problems to deal with, and not one of them could be neglected. Even the tiniest, the most seemingly inconsequential problem, could be the tear in the wing that made it useless in flight.

There must be a way to solve so many minor problems at once. Even Filendek’s problems must not be slighted—Cerbael had been quite right to bring them to her attention, for the chief cook was an artist, and his complaints would be seen as setting a certain tone for the entire Court.

Filendek was quite beside himself at the emptiness of the larders, and the lack of delicacies to set upon Savilla’s table. No faun, no selkie, no naiad, and the stocks of human and Centaur—in the cold-larders and in the fattening pens—were (so he said) dangerously low. As for unicorn, it had been a long time since that flesh had graced one of the Royal banquets, and no one at the Endarkened Court had tasted Elven flesh since the last War.

It was sad, really, to see the simple elegancies of life dwindle away even as you watched. But let her plans go as she would have them, and all would be well again, the Court returned to the height of its glory. Their larders would be full, and they would have no need to conceal themselves from the notice of Wildmages, lest their plans be discovered before the proper time.

But until that moment came there was much to do.

She thought back over her morning’s reports. Their campaign against the Elves was going well, so now it was time to cause Armethalieh to do something foolish. Her agents there assured her that the Arch-Mage had been ever more unreasonable since his son had turned Wildmage and been Banished … perhaps there was something in that she could use to solve her own small difficulties, for as the Arch-Mage went, so went the City.

Savilla smiled, and set the thought aside to ripen.

“WHAT do you suppose, my love, I would do if you betrayed me?” Savilla said to her son.

She smiled lazily as she felt Prince Zyperis’s body tense against hers, then relax with an effort.

“I would never betray you, my mother, my Queen, my love,” Zyperis protested. He kissed her shoulder.

She chuckled throatily. “Of course. But only suppose.”

The two of them were quite alone in Queen Savilla’s private retiring chambers, sprawled upon a circular couch of saffron-dyed silk. The spicy scent of the fabric, heated by their recent exertions, filled the chamber, and the Prince’s wings were spread over both of them like a perfumed cloak.

“You would destroy me,” Zyperis said. His tone was uncertain, as if he were not quite certain this was the answer she wanted. Good. Uncertainty was the beginning of submission … and of wisdom.

“But what if you were beyond my reach?” Savilla said playfully, reaching up to stroke his back with her gilded talons. “What if you had escaped me? What then?”

“Then, dearest Mother, you would track me down, no matter where I had fled, and crush me utterly, no matter what you had to do.” From the faint note of relief in Zyperis’s voice, he had decided this must be a game. “Nor would you stop until you had done so. And for that reason, I would never flee … nor betray you.”

No, my son, you would not flee. Nor would you betray me unless you were certain you could win all in one throw of the counters, and render me powerless, Savilla thought with a faint spark of pride. Her son had greatness within him, and for that very reason, she must watch him carefully.

“The Arch-Mage Lycaelon Tavadon’s son has betrayed him … and fled,” Savilla said.

“And does the human Mage pursue?” Zyperis asked with lazy interest.

He moved away from Savilla and off the edge of the bed. Getting to his feet, he walked over to a small jeweled table where a wine service stood waiting. He poured two jeweled golden cups full and brought them back to the bed, handing one to her and waiting until she drank.

“The human Mage does not pursue,” Savilla corrected him gently. “The human Mage acted in accordance with the finest instincts of fatherhood—he condemned his son to death—but the Outlaw Hunt could not pursue the Mageborn boy beyond the boundaries of the City lands.”

Savilla did not know whether or not Lycaelon Tavadon knew what had happened to his Outlaw Hunt and his errant son, but her sources of information were far finer than Armethalieh’s, and she did. The young Wildmage had lured a unicorn, and between them they had destroyed all the stone Hounds that the City had sent to kill him and escaped into the Wild Lands beyond the City borders.

What would Lycaelon Tavadon do if he knew?

He would want to pursue the boy, of course.

But the High Magick, by the terms of its initial creation, simply would not work outside the borders of the lands claimed by the City.

If Lycaelon Tavadon wanted to be able to chase down his Outlaw son with High Magick, he was going to have to get the High Council of Armethalieh to extend the borders of the lands the City claimed.

And doing that would drive hundreds—no, thousands—of fresh victims right into the Endarkened nets, solving all their problems at once.

Savilla sipped at her wine.

“As a mother myself, I feel for Lycaelon Tavadon. I know he would want to know where his son is, and what he is doing. Of course he has spies in the High Hills, but I’m afraid they’re not quite as efficient as they could be.

“Do you love me?” she asked suddenly.

“As I love power and pain,” Prince Zyperis said huskily, his voice thick with renewed desire.

“Good,” Queen Savilla said. “Now. Here’s what I want you to do …”

GAREN Miq was a tinker and a peddler—a mender of small odds and ends, and seller of this and that—whose route took him all the way to the border, through every small farming villages there was. His favorite stops, of course, were the lowland villages that made a fruitful apron around the Golden City, and he always tried to make sure that his last stop before winter set in was Nerendale, where the trading post was, for Garen didn’t like to travel during winter, and always picked a likely village to spend the months of cold and wet somewhere dry and warm. Nerendale was said to be as close as you could get to living in the Golden City herself—didn’t it have an actual Mage living there full-time, after all?

But if Garen played his cards right, he wouldn’t have to just wonder about what it was like to live in Armethalieh. He’d live out the rest of his days there—as a real, Talisman-wearing citizen, with hot water in his house, fires that never went out, a roof that didn’t leak, and all the other wonders of the City of a Thousand Bells, his, free for the asking.

If he only served the Arch-Mage loyally and well.

Garen Miq was a seller of oddments, but he was also a spy. For many years he had served the Arch-Mage Lycaelon Tavadon in that capacity, wandering through the hills and villages and reporting any information that he thought the Arch-Mage should know—of heresy, of Otherfolk within the City lands, of unrest or dissatisfaction with the wise and just rule of the Mages.

He never saw the Arch-Mage personally, of course. Oh, no. That wouldn’t be right. Garen Miq had never even been within the walls of the Golden City. Not yet. The man who had come to him many years before—a member of the Arch-Mage’s personal staff, of course, wearing the grey robes of a High Mage and carrying the staff of authority—had told him that citizenship would be his reward after long years of faithful service, and given him the means by which he could make his reports—a small ball of golden glass, barely the size of a ripe apricot.

“Only speak into this ball, and it will be as if I—or the Arch-Mage himself—hear your words, Garen Miq. So speak wisely and carefully,” the Mage had said.

It was Garen Miq’s greatest treasure, proof that he was more than he seemed, and he guarded it carefully.

TONIGHT he was drinking in an inn in a village called Delfier’s Rest, at the westernmost edge of the forest. It was a wild, uncouth place, as so many near the border were; people were careless with the Law here, and Garen had seen Other Races here in the past.

Even the name of the inn skated perilously close to heresy, as he’d already reported. The Inn of the Invisible Unicorn? What sort of a name was that for a proper inn?

Still, the mead was good, and the beer was excellent. And the kitchen did a very nice rabbit pie. If it only didn’t snow so much here in the wintertide, Garen would even be perfectly willing to winter here if he had to, though Nerendale, being closer to Armethalieh, was naturally better.

It was already late summer, and in a sennight—a fortnight at the most—he would have to turn eastward again, lest winter catch him far from Nerendale’s comforts. There had been little reason these past few moonturns to speak into his golden orb—in the spring, several farmers had reported seeing a pack of stone dogs running through their fields, and Garen had duly reported that, since it was unusual. But he had no doubt it was Magework, for were not the streets of the Golden City itself filled with statues that walked and talked like living men? Undoubtedly the dogs had been sent on Mage-business.

He was considering one last tankard of ale before retiring to his rooms for the night when a stranger sat down at the table across from him.

“Am I intruding?” the stranger asked. “I hope not. I’ve been on the road all day, and I confess I’d hoped for a little company at the end of my journey. And you look like an interesting fellow.”

His raised eyebrows and conspiratorial smile indicated the rest of the folk in the common room of the Invisible Unicorn, and Garen Miq had to agree—with a small flush of pride—that no, none of them were what you’d consider “interesting fellows” at all. Farmers and laborers from nearby villages mostly. Not one of them was like him—practically a citizen of Armethalieh.

“Please,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable. I’d be glad of the company myself.”

The stranger summoned the tavernmaid over and ordered two more tankards of ale—“and brandy—good brandy—if you have it.” Garen saw him pass a coin into her hand, and heard her gasp. He recognized it—his eyes were sharp—as City minting, one of the legendary Golden Suns of Armethalieh herself!

Garen wondered what the girl would do with it. The stranger could probably buy every keg in the Invisible Unicorn—and the wench herself—for the wealth that single coin represented …

“You’ve come from the east, then?” he asked, congratulating himself on the casualness of his tone.

The stranger smiled—he really had the most charming smile—and the golden handsomeness that spoke of noble breeding. “Ah, best not to say too much about some things,” he said. “Not everyone would take it in the proper spirit. But no harm in exchanging names, now, is there? I’m Henamor Lear. And you …?”

“Garen Miq.”

The tavernmaid returned with a wooden tray. On it were their tankards, plus a squat stone bottle and two smaller cups—silver!—as well. She set the items on the table and bobbed a hopeful curtsy at Henamor as she withdrew.

Garen raised his tankard and drank—was it his imagination, or was the ale of a far better quality than his last tankard had been?

Henamor had taken out a small silver knife—of a finer quality than anything that had ever graced Garen’s stock—and cut away the wax seal surrounding the cork on the stone bottle. With great care, he withdrew the cork, and poured one of the small silver cups full, sniffing at it delicately and then smiling.

“Ah. An unexpected surprise, and pleasure. I’m sure you’ll find this an unanticipated change from what you’re forced to deal with here in the rural outlands.” He poured the second cup full as well, and passed it toward Garen.

Generally Garen did not care for brandy. He found it harsh and biting, and its only virtue was that it got a man drunk far more quickly than wine. This brandy, however, was nothing at all like any he had ever experienced—mellow and fiery, with no bitterness to it at all.

“More what you’re used to, eh?” Henamor said with a congenial chuckle.

“I … yes,” Garen said. Suddenly he very much didn’t want his new friend to lump him in with the boors and country bumpkins that surrounded them. He wanted to seem to be the sort of fellow who drank this kind of brandy as a matter of course.

“Well, we must all make sacrifices … for the good of the City.”

Garen nearly choked on his drink. Was Henamor hinting that he was actually in a situation similar to Garen’s—an agent of the Golden City?

He’d better not say anything. The penalties if he made a mistake would be too dreadful to contemplate.

But oh, only imagine if it were true! Obviously, this man was a full citizen, and had mistaken Garen for the same. How wonderful to think that his years of study and sacrifice had borne fruit, just as he had always hoped …

IN his guise of Henamor Lear (he had not been able to resist using the name, and the real Lear was long past complaining), secret agent of Armethalieh, Prince Zyperis stifled his laughter with an effort. How very easy it was to fool these brutish, half-bestial humans! It didn’t even require any more magic than was necessary to disguise himself as one of them. Why, the gullible fool—who was, in fact, one of Lycaelon’s own handpicked Undermages, his true memories hidden behind a spell-screen until his field assignment should be complete, or unless true danger threatened him personally—wanted to believe “Henamor.” He wanted to think he was special, and superior to these simple farmers, when in fact Zyperis could tell no particular difference between them.

Other than that Garen had power, of course. And if the situation had been otherwise, he would have taken very great delight in charming Garen Miq entirely into his clutches and then ripping the spell-screen from his mind, allowing him to know just who—and what—had beguiled him. So many of the High Mages were so conservative …

But today he acted at the word of Queen Savilla, and his dearest mama had other plans entirely for Garen Miq.

Fortunately for Garen Miq.

So Prince Zyperis went on pretending to be Henamor Lear, implying that Lear was a High Mage of the Golden City, traveling in disguise, and that Garen—foolish softskin!—was Henamor’s equal in all things. He plied Garen with excellent and only slightly spellbound brandy, and he talked.

Oh, yes, he talked.

“No doubt, dear Garen, you saw the Outlaw Hunt go by this spring—or heard of it at least? It is a terrible thing when a citizen is Banished—worse by far when it is the Arch-Mage’s own son!”

He leaned forward, placing his hand over Garen’s confidentially. By now the man was more than a little drunk, but not so drunk that he did not hear every word—and would not report them all to his masters.

“The Arch-Mage’s son was Banished?” Garen breathed, sobering a little at such a shockingly intimate piece of gossip.

“Oh, yes,” Zyperis/Henamor said confidingly, lowering his voice. “They’re keeping it very quiet, of course—and quieter still that the boy escaped the Hunt. He’s living just the other side of the border, with his sister. Near a Centaur village—Merryvale, I think they call it. Someone here would know where it is … for the right price. I suppose he thinks he’s safe enough.”

It was amazing just how much Brightworlders could resemble goblins when they really tried—without, of course, having any of the little creatures’ more endearing characteristics. Garen Miq looked very much as if he were about to swell up and explode, and his eyes were as round and bulging as fishes’ eggs.

“Are you sure?” Garen said in a strangled whisper.

“Dear fellow, I saw him myself,” Zyperis drawled. “No mistaking Kellen Tavadon—or his sister. Go see for yourself, if you doubt me. It’s only a couple of days from here, I expect.”

“I will,” Garen said boldly.

But Zyperis knew he wouldn’t. That would involve crossing the border, leaving the boundaries of Armethaliehan lands. Garen wouldn’t know why he was so reluctant to do that, though Zyperis did. If Garen Miq crossed the border, the spell-shields on his mind would crumble away once he was beyond the boundaries of the High Mages’ power. He’d remember who and what he was.

Can’t have that, now, can we? Who knows what might happen? A nice, plump little Mage like you, reeking of power, wandering around all alone out here … some Demon Prince might swoop down and carry you off and do hideous things to you …

But it was not to be, Zyperis reminded himself with regret. Garen must deliver his message to his masters and return to them safely. He could not even disappear after his message had been delivered. There must be no possibility that Armethalieh might be distracted from the course upon which Queen Savilla wished to set her.

Perhaps another time.

At length the bottle was finished, and Zyperis, with the excuse of the need to make an early start, got to his feet. By now Garen was anxious to be free of him as well; Zyperis knew that he had some article of magick about him and would be making an immediate report.

And Zyperis intended to console himself for having had to forgo the pleasure of devouring the Mage-man …

ALL that had still been available when he’d arrived at the Invisible Unicorn had been either a private room or a pallet on the floor of the common room, and for the safety of his wares, Garen Miq had chosen the private room. Now he was very glad he had, even though a private room was ruinously expensive. In his little room at the top of the inn, Garen bolted the door, lit a lantern from his stores, and drew forth his speaking orb.

Prudence warred with excitement. Perhaps he should wait until morning, when his head was clearer, to report his news. But no. He knew that he must tell this news at once. Tomorrow he would make inquiries about the precise location of the village of Merryvale and report that too, if he could.

He withdrew the leather pouch from around his neck and pulled out the orb. Unwrapping it from its silk coverings, he warmed it in his hands. As always, it glowed brighter than could be accounted for by the available light. He took a deep breath.

“This is Garen Miq.” He never knew if whoever heard his words could just tell it was him, so he always began with his name. It was unnerving, speaking this way. He’d never quite gotten used to it. Like speaking to the Eternal Flame, only more so, since the orb never said anything back.

“I am in the village of Delfier’s Rest, near the border. Tonight, in the Inn of the Invisible Unicorn, a traveler named Henamor Lear came to me and told me that the Arch-Mage’s son, Kellen Tavadon, is alive, and living with his sister over the border, near a village called Merryvale …”

He told the orb everything he could think of, hoping he had not been lured into error somehow, tricked into reporting untruths … but if he had been, that, too, was information that the Arch-Mage would need, since he would now know when and where and how it had happened. And Garen had reported it very promptly. Surely that would count for something.

But deep in his heart, Garen was certain there was no error. There had been Hounds coursing the uplands this spring—the farmers had reported it. Had the Arch-Mage’s own son been fleeing them?

But how could he have escaped? Not only were the Mages of Armethalieh wise and good, they were all-powerful.

He finished speaking, and replaced the orb in its silk wrappings, and then in its leather purse, and hung the purse once more around his neck.

He would not think about it any further. These were things beyond the ken of a simple tinker and peddler. He would sleep now, cushioned by his new friend’s very good brandy. In the morning he would ask his questions, and then he would take the road in the direction of his next destination. He had many leagues to go before winter came, but his heart was light, for Garen Miq knew that this night he had struck a mighty blow for the good of the City.

THE tavern-wench had been watching him all night. And why not? He’d bought the most expensive swill this wretched hovel boasted, he dressed in silks and jewels, and he’d paid in gold and never asked for change. And it had amused Zyperis to wear the form of one of the human Mageborn, a form that the softskins reckoned alluring.

“Is there aught else I can do for you, noblesir?” she asked, catching up with him as he headed toward the door that led toward the innyard.

“It seems too early for bed,” he said, letting his voice linger on the last syllable, “but I grow weary of sitting and the moon is bright. I thought I’d go for a walk in the forest. Perhaps you would care to accompany me?”

She glanced over her shoulder, but it was late by now and few patrons remained in the common room. She tossed her head and favored him with what she must think was a seductive smile. “I’d like that, noblesir.”

It would be a long time before she was missed, and longer still before anyone remembered she’d left with the stranger who’d been drinking with Garen Miq all night, and who had never come back to the inn. By then, Garen Miq would be long upon his road eastward.

Her body would never be discovered.

By the time Prince Zyperis was finished with her, there wouldn’t be enough left of it to recognize as a human woman, and the forest scavengers would take care of what was left.

IN the World Without Sun, Queen Savilla watched the threads of her weaving slowly draw together.

And smiled.

Chapter Fourteen

Storms and Bright Water

ON THE WHOLE, Idalia was rather pleased with her little brother. He could so easily have been sullen and intractable, spoiled and softened by City luxuries. Granted, he was no Wildlander yet, but he was willing to learn, and ready to contribute what he could to the household. Oh, sometimes he sulked, and sometimes he brooded, and often enough he whined, but that was in the nature of the adolescent male, and Idalia had expected a certain amount of temperament out of him. The wonder was, there was less of it than she would have anticipated.

Summer had come and gone, and in the past dozen sennights, Kellen had settled fully into the life of a forester of the Wildlands. With Idalia’s help and guidance, he’d begun work on an addition to Idalia’s cabin, for with winter coming on, they’d need more space—even if it was only enough space for a second bed.

But even though the first frosts were still sennights away, the days were already perceptibly shorter, and work kept both the young Wildmages occupied from dawn till several hours after dusk. There was always wood to chop—logs to fell for the walls of the addition and firewood to stockpile for the coming winter as well—food to hunt and to forage for, clothes and tools to make and mend, and in addition to all of that, not a day seemed to pass that did not bring someone to Idalia for healing or advice.

And every time Kellen was sure that the world held no more surprises, something always came to jar him out of his complacency.

Take the weather, for example.

Of course the seasons changed in the City. There was even rain—though always at night—and sometimes fog. Snow fell sometimes in the winter—though never on the streets and walkways, of course.

But the sort of violent weather that Idalia described so casually was something that Kellen had never imagined experiencing, and the first time that rain had fallen during the day, he’d been so indignant over losing a day’s work that Idalia had laughed quite hard.

Last night a storm—the first great storm of the autumn—had thundered through the Wildwood, waking both of them from their sleep. After the first thunderclap, Idalia had turned over and gone back to sleep, but Kellen had been unable to. He’d sat up for a long time afterward, listening to the fury of the storm battering at the walls of the cabin, startling in shock at each crash of thunder and flare of lightning, unable to believe that Idalia was just sleeping through it all as if it were nothing. It seemed impossible to him that the little cabin could withstand such battering without being swept away; he imagined Demons riding each thunderbolt, seeking him out.

But not even the roof leaked.

At last he was reluctantly forced to admit that if Idalia was sleeping so soundly, this must be normal—though down deep inside, Kellen wondered indignantly how anything this noisy and chaotic could possibly be normal. He made himself lie down again, and sent himself to sleep imagining what would happen in the City if such a storm ever came to play among the bell towers of Armethalieh …

The High Council would have a fit.

In the morning, Kellen discovered that even though the storm had been what Idalia called “normal,” the high winds it had brought with it had still caused a certain amount of destruction. The two of them had spent most of the forenoon repairing the storm’s damage: rebuilding the woodpile and the cairn beside the necessary pit, and locating those objects that had been blown away by the wind. It had taken a Finding Spell to locate the cauldron, which had gotten itself lodged between the branches of a tree …

IDALIA watched Kellen moving about the cabin’s grounds with an amusement she tried very hard to conceal. She still remembered her own shock at encountering untamed weather for the first time—something not permitted to occur in Armethalieh—and Kellen still seemed rather surprised by it, to judge from the silence with which he finished his part in repairing the storm damage and resumed his work on the addition to the cabin.

Fortunately the lashings on the tarp had held fast, or they’d be looking all the way to the High Hills for it, if Idalia was any judge of winds. The storm had been strong enough to take down half the woodpile, after all. She picked up a broom and turned toward the house. There was soot and ashes all over the main room, courtesy of the winds that had gotten past the dampers and blown down the chimney, and it wouldn’t sweep itself out the door.

“Idalia! Idalia!”

A troupe of fauns—the little creatures almost never traveled anywhere alone—came rushing into the clearing, tumbling over themselves with the frantic urgency of their mission. They looked around wildly, spotted her, and bounded over to where she stood by the chopping stump, arranging themselves in a semicircle in front of her.

“Idalia!”

They looked up at her with panic in their eyes, in a state she rarely saw in the normally carefree fauns.

“Idalia!” they chorused, and began to babble.

She quelled them with a glance, then looked around and spotted several she recognized. “Jakar—Redmouse—Malky—what do you need today?”

All of them started talking at once.

“The Lady—”

“The Lady in the Woods—”

“The Oaklady—”

“She’s hurt—”

“The treelady’s hurt—”

“Lightning struck her—”

“Struck her tree—”

“The Oaklady’s tree—”

“And she’s hurt—”

“Come, Idalia—”

“Will you come—”

“She needs help—”

“She needs healing—”

“You’re a Wildmage Healer—”

“And she’s hurt—”

Idalia was used to interpreting the fauns’ chatter, and she had no difficulty in extracting from their babbling the information that, somewhere in the woods, an oak-dryad’s tree had been struck by lightning and she had sent the fauns for help.

By now, attracted by their clamor, Kellen had come from his own work to see what was going on. Today he was involved in the delicate task of splitting the logs that would become the cabin floor and then planing their surfaces until they were as smooth as possible. Once the log planks had been fitted into place, there would be more smoothing to be done. Though last night the violent thunderstorm that had lashed the Wildwood with wind and rain had made it seem as if the end of the world had come, the day had dawned clear, and that heavy tarp had kept the wood dry enough for Kellen to work.

The sennights of hard physical work had put a great deal of muscle on his long lanky frame, just as the constant exposure to sun and wind had darkened and weathered his skin even as it added streaks of gold to his curly brown hair. Idalia doubted that any of his City friends would recognize Kellen these days, dressed as he was in nothing but a pair of deerhide trousers and his heavy leather moccasins, and with his long dark gold hair tied back in a length of buckskin.

“What’s going on?” he asked curiously.

Did he need to know how serious this was? Probably not. “An oak-dryad’s been hurt, and you can’t move a dryad too far from her tree, or she’ll die. I’m going to go see what she needs,” Idalia answered briefly. “There’s no need for you to go. You stay here and keep on working. I’ll send one of the fauns back for you if I need you.”

Kellen grinned, his teeth white against the new darkness of his skin. “And here I thought I was going to get a rest.”

“A change is as good as a rest, so if you want a rest, brother dear, you can finish chopping the kindling. Or charge some of those keystones. Both need doing,” Idalia answered tartly.

“I think I’ll stay with the logs.” Kellen waved, and headed back to the sawhorses. Idalia went into the cabin for her healing-kit, and then hurried after the impatient fauns.

IDALIA followed the fauns through the trees, her workbag slung over her shoulder. She had to admit, if only to herself, that it was a relief to be more or less alone for a change. Kellen never seemed to tire of asking questions—though she did have to admit, he’d made a lot of progress since he’d gotten here. And it was true that if she’d had someone like herself to question when she’d begun learning the Wild Magic, she’d have asked just as many questions. If only he was as open to it as she had been …

If she were to make a guess, she’d have said it frightened him, though that hardly seemed possible … He might not think so, but in her opinion he was as brave as a young lion.

She sighed inwardly, shifting her heavy pack as she ducked to avoid a low-growing branch. She knew, just by seeing his progress over the past few moonturns, that she’d been a better Wildmage at his age than he was, and she knew, without vanity, that she would always be a hundred times the Wildmage Kellen would ever be.

Something in him always holds back—it’s as if he’s afraid of it, but Kellen has as much courage where it counts as anyone I’ve ever met.

I must say, I’m baffled. There was no reason for anyone to be afraid of Wild Magic, no matter what the High Mages said. He holds back; he won’t commit himself, but to be a Wildmage, you must have the magic in your bones and blood, understand it so deeply you don’t have to think about it any more than you have to think about breathing. You have to become the magic, until nothing happens around you that you’re not aware of, as if the world around you is merely an extension of your own body. As The Book of Stars says, “You will come to live within my pages, and my pages are written on your heart.”

But not on Kellen’s, apparently.

Was it only fear? Or was there something else going on? Whatever it was, she suspected poor Kellen would never come to the magic through the same route she had taken. It would seem, all things considered, that her little brother’s destiny was to become something quite different from your ordinary sort of Wildmage.

I do wish I knew what it was.

Her musings were interrupted by their arrival at the oak-dryad’s grove.

The oak was the Queen of the Wood, and the oak-dryads were the greatest of the tree-spirits, but the great trees were particularly vulnerable to lightning, and last night’s storm had not been kind to the grove. Idalia could see that the ground here was littered with many branches torn loose by the storm winds—Nature’s rough mercy, pruning the weaker branches now before they were layered with a heavy coat of winter’s ice and snow—but that was only minor storm damage, part of the cycle of Life, not why she’d been called. On the largest of the oaks, one of the great branches was sheared half away from the trunk, half-charred by the lightning strike that had done it, exposing the heartwood to insect damage and frost-kill.

Its dryad sat slumped on the ground before the tree, her skin as pale as the heartwood and her ash-brown hair tangled and tumbled. She was surrounded by her sisters, their healthy golden skin and hair a sharp contrast to hers. The brownie families who made their homes in the dryads’ oaks stood in clumps in the clearing, wringing their hands and murmuring mournfully, and Idalia could see more fauns watching from the bushes at the edges of the clearing.

This is bad, Idalia thought to herself with a sinking heart. The dryad was in shock from the damage to her tree, and the tree itself might very well die slowly over the winter if the damage to its trunk wasn’t seen to immediately.

“Here she is—here she is—here she is—” The fauns who had brought Idalia rushed ahead of her into the clearing to join the dryads, some of them climbing into the lap of the wounded one to offer their own rough comfort. As if their arrival had been a signal, the other fauns came crowding into the clearing. Idalia followed more slowly, taking in the damage to tree and spirit, assessing it, making a plan …

One of the healthy dryads came to meet her.

*Can you heal her?* the oak-maiden asked silently.

“Yes,” Idalia said aloud. “Who will share the price?”

The dryad looked surprised for a moment. *All,* she answered. *All will share,* she answered, with a gesture that encompassed the inhabitants of the clearing—brownies, dryads, fauns.

“Do you all agree to this?” Idalia asked, raising her voice a little so that all could hear. “Will you all share in the price of this healing?”

There was a clamor as every voice—even the dryads’ silent ones—was raised in agreement, and Idalia winced as the shrill voices of the brownies pierced her skull. But the Wild Magic could not take what was not asked for and freely given. She walked forward through the crowd of Otherfolk, and knelt before the suffering dryad.

“Shoo,” she said gently to the faun sitting in the dryad’s lap, and the small creature reluctantly squirmed out of the way.

Idalia reached out and stroked the dryad’s cheek, then took the dryad’s hands in her own. They were ice-cold, with no trace of the vibrant green life Idalia associated with dryad-kind.

Kellen always thought of the Wild Magic as hard, as something you had to invoke and pursue with spells and proper forms, but for Idalia it was as simple as stepping aside from her workaday self, entering the greater Soul of the world around her, and letting it well up within. The Wild Magic was a thing of harmony and balance; the presence of evil or injury called it into action as much as any will of the Wildmage. She felt its presence; felt it seek out its price from all who shared in the healing, understood her own part in that payment, and felt health and strength and wellness flow through her from someplace Beyond into the dryad.

It was as simple—and as mysterious—as that. Idalia was the portal through which Something reached to set the world right with her help and consent, and in a timeless moment it was done. Strength and healing flowed into her and out again in a glorious and intoxicating verdant river. It poured into the grey void at the dryad’s heart, and gradually filled it. She saw the dryad’s skin flush gold with health once more, and rocked back on her heels as the Grove-Queen rose to her feet.

The fauns cheered and turned cartwheels, and the brownies threw their caps in the air.

*Ah, my poor tree … .* the Queen said sadly, running her hand along the bark.

Idalia stood up, staggering a little with weakness. But only a little, and only for a moment, for her work was not yet over, and the Wild Magic would not permit her strength to lapse while that work remained unfinished. She caught her balance, and walked over to inspect the split in the trunk.

“As to that, my part in this is to repair your tree, my lady. Once I’ve taken that branch off, and sealed over the heartwood with tar and river clay, your tree should stand fast for many seasons more,” Idalia said, smiling.

Tar would seal the wound, forming a sort of bandage, keeping insects and fungus out. Clay would protect the vulnerable heartwood and give the tree time to build new defenses, and cutting away the split branch would prevent further damage.

“I’ll come back tomorrow and take care of it; I need tools that I don’t have with me.”

It was a while more before Idalia was let to leave, for the brownies pressed scores of thimble-sized tankards of mead upon her, and several thumbnail-sized loaves of acorn-meal bread, and the fauns brought her handfuls of berries, only slightly crushed. All in all, it was late afternoon before she returned to the cabin.

NOW she was tired; the Magic had no more need of her, and she felt as drained as if she had run for leagues.

Kellen was waiting to greet her, looking impatient.

“Where have you been?” he demanded. “It’s been the whole afternoon—”

“I was working,” Idalia answered tartly—a bit more sharply than she’d intended.

Kellen looked immediately crestfallen, and Idalia felt guilty about being so short with him. “I healed the dryad—her tree was struck by lightning in that big storm that came through last night. I shared out most of the price of the healing, but I’ll have to go back tomorrow and see what I can do about fixing her tree, so I’m going to need to use the tools for the day. I suppose,” she added with a smile, “you’re going to get your holiday after all.”

“But I’ll help,” Kellen said quickly. “I’d like to help. If that’s all right, I mean.”

“Surely,” Idalia said after a moment’s pause. “I can always use an extra pair of hands.”

Kellen’s eagerness to help shouldn’t surprise her, she realized after a moment. He was a good lad, after all. No matter what Lycaelon had tried to turn him into. Yet somehow, every time he demonstrated his basic generosity of spirit, it surprised her. Maybe she’d lived alone for too long at that.

THE two of them spent the following day at the dryad’s grove cutting away the dead wood from the oak-Queen’s tree and sealing over the exposed wood. Though an axe and saws were not the sort of implements that would normally be welcome in a dryadic grove, this time they were tolerated (though the dryads could not look at them without shivering), and Idalia and Kellen bent to the work.

It was quickly obvious what part of the price that the brownies and fauns were paying. The brownies brought tar—they used it in waterproofing, milking rising sap from pines in the spring in the same way that they milked maples, boiling it down into tar. The fauns came back with handfuls of river clay when she’d done sealing the breech with the tar.

It was hot work—autumn might be on the way, but the late-summer days were still warm—but when Idalia looked at the finished job, her arm draped companionably over Kellen’s shoulders, she was filled with a deep satisfaction. What could be better than helping and healing, setting right what had gone wrong in the world?

She knew that Kellen felt much the same way that she did—that he could sense, at least a little, when something was out of balance and needed to be fixed. But there was still something deep inside himself that he didn’t trust to always make the right choices.

And until—unless—that last barrier came down, until Kellen really trusted his own instincts, there would always be a barrier between Kellen and his magic.

IT had been a good day. Kellen had actually enjoyed the work; he had found of late that he really got a great deal of pleasure out of physical labor, especially as his muscles had strengthened to the job.

Maybe I should have been a stone-breaker or a bricklayer after all, he thought, wondering what Lycaelon would say if he’d seen his son sweating like a common mortal. It had been fascinating to see the reclusive little brownies up close as well, and the oak-dryads were more dignified and less inclined to tease than their sisters of the apple orchard.

“I think I’ll fill up the big cauldron and heat some water,” Idalia said as they walked back to the cabin that afternoon. “I think we could both use a hot bath—or at least a good scrub.”

Kellen grinned, and reached out to flick a scrap of drying river clay off her cheek. “Sounds good to me. But I’ll carry the water and get the fire started if you’ll make some of those dried berry scones to go with the rest of the leftover stew.”

“Deal,” Idalia answered promptly. Kellen had learned to do a number of new things well since he’d come to live with her, but cooking wasn’t one of them. “Just let me wash this clay off my hands first, or you’ll be eating it along with the scones.” She turned toward the cabin.

But the sound of hoofbeats back down the trail alerted Kellen that their plans were about to be changed.

“Wait. Someone’s coming.” Kellen slid his heavy pack from his shoulders and turned back the way they’d come.

Idalia frowned—evidently she hadn’t heard anything—but as she was about to question Kellen further, there was an enormous crashing noise from the underbrush, and a big chestnut-colored Centaur burst into the clearing.

“Idalia!” he roared. “You’ve got to heal me! Now!”

Kellen and Idalia both stared in astonishment, for this was possibly the most unlikely creature to come seeking Idalia’s help of any in the Wild Lands. It was Cormo, the Centaur bully who had attacked Kellen at the berry patch when he had first arrived in the Wildwood, but it was difficult to recognize him now. Cormo’s face and chest were badly swollen with a mass of beestings, and the Centaur was covered in half-dried black mud besides. It looked as if he’d tried to doctor himself—and failed—before coming to Idalia for help.

“Heal me—now!” the Centaur repeated in a menacing growl, taking a limping step toward her.

“That’s no way to ask for help,” Kellen replied angrily, and leaned down to reach for the pruning hook beside him on the ground, but Idalia put a restraining hand on his arm and took a step forward.

“Hello, Cormo,” she said coolly. “What is it that you want?”

“Are you deaf, woman?” the Centaur bellowed, this time so loudly that it made Kellen wince, though Idalia gave no indication that she’d even noticed. “I’m hurt! You have to heal me with your Wildmagery!”

“Do I?” Idalia actually managed to sound amused; Kellen was impressed. “And do you expect me to do it for free?”

“You have to,” Cormo growled, taking another step toward her. “If you’re afraid of the cost, make the brat share it—I don’t care! But I know your kind—you heal anyone who comes to you for help—and you don’t want word to get around that you refused to help me, now, do you?” He took another step toward her, and now Cormo was standing so close to Idalia that he could reach out and shake her like a rag doll if he chose to.

Idalia simply smiled, refusing to give in to the veiled threat or even take a step backward. Kellen was amazed. And impressed. He’d have gone for a weapon by now; he wouldn’t trust that bully any further than he could throw him!

“I have some herbal salves, and I’ll gladly doctor you with them free of charge, Cormo. But if you want me to use my Wildmagery to heal you, you must agree to accept half the price, and I will take the other half.”

Cormo shook his head and changed tactics. He tried to smile conciliatingly, difficult as it was with his face so swollen it resembled a ripe gourd. He pawed the ground, and his voice took on a pleading, whining tone.

“Aw, come on, Idalia, be a friend! It’s just a little healing, and it really hurts—a lot! You can’t honestly expect me to pay half the price on top of all this pain, can you? I could go blind if you don’t heal me right now!” By now the whining was annoying enough that it put Kellen’s teeth on edge. “You wouldn’t want that to happen to your old buddy Cormo, would you?” he wheedled.

“Half the price, or no magic,” Idalia said implacably.

“Damn you!” Cormo snarled, lifting one heavy hoof. “Something bad could happen to that precious brother of yours when he’s out in the woods alone, you know!”

“Not if you go blind,” Idalia said with a small cold smile. “You know, I’ve heard that if enough bee venom reaches the brain, a person can go deaf and blind … that is, if they don’t just die outright. You really should let me go get my salves, if you don’t want to take half the price and let me use my magic.” She took a step toward him, and amazingly, the Centaur backed up a pace.

Of course, he’s a coward, Kellen realized. Most bullies are.

“I wouldn’t count on anything happening to me in the woods, either, Cormo,” Kellen added, trying to put menace in his own voice. “I never go anywhere without my axe these days.”

Cormo whimpered pathetically, backing up even farther. “Aw, I didn’t mean anything! I’m out of my head with pain, can’t you see that? I need healing!” He looked hopefully at Kellen.

Kellen just shook his head. Even if he knew how to heal someone using Wild Magic—and he didn’t—he had no intention of interfering between Idalia and Cormo.

“All right—all right!” The last of the Centaur’s bluster collapsed. “But I’ll tell everyone at the village how cold and cruel you were to a dying Centaur, Idalia, and see how many people come to you for aid then!”

“Go ahead,” Idalia said amiably. “I can use the rest. So you agree to take half the cost of the healing?”

“Yes,” Cormo muttered, defeated.

“All right, then. Lie down. I can’t do anything for you up there. Kellen, go get me a bucket of water and a rag. I’d like to get this mud off him and see what I’m working with.”

Kellen didn’t like the thought of turning his back on the Centaur, though he doubted Cormo had any fight left in him, but he reluctantly did as he was asked. By the time he returned, Cormo was lying awkwardly on his side, and Idalia was kneeling beside him.

Gently—ignoring Cormo’s whimpers, grumblings, and moans that she was killing him—Idalia gently wiped away the caked mud from the Centaur’s chest and face as Kellen watched. It looked to Kellen as if the Centaur had been up to his old thievish tricks again, and this time he’d had the poor judgment to try robbing a bee-tree when the bees were all at home. Cormo’s face and chest were a mass of red welts, and one hand was so swollen it looked like a water-filled glove. Mud was supposed to be a sovereign remedy for a beesting, but all the mud in the riverbed wouldn’t have been enough to draw the poison from Cormo’s stings when there were this many of them.

But as Idalia gently washed the mud from the angry red welts on the Centaur’s body, Kellen could see the redness and the swelling fade away as well. When she was finished, not a trace of the injuries remained.

And she didn’t cast a circle. Kellen saw the familiar glow of the sphere of protection about them, but he knew now that it was only meant to keep out evil things, and anything of good will could pass it; it was, in that way, quite unlike the sort of circle the High Mages cast, which nothing and no one could pass. When she was finished, not a trace of the injuries remained, and the sphere of light faded and was gone.

And she didn’t uncast the circle, either, or say any words, or anything. She just … did it, Kellen marveled silently. He’d watched Idalia do healings before, but now it was as if for the first time he actually realized what he was seeing: that Idalia could do magic—at least healing magic—without any visible preparation whatever. It was as if she were always inside a magic circle, always in the presence of whatever Gods oversaw the Working of the Wild Magic.

It didn’t frighten him—by now he knew his sister too well for that—but it did give him a lot to think about. If this was what becoming a true Wildmage was, it was something Kellen didn’t think he was ever going to be: someone who cast spells as easily as they breathed. He knew in that moment that he would never have Idalia’s power—he might as well wish to be Arch-Mage of Armethalieh! For him, the magic came slowly, and with great effort, once he’d gotten past the simplest of spells and cantrips. But by the same token, he knew the Wild Magic was still drawing him to itself for some purpose of its own.

I just wish I knew what it was. If I’m not supposed to become like Idalia, then … what?

“There,” she said with a sigh, dropping the rag into the bucket and getting to her feet. “All done.”

“That?” Cormo said suspiciously, rolling onto his stomach and pulling his feet under him. “That’s it? Doesn’t seem like so very much. Certainly not worth all the fuss you made about having to pay for it, Idalia.”

Idalia laughed, stepping back to give Cormo room to get to his feet. “Oh, but a bargain’s a bargain, Cormo, and we’ll each keep our side of it. Your part of the price for this healing is to help Mistress Haneida haul her cart to and from the market for a year and a day. Mine is to inform the elders of Merryvale of that price—personally—to see that they enforce the conditions.”

Cormo lunged to his feet and shook himself all over, switching his tail vigorously. “Oh, no, Idalia, don’t trouble yourself—I’ll be happy to take care of that for you!” he said quickly. “It would save you the trip—and it would be such a small thing to do to repay you for all your kindness, that—”

“Oh, no, friend Cormo,” Idalia interrupted, smiling wolfishly. “I’m quite willing to pay my part of the price. My part is to inform the elders of your village personally, and believe me, I’m more than happy to pay it.”

“In fact,” Kellen added virtuously, “I’ll help you, Idalia. I’ve never seen the Centaur village. I’d like to.”

“You’ll love it,” Idalia said, turning to him with a smile. “We can get a good hot meal and a proper bath there. I’ll get some things I’d been saving to trade and then we can be on our way.”

THEY reached the gates of Merryvale about an hour before sunset, but for almost an hour before that they’d been walking through the groves and fields that belonged to it.

Harvest was still a few sennights away, and the orchards and fields were filled with ripening crops and the villagers who were tending to them. Young children, both Centaur and human, stood out among the trees and in the fields armed with tall straw-brooms to scare away birds. They waved excitedly when they saw Idalia, and Idalia waved back. Some of them, released from their duties by their elders, ran on ahead to inform the village of the approach of the visitors.

Kellen stared at the neat orderly fields in wonder as they passed. Each field was edged in low stone fences topped with split rails. It seemed like a lot of extra work to him, but Idalia told him that the stones came out of the plowed field itself—a new crop each spring—and were stacked along the boundaries to save the farmers the work of carrying them farther away. The rail fences helped to keep the sheep and cattle out of the crops as well.

As they came closer to the village, he saw other buildings, which Idalia also identified in answer to his incessant questions—sheepfolds and cowbyres, dairies, communal barns for hay and grain, a shearing-barn. Most were, like Idalia’s cottage, made of logs or rough-hewn planks, and thatched with straw. Old roofs were a silvery grey, new ones the color of pale gold. Gold patches marked the spots where roofs had been mended, and he actually saw a thatching crew at work on one of the dairies, packing in the straw bundles and cutting them with their curved thatching knives.

“And on the other side of the town, up along the river a way, is the cider-house and the mill, and the blacksmith’s! So many questions, little brother! Don’t tell me you’ve always nourished a secret desire to become a farmer!” she finally said, caught between irritation and amusement.

“It’s not that,” Kellen protested sheepishly. “It’s just that … I’ve never seen anyplace like this.”

Though Kellen knew of the lowland farming villages that had supplied Armethalieh with food, he’d never seen anything other than the illustrations in books of wondertales, so Merryvale was as strange and alien a world to him as the Wildwood itself had been. No one possessed thatched roofs in the City, and there were very few wooden buildings. Armethalieh was a city of stone. “And humans and Centaurs live here? Together?”

Another thing he’d been told—it was one of the central teachings of the Temple of the Light—was that humans and the creatures he’d learned to call Otherfolk (instead of Lesser Races) could not possibly live together in peace because of the utter incompatibility of their natures.

“Yes, yes, and yes,” Idalia said. “And we’ll be there soon—look, there’s the gate, just ahead. And dozens of people, all of whom will be delighted to answer all your questions.”

She pointed up the road, and Kellen could see the palisades of the village ahead. Idalia had told him that the Centaurs were famed for their wood-carving skills, and the walls of Merryvale were certainly proof of that, for certainly only master craftsmen would waste their skills decorating the walls of a village.

The walls and gates of Merryvale gleamed as smooth and polished as fine cabinetry. At this distance, they looked as if they had been carved from the trunk of one great tree, weathered by time and the passage of the seasons to a soft mossy grey-green. The entire surface had been made smooth and even, the logs planed smooth and fitted together in just the way Kellen was planning to fit the logs for the addition to the cabin floor, and then a design had been carved into the resulting smooth surface. As they got closer, Kellen could see that it was a depiction of a harvest festival, with flower-garlanded Centaurs and humans carrying baskets of fruit, bushels of wheat, barrels of drink, and the carcasses of deer, pheasants, and rabbits to a communal feast.

“Oh,” Kellen said softly, enchanted. “That’s—amazing.” He wasn’t just talking about the artistic quality of the carving. There it was, depicted for all to see—Centaurs and humans living together, happily and at peace. And while he’d realized that everything the Temple taught was carefully designed to serve the ends of the Council and the City, and so probably wasn’t actually true, it was one thing to know that in theory, and another to see the proof right in front of you. Idalia grinned and poked him in the ribs with an elbow.

“Thought that would shut you up.”

The gates—wide enough for two large carts to pass through them side by side—stood open, and Kellen could see no guards or soldiers anywhere.

“Isn’t anybody going to stop us?” he asked when they reached them.

“Why?” Idalia said blankly. Then her gaze filled with understanding and compassion. “Kellen, this may be a city—well, as close to one as the Wildwood gets—but it is not like the City. Nobody’s going to ask for your name and family here, demand your address, or make you show your citizen-token. They don’t even have a City Guard. People come and go as they please—except you, Cormo,” she added abruptly, reaching out to put a hand on the Centaur’s arm. “I think it would be better if you stuck around until we saw Haneida and the Council, don’t you?”

“I … of course, Idalia. Happy to,” Cormo said with ill-concealed gracelessness. The three of them walked together through the open gates.

There they paused for a moment. They were standing in what Kellen guessed must be—from his limited reading of the pastoral romances that had been popular in Armethalieh—the market square. On three sides of the square were rows of neat one-and two-story whitewashed thatched-roof cottages, and here in the center of the square was a well, with a windlass and bucket, surrounded by a curved stone trough with a rim wide enough to sit on. All around them, people were going about their everyday tasks—or so Kellen supposed, as it was all new and unfamiliar to him. Everything he could see was built wide enough and high enough to accommodate Centaurs as well as humans, and Kellen wondered what he’d see if he looked inside some of the cottages. Stalls? Or beds?

“Idalia!” a familiar voice squealed, off to the right. There was a thud of hooves on the packed earth of the square as they turned toward the source of the voice, and Merana pranced to a stop in front of Idalia. “Oh, you’ve come to visit! And you’ve brought Kellen!”

The young Centauress curveted like a restive filly as she turned to gaze flirtatiously at Kellen, but now he was prepared for her and her ways, and was able to keep his composure a little better than he had at their first meeting. He just smiled, and made sure that he kept Idalia between him and the apprentice Healer.

By now a crowd had started to gather around the visitors, humans and Centaurs greeting Idalia by name and darting curious—and none-toofriendly—looks at Cormo. Evidently Cormo was not nearly as well thought of as he had boasted. Somehow, Kellen wasn’t at all surprised.

“Idalia.” An old man in a long worn blue robe, its knees stained as if he’d been kneeling in his garden all day, made his way through the crowd. His hair was silvery white and very long, done in a braid that trailed down his back. A small neat beard adorned his weathered face, and there were lines formed by laughter and smiling around his eyes. He was leaning on a long staff, its wood polished with years of use, and he gently moved Merana out of the way with a hand on her withers as if he was well used to her ebullient nature.

“We are both delighted to see you, child—and in such company.” He raised his eyebrows, looking over Idalia’s shoulder at Cormo. The Centaur male looked very much as if he wished to slink away, but didn’t quite dare.

“Master Eliron—just the person I was hoping to see,” Idalia said. “You are still on the Council, aren’t you?”

So this was Merana’s Master? Kellen had made the assumption—obviously a mistaken one—that the old Healer must be another Centaur.

“Nothing short of death will make them accept my resignation, so they tell me,” the old healer said with a gentle smile. “But surely you cannot have need of my services in either of my capacities, not with a Wildmage of your own to call upon?” he added, nodding toward Kellen.

“Nothing like that,” Idalia assured him. “But I healed Cormo today, and I have a price to pay as my part of the healing. Tell me, is Haneida here, by any chance?”

Eliron looked surprised by the question. “Why, yes. She came to see me this afternoon, and I persuaded her to accept my hospitality for the evening. As I hope you and your brother will as well. It’s too long a walk back to that cabin of yours to make tonight.”

“We were hoping someone would tender us an invitation to stay,” Idalia confessed cheerfully. “And you set a fine table, Master Eliron. Could someone fetch her, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble”—she held out a minatory hand to Cormo, who looked as if he was going to bolt—“not you, Cormo!—then I can pay my price and spend the rest of the evening in amusing myself. Kellen is eager to see your village.”

“As we are to show it to him,” Master Eliron assured her gracefully.

“I’ll go,” Merana offered quickly.

She half reared and pivoted neatly in place on her hind legs, then moved nimbly off through the crowd, which was already buzzing with expectancy at the prospect of great revelations in store. Several others at the edges of the crowd also faded off to spread the word that something terribly interesting was about to happen, and as word spread, the crowd grew, until Kellen was sure that everyone in all of Merryvale was crowded into the market square. As he looked around, he could see people crowded at the open windows of the cottages that had upper stories as well, leaning out of the windows and looking down into the square. If Cormo had wanted to keep the terms of his price a secret, there was no way he was going to be able to do it now.

Which was probably exactly as Idalia had planned, the clever thing.

A few minutes later Merana returned, walking slowly and carefully. Seated on her back was an old woman whom Kellen guessed must be Haneida. She sat very straight and held her walking staff across her lap. The crowd parted to let them through, and when they reached Eliron and Idalia, Merana knelt gracefully to let Haneida dismount. The old lady looked around the square, her blue eyes bright and sharp.

Kellen thought she looked amused. He also had the distinct impression that she was not going to be much surprised when she heard Cormo’s price.

“Well. All this fuss can’t be for one old lady, now can it? Or is it that young Cormo has been up to more mischief than usual?”

“He’ll be up to less in the future,” Idalia said, stepping forward. “This afternoon I healed him with the Wild Magic, and Cormo accepted half the price. His price was this: that for a year and a day, he is to help you haul your cart to and from the market, Haneida.”

There was a moment of silence, and then the market square exploded with laughter. Cormo growled low in his throat, flushing dark with embarrassment. He stamped his hooves fretfully, hating to be the butt of the joke, but did nothing else. Kellen guessed there was nothing he could do aside from stand there and take it. For all that Idalia said that Merryvale didn’t have guards the way Armethalieh did, he guessed the village must have some way to keep the peace, and a lot of the folks in the crowd, human and Centaur both, looked big and strong enough to make even Cormo think twice about any bullyragging he might want to get up to.

Haneida laughed until she doubled over, clutching at her staff for support. “Oh, my!” she gasped, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. “Cormo doing honest work for once! It was worth living this long to see that!” She hobbled stiffly over to the Centaur and stared up at him. “Who knows, young man? Perhaps you will grow to like it. And you’ll find it a sight easier to be given a honey-loaf warm from the oven than to skulk around my window trying to steal them from the cooling racks!”

Cormo stared down at her, his face blank with surprise. “You’ll pay me?” he said in shock.

Haneida reached up with her staff and rapped him smartly on the shoulder. “Pay? Who said anything about paying you, my young scallywag? You’ve been paid, in the coin of healing. But when a friend does me a kindness, I do a friend a kindness in return. Besides, it’s hungry work, making that long trip from my cottage down to the market and back, and I don’t intend to see you go hungry for it. Now. I’ll see you in three days, at sunrise, at my front door. Don’t be late. And be clean!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Cormo said, as meekly as Kellen had ever heard him speak. Haneida turned away and regarded the crowd. “I suppose none of you have homes and dinners of your own to go to?” she said tartly. Waving away all offers of assistance, she began to make her way slowly back the way she had come.

The crowd, sensing that the show was over, began to slowly break up and disperse. Cormo, too—at a nod from Idalia—took the opportunity to make his escape, though as he edged his way through the crowd and out through the Merryvale gates, he kept darting bemused looks over his shoulder at the retreating figure of Haneida, until her slight stooped figure was lost in the crowd.

“He’s not altogether bad,” Master Eliron said quietly, for Idalia’s and Kellen’s ears alone, “but like so many, he will try whatever he can get away with.”

Idalia shrugged; now that she had discharged her price, Cormo was no longer her problem. “I’d hate to try to get away with something while Haneida was watching me, Master Eliron. And with the whole village knowing that he is under an obligation, it should be no great difficulty to see that he stays honest … for a year and a day at least. After that, who knows? Maybe he’ll figure out that working for his keep is actually easier than the course of theft and bullying he’s been following.”

“Only the greatest of Mages can see the future,” Master Eliron agreed solemnly, “and the future is not always so very cooperative as even they might wish. But come. I have spent a long day in my stillroom and herbarium, and will be glad of a chance to stretch my legs—and you have said your brother wishes to see something of our village.”

“We’ve come to do some trading as well, before winter sets in,” Idalia said. “But that can wait for tomorrow. Most of all—and I think, first of all—I’ve promised Kellen a proper hot bath.”

Master Eliron laughed. “And so you shall have one, both of you. Merana, take our guests’ packs to the house, and tell the cook we will be two more for dinner. Come, Kellen. I can show you at least a bit of Merryvale on the way to your bath.”

HALF an hour later Kellen was soaking up to his neck in the first hot bath he’d had since … well, he really couldn’t really remember when, since he wasn’t sure he could really count hasty dips in the laundry tub back in Armethalieh, and it felt wonderful. He didn’t even care that it was a communal bath, and that he was sharing it with Master Eliron and several of the other men of Merryvale, while Idalia basked in similar accommodations on the woman’s side of the bathhouse.

He was up to his neck in a large steaming copper-sheathed wooden tub, and he didn’t care if he never left it. The hot water was easing aches and pains he hadn’t even realized were there until they were gone.

This was the last—and hottest, and largest—of the three tubs in the Merryvale bathhouse, the one you got into when you were clean. The first, a small, tepid, and rather murky tub, was just for rinsing off the worst of the muck and clay: that one you stood up in and scrubbed with a soft brush while pouring water over yourself from a dipper while an attendant topped up a second—fresh—tub with hot water. Kellen had to admit that after a morning spent packing clay and tar into the side of an oak tree, followed by a long cross-country hike, it had been a necessary step.

The second tub was warmer, and big enough to sit down in. That was where you scrubbed yourself clean with soap. While the soap wasn’t the dainty colored and perfumed hard-milled stuff he’d been used to in the City, it was also a far cry from the tallowy blocks of harsh yellow stuff he’d gotten used to using at Idalia’s. While it still smelled rather more like tallow than flowers, at least it didn’t turn his skin red and raw.

Once Kellen was thoroughly clean, the attendant—since it was Kellen’s first time at the bathhouse, he’d been assigned a personal guide—conducted him through to the main room of the men’s side, where he climbed a short ladder into the enormous wooden vat they called the “soaking pool.” The water was kept constantly hot by a bed of coals beneath it—with new coals brought as the old embers died—and constantly full with new infusions of water. At this time of day there weren’t too many people here, but Master Eliron told him that sometimes there were so many people waiting that the attendants had to come and turn people out after half an hour.

“Especially in winter, when it seems as if the bathhouse is the only place in Merryvale that is really warm, especially to these old bones,” the Healer said with a sigh. “But you won’t have experienced one of our upland winters yet, will you?”

“No, sir,” Kellen said contentedly, steam rising about his face. “I only just came here a few moonturns ago. But I like the Wild Lands very much. Especially your village. I’ve never seen anyplace like it before.”

Idalia had promised there’d be time for a proper exploration of Merryvale tomorrow before they left, but on his way here, Kellen had already seen enough to fill his head with wonders.

Compared to Armethalieh, Merryvale was tiny and primitive, but spending most of a season living in a rustic cabin in the wilderness with Idalia had changed Kellen’s standards for comparison. He was now able to see that on its own terms, the little village was quite sophisticated—and a very happy place, as far as he could tell.

While Armethalieh traded constantly and uneasily with the lands across the sea and the lands Beyond the Forest, Merryvale supplied nearly all its own needs, from cloth woven from the wool of its own sheep and the linen threads spun from its own flax, to honey from its own bees, fruit from its own orchards, and grain from its own fields. The villagers kept cattle and pigs and domestic fowl of all sorts as well, and for the very few things that they didn’t produce for themselves, they had a fairly simple method of obtaining them.

From what Idalia had already told him, and the conversation of his companions in the soaking pool, Kellen was able to figure out that Merryvale traded with other villages farther west of Merryvale at the yearly Midsummer Fair, a fortnight-long gathering that attracted people from hundreds of miles around, including the Mountain Traders.

Kellen would certainly have liked to have seen that, but it didn’t take much thought to figure out why Idalia had delayed his first visit to Merry-vale until the time of the Fair was safely past. The Mountain Traders still traded with the farming villages that served Armethalieh, and if Lycaelon Tavadon didn’t much care what had become of his daughter, the same could not be said of his interest in his son.

It might be comforting to believe that Lycaelon assumed that the Outlaw Hunt had taken care of Kellen for good and all, but Kellen doubted it. Lycaelon could easily have scryed the Hunt, or viewed it through the eyes of one of the Hounds, and the High Mage probably knew very well that Kellen had been left wounded, but alive. If he’d been furious enough to send so many Hounds in the first place, he would still be looking for a way to end the embarrassing problem of his wayward son once and for all.

If Kellen had been seen at the Fair, if word somehow got back to the City that Kellen had recovered and was living in the Wildwood, well …

He didn’t know exactly what would happen, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t care for it. And neither would anyone else who could even have been considered to have helped him.

But those were unpleasant thoughts, and this was a most pleasant place. Idalia’s foresight had protected his whereabouts for now, and Kellen had the shrewd notion that any attempt by Lycaelon to use High Magick to locate his son would meet with failure …

After all, High Magick had been no match for the power of a unicorn’s horn.

At last—after what seemed far too short a time to Kellen—it was time to get dressed again. His clothes had been cleaned for him while he bathed—not a usual service of the bathhouse, but as the attendant had cheerfully explained, he and Idalia were honored guests. He toweled himself dry in front of one of the large iron stoves that kept the soaking room warm against the evening chill, and then dressed in smallclothes that had been washed and dried, and leathers that had been brushed completely clean.

It was a level of service that he had accepted unquestioningly, growing up in House Tavadon, but now it made Kellen oddly uncomfortable. He had been waiting on himself for so long that it now seemed as if he was receiving something he was not entitled to, though Master Eliron’s clothing had gotten the same treatment.

Master Eliron tied the laces at the throat of his blue robe shut, and seemed to divine Kellen’s unease and the cause of it.

“Don’t worry,” the Healer said, patting Kellen on the shoulder. “These services are available to anyone who wishes to pay for them, and your sister has already paid their cost.”

“Um … okay. Good,” Kellen said awkwardly. He wasn’t sure which made him feel worse: worrying about it, or being reassured about it.

He didn’t have long to fret over the matter though. Idalia appeared in the doorway, her dark brown hair shining-clean and braided back into a single tail with a length of glossy red ribbon. She regarded the two of them, fists planted on hips and an expression of mock-fierceness on her face.

“Well, come along, lazybones! The two of you may want to spend the entire evening stewing like prunes, but I’m hungry! And Merana won’t thank you for making her wait to catch up on the gossip!”

By the time they reached the street, Kellen realized that he was hungry as well. Hungry? That was too mild a word; he was ravenous. The sun had gone down behind the hills, but the long summer twilight still lingered, and many of the cottages had set out lanterns before their doors, the candles gleaming softly through the translucent oiled-parchment walls of the copper lanterns. It was easy to find their way, even though many of the streets were far narrower and more twisty than any of the streets of Armethalieh. The village might be built for both humans and Centaurs to live in, but obviously not to wander through in crowds.

Master Eliron’s house was on one of the wider streets—which made a great deal of sense, since the Master Healer must receive a great number of visitors of both races. It was a fine two-story cottage, and the shutters of the lower windows were thrown open, releasing a number of savory smells into the evening air.

Kellen’s stomach rumbled loudly and Idalia snorted with rude laughter.

“Now, now,” Master Eliron said peaceably. “It’s a nice change to welcome a pair of healthy appetites to the table—and if memory serves, you’ve never been shy of your food, eh, Idalia? Or are you still barely eating enough to keep a bird alive?”

She laughed, as at an old joke, and Kellen realized that she must have told Master Eliron about having been turned into a Silver Eagle. The realization gave him a peculiar feeling, but he shrugged it off. Why shouldn’t she tell him? There was no stigma to practicing Wildmagery outside the City lands, from what he’d seen. Idalia practiced it openly, and everyone accepted it as a normal part of life. Nobody was yelling for the Priests of the Light to shield them, or for the High Mages to come and protect them—not that the High Mages would, since the humans were living with Otherfolk. And not that Armethalieh’s protection was anything that you’d want …

It was all very confusing.

There’s so much to learn! How am I ever going to even live long enough to learn it all?

KELLEN tried very hard to stop himself thinking about Armethalieh, but somehow he couldn’t seem to. It had been easy while he was living out in the woods with only Idalia for human company, since everything was utterly different from life in the City, but Merryvale was just enough like Armethalieh that it reminded him of the place that had once been home, while at the same time being so very different that it stood in the most extreme contrast. Here, Master Eliron’s servants and apprentices sat at the same table as the Master and his guests—or, in the case of the Centaurs, stood—and were treated as members of an extended family. To accommodate the Centaurs’ greater height, the table was higher—Kellen could have stood comfortably at it himself—and the chairs for the two-legged guests were more like high stools with backs. Kellen caught himself thinking that was unreasonable—couldn’t the Centaurs kneel, or something?—but then realized it would be more unfair to expect the Centaurs to accommodate the humans, when it was easier for the humans to accommodate the Centaurs. It was City thinking, the idea that humans were the pinnacle of Creation, that made him think otherwise. And that sort of reasoning wasn’t fair.

Kellen sighed and concentrated on his food, wishing he didn’t think so much about problems that didn’t seem to have any solution. The food was certainly a welcome distraction—hot oven-baked yeast-breads (the thing he’d missed most, living out in the woods), roast chicken with stuffing, a wide selection of tasty vegetables, and beef. Digging into his meal, Kellen realized he’d gotten very tired of venison, rabbit, pigeon, and fish.

At first, looking down at the unfamiliar tools beside his place setting, Kellen hadn’t been quite sure what to do, but he quickly realized the courtly table manners drummed into him in House Tavadon had no place here, and emulated the style of those he saw around him.

He was saved from any embarrassment by the fact that Idalia was eating as heartily as he was, with a pragmatic attention to her food that would have given their father heart failure. But so was everyone else, even the old Healer, and Master Eliron’s cook was insisting that everything on the table must be eaten before she would bring out the pies and Haneida’s honey-cakes.

“And don’t you a-go sneaking into the kitchen to steal any, Merana, or I’ve got a stout stirring spoon with your name on it, my girl!” the woman said firmly. Merana only laughed and switched her braided tail, reaching for another roll and the pot of honey.

“OH,” Idalia sighed at last, chasing a drop of gravy about her plate with a bit of hot bread, “this is lovely. I only wish I could cook like this—but I’m afraid I lack three things: the talent, the time, and the tools!”

“You know, my dear, that’s hardly an insurmountable obstacle,” Master Eliron said gently. “Were you to come here to live …”

Idalia shook her head in refusal. “We’ve had this conversation before, my dear. You know I can’t. The forest needs me. How could those I serve out there find me here?”

“I expect they would find you just as they always have, Idalia,” Master Eliron answered. “But perhaps you would consider coming to us just for a few moonturns during deep winter? The Wildwood sleeps then, and here in Merryvale, with your wants seen to, you could devote all your time to Kellen’s training. You would not have to fear being a burden on us, not with the Powers at your command, and it would be good to have a second Wildmage living among us.” He sighed. “We worry about you out there, with nothing between you and the deep cold but a few walls and a single fire. Do consider it.”

“Very well, Master Eliron,” Idalia said, with a warm and kindly tone in her voice. “I will consider it.”

But Kellen already knew his sister well enough to know that the answer was going to be “no.”

Why?

The aged Healer was right: those who needed Idalia’s help could find her anywhere. And from what she’d told him about how the Wild Magic worked, she could find work to do anywhere. But she wasn’t living with the Elves, and now Kellen knew that she’d had several offers to live in reasonably civilized comfort in Merryvale, and she wasn’t living here, either.

Why not?

A not-terribly-pleasant idea occurred to him, and he forced it away.

BUT later, after much more food, and a long pleasant companionable evening spent in music and good talk around Master Eliron’s hearth, when Kellen was tucked up under the eaves on a guest-pallet, the idea returned.

Why did Idalia insist on living out in the Wildwood all by herself?

Was it that she really was Tainted after all, and that she feared that Master Eliron would discover it?

He knew it was impossible, but the more Kellen tried to push the idea to the bottom of his mind, the more he seemed to be pushing sleep with it as well, until—bone-weary as he was—Kellen lay wide-awake. He stared up into the darkness, unable to do anything but think.

Lycaelon had said that Wildmagery sent its users down the dark and twisted path to congress with Demons, that the High Magick taught in Armethalieh was the only safe magic for mankind to use.

Of course, everything else Lycaelon and the High Council had taught—and the Priests of the Light—hadn’t been true, or so Kellen was discovering, during his Outlaw adventures.

But what if this one thing was?

It would be a lot easier if Demons didn’t exist. Then Kellen could just dismiss his father’s warnings as a last attempt to manipulate him. But Idalia said they did, and while Idalia might refrain from telling him things until she thought he was ready to hear them, she’d never outright tell him anything that wasn’t true.

So Demons existed. But did that mean that Idalia had seen them? Possibly even dealt with them?

Or … no!

It wasn’t possible, Kellen told himself firmly. Idalia was a good person. He knew that all the way down to his very bones. She healed people. Healing magic couldn’t possibly be wrong. How could something good open you to corruption? That made less sense than anything he’d ever learned in the City … and his sister was a much more interesting person than anyone in the City, for that matter. More honest, too. She thought about things, she answered his questions (even if the answer was “I don’t know, why don’t we see if we can find out”), and she didn’t always assume that an answer was the only answer, or even the best answer.

As far as Kellen could tell from the time he’d spent living with her, Idalia seemed to spend most of her time helping people, with and without magic.

How could that be bad?

How could Idalia be bad?

But …

Could she be bad without knowing she was bad? Was that even possible?

I just don’t know, Kellen realized miserably. Nothing makes sense. I just know that Idalia’s always telling me to trust my instincts. And my instincts tell me there’s some kind of connection between the Wild Magic and the Demons. And I don’t know what it is. And that scares me.

And I think Idalia might know what it is.

And I think I’m afraid to ask her.

But if she doesn’t live out in the forest alone because she knows that she’s Tainted and fears to be found out … then why?

Chapter Fifteen

Darkness and Lies

THE ROOM WAS smaller than many in the Heart of Darkness, a room for very private pleasures. The curving walls were covered with closely fitted tiles of amethyst of a flawless purple so dark it was nearly black and overhung with slave-woven tapestries depicting the feasts and pleasures of the Endarkened Court. The floor was thickly covered with silk carpets whose pile was so deep that taloned feet sunk into them as if they were fur. In the cool pale spell-light cast by the enchanted globes in which captured forest pixies slowly died for the pleasure of the Endarkened, the patterns on the floor glowed like a captive garden.

Hanging from a heavily jeweled golden chain attached to a large bronze ring in the center of the ceiling was a large silver and enamel cage, crafted to look like serpents twining over graveyard bones. It was a pity, Prince Zyperis reflected, regarding the three fauns cowering inside, that its inhabitants lacked the discernment to properly appreciate the beauty of their confinement. Still, that would not be a problem for them for very much longer, and the next occupant might have higher sensibilities.

Carrying a large shallow bowl carved and polished from one piece of black obsidian, the Prince advanced to the center of the room and placed it carefully on an iron and ivory table draped in heavy red silk. A sharp knife was already there, waiting.

He paused to savor the moment, and the terror of the fauns, before proceeding.

The war-to-come was going forward nicely. Just as he and Mother intended, the Mage City continued to draw inward even as it expanded its territory, isolating itself not only from the Otherfolk, but also from all outside human contact, wallowing in its own spiritual decay. Lovely.

“Let us see how their plans proceed, eh, my little friends?” Prince Zyperis murmured.

The fauns began to scream.

He picked up the knife and opened the door of the silver cage. Reaching in, he dragged out the first of the struggling, screaming fauns. It was no match for his strength; it writhed in his grip to no avail. It might just as well have been thrashing against the grip of a dragon. With quick efficiency, he lifted it over the obsidian bowl and slit its throat, holding it upside down until the last of its blood had drained into the bowl. The screaming turned to a gurgling, and he feasted on the final dregs of its despair as it felt its life ebbing out of it; horror of the other two as they watched it dying, their own screams now stifled in their throats by sheer terror.

Then he turned to the cage again, and the shrieking began anew as they flung themselves against the bars in a vain attempt to elude him and prolong their wretched lives for another precious moment or two.

The other two talking vermin followed in short order—not from any sense of mercy on Zyperis’s part, but because today, the death of the fauns was merely a means to an end. Tossing the last of the tiny bloodless corpses aside, the Endarkened Prince leaned over the bowl of hot fresh blood, peering into its depths.

“Show me what I desire,” he commanded huskily. The surface of the liquid shimmered, growing misty and then clearing.

Zyperis gazed down at a village square, where a Lawspeaker in Armethaliehan livery stood on a mounting block, reading out a decree to an assembled crowd of farmers. The words the man spoke came to him faintly, and Zyperis smiled. According to the Prince’s spies, in recent months the Golden City had expanded its borders once again, seeking to drive out both Otherfolk and Wildmagery. Such decrees were initially popular, since the Otherfolk had to leave their property behind, enriching the humans who remained, but the City’s favor was a double-edged sword, and this village was now feeling the bite of the other side of the City’s poisoned blade.

Their Wildmage Healer had left as well, of course. The village had petitioned Armethalieh to send them a new Healer, and today they were receiving their reply.

No Healer would be sent to their village. Any who needed help might come freely to the City to receive it—providing, of course, that they were tax-paying humans willing to wear the City token, and who fit City standards of suitability for help.

The villagers’ anger came to him only distantly, but it was a heady vintage nevertheless. Prince Zyperis chuckled, and waved his hand across the surface of the bowl, breaking the link. Now that another village had tasted the bitter along with the sweet, they were ready to receive one of his agents—a trader from the High Hills, perhaps, primed with horror stories of the tyranny of the High Mages, to urge the villagers to desert their homes and fields and migrate elsewhere—outside the City-claimed lands—further isolating and impoverishing the City. All the vast acreage of fertile fields in the World Above did the City precious little good if there was no one there to farm it. And after generations of keeping its own citizens pent behind the City walls, there was not one citizen willing or able to take up that task, even if the City was willing to release any of its own precious citizenry to the labor.

The City of a Thousand Bells was the largest single concentration of humans in the land, the stronghold of High Magick, so its destruction was the keystone of the Endarkened’s strategy. Since the War, the Mages had completely lost touch with the adaptability and flexibility that was once humanity’s greatest strength, utterly rejecting the Wild Magic and imprisoning themselves within a web of inflexible rules and regulations. That had opened them to Endarkened influence, though of course, they had known it not. A subtle influence, that, a careful nourishing of superiority—first of human over not, then of City over foreigner, then at last of Mage over mere citizen. And then, a more subtle influence, one that suggested, oh, so delicately, that since Wild Magic could not be controlled by the High Mages, it must be dangerous … or evil. Now the Mages were utterly certain that there was no situation that could not be dealt with according to their lifeless and unthinking rules. In setting themselves up as the sole authorities within the City, they had cast their rules in stone, and used them to build a wall between themselves and the other races of the land.

And since—thanks to careful coaching by Endarkened agents—the High Mages had determined that all the other creatures in the land were destined to be ruled (if human) or enslaved (if not) by the City, if not exterminated outright, those races’ reaction to them now ranged from mere annoyance to utter fury …

“Oh, yes,” Prince Zyperis said softly, rubbing his long taloned hands together and spreading his wings wide in contentment. “Everything is going forward precisely as it should.”

KELLEN had finally dropped into an uneasy sleep—plagued by dreams of Demonic Hounds near morning—and even the chance to see more of Merryvale had not been enough to rouse him out of the black mood he’d awakened with. He hated inflicting it on everyone around him, but unlike back in the City—which he still thought of as “home” in unguarded moments—there really wasn’t anyplace he could go off to be by himself until it passed, at least, not until he and Idalia went back to her cabin.

There, if need be, he could make an excuse to go off alone hunting for foodstuffs or wind-felled timber for building or the fireplace. He’d wondered when he first arrived why Idalia wouldn’t cut a tree that wasn’t already dead—until he’d met the dryads. Now he was glad of it; searching for more wood made a good excuse to get away when he needed to. But that wasn’t possible today. All he could do was try to keep to himself as much as possible, and hope that nobody noticed.

He would have preferred to just curl up on his sleeping pallet and hide until it was time to leave, but Idalia had shopping to do this morning, and since yesterday Kellen had been so eager to see the rest of the village, there was no way he could get out of going with her without attracting attention he really wanted to avoid.

Armed with a borrowed basket—Idalia had one too—Kellen trailed after his sister as she made her way to Merryvale’s Market Street.

It was a very different sort of market from the ones in Armethalieh. Of course it was smaller—much smaller. That went without saying. Half the places Idalia dragged him to were actual shops, not proper markets such as he was used to. And everything was jumbled in together in the same place—fruit and honey and meat and bread and cloth, all crowded into the same little part of town. And there wasn’t really very much of anything, and what there was, was—he guessed—pretty crude by Armethaliehan standards.

But not one item there had been passed by the Council. Not one item there had received a license to be sold.

He passed by the door of a sweets-seller. The trays of brightly colored sugar caught his eye, and he stopped, thinking of Shalkan. The unicorn had a notorious sweet tooth, and would enjoy the treat.

But how could Kellen pay for it?

He glanced up the street. Idalia was stopped in the doorway of a spice-merchant’s, and from the look of things, she was going to be there for some time.

Kellen went into the small shop. It smelled of sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and other spices he couldn’t put a name to. As he entered, he dug in his pouch for some coins—Armethaliehan coins, and probably worthless here, but maybe the metal in them would be worth something. Only the Golden Suns were bespelled, after all; the lesser coins of the City were only ordinary silver and copper. He pulled them out and held them toward the seller, a middle-aged Centaur wearing a white apron who smiled as he saw Kellen approach.

“I don’t know if these are worth anything here …”

“What were you looking to buy?” the Centaur asked amiably. From his girth, he was his own best customer. “Say, aren’t you Kellen—Wildmage Idalia’s brother?”

“That’s right,” Kellen said. “And I’ve got a friend with a sweet tooth. I think he’d enjoy some of the rock sugar, or maybe some of the sugar sticks.”

“And you wanted to pay in coin?” the Centaur asked, sounding baffled. “Idalia usually pays with weather, and all. Still …” He inspected the coins on Kellen’s outstretched palm critically. “Never seen anything like them, but they look like good silver, right enough. I reckon one of those’ll be enough to buy your friend a fine tummy-ache, if you think that’s fair.”

“More than fair,” Kellen agreed. He handed over the coin, and the sweets-seller took out a square of paper and made up a large packet of brightly colored sugar stick and glittering lumps of rock sugar. He tied the packet up with a length of twine and handed it over.

“And this is for you. A treat for luck.”

He picked up a small wooden dish and held it out to Kellen. Resting in the middle of it was a round brown doughy object, its surface coated with powdered sugar.

“What is it?” Kellen asked curiously.

“New from Midsummer Fair. The Mountain Traders brought it. They say it came out of the Southern Deserts, a spice-bean called xocalatl. Try it.”

“Something new.” Kellen hardly needed to hear anything more. He picked up the unprepossessing-looking object and popped it into his mouth.

It began to dissolve immediately, and the rich taste filled his mouth, bitter and sweet and complex. Like kaffeyah, but not quite. He wasn’t sure he liked it, but he was glad he’d tried it.

“ ‘Xocalatl,’ ” Kellen said, trying the unfamiliar word. “Thank you. I’ll remember it.”

“Come again,” the sweets-seller said genially. “And remember me to your sister.”

Kellen nodded and moved on, tucking his package carefully into his basket and hurrying to catch up with his sister.

IDALIA completed her trading in Merryvale by midmorning, and she and Kellen began the long walk back to her cabin.

A lot of what she had traded for would be sent later—bags of flour, meal, and salt, too heavy for them to carry—and some things they would be returning for when they were ready. Kellen had been glad to find that they would be trading a quantity of smoked venison and wood-pigeon pickled in brine for an equal weight of salt-beef, preserved eggs, and dried fish (though Idalia warned him he’d be very tired of all of them by spring).

But what they were carrying home with them was heavy enough, since it principally consisted of two large kegs of nails and some coils of thin thatching rope to be used for the construction of the addition to the cabin. He hoped that Idalia knew how to thatch, since he didn’t, and from what he’d seen, it would be a difficult task to learn.

If Idalia noticed his unusual silence, she did not break it with any comments of her own. The day was bright and clear—good weather for the ripening crops of the Merryvale farmers.

He wished he could feel as cheerful as the weather warranted. He couldn’t help thinking about Demons. Idalia still hadn’t talked to him about them, and now he was hesitant to bring up the subject again. If she was falling prey to the influence of Demons, that might explain why she didn’t want to live in the village, even for the winter. As long as she stayed away, she could keep her associations with Demons secret, but if she moved there and was around them, especially the old Healer, she would certainly be found out.

Maybe the reason the old faun wouldn’t let her near was that he knew she wasn’t to be trusted. Idalia might not know what had happened to the aged creature, but so far as Kellen was concerned, it was as plain as a road-post. Demons—or if not Demons, certainly Demonic creatures—had gotten hold of him and his terrible injuries were the result.

If the faun suspected Idalia of being Demon-tainted, he wouldn’t let her get near him. But he might try and warn Kellen.

Maybe his appearance at the pond had been an attempt to deliver that warning.

Maybe Kellen’s dreams of Demon Hounds were another warning.

IDALIA made much of her payment for the supplies that would see the two of them through the winter in the form of spells to keep damaging weather away from the fields for these last crucial sennights. So long as there was not too much tampering, or too often, or over too large an area, a little weather magic did no harm to the greater balance of field and forest. It was when someone got greedy, wanting everything their own way with no thought to the harm that did to others, that balance was endangered. The spells were very specific; preventing rain (or worse, hail) from falling on those specific fields but permitting it to fall anywhere else in the area it cared to. This might mean that the forests surrounding Merryvale itself got all the rain that would have fallen on the village plus what would have fallen on the fields, but the point was it was all ending up in the same general area and percolating down into the waters underground. The spell was set to dissipate as soon as the harvest was gathered in, thus further limiting its effects.

Though she’d been aware of Kellen’s unsettled mood from the moment he’d awakened that morning, Idalia respected his attempt to keep it to himself. From the vantage point of her ten years’ seniority, she well remembered the wild emotional storms of adolescence, and coming into the power of a Wildmage while at the same time being cast out of the only home you’d ever known hardly made coping with growing up any easier. Poor Kellen! He had a triple burden to labor under! That he managed to be cooperative and cheerful most of the time said a great deal for the essential goodness of his nature.

Curse Lycaelon for a brute and a fool! She had loved her brother dearly as a child, and found the young man even more endearing as he bumbled his way toward maturity, but sometimes it was hard to believe he was Lycaelon’s son. Subtlety simply was not in his nature. Even Idalia had to admit that Kellen was as easy to read as a page of print, and easier to manipulate.

But Lycaelon had never bothered.

The Arch-Mage simply had not been interested in anything outside of his own desires. If he had troubled to take the little time it would have taken to get to know Kellen personally, rather than relying on the reports of servants and underlings, if he had considered spending some part of the time he squandered in his endless power-games on his son instead of on City politics, Lycaelon could have had exactly the son he’d wanted. Kellen was so starved for affection he would have done anything for his father if Lycaelon had only bothered to love the boy. Kellen would have grown up to become a model son, a credit to his family name, a promising young High Mage.

And the Books would never have come to him.

Or would they?

What if they had?

Sooner or later Kellen would have started to see that what he was told and what really went on in the City didn’t match. Especially for anyone who wasn’t Mageborn.

But if the Books had still come to him, Kellen would certainly never have studied them.

Or would he?

Idalia frowned, wondering.

Kellen was curious. He was intelligent. Sooner or later, he would still have started wondering about the lands outside the City, and when his questions went unanswered, or were answered unsatisfactorily, would he have looked elsewhere?

If Kellen had loved his father and that love had been returned—if Lycaelon had been someone else entirely, or if he had died, and Kellen been raised by another, kinder Mage family—might not the same thing have happened, only to a Kellen devoted to his family, to his studies, to the City? Wouldn’t that have been an even worse disaster for him than what had actually happened? Only imagine a Kellen who had wanted to become a High Mage, who was trying to be the best son he could be, to please his father, or foster father … then coming upon the Books, tempted by them, called to experiment with them, to read them, terribly torn between the two paths, agonizing over his divided loyalties …

“Even cruelty can be kindness, if we can only see it clearly.” So said The Book of Moon. If Kellen had been fated to become a Wildmage, perhaps Lycaelon was the best of all possible fathers for him to have had.

But Idalia knew it would be many years before she would ever dare to suggest such a possibility to him.

AT last they reached the clearing and home. Kellen slid his heavy pack from his shoulders with a grateful sigh and stretched, working the stiffness from cramped muscles. He glanced toward his neatly stacked tools. They were tucked beneath the same weatherproof covering that kept the building logs from warping.

“I’d better get back to work,” he said curtly. “I’ve lost almost two days, and winter isn’t going to come any later because I’ve had other things to do.”

Idalia shot him a considering glance, but she didn’t answer him directly.

“Master Eliron was right about one thing, you know—I should be spending more time teaching you Wildmagery than I have.” She smiled and shrugged. “I hate to admit it, but that’s my fault entirely; I’ve been selfish. Granted, it has been very good for you to do the work you’ve been doing here, both because it is turning you from a soft City-boy to a strong and resourceful fellow with many new skills. And I want you to finish the addition because I want my bedroom back—but what I want is not what you need and certainly not what you deserve. I should be teaching you both the skills of the hands and of the spirit. I apologize for neglecting the latter.”

He looked at her in surprise; never, in all of his life, had any of his teachers (or his father, for that matter) apologized for anything. He wasn’t entirely certain what to make of this.

Idalia seemed to take his silence for assent, though. “Come on. Help me get this stuff stowed away. We’ll get some cider, and I’ll show you how to do another one of my party tricks.”

Kellen hesitated, still staring off in the direction of the unfinished addition to the cabin. Idalia came and draped an arm around his shoulders.

“Kellen … you don’t think I expected you to build it all by yourself, did you? I know you could. I know you could do most of it, by now, but that’s not the only thing you’re here to do. The villagers helped me put up the original cabin, and once their harvest is in, they’ll come to help us finish the work you’ve started here.” She gave his shoulders a little squeeze. “For one thing, we’ll need the help of the thatcher—I certainly can’t thatch the roof, and I rather doubt that was one of your lessons under your tutor! Meanwhile, you have other things to learn that no one else can help you with.”

She might have told him. She might have let him know. Here he’d been worrying about it, and all along she’d had plans to get him some help. Or had she expected he would be able to build it, then discovered that he couldn’t, and only then arranged for the help? That was probably it.

“Like what?” Kellen asked, not caring just now that he sounded like a sulky child.

“Come and see,” Idalia urged with a mysterious smile.

Kellen was really irritated now. Did she enjoy being so maddening? But—he thought back to the young City-men he knew who had sweethearts, and how they tormented and teased their willing captives. Maybe it wasn’t just Idalia. Maybe all women were really like that.

First they went into the cabin, where they emptied their packs—leaving the heavy kegs of nails outside. Idalia hung the coils of oiled flaxen thatching line on a hook from one of the rafters where they’d be out of the way until needed, then carefully unpacked the rest of their treasures.

A new whetstone, and a set of small paring knives for cooking (Kellen had managed to break one of the others in his attempts to learn to peel root vegetables, and besides, frequent sharpening wore down the soft steel with time). Hairpins and straight pins and needles for Idalia, the sugar candy for Shalkan, several small paper packets of spices. Real tea for Kellen, who missed the taste, and a thick roll of velum, drawing charcoal, and a sponge. Cleaned carefully, the velum could be reused again and again.

“I didn’t know you’d bought that!” Kellen exclaimed, startled out of his blue funk by the discovery of the drawing material.

“Winter is going to be long,” Idalia warned once again, tucking everything carefully away into the cabinets and chests scattered around the room. “You need things to occupy yourself when the snow is halfway up the shutters. I do fancy beadwork and embroidery on shirts and ribbons and take it to trade in the village in the spring, but I don’t think that method of passing the winter would suit you, little brother. I find that the hours can grow very long without something to keep you busy. It gets very quiet and lonely here once the snows close us in.”

Then why don’t you go live in the village? Kellen wondered again, biting down hard on the thought for fear she might be able to hear what echoed in his thoughts so loudly.

But Idalia was occupied with retrieving two tankards from the mantel and the cider-jug from the cold-cellar beneath the floor.

“Now. Come and learn,” she said, handing one to him once they were full.

There was a tiny spring-fed pond behind the cabin that they used for their drinking and washing water. Kellen knew that Idalia also used it as a scrying pool—the bottom was littered with keystones, and for a while after he’d found out about that, he’d been a little nervous about drinking water charged with magic—but since nothing bad ever happened, and both Idalia and Shalkan drank the water too, he’d gotten over his case of nerves.

Scrying was something he’d heard discussed before, though the City Mages never did it around Apprentices. Idalia had only done the spell a couple of times since he’d come to the Wildwood, and each time she’d invited him to watch and learn. At first, Kellen had thought it would be pretty much a waste of time—from what little Anigrel had been willing to tell him about the workings of the High Magick, watching another Mage do magick was about as interesting as watching someone else solve a Maths problem—but he’d been surprised to discover that he could see and hear everything Idalia did when she scryed. He wasn’t sure if that was because he was in some sense her apprentice, or because the Wild Magic was simply more generous in its nature than the High Magick he’d previously studied.

But where the High Mages used scrying to keep an eye on the lands beyond the City, there didn’t seem to be a good reason for Idalia to use the spell, for all they’d looked at were places they had already been and could easily walk to. When he’d asked why she was showing him the spell, Idalia told him that scrying wasn’t the sort of thing a Wildmage tended to use very often, unless he or she wanted to keep an eye on a friend or loved one from afar, or unless he or she had the feeling that the Wild Magic itself wanted it done, though it was a skill that every Wildmage learned.

Since at the moment, she didn’t have anyone or anything she needed to watch over, it was more something that Idalia did now and then whenever she felt it was a good idea to do it, letting the Wild Magic itself dictate what the scrying showed her. That still struck Kellen as a rather slipshod way to run a magical system. Doing something whenever you felt like it, rather than by a regular schedule of times and observances—where was the discipline, the craft, in that?

But Wild Magic and High Magick were as un-alike as the Wildwood and the formal gardens of Armethalieh. Both had flowers in them … and there the resemblance ended. Applying the standards of the one to the other was a good way to get a headache, as far as Kellen could figure out. He wondered if one of the reasons Idalia was so good at Wild Magic—and he was so bad at it—was because he’d gotten High Mage training and she hadn’t. Maybe she had fewer preconceptions to unlearn. Maybe women were just better suited to becoming Wildmages in general, because of their generally more flighty and chaotic natures.

Oh, better not even let Idalia catch you thinking of thinking that! You know it isn’t true, not even a little bit! But there has to be some reason she’s so much better at this stuff than I am …

Other than the reason he didn’t even want to consider. Not even for a moment. Not even in jest. That he was Tainted. Or she was.

Idalia reached the edge of the spring and knelt down, motioning Kellen to kneel beside her. She rolled up her sleeve and fished around in the spring among the keystones, for all the world like a housewife testing the freshness of hen’s eggs.

“Ah. Plenty of power for a few more spells here. And I think it’s time you actually learned this one, rather than just watching me do it.” She rocked back on her heels and took a deep drink of her cider.

Kellen stared at her in horror. Him? Learn to scry? Now? He’d never felt less like doing magic in his life!

“You remember what’s involved?” Idalia prompted. “The ingredients?”

“I, uh, I—” For a moment Kellen’s mind went numbingly blank, then he remembered reading the spell in The Book of Moon and from watching Idalia. “Fern leaf. Cider—or wine, if you don’t have any cider. Mead will do, if you don’t have either of those. Fruit of the earth, though. Four drops into the water, then float the leaf on the surface.”

“Good,” Idalia said encouragingly. “And … ?”

This was just like Undermage Anigrel’s lessons, Kellen thought resentfully, for just a moment. Recite back what you’ve memorized, but never get a chance to use it …

But she had said he was going to use it. “ ‘You who travel between Earth and Sky, show me what you see.’ But, Idalia, how do you know what you’ll see?”

“You don’t, really,” Idalia said. “Unless you’re doing a specific search—and remember that the more specific you get, the higher the price,” Idalia reminded him. “Oh, you can have something in mind, and then, if you’re lucky you might get that, but with the Wild Magic, you see what you need to see, not what you want to see. Even if you don’t understand what you see—and often you won’t—it’s more important to see those things than to just get caught up in serving your own desires. Lately I’ve been trying to keep an eye on the City—endless Council meetings, mostly about how everyone outside of the walls is a covert or overt enemy of the City—trying to find out if they know you escaped the Hunt. I haven’t heard anything about you, though.”

She’d been watching the Council? Why hadn’t she told him? So he wouldn’t worry? And why hadn’t she had him scrying? Because she knew he’d fail? Or because she knew he’d see … something else? Something she didn’t want him to see?

“But here,” she continued. “There’s a nice patch of fern growing over there. Let’s see what you get.”

Now he didn’t know what to think! First she hadn’t coached him through the spell, and now she was telling him to cast it!

Feeling apprehensive and confused, Kellen trudged sulkily over to the stand of fern. He just knew this wasn’t going to work. He’d just end up staring down at an empty pool of white rocks, and Idalia would be … kind, and suggest they try again, or say he was just tired and they should do this again another day—or worse, he’d look down and see a Demon staring up at him, and Idalia wouldn’t see it.

Or she would, and she’d know he knew she was in league with them and—

No, she wouldn’t be doing this if she was in league with Demons, if she didn’t know he was going to fail! So she was setting him up to fail, just like Anigrel used to. That was it.

Kellen glared down at the patch of fern, feeling his unsettled bad mood return full force. This was going to be just like all the times he’d tried to be what Lycaelon wanted, and failed, only then he hadn’t cared so much. Now he was going to fail Idalia, and that made him angry. She ought to know he couldn’t do this. Why was she making him prove it? This stuff came to her as effortlessly as breathing, while every spell he cast ended in disaster, and she just couldn’t understand how it could be hard for someone. He’d had enough Wildmagery to get him kicked out of Armethalieh, but aside from that? He couldn’t talk to the Otherfolk like Idalia could, or really see them half the time, he didn’t have her woodscraft skills, he wasn’t one-tenth the Wildmage and never would be, he already knew he didn’t have what it took to be a farmer or crafter like they were in Merryvale …

Wasn’t there ever going to be something he was the best at? Ever?

No. He was always going to be Kellen the Second-Best, Kellen the Embarrassment. People had put up with him in the City because he was Lycaelon’s son, and now they were putting up with him here in the Wildwood because he was Idalia’s brother, and nothing, nothing, was ever going to change. Look at all Idalia was going through here in the Wildwood—building an addition to the cabin, trading magic for extra food—just because he couldn’t pull his weight. And he knew that somehow, somewhere, deep at the bottom of things where he couldn’t get to it, there was something wrong about the way things were going now, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

He hated it. He hated having questions he was afraid to ask. But somehow the time was never right.

Kellen came back with the fern-leaf and, jaw set, knelt beside the pool. With angry efficiency, he flicked cider onto the water, dropped the leaf onto the eddying surface, and quickly muttered the proper words, half expecting them to leave colorful trails of Magefire in the air, though of course they didn’t. The Wild Magic just didn’t work that way.

Then he leaned forward, glaring down at the bottom of the pool as if it were a personal enemy.

Nothing’s going to happen. Nothing’s going to happen. Noth—

THE vision came, so quickly that it seemed to sweep the clearing and the pool away.

The sky was greenish-black, lit by flashes of reddish lightning. He soared above it as if he had wings. Though it was dark, somehow Kellen could see clearly, across a barren plain strewn with jagged boulders that looked as if they had been tossed there by a monster child grown tired of playing with them. He could hear the wind, wailing thinly as it forced its way between the stones. The sound made him shudder. He knew dimly that he should have been cold, but he felt nothing at all.

As in dreams, he knew more than he saw. There was something there. Something important. Something evil. The malignity of it seemed to seep upward. The iciness of it seemed to seep upward, out of the vision, filling his bones with poison.

And ringing the plain was a horde—an ARMY—of creatures more horrible than even those that haunted Kellen’s most terrible nightmares, all converging on its center. He could hear them baying, the sound the stone Hounds of the Outlaw Hunt would have made if they’d been given voices. To look closely at them was to risk madness. And somehow, Kellen knew also that he was there, in the middle of them—

Idalia reached out and plunged her fist into the spring, shattering the vision.

“No!” Kellen screamed, flinging himself into his sister’s arms as if he were seven, not seventeen. Idalia held him tightly, and he could feel that she was trembling as hard as he was, and knew that she had seen the same thing that he had. The horror of seeing his greatest secret fears brought into the light, given form and weight and reality, ripped the words from his throat: “Idalia, I don’t want to be a monster! Please, please—take my Books! Please!”

“Kellen, listen to me.” There was a note of fierceness in his sister’s voice that Kellen had rarely heard. “You are not a monster. And you are not going to become a monster.”

He shook his head, holding her tighter. “The vision. You saw it too.”

“Yes.” Idalia drew a deep breath. “And I saw that you were there. But on the same side as those … things? I will never believe that. Never!”

He had to speak. He had to warn her.

“But Father said—”

To Kellen’s astonishment, Idalia smacked him on the back of the head—hard enough to sting. She pushed him away, so that she could look into his eyes.

“ ‘Father said’—‘Father said’—” Idalia mocked angrily. “Father, in case you haven’t figured it out for yourself by now, is a narrow-minded, utterly selfish brute without an ounce of human compassion who would say anything to anyone to get his own way. He told you the Wild Magic would turn you into a Demon, I suppose. Well, I’m telling you now that it is utterly impossible. Kellen. Look at me. I’ll tell you the truth.”

Kellen looked up at her, his eyes filled with hope—and fear.

“This has gone on long enough. There’s a tiny grain of truth in Father’s words, and I’m going to tell you what it is. The Wild Magic teaches you to think for yourself. I’ve told you that, and you know it’s true. Well, people who think for themselves can get into all kinds of trouble—including going over to the Demon side, because yes, there is a Demon side, and they’re always looking for human tools. But to do that, a Wildmage has to give up the Wild Magic and everything that has to do with it. Do you understand, Kellen? No Wildmage can serve the Demons—not without ceasing to be a true Wildmage first. His Books will leave him. Yes, because Wildmages think and act for themselves, they can make bad choices and end up becoming evil. But the Wild Magic won’t tolerate evil; when they make that choice, the Wild Magic itself stops serving them and stops answering them. The Wild Magic will leave, and something else will take its place. That’s all the truth Lycaelon has on his side. All of it. But even a tiny thorn can fester,” she added, almost to herself.

“But …” Kellen said, gesturing toward the pool. It was clear and empty now, a spring-fed pool, nothing more.

“Did you ever consider you might be there because you were good?” Idalia said, more gently now. “That you might be fighting the Demons? Or that your vision might be only, oh, a kind of truth, like a riddle, to make you think about things more clearly? Or that it might not happen for many, many years?”

“No,” said Kellen simply. “But, Idalia, what if I decide to renounce the Wild Magic and become evil?”

“Then I’ll knock you over the head, sew you into a sack, and sell you to the Selken Traders,” Idalia said promptly. “I’m sure you won’t be able to get into any trouble across the Sea.” She poked him in the ribs with a finger. “You’re beefy enough now, I should even get a good price for you. Deal?”

“Deal,” Kellen said with a shaky smile.

He felt as if a fever he hadn’t known he’d been running had broken, or as if an actual thorn had been pulled from his flesh. It was strange, but it was far more reassuring to know that there were actually Demons out there who wanted Wildmages to corrupt than just thinking it might all be his own imagination. Idalia spoke of them as if they were just another danger to be faced, and down deep inside, Kellen had no doubts about his own courage—or hers.

“And at least we know you can work the scrying spell,” Idalia said, taking another deep steadying breath. “And very thoroughly, too. Now it’s my turn.”

“But— Now?” Kellen said in dismay. He’d been sure that after something like that, they were going to call it quits for the day.

“No time like the present,” she said briskly. “Though if we end up back there again, I’m breaking out that bottle of mead I’ve been saving for a special emergency,” Idalia added, and she didn’t sound at all humorous. “And if that wasn’t some kind of Teaching Vision, then … then we’d better figure out what to do about it, hadn’t we?”

“But— But, Idalia?” Kellen asked. He knew this still wasn’t a good time to ask, but he knew he had to. With that terrible vision still in the forefront of his mind, he knew that the time for doubts and secrets was over.

“Yes, Kellen?”

“If— If it’s true— What you say—Then, why do you live here? You could live with the Elves—or, or, if you didn’t want to do that, you could live in the Centaur village, and not—not out here in the middle of nowhere where you can’t even take a bath? I was just …” Kellen stumbled to a halt, knowing he’d asked the question all wrong.

Idalia stared at him for a long moment, her face blank with surprise, then hugged him very hard. “Oh, my poor mixed-up baby brother! You’ve been tying yourself into knots over that? I live out here in the woods because I like to; I know you probably find this hard to believe, but when I’m around too many people, I start to feel uncomfortable and crowded. When you live even in a little village like Merryvale, you have to change what you do and how you act; maybe not by much, but it’s a restriction. And I’ll tell you another truth, if I lived in Merryvale, people would be coming to me to use Wild Magic for stupid little things all the time. I would either annoy them by refusing, or see my time and energy frittered away on nonsense. Living out here—well, they have to think very hard before they come to me.” She sighed, but smiled. “It’s as simple as that. People do like different things, you know. I like living alone, with no one to please but myself, and no one nagging me for love spells.” She kissed him gently on the forehead. “Now finish your cider.”

She handed Kellen his tankard and went over to the stand of ferns to pluck her own leaf. Kellen drank, and regarded the spring warily, but the water remained still and clear, with no trace of the fire and turmoil of his vision.

He felt a mixture of exhaustion and relief, as if somehow he’d passed a test he hadn’t known he’d been set. He believed Idalia, and Lycaelon had also been telling a kind of truth. Studying the Wild Magic destroyed a kind of defense against the Demons, because once you started to think for yourself, who knew what you might decide to think about? But Lycaelon knew nothing about what the Wild Magic was—rather less than Kellen actually knew about Demons, really. Everything Kellen had read in The Book of Moon, The Book of Stars, and The Book of Sun; everything he’d done with his own mixed-up spells; everything he’d seen Idalia do; all pointed to it only being able to be used for good. Unlike the mechanistic High Magick, as far as he could tell, the Wild Magic was self-aware, and that awareness was benevolent. He wasn’t Tainted, and neither was Idalia.

So as long as you’re really doing Wild Magic, you’re okay, I guess.

Until you stop.

And if there aren’t three other Books out there …

Idalia came back with her own leaf and knelt beside Kellen.

“Wish me luck, little brother,” she said, patting him on the knee.

The spell was swiftly cast, and to Kellen’s intense relief, the image that formed was a familiar one: the Council chamber in Armethalieh. He heard Idalia release a pent-up breath, and guessed she’d been a little worried as well.

But their relief was short-lived.

THE full Council was in session: thirteen High Mages seated at the curving judicial bench of black marble twice the height of a tall man, with Lycaelon Tavadon at their center on his black throne.

“Volpiril—Meron—Perizel—Lorins—Breulin—” Idalia named them all softly, going around the half circle.

Mage Breulin was speaking.

“We have had great success in our Northern and Southern Expansions, which, as you know, have been a priority over the past several moonturns. I am now pleased to report that our borders are clean and secure from the High Peaks in the north to the Arid Lands in the south, and we have brought several more of the unaligned villages previously outside our borders under Armethaliehan rule, to a concomitant increase in taxes and revenues. Their integration is proceeding smoothly, and we have been sending City Lawspeakers out to ride a regular circuit to make sure that all Enforcement Proclamations are read out on a timely basis. The Captain of the City Militia has requested permission to recruit and form five new units from the local villages in order to be able to support the Law-speakers.”

The motion was quickly passed, after a short discussion about recruitment policy, and the necessity of sending a Mage with the Militia to take care of any unusual problems right on the spot.

Then Lycaelon rose to speak.

“My fellow Mages. Mage Breulin’s news is welcome indeed, for how can the City flourish when our enemies are free to gather outside our walls and plot our downfall? Yet I worry that we concern ourselves with the lesser danger and ignore the greater. While we have been occupied with the admittedly necessary purification of our new northern and southern territories, I have sent my agents westward, and discovered that many who do not wish to accept our wise and enlightened rule are massing there. The Western Hills contain a number of flourishing villages, not only of humans, but cesspits where humans and talking beasts congregate together in direct opposition to the wise teachings of the Eternal Light.”

Several of the Council Mages frowned; Breulin stroked his beard, and leaned over to mutter something to the Mage at his right.

Lycaelon nodded approvingly when he saw the frowns. “As you know, our Hunt failed, which could only have happened if the most evil of forces had intervened. The Outlaw made his escape into the west, armed not only with the abomination of his dark magic, but with the deepest secrets of our City. Even now he may be leading innocent humans into error, as well as sharing our secrets with the cunning Other Races with which the Western Hills abound, who will seek our City’s downfall and the destruction of the Light for no more reason than that they exist.”

“Surely not!” one of the others exclaimed, though not as if he objected, but as if he was horrified.

Lycaelon bowed his head in a fine imitation of sorrow, but from their vantage, Kellen saw he was hiding a smirk. “Our way is hard,” the Arch-Mage said, mournfully. “Our resources are few. We are one city, alone, without allies, in the face of the teeming bestial hordes of Darkness and Error. But the Light defends us, and our course is clear: In the name of Humanity, for the sake of our lost and imperiled brethren, we must claim all of the Western Hills for Armethalieh and the Light—extend our borders once again, no matter the cost to ourselves, and send forth a Scouring Hunt to purge those lands of the creatures that would usurp Man’s rightful place in the world!”

There was a moment of silence, then the rest of the Council was on its feet, cheering Lycaelon as the vision slowly faded.

“BLOODY hell!”

Idalia threw her tankard into the spring and began to swear in low passionate tones. Some of the words Kellen had heard on the City docks; some of them he could only guess at the meaning of. She pounded her knee with a closed fist as she vilified every member of the Council, particularly Lycaelon.

Finally she turned from profanity to language that didn’t make his ears burn quite so much.

“That pompous precious prancing ass, that demagogue, that warmonger, that coward—simpering around like a maiden whose feelings are hurt and getting everyone else to do his dirty work for him, that—that—Oh, if Mother were only there, she’d spank him!”

At last she ran out of words and simply sat there, head down, breathing hard, as Kellen watched her anxiously.

Extend the borders of Armethalieh … to here? But that’s crazy. We’re hundreds of miles from the City. Shalkan had to run at top speed for a night and a day to get here, and a unicorn is faster than … How can the City possibly control this much territory?

Of course, the Mages could claim it … all that involved was the casting of a Boundary Spell. The magickal cost would be high, but that was the City’s problem.

And once they’d claimed it …

He looked up, and saw Shalkan watching him from the edge of the clearing.

“Is there trouble?” the unicorn asked.

“The City’s going to expand its boundaries—to here,” Kellen said bleakly.

Shalkan snorted and started back, then stamped his forehoof angrily.

“There’s nothing for it, then,” Idalia said angrily, fishing her tankard out of the spring, pouring the water out, and getting to her feet. “We’ll have to warn the villages and move farther west. Into the Elven lands, I guess—they won’t dare try to intrude there.”

“You mean we’re just going to run?” Kellen said indignantly, getting to his feet as well. “Just because the City decides it wants somebody else’s land? Why should we move? We should stay and fight!”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Idalia said blightingly. Then she shook her head, and moderated her tone. “I’m sorry, Kellen—I didn’t mean that; I’m angry at them, not you. You heard our beloved and most merciful father, though, and you should know what that means. They’re going to set the borders and then send a Scouring Hunt. They won’t even send out a Lawspeaker with a decree this time to give the Otherfolk time to get away. A Scouring Hunt is just that. They’ll send Hounds, hundreds of them. You and Shalkan fought two packs and barely survived. How can we—and half a dozen villages full of innocent, unarmed villagers without an ounce of magic among them, at least half of them mere children—fight against pack after pack after pack of Hounds?”

“Well, they can run, but we should fight!” Kellen exclaimed, feeling his face grow hot.

“And what if all my friends here decide to help us—they will, you know,” she replied tightly. “And then, because the ones that can fight have stayed, their families stay—”

“It isn’t fair,” Kellen muttered angrily, kicking at the ground. “We shouldn’t let them push us around!”

“If we stay and fight—if we don’t warn them—they’ll die, and is that fair?” Idalia demanded.

Kellen hung his head. “No,” he whispered. “But it isn’t fair,”he repeated.

“I know,” Idalia said gently, “but it’s the right thing to do.” She sighed, and upended the tankard, shaking out the last of the water. “The right thing to do is almost always the hardest.”

“How—how long do we have?” Kellen asked. His voice shook, just a little.

“Shalkan?” she asked.

“A moonturn at least,” the unicorn said, tilting his head to the side for a moment of thought. “They’ll have to gather the power to set the Bounds, then gather more to awaken the stone Hounds, even with every stonecutter in the City working day and night to craft as many as they’ll need. They’ll see no need for haste.”

“You don’t think so?” Idalia looked skeptical.

“How could the Western Hills possibly know what a special treat lies in store for them?” the unicorn said sarcastically. He tossed his head. “And we’ll need every moment of time between then and now, so we’d better get to it. I’ll warn everyone I can, but there are many I can’t approach. You’ll have your work cut out for you. Don’t dally.”

With a bound, the unicorn was off.

Kellen looked at Idalia and smiled crookedly, though he’d never felt less like smiling in his life. To be Banished was bad enough, but now, to be run out of the Wildwood when it was just starting to feel like home …

“Well, I guess I don’t have to worry about finishing that addition after all,” he said, trying to put a good face on things.

“And I guess you’re going to get to see the Elves,” Idalia said, doing her best to match his bantering tone. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”

BUT as they turned to the work of preparing to warn the Wildlanders of Armethalieh’s intentions, some of his father’s words came back to him, and Kellen found he couldn’t recognize himself in the oh-so-dangerous Outlaw Lycaelon had described.

Him? Know the deepest secrets of the City? When he’d wandered through his seventeen years there blind and half-asleep to everything the Mages did? Lycaelon was just putting on airs, trying to make him seem more of a danger than he was. He wasn’t a danger at all. All Kellen wanted was to be left alone—but telling the Council that wouldn’t suit Lycaelon’s plans. When he couldn’t even save himself from the Hunt without Shalkan’s help? Just who did his father think he was going to fool?

Maybe it didn’t matter. Lycaelon was creating a paper tiger, a bogeyman, out of the only material he had at hand, trying to make Kellen seem to be the heart and ringleader of some grand conspiracy of evil with designs on the conquest of Armethalieh, when in reality he wasn’t a danger at all, and never would be. All Kellen had wanted—all he’d ever wanted—was to be left alone—

That wouldn’t suit Lycaelon’s plans, now, would it?

“He’s using me as an excuse, isn’t he?” Kellen asked.

Idalia sighed. “If it gives you any comfort, yes, at least partly—though I’m sure Lycaelon also hopes that in extending the boundaries, he’ll get another chance to hunt you down as well. But I don’t think that’s the whole of it by any means. I’m sure that even if you were still tucked up safe in Armethalieh, the Arch-Mage would have found some bogeyman to wave in the Council’s faces. This can’t be a spur-of-the-moment thing.” She shook her head. “I just wish that I’d known about this sooner. Shalkan’s right. It’s going to take every moment we’ve got to get folk warned and out of here.”

“At least I am here now, and I know the truth,” Kellen replied, setting his chin with stubborn determination. “I’d rather know the truth and be here, facing a Scouring Hunt, than be sitting there, safe, believing his lies!”

IN his small office just off Arch-Mage Lycaelon’s far grander one, Chired Anigrel, the Arch-Mage’s own confidential secretary, awaited the outcome of the Council session as he worked his way slowly through a large stack of requisition forms, all of which would require the Arch-Mage’s personal signature and magickal seal.

He had no doubt of how the session would go. Lycaelon Tavadon was a persuasive orator, with the strength of utter conviction to lend power to his words.

It is always better that way. Sincerity is the best disguise of all.

And all the better for being no disguise. The Arch-Mage had no hidden agenda, no secret double game that lay beneath the surface of his words … aside from the rather charming and innocent desire to bend the entire Council wholly to his will or even dispense with it utterly. No, the secret desires and hidden agendas here within the Council House belonged solely to Lycaelon’s so-deferential and self-abasing private secretary and whipping-boy, Undermage Anigrel.

Who would have thought that both of Alance’s brats would show the Taint? Since Kellen’s—The Outlaw’s—Banishment, Lycaelon had been harder than ever to deal with. Anigrel could blot out the man’s petty life with a lifted finger, but every day he was forced to pretend that he was a mere Journeyman-Undermage, years away from attaining the exalted dignity and power of a High Mage. If not for the brat’s defection to the ancient enemy …

Anigrel gritted his teeth in annoyance at the lost opportunity that Kellen’s departure represented, and kept himself from blotting the parchment beneath his hand with an effort. If he had only managed to get Kellen under his thumb, and then corrupt him utterly, what a prize for his Dark Lady the boy would have been!

“There are no failures, only opportunities,” she had told him when he had told his Dark Lady what had happened, making his report as he did once each month at moondark. It was the greatest risk he took, the one moment of unhallowed magic that the Council might conceivably detect. But his talismans, spells, and wards protected him, and in all the years he had played his double-game, he had so far escaped discovery.

“Lycaelon is vulnerable now. Play upon his fears, make him believe that his son could not have escaped him without being cunning as a serpent and powerful as a Demon Prince. He wishes to make Armethalieh strong; foster those ambitions and make them synonymous with his own prosperity. Make the Golden City hated by all the world.”

Her mind-voice was like a caress, wakening a hunger that must go eternally unsatisfied, until he could rise high enough in the ranks of the Mages to slake his lesser appetites in the poorest quarters of the City.

Or until the City fell.

“Soon, my impatient love,” his Dark Queen purred in his mind. “Serve me well and you will have all you desire …”

And so, with an idle comment here, an innocent observation there, Anigrel had worked day and night to turn Lycaelon’s anger at his son’s defection outward to a hatred of the Free Borderers, and to fan a furious envy at Mage Breulin’s successful policies of enclosure into a more grandiose plan of his own. That Lycaelon’s agents had received the bit of fortunate intelligence about “The Outlaw’s” location at the most opportune moment to make an otherwise harmless boy into a nightmare menace was no surprise to Anigrel; he knew perfectly well who had given it to them, and why. The Dark Lady had agents everywhere, and if she could not have Kellen corrupted and in her power, she would use his mere presence on earth to serve her in other ways. Anigrel knew without envy that he was but a small component in a glorious Working, so that one day the Tree of Night would flower and spread its branches against the sky, blotting out the sun once more, this time forever.

And to his well-concealed relief, at last Lycaelon had taken his careful hints to heart. When the news about The Outlaw came, Lycaelon set Anigrel to immediately preparing the preliminary paperwork for a Scouring Hunt of enormous proportions. The Arch-Mage explained nothing, of course, but after laying so much groundwork, Anigrel didn’t find it difficult to guess what lay in Lycaelon’s mind.

Soon Lycaelon will come and tell you that he has proposed a glorious campaign against the east to extend the boundaries of the City all the way to the High Hills—incidentally running that dreadful and dangerous enemy, The Outlaw, to earth—all in the name of Purity, and that the Council has given it their full support. Be sure to act surprised, Anigrel told himself mockingly.

Chapter Sixteen

Revelry and Ashes

THE NEXT FORTNIGHT was a desperate race against time. Every village in the Western Hills was busy with harvest and had few people to spare for other tasks, but everyone who could be spared was sent with messages to still other villages and far-flung crofts, warning that Armethalieh was extending its reach into the Western Hills.

Kellen had gone back to Merryvale a few days later to meet with the Council of Elders. He spent two days there, explaining in detail what Armethalieh’s rule would mean to them—not only the taxes and tithes, the restrictive laws about what you could buy and sell, but the fact that nonhuman folk weren’t welcome in Armethaliehan lands at all, and mixed villages like Merryvale were considered an abomination by the Priests of the Light.

“But … why?” Master Eliron and the others kept asking him, and all Kellen could do was shake his head and repeat over and over: “That’s just the way it is.”

The debate went on endlessly, as if the people of Merryvale simply couldn’t comprehend what he told them. They probably couldn’t, he reflected. It must seem utter madness to people who had lived as they had for so many decades.

“But surely—if Armethalieh is a city of Law—we, too, will have rights,” the Mayor said hopefully. “We will send the City a petition protesting this violation of our sovereignty …”

“And I’m sure they will receive it, Master Badelz, and perhaps even read it. And they will tell you that the Law of the City is for the good of all, and that your rights begin and end with doing as you are told by the High Council. They will tell you that the Otherfolk have no rights, because they are not human, and the first thing they will demand is that you cast them out of Merryvale. And if you do not do as you are told, they will treat you as an enemy. Please, sir, remember that they have armed men, trained in fighting, to enforce their rule. What do you have? And they have High Mages, who—well, their magic doesn’t require the prices that Wild Magic does; they can make it do anything they want to. You’ve heard about the Outlaw Hunt—Idalia says a Scouring Hunt is a hundred times worse. They’re going to set it on all Wildmages, and all Otherfolk. And if you try to resist them they’ll set it on you humans.” He swallowed hard. “I am … I was the son of the Arch-Mage, Master Badelz. I know every Mage on the High Council, and they speak with one voice in this. I know what I’m talking about.”

Kellen almost wished he hadn’t told them that, because of the way they looked at him then, but he knew he had to convince them at any cost. Idalia was right. If the stone Hounds came here and attacked, there would be nothing left of the village.

But he also knew that the Hounds would be looking for him; and for Idalia most of all, once Lycaelon realized she was still alive. Idalia was right. If the two of them could cross the border into Elven lands before the Scouring Hunt was set loose, perhaps the Hounds wouldn’t waste too much of their energy on lesser targets.

“Well, if the colt says that, it’s good enough for me,” a Centaur named Yadrian said firmly. “I’m taking my family and heading east—now—before some greedy Mage decides to hitch me to a plow!”

It turned out that Yadrian spoke for most of the Centaurkin in Merryvale. By the time Kellen left the village, they had already begun dismantling their houses and shops, preparing to head east to places of greater safety. By the time the first Lawspeakers from the City arrived, the only sign that Centaurs had ever been here would be the carvings on the village walls—and the Lawspeakers and Militia would probably insist those be taken down and burned, Kellen thought gloomily. Not that it would matter much. He thought that even the humans who planned to stay and protest Armethalieh’s land-grab would be following the Centaurs and the rest of the Otherfolk within a season or two.

WHILE Kellen was in Merryvale, some of the other free souls who had heard the news came to visit Idalia. Most were afraid, all were angry—some were even angry for Idalia’s sake as well as their own.

“How can they do this to you, girl? I’ve half a mind to ride down into that City of theirs and fetch that high-and-mighty Arch-Mage a clout on the ear he wouldn’t soon forget!” Kearn said.

Kearn was a Mountain Trader, making a last pass into the lowlands before the snows made the passes of the High Reaches uncertain. He often stopped to look in on Idalia, and this year she was even gladder to see him than usual, for Kearn traveled with a hardy string of pack mules, and she and Kellen were going to need mobility and speed for themselves and their possessions to make their way west and over the border ahead of the Scouring Hunt.

At least the Centaurs have their own means of transportation, she thought regretfully.

“Ah, Kearn, if I thought it would do any good, I’d send you to him with my blessing. But the High Council Mages are”—she paused, trying to think of a way to make him understand—“they’re the worst possible combination of vices. They’re greedy, stupid and scared, and utterly convinced that they are the only possible people in the world who can, should, and deserve to sit in authority over others, and that’s all there is to it.” Idalia shrugged.

“Hard weather for the littlefolk, though,” Kearn said sympathetically. “They depend on you, you know. From what I hear, the City won’t have any care for them.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Idalia said crossly. “If I stay, things will only be worse for them—and I won’t be let to help them anyway with my ‘evil magic.’ ” She didn’t bother to remind him that she would be under a sentence of death for that same magic. “Besides, most of them are leaving now.”

“Aye, I thought the Wildwood seemed a bit thin of company as the girls and I rode through,” Kearn said, gesturing through the open door of the cabin to where a string of hobbled mules stood placidly behind a large white-stockinged bay. “So the Shining Folk are leaving as well?” he asked, using one of the many names the Mountain Traders had for the shyer Otherfolk.

“Why should they stay where they are not welcomed?” Idalia asked sharply. Shalkan had spread his warnings far and wide, and the dryads, sylphs, undines, gnomes, sprites, brownies, pixies, and fauns had already begun to leave the Wildwood and the surrounding hills. Even the dryads were leaving, difficult though that was for them; they were taking seedlings of their trees, and going. The land would be less fertile and forgiving in their absence—and wouldn’t that be an unwelcome surprise for the Mages, who must have gotten reports about how lush and productive the western farmland was?

“But I’m glad you’re here, Kearn. You’re a trader. I want to trade.”

Kearn regarded her with wary interest, for he’d traded with Idalia before, and knew she was a sharp bargainer. “I’m not sure I have anything you want with me this trip, Idalia,” he began slowly. “Unless you’re planning to come home with me, you and the boy. Not that it isn’t a great honor, of course …”

“You have the mules,” Idalia interrupted, cutting off what promised to be a lengthy speech.

“Sell one of my girls?” Kearn looked shocked. “They’re like family! Besides, I need them to carry my own things home.”

“But you won’t be waiting to take on a full load this trip,” Idalia pointed out mercilessly. “You’ll be heading home today or tomorrow, with only what you have now, because the news I’ve given you can’t wait a few extra sennights to be delivered. If Armethalieh is claiming the Western Hills, how long until it claims the Western Mountains, and everything right up to the Elven borders? For that matter, you’ll have a lot of folk heading out of the Hills up into your mountains now—right into the teeth of winter, some of them—humans and Centaurs, fauns, and others of the Shining Folk besides. Your folk will need to make ready to receive them.”

Kearn grumbled and stared at the ceiling, unable to argue against the truth she set forth so plainly. “Even supposing what you say is true, I’ll travel faster if my girls are lightly laden.”

“Which is why I wouldn’t bring it up unless I had something that would tempt even a hard-hearted old trader like you, Kearn,” Idalia said with a ruthless smile.

She walked into the bedroom and came back with a small folded packet of grey material in her hands. “This.”

“Is it a shirt, then?” Kearn asked, getting to his feet. He started to shake his head. “Now, Idalia, you know …”

“Not a shirt. Better.” Idalia shook out the tarnkappa and swirled it around herself.

And vanished.

“Do we have a bargain?” she said a moment later, folding the cloak over her hand. “With this you can take game even in deepest winter—you can’t be seen, or heard, or smelled. The cloak for my pick of your mules, plus its tack.”

Kearn stared, stupefied by what he’d just seen. “Idalia, this … you could buy a hundred mules for magic such as this.”

“But I only need one. And you have one to sell. And I don’t need this. And you want it. I need a mule, if Kellen and I are going to get out of here with more than we can carry on our backs. And you want it, don’t pretend you don’t.” At any other time, she’d have said that teasingly. Not today. “I can’t trade with the village; the village needs all its mules for those that are going to try to escape instead of trusting to the tender mercies of the High Council. And besides that, if the tarnkappa stays anywhere in the Western Hills the City Mages will only sniff it out and destroy it because it was made with Wildmagery, so there’s no point in trading it to someone who’s going to try to stay. So … do we have a bargain?”

“And it will never fail?” Kearn asked, holding himself back from reaching for it with a great effort.

“If it is not torn or burned. If it is used wisely—not to kill only for the sake of killing, or to kill what you don’t intend to eat or use, or to injure instead of kill. If you use it to do murder, Kearn, then I cannot say what will happen to the spell.” She gave him a penetrating look. “Remember; it was made with Wild Magic, and if you use it to do something the Wild Magic disapproves of—there’s going to be a price. I made it to hunt with.”

“I will do none of those things,” Kearn promised fervently, abandoning any further attempt to bargain. “I swear by the Wild Magic and the Hunt Law that I will never use this shamefully. Do we have a fair bargain, then?”

“A fair bargain,” Idalia agreed, placing the cloak in his hands. “Now let’s go look at the mules.”

WHEN Kellen returned from Merryvale, the first thing he saw was a friendly dun-colored mule tied out at the edge of the clearing, cropping away meditatively at the bushes.

“Do we have company?” he asked, sticking his head in the door of the cabin. Idalia was sorting through their belongings, picking the things they would take with them in their flight. The rest would be traded away, including the cabin itself.

Though Kellen could ride Shalkan Idalia would need a horse to ride, and good horses were expensive. Even more expensive now, with so many people fleeing; he feared it would take everything they owned, or near it, to acquire one. But then again, what were they to do with all the things they could not take with them?

Idalia shook out a blanket, and folded it into a tight packet. “No, she’s ours. I believe her name is Prettyfoot. A trader friend of mine came by while you were gone, and I was able to talk him out of one of his pack animals, for a price. He’s on his way back to the High Reaches now with the news from the City.” She added the blanket to a growing pile. “How did things go in the village?”

Kellen grimaced. He didn’t want to tell her what was only more bad news, but perhaps if she went to the village, they might believe her.

Or perhaps not. How much more could be said to convince them?

“I’m not sure if the humans really believed me about how bad it’s going to get, but the Centaurs did,” he said, finally. “They’re already packing up to leave. I think the Mayor’s planning to write a letter of protest to the High Council. Fat lot of good that’s going to do.” Kellen threw himself into a chair dejectedly.

Idalia sat down on a stool that Kellen had just finished before—

Before we found out we weren’t going to have a home to put it in anymore.

It wasn’t fair. I was just getting used to this place. I might even have gotten to like it in winter. It was a good stool, too …

Idalia shook her head. “When are the Centaurs leaving?” she asked.

“As soon as they can pack—they’re even tearing down their houses to make carts, some of them,” Kellen told her. He’d been amazed to see them hard at work, dismantling buildings, swiftly turning what had been walls and roofs into covered carts, which the Centaurs would pull themselves.

“So.” Idalia smiled, and he thought she wore an air of grim satisfaction. “When the City tax collectors arrive, they’ll find a village full of half-dismantled houses. I wish them joy of that.”

“Huh.” Oddly enough, that gave Kellen a little satisfaction himself. “And just wait until they find out that half the farming around here was done by the Centaurs. So much for those taxes.” He wondered just how much farming was going to get done by human farmers, used to having burly Centaurs helping with the plowing. “I hope Master Badelz says something about that …”

“Well, it won’t change the plans for annexation, but maybe it will convince the Council that they’d better keep their greedy fingers off the villages until they can sort out just how much revenue they’ve managed to drive away,” Idalia said, though without much hope. “Perhaps that will confuse things long enough for the rest of the humanfolk to make some real plans about what to do now that the City’s decided to become so greedy.”

“A lot of them think they can make the City see reason,” Kellen answered unhappily. “They think if they just send enough petitions, the Council will realize that they’ve trampled all over the laws of the villages, apologize, and go away.”

“And do they also expect that the winter snows will vanish if they create a law to banish them as well?” Idalia asked acidly, then sighed. “Never mind. Who knows? A miracle might happen. And in any event, if the two of us are gone when the Militia arrives and the Scouring Hunt is set loose, maybe the City won’t be in such a hurry to enforce its decrees.”

TO Idalia’s surprise—though not to Kellen’s, who had been in on some of the early plans—visitors began arriving at dawn of the day before the two of them were to leave: not only villagers from Merryvale, but others from villages and steadings even farther away. All arrived bearing the makings of a celebration: kegs of beer and wine and mead and cider, wheels of cheese, smoked hams, loaves of honey-glazed bread.

It was quite literally dawn. This, Kellen had not expected, though he had been awake and working on the preparations for their own departure the moment there was any light in the sky. Idalia had elected to stay abed a little longer than that, but the first of the visitors arrived with a great deal of noise, despite Kellen’s attempts to hush them. And there was no keeping the surprise secret at that point.

“I—I—what?” Idalia stammered, staggering out the door of the cabin, still in her sleeping-shift, with her hair tumbled over one sleep-fogged eye, to stare befuddled at the first of the arriving visitors.

“Well, don’t stand there gawping, you witless woman! It’s a good-bye party—and we’ve brought good eating, too,” Cormo growled, glaring at her with mock ferocity.

The Centaur was nearly unrecognizable, though for an entirely different reason than on his last visit to the clearing. His hair and beard and tail were neatly combed and trimmed. He wore a new smooth-leather vest, bright with embroidery. His coat had been brushed until it gleamed, and his hooves were oiled, trimmed, and polished. And most amazing of all, he was pulling a two-wheeled cart—he could easily have reduced it to kindling with a few well-placed kicks, had he wished—piled high with provisions for the feast. Haneida sat placidly on the seat, a bright shawl wrapped around her.

“You heard what he said. It’s a going-away party,” Kellen said, coming up behind Idalia and grinning like a fiend.

He was very well pleased with himself over this; planning the party had given his new friends something to look forward to in all of the sadness of the many departures, a bright spot in a very gloomy situation. He was equally pleased with being able to outwit his sister well enough to keep it all secret.

She turned on him, advancing on him and making him back away into the cabin. “You … brat! You knew this was going to happen!” Idalia sputtered. She was crimson—he thought not with rage, but certainly she was as embarrassed as he’d ever seen her. And suddenly there was a wicked look in her eye …

“I knew they wanted to have a party to see you off,” Kellen said, turning to flee.

But there was nowhere to flee to.

“You told them when we were leaving!” she growled, and grabbed for his collar.

He tried to dodge out of reach, but it was a small cabin. “I might have—help!—told someone—yow!—that we were leaving tomorrow! But I didn’t think they’d start so early! Honest, Idalia! Help!”

But it was no good. She’d backed him into the bedroom, tripped him onto the bed, and pummeled him into submission with the pillow.

“Monster! Beast!” she shouted, punctuating each epithet with a whack from a pillow. “Fiend! Serpent! Brother! Letting me walk out into the middle of that in my shift with my hair in rats! Hanging’s too good for you. Much too good for you,” she added meaningfully, tossing the pillow aside and crooking her fingers into claws.

And then she tickled him until he was helpless and breathless with laughter.

“It is, it really is,” Kellen agreed fervently. “Only just don’t tickle me anymore!”

“Well, get up,” Idalia said unfairly, giving him one last swat with the pillow and bouncing off the bed. She scooped up his buckskins (since he’d been stripped to his smallclothes in order to get water wrestled up from the stream for baths) and flung them at him. “Out!”

Kellen dressed in the kitchen, watching the hubbub through the half-opened door. In the few short minutes he’d been gone, the clearing already looked like it belonged to someone else—people were taking down the cookpit and raking the area smooth, taking the logs that were to have gone to become the floor of the addition to Idalia’s cabin and making trestle tables of them instead. He could hear the sound of hammers and saws, and smell the scent of fresh sawdust on the air.

Everything in the cabin but what they were taking with them, from the bed to the walls to the planks of the floor, would be going as well once they left, and already the cabin was far barer than it had been when Kellen came. But Idalia had traded to good purpose in the last fortnight, trading large bulky items for small and valuable ones, until after a number of clever trades and a little payment in magic, she had been able to buy the neat black mare Coalwind, the pride of Badelz’s stables, who was tethered contentedly beside Prettyfoot in a nearby clearing. The fauns adored her and spoiled her outrageously, bringing her bunches of clover and dryad-apples. The mare, for all her breeding and promised turn of speed, seemed to have good manners and a quiet disposition—a good thing, considering the amount of noise Idalia’s farewell party was going to make, if these early preparations were any indication.

Kellen was just lacing up his boots when Idalia came out of the bedroom. She glanced out the door, and smiled weakly. “It looks like it’s going to be a very large party.”

Kellen nodded. “But most of the folk won’t be here until afternoon, Master Badelz and Master Eliron said,” he added helpfully.

For once, Idalia looked to be at a total loss for words. “Well. I just didn’t expect … Kellen, these people are losing their homes, their farms, everything they’ve grown up with and worked for because of me … and they’re throwing me a party?”

“And because of me, too, don’t forget,” Kellen pointed out reasonably. “Lycaelon left you alone for years. He didn’t even let a summer pass before he started hunting me again. But still … a party’s a party. It’s done them a lot of good to have something happy to plan. And it’s probably the last good time these folks are going to see for a while. We ought to let them enjoy it—when Master Badelz suggested it, I figured it was as much for them as for us. Probably more.”

“Yes,” Idalia said with a sigh, giving in to the inevitable. “I guess it is. Anyway, I want you to take these out to Coalwind and Prettyfoot and braid them into their manes. I know a mule doesn’t have much mane, but do what you can. They’re just a couple of simple charms that should keep them from being worried by anything they see or hear. I don’t want them getting spooked and trying to run off.”

She handed him two small clear round lumps of yellow amber, each strung on a short length of red ribbon. Kellen could feel warmth and serenity radiate from them—a simple spell of comfort and protection.

“Got one for me?” he asked with a smile.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re on your own, brother mine. Try the mead.”

KELLEN was relieved to find Coalwind and Prettyfoot right where he’d left them. He was glad to see they hadn’t been upset enough to try to run off when all the noise started. Then again—since half of the people making the noise were Centaurs, maybe it had sounded like a normal gathering of their own kind to the horse and mule.

He’d paused on his way out to pick up a small bucket of grain—one of the things Idalia had traded for was grain for the animals, since they couldn’t afford to let them wander far enough now to keep themselves in natural forage, and once they were on the road they certainly wouldn’t be able to go slowly enough to let them feed themselves. Since he was carrying the bucket, both animals looked up alertly when he arrived. Their ears pricked forward when they spotted the grain bucket, and Coalwind whickered flirtatiously.

He set the bucket down and retrieved their halters from a nearby branch, then haltered both animals before removing their hobbles, remembering to hold firmly to their lead-ropes as he did. Kellen wasn’t an expert horsemaster, he wasn’t even close, but fortunately he’d spent a little time around his father’s stables when he’d been younger—before that activity had been added to Lycaelon’s “forbidden list”—and Idalia had refreshed his memory on the important points. Always put the halter on before taking off the hobbles. Always feed the two animals far apart (Coalwind was a hog and a thief, and would steal Prettyfoot’s grain if she could). Don’t walk up behind them. Never expect them to be able to see him, even if he thought he was in plain sight; make quiet noise from a distance. Stay out from under their feet unless absolutely necessary. And get used to slobber, because horses don’t have table manners.

Though the rules applied more to horses than to mules (and none of them applied to unicorns!), it didn’t do any harm to treat the two animals equally. Coalwind was trying to pull toward the bucket, but he led her firmly over to a tree and tied her there with close attention to the knots, then led Prettyfoot to another tree several yards away. Only then did he get the grain and pour it out on the ground where the animals could get at it.

While they were eating, Kellen braided the charms into their manes. Coalwind was easy; the only difficulty was getting her to hold still while he did it, for she seemed to have the idea firmly fixed in her head that if she could just investigate every bit of his clothing, she’d find a treat (which was often the case on other occasions). But he got the charm securely braided into her mane at last. And the warm glint of the amber against her dark coat was a very pretty sight.

But Prettyfoot, as Idalia had predicted, was much harder to attach the charm to. The mule’s mane was more like Shalkan’s—a short stiff brush running the length of her neck—and there was no possible way he could braid anything into it.

At last he settled for tying it onto the halter to dangle down her forehead. He’d thought about tying it into her tail, but she’d probably eat it, and even if amber wasn’t going to do the insides of a mule any harm, Idalia would be annoyed to lose a nice big piece of amber as a mule-treat. He thought that would hold, at least for tonight.

And tomorrow they’d be gone.

A peculiar sadness filled Kellen at the thought. Not homesickness precisely, because he hadn’t really been here long enough for this place to become home. But it might have become home, given a little more time, and he felt an unsettled grief at the lost opportunity.

Kellen pushed the thought aside. There were others whose suffering and loss were far greater—both now, and in the moonturns to come.

Had the High Council lost its tiny collective mind? He knew the regular citizens of Armethalieh didn’t question the Mages’ decisions—hell, they didn’t even know about half of them—but surely they’d notice that the City had suddenly decided to claim hundreds—no, thousands—of miles of new territory for no particular good reason? The Mages would have to tell them. It wasn’t something that could be done out-of-sight, like so many of the Mages’ dealings. The City might claim there would be an increase in wealth for the City, but there would also be an increase in cost to the City—both magickal cost, which maybe the common folk wouldn’t notice, but also the cost in people to send to hold those new lands, which was why the people would have to know: those Militia troops he’d seen in Idalia’s vision were going to have to come from somewhere, after all.

And troops had to be paid and provisioned—fed and clothed and given horses and armor and weapons—and the money for all of that had to come from somewhere. New taxes, which maybe the common folk wouldn’t notice, but also the cost in people—drawn from the Home Farms, of course—sent to hold the new territory; those Militia troops he’d seen spoken of in Idalia’s vision.

And if the villages fought back …? More troops would surely be sent.

Then the cost goes up. And they’ll notice that, that’s for sure, Kellen thought bleakly. Everywhere he’d ever gone in the City—outside of the Mage Quarter, of course—taxes had always been a major topic of discussion. But what would the people do about it?

He had no idea.

But—probably nothing. So long as nothing changes for each of them personally, they probably won’t care. The Council has kept other things secret, why not this?

It wouldn’t be that hard, so long as the Mages were able to keep the fact that there was actual fighting going on a secret. If they actually sent non-Mages outside the walls—Kellen supposed it was possible; he wouldn’t put anything past the Council at this point—all they had to do was just remove those inconvenient memories from the soldiers once the men returned, and, oh, tell them they’d been to the Out Islands, or something. Even if people from Armethalieh actually died, it could be covered up. Tell grieving relatives that their sons died of a snakebite, or sudden fever, or an accidental fall. All those things could happen in the City. Just make sure that relatives of the dead didn’t get together and discover how many “accidents” there were. The bodies would be given back to the Light, and the Mages would be able to keep their dirty little secrets.

With careful management, no one would ever find out what was really happening, at least, not in Armethalieh.

Not that anyone ever did know what was really happening.

“Not in Armethalieh,” Kellen said aloud, watching the mule’s ears swivel around to catch the words.

When the animals had finished their breakfast, Kellen took them down to the stream for a drink.

HE was standing beside them, not thinking about anything in particular, when there was a splash at his feet. He looked down.

There was a selkie in the water. Kellen had seen them only rarely; the sleek, dark-furred, big-eyed creatures were shy of humans, preferring deep woods and twilight, although once they got over their shyness, they were as playful as otters and twice as amusing, because of their keen senses of humor. Many of them lived in or near the ocean, where they were usually mistaken for seals by those humans who managed to glimpse them. This one blinked up at him, its large silver eyes a startling paleness in its dark-furred face.

“Kellen isss leaving?” the selkie asked, its long whiskers bristling as it spoke. “Idalia isss leaving?”

“Yes,” Kellen said. He was surprised to see it at all. He’d thought all the river-folk, selkies and undines and water-sprites, were already safely gone, warned by Shalkan and the others who carried his message. “And you should leave, too. The City is coming. The Mages don’t like your kind. They’re sending a Scouring Hunt.” And even if stone mastiffs couldn’t swim very well—not at all, in fact—that hardly mattered, since they didn’t need to breathe. Land or water, no place was safe.

“I go,” the selkie agreed, speaking slowly and carefully. Its short sharp-toothed muzzle wasn’t well shaped for forming human speech—the selkies’ own language consisted of guttural barks and high-pitched chittering—but selkies loved all things new and strange, and found the effort of speaking to humans in their own language enormously entertaining. “Take fissshhh, too. Alll fisshhh. We take.” Its round silver eyes crinkled in merriment, inviting Kellen to share the joke.

Kellen blinked, slowly understanding what the selkie was telling him. All the fish? From all the rivers? Gone?

He began to laugh. “You do that, friend. Take the fish. All the fish. And good luck to you.”

The selkie reached up out of the water, extending its paw to Kellen, fingers spread wide. Kellen could see the thick webbing between the digits, the long curved gleaming nails that could shear through the toughest scales. He clasped the hand gently, and felt an answering pressure in return.

“Good-bye,” Kellen said. “Fare you well.”

The selkie released his hand, and slipped beneath the surface of the water, invisible once more.

Shaking his head in amusement, Kellen led Coalwind and Prettyfoot back into the woods to fresh grazing. In a few hours he’d come back and lead them in closer to the cabin, tying them up securely for the night so they couldn’t wander. He had no desire to spend several hours come tomorrow’s dawn trying to find them!

“No fear of that,” Shalkan said, stepping daintily out of the woods, hidden until that moment, though how something the size of a pony and whiter than new velum could hide that easily, Kellen could never figure out. “I’ll keep an eye on them.”

“Will you?” Kellen regarded the unicorn with relief. “Thanks. That’ll be a great help.”

Shalkan dipped his horn, acknowledging the thanks. “I was waiting for you to ask.”

Kellen shrugged. “I didn’t want you to miss the party if you were in the mood for it. It just seems like I’m asking you for so much already.”

“You mean, being your noble conveyance to the Elven lands?” The unicorn snorted. “I’d be going there anyway. If it’s a choice between that and facing another dozen packs, I’d say it’s no choice at all, my friend. And you’ll find the Elves … interesting. Humans do.”

Kellen would have dearly loved to ask Shalkan more about the Elves, but this was no time to get into one of the unicorn’s elliptical conversations. Idalia already blamed him for springing the party on her. If he disappeared for most of the day, she’d probably arrange to have him drowned in a keg of cider. So he abandoned the interesting topic in favor of telling Shalkan what the selkie had told him.

“They’d take the fish from the lakes as well, if they could, as the dryads would take the fruit from their trees,” Shalkan said. “The City will find no welcome in the Western Hills when it comes, nor do I think the farmers who remain will have an easy life. They will not thank the City for that.”

“No,” Kellen agreed glumly. He hobbled the mare and the mule once again, and turned them out to graze, retrieving the bucket from where he’d left it.

“Well, see you later. I’ll save you some honey-cakes.”

“See that you do,” Shalkan said with mock severity, switching his tufted tail. “And if anyone’s brought any of those maple-syrup candies, and I find out you didn’t save me at least two …”

“At least!” Kellen promised, and hurried back toward the cabin.

Shalkan, of course, stayed out of sight with the mule and the horse—he wasn’t at all comfortable, Kellen had noticed, with so many people about, most of them (probably) not virginal—and Kellen was just a little bit curious about how Shalkan and Idalia were going to handle traveling in close proximity together, though both of them agreed it was necessary. Finally he decided there was no sense worrying about it. He’d be finding out. And soon, too.

KELLEN spent the rest of the day helping with the preparations for the party. His own and Idalia’s arrangements for leaving were all but finished, and there was really nothing left for him to do there. Besides, working kept him from thinking. And there was plenty of work to do: helping to put up the poles that would hold the various awnings and canopies, climbing trees to hang lanterns (knowing he—or someone—would have to climb them again later to light the lanterns), fetching and carrying kegs and bundles, all the while sniffing glorious smells and stealing tastes of delicacies that would be unveiled later.

And hearing people talk about the days ahead, which sometimes meant hearing more than he wanted to.

“I’M not going without you, you damned foolish old besom,” Cormo rumbled, in what was—for him—a quiet undertone. It was entirely audible ten feet away, where Kellen was digging a new firepit.

“And I’m not going,” Haneida said peaceably. “These old bones are much too old to be bundled up like a goosedown mattress and hie themselves up into the mountains like someone’s luggage. And what would I tell my bees? I’m staying.”

Cormo stamped his hoof. “Then I’m staying too, you senile old halfwit.”

Haneida tsked. “Such love-talk! Cormo, your mother fell in love with a donkey. You can’t stay, and I won’t go,” Haneida said reasonably.

“I promised,” Cormo growled in dangerous tones. “And I’m not leaving you with nobody to take care of you.”

Suddenly Kellen realized that there was more at stake here than one stubborn old woman, and an equally stubborn Centaur. Cormo had promised the Wild Magic to haul Haneida’s cart to market for a year and a day. Very quietly, Kellen set down his shovel and went looking for Idalia.

He found her inside the cabin, with several of the village women. All the furniture had already been taken outside, even the bed, and the doors had been removed to serve as tables. Their equipment was in the bedroom; they’d sleep on their bedrolls on the floor tonight and get an early start in the morning. The main room was filled with more provisions; stacked hampers and sturdy boxes, making it look less like a cabin and more like a small supply pantry.

“Idalia, can I talk to you? Alone?”

Idalia excused herself and came outside. It took a few minutes before they could find a place that was reasonably private.

“It’s Cormo,” Kellen said before Idalia could say anything. “I heard him arguing with Haneida. He’s saying he won’t leave with the last of the other Centaurs when they go. I know Merana’s still here, but that’s because Master Eliron’s going and she’s going with him. But Haneida says she won’t leave, and Cormo says he won’t leave without her.” His brow furrowed with worry; it didn’t seem right that Cormo should do all the improving he had only to be punished for trying to keep his word and his pledge!

“I think he’s worried about what will happen if he doesn’t pay his part of the Price for the Healing you did for him, and that’s why he won’t leave, so if you could just talk to him …”

Kellen’s voice trailed off. Idalia was smiling and shaking her head.

“Brother mine, I love you dearly, but sometimes you can be as sweet and dim as a—as a toffee-covered lantern! I’ve already spoken to Cormo, days ago—the Gods would never punish someone by forcing them to keep to the terms of a bargain when a situation had changed so drastically. Cormo knows nothing will happen to him if he doesn’t stay and pay the price he agreed to—and just between you and me, what he’s done for Haneida in the last fortnight has been payment in full! No. The reason he doesn’t want to leave her is because he’s afraid of what will happen to her when she’s left all alone; she still refuses to move down into the village, even though half the houses are standing empty now. He isn’t wrong to worry, but she’s right, too: she’s far too frail to survive the journey into the High Hills with winter coming on.”

That put a different complexion on things, but it didn’t make things any better, at least from where Kellen was standing.

And Haneida wasn’t the only one … There were so many old folks in the village, too old to move. How would the Militia and the Mages treat them?

For that matter, what would happen to Cormo? “Oh, Idalia, what are they going to do? What are they all going to do?” Kellen asked helplessly.

“Their best,” Idalia said grimly. “That’s all anyone can do. You, me, Cormo, Haneida … all any of us can do is our best. Now come. You’re the one who told me that a party was the best medicine for future ills. Smile. It’s the least we can do for them. And we owe them that.”

BY late afternoon the farewell party had begun in good earnest, when the musicians began tuning up and the much-awaited cold dishes were finally set out on the long tables. The roasted meats would not be ready for several hours yet, but that hardly mattered. The drinking and feasting would go on all night, from what Kellen could tell.

There would be some speeches of well-wishing, but as Master Badelz had told Kellen when he’d arrived an hour before, it was only a fool who attempted to catch the attention of a hungry crowd. People who had been working or traveling all day were looking forward to food and gossip and lively tunes, not speeches, the Mayor of Merryvale said. A few hours of that, and they’d be ready to listen to the likes of him!

Kellen hadn’t seen so many people in one place since he’d left Armethalieh. They filled the entire clearing and spread into the woods beyond—not only humans and the few Centaurs who hadn’t yet left, but the Otherfolk that anyone could see: Fauns and brownies, pixies and gnomes. Even those folk invisible to those without a touch of the Sight were here: dryads clustered among the trees, sylphs in the air above them, flower-sprites and forest-fae flitting among the leaves.

Now the musicians, having fortified themselves with a quick visit to the kegs, were tuning up and preparing to play.

One of them was a Centaur, one of the few who had remained. He was the oldest Centaur Kellen had ever seen. His hair and beard and tail were quite white, and his chestnut coat had faded with time to a very pale pink. He moved with the slow certainty of age, and a young blacksmith had to lend his shoulder to help the ancient one gain the musicians’ stage, for Centaurs, like the horses they partially resembled, were clumsy around steps of any kind. The crowd watched in hushed expectancy; even Idalia, standing beside Kellen in the crowd, seemed excited.

“Oh, I never thought I’d get to hear Verlin play one last time! You’re in for a treat, Kellen,” she said happily.

Once settled on the stage, Verlin carefully removed a carry-bag from his shoulder, and extracted the strangest item Kellen had seen. It must be a musical instrument, but what kind? It had strings, but it was too small to be a lute, and the wrong shape besides. Besides, he had a bow in his other hand, and the only instrument Kellen knew that used a bow was a psaltery.

Then Verlin tucked the flat paddle-shaped not-a-lute beneath his chin and began to play.

A wail of unfamiliar sound assaulted Kellen’s ears. He’d never heard anything like it in his life, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to now; the sound made him think of riding Shalkan through the midnight forest during his escape and drinking a pint tankard of mead both at once. It took his breath away and made him want to yell and run in circles—at the same time, if possible. The drum and pipe sharing the stage with Verlin joined in, and so did the spectators, stamping and clapping to the rhythm of the music. Some stepped back to watch, others came forward to dance.

Idalia grabbed Kellen’s hands and dragged him in among the dancers.

“Idalia—no! I don’t—” Kellen yelled.

“Relax—you learned this one back in the City!” she shouted back.

And it was true, though there the steps were slow and decorous, and certainly did not involve whirling your partner high into the air to be caught by another. But they were the same steps, and once Kellen realized that, he let the music take him, stamping and whirling through the complicated figures with an ease that made his partners shout and whistle appreciatively.

“WHAT … is … that thing?” Kellen asked his sister, when the music had changed to a slower piece to give the dancers time to catch their breath, and he and Idalia had gone in search of refreshment. Their progress was slow, for everyone wished to say personal good-byes to the two of them, but at last they had a moment to themselves.

“Verlin calls it a fiddle-faddle. They come from the High Reaches. I’m sure the Mountain Traders have offered them to the City, but I don’t suppose they’ve ever been licensed there.” Idalia snorted. “Why ask? Of course they haven’t. ‘Lute and harp were good enough for our grandfathers, certainly they are good enough for us,’ ” she said, in a fair imitation of Lycaelon at his most patronizing.

“And flute,” Kellen said helpfully. “And one or two other things. We got a bowed psaltery five years ago because we already had the plucked and hammered kind. But, oh, Idalia—it makes such wonderful music! And just think of all the other things out here in the world that never made it through the Golden Gates! Here, and beyond the Sea, and, oh, everywhere!”

It just made his heart ache to think of it. All the opportunities lost … all the things that could have been, and never were. It was enough to make you weep … .

WATCHING Kellen’s rapt excited face as he spoke of Verlin’s fiddle-faddling, Idalia blessed the old Centaur for staying behind to play here tonight. Since their discovery of the High Council’s plans, Kellen had been dangerously closed-in and angry, and anger was a perilous self-indulgence for a Wildmage.

It was not that those who walked the path of the Wild Magic were expected to detach themselves from human emotion, for that road led quickly to the closed-off asceticism of the High Magick, with all its pitfalls. Wildmages lived in the world, not cut off from it, and were expected to participate in all its griefs, terrors, and loves.

But anger was a destructive emotion, more so than any other. It destroyed the capacity for clear sight that a Wildmage needed above all things, and the first thing it destroyed was self-judgment. A Wildmage poisoned by anger might never even know it until it was too late, thinking only that he or she was filled with a righteous need to bring justice and balance back into the world.

That the Wildmage’s spells would turn against them and fail them, that the price exacted would be too heavy to bear for a spell cast in blind anger, would be cold consolation to Idalia if the caster was Kellen.

But everything was going to be all right. She was sure of it now. Sometimes Idalia forgot how young her little brother was, how sheltered a life he’d led until the last few moonturns. He was only seventeen; far too young to bear the burden of guilt for the flight of the inhabitants of the Western Hills into unknown peril.

Until tonight she’d been afraid that the guilt would sour him, the anger work in him like a canker, and his thoughts turn into darker paths. It was enough to unsettle a far older and steadier soul … but Kellen could not have responded so to Verlin’s music if the toxins of blind revenge were working in him.

She was furious with their father and the Council, and had fought a hard and bitter battle against her own rage to keep it from affecting her. Why couldn’t Lycaelon leave well enough alone? Kellen was gone from the City; as good as dead to him. What in the name of the Gods was driving the man on this suicidal course? The City could never possibly hold the territory Lycaelon so rashly claimed. The Wildlanders would fight back eventually; the western farmers weren’t Lycaelon’s tame cowed lowland villagers, nor yet his utterly pacified Armethaliehans.

Yes, if they resisted, they would lose. If they fought, they would die. And the High Council might get its own way for a time, “ruling” over lands they had emptied of the people who had lived and worked there.

But High Magick wasn’t free for the asking. Like the Wild Magic, it, too, had a price and must be paid for. If the High Council had to spend more and more of its power to pacify its new Western Holdings, where would they go to replace it?

And what would happen when, in the fullness of its ambition, the High Council of Armethalieh turned its attention from the Western Hills to the High Hills?

Idalia smiled her hard wolf-smile. The Mountain Traders had nowhere else to go: their lands backed directly on the Elven borders, and the Elves would not give up their lands for the asking. And even if the Mountain-folk did have somewhere they could flee to, they wouldn’t: the Mountain Traders had hated the City for generations with a cordial and stubborn hate. They hated the Council and its policies nearly as much as they loved their wild mountains—they would not abandon them for the Elven forests even if that was possible. And the Mountain-folk were far from helpless. By now, most of the Wildmages that had been driven out of every other place that Armethalieh had taken for its own were gathering in the High Reaches. The Mountain Traders would be able to call upon magical defenders of their own.

Armethalieh would regret its greediness. Perhaps not this year. Perhaps not in ten years. But if it pursued its present policies, the City was in for the fight of its life. Perhaps even a war … and that meant the Mages would be using their High Magick on the war instead of at home on the City. Magick that had once gone to provide the most comfortable possible life for the citizens of the Golden City, the City of a Thousand Bells, would be squandered—to the Armethaliehans’ way of thinking—invisibly and unnoticeably, far from home and hearth. And what would Armethalieh’s citizens say when their comforts were abruptly withdrawn, to no purpose they could see?

There would be trouble. Trouble within, trouble without.

Change.

And it’s your own fault, Lycaelon Tavadon. You could have left us in peace, left the Western Hills and the High Reaches in peace, lived out your life as Arch-Mage of the High Council and had everything you ever wanted within those eight walls. But you let greed and pride and anger blind you, and now you’re going to destroy yourself.

Along with a great many innocent bystanders.

Idalia sighed. Her shoulders drooped tiredly. She could see it so clearly, not with magic, but as a thing of logic and the mind, the way an Elven xaqiue-master could see the outcome of the game once the first piece was shifted on the board.

But things might yet come out differently. All the pieces might not yet be on the board. She could only hope that was true, because the one thing she did know was that terrible as the picture her imaginings painted was, there was nothing for her to do to avert the future she saw. The only thing she could do was what she was doing: remove herself and Kellen beyond the City’s reach, into the land of the Elves.

That it was the one place in all the world she’d sworn she’d never return to was irrelevant. It was the only choice on a short list of possible destinations.

And this should teach her not to swear by “never” and “forever.”

THE Mayor’s speech, when he finally made it, was short—concentrating entirely on what a wonderful person Idalia was and how sorry they all were to see her go, without one word about the City—and followed by several others by other Guildmasters and village leaders in the same vein. Kellen’s suspicions had been completely lulled by the time he was seized and lifted up onto the platform.

He stared down at the sea of waiting faces with dawning shock and horror.

“They’re waiting to hear a few words from you, boy,” the Mayor said, nudging him gently. “You’re her brother, after all.”

“Uh … hi. I’m Kellen,” Kellen said. “I guess you know that.”

Appreciative laughter and cheers, with calls of “Good start!” and “Go on!” and “Tell us something we don’t know!”

What could he say? Kellen stared out at all of them. He had to say something! “I—” He stopped. Silence spread out from the speaker’s platform like ripples from a flung stone. Everyone was looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to go on. He stared around wildly, willing Idalia to come rescue him, but his sister was nowhere in sight. He took a deep breath. He’d faced an Outlaw Hunt, and it hadn’t been harder than this.

“I haven’t been here long,” he said at last. “I wish it could have been longer. I haven’t been very many places, but this is the best place I’ve ever been. Thank you—all of you—for being so kind. For being our friends. For welcoming me and—and giving me a place to belong, even if I didn’t get to enjoy it for long.” Suddenly inspired, he bowed—a full, courtly, City-style bow.

Everyone cheered. Before they could quiet down and ask him to say anything else, Kellen turned and quickly jumped down off the platform.

It was almost dark by now, and Kellen took advantage of that to make his way to the edges of the party. He thought about it, and then kept going. There was something sort of unsettling in the air. He wasn’t completely sure of what it was, but for the first time in many sennights, he was reminded again of the vow he’d sworn to Shalkan. Chastity and celibacy. He wasn’t sure how or why, but he didn’t think either promise would be really easy to keep back at the party, between the music and the dancing and the kegs of beer, wine, mead, and hard cider being tapped in such abundance. Like his own speech, the gaiety had a sharp air of desperation under it, the music more than a hint of melancholy; combine that with a little too much to drink and—

And things might get out of hand. Quickly. Maybe he’d just go and keep Coalwind and Prettyfoot company until things quieted down a little bit.

Honey-cakes. I promised Shalkan some honey-cakes. And those little maple candies.

Kellen stopped a few yards up the forest path, fretting. The sweets would all be gone if he didn’t go back for them now. He sighed, looking back at the lights in the clearing. It was quiet out here, and he could hear the music drifting enticingly through the trees behind him. It was a little chilly, and back there were fires and warmth. The air smelled of damp earth, and back there were the scents of cooking meat, mulled ale, and woodsmoke. He knew it would be a bad idea to go back there. He’d gotten away once by doing the unexpected. He couldn’t expect to be so lucky twice, and of course everybody wanted to wish both him and Idalia well. And with those wishes came tankards of drink from the men, and kisses from the women and girls. One or two of those farewell kisses had left him feeling flushed and uncomfortable already, and those were from the girls he knew the least …

But he’d promised …

As he stood in the darkness of the forest he realized that it was dark here under the trees, too dark to find his way, and the moon wasn’t going to be high enough to show him the way to where he’d left the horses for several hours.

Great. Now I do have to go back. Honey-cakes and a lantern …

He looked back at the clearing, and for a moment had the unsettling impression that one of the lights was swelling like a frog about to sing. Then he realized that it was moving. Away from the party. Moving toward him.

Kellen slithered behind the nearest big tree and waited.

Merana came walking slowly down the trail, placing each hoof slowly and carefully. She had a basket over one arm, and was holding a lantern high over her head and talking to herself in a loud whisper.

“Idalia said he’d be out here somewhere. Kellen? Are you here? Kellen?” She held the lantern down near the ground and peered at it, looking for footprints that weren’t there, then straightened, and peered at the trees on either side of the path.

“Kellen?” she called in a louder voice. “Are you here? Kellen?”

When Kellen didn’t immediately answer, Merana took another couple of hesitant steps down the path, then stopped, fidgeting and whispering to herself again. “She must have been wrong. Why would he be wandering around alone when he could be snuggled under a blanket and a cart with a nice warm willing—”

Kellen decided he didn’t want to hear any more, and stepped out from behind the tree. Merana squeaked, and for a moment he thought she was going to rear up like a startled horse.

“Kellen?” she said out loud. “What are you doing here? You gave me such a fright!”

“Sorry,” Kellen said. He couldn’t exactly say what he was doing out here, because he didn’t really know himself. “Idalia sent you to look for me?”

“Uh-huh.” Merana nodded. “She packed a basket for you, with a warm cloak and everything. Are you sure you don’t want to stay for the rest of the dancing and all?” she added pleadingly, switching her tail so that the bells braided into it jingled. “I’ve—we’ve hardly gotten warmed up.”

He shrugged. “Guess not. It’s a great party, though.”

“The best,” Merana said eagerly. “Almost as fine as Harvest Home—though I don’t know as anybody’s going to be doing much celebrating of that this year,” she added, with a hint of that dark mood that seemed to be underlying everything at the festivities. She set down the basket and held out the lantern. Kellen took it.

“Won’t you need it?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I can make my way back by the lights, fear you not. Well, I guess this is good-bye, then. A kiss for luck?” she added hopefully.

Kellen took a step back, shaking his head apologetically.

“I was right then,” Merana said with satisfaction. “It is a Wild Magic thing! Oh, don’t worry—I won’t tell. I can keep my mouth shut when I ought. And don’t you worry about Cormo, either—Haneida and I have him all settled between us.”

“Good,” Kellen said, and meant it. “You take care of him. He needs—somebody to boss him around and make it stick, I guess. If he gets that, he just might turn out all right.”

“He might.” Merana’s spirit of mischief must have fought clear at that moment, for she added saucily, “Still, it’s too bad you aren’t coming back to the party. You’ll miss the rest of the dancing—and other things besides.”

She turned away, and with a last flirt of her tail, trotted back quickly toward the lights and the music.

It’s the “other things” I’m worried about, I guess, Kellen thought doubtfully.

He set down the lantern, and investigated the basket. A warm cloak was folded on the top—not necessary just now, but if he was going to be spending most of the night out in the woods, it might be later. And beneath it, a selection of delicacies from the feast, including a generous number of honey-cakes and several patties of maple sugar.

Thank you, Idalia.

Kellen picked up the lantern and the basket and went to find the animals and Shalkan.

“I wondered how long it would take you to figure things out,” the unicorn said when he arrived.

“You could have told me,” Kellen grumbled, setting the basket down and hooking the lantern over the stub of a branch. The horse and the mule dozed placidly nearby.

“You might have said that the girls would be”—he felt himself blushing—“well, frisky. Especially Merana.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Shalkan asked. “This was an easy one, and I was nearby to warn you if necessary. There may be others that aren’t as obvious, and I might not be around for them.”

“So I’m supposed to consider this a learning experience?” Kellen asked, spreading the cloak on the ground and beginning to unpack the basket.

“Are those honey-cakes I smell?” Shalkan responded eagerly.

IT was very late—or very early—by the time that Kellen, carrying the empty basket and leading the two animals on their halters, returned to the clearing. The chill had turned to cold, but he’d been more than warm enough in the cloak. He was young enough to think a night without sleep to be a grand prelude to a long day’s ride, and in fact he’d even dozed for a few hours before Shalkan had nudged him awake. It was still dark, but it would be dawn in an hour or two, and he knew that Idalia wanted to be on the road as soon as there was light to see by. There was a hint of fog in the air, and a suggestion that in a day or two, there might be rain.

The canopies and garlands were all still there—they, like the cabin itself, would be removed over the coming days and taken elsewhere. The clearing was quiet, if not silent, and far from empty; though most of the partyers had gone home or off to nearby villages there were still a few late revelers remaining, sitting and lying in twos and threes and fours, some sleeping, some talking together in quiet contented tones.

Kellen stopped to tie the animals to a tree, then walked into the clearing. Almost at the cabin door, Kellen passed a tangle of sleeping fauns. They smelled strongly of mead, and some kind soul had rolled them into a cloak. As he watched they squirmed over one another, as blissfully indifferent to their surroundings as a basketful of puppies.

He turned and walked into the cabin.

Just as he suspected, Idalia was already up and dressed, but in clothes he’d never seen before. Gone was the woodland ranger dressed in beaded buckskin, horn, and feathers: the boots and tunic, cloak and breeks Idalia wore now would have looked unremarkable anywhere from the High Reaches to the gates of Armethalieh herself: sturdy wool cloth, dyed with indigo and butternut, sturdy leather riding boots with hard soles and stacked heels to hold the stirrups, with a wide felt hat to shade her eyes and face from wind and weather … Idalia looked like a stranger.

She glanced over at his entrance, and saw his startlement, and smiled crookedly. “Quite a different look for me, isn’t it? There’s a set for you, too. It’s what they wear in the High Hills; that Mountain Trader I bought Prettyfoot from felt guilty about his good fortune and threw in a few trade gifts, and then I did a little tailoring. We have a lot of territory to ride through, and we won’t stand out as much this way. The boots I ordered in Merryvale; when you’re running, it’s always a good idea to have boots you can trust. Go ahead; I’ll start getting the beasties ready.”

She picked up an armful of saddlepads and blankets and walked out. Kellen went on into the empty room that had once been the bedroom.

The shutters were closed and pegged now, and the room seemed close and airless, but a fat candle stuck in a wall sconce gave sufficient light for Kellen to see what he was doing. A similar set of traveling clothes were laid out for him: cloak and gloves, too.

After spending so many sennights in supple buckskin, wool and homespun were scratchy and harsh against his skin, and the new clothes itched. Kellen sighed, stamping his feet into the boots. He only hoped it wouldn’t be too hard to get used to them after wearing moccasins for so long.

But at last he was dressed, and there was no more point to delaying. He even spared a moment to wish for a mirror to see himself in, though he knew all he’d get would be a shock.

He pushed aside the deerskin curtain and stepped back out into the main room, his new cloak folded over one arm. Idalia thrust a comb into his hand.

“Comb your hair out, and braid it, or tie it back. You won’t want to be combing knots and twigs and heaven knows what else out of it at the end of the day,” she said, brushing past him to get at Coalwind’s saddle and bridle.

Kellen started in on his hair, and discovered to his dismay that there were knots and twigs in it now. But he managed to drag the comb all the way through it at least once, and then discovered that in one of the pockets of his new breeks was a long leather tie-band, ornamented with some of Idalia’s careful beadwork. So they wouldn’t be leaving the Wildwood completely behind! He looped it around his unruly hair, then picked up the heavy wooden packsaddle, and followed Idalia outside.

The day was already appreciably lighter than when he’d gone in, but the world was still the ghostly no-color of false dawn. Out in the forest, wisps of fog drifted among the trees, like spirits. Idalia had led both animals up to the door while he’d been dressing. She’d just finished tightening Coalwind’s girths, and Kellen set the packsaddle on the ground and held the mare steady while Idalia soothed her into accepting the bit and bridle. Coalwind was fascinated by Idalia’s trader hat, and kept trying to seize it and pull it off Idalia’s head; Idalia finally let her have it for an instant, taking it back once the last buckle was tight.

“There you are, my girl. I’m afraid you’ll be less frisky by the end of the day.” She sighed. “Of course, so will I.”

“Me too,” Kellen offered. “It’s not like either of us have done a lot of riding lately.”

“True enough,” his sister replied. “Maybe there’ll be a village inn up the road; Greenpoint is supposed to be about a day’s ride from here. If we’re lucky, we’ll sleep indoors tonight, but we can’t count on doing that very often.”

He nodded, but he couldn’t help thinking: And maybe less often the closer it gets to the time that the City is planning on sending in their flunkies. Travelers wouldn’t exactly be welcome at that point, when more and more fugitives would be on the road. And any one of them might be a City spy.

Idalia tethered the mare once more, and turned to help Kellen with the packsaddle. Prettyfoot accepted it with good grace; the mule was an experienced campaigner, and was used to early-morning departures.

Once both animals were tacked up, Idalia and Kellen made several more trips back and forth into the cabin to load the mule with their supplies. Kellen’s discarded buckskins joined Idalia’s in the pack reserved for last-minute things; they might well need them again sometime. Idalia tied everything in place with a speed and efficiency that led Kellen to believe that she’d done this before.

“It’s easy enough, really,” she said when she caught him looking. “You’ll learn it yourself, with time. Balance the weight evenly from side to side for the beast’s sake, also make sure that there’s nothing that can dig or press or gall; just as if you were carrying the load yourself—and just as if you were carrying the load yourself, don’t ask them to carry beyond their strength. A mule won’t do it, and a donkey can carry a pack bigger than it is, but a horse will try for you until it kills itself. Heavier to the front than the back, just as you would want the weight higher than lower in your own pack. Make sure nothing can shift or crumple. Put the things you’ll need on the way where you can get at them without unpacking everything. Make the whole easy to load and unload fast. All it takes is common sense and a little experience. You’ve got the one, and you’ll have plenty of opportunity to get the other.”

At last the packing was done, and Idalia went back inside one last time to see if they’d missed anything. She came out with two steaming wooden cups, and a second hat tucked under her arm.

“Hot cider to wake us up—we’ll stop in a few hours for a better breakfast—and your hat. Now you can be a proper Mountain Trader.”

Kellen took the hat and placed it on his head. It was thick felt, dyed a deep green to match his clothes—the only other time he’d seen such fabric was in the winter boots some of the City laborers wore—and quite the most outlandish item he’d ever seen. It had two long dangling leather cords that could apparently be used to tie the hat upon the head, so that despite its enormous brim—quite as wide as a cartwheel, in Kellen’s untutored opinion—it could not be blown off. It was like wearing one of those round sunshades that fine ladies of the City carried on sticks to protect their lily-white complexions from the sun.

It was rather dashing, actually.

Kellen decided he liked it.

Hat in place, Kellen drank the cider—quickly, before it cooled. He set the cup down on the doorstep, realizing with a pang that it was all real. They were leaving here, now, and they were never coming back.

“Let’s go,” Idalia whispered; there was a harsh tone in her voice that startled him, and he turned to peer at her.

He could see by her face that she was trying hard to be calm, not to give in to the same sense of loss that he felt. She swung quickly up into the mare’s saddle and started off. Kellen walked behind, leading the mule.

It might have been some last spell of the Wild Magic, or simple kindness on the part of those revelers who remained, but no one called after them to wish them a final good-bye.

THEY headed along the path away from the clearing and into the Wildwood in silence as the sky continued to lighten and the morning birds started the dawnchorus. Fog still lingered in hollows and low-lying ravines, but it was dissipating. When Kellen looked up through gaps in the trees to the hills, he saw sunlight gilding the tops of them, and the sky was a pleasant blue dotted with white, puffy clouds.

Eventually Shalkan would join up with them, and Kellen hoped it would be soon: his new boots didn’t hurt yet, but that didn’t mean he wanted to walk any great distance in them.

The cabin was long out-of-sight, and they were past the farthest point Kellen had ever been to on this road, when Idalia reined in.

“I thought he’d be here by now,” she said, in tones of faint puzzlement. “I know I’m, well, hardly a unicorn’s usual traveling companion, shall we say, but he did say it would be all right.”

Kellen looked around, as puzzled as she was, and finally caught a glimpse of white through the trees behind them. He knew that furtive shape; knew it well, but why was it lagging so far behind?

“He’s following us,” Kellen announced in mingled tones of amusement and disgust. He handed Idalia the mule’s lead-rope and walked back the way they’d come.

Shalkan stepped daintily out onto the trail and regarded Kellen with narrowed eyes. The unicorn’s long equine face was not particularly well designed to convey emotion, but Kellen had never had any particular trouble sensing Shalkan’s moods, nor did he now.

Shalkan was irritated.

But at what? What had Kellen done to deserve that look?

Finally the unicorn snorted. “No hat,” Shalkan said flatly, staring at Kellen’s head in disgust.

Kellen reached up, slowly, and touched the brim. He’d forgotten he was wearing it, actually, but Shalkan seemed to have taken a complete and irrational dislike to it. To a hat?

“It keeps the rain off,” Kellen said.

Shalkan put his ears back and switched his long tufted tail. “It isn’t raining. And it is an abomination,” the unicorn said crossly. “Either get rid of it—or walk.”

Kellen looked helplessly back at Idalia. She shrugged, and held out her hand for the hat; he could tell she was having a hard time keeping her face composed. Grumbling under his breath, Kellen unknotted the chinstring and walked back to pass the hat to Idalia, who tied it on the back of her saddle, her face carefully expressionless.

What does he think he is, a fashion critic?

Hatless, Kellen went back down the trail to “acquire his mount.”

He was still without proper saddle or tack for the unicorn, and so was riding Shalkan bareback, but so long as they didn’t have to run for their lives, he ought to be able to manage not to fall off. The unicorn’s fur was still as slick and slippery as ever, but he did his best to balance carefully and not give Shalkan any further cause for complaint. After a moment though, he thought he could guess the real source of the unicorn’s bad temper. Shalkan was twitching under him as if he were being defiled by sting-flies. The hat had nothing to do with it.

Shalkan might have agreed to travel with Idalia. He might agree there was a very good reason to do so. But the unicorn was a creature of magic, bound by magic’s laws. Just because something was necessary didn’t mean you had to like it.

He began to have a bit more sympathy for his friend. Apparently the hat was only an excuse for an exercise of irritation, and a way to vent some of it.

Poor Shalkan; Kellen wondered what it felt like. Was it like a rash you couldn’t scratch? Or a headache? Or that twitchy feeling he got in his legs when he’d been awake too long and couldn’t lie down yet? Or all of them?

“You ride on ahead,” Kellen called. Idalia looked back, nodded with understanding, and nudged Coalwind with her heels, increasing the distance between them.

Shalkan sighed, stretching his neck out very long and shaking his head. He also stopped twitching. Idalia was still in sight, and if anything attacked either of them, the other could get there quickly enough, but this arrangement was going to make it rather difficult to have a conversation, other than with Shalkan.

“It really is a very stupid hat,” the unicorn said, in as much of an apology as Kellen was going to get.

“Idalia thinks that if we look like Mountain Traders, we’ll blend in better,” Kellen offered meekly. Although how Kellen was going to blend in at all while riding a unicorn was another question altogether.

Shalkan sighed again. “A good plan, as far as it goes. And the sooner we are over the border—where there is no need to blend in at all—the better for all of us.”

Kellen made no comment. The unicorn followed after Idalia at a sedate walk.

“I’ll—see if I can get used to her,” Shalkan said after a moment. “This isn’t safe.”

“No, it isn’t,” Kellen agreed, and left it at that. But he did take one last look over his shoulder as they crested the tallest hill they’d passed so far. Their little cabin wasn’t visible, but in the farthest distance, dim and as tiny as a child’s toy, he could see the carved walls of Merryvale. No longer Merry, he thought with a sigh. He wondered if he’d ever see the place or any of the people in it again.

It was a melancholy thought.

Chapter Seventeen

Into Elven Lands

THEY KEPT NORTH and west, and by the end of the first sennight, Kellen and Idalia were able to ride side by side. If she noticed that Shalkan had early on had problems with her presence, or if it continued to bother Shalkan, neither ever commented except for Shalkan’s single, oblique remark at the beginning of the journey.

On the rare occasions that they were able to find a roof to sleep beneath in village, croft, or smallholding—for Idalia’s Wildmage skills guaranteed them a welcome everywhere in the Western Hills—Shalkan would leave them an hour or so before they reached it, and if any of their hosts found it odd that their visitors should arrive one mounted and one on foot leading a pack mule, none of them said anything about that, either.

By the end of their second sennight of travel, Idalia informed Kellen that they were unlikely to encounter any more dwelling-places, for though they were still far from the borders, they were close enough to them that no one was likely to settle there for fear of encountering Elvenkind.

By this time, they were well into extremely steep hills—or small mountains, it didn’t matter which you called them. Heavily wooded, with nothing for a sign of civilization except the road itself, they had to choose their camping places carefully. Idalia did something subtle that warned dangerous wildlife off, but there were other dangers, including human rogues. By now, in the lands they had left behind, the City Lawspeakers were proclaiming the sovereignty of Armethalieh through every hamlet and village, the members of the Militia were moving in, and the Scouring Hunt was coursing in search of Wildmages and Otherfolk.

Kellen wasn’t sure exactly how far the High Council had extended the borders, but one thing he did know for sure was: the one thing the Hunt wouldn’t find was him and Idalia. Kellen hoped that the discovery would send his father into a fit of apoplexy.

In their third sennight of travel (as far as Kellen could tell; he was actually starting to lose track of how long they’d been on the road, he discovered), he started to wonder if maybe the smallholders had a good reason for not wanting to encounter Elves.

Until now, the two of them had been traveling through lands fairly similar to those around the Wildwood: a landscape of high granite hills and deep river valleys filled with forests of hardwood and evergreen. They’d had no trouble finding good grazing for their animals to supplement the grain they’d brought, or water for drinking and cooking and washing.

Now that began to change.

It had been late summer when they left the Wildwood; now it was—maybe, if you stretched a point—the very beginning of autumn. The trees should just be starting to turn; the leaves yellowing. Later—the change of seasons was apparently similar to what he’d been used to in the City, only much more intense and extreme—would come the riot of autumnal color, then brown, then winter bareness.

But here the leaves were already withered and brown—too soon. The grass was sere, and the horse and mule mouthed it without pleasure. Shalkan made no complaints, but Kellen had no difficulty in telling that the unicorn was deeply troubled.

Worse followed the farther west they went. The smaller streams were muddy and low; the rivers that should have been swollen with late-season rain ran shallowly at the bottom of their beds. Sometimes they were forced to rely upon Shalkan to find water for them, which meant that Kellen walked while the unicorn roved along the periphery of their path, hunting for water.

The closer they came toward the Elven borders, the worse it got. The grass now was parched and dry, hardly worth the effort of chewing for the animals, and the bushes were withered and skeletal.

Shouldn’t it be raining? Somewhere? Where’s the water?

But Kellen—no farmer—wasn’t quite sure that something was actually wrong, or if it was, how badly wrong. All his life he’d heard about the enchanting, green, misty beauty of the dangerous Elven lands, but so much of the old wondertales had been wrong. It was always possible that the stories had gotten it all backward. And Idalia—whose face became more grim by the day—wasn’t saying.

But he was sure of one thing. Idalia had not expected to find things in this condition. And neither had Shalkan.

IT was midmorning, somewhere in their second fortnight of travel (Kellen was thinking hard, counting back and trying to remember exactly how many days they’d been on the road). They’d left open country behind, and were riding through woodland once more. The warmth of the early-autumn day contrasted oddly with the sere winter-bleakness of the barren trees. The forest floor beneath the animals’ hooves was thickly carpeted with fallen leaves, and the travelers made a faint, crackling, shuffling sound as they moved through the leaf-litter. The road they followed was now a bare little track, hardly a road at all; it wasn’t what Kellen had pictured to himself when he’d thought of a road through Elven lands.

The forest seemed much too empty, even to Kellen’s untutored senses. Not only should there be deer and birds, rabbits and squirrels, but Otherfolk as well: sylphs and dryads, fauns, brownies, pixies, gnomes … the animals might flee from mounted strangers, but the Otherfolk should be drawn to both Shalkan and Idalia, and even if he couldn’t see them, Kellen ought to at least be able to sense their presence with his Wildmage senses. But these woods were silent and empty. It gave him a very creepy feeling. It felt as if they were riding through a graveyard.

“Declare yourselves,” a hard voice said abruptly.

Kellen blinked. A man had appeared out of nowhere, stepping in front of Idalia’s horse.

No, not a man. An Elf.

He wore clothing the same winter brown as the woods they rode through, his simple tunic and close-fitting leggings embroidered with a complicated pattern in grey that would make him impossible to see from even a few feet away, for the stitching mimicked the lines and shadows of the forest itself. He was holding a smooth-polished stave as tall as he was, and a bow and a quiver of arrows was slung over his shoulder. Over the tunic was a cowl and hood. The hood was pushed back now, and Kellen could clearly see the Elf’s pointed ears and shell-pale skin.

Where had he come from? He hadn’t been anywhere in sight before.

“Idalia, Wildmage, and her brother, Kellen Tavadon, also a Wildmage,” Idalia answered promptly. “Seeking sanctuary in Elven lands, swearing no harm to tree, root, and leaf. Llylance, I see you,” she added formally.

The Elven guard sighed with relief and suddenly looked far less austere. He loosened his grip on his quarterstaff, leaning on it now instead of holding it ready to strike. “Idalia! By the First Leaf, you return in a good hour! We had word of your coming. An escort waits to accompany you down into the city.”

“We thank you for your kindness and the honor that you do us,” Idalia said. Kellen had never heard her speak so ceremoniously before. He hoped this wasn’t going to be something they had to do all the time while they were here.

A second Elf appeared at Kellen’s side, also seeming to sprout directly from the forest floor itself. He was dressed almost identically to Llylance, save that he held his bow ready to fire.

Kellen felt his eyes go huge. The Elf hadn’t made a single sound. He’d just been … there.

“Don’t be too impressed; they’re just very, very good at hiding,” Idalia muttered, so low that Kellen was sure only he could hear.

“I see you, Canderil,” she said politely.

“I see you, Idalia,” Canderil answered, with equal politeness. He released the tension on his bowstring and slung the bow over his shoulder, retrieving his own stave from … somewhere. Even though Kellen, mindful of Idalia’s words, was watching carefully, he couldn’t see how it was done. One moment Canderil’s hand was empty. The next, the stave was there.

Canderil gestured for them to accompany him. Llylance simply vanished before Kellen’s eyes, and once more Kellen had no inkling as to how he did it, though he watched carefully.

And now, it seemed, they were free to proceed. Canderil walked beside Idalia’s horse, having taken the lead-rope of the mule from her, and Shalkan and Kellen followed behind.

At least things didn’t seem to be continuing on the same highly formal level as before. Idalia and Canderil spoke easily and companionably about people Kellen didn’t know, very much as if they’d last seen each other a sennight ago instead of after an absence on Idalia’s part of what must be several years.

Kellen knew very little about Elves. According to what he’d read in the Great Library when he was searching for information about the lands outside Armethalieh, they still visited the City on rare occasions—hard though that was to imagine—but of course no one outside the High Council would have seen them then. And he knew very little about them from his studies with Anigrel, and trusted what Anigrel had told him even less.

The Priests of the Light taught that the Elves were one of the Lesser Races, made by the Light in imitation of Man to serve as a lesson and a rebuke. From his own unsupervised studies in the Great Library, Kellen doubted that: the Elven race was immensely old and civilized, building great cities while humans were still gathering in tribes. Though people thought of Elves as living forever, in fact they were only very, very long-lived: the average Elven lifespan was on the order of a thousand years, and only at the very end of their lives did they show any signs of age at all. Canderil here might well have watched the first stones of the City being laid centuries ago, and wasn’t that a sobering thought?

Kellen did welcome the chance to be able to get a good look at one of the Elvenkind without being caught staring, since Canderil seemed to be entirely caught up in his conversation with Idalia, paying no particular heed to either Kellen or Shalkan, as though he saw people riding unicorns every day.

Of course, being an Elf, maybe he did.

And despite his firm intention to disbelieve everything he’d read about Elves in the City histories, the more he watched Canderil, the more Kellen understood why the City-folk, and even the Light-Priests, wrote of Elvenkind as they did.

Like his companion Llylance, whom he resembled as closely as a twin, Canderil was tall and slender. His silky black hair was elaborately braided, and despite that, still fell to his hips. His eyes were as black as midnight, his skin as pale as pearl, and it was clear that Elves never needed to shave (this was a matter for envy, as Kellen did need to shave, and both sharp razors and shaving mirrors were difficult to come by in the Wildwood). With his high cheekbones and faintly slanted eyes, Canderil possessed an oddly androgynous yet definitely male glamour, as exotic as it was unsettling.

He was beautiful; there was no other appropriate word for it. And worse, thought Kellen, watching him with an increasing mixture of fascination and discomfort, he was perfect. Canderil never put a foot wrong, never made a clumsy gesture or an awkward one. Even just walking beside Coalwind, he looked as if he were dancing.

Even his clothes were perfect. At first Kellen had been a little disappointed by the simple grey-and-brown costumes he and Llylance wore. They seemed too similar to what he and Idalia had worn in the Wildwood, albeit made of finer materials, and of cloth, not skins. But the longer he looked, the more Kellen realized that his first assessment had been too hasty.

The dun-colored cloth was the finest weaving he’d ever seen, a wool as soft as Shalkan’s coat. It shimmered softly in the light, and against it the grey embroidery glowed, now silver, now dark, in an ever-shifting pattern that Kellen felt he could be content to gaze at for the rest of his life. And no matter how Canderil moved in it, nothing wrinkled, nothing pulled. He wore his garb like an extension of his own skin.

Kellen had been the son of the most powerful man in Armethalieh. He had despised the luxuries that went with that high office, but he was familiar with them. He knew exactly how much time and skill it took to make clothing one-tenth as fine as this—and if these were such clothes as Canderil wore for hunting in the woods, what did formal Elven clothing look like?

The Priests of the Light taught that Elves corrupted humankind and caused them to despair, and so honest folk should shun their company, should they be offered it. And Kellen supposed that in a way that was true. If just watching Canderil walk through a forest made him feel grubby and inadequate, what would seeing a whole city of Elves dressed in their finest clothes do? But one of the oldest Histories he’d read had said it better, he thought: “The Elves have elevated mere living into a form of Art.”

“When you live for a thousand years, you have a lot of time to get things right,” Shalkan said quietly.

“Uh … yeah,” Kellen said. But he was comforted by Shalkan’s assurance—and the fact that the unicorn, as perfect in his way as any Elf, had been perceptive enough to give that assurance.

“But I have been rude,” Canderil said, turning sideways to regard Kellen and Shalkan. “In my eagerness to hear Idalia’s news, I have neglected Sentarshadeen’s other guests. I hope you will not think me discourteous. Perhaps there are things you would know, and I would hear your news as well.”

It would take Kellen a long time to realize that adult Elves simply didn’t ask direct questions—if an Elf wanted to know something, the polite method was to phrase it as a statement, which the hearer could—just as politely—choose to disregard. Kellen simply assumed he was being asked a question, and after glancing at Idalia to see if it was all right, launched into a slightly tangled and much edited tale of how he and Idalia had come to be traveling into Elven lands. If more than a touch of bitterness crept into his voice when he spoke about what had been done to him by Lycaelon, well, he hoped that Canderil would understand.

As he spoke, the sere landscape was replaced by healthier woodland, and the empty air filled with the proper sounds of wildlife and wind-inthe-branches. They reached the edge of the trees, and Kellen got his first sight of Sentarshadeen.

The Elven city was built into the sides of a wooded granite canyon. At first Kellen didn’t see the houses he knew must be there, but slowly his eyes adjusted, and they appeared, as magically as the Elven woods-guards had.

I guess the houses are just very, very good at hiding, too, Kellen told himself.

The dwellings of the Elven city of Sentarshadeen blended into their surroundings as if they’d grown there: low beautiful cottages of silvery wood, each one unique, each one set into its own garden—but too few to make up a city, and when Kellen studied the canyon wall across the valley floor, he suddenly realized that it, too, was filled with dwellings cut into the living rock itself. Every inch of the canyon wall was subtly carved, to form windows and doors and pathways that so beautifully harmonized with their surroundings that they were not immediately apparent to the eye. There must have been hundreds of them.

In fact, if Kellen had not just spent a season in a true wildwood, he would have mistaken the sight before him for untouched Nature, but it wasn’t. It was Nature perfected, touched so lightly and gracefully that what had been done wasn’t immediately obvious—but, like Canderil himself, everything Kellen saw was quietly perfect.

A wisp of mist trailed along the side of the canyon; faintly he heard the welcome sound of water.

It’s like walking into a dream, Kellen thought in awe. All his previous misgivings were forgotten. He might not be able to live up to the Elves’ standards, but he could certainly appreciate them.

Canderil led them down the trail to the valley floor, as Kellen gazed about himself in wonder. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the faint sound of wind chimes, and it seemed the perfect enhancement to this place. The rich autumn light slanted down through the trees, sculpting shadows off the canyon walls in ways that Kellen somehow knew had been planned, as though the Elven designers had taken note of how the sun would strike every inch of the rock every hour of the day in every season of the year, and shaped it accordingly. Though he looked hard to find a flaw—something hasty, unfinished, out of place—he never did in all the time he spent in Sentarshadeen. Even the stones in the dry riverbed they crossed over seemed to each have been deliberately placed to make their surroundings more beautiful.

It almost seemed—though it was an odd word to use to describe a place where people obviously went about their daily lives, for Kellen saw a number of Elves as they passed, if only at a distance—holy. Holiness was a concept that Kellen only understood vaguely, and that in connection with the Priests of the Eternal Light. In Kellen’s limited experience, holiness seemed to involve long incomprehensible prayers, discomfort, and a great deal of incense. If that was holiness, then it could have nothing to do with Sentarshadeen. But the word still seemed right to him. The Elven city was a far holier place than the cold and forbidding Great Temple of the Light.

They followed a path—though to call it a path was unfair, as it was as wide as a street back in Armethalieh—that led up the cliff and stopped in front of one of the doors. Canderil set his stave into a bracket that seemed to be made for it, and went up the step to open the door. Idalia dismounted.

“We’re here,” she said.

Kellen slid off Shalkan’s back. The unicorn shook himself and took a few steps, sniffing the air.

“I’ll be back later. If you need me, just ask anyone. They’ll know where I am.” He trotted off quickly, leaving Kellen staring after him.

“There’s a unicorn herd here,” Idalia said, noting Kellen’s puzzled and slightly dismayed expression. “He’s gone to join them. Don’t worry about him; he probably hasn’t seen another unicorn aside from that family I healed a while back for moonturns, maybe years, and he’ll have a lot of socializing to do. Come on, help me get our things inside. We’re home, for now.”

Canderil helped them unload Prettyfoot and Coalwind, assisting them to get all of their belongings inside, then retrieved his stave and led the two animals away, leaving Kellen and Idalia standing among their bundles in the main room of the guesthouse.

“Home, sweet home,” Idalia said in an unreadable tone as she looked around the room.

“Idalia,” Kellen said hesitantly, “is this place yours? Have you been here before?”

Idalia took a deep breath, rousing herself from whatever she’d been thinking, and smiled. “No. Not here. And until a few minutes ago, this was a guesthouse. But it’s our home now. From the moment we took occupancy it ceased to be a guesthouse and will be regarded as ours. That’s why Canderil left so fast—Elves have very strict customs about who gets to go into private homes and who doesn’t. Now that it’s our home, no Elf will ever come in here uninvited—except children, of course: Elven children are so rare that they pretty much do as they please and are exempt from all custom and law. And there are all sorts of customs about who can invite who into whose house, and all that, of course, but being human, we won’t be expected to know them, much less be bound by them.”

“Good thing,” Kellen muttered darkly. He’d had his fill of rules of that sort back in Armethalieh!

“Why don’t you take a look around?” Idalia suggested. “There are two bedrooms; you can pick one, and then we can get our gear sorted out.”

Kellen decided to take her advice. He hadn’t gotten much chance to inspect the place before, since they’d been getting their things inside as quickly as possible, but now the need to hurry seemed to be over.

The Elven dwelling wasn’t large, but like everything else Kellen had seen here so far, it was perfect. The main room—where all of their gear was now—was large enough to be comfortable, but not big enough to seem grand. Its gently curved walls were painted a rich, warm, vibrant cream. Some of the furniture was built-in—long padded benches of carved and polished wood that ran along the walls, following the curve, a tall armoire that opened to reveal bookshelves and a desk—and other pieces stood arranged against the walls awaiting their need: a pair of comfortable-looking chairs, a stool. In one corner, a tall tile stove was set into the wall, ready to provide both warmth and a place to cook. Opening the doors and drawers of its intricate cabinet, Kellen discovered a teapot and cups; bowls and flatware. All but the eating utensils were of the luminous translucent Elvenware that commanded such astronomical prices in Armethalieh. Kellen held a piece up to the light. It glowed, taking fire from the sun, and its color took his breath away. Reluctantly, he set it back in its place and investigated further, turning up some large, flat, black disks, elaborately embossed with an intricate geometric pattern. He had to lift one and examine it closely before he figured out what it was. Charcoal. Even the fuel here was beautiful.

Kellen brushed his hands clean and turned away from the stove to pick up one of the pillows from the sitting benches. Each was covered in a different hand-loomed fabric and pattern, each somehow perfectly right for the room. The longer he looked, the more there was to see. He set the cushion down gently.

“It’s a little stunning when you see it all for the first time,” Idalia said quietly.

“Yeah,” Kellen said weakly. This wasn’t getting him any closer to picking out a bedroom, either.

There were three doors leading off the main room. He chose one at random and opened it.

He’d found the bathroom.

The fixtures were similar to what he might have found back in Armethalieh, save for the fact that they were made of colored ceramic instead of wood, metal, or stone, and seemed to be built into the walls and floor. Kellen inspected the washbasin curiously. There was no ewer, and no place to set one, either. Where did the washing-water come from? And why was there a stopper in the bottom of the bowl?

He pulled out the plug, revealing a hole. No answers there. Set into the wall above the basin were two small wheels. Curious, Kellen turned one.

Water began to spill into the basin through holes in the rim. Kellen yelped and jumped back, startled, then dipped his fingers in the riling water. Fresh enough to drink … and the other wheel produced water as hot as if it had just come from a kettle.

Kellen turned them both off, and regarded the washing bowl in awe. Not even Armethalieh’s magic could provide a washbowl that filled with hot or cold water on command and emptied itself besides—and the best thing was, he suspected it was all done without an ounce of magic!

Upon inspection, the small hip-bath proved to fill and empty the same way. He could take a bath—a hot bath—anytime he wanted to, without having to haul water or trouble any servants.

Or use magic to heat the water.

And best of all, the necessary also sluiced itself clean with water after each use. No more midnight treks to the outhouse. No more close-stools or thundermugs, a feature of even the most exalted houses in Armethalieh. Everything here was clean and civilized.

Kellen frowned, trying to figure out what the fundamental difference was. In Armethalieh, it was easy to be comfortable if you had magic and wealth, but your comfort was purchased at the cost of others’ discomfort. But in Sentarshadeen, from what he’d seen so far, everyone could live like the High Mages, and nobody had to suffer for it.

He hoped it was true.

He went back into the main room. He didn’t know how long he’d spent in the water closet, but Idalia was gazing at him with an amused expression on her face. Kellen blushed. Of course, this was all familiar to her from her previous time among the Elves, but it was still all new to him.

“I’ll take that one,” Kellen said hastily, pointing at a door at random. He gathered up as much of his gear as he could manage and shuffled awkwardly toward it, just managing to get the tips of his fingers onto the door latch and toe the door open.

The ceiling here was lower, the room done in shades of browns and greens. There was a large window on one wall, with a deep window seat before it. Facing it, built into the wall, its contours designed to harmonize with the shape of the window, was a tall clothes-chest. Between the chest and the window was a bed, with another bench for sitting at its foot. Tucked beside the door was a small desk and stool. There were lanterns in niches around the walls. If he had studied the ways to design a room for years, he could never have come up with an arrangement so harmonious, and so—ah, that word again!—perfectly suited to inducing relaxation.

Kellen dropped his burden on the bed. He’d meant to go right back out for another load, but the view outside his window drew him toward it. He walked over and opened the glass-paned shutters. From here he could see out into the canyon, almost as if he were hanging in space. Though the opposite wall of the canyon must be as filled with dwelling-places as this one was, somehow they did not draw the eye; his mind insisted that he was looking out on unspoiled paradise.

This must be how the Wildwood looked to Idalia, Kellen thought with a flash of insight. No wonder she’d been happy there, Kellen realized. It was her place.

He didn’t think Sentarshadeen was where he belonged—it was too soon to tell, anyway—but it was so beautiful it could make you think you belonged here, no matter where your true place was. And maybe it could help you understand other people better. Because I suppose Armethalieh looks this way to some people, too, Kellen admitted grudgingly, if only to himself.

His reverie was interrupted by the sound of voices—two voices—from the room outside.

“I see you, Idalia,” a man’s voice said.

“I see you, Jermayan,” Idalia answered.

Kellen went to the door of the bedroom and looked out. There was an Elf standing in the doorway of the house.

Like the woods-guards, Jermayan was dressed in earth tones, but it was clear that his garments were not meant to blend in to an autumn forest. He wore low boots of russet velvet over snug moss-green leggings embroidered with twining vines in russet and gold. His long hair was held back by a tubular weave of dull gold silk ribbons, and he wore a sheer tunic in palest russet oversewn with bands of velvet of a green so dark it was nearly black.

There was a long pause.

“Will you deny me the comfort of your hearth, Idalia?” Jermayan said at last.

Kellen saw Idalia bite back a sharp retort. “If you think you will find comfort in entering this house, Jermayan, then enter it by all means,” she said ungraciously.

Jermayan stepped carefully over the threshold. He took a step toward Idalia, holding out his hand.

Idalia stepped back, refusing the gesture. She kept her face as blank as she could, but Kellen could tell she was both surprised and unhappy to see Jermayan. Why? Kellen was confused. Did he and Idalia have enemies here, too?

Jermayan lowered his hand. “You have not changed your mind? When I heard you had come to Sentarshadeen, I hoped …”

“I came because I had no choice,” Idalia interrupted harshly. “I would have chosen another destination if I’d known you were here. Why couldn’t you have stayed in Ondoladeshiron?”

Kellen felt as if he were watching a game of shuttlecock—or a fencing match. He looked from Idalia’s face, everything but her eyes completely expressionless, but her eyes holding a tempest of strong feelings—to the Elf’s, his face holding such longing that it hurt.

“Memories of you were there,” Jermayan said simply. “Idalia, my—”

“No!” Idalia raised her hand, and there was such pain in her eyes that Kellen winced. “No more, Jermayan. We are not going to talk about this ever again.”

No, Kellen realized. Not enemies. And he had all the answers he ever wanted about why Idalia hadn’t wanted to stay with the Elves. Jermayan was in love with her. That much was plain. And Kellen was pretty sure Idalia loved him back, and didn’t want to. That just made things more confusing.

“I will respect your wishes,” Jermayan said softly. “But I had thought—I had hoped—you had changed your mind. Fare you well, Idalia.”

Jermayan turned and left. Gracefully.

Kellen hesitated for a moment, then came out.

Idalia rounded on him. “Get a good earful?” she asked dangerously. Her eyes glittered with anger, but behind the anger was a welter of such powerful emotions that Kellen could hardly believe it was the Idalia—calm, restrained Idalia—he had thought he knew standing before him.

“Well, neither one of you was keeping your voices down.” He wasn’t quite sure how to react to this new creature facing him. “You want to tell me what’s going on with this Jermayan? I think I’ve got a right to know—I am your brother, after all,” Kellen reminded her. He only realized how pompous and hateful the words sounded when it was too late to take them back.

But she didn’t tender him the set-down that his stupid demand deserved. “I met Jermayan in Ondoladeshiron just after I turned back from being a Silver Eagle. I fell in love with him then. He thinks he loves me. And he’s going to have to get over it, because it can’t go anywhere, and I told him so at the time,” Idalia said, her voice painfully flat.

“But—” Kellen protested, unable to understand why she should be saying anything of the sort. If she loved Jermayan, and the Elf loved her, then what was stopping them? “But, Idalia—”

“Think, Kellen,” she interrupted him. “In another fifty or sixty years, I’ll die. Jermayan will live for another nine centuries—and Elves mate for life. Do you think I’m going to condemn him to live what amounts to his entire life alone after I’m dead? What kind of love would that be? It isn’t fair, and I won’t do it!”

Her eyes filled abruptly with tears, and she turned away and ran into the other bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

Kellen crept up to the door and listened. He thought he could hear Idalia weeping on the other side. But Idalia never cries.

And she never thought she’d have to see Jermayan again, either, another part of Kellen said.

He wasn’t sure what to do. What he did know was that there wasn’t anything he could do or say to comfort her—or to change her mind, either.

And he was pretty sure she’d rather he wasn’t around when she came out, so that they could both pretend that the last few minutes had never happened. So how could he arrange that?

After a moment’s reflection it occurred to Kellen that this would be a good time to get out and take a look around the rest of the Elven city. Nobody’d said that wouldn’t be a good idea, and he thought he’d like to know a good deal more about Sentarshadeen and the folks who lived here, before he managed to make any more stupid mistakes.

And I’d really like to get away from Idalia so she can—

He stopped himself just as he was thinking “get over it.” She wasn’t going to get over it. She wasn’t ever going to “get over it.” But he could take himself off so she could pretend she could. So this would be a good time to get out and see the sights. There were several hours of light left.

And who better to tell him about Sentarshadeen than the people who—so Idalia said—were exempt from all local customs? He wondered how hard it would be to find a kid around here.

Taking a last look around the disorder of the common room, Kellen went out, closing the front door carefully, and very quietly, behind him.

HE went back down the cliff footpath, to wander the twisting paths along the cliffside among the small houses. This time he saw a number of adult Elves going about their business (all of them ignored him, very politely), but he had no intention of approaching any of them. He was looking for someone quite different.

Idalia said there weren’t a lot of Elf-kids. If I were a kid, and I didn’t have anybody to play with, where would I go?

He’d been walking for about half an hour, Kellen judged, mostly upstream along the riverbed—there was a trickle along the very bottom of the bed, mostly for decoration, he guessed—when he saw the boy.

The Elf-child was playing by himself down in the muddiest part of the streambed, and just like any other child, mud had gotten all over his skin and his clothes. His black hair was cut short, just brushing his shoulders, and Kellen was amused to see that there seemed to be mud there too. In fact, with a little work, the kid could probably get the rocks dirty. He was concentrating intently on something between his feet. Kellen saw something flicker on the surface of the water, passing him where he stood—a tiny boat made of folded colored paper.

He walked over to where the kid was squatting in the water. The boy was wearing a kilt and vest, and sometime this morning they’d been cream-colored, Kellen guessed. Since then, they’d suffered about as much as you’d expect at the hands of an active five-year-old—at least, the Elf-boy looked about five. For all Kellen knew, he might be fifty.

“Hello,” Kellen said, and waited to see what would happen.

“I see—” The boy looked up and saw Kellen, and his black eyes widened in delight. “I know what you are! You’re a human!” the boy said delightedly, jumping to his feet and scattering the rest of his paper boats in his excitement.

“My name’s Kellen,” Kellen said. “I just got here a couple of hours ago, and I was looking for somebody who could show me around the city.”

“I could!” the boy said. “My name’s Sandalon, and I know where everything is! I’ll show you.” He took Kellen’s hand and began to lead him back along the river. “You’re hot,” he commented. “And you’re an awfully strange color. Are you feeling all right? Do all humans wear clothes like that all the time? Are you going to wear clothes like that while you’re here, or are you going to wear proper clothes? We can start with the kilns, because they’re firing today, and that’s always educational, Nurse Lairamo says. Are your ears really round? Is it true that humans eat raw meat?”

Eventually Sandalon’s questions slowed down enough for Kellen to be able to actually answer them, and ask a few as well—it seemed that Elves knew as little about humans as humans did about them, only they were too polite to say so, if Sandalon’s innocent questions were anything to go by—and so Kellen learned about the firing kilns and the orchards, and pretty much everything Sandalon knew about Sentarshadeen: which was quite a bit, since no one hindered him and everyone looked out for him. Kellen found himself the target of sharp glances more than once, but since the boy was obviously enjoying himself in Kellen’s company, nothing was said.

Kellen discovered that the cliff walls weren’t as solid as they looked, either—there were canyons cut into them, which in turn led back into a whole deeper set of valleys, almost like a labyrinth. Kellen’s woodscraft stood him in good stead now: if he’d come here directly from Armethalieh, he’d have been completely lost among all the twists and turns almost at once, but spending a season in Idalia’s woods had taught him the skills to be able to find his way back to his starting place fairly easily.

“And this is where I live,” Sandalon said happily, pointing, after he’d spent most of the afternoon showing Kellen the high points of Sentarshadeen.

Kellen looked out across a meadow covered with short silvery grass. Set in its center was the largest Elven building Kellen had yet seen, a low, deep-eaved house built of silvery wood and pale stone. Age and strength radiated from it, as from an ancient living tree, and Kellen would not have been at all surprised to discover dryads living here.

“Come,” Sandalon said, pulling at Kellen’s hand. “I’ll show you.”

Kellen followed him across the grass.

The portico floor was covered with an intricate design of slatted wood, and by the time Kellen and Sandalon reached the doors, the soles of Sandalon’s sandals and Kellen’s boots were clean and dry. Though he knew this must be a very grand house by Elven standards, there was no sense of things being huge just to make people feel insignificant. There were double doors, wide enough so that several people could enter at once, but the doors themselves were not the towering things they would be in Armethalieh. They were simply the proper size for their function, just as the house seemed to be the proper size for its function, whatever that might be.

Sandalon pulled one of the doors open—the door latch was of age-smoothed bronze, in the shape of a twist of vine-stock—and sketched a quick bow in Kellen’s direction.

“Be welcome in this house and find comfort at our hearth,” Sandalon said. The words came out in a rush, as if the boy was repeating an only half-understood (as yet) lesson.

“Um … thanks. Thank you,” Kellen said. Sandalon seemed to be waiting for Kellen to go first, so Kellen stepped past him, into the house itself. He thought he heard Sandalon breathe a sigh of relief and follow him inside.

“Here’s where we live—me and Mother. And Father, too, only he isn’t here right now.”

The main entry hall extended the entire height of the house, and there was a skylight in the ceiling to let the daylight down into the hall. Directly below the skylight was a reflecting pool and fountain (empty now), its intricate mosaic of colored tiles depicting fish swimming in a river. At the back of the hall, two curving staircases mirrored one another, framing a doorway with sliding panels that echoed the entryway. On both sides, galleries opened onto the main hall, so that people in the rooms above could look down to see who had entered. The walls were hung with tapestries that would each have commanded a mage’s ransom in Armethalieh. The colors glowed jewel-bright, and the weaving was finer than anything Kellen had ever seen.

Kellen would have liked to stay and gawk, but Sandalon was already halfway up one of the staircases, and Kellen had no choice but to follow.

He was starting to get a pretty good idea of what was going on—and who Sandalon was—so it wasn’t much of a surprise when—after another quick tour of several rooms—they ended up about where Kellen expected.

“And this is my mother’s dayroom,” Sandalon said, opening the door.

The first impression Kellen got was that they’d stepped outdoors again. The walls were made of glass—hundreds of tiny panes, all held together in a bronze latticework—and the room seemed to hang in space, surrounded by a lacework made of light and air.

The second was that Sandalon’s mother was the most beautiful woman Kellen had ever seen.

Here was the beauty of the Elves as Kellen had read about it: as regal and distant as the Moon, as dangerous as fire. She was seated on a cushion, with a writing desk on her lap, wearing an elaborate gown of green and silver, embroidered with sinuous, twisting designs that seemed to catch and hold the eye, the edges of her trailing sleeves and the hem of her skirt ornamented with heavy silver lace as substantial as jewelry. Her black hair was braided with pearls and a bright green gem Kellen had never seen before, and she wore rings on every finger. She looked up when the door opened, and for a moment Kellen was caught in her gaze. It was like seeing Shalkan for the first time—just as transfixing; like being terrified without fear.

Then she set aside her writing desk and held out her arms to her son, and the moment passed.

“Here is my child—and here is half Sentarshadeen upon his clothes,” she added good-naturedly. Sandalon climbed into her arms and hugged her unself-consciously. She paid no heed to the mud on him, and the havoc it was making of her gown.

“I see someone whom I have never seen before,” she observed.

Kellen made his lowest and most formal bow. If this wasn’t the Queen of the Elves, he’d eat the hat Shalkan hated so much.

“I am Kellen Tavadon, brother to Wildmage Idalia,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “I am told that you were all expecting us for some time, so I hope that my presence is not an intrusion.”

The lady inclined her head graciously, at one and the same time acknowledging the truth of his words and welcoming him.

“Please forgive me, but as I am a stranger here, I had no idea where this fine young fellow was leading me,” he said, with a faint smile at the boy, “and no one has yet told me how to address you.”

“My name is Ashaniel, Kellen, and by right of Leaf and Star I am Queen over the Nine Cities. But the Elves have long memories, and do not require constant reminders of our rank and titles.” In a human’s mouth, the words would have been a false disclaimer, like as not. In hers, it had the ring of truth. “And now, the hour grows late, and I think, perhaps, you have not had the opportunity to truly settle into your home as yet. We would be honored if you would consent to share our evening meal with us.”

Kellen had been sure he was on his way to a polite dismissal, so the change of theme caught him by surprise.

He managed not to gape. He managed to bow. “I—Yes. Thank you. I would like that very much, Lady … Ashaniel.”

“Good.”

She sounded pleased. She actually sounded pleased. She rose to her feet and set Sandalon on his. “Now my son will wish to go and make himself presentable, and perhaps you will enjoy the opportunity to see something of the House of Leaf and Star before dinner.”

Now this was a dismissal, for servants—at least Kellen was guessing they were servants, for Queens must have servants—had appeared while Ashaniel had been speaking. Sandalon skipped past Kellen, and took the hand of a woman standing in the open doorway. She was dressed in deep blues and violets, and regarded her charge with a fond smile. Kellen found himself facing an Elven man who regarded him with a visible absence of expression. He was dressed in similar colors to the woman, but not closely enough for Kellen to be sure it was house livery, and he was as richly jeweled as a prince.

“There are things of great interest to be seen in this direction,” the man said, gesturing.

Kellen followed.

He listened to a number of indirect remarks about the length of his journey and the difficulties of the road while they wandered through the halls before he realized his guide was suggesting it would be a really good idea if he cleaned up before dinner. Once he figured that out, he suggested it himself, and felt an almost tangible sense of relief radiate from the Elven man. He was quickly ushered to a sitting room.

There was a large ornate sand-clock on a table in the center of the room. His guide moved to it quickly, making some quick adjustments with a series of crystal partitions that slid through the bowl. Kellen was fascinated to see you could change the amount of sand that could pass from one half of the clock into the other half, setting the amount of time that you measured.

“When the sands run out, I will return,” the Elf announced, bowing slightly. He upended the clock, turned, and left.

Kellen watched the sands run for a moment, then looked around. As he’d suspected, another door led through to a bathing room, enough larger than the one in the guesthouse to contain a table and chair as well. And there he received another surprise.

There was a suit of clothes waiting for him, neatly laid out over the chair, and a pair of soft ankle-boots set beneath it. He held up the tunic curiously. It would be a good—if loose—fit. And more, it was clearly designed to be a little loose.

Just as well, Kellen thought. He wasn’t sure he was cut out for the tight-fitting clothes he’d seen the Elven men wearing—it’d be too much like going naked, and he’d never cared for the tight-fitting fashions of the City, after all. And he was just as glad to be able to get out of the clothes he’d been wearing since—well, since he and Idalia had left the Wildwood, actually. If he hurried, he’d have time for a quick bath before his guide came back to conduct him down to dinner.

Dinner.

For the first time that day, his thoughts returned to Idalia. Would she worry when he didn’t come home? He wondered if there was some way he could call the Elven servant back, maybe send her a message …

But he couldn’t think of any, just offhand. And knowing little more about his hosts than that their very long lives were hedged about by rigid etiquette and protocol, he didn’t know what would offend them.

Idalia knew the Elves far better than he did. He’d just have to hope she’d guess that wherever he was, he wasn’t in any trouble.

He set the plug in the tub, turned the taps, and began to undress as it filled.

A short time later, damp, dressed, and smelling faintly of flowery Elven soap, Kellen stood watching the last of the sands run out. He’d folded his trail-clothes as neatly as possible and left them on the chair. He could come back for them later.

Although, if these were the sort of things he was supposed to be wearing around here, he really didn’t want those old clothes!

KELLEN had been stuck with attending more than a few formal banquets at his father’s house, and deep down inside, he’d been expecting and dreading that this would be more of the same: a lot of people he didn’t know, a lot of boring conversation about things he didn’t care about, and too much really unpleasant food to try to figure out how to eat while he worried about his table manners.

Dinner at the Queen’s Palace was nothing like that.

There probably was a grand formal dining room for state occasions here somewhere, but Kellen didn’t see it that night. The four of them (the Elf woman that Kellen supposed was Sandalon’s nurse, Lairamo, ate with them) sat together at a comfortable unpretentious table in a room whose enormous, leaded-glass windows were open to the first breath of evening. The walls were inlaid wood, carved to mimic the living forest, and done with such attention to detail that it was hard to tell in the mellow, dusky twilight where the forest he could see outside the windows ended and the carved forest on the walls began. Lanterns hung from the carven tree branches, casting a soft golden light over the table.

The tableware was simple as well, plain silver with sinuous curves—but jewel-encrusted gold would be vulgar, Kellen realized. The plates and cups they ate from were Elvenware, but a form of it that make the examples that he’d seen in the City—and the pieces in his and Idalia’s house—look as if they were made out of mud. The pieces on the Queen’s table were so light and glowing they looked almost ready to float away, and Kellen was nearly afraid to touch them.

The food was wonderful as well—simple and fresh, with an emphasis on perfectly ripe vegetables and fruits, wonderful breads, savory meat. There were no cleverly disguised, complicated dishes, no culinary oddities. You didn’t have to guess at what it was, or how to eat it, either. Kellen found himself starting to relax, as Ashaniel led the conversation into safe easy topics that centered around Sandalon’s day and how he’d spent it. The Queen obviously adored her son, and Sandalon was both young enough to think everyone should find Kellen as fascinating as he did and naive enough to be unaware that describing someone in the manner of a new menagerie animal might be less than flattering. More than once, Kellen caught Ashaniel suppressing a fond parental smile.

But the smiles quickly faded, and Kellen realized that Ashaniel had a lot more on her mind than being kind to her son’s new friend. The Queen was worried about something—badly worried, if even Kellen could pick up on it—and doing her best to hide it.

The last course was raspberries served in frozen cream, accompanied by tiny cups of a dark sweet wine for the adults, and a large mug of berry-cider for Sandalon. The child lingered over his drink, unwilling to finish it, until at last Ashaniel regarded him sternly.

“It is time for you to seek your bed, my young son,” she said in a voice that brooked no argument. “I do not think our friend Kellen plans to leave us soon, so you need not fear he will be gone before you wake again. And it is time for you to sleep.”

Sandalon looked just as rebellious as any other youngster at being told to go to bed, but he promptly drained his mug and got to his feet. It was obvious that however defiant he might feel, he would behave obediently. Everyone stood, and Sandalon bowed—first to his mother, then to Kellen—before allowing himself to be led off by his nurse.

“Will you come and see me tomorrow?” Sandalon asked, stopping at the doorway and looking over his shoulder.

Oh, bless the little fellow—Sandalon sounded positively mournful!

There was a sudden wariness in the air, and Kellen realized both women were looking at him intently, though he didn’t know why.

“I will,” Kellen promised. “Or you can come and see me. I had a good time today with you!”

Sandalon beamed, and the momentary tension Kellen had sensed disappeared. “I will!” the boy promised. “Thank you!”

“He is very young,” the Queen said apologetically, when Lairamo had led her son away. “And—often lonely.”

Now what was that all about? Kellen wondered. Surely they weren’t afraid that I’d reject the kid? He’d spent far too many lonely hours as a child himself to do anything of the sort! And how he would have loved having an older boy to look up to and have as a mentor!

“I suppose I should be getting home,” Kellen said when Ashaniel didn’t say anything more.

“Stay a while, if you would. I would talk with you for a few moments,” she said.

The bald statement rather startled Kellen—it was the first time today an Elf had ever been that direct. Perhaps because she was the Queen, she felt she could afford to go straight to the heart of the matter.

She gestured to Kellen to follow her, and led him out of the dining salon through another door than the one Sandalon and his nurse had used.

As far as Kellen could tell after all the twists and turns, the room they ended up in was directly beneath the glass room Sandalon had brought him to earlier. Here lamps were lit against the darkness, and a small fire burned in an elegant stove made of the same translucent Elvenware they’d eaten their dinners from. It was built to suggest a phoenix rising from flames, and the flickering of the real flames within gave the tile flames an eerie semblance of life.

The room was small and intimate, a room for private councils. Ashaniel motioned for Kellen to close the door behind them, and sank gracefully down into one of the chairs, gesturing to Kellen to take the other. There was a small table between them, with a tall green and silver decanter and two cups. She poured them both full and handed one to him.

Kellen sipped cautiously, tasting apricots and cinnamon, but no alcohol.

“I beg that you will forgive my rudeness, but I am desperate,” Ashaniel said. “You have named yourself Kellen Tavadon. I have heard of another who once bore the name Tavadon, who has lately been a guest in our lands.”

Ashaniel waited, looking at him.

Elves don’t ask questions. He didn’t know where the unexpected intuition came from, but Kellen suddenly realized it was true. He hadn’t heard a direct question from anyone here today but Sandalon—and hadn’t Idalia said that children were exempt from the Elven code of etiquette?

“You mean my sister Idalia.” He hoped she meant Idalia. It was all so difficult trying to maneuver around this Elven reticence—

Well, Idalia had said that humans weren’t expected to know the rules. He took his courage in both hands and plunged in. “Your Majesty—Ashaniel—I’m sorry. I’ll be happy to tell you just about anything I know, but you’re just going to have to ask me. I don’t want to be rude, but—” He gestured helplessly. “I’m not very bright, I’m afraid, and I just can’t manage to make out what you want to know if you won’t ask me directly.”

“It was I who did not wish to offend,” Ashaniel said, looking uneasy, yet relieved. “I do not wish you to feel unwelcome here, or to hold yourself treated as a criminal or one without family.”

“I won’t,” Kellen assured her. “But I know … I think I know there’s some kind of trouble here. There are things you want to know. And everything will go a lot faster if you just ask.”

“ ‘Ask.’ ” Ashaniel set her cup back on the table, regarding him gravely. She folded her hands in her lap, as if preparing herself to play a difficult game. Perhaps, for an Elf, it was. Perhaps, because they lived for such a very long time, speaking directly and asking questions was as difficult as mastering an auctioneer’s rapid-fire patter.

“Is your sister Idalia with you?” the Queen asked.

“Yes,” Kellen answered. “We both had to flee the Wildwood; we left just ahead of a Scouring Hunt. She’s staying with me at the guest house.”

“Is it true that she has come here at last to live?” Ashaniel seemed to be choosing her words as if this were a riddle game that required absolute precision.

“Yes. I mean, I think—” But he got no further.

“Holy Stars be thanked!” Ashaniel gasped, bending forward and covering her face with her hands. He could see the golden leaves in her dark hair tremble with the force of her suppressed emotion.

Kellen would have been less shocked to see a stone statue get up and walk—after all, in Armethalieh, he’d seen that happen many times. Ashaniel had seemed so remote, so untouched. He’d seen at dinner that she was worried, but this was more than worry. Under that serene exterior had been nothing less than panic. Maybe there still was—but for some reason, these people thought that Idalia held an answer to their problem. The only answer, perhaps.

“We are in desperate trouble, Kellen,” Ashaniel said simply, raising her head and composing her features once more. “I do not know what to do. My husband, Andoreniel Caerthalien, has been away for moonturns, searching for a solution to our plight, but this very day I have had a message from him: he has found no answer.”

She rose to her feet, and turned away to gaze out through the darkened windows.

“You have seen the state of the land as you rode through it on your way here. The land is starved for water. There has been no rain. The drought has gone on since the spring, and nothing we can do will break it. Our magics are very small: long, long ago, we surrendered all our part in the Great Magics to the Gods of Leaf and Star in exchange for long life and peace, and now, what power we retain is not enough to save the land we hold and love.”

It sounded to Kellen as if she were talking about a pact of the Wild Magic—paying a price in exchange for a boon. Did that mean Elves had been human once? Did it mean humans had made a bargain like that with the Gods—or that they’d had a chance to make a bargain and hadn’t, and so kept their ability to do magic?

But Ashaniel was still speaking.

“I do mean save it, for I fear, Kellen, that the land is dying, and if it dies, there will be no reviving it. We have only just been able to keep the forest and fields near Sentarshadeen and our own herds and flocks alive by carrying water from the five springs to the fields, and to the roots of each tree in the Flower Forest, but if a wildfire should start in the arid lands beyond our home forest, there will be no stopping it before all—the woods, the home forest, our city—is destroyed.”

She was right, Kellen knew, nodding in agreement. Back in the Wildwood, he’d seen the damage a flash-fire could cause even in a normal well-watered forest. And no matter how much water the Elves had carried to their home woods, if Sentarshadeen was surrounded by a million acres of burning forest, it just wouldn’t make any difference. And winter was coming, and winter meant storms. He thought of the dryad’s lightning-struck tree back in the Wildwood, and what would have happened if the Wildwood had been as tinder-dry as the country he and Idalia had ridden through for the last sennight. And even without a lightning storm, high wind could bring disaster, if it carried a spark from a cook-fire or lantern into dry grass.

“I can only hope—when Idalia hears of how it stands with Sentarshadeen—that she can—that she will—help us,” Ashaniel finished brokenly.

“I can’t promise that she can help,” Kellen said carefully. “I can promise that I’ll talk to her and tell her what’s going on. And that we’ll try.”

He thought back on Idalia’s careful nurturing of the Wildwood, of all the things they’d done there, and not always because it was a part of a price. He couldn’t imagine Idalia not wanting to help, even if she weren’t living here. And she was living here—they both were.

And that might make things even worse.

If some of the drought-dry woods were on the other side of the border—the side of the border claimed by Armethalieh …

Was the High Council foolish enough—mad enough—to try to burn them out if they knew they were here? Did they know about the drought?

“We’ll do everything we can,” Kellen said simply. “So tell me as much as you can about the situation, would you? Just when did you know there was something wrong?”

The Queen leaned forward earnestly, and began.

A servant escorted Kellen to the door of the House of Leaf and Star, and bowed politely as he left. On consideration, Kellen wasn’t entirely certain it had been a servant—Queens ought to have servants, but Ashaniel wasn’t anything like Kellen had expected a Queen to be, except that he was already sure he was half in love with her. Certainly Sentarshadeen was nothing like Armethalieh at all.

Though the sun was long set by now, the way before him was not dark. Lanterns and torches were placed at frequent intervals along the path to light his way—though Kellen was relieved to see, after his conversation with the Queen, that all of them were completely enclosed, to keep any stray spark from flying out. Then again—these were Elves, who seemed constitutionally incapable of doing anything without thinking about it for a very long time. Maybe they’d always done things this way.

More lanterns stretched off into the distance, dwindling into sparks that seemed to hang suspended in space like a cloud of multicolored fireflies. For one dizzying moment the meadow before him seemed to change places with the heavens above, and Kellen could imagine himself walking through a field of softly glowing stars, shining not with the cold blue-white radiance of the night sky, but in all the pale beautiful colors of spring. Many of the lanterns that he saw had walls of colored glass—blue and pink and green and yellow, and even, here and there, a surprising pale violet. Some were even inset with mirrors, so they sparkled and flashed like fireworks as he passed them, while others were filled with reservoirs of perfumed oil, making the night smell as sweet as a garden at noon. No two of the Elven lanterns were alike, Kellen discovered. Some were topped with whirligigs that flashed and spun from the heat within; others had softly chiming bells attached. Every lantern he saw was different, each one a work of high art, worthy to grace a museum or a palace.

He retraced his steps toward the former guesthouse, taking his time. If Sentarshadeen had been beautiful by day, it was completely enchanting by night. It was difficult to believe that none of this was accomplished by magic, but he saw—and sensed—no hint of magic at all.

It was very strange. Armethalieh was a city filled with magic—yet it was entirely ordinary, even prosaic—and the High Council toiled day and night to keep it that way. Sentarshadeen had very little magic about it, yet it was the most magical city Kellen had ever seen, a place of enchantment and wonder.

Several times as he made his way home Kellen saw Elves tending the lanterns nearest their doors. Apparently it was each householder’s responsibility to take care of the lanterns nearest their own homes, and he hoped someone was doing it at his and Idalia’s house.

When he reached home at last, he was pleased to see that they had: two large golden lanterns in the shape of summer squash hung outside their door, glowing a deep rich gold. Light spilled through the windows of the common room, and through the clear glass panels inset into the door.

Kellen opened the door and stepped inside.

Idalia was lounging on one of the long padded benches along the wall, surrounded by pillows, reading a book. All of their gear had been neatly tidied away, and the house now looked as though it had been theirs for years. A grey cat had appeared from somewhere and was tucked under one of her arms, purring contentedly. Idalia had pulled the stool over to serve as a low table, and a steaming cup of tea was resting on it, along with half an apple.

She looked up when he entered, raising an eyebrow noncommittally, and only then did Kellen remember that when he’d gone out he’d been wearing a different set of clothes entirely.

My clothes! I forgot all about them … .

He wondered what the Elves had done with them. Thrown them out, probably.

“I’m sorry I’m late getting back,” he said. “But I was invited to dinner … at the House of Leaf and Star.” He couldn’t resist a certain amount of smugness at the news.

“Ah.” Idalia gently set the cat aside and sat up—it yawned and stretched, then curled up in the warm spot she’d vacated. “And how did you and Sandalon get along with each other?”

Kellen gaped. He watched as Idalia kept herself from snickering with a visible effort, then pulled her face straight.

“You’ll soon find, Kellen, that it’s impossible to keep a secret in Sentarshadeen—or anywhere else in the Elven lands, for that matter. The Elves are masters of all the arts—and gossip is also an art form. Not only did three people stop by this afternoon to pass the time and tell me Sandalon had made a new friend, but when Astallance brought your other clothes back from the Palace, she told me you’d been invited to dinner.” She smiled then. “I would have expected that, anyway; the Queen is famous for her hospitality and if you hadn’t been invited today, you certainly would have been tomorrow. The only reason I wasn’t, was because I haven’t left our house.” Now she raised an eyebrow. “I told you that in their way, the Elves are sticklers for etiquette. Until I go into public, I don’t officially live here. Or rather, there is a strange female human who is a guest here, who may or may not be Idalia the Wildmage.”

“Then you know about the drought already?” Kellen asked, not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.

Idalia leaned forward, her smile fading.

“Perhaps you’d better come and sit down and tell me all about your day,” she said. “Don’t leave anything out just because you think I might have heard it elsewhere.”

Kellen sat down beside her and told her about meeting Sandalon and then Ashaniel. He told her what Ashaniel had told him—that there had been drought since spring, that it had begun when the spring rains failed to arrive, and nothing the Elves could do could end it. He told her how tinder-dry the forest was, and traced for her (as well as he could remember) the territory affected, in all directions, as far as the Elves themselves knew it.

Idalia listened intently, and with growing worry of her own. It was clear that although she had heard some of this from other sources, she had not heard the whole, and that what she had heard had only served to increase her concern.

“And she asked if you’d help. I said you would—I said I’d ask at least, and that I’d try—was that all right?” Kellen finished anxiously.

“Of course it was,” Idalia said absently, patting his knee. “I’ll do what I can, and by that, I mean I will try everything to help them. We both will. If Sentarshadeen should fall …” She left the sentence unfinished, gazing off into space, her mind obviously elsewhere. “Go to bed, Kellen. You’ve had a long day, and tomorrow will be just as long.”

It wasn’t the dismissal of an adult to a child; it was said in a tone of comradely kindness, a gentle reminder that the excitement of being in this amazing place would carry him only so long until it ran out and left him staring exhaustedly into space.

It was hard to remember with all that had happened since then, but this morning Kellen had been on the road, and had gotten up before dawn to feed and water the animals before the day’s ride. Since then he’d spent much of the day walking all over Sentarshadeen with Sandalon, so even though it was only just a little while after sunset, he realized that Idalia was right. He was tired, and going to bed actually seemed like a good idea.

A very good idea, in fact. Idalia had been wiser than he, to spend the afternoon and evening here, quietly, resting.

“You’re right, as usual,” he said, and found himself yawning. “Very right,” he added, and took her hand for a moment, giving it a quick squeeze before he got up. She looked surprised, then touched, and squeezed her hand back.

The lamps in his room had also been lit, and his Mountain Trader clothes were folded neatly on the bed, cleaned and brushed, just as Idalia had said. Even his boots had been polished.

A quick inspection of the drawers and cabinets as he put away the clothes revealed that Idalia had stowed away the rest of his gear, and someone had made him a gift of a few more sets of Elven guest-clothes, including a dark blue night-robe of some weaving that was as soft as fur. Kellen removed his Palace-clothes and slipped it on, marveling once more at the simple perfection the Elves brought to everything they did.

There was a bowl of fruit and a slender carafe of juice on the table beside his bed, and on the small desk beside the door, his copies of the three Books of the Wild Magic were stacked neatly. The bed was turned back, and soft linen sheets gleamed invitingly. He hadn’t slept in a bed this fine since he’d left the City.

But even tired as he was, Kellen realized that he wasn’t quite ready to sleep. He picked up The Book of Moon and the desk-lantern and went over to the window seat, opening the windows to the cool of the night. He came back and quenched the other lanterns, so that the room was in darkness, the only light coming from the lamp beside the book and the gentle radiance of the city’s many-colored lanterns spilling in through the window. He set the lamp carefully on the sill and settled down to read.

Simple spells of seeing and finding and knowing: most of the spells of the Wild Magic were contained in The Book of Moons, the first of the three Books—it was the art and craft of using and adapting them, the philosophy behind them, that were held in The Book of Sun and The Book of Stars. You could start to practice the Wild Magic within minutes of picking up the Books, but it would take you a lifetime to understand it. He’d barely begun.

His thoughts drifted away from the Book in his hands as he gazed out through his window into the lighted city below. Standing in the Low Market in Armethalieh, holding this Book in his hands for the first time, could he have ever imagined he would be here? Could he even have imagined this place existed?

Standing outside the Delfier Gate, hearing it barred behind him forever, would he have thought it was worth Banishment to come here and see what he had seen?

Yes. But not worth all the lives of those people the High Council is going to make miserable by annexing their lands just to try to get at me.

That’s the problem, really—I don’t mind paying the price, but is it fair that another price should be extracted from people who don’t even know me?

No. Not if the Wild Magic was involved. The Wild Magic could ask you to pay any price it chose, up to and including your own life, but it would never, never, ask you to pay another’s life. You could not pay what you did not own, not in the Wild Magic.

But he hadn’t asked to come here. He hadn’t made any bargains with Wild Magic. So was their involvement due to Wild Magic, or was it only coincidence?

Or did Father plan to annex the Wildwood all along?

It was possible. It was more than possible. In retrospect, Kellen now recognized the seeds of greed and avarice in his father, a desperate need to be numbered among the great Arch-Mages. Perhaps, just as Idalia had said, Kellen’s defection was only the excuse, not the cause.

He hoped so. All the grief and pain for others that had been and was being unleashed hung heavily on his heart.

And this strange drought, this dangerous weather—he wondered if the reason Idalia had brought them here was part of another price, for she surely hadn’t been willing to come. He knew the Wild Magic was powerful, but he’d still barely begun to learn about it. Could it truly be powerful enough to bring an end to this terrible drought in time?

And if it was, what would be the price of that? And who would pay it?

Chapter Eighteen

The City Never Sleeps

LYCAELON TAVADON PACED irritably behind his throne in the Council Chamber, waiting for the twelve to arrive. This meeting was not of his calling, and he did not expect it to go well.

The news his agents had brought him over the last sennights had not been good. It had, in fact, been a catalogue of disasters, each more baffling than the last.

The Scouring Hunt had been called up and sent forth—at great cost to the Mages and their stores of hoarded energy. A handpicked troop of Militia and Lawspeakers had ridden out ahead—though the Hunt would overtake them and finish its cleansing work days before they arrived—to bring news of Armethalieh’s will to its newly annexed dominions, stewards to govern them and assessors and tax gatherers to make sure that the crofts and villages were smoothly integrated into the great family of Armethaliehan lands. When they arrived in lands newly humbled by such an awe-inspiring display of Mageborn power, its inhabitants should be deeply grateful to receive the City’s protection.

Even though the City itself had visited the terror of the Scouring Hunt upon them …

And The Outlaw would be taken, run to ground, with the just vengeance of the City exacted upon him at last.

But that wasn’t what had happened.

The first news to reach Lycaelon as the remains of the Scouring Hunt came limping home was the worst: The Outlaw had escaped once again. Somehow the miserable whelp had known the Hunt was coming and had fled before it, vanishing beyond the Hunt’s power to follow, for by the laws of the magick that had given the Hounds life and power, they could not follow their prey outside Armethalieh’s newly expanded borders.

And just as bad, so Lycaelon discovered from the minds of the stone Hounds—for with the proper spells, a Mage of sufficient power could see and hear all that a Hound had seen and heard while Hunting—the boy had help in his wickedness, an ally whose name Lycaelon had forgotten long ago, to his cost.

Idalia. His daughter. His treacherous Banished Wildmage daughter.

The Outlaw Hunt sent after her years before had returned, baffled, unable to find her. How that could be, he had not then, and did not now, have any idea. But when there was no word of her for two entire years, he had assumed that she must have died in that grace period between dusk and dawn. Even near the Delfier Gate, after all, the wilderness was dangerous, and there were rogues aplenty and wild animals who could have removed her from the world before the Hunt had been released. She might even have chosen to die by her own hand, rather than face the life of an Outlaw or the terror of the Hunt.

But clearly—so he saw now—she had not run afoul of misfortune. Somehow she had escaped, and not content with escaping justice, had obviously found some way to infect Kellen with her twisted madness from afar, and then claimed him for her own in the moment that the City’s protection had been lifted from him.

Someday, girl, I will find you both. And when I do, I swear by the Eternal Light, there will come such a reckoning as will make even your Tainted soul tremble!

The door to the Council chamber opened, and the rest of the Council began to arrive, austere and magisterial in their grey Council robes: Breulin, Meron, Volpiril, Perizel, Lorins, Arance, Ganaret, Nagid, Vilmos, Dagan, Isas, Harith.

A herald announced each one as he entered the room, and an Undermage servant waited beside each one’s chair to serve him.

Volpiril, Light blast him back into the Darkness, looked positively gloating at the current turn of events, though he did his best to look austere and dispassionate. Isas and Harith were, as always, Lycaelon’s creatures, and would back him no matter what he did, but Breulin and Perizel both had a dangerous streak of independence, and the news from the west had been shockingly bad.

Within the Council there were always undercurrents of alliance and jockeyings for position. And it was, disturbing though the thought might be, entirely possible for the head of the Council and the chief Arch-Mage of Armethalieh to be deposed, set aside, forced to yield his place to another. It had not been done in decades. It had never been done to a Tavadon.

Two for him, three against him, and every member of the Council, Isas and Harith included, was both ruthless and ambitious, and each had sources of information nearly as extensive as Lycaelon’s own. Each of them had reviewed—as was their right—the experiences of the golems of the Scouring Hunt … the ones that had returned, at any rate. Too many of the creatures the Council thought invincible had not returned at all, and that after The Outlaw had somehow managed to utterly destroy all the packs sent against him.

And since this new campaign was all by Lycaelon Tavadon’s orders, the Arch-Mage himself was to blame.

“Gentlemen, shall we convene?” Lycaelon said smoothly, masking his unease as he settled into his seat.

This was a special session of the Council, but the business of the City still had to be dealt with first, for the good of the City. Several smaller matters were raised and handled quickly and efficiently, but Lycaelon could feel the current of tension and expectation running beneath it all, like a riptide beneath the still surface of the sea. Everyone in the room knew what the true purpose of this meeting was.

“And now, the last item on our agenda for this afternoon. The Western Campaign,” Lycaelon began.

Normally they would have heard the reports of the Mages who rode with the Militia in person, but those men were still in the field, and besides, this was too delicate a situation to discuss in the presence of anyone outside the High Council. The field Mages had reported by scryingglass to Lord Arance, who had worked the spell that had trapped the sendings in the clear golden sphere of Farspeaking until they should be released with a counterspell.

“Before we hear the reports of our Undermages in the west, perhaps it would be helpful to us all to review what we already know about the situation,” Lycaelon said. “The people of the west have a long history of contempt for the civilizing benefits of citizenship in our City.”

“We know that those damned upstart western rabble are nothing but a pack of savages,” Lord Ganaret said fiercely, leaning forward. “If you ask me, the Hunt should have scoured them all off the land!”

“Now, Ganaret,” Volpiril said smoothly. “What would there be to tax in that case? Not that there seems to be anything to tax in any case, if what we have heard so far is true. It seems that Arch-Mage Lycaelon’s well-known humanitarianism has led him into trying to bring the benefits of civilization to people who simply aren’t ready to receive it.” High Mage Volpiril sat back in his chair, well pleased with his opening remarks. “Only the savage would destroy his own food, shelter, and belongings and flee into the wilderness rather than accept the rule of the civilized.”

“Crops burned in their fields … whole villages gone overnight … it’s Demon-magic, that’s what it is,” muttered the aged Lord Vilmos. Vilmos, it was well known, saw Demons beneath every bed and in every chamber pot.

“Now, Lord Vilmos, I think you go too far,” Lord Isas said hastily, with a quick glance at Lycaelon.

“Obviously The Outlaw found a way to spy upon our councils, as I warned you he would,” Lycaelon interrupted, turning the discussion back in a more appropriate direction. “My lords, this squabbling ill becomes us. Surely these are only minor setbacks. The villages will accept our benevolent rule with time. Arance, let us hear the reports from the field.”

Lycaelon would have suppressed them if he could, already having a fairly good idea of what the full versions of those reports contained, but his power in the City was not that great. The Arch-Mage led the Council, but he did not rule it. If Lycaelon only had his way, he would dispense entirely with the entire pack of shortsighted nattering fools, fit only to raise power for his use, and shepherd Armethalieh to her destiny as the Golden City should be guided, with wisdom and vision!

His wisdom. His vision. He alone had the foresight to envision what must be done. And he alone had the strength of character to sacrifice anything and anyone, even his sole son and heir, to preserve the safety of the City.

But it was not possible. And he was certain the others’ sources of information were nearly as good as his own. There was no purpose in wasting his energy on a fight he would surely lose. Better to let the reports enter the record, and plan how to turn the information to his advantage later.

Arance stood, and set a large black box on the table before him. He opened it to reveal a golden sphere of flawless crystal, which he lifted out and raised gently, his lips moving silently in the complicated counterspell that would release the stored energies contained within it.

The sphere rose into the air and hovered at man-height over the center of the chamber. It began to spin, faster and faster, until it vanished, and in its place stood an Undermage in field robes, his form faintly golden and transparent.

“My lords of the Council, I speak to you from the Western Hills, and bring you news that makes ill hearing. We have come today to a village called Merryvale, but the gates are barred and they will not give us entry. They have refused to allow a steward to be set over them, and have given us a petition to be delivered to the Council, requesting that you allow them to live in peace under their own laws. They have refused to supply us with fodder for our animals or food for our men, nor can we supply ourselves, for the fields and orchards surrounding the village are stripped bare. There is no game in the woods, and no fish in the stream. Our supplies are running low. Several of the men have been badly stung by bees as well. Since we cannot stay here, we are moving on to the next village as quickly as we can.” The image faded, to be replaced by another, and the report went on.

In every place the delegation from Armethalieh went, the story was the same—or worse. Some villages were gone entirely, with nothing to show they had been there but hearthstones and the village well. When crops had not been harvested down to the last seed, they had been thoroughly spoiled by wildlife, though the travelers saw not so much as a single bird.

Misfortunes abounded. Equipment went missing, horses strayed or went inexplicably lame, supplies were lost. The only wildlife that ever appeared was never anything that could be hunted and eaten—it was inevitably something that would plague them. Flocks of starlings appeared overhead just at mealtime, and anything that wasn’t covered was soon contaminated by droppings. Mice got into the supplies, foxes stole them, and more than once a weary and unsuspecting Mage or officer climbed into his bedroll only to discover that a wildcat had been there first … and had left evidence of its displeasure behind.

Everywhere the Armethaliehans went, the news of their coming had somehow gone before them, and no one wanted to see them. If the Mages had not used their magic to force the few villages they encountered to feed them, the Armethaliehan delegation would have starved, but every time they did use the High Magick, the accidents that befell their party increased.

“I see no recourse save to return to the City, Lord Arch-Mage. We await your orders.”

The figure of the last Undermage vanished upon the conclusion of the last report. The spinning crystal sphere reappeared, and slowed until once more it hovered, motionless, in the air. Lord Arance summoned it back to its box, enclosed it once more, then sat down.

“It seems the west is not as willing to accept the benefits of civilization as is the north and south,” Breulin commented dryly. “My lords, we are dangerously overextended—and for what? A wasteland. Where is the fertile granary you promised us, Arch-Mage Lycaelon? Where is The Outlaw? Where are the hordes of inferior beast-folk who supposedly lived alongside of the human villagers, corrupting them with their insidious presence? We have poured out magic like water on the desert sand—first to expand the boundaries, then to create the Scouring Hunt—and it has brought us nothing.”

There was a general mutter of agreement, and Lycaelon realized with a faint sense of despair that he had lost. The Undermages’ reports were damning. The Council would never agree to the further investment of resources needed to secure the Western Hills for Armethalieh. He could scarcely blame them, for at this point, it had been all loss and no gain.

One by one the members of the Council—all of whom had cheered him so ardently when he had proposed his plan originally—rose to speak. Each of them supported Breulin’s position—even Isas and Harith expressed timid misgivings at the united opposition shown by the westerners, and the cost of overcoming it. The City’s resources and magickal reserves were dangerously low, and it would be the work of long moonturns to rebuild their reserves again without disturbing the populace.

Last of all, Volpiril rose, smiling benignly.

“Knowledge is never wasted,” Volpiril—treacherous, subtle Volpiril!—began slowly. “I believe the Arch-Mage has served the City well. It is good for us to know who our enemies are, and how much they hate us. How else can we know the depth of our own need for protection? And the Scouring Hunt has surely swept the borders clear of rabble for a season at least. Let us rejoice in that.” He smiled benignly on the assembled Council, Lycaelon most of all. The Arch-Mage gritted his teeth in silence, but not without effort. The impudent Darkspawn! How dare he speak in such patronizing tones!

“But let us also heed this warning against rashness and the dangers of trying to protect too much at once. As the Arch-Mage said in his stirring speech—which I’m certain we all took to heart—the Golden City is the City of Man, a flickering candle in the darkness of bestiality and error that surrounds it. We dare not let this precious Light go out, even though we naturally grieve to see fellow humans suffering and in peril.

“And so, it is my recommendation, which I place most humbly before this assembled Council, that we take instruction from our momentary weakness, and return our borders to their ancient, hallowed, and historic limits, abandoning our new territories. Now and always, Armethalieh the Golden must stand alone, perfect and pure! To the walls—and not one ell beyond!”

Volpiril sat down again amid murmurs of approval. There was a moment of expectant silence.

It was some small consolation, Lycaelon thought sourly, to see Breulin looking as irritated as he felt himself at Volpiril’s pretty speechmaking. It was true that the City’s food supply would not suffer—the farmers had no other market for their crops, after all. They would continue to bring them—but now, they would want to be paid for them.

And if ever there had been a moment in the history of the City when the actions of the Council had virtually handed anyone who had even thought of rebellion the signal to do so without fear of reprisal, this was it. Why should anyone outside the City bother to pay his just tithes and taxes now?

“It will undoubtedly come as a great surprise to the villages of the Central Valley to discover they are no longer to be taxed or claimed by the City, but undoubtedly the visionary Lord Volpiril has some way to replace those lost revenues as well!” Lycaelon muttered, just loud enough for his fellow Mages to hear.

He waited, but no one rose to speak in opposition to Volpiril’s plan. And he would not demean himself. If they could not see the disaster they were brewing for themselves, he would do nothing more to save them from it. Let them reap the consequences of their folly. Let them see what ignorant, foolish children they really were. Let the dark days come, let all see them for what they were, and when things were darkest, let all turn to him, Arch-Mage Lycaelon Tavadon, let them beg him to save them from the consequences of their thoughtless arrogance and pride—!

“I call the vote,” Lycaelon said. He extended his hand, palm down. Disapproval.

It went as he thought it would go from the moment Volpiril rose to speak. With ten in favor and two abstentions, his dissenting vote was overruled.

The Council would abandon its new territories, pulling back its boundaries to the City walls themselves.

But this was not the end, Lycaelon vowed silently. He would accept neither this defeat nor the City’s loss. Someday—someday soon—in the name of the City, the Council would reclaim all the lands Lycaelon had been forced to forfeit in its name today.

And more.

Much more.

ANIGREL had received advance warning of the disastrous failure of the Scouring Hunt—more than Lycaelon had, for his information had come a fortnight ago, when he had filled his iron bowl with dove’s blood and herbs to make his regular moonturn’s report.

He had learned then with a mixture of dread and glee of the Hunt’s utter failure, and the defeat of the proud Armethaliehan army that rode in its wake. Glee—because the City had drained every reserve and overextended itself severely to mount the attack, leaving itself exhausted and vulnerable, easy prey. Dread—because failure on such a vast scale required scapegoats, and Anigrel knew perfectly well that his own position in Lycaelon Tavadon’s household was less secure than it had been before The Outlaw’s Banishment.

After all, private secretaries could be had for the asking, and he certainly wasn’t needed as a tutor anymore.

Today’s emergency Council session could only mean that the Council was meeting to review the reports from the field, admit what each of them had known a sennight ago, and fix the blame.

“There are no failures, only opportunities.” He only hoped it was possible to grasp the opportunity in this.

“Anigrel!”

Arch-Mage Lycaelon strode into his private office, his aura crackling with barely leashed rage. Anigrel rose from behind his desk and appeared in the connecting doorway.

“Lord Arch-Mage.” He schooled his face to a meek expression of bland deference. “The meeting did not go well?”

For a moment Anigrel thought Lycaelon would explode—literally burst into a thousand pieces, like a Founding Day firework. But somehow the Arch-Mage kept his composure in the face of Anigrel’s goading. Such seemingly innocent remarks were one of Anigrel’s few pleasures, and a necessary part of his masquerade, Anigrel told himself, because they were just the sort of thing someone with no inside knowledge of events would say.

“The meeting did not go well, Light blast Volpiril into cold Darkness and the rest of the Council with him for their foolishness,” Lycaelon snarled. “Volpiril says, in his ‘wisdom,’ that if the Western Campaign has been such a failure, the only thing we can do is abandon all our lands, including the Home Farms!”

It was just as well that Lycaelon was so angry he paid no attention to Anigrel at all, for the momentary surge of shock and elation must surely have set its mark, however briefly, on Anigrel’s features.

“You should have seen Breulin’s face when the Council agreed to that; he will think twice about supporting that viper next time.”

Lycaelon sounded savage in his satisfaction at that—well, Breulin owned several of the Home Farms, and now he would have to go without the protection of the City if anything untoward happened out there. More to the point, if his servants and laborers elected to defect and keep everything the farms produced for themselves, there was nothing Mage Breulin would be able to do to enforce his will.

Now Lycaelon shook his head, the energy that his anger had generated running out of him like water from a cracked jar. “But it is done. Our borders are our walls, as it was in the beginning. The proclamations will go out as soon as they can be enscribed.”

“This is … strange news, Lord Arch-Mage,” Anigrel said slowly. And important enough to report immediately, without waiting for the usual time.

“Strange indeed. But I will not let their blindness defeat me.” Lycaelon’s voice hardened. “You have taught me the value of perseverance, eh, my young friend? And now, Anigrel, I am tired. Bring me tea.”

Anigrel hurried to do as he was bid, his mind turning on what this meant to his own mission.

“There are no failures, only opportunities!”

And this would be a great opportunity indeed … for the Dark Lady.

FROM the habit of years, Idalia woke a little before dawn. She could feel the life of Sentarshadeen all around her, like a melody played just below the threshold of hearing, but mingled with it, terribly, was a wrongness, a discord—faint still, but holding within it the potential to grow stronger with time.

The drought had disturbed her ever since she’d seen the first signs of it as they rode toward Sentarshadeen. Drought and flood were both aspects of the balance of Nature, for Nature was not gentle with her creatures, and sometimes the ways she achieved her balance were necessarily harsh. But a natural drought was a thing that was long years in the making, a thing of scant rains, not no rain. The High Hills were a country of long dry summers, wet springs, and soaking autumn rains, and a dry summer could extend somewhat into either side of spring or autumn without overmuch harm. But there had been no rain this spring at all, and now none this autumn, and that was not natural.

And more troubling than that, rivers that should have run fast and deep into Elven lands, full with melted snow from the High Peaks, were dry as well.

Perhaps ending the drought would be a simple matter, requiring nothing more than a simple—though powerful—spell. The whole of Sentarshadeen would eagerly share the price, Idalia knew. She only hoped it would be that easy.

Best to find out for sure, then, instead of worrying about it.

She rose and dressed, some imp of perversity causing her to reject the sturdy silks and woolens her hosts had provided in favor of her own buckskins. Let her be seen for what she was: human, and mortal, and Wildmage. Later she would wear the silks as a matter of courtesy, of thanking her hosts tacitly for providing them, but first impressions were important, especially here, and she meant them to think of her as she intended to be.

And Jermayan …

No. She would not think about Jermayan, ever again. And if the man had a scrap of good manners left to him, he’d arrange matters so their paths never crossed. It was for the best. The man was an Elven Knight. He was used to making hard choices. He’d just have to live with hers.

An unbidden thought intruded. I only hope that I can …

She shook it off, moved quietly across the main room, to look in on Kellen. He was sound asleep, tangled up in the blankets as though he’d lost a fight with them. She felt a fond smile cross her lips. Kellen slept like a hibernating bear; there was very little chance she’d wake him, no matter how much noise she made.

She quickly brewed her morning tea. She had no appetite herself, but she set out a plate of breakfast pastries for Kellen to find when he awoke. There’d been many visitors last night while Kellen had been out exploring, and at the moment, the larder was full enough to withstand even the onslaughts of a growing teenager’s appetite.

Kellen … Idalia remembered her first experience in Elven lands and sighed. Last night, when Kellen had come back from the Palace, his eyes had been so full of stars it was the Gods’ own mercy he’d made it home at all, and walked through the door instead of into it! The Elves were so beautiful, so kind, their protracted lives so seemingly perfect … it was easy to fall into the trap of thinking they were always right as well.

And they certainly think so, after all. It’s easier to shift an overburdened mule than to get one of the Elvenborn to change his mind! “Stubborn as an Elf” … now there was a new maxim for the City fathers to din into younglings’ heads! And it took you forever to notice, because, when one of the Elvenkind disagreed with you, all they ever did was smile and change the subject, and it could take a person forever to figure out that there’d been an argument … and you’d lost.

She would never lose her admiration for them, her respect for their wisdom and knowledge, and her affection for them—but Jermayan had served her one good turn. She was no longer blind to their faults, either as individuals or as a race.

But all this cloud-gathering wasn’t getting her anywhere, and the sun was almost up. Idalia finished her tea, washed out the cup, and left the tea-things out where Kellen would find them. Then she picked up her walking-staff, filled her pockets with charged keystones, and left their lodging.

She took a quicker route than Kellen had followed the night before, up past the House of Leaf and Star and into the orchard beyond. Even at this early hour, Elves were already hard at work carrying water to the fragile trees. She greeted several of them by name, but did not stop to do more than exchange the briefest of greetings. The sooner she had her answers, the sooner her real work could begin. And with their usual sensitivity to her, they understood that she had an urgent task, and did not delay her beyond the simplest of courtesies.

A few more minutes’ walk brought her to her goal: one of the ever-flowing springs that supplied the water for all of Sentarshadeen, located in the meadow beyond the Queen’s Orchard. Without rain, these were the only sources of water for the city. There were five of them, as she remembered: Alcemil, Caldulin, Elassar, Helanarya, Songmairie. This should be Songmairie. Helanarya and Elassar were under Sentarshadeen itself, their waters sent by wind-driven pumps to course through the miles of pipes whose results had so delighted Kellen last night.

A wide path of smooth stone led up to Songmairie—laid down, Idalia guessed, when it had become necessary to bring water carts to the spring several times a day—and the verge of the spring itself was edged with a decorative pattern of stones and tiles. Grass—lush here, so close to the water source—grew up between them.

She looked out over the meadow, but there were no unicorns to be seen at this hour, though she knew that quite a large herd lived in Sentarshadeen, since Elves and unicorns often lived together. Centuries ago, during the Endarkened War, Elven Knights had ridden unicorns into battle against the Endarkened hordes and their allies. All memory of that war had carefully been edited out of texts in the City, and it was so long ago that Idalia doubted that any of the Elvenkind now alive remembered it personally. But the memories of the Elves were very long, and their recorded memories of Demonkind longer still, and it was never safe to forget the Shadow.

She knelt and drank from the spring. The water was icy and pure. But not enough—even if Sentarshadeen held ten times its population, and all of them labored day and night—to water enough acreage to save them from disaster. All it would take would be one good grass-fire, one lightning strike …

One out-of-control salamander, a high wind, or just another year of no rain. And no reason for it. It was raining in Merryvale, and that’s east of here, toward the sea. Why shouldn’t it rain here?

Still kneeling, she emptied her pockets of keystones. She dipped each in the spring—water called to water—and then arranged them around her in a rough circle.

She cupped her hands again, filling them with the spring, and scattered the water around her, moistening the keystones a second time. Earth-magic and the spells of Finding and Calling required the caster’s blood and the fruits of the earth as tokens of intent, but weather magic was the magic of air and water, and did not use those symbols as a bridge between the power of the Wildmage and that of the Gods.

She touched her wet hands lightly to her lips, blowing over them gently, and let the power well up in her, concentrating on her need and her desire.

Rain.

Kneeling in the earth, feeling its thirst, Idalia smelled water, tasted water, willed water to be. It was time for rain—the harvest was in, the land was ready to rest, to sleep. Time for rain, to bring the autumn leaves down from the trees and ready the earth for winter and snow. She could feel it—in the air, just over the peaks, in the distance—and called it to her with the intensity of a woman calling for her lover. Come to me, Beloved, and give me rest.

Nothing.

After a long fruitless struggle, Idalia opened her eyes with a sigh. Not so much as a shift in the wind. The keystones were drained, and the sky was still an empty arid blue.

More than any other, weather magic required patience and care. A storm couldn’t be whistled up for the asking—not out of a cloudless sky, at least, and certainly not without paying a greater price than Idalia cared to. To change the weather was more a matter of a series of gentle nudges over time, more like herding sheep than lighting a fire.

But if her spell was going to have any effect at all, she should have felt something. And she’d felt nothing at all. It wouldn’t matter how much power she used, or how many folk she shared the price among, she knew: the result would be the same.

The wind would not shift. The rains would not come.

Idalia’s shoulders slumped.

This is no natural drought.

She’d suspected as much, after hearing Kellen’s story the night before—Ashaniel would not have been so disturbed by a natural change in the weather. The Elves had seen so many droughts in the course of a lifetime that a natural drought would simply be met with a sigh, a hope that the Gods of Leaf and Star would set things in balance soon, and some careful conservation until the drought was over. They were sensitive to the health of their land as humans (other than Wildmages) were not; they would have known if this drought was like the others that had come and gone in the past.

They had—as she had—felt the subtle wrongness. They had known that no natural dry spell would give rise to that feeling of imbalance.

And that meant that someone was causing this.

High Mages? It wasn’t impossible. Would Lycaelon attack the Elves indirectly this way, perhaps to drive them farther away from the City and the lands it claimed? It would be a clever way to do it, since he could, if challenged, easily deny any such thing, even to the Elves. High Magick, stolen as it was from all of the citizens of Armethalieh, and learned according to strict formulas, did not have a signature in the way that Wild Magic did, identifying who the Mage was that set it in motion.

But much as she’d like to place all the evils of the world at Lycaelon’s doorstep, until the City had claimed and pacified both the Western Hills and the High Reaches, they had little motive for starting a war with the Elven lands—and war it would be, the moment the Elves discovered who was behind the drought. And Lycaelon could not have set a spell of this magnitude alone. He would have needed the backing of the rest of the Council.

No. Idalia abandoned the idea reluctantly. Though the City might yet be discovered to be behind this, the Elves had other enemies. Enemies older than the City, and more powerful …

Wearily, Idalia gathered up her empty keystones and got to her feet. Figuring out who was responsible for this would take a lot more work than she’d already put in. She’d have to rest first, and then make her plans—and weave her spells—very, very carefully.

If her suspicions were true, she could not afford even the slightest of mistakes in her hunting.

KELLEN slept deeply and well on his first night in Sentarshadeen, his dreams untroubled. When he awoke at last, it was to the gentle tickle of whiskers on his face, as the grey cat that seemed to have adopted them investigated him curiously.

A glance out the window told him he had slept far later than he could remember sleeping in—well, it would have to go back to before he began formal schooling. In the Wildwood, the day and its tasks started with the dawn, and back in the City, Kellen had always been in a hurry to be out of the house by Second Morning Bells at the latest in order to avoid Lycaelon.

But here there was nothing pressing that had to be done, and no one to avoid.

He lay there for a few minutes, examining the feeling and not certain how to label it, while he gave the grey cat the thorough head scratch she demanded. He was sure there were things to be doing here in Sentarshadeen, but at the moment he didn’t have to do any of them. It felt peculiar.

The cat seemed to find some fault with his attentions, for she suddenly gave a violent sneeze directly into his face and bounded off through the window Kellen had left open the night before. “Now, there’s gratitude!” Kellen said, half annoyed, half amused. “You ought to belong to Lycaelon.”

Yawning, Kellen got up and went in search of Idalia and breakfast.

He found breakfast—a plate of cold pastries, and tea-things laid out for him on the table beside the hearth-stove—but no Idalia. Her room was empty, the bed neatly made. Obviously she had gone out several hours before, leaving him to sleep.

He filled the kettle and put it on to heat, and while he was waiting for it to boil, he washed and dressed, being careful to use as little water as possible and marveling once again at the comfort and efficiency of the Elven plumbing. No shivering outdoors as he had in the Wildwood or waiting around for servants to bring water as he had back in the City. Everything was just there, exactly when and where you wanted it.

Clean and dressed—after a little hesitation, he’d chosen one of the new Elven outfits that had been left for him—he ate, savoring the unfamiliar Elven spices, while deciding what to do with his day. The view from the balcony was just as amazing this morning as it had been last night; now he noticed something else, the sound of Sentarshadeen.

In Armethalieh, he’d grown up listening to the harmonizing of the bells that marked the rhythms of the City’s days and seasons; in the Wildwood, he’d become accustomed to the way that random birdcalls, water sounds, and the song of the winds in the leaves created a background “song,” of sorts.

Here in Sentarshadeen, the magic of the bells of Armethalieh had somehow been grafted onto the sounds of the Wildwood. The song of the forest, added to the wind chimes, the wind bells, and wind harps in the gardens, created a music unlike anything he had ever heard. Beautiful, peaceful—he wondered what it would be like if there wasn’t a drought. Surely there would be the voices of a thousand fountains, waterfalls, and the great voice of the river as well, adding yet another note to the consort.

Then, as he finished his breakfast, a breeze brought him the scent of Sentarshadeen—or at least, the scent in drought time—and it was as subtle as the song. As in the Wildwood, Kellen could smell the aroma of warm grass and green leaves, but with a hint of sweet herbs and foreign spices added, a suggestion of something in flower. The scent was refreshing, but again, he wondered what it would be like if there wasn’t a drought, and lusher flowers were in bloom, roses and phlox, and the water lilies of the ponds.

The scent, the sound, the sight, called to him, and Kellen felt a restlessness come over him. He didn’t want to just sit around waiting for Idalia to come back, not with a whole exotic Elven city to explore. He supposed Sandalon must have had lessons this morning or else he would already be here; well, Sandalon would certainly be able to find Kellen anywhere he went, if what Idalia had told him about the Elves’ penchant for gossip was true. And meanwhile, he’d take this chance to get a better look around. If everybody knew he’d had dinner at the Palace last night, they might be a little more forthcoming today.

KELLEN wandered along the canyon floor, peering in at the half-hidden houses as he passed and hoping he wasn’t being too rude as he did so. From all that he’d seen yesterday, Kellen had gotten used to the idea that all the Elves were fabulously wealthy by human standards, but what he saw today confused him. Some of the houses he passed, while obviously lived-in, were nearly empty, and so tiny they consisted of only one room.

Were these Elves poor? Or had they just chosen to live without possessions? Nothing he saw anywhere, even in the smallest houses, looked shabby or of poor quality, and everything he saw had the serene beauty of Nature—nothing cluttered, nothing out of place, everything where it was meant to be. Harmonious. Kellen wasn’t quite sure where the word came from, but it certainly fit. The Elven city was the visual counterpart to a piece of music: everything exactly where it ought to be, every portion necessary, nothing wasted, nothing too much.

Some of the houses had tiny gardens planted around them, and as Kellen passed one house, he came upon an Elven man watering his garden with a bucket and dipper. Kellen slowed down, then stopped to watch.

The man was very old, Kellen realized. His long braided hair had lightened with age until it was the blue of storm clouds, and his body had the wiry slenderness of age. He was wearing a simple loose tunic and trousers, and his feet were bare. He looked up as Kellen approached, and regarded him with bright-eyed interest.

“I see you, Kellen Tavadon, friend of Sandalon.”

“I see you, gracious sir,” Kellen responded, trying to copy the little half-bow he’d seen last night at the House of Leaf and Star. He started to ask a question, and stopped himself just in time. Asking questions was the height of rudeness here, he was starting to realize. But maybe he could get his answers without asking questions.

“I’m walking through the city because it’s the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen. I have never seen an Elven city, for I have spent most of my life in the city of Armethalieh. I confess that I’m curious about both your city and your people,” Kellen said, after a long moment’s thought. Approach the subject obliquely, that’s the key, he thought to himself encouragingly. He was rewarded by a faint smile from the elderly Elf.

“Huh,” the old man said, as if speaking to his plants. “And they say humans have no manners. Come and sit a moment in my garden, Kellen Tavadon, and listen to an old man talk to his plants, if it would please you.”

“It would please me and honor me very much, goodsir,” Kellen replied, cheered that his first attempt at Elven manners had succeeded so well.

The old man came over to the edge of the path, ushering Kellen into his garden. There was a low wooden bench placed along the wall of the house where it would catch the morning sun, a bench made of wood carved in the sinuous lines of a curving vine and as soft and silken beneath his hand as an Elven cloak. Kellen seated himself carefully as the old man returned to his watering.

“Here is eyebright, which will soothe the weariness brought on by late nights over books, and goldcap, which makes a soothing tea, and purple hand—you will remark the shape—which is an excellent poultice for bruises. And you are a Wildmage.”

The last was stated as matter-of-factly as the names of the herbs, so it took Kellen a few moments to figure out that it might be a question.

“I … yes. No. I don’t know, not really,” he managed, feeling, somehow, that nothing less than the absolute truth was needed here. “I have the three Books, and I read and study them, and I—I do my best. I haven’t been studying as long as my sister, though.”

“Yet quite long enough to be filled with questions about where the Wild Magic comes from, for that is the nature of humans, to always be filled with questions.” The elderly Elf appeared to be addressing his herbs, not Kellen. “It is in the nature of the world that if something is absent from one place, it merely goes to another, and as there are no questions among the Elves, it follows that humans must ask twice as many questions to make up for it,” the old one said, smiling down at a set of rosemary bushes, then looking up at Kellen, still smiling. “Perhaps.”

“I think you might be right,” Kellen answered, smiling back.

“Then it may be that you would be good enough to satisfy an old man’s curiosity, Kellen Tavadon, and tell him where the world comes from,” the old one said, moving slowly along the rows of plants with his dipper, pouring out a small measure of water onto the roots of each.

“The world doesn’t come from anywhere,” Kellen said, confused. “The world just is.”

The ancient Elf nodded, satisfied. “And so it is with the Wild Magic, young Kellen. The Wild Magic just is. Root and leaf, world and magic, you will never have seen a leaf without a root, or a root without a leaf, in the proper order of things. As I tend my garden, so do the Wildmages tend the world, by their bargains and prices keeping the world as much in balance as I with my hoe and dipper. Anyone in Sentarshadeen will tell you the same, for we are a long-lived people, who have not yet forgotten the Beginning of Days.”

“Then—” Kellen stumbled to a halt, unable to think of any way to phrase what he wanted to know so it wouldn’t come out as a question. “I would like to hear more about the Wild Magic, and the history of the Elves,” he finally said.

“Come another time,” the old man said agreeably, setting the dipper back in the now-empty bucket, “and I will tell you of the Beginning of Time, long before our race had met your own, and of the Great Queen Vielissiar Farcarinon, who riddled with dragons and learned the secret of making the bargain that gained the great boons of peace and long life for our race. If you lose your way, ask any you meet the path to Morusil’s house, and they will be happy to bring you to me.”

“Thank you,” Kellen said, getting to his feet. He was starting to get used to the Elves’ ways of putting an end to a conversation by now, though he wasn’t sure he was ever going to get used to their indirect way of asking-without-asking, and answering questions you hadn’t asked. He bowed to Morusil, and stepped out onto the path again, continuing on his way.

The path led onward, toward the river, by a different route than he had followed yesterday. He saw no one else in the gardens as he passed them, but perhaps the folk who lived here were indoors—or perhaps they were elsewhere, working. He supposed that even Elves must work …

His conversation with Morusil, short and inconclusive though it had been, had certainly given him a lot to think about, even if he hadn’t answered any of the questions Kellen had really wanted to ask. The Elves were a lot like the Wild Magic itself in that way, Kellen thought. But as far as he could tell, it seemed as if the Elves thought that the Wild Magic was actually the magic of the entire world, and that when he and Idalia—and the other Wildmages, who must be around somewhere, even though Kellen had never yet met one—were making their bargains and paying their prices, they were actually bargaining with and paying to the same force that was responsible for, well … everything, from twigs to unicorns.

Leaf and root, Morusil had said. World and magic, two sides of the same coin, indivisible. All part of the same thing, with the Wild Magic, the magic of balance and healing, to bind them both together.

And somehow, the Mages of Armethalieh had just managed to … forget … that, if they’d ever known it.

Why? How? When?

Kellen frowned. There was something on the tip of his mind, something he’d heard once, and almost remembered …

But the thought was gone before he could chase it to its source. He shrugged. He could ask Idalia about it tonight. Or he could ask some of the other Elves, assuming he could figure out how to do that without asking any questions. Hadn’t Morusil said that anyone in Sentarshadeen would tell him about the Wild Magic? He thought he’d see if the old man had been right: he could stand to learn a lot more about it—and as soon as he could—if he was going to use it to help the Elves.

But right now there didn’t seem to be anyone tracking him down with demands that he do something. Not even the Queen.

Maybe Elves, with their centuries of life ahead of them, rarely saw any reason to hurry.

If that was the case, he supposed he could afford the time for a leisurely amble along the byways of Sentarshadeen, retracing the paths he’d taken yesterday with Sandalon and learning new ones.

Besides, Idalia was probably looking into the situation already; he surely didn’t know enough to determine what was causing this drought! He wouldn’t even begin to know where to start, and as for actually doing anything about it—

I think I’d better leave that up to Idalia. If there was a place for him in the solution, she certainly wouldn’t be slow in telling him about it! After all, she hadn’t hesitated for a moment in getting him involved in everything he didn’t actively and strongly object to.

And I did tell her that I had promised my help already. Given that, Idalia would probably send someone to fetch him the moment she had anything constructive he could do. I might as well enjoy my holiday while I’ve got it, Kellen decided, walking on.

Slowly the form of the Elven city began to take shape in his mind. It was a thing of gentle curves and meanders; where a human city would have broad straight avenues, imposing vistas, and large dignified public buildings, the Elven city seemed designed to present small quiet opportunities for reflection, and often Kellen saw no houses at all, though he was sure he must be in the middle of many of them.

But even in the middle of so much quiet beauty he saw evidence of the specter that hovered over Sentarshadeen. Fountains that should have been sparkling in the sun stood dry and empty; reflecting pools that once held water had been carefully filled with patterns of colored sand instead; tiny bridges arched over dry stones instead of over trickling streams. Though these substitutions would hardly have been noticeable in a human garden, in an Elven one, the tiny imperfections among all that was perfect sounded a jarring note. Tumbled stone and tiled basins were meant for water. As they were, they did not fit. They were not—quite—harmonious enough. The more he saw of such substitutions, the more determined he was to restore Sentarshadeen to what it had been before.

He’d grown so used to the absence of water that when he heard the sound of running water coming from a house up ahead of him, it took him several minutes to believe his ears. Feeling faintly alarmed and very curious, Kellen hurried toward the sound.

There was a house set back away from the road. The path leading up to it was made of rough-surfaced tiles, each a different shape and color, with strong raised designs upon their surfaces. The house was tiled as well, its entire surface, even the roof, covered with an intricate mosaic of handmade tile, until it resembled some giant fantastic creature from one of Kellen’s bestiaries—a manticore or a basilisk, perhaps, or even a sleeping dragon.

In addition to the trickling and splashing, Kellen could hear a peculiar creaking and groaning sound coming through the open windows. Intrigued and a little concerned, he came closer and looked inside.

It was a potter’s studio, Kellen realized with relief. The peculiar sounds came from the spinning potter’s wheel. An Elven man was bent over it, his back to Kellen, busy with the clay, while his bare feet worked the pedals that kept the wheel spinning. He was bare to the waist, his hair bound up in a turban of dark blue cloth. His hands and arms were covered with ghost-white clay.

Two walls of the studio were lined with shelves, on which stood pieces of pottery in every stage of completion, from those that looked as if they’d just come off the wheel, to others, gleaming in jewel colors, that looked as if they were ready for Queen Ashaniel’s table. On the third wall, Kellen could see a row of deep sinks, into one of which water trickled and splashed. It was that sound that had drawn Kellen here.

“Drought or none, it is water and fire that shapes the clay,” the potter said without looking up.

How did he know I was here? Kellen wondered. But the potter hadn’t said anything that indicated he didn’t want Kellen to remain, so Kellen continued to watch, enthralled.

The potter dipped his hand into a water bucket at his side, and returned it to the clay again.

He was making a bowl, Kellen realized. He watched in fascination as the clay thinned and flared out under the potter’s hands, very much as if it had a will of its own, until it went from a muffin-shaped doughy lump to a wide flaring shape.

The potter lifted his hands from his work at last and let the wheel slow.

“It will crack as it dries.” He addressed the pot, not Kellen, and there was a faint tone of regret—or, perhaps, disappointment—in his voice. “The clay is too soft to hold such a shape unsupported. But when it does, I will return it to the slip and try again, and perhaps one day one of them will not.” He rose to his feet and turned.

“I see you, Kellen Tavadon. Be welcome in the house of Iletel.”

“I see you, Iletel,” Kellen answered formally. “It is a pleasure and a privilege to see a skilled artist at work.”

Iletel smiled, opened the door for him, and then went to wash off the clay in the sink, take down his hair, and don a loose linen wrap-tunic in pale shades of peach and pink, while Kellen gazed around the studio.

Everything was arranged with an eye to the order and perfection he had come to expect here, even in so messy an environment as a potter’s workplace.

“These pieces are wonderful. I have never seen such beautiful things as I have seen in Sentarshadeen,” Kellen said honestly.

“It is a great pity we no longer trade with the City as we did when I was younger,” Iletel said, “for it was a great pleasure to sell beautiful things to humans, as it is always a joy to instruct the young. I am sad that our two races no longer speak together as we once did.”

“So am I,” Kellen said feelingly. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here—because I know that the Elves know many things I wish to know.” He sighed. “I am very glad that the Elves do find joy in the instruction of the young, for I would rather that my presence was not considered a burden.”

Iletel’s smile broadened. “Your presence, Kellen Tavadon, would not be a burden to anyone who is wise. The wise know well that wisdom must be shared, or it grows stale, and that even the wisest can learn new things from the young.”

Well, that was encouraging! “I spoke to Morusil this morning,” Kellen ventured, “and he told me that everyone here knows something about the Wild Magic. I’m hoping to find out why they no longer remember it in the City.”

Or, Kellen amended conscientiously, if only to himself, why they didn’t remember it properly—or lied about it if they did.

Iletel smiled. “So direct! I had forgotten that consequence of your brief lives,” he said in an amused tone that warned Kellen he had come a little too close to overstepping Elven etiquette. “But come, Morusil’s student. Perhaps it would please you to view my latest works, and afterward join me for refreshment. It is nearing my hour to take tea.”

Kellen blushed, and assented, wondering if he’d ever really get the hang of the indirectness of Elven manners. Iletel conducted him around the small studio, showing off the various examples of his work—and to Kellen’s surprise, finding fault with most of them.

Several pieces that Kellen thought were perfect Iletel announced were only waiting to be broken up so that their clay could be reused “—for there is truly no purpose in keeping those things which are less than perfect—do you see this flaw here? Terrible. And here, where the glaze ran and puddled. A child’s error; the temperature in the kiln was uneven that day. But they will be reborn again, without flaw.”

As Kellen had suspected, Iletel had made the tiles Kellen had seen outside as well, though when Kellen praised them Iletel dismissed them as journeyman work, too unimportant to speak of. All his work now was in the translucent white shell-clay with which he had been working when Kellen entered. It was harder than earthenware, and translucent when fired. Larger pieces, Iletel told Kellen, were often cast instead of wheel-worked, because the clay’s thin shapes were unstable while wet. But Iletel still experimented with larger shell-clay pieces on the wheel, for that, he explained, was how one learned.

He spoke of glazes and firing times with an artist’s love and passion, and showed Kellen a few pieces a friend who worked in cast shell-clay had given him: a tiny perfect unicorn, its tufted tail coiled over its back, with shell-pink horn and hooves; a selkie leaning on a rock, a wriggling trout caught in one splayed hand. Every detail was flawless, so real Kellen could almost imagine they breathed.

Long before Kellen tired of seeing the wonders of Iletel’s art, the Elven potter led Kellen through the studio into an inner room whose windows looked out on a wooded hillside of birch and pine. The birch trees had already gone yellow with autumn, though of course, being in Sentarshadeen itself they were well watered by the Elves, but the pines, Kellen was relieved to see, were also still a healthy green. Pines were fragile trees, fast-growing and (comparatively) short-lived. They had shallow roots, and were often the first to suffer the effects of drought, Idalia had once said.

“Their roots are strong, by the mercy of the Forest,” Iletel said, seeing the direction of Kellen’s gaze, “and by the grace of Leaf and Star, our valley has been spared the worst of the fell weather. But should there be another year of drought, even they will begin to suffer.”

Iletel indicated that Kellen should seat himself on one of the long benches that seemed to be a standard feature of Elven homes. As Kellen did, Iletel knelt and busied himself at the tile stove, heating water and preparing tea. Kellen cast about for a safe conversational subject.

“I haven’t been studying Wild Magic for very long,” he said, as self-deprecating as Iletel, “and my sister Idalia is a much better Wildmage than I am, but both of us are going to do all that we can to help make the rains come.”

“That makes good hearing,” Iletel said, his back to Kellen. “Each day, all who can be spared from other tasks go to carry water to the trees of the rim and to the farther fields. Even I shall go in a few hours to do what I can, though it is so little in the face of the forest’s need.”

So that’s where everyone is! Kellen tried to imagine the amount of work it was to carry water—presumably by hand—to try to keep the forest alive, and couldn’t. And the wondertales all make it seem as if all the Elves do all day is play music and games, and sing and dance …

A few moments later Iletel rose, bringing Kellen a cup of steaming tea that smelled strongly of roses and herbs, and seated himself with his own cup in a chair facing him.

“But, if I understand your need, you come to us to learn something more of the history of humankind.” Iletel frowned, just the tiniest bit. “Now I fear from what you do not say that the Wild Magic is another thing the City has forgotten—or has cast aside. This gives me reasons for why the City of Armethalieh no longer trades with us. Perhaps they fear Wild Magic, as they evidently fear us, as the harbingers of chaos and confusion.”

Kellen shifted uneasily in his seat. Iletel’s indirect assessment was uncomfortably close to the mark.

“But once again it is their brief lives, Wildmage, that lead them into misunderstanding and error,” Iletel continued gently, his free hand moving in a graceful gesture of apology. “So far from being the magic of chaos and confusion, the Wild Magic is ultimately the magic of order, as Morusil will have told you already. But it is an order that encompasses the whole world, you see, and so it cannot be a form of order that the ordinary human being can easily grasp,” Iletel said, his dark eyes regarding Kellen compassionately.

Kellen nodded, although he only half grasped what the Elf was talking about.

“You must understand, Wildmage, that the ordinary human, or even these High Mages who have lately appeared in Armethalieh, is essentially a selfish creature. It is a consequence of having such brief lives, I fear; and not to be wondered at. Humans barely reach maturity before they begin to die: it is not surprising that all they are interested in is the form of ‘order’ that best suits and benefits each of them alone—or perhaps, if they are the wisest of their kind, an order that benefits their fellows for the duration of their own brief lifetimes. But their lives are so very short that even such magnanimity is barely better than the most insular selfishness.”

Kellen nibbled on his lower lip, wondering if he should be feeling slightly insulted. Of course, Iletel didn’t mean to be insulting, but—that attitude seemed, in its way, a bit condescending …

Iletel continued on, earnestly. “Yet you must understand, as we Elves do, that one could not expect it to be otherwise, Wildmage. One cannot expect a creature to glimpse the Eternal when its whole brief span of years is spent in being born and dying almost before it has a chance to live.” Iletel looked very somber.

I don’t know … Idalia seems to have figured it out all right. And Master Eliron. And whoever wrote the Books in the first place, and all the Wildmages who’ve learned from them.

Iletel sighed. “It breaks my heart to imagine it. There is no time to dream, to plan, no time for Art … all of their lives are spent in one blind hurrying rush into death, without one moment to think or reflect on any of the things that give Life meaning or beauty.”

He shook his head, regarding Kellen with grave pity. “I think you are very brave, Kellen Tavadon, to reach beyond your brief span of years through your magic—but then, as a Wildmage yourself, you are far from ordinary. The ordinary human, man or Mage, lives every moment in terror of the death that is rushing toward him in less than a century of years—such a creature could not possibly be expected to see things with the same perspective that we Elves can. And so, in the human City, they have turned away from the vast and eternal beauty of the Wild Magic to a simpler, more immediate, more selfish magic better suited to the briefness of their lives. You wonder why they have rejected the Wild Magic in favor of this self-indulgent magic of their own creation, but the explanation is obvious to any of the Elven-born: no short-lived creature could be expected to love something that confronts it with its terrible impermanence.”

Iletel was clearly quite sympathetic to the terrible fate of humans. It showed in his tone, and in the grave way he regarded Kellen. “And so the Mages of the Golden City hate the Wild Magic and its wielders for showing them what is no more than the truth of the world. But you must not blame them for it, as we do not. It is simply their flawed human nature. They are no more to blame for their fears than the wasp for its sting.”

Kellen sipped his tea, his mind too full of new ideas to be able to frame a coherent question in the fashion Elven good manners dictated. He was dazzled by the notion of the High Magick being something that had “lately” appeared in Armethalieh—lately by whose standards? Iletel’s? Did that mean they used to practice the Wild Magic in Armethalieh … and stopped? Lycaelon said the High Mages had once studied the Wild Magic, before banning it as being too dangerous … was that what he’d really meant? That they’d used to practice it? That there used to be Wildmages in Armethalieh? Kellen felt as if he were swimming—and not very well—in a sea of new ideas.

“But not all humans are like the ones in the City,” Kellen protested weakly. “Idalia and I both came from there.”

“And both of you left, neither in your own time and season,” Iletel pointed out reasonably. “There is as much variation among humankind as among the flowers of the field, perhaps, yet when the gatherer brings them into her garden, she will choose those whose traits please her and grow only those, casting out those who hark back to their wild cousins. So it is with humans, who cultivate themselves like flowers. Do not yearn to be what you are not, Kellen, rather rejoice that you are more than they.”

It all made very pretty hearing, since who wouldn’t want to hear that they were special and gifted, far better than the people they’d grown up with, especially if those same people were the ones that had thrown you out of Armethalieh and then tried to kill you, not once but twice? And it all seemed so reasonable, especially while Iletel was talking.

BUT later, after a little more polite conversation and a promise to come again bringing Sandalon, Kellen wasn’t quite as sure. He wandered onward through Sentarshadeen, trying to sort out all the things he’d just learned in his mind. It was a very comforting explanation. A very soothing explanation. But Kellen had been offered a very great number of comforting, soothing explanations for things in his life, and had rejected them all.

Iletel seemed so satisfied with his explanation of how things were … just as satisfied as the Light-Priests and the Mages had been with their explanations, back in the City.

Wasn’t Iletel’s thinking that most humans couldn’t handle the Wild Magic because they just weren’t good enough the same thing as the Mages thinking that all women couldn’t handle the High Magick because they weren’t good enough?

Or was it?

The more he learned, the less he knew, Kellen realized. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore—except one thing.

Once, the Wild Magic had been practiced in Armethalieh. Then they’d stopped, and invented the High Magick, and declared that nobody could be allowed to practice the Wild Magic anymore. If he put Iletel’s explanation and Lycaelon’s explanation together, that much seemed to shake out of it as unvarnished truth. But all that knowing that much for sure did was leave him with more questions.

He walked out past the House of Leaf and Star (the Elves might call it that, but Kellen still thought of it as a palace) turning over the conversations with the two Elves in his mind.

Both Iletel and Morusil had been very kind, and filled with Elven politeness, and Kellen certainly had a wider perspective on things than he had before, but he wasn’t entirely certain it was a better or more accurate one. Iletel might say that humans had abandoned the Wild Magic because they were essentially self-centered, but that didn’t quite make sense if the only Wildmages left in the world were human. Maybe that wasn’t true either, but the Elves weren’t Wildmages (at least not anymore), the Centaurs couldn’t do magic at all, and Kellen hadn’t met any representatives of any more of the Other Races yet, so he wasn’t sure whether any of them might be Mages or not, or even if any of them still existed. The unicorns were certainly magical creatures, but if the unicorns could get the Elves out of the fix they were in, well, there was a whole herd of them living in Sentarshadeen as from what Idalia said, and there still wasn’t any rain, so Kellen guessed they couldn’t help. Maybe unicorns could just do specific unicorn-magic things, the way an apple tree could make apples, which was fine if you wanted apples (or unicorn-magic), but he guessed bringing rain didn’t fall into that category.

Kellen frowned, looking down at the path. There wasn’t even a stray stone to kick to relieve his feelings. How had everything gotten all tangled up and separated this way?

Something must have happened to make things the way they were now, with the Mages of Armethalieh practicing the High Magick—and having invented it in the first place because they didn’t think the Wild Magic was good enough, or something. But if the Wild Magic was a force for good—and Kellen no longer had any reason to doubt that—why couldn’t the two magics exist side by side in the same place? He didn’t think the High Magick was a bad thing, necessarily—or it wouldn’t be if the Mages didn’t insist it had to be the only kind of magic that was allowed to exist. And if the High Mages were willing to pay their own price in their own power for their spells, instead of always making someone else pay for the spells they did. There was that. Kellen frowned.

So why had the High Mages thrown the Wildmages out of Armethalieh, really? Why couldn’t the two kinds of magic exist side by side?

Sighing heavily—he didn’t have an answer for that, and he suspected he wouldn’t get one from the Elves, either—Kellen passed the Palace and found himself in an orchard.

Apple trees, he thought, though the fruit was long off the trees. He looked for dryads, but didn’t see any, and felt oddly disappointed.

He was more than rewarded for that lack, though, when he got past the orchard to the meadow beyond. Scattered across the grassland was an entire herd of unicorns, more than he could easily count.

He hadn’t known they came in colors.

The one closest to him was a stallion. The stallion’s coat was as red as a woman’s hair, but his ears, mane, horn, socks, and the tuft at the end of his tail were jet-black—yet somehow luminous, like black opal, with a fire somewhere deep within. He’d been grazing, but when Kellen stepped through the trees his head came up. He stared directly at Kellen for a moment—his eyes were the same deep violet as Idalia’s—then turned his back and went trotting back to the main herd.

The unicorns were all the different colors Kellen associated with horses, only more so: brighter, more intense, more vivid. There was a grey that looked like polished silver, one with a golden coat the exact shade of meadow-honey in sunlight; a unicorn mare with a coat so black the sunlight struck blue highlights from it. Though he saw several pure white ones, none of them was Shalkan.

They all were more intensely alive than any other creature he had met so far. And they all had that luminosity that made Shalkan so heartstoppingly gorgeous, as if they carried their own little lights around inside of them. It was pure joy just to watch them move, and while he watched, he was able to put everything that was troubling him to the back of his mind for a while.

“Looking for me?” a familiar voice said from behind him.

Kellen jumped (though he knew better; sneaking up behind him was one of Shalkan’s favorite games). “Not exactly. Just … looking.” He turned around, though he was reluctant to abandon the sight of the herd. Though how many people had seen even one unicorn, let alone a herd of them?

“And how are you enjoying your visit to Sentarshadeen?” Shalkan asked, in tones of impersonal politeness.

“I’d like it better if it were raining,” Kellen said honestly.

“So would the Elves,” Shalkan agreed somberly, shaking his short roached mane. “And aside from that?”

“It’s amazing. Everything’s so beautiful, so clean. And even if they don’t have any magic … or not much … they’ve accomplished such great things. It’s so much better here than in the City!” Kellen said enthusiastically.

“Of course, it all depends on what you like,” Shalkan said agreeably.

“Well, since nobody’s trying to kill me here, I’d say that Sentarshadeen is better than Armethalieh,” Kellen said, feeling slightly cross. He wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much when Shalkan agreed with him, but it always did. “And at least they’re willing to talk about the Wild Magic here, instead of just saying it’s an abomination.”

“Then you’re learning a lot,” Shalkan said, still in that same maddeningly neutral tone. He began to walk out into the meadow, and Kellen followed, somehow feeling he was in the middle of an argument that he was losing.

“I guess so. But if I’m right about what I’m learning … if they used to practice the Wild Magic in Armethalieh, and stopped, then why did they stop?”

Shalkan swung his head around and regarded Kellen steadily. “Maybe you should ask the Elves.”

Kellen snorted rudely. “Have you ever tried asking the Elves anything? By the time you figure out how to be polite about it, they’re discussing the weather or something!”

“Weather’s important, when you’re having the wrong kind.” Shalkan stopped at the edge of a spring, and drank.

Kellen admired the decoration around the edge: river stones and fieldstone and tiles, all arranged in a harmonious whole, just the way everything else he’d seen here was.

“And maybe it’s something they don’t want to talk about,” Shalkan continued when he’d finished. “Or maybe they have other things on their minds. Or maybe you just have to figure out how to ask the right questions. It shouldn’t be long now, at any rate.”

“What …? Hey!” Kellen shouted indignantly. But Shalkan seemed to feel there wasn’t any point in continuing the cryptic conversation. He trotted away, head high, moving faster as he went until when he reached the herd he was covering ground in the bounding deerlike leaps that were the unicorn’s fastest gait. The rest of the herd seemed to take inspiration from Shalkan, for in an instant, every single unicorn, from the flame-red stallion to a pair of leggy hornless foals, was bounding along after Shalkan, as smooth and flowing as a flight of birds. In moments the herd had vanished among the trees.

Kellen stared after them, feeling disgruntled. Every time he thought he was about to get an answer, he ended up being sent off down another blind alley, it seemed to him.

“Kellen! Kellen!”

He turned back in the direction he’d come just in time to grab Sandalon out of the air and spin him around as the boy leaped toward him.

“Where did you come from?” Kellen asked, too late to keep himself from asking the question.

But Sandalon didn’t seem to notice—or mind. “I came with the water cart—see? They’re coming to Songmairie where the unicorns drink to fill it so they can water the trees and the flowers. I get to help,” the boy finished importantly. “Everyone gets to help. Lairamo says that if we don’t give them drinks, the trees and flowers will wither and die.”

He pointed behind him, and Kellen saw the water cart coming slowly toward them along the stone path. It looked like an enormous wine-vat on wheels, much wider than it was high, drawn by four patient horses, nearly as ordinary as any Kellen might see on the streets of Armethalieh, though beautifully groomed and matched. Walking along with it were six Elves, all carrying buckets. Two walked at the horses’ heads, while the others followed behind.

“Then I’ll help too,” Kellen said, “if your friends don’t mind.”

“They won’t mind,” Sandalon said positively.

And in fact, the Elves seemed to welcome Kellen’s help, for filling the water wagon from the spring was backbreaking work, and all had to be done by hand. The drovers backed the wagon into position—it would be much harder to turn and move once the barrel was full—and then unhitched the horses, turning them free to graze while the work was done.

Then all that remained was the simple but far from easy work of dipping each bucket into the spring, carrying it to the cart, lifting it to whoever sat on the edge of the barrel top to pour its contents within (all took turns at that, even Kellen), taking the empty bucket back, and doing it again.

Over and over and over.

Sandalon carried a bucket as well, though his was a much smaller one than the others, suitable for a child’s strength. Every once in a while, instead of pouring their water into the barrel, one of the Elves would take a bucketful a little distance from the spring and pour it onto the grass instead of into the vat. Kellen supposed that made sense: the meadow wasn’t getting any more water than any other place in Sentarshadeen, and there was no way to water all of it.

As they worked, the Elves talked quietly among themselves. Kellen caught scraps of the conversation: the pulley system that hauled water up the south wall had broken, and it would be several days before it could be fixed. Another spring in the outer forest had gone dry, so water would have to be brought from within Sentarshadeen instead. The forest creatures had suffered badly over the long dry summer, and had been driven to raid the Elves’ crops in ever-increasing numbers to feed themselves. This was bad enough, but with winter coming on, the predators were following their food supply closer to Sentarshadeen than ever before. Where mice and rabbits and deer had come, wolves and lynx and bear would follow—perhaps even ice-tiger.

Kellen wondered how much the Elves’ problems had been added to by the Scouring Hunt, but he didn’t want to say anything before talking to Idalia. Beneath its fine clothes and fancy manners, Sentarshadeen was a city under siege, and everyone shared the same fears.

Everyone in the water party was dressed similarly, in the form-fitting leggings, low boots, and close-cut tunics that Kellen was coming to consider to be Elven working clothes—though there was hardly anything about them, from their color to their exquisite decoration, that was the least workaday—and Kellen had been surprised, on first glance, to find that two of the group were women. Aside from their clothing, it was very difficult for Kellen to tell any of the Elvenkind apart, and impossible to guess their ages, though one of the two women had a sort of aura about her that made Kellen think she must be, well, mature by Elven standards. All the time they were working he kept finding her regarding him critically, as though something about him displeased her.

Sandalon had tired of the labor a while before, though he’d kept at it far longer than Kellen had expected before going off to play near the horses, returning every so often to fill his bucket again. Kellen thought the young Prince must be very lonely; he’d seen no other children at all, let alone any near Sandalon’s age.

When the Elves stopped to rest and refresh themselves, Sandalon came eagerly back to Kellen’s side—and to Kellen’s unease, the woman who’d been watching him ever since she’d arrived took the opportunity to draw near as well. She smiled at Sandalon, but studied Kellen in expressionless silence for a long moment before she spoke to him.

“Those colors do not suit you at all, Kellen Tavadon. Come to my shop, and I will make you more suitable clothing.”

Kellen blinked. He’d been expecting something else—maybe a veiled insult about how a short-lived round-ear was no fit company for an Elven Prince.

“Those greys, that shade of brown … with your coloring; unsuitable. You should wear warm clear colors: blues and ambers to waken the color of your hair and eyes. Perhaps red, though I think that would be too daring—though you have good skin, if you will only take care of it, and not allow the sun to age and damage it. Violet, perhaps, though it would have to be the proper shade of violet. I will see what I have in my stores. Green, if you must have it, though every fool of a human forester will insist that only green may marry with brown, as if folk were trees. I would not dress you in green, myself.” She shook her head firmly.

Where had all this come from? And why all this business about colors and skin now? “I’m sorry?” Kellen said. “I don’t quite understand …”

Sandalon was hungry, and bored by the conversation as well. He went to the back of the water cart, where food was being handed around. Now he came back with two full silver tankards, both much too large for his small hands, carrying them with intent concentration. Kellen saw what he was doing, and intervened in time to prevent disaster. Sandalon smiled up at him, relieved.

“You give one to her,” he told Kellen in confidential but clearly audible tones. “She’s older.”

Kellen handed one of the tankards to the Elven woman, who accepted it gracefully. He looked at Sandalon again, still holding the second tankard. Sandalon was a child, but he was also a royal Prince, and no one who’d grown up in the Golden City could be ignorant of the way rank and privilege worked.

“And you keep the other one, because you’re older than me,” the boy said helpfully. “I’m only five. You’re lots older than that.”

Kellen kept the tankard, though it didn’t seem quite reasonable to be waited on by an Elven Prince. He glanced back at the Elven woman, and saw her trying very hard to stifle a proud smile.

“And you are wondering who I am,” she said. “Why, I am the woman who made what you are wearing now, as I made for your sister and all who pass through our lands as guests. It is a challenge I enjoy, the crafting of garments for those I have never seen, and may never see. But now I have seen you”—her expression turned fierce and stern—“and I will not permit this mismarriage of form and cloth to be seen about Sentarshadeen any longer. Tomorrow morning you will come to the shop of Tengitir, Kellen Tavadon, bringing all your clothing with you, so that I may determine what will best suit you.”

Kellen would rather have argued with Shalkan than with Tengitir, he decided—though, if he were in the middle of a drought and facing annihilation, he thought he’d be able to find better things to worry about than the color of somebody’s clothes. He nodded meekly, hoping that whatever she was willing to give him to wear tomorrow, it wouldn’t be the sort of skintight things the Elves themselves wore. And that the visit wouldn’t take too long or be too embarrassing.

But maybe she’d be willing to talk about something other than cloth and colors while she was working. All the Elves seemed to know something about magic and their own history, and maybe Tengitir would know something about Armethalieh’s history as well, or know someone who would. At least this time he’d have all night to figure out some questions-that-weren’t-questions.

IT took a few more hours of hard work before the water cart was filled. The team was brought back from its grazing and hitched to the wagon again, and the cart started moving slowly back down the path.

“Do they do this every day?” Kellen asked Sandalon. It was nice having at least one friend in Sentarshadeen that he didn’t have to watch every word with.

“Three times a day,” Sandalon said proudly. “It goes all kinds of places, but most of the time, people just bring smaller ones like that—”

He pointed, to where another pair of Elves were approaching the spring. They were pulling a light two-wheeled cart, similar to the ones Kellen had seen in Armethalieh, where a running man pulled a single-seat carriage for one of the rich and powerful to ride in.

No one was riding in this cart, however. It contained a large water barrel, like the ones outside the poorer houses in Armethalieh for catching rainfall. But even the rain barrels here (if that’s what it was) were as beautiful as the fine furniture in rich men’s homes back in human lands.

“But there’s running water in the houses,” Kellen said, baffled. “Why are they coming here for water?”

“You can’t water everything from your house!” Sandalon said, in tones that suggested everyone knew that.

“I guess not,” Kellen admitted meekly.

“Come on,” Sandalon announced. “Let’s go see the unicorns! I’m not supposed to come out here alone, but you’re with me.”

Kellen agreed. He couldn’t imagine that anything harmful could manage to find its way into the Elves’ canyon home, and if it did, either the unicorns would deal with it, or the two of them would have the sense to run from it before it could catch them.

He hoped.

HE ended up carrying Sandalon home to the Palace on his shoulders—which delighted the boy—since otherwise, as Kellen eventually realized, there would always be “just one more thing” for Sandalon to show him, and Kellen could tell by the angle of the light that the day was rapidly coming to an end. He wanted to get home himself and talk to Idalia about the things he’d found out—and guessed—today, and ask her a few questions. Well, more than a few, actually.

Lairamo was waiting at the door, looking as worried as Elves ever let themselves look.

“He hasn’t been any trouble, really,” Kellen said quickly. “He was showing me around the woods, and I guess I lost track of the time. I hope I haven’t kept him out too late.”

Lairamo smiled, looking relieved. “No, of course you haven’t, Wildmage. If Sandalon is with you, then we know he is safe indeed.”

“And if he’s looking for me tomorrow, I guess I’m going to be at Tengitir’s shop,” Kellen added, swinging Sandalon down off his shoulders. “At least in the morning.”

“I want to watch!” Sandalon announced. “Kellen is going to get new clothes, proper clothes, so he doesn’t look like a—”

“That is for your mother to decide,” Lairamo said firmly, whisking Sandalon behind her skirts before the boy could finish his sentence. “Perhaps it would please you to take a cup of wine at our hearth, Kellen. I’m certain Prince Sandalon has marched you over more territory today than all the armies of Great Queen Vielissiar Farcarinon.”

He wanted to—he badly wanted to see the Queen again—but Kellen had the feeling that this was simply a polite offer that was made without the expectation that it would be accepted. And he hadn’t seen Idalia since last night; she might be getting worried, if no one had known where he and Sandalon had been all afternoon.

So he decided on declining, gracefully. “Thank you, but my sister will be expecting me, and I believe she will have many things to tell me by now.”

Ah. He was getting better at reading the Elves. That was polite relief on the nurse’s face.

“I bid you good evening, then,” he said. He tried a bow, and congratulated himself that it was a little less awkward than yesterday’s. Maybe he’d get the hang of this place eventually.

“And we, you,” the nurse replied, and with a friendly nod, turned and chivvied her charge away to his supper and bed.

ON her way back to her lodging after her visit to Songmairie, Idalia stopped several times for supplies. Odd that it would have seemed to anyone who was only familiar with the wondertales about Elves, there was a little market in Sentarshadeen, full of stalls where Elven farmers and crafts-folk brought their wares—though admittedly, most Elves preferred to barter than purchase outright. Time, after all, was a commodity of which they had a significant supply. Even in the midst of drought, the stalls were occupied, and bargaining was going on at the usual leisurely Elven pace.

Each handsome stall was different, though all were shaded with awnings, each awning was different as well. Some stalls were created in stark simplicity, some in an amusing froth of ornament; all delighted the eye.

Idalia made her selections with care. Food and wine and a selection of ciders, of course, for any worker must take care of his tools, and one of the most important tools of a worker in magic was their own body. Another stop at a store that sold toys and games of all sorts, where she bought a set of the small polished counters for the game of gan.

Idalia had no interest in playing gan, today or any other day—the rules were very simple, but the game itself took an Elven lifetime to learn to play well—but there were 144 counters to a gan set, small round cabochons of polished agate no bigger than her thumbnail, and she needed them for what she was about to do. The Elven proprietor sold them to her with barely concealed curiosity, though she was ostensibly engrossed in a game of xaqiue with a friend. By now everyone in Sentarshadeen knew Idalia was here, and that she’d agreed to use the Wild Magic to aid the Queen. Everything Idalia did would be food for gossip before the sound of her footsteps had died away in the street.

And Jermayan would be sure to hear all of it, for she knew that he had not yet left Sentarshadeen, and indeed, had no intention of doing so.

Furious with the sudden direction of her thoughts, Idalia forced the thought of him from her mind once more.

By the time Idalia reached her own doorstep, it was piled with neatly wrapped bundles from the tradesmen whose shops she’d stopped at; she’d carried many of her own purchases, but not all. She set her walking staff outside the door and went inside, then spent a few minutes tidying the things away. Knowing that Sentarshadeen was her destination, she’d taken care to bring a few trade goods that would be of interest in Elven lands, and a Wildmage’s credit was always good. If nothing else, charged keystones could serve as currency, for though the Elves had given up their part in the Greater Magic long ago, they still retained a facility with the small magics of hearth and woodland, and charged keystones were better than gold.

Idalia wasn’t really sure what the Elves did with the keystones, though they seemed to value them—she’d told Kellen once that only the Wildmage who had charged a keystone could tap its power, and as far as she knew, that was true. Maybe the Elves were the exception to the rule; all she knew was that she had always found charged keystones eagerly accepted among the Elvenkind, for whatever reason, and so had not worried too much about not being able to pay her and Kellen’s way.

But she had not expected to be riding into a disaster of this magnitude, either, and that changed everything. Certainly while she was doing her best to deal with it, no one would be asking either her or Kellen to pay for anything, at least not in tangible goods.

Before beginning her task, she forced herself to eat and drink and meditate for a while, fortifying herself for the work ahead, then selected a large flat cushion and placed it in the middle of the floor and seated herself upon it, facing west, the bag of gan counters in her lap. She spilled them out into a pool in her skirt, taking a moment to admire how the sun spilling through the windows made them glow and sparkle.

Red agates and grey; stones of shining black and golden yellow; creamy white and deep moss-green … She ran them through her fingers, hearing them click against each other and feeling their smoothness, slowing her heartbeat and her breathing, readying herself for the task ahead.

Sinking down deep within her own mind as her heartbeat slowed, Idalia imagined herself at the center of a wheel. Spokes radiated out from it: thick spokes for the cardinal points: west, south, east, north. Slenderer spokes between them cross-quartering the wheel: southwest, northwest, northeast, southeast … And between them, spokes still finer still, until the room in which she sat was gone, and in her imagination Idalia sat at the center of a silvery wheel, a compass-rose of sixty-four petals, all radiating outward from where she sat.

She began in the west, searching for the source of the wrongness, the binding of wind and weather that she sensed lay behind the unnatural drought. In the spokes of the wheel she felt the sorrow of the Elves, their weariness and despair, but those things were natural, and she ignored them, seeking farther, deeper …

There were flickers of shadow, faint hints of wrongness. Each time she sensed one, Idalia took a stone from her pile and set it on the floor in the direction the sensation had come from, and continued searching.

IT was still a little too light for the lighting of lanterns, more late afternoon than evening, but Kellen’s stomach was still on the dawn-to-dusk schedule that he and Idalia had kept in the Wildwood, and it was his stomach’s opinion that it was time and more than time for dinner, preferably something involving a whole roast ox. He found his way home more quickly than he had the day before, hoping Idalia would be there. It would be a great relief to talk to someone he could ask a direct question of.

He wondered how she’d spent her day, and if she’d have any news about the drought, and what they were going to do about it. Certainly her sources of information—both magical and about Sentarshadeen in general—ought to be better than his. He just hoped that old boyfriend of hers had the sense to keep out of her way, because if not …

Well, it didn’t really bear thinking about.

But when he opened the door to the house, all was so quiet that for a moment he thought Idalia wasn’t there at all. The great room was in shadow, but when he looked closely, the last rays of the afternoon sun spilling through the door showed him Idalia kneeling in the middle of the floor, with a large fan of pebbles spread out on the floor beside her right hand. And the whole room smelled—though that wasn’t quite the right word—of magic. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he was certain of it.

And at that moment, the world changed for him.

I am a Wildmage …

It was one thing to be called “Wildmage” by the Elves—and even at that Kellen felt as though he were masquerading as something he wasn’t—and it was something quite different to be forced to acknowledge by the evidence of his own senses that it was true. He was a Wildmage, able to sense the currents of magic.

“Idalia?” he asked hesitantly.

She’d been sitting with her head slumped upon her chest as if she were asleep. Now she took a deep breath, straightened, and opened her eyes, looking up at him.

“Kellen,” she said, and blinked, and then added irrelevantly: “Look at the time.”

What has she been doing? It had to be something to do with the drought, of course, but what?

She took a deep breath, stretching and uncoiling from where she sat—carefully, Kellen saw, so as not to disturb the pattern of the stones spread around her. “Let’s have some light. And I expect you’re hungry.” She blinked again, and then said, as if surprised, “So am I …”

“What were you doing?” Kellen asked, following her toward the stove. He made a wide detour around the stones on the floor, feeling as if he were avoiding a wasp’s nest.

“Looking.” She glanced toward the floor and her expression tightened unhappily. “And finding, though finding out what I found and what it means is going to take a lot more looking. And how was your day?”

As she spoke, Idalia took a long metal wand that contained a braided wick and lit it at the hearth, then used it to light several of the lamps, banishing the darkness.

He wondered how much she would really hear if he spoke to her. “I talked to a lot of people today, actually. I went out to the spring beyond the Palace—the one the unicorns drink from—and helped fill one of the water wagons. I also met the woman who made my clothes while I was helping to water the forest, but—”

“But, what?” Idalia asked, turning, and raising an eyebrow at him.

He sucked at his lower lip, trying to articulate what had bothered him about the encounter. “She doesn’t seem to think much of them, so tomorrow I’m going to go to her shop so she can make me new ones—and that just doesn’t seem right. I mean, Idalia, doesn’t it seem to you that there are better things to worry about at a time like this than whether I’m wearing the right color tunic?”

“Not for Elves,” Idalia said—rather grimly, Kellen thought. “Elves are … perfectionists,” she said, as if she was choosing her words with care. “If you stay here long enough, you’ll find that there’s no such thing as ‘good enough’ to the Elvenborn. They have a strong sense of, well, I suppose you’d call it ‘fitness.’ And until something meets their standards, they don’t leave it alone—no matter what else might need doing at the same time.”

“But … now?” Kellen asked, bewildered. “With the drought, and everything?”

“Elves do not hurry,” Idalia said, taking a large pie from the sideboard and sliding it into the oven to warm. “They live a thousand years. They don’t have wars, other than the Flower Wars—not recently at least, and not in any way we humans understand the concept. So …” She shrugged. “For most of them—not all, but most—there is never a sense of urgency about anything, and they can be so narrowly focused on their own personal obsessions that they weigh things like the drought and clothing design in equal importance. That is the negative side; the positive side, of course, is that they take a very long view of anything, and what may seem like a crisis to one of us is, often rightly, seen by one of them as little more than an inconsequential ripple.”

“I guess it’s hard to see much wrong with that,” Kellen said uncertainly.

“Whereas,” Idalia finished, with a wan smile, “something that is an ongoing offense to the eye and an irritation to the senses of all beholders, like an ill-fitting tunic, is a fault that should be corrected immediately.”

Kellen snorted, though privately he wondered if some of Idalia’s refusal to even talk to Jermayan was because of just those things.

He’d seen a great deal more than he had realized in the time he’d spent in the Wildwood and Merryvale. He’d seen flirtations and light-loves, and true-loves and courting couples, and above all, the deep devotion of the happily mated. He knew what love looked like, at least, from the outside, and he knew Idalia loved Jermayan. Caring for him as deeply as she did, and if Elves really did mate for life, how could she want him to spend centuries alone after her death? Now, if it had been him, he’d try and figure out a solution of some kind, but, well, it was her choice, and not his when it came down to it.

But if Jermayan was as much of a perfectionist as, say, Iletel or Tengitir, and spent as much time on things that didn’t seem to matter one way or the other as far as Kellen could tell, he’d drive Idalia crazy in a year, let alone in sixty or seventy. So maybe that was a factor, as well.

Still, in every way he’d yet seen, the Elves were so much better than humans that sometimes since he’d come to Sentarshadeen he felt almost ashamed to be human.

IDALIA sat down beside the table, gazing back at the pattern of stones on the great room floor. North. There were tiny flaws in the balance to the west, only a few, and hints of trouble in the south and east—the direction of Armethalieh—but almost all of her stones had been laid out toward the north. That was the direction in which the trouble lay, and that was where she had to go looking next. Not in the direction of Armethalieh and the Council.

And that was a great pity. Countering the meddling of High Magick would have been trivial to what she feared—and making trouble for Lycaelon would have been immensely satisfying.

She glanced at Kellen, who was foraging among the drawers and cabinets of the food storage with the same single-minded interest as a bear in a honey-tree. She’d been doing her best to hint to him about the way the Elves’ minds worked before he got himself too badly hurt, but she doubted she was getting much of anywhere. Right now, all Kellen could see was the perfection of Elven ways, but like anything else living, the Elves had their faults, too, stubborn inflexibility being chief among them.

Compared to some among the Elves, Lycaelon Tavadon is vacillating and spineless.

But Kellen wasn’t worldly-wise enough yet to catch a hint. She supposed he’d just have to figure it out for himself—and he’d be wildly indignant when he did, too; as indignant as he’d been when he discovered the High Mages acted out of self-interest more than disinterested justice …

“You look tired,” Kellen said bluntly, turning back to her with the makings of a young feast in his hands. “Look, come sit down and I’ll feed you.”

“I’ve been working,” Idalia said, taking a seat at the table as he laid out sliced vegetables and meat, bread and cheese.

“And you found out the drought’s not a freak weather thing?” Kellen asked.

She blinked. For a boy who was normally as thick as two short planks—to borrow a popular Merryvale saying—he did have disconcerting flashes of insight, portents of the man he would someday become.

“Yes,” Idalia admitted. There was no reason to keep the truth from Kellen; he’d be involved in the thick of it soon enough. “It isn’t a natural thing. Ashaniel suspected as much; I suppose you must have guessed that. That was why she was so worried, even frightened. And rightly—to tie up the natural world like this requires an immense amount of power. I tried to call the rain today, and couldn’t manage so much as a shift in the wind. That was proof: something, somewhere, is holding back the rain and doing it deliberately. Unnaturally. Now I have to find out who and where, if I can. I made a start on that today, and eliminated a few possibilities.”

“What can I do to help?” Kellen asked. Idalia blessed him for the bravery of his offer; she knew how wary Kellen still was of the Wild Magic—afraid, in fact.

It was the City still working in him, as much as he’d want to deny it. Armethalieh hated change: everything the High Mages did “for the good of the City” was to keep change from happening there, even the natural normal change that occurred everywhere. And the Wild Magic was all about change: every spell a Wildmage cast changed him or her in some way, small or great. Deep down inside Kellen sensed that. And no matter how much he said he accepted it; no matter how much he said he’d cast off the chains of the City; he was still fighting against it.

It was a battle no one could fight for him. The City’s poisons would have to work their way out of his system naturally. Even telling him she knew what he was going through would do as much harm as good, Idalia suspected.

“Nothing, yet,” she answered. “It’s delicate work, like following a trail through a forest. I’m not sure how long it will take, either. I don’t know what I’m going to find, but whatever I find, I do know it won’t be pleasant.”

She sighed and leaned forward. Kellen moved behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders to rub the tension out. “At least now I know it’s nothing to do with the City. It’s coming from the north. All the signs point to that.”

“What’s north of here?” Kellen asked idly. “All the maps in the City don’t even go as far as the High Hills. Hah! What am I saying? They don’t even go beyond the walls.”

Idalia sighed, feeling the muscle knots loosen. If she wished for one thing, it was that she and Kellen could have more time together before they were plunged into the trouble she saw coming.

“North of the Elven Lands? Mountains. High desert. And … trouble.”

She did not yet want to tell him how much trouble. Let him enjoy his first few days among the Elves, and revel in their wonderful city.

He’d find out the truth soon enough. They all would.

Chapter Nineteen

The Fruit of the Tree of Night

IF ONLY THE High Mages knew how pleased with them she was at the moment, it would surely vex them unutterably, Queen Savilla thought delightedly. It was Armethalieh, with its foolish adventure, that had filled the slave pits in the Heart of Darkness to overflowing with refugees fleeing from those lands that the Mages had chosen to claim for their own. Ah, bless them! There had been no need to go a-hunting, with so many refugees simply flinging themselves into the traps.

And the cream of the jest was that after flushing such choice game into the waiting nets of the Endarkened, Armethalieh had renounced its new holdings. The witless fools that had attempted to elude the High Mages’ tyranny need not have fled at all. The Golden City had hazarded much and gained nothing, while the Endarkened had profited by a rich new supply of slaves and toys; a deep reservoir of pain and suffering from which to draw power in the seasons to come.

Prince Zyperis had brought her the news this very morning, and sweet hearing it made indeed. As Armethalieh withdrew to the shadow of its own walls, weakening itself with its every deluded effort to make itself strong, so Sentarshadeen continued to wither and die, as certain as the Armethaliehans that it was the center and the pinnacle of Creation, and once each could have saved the other, did they only know …

But the seeds of discord and distrust had been sown well by Endarkened hands, centuries before. There were no Wildmages in the Golden City now to come to the aid of the Elves, and Armethalieh would never look to the Otherfolk for her salvation.

Savilla saw to it that her slaves dressed her with exceptional care that day, oiling her wings with glittering unguents to make them shimmer, painting her horns and talons with gold leaf, and choosing her finest jewels for her adornment. The dungeons were filled with candidates for her attentions—since the Ingathering, there were enough vermin and failed slaves to allow every member of the Endarkened Court a pleasant diversion or two—but Savilla had business to attend to today, not pleasure. Her youngest nephew, Goraide, was training several of the more promising candidates they’d captured, preparing them for a future spent serving the Endarkened. It was her duty to attend, to oversee the work and offer the guidance of a more experienced advisor.

Her duty, and her pleasure.

THE slave quarters were above the Palace levels of the Heart of Darkness, placed so that in the event that conflict should reach the Palace itself, the bodies of the slaves would serve as one more barrier to the invaders. Even so, they were deep underground, so far within the twisting labyrinth of the World Without Sun that no Bright World captive could ever find his way unaided to the world he had left behind. This was the first lesson captives were taught: escape was impossible. Submission was the only salvation.

Everything here was designed to reinforce the simple lessons that were the basis of the lives of slaves: submission, pain, despair. The ceilings were low, the passageways narrow and stark, the cells bare and cold. All was dim to Brightworlder eyes. Families had been carefully separated, lest they give comfort and strength to one another. The youngest children had already been taken away to be raised in Endarkened creèches deeper in the Palace. When they were grown, they would be the best and most trustworthy slaves of all, for they would have known no other way of life than that of the World Without Sun, and fed from childhood upon the fruit of the Tree of Night.

But taming the wild-caught adults could be most rewarding …

She heard a groan of pain from one of the cells, and paused to glance in. A male Centaur was being shod by an Endarkened farrier. He’d already had his tail docked short and been gelded; his haunches were spattered with rusty streaks of blood.

Savilla nodded her approval. Centaurs were useful beasts of burden, but took care and patience to tame, and the males were particularly unruly. Once he’d been shod, walking would be agony, and without the constant attention that only his new masters could provide, he would be permanently crippled, his hooves split and festering. Still, the big chestnut was a magnificent beast, and Savilla had rarely seen this method of bringing the creatures under Endarkened control fail. It was a great deal of trouble, but worth it in the end.

Savilla moved on.

SHE found Goraide in one of the main Training Chambers, with half a dozen of the more promising young human males. Their skins were still an odd parti-color—brown where they had been burned by the sun, lighter where they had been covered by their clothing—but in time it would all fade to the proper pale shade of slaves who lived their whole lives in the World Without Sun. Not as pale as that of the Elvenkind, but it had been long—too long—since the Endarkened had enjoyed the pleasure of entertaining one of the Elves.

Soon, perhaps, that time would come again. If the Elves could be forced to abandon their cities, they might be as easily caught as these creatures had been. And then the halls of the Heart of Darkness would echo with an eternity of rare feasting and sport, as a thousand past injuries were repaid to the last full measure …

The humans stank of terror—as well they should, for since their capture, every experience they’d had was carefully planned by their masters to cause them to despair. They hardly realized it, but even now Goraide was subtly manipulating their minds, undercutting their will and imagination so that soon they would be unable to see any other possibility than blind unthinking obedience to their new masters.

And the best of it was, he was using their own fears, their own anger, to fuel his spells. When anger was gone, and only fear and unreasoning despair remained, a slave’s training was complete.

They cowered back as Savilla entered the room.

“Did I say you could move?” Goraide asked gently. “Who moved first? Tell me, and the rest of you will not be punished.”

Savilla watched with interest. The lad had good instincts. Were the humans ready to betray their own already?

There was a moment of indecision.

“He did—it was him. Cadin moved first,” one of the males said. He was a well-built, dark-haired creature; the slaves Goraide was seeing to were intended to serve the Royal Court, and thus were the most comely and vigorous of the captives.

“No! It was you! Not me! Dairt lies!” Cadin lunged for Dairt, but stopped when Goraide spread his wings with a snap. All of them froze where they stood, staring at the young Endarkened Prince in helpless terror.

“Well,” Goraide said, regarding his slaves pleasantly. “You cannot seem to agree. Perhaps you are not as obedient as I had hoped. I will give you some time to reconsider. Now, kneel to your Queen.” He folded his wings and turned his back on them, walking over to where Savilla stood as the six slaves all dropped to their knees.

“Your Majesty,” he greeted her respectfully, bowing his head. Behind him the slaves were arguing in low vehement hisses that they thought their masters could not hear. There would be time enough to awaken them to the folly of that assumption later.

“Nephew,” Savilla said warmly, spreading her wings to enfold him in a silken caress. “You’re bringing them along very well—turning on one another already? How lovely.”

Goraide smiled. “They blame one another for their capture, Aunt Savilla, and I have encouraged them to hate and distrust one another even further. Despite that, they know that if all of them do not please me, none of them eat—and I keep their rations short.”

“An excellent plan,” Savilla agreed. “And I have delightful news for you to share with them.” She lowered her voice to a whisper only Goraide could hear. “They have fled from their homes and into our hands for nothing. Armethalieh has just renounced all claim to the Western Hills and withdrawn to the City gates. Had they only stayed where they were, they would be safe in their own beds today.”

Goraide’s yellow eyes gleamed with pleasure. “All this—for nothing? Oh, they’ll be so pleased to hear it!” His tail lashed back and forth with glee. He turned back to the slaves.

“You—come here.” He pointed.

Dairt got slowly to his feet and shuffled reluctantly forward. Goraide put an arm around his shoulder and leaned down so that his mouth was near the slave’s ear.

“It was you, wasn’t it, little soft one, who made the trouble? You’re afraid, and that’s good. Fear is the beginning of wisdom. But you belong to us now, down here in the dark, and you must always do exactly what pleases us, because your Bright World Gods have given you to us as a present, did you know that, little Dairt?”

Savilla saw the human’s eyes flicker with fear and confusion.

“Do you know how I know that?” Goraide went on, in the same gentle confiding tones. “Because I know how you came here, Dairt. You were running away from the High Mages, because Armethalieh was going to take over the High Hills. And so you ran to us. But Armethalieh changed her mind. She went home to her own walls and left the High Hills alone. You didn’t have to come here at all. You could have stayed right where you were, inconvenienced for a time, but safe.” As Goraide spoke, Savilla could see him weaving the subtle strands of magic around his words, drawing power from the human’s horror and despair to make the man believe him utterly.

“But you did come, Dairt. So it must have been because you wanted to come, to live with us and serve us. And now you will. You will never see the sun again. You will live here, with us, to serve us in any way we choose … and it was all your own free choice.”

The human was gasping and whimpering by the time Goraide finished speaking, shaking his head in denial but unable to disbelieve. His eyes filled with tears—Savilla had always found that to be one of the odder and more charming things about humans, that they wept for nothing more than a harsh word or two—and he swayed on his feet, his knees buckling. Goraide steadied him, his long black talons digging harshly into the human’s soft skin.

“Soft one, soft one … you have what you came to find. There are pleasures to be found in service.” Goraide turned the human’s body against his own and kissed him full upon the mouth.

Savilla watched with interest as the human’s body shuddered in protest and then stilled, the callused hands clenching and opening as Goraide’s hands moved possessively over the soft unscaled body, leaving faint red welts upon the skin.

Yes, her nephew had a fine touch with these matters, one almost as good as Prince Zyperis’s.

HIS visit with the Elven seamstress had been less stressful than Kellen had expected—and shorter, as well, since Tengitir wasn’t really interested in any of Kellen’s opinions about what clothing he should have. She’d made him stand in the direct sunlight that spilled through the skylight of her workroom as she held various swatches of fabric up to his skin to gauge the effect of the colors, taken a large number of measurements, confiscated most of the Elven clothes Kellen had been requested to bring with him (although she had allowed him to keep one outfit, to his mild surprise: a set of tunic and leggings in an odd steel-grey, almost the color of storm clouds.)

And just as well, Kellen realized on reflection, as Tengitir would have seen no reason that he should not leave the shop wearing nothing but his skin rather than leave in what she considered unsuitable clothing. Once she was done taking his measurements, she told him to be on his way. Kellen, happy to make his escape, quickly dressed in the steel-grey tunic and leggings, and got out of Tengitir’s shop as fast as possible.

At least he still had his buckskin clothing, and the Mountain Trader outfit, and he wondered, as he was measured and remeasured, if perhaps he ought to just take to wearing the buckskins again, since Idalia was mostly wearing hers.

Because as hot and scratchy as it is, he thought as the seamstress held up yet another series of swatches to his face, the only way anyone will get me into that Trader outfit again is at knifepoint …

All in all, his visit to the Elven seamstress could have been a great deal more embarrassing. The only bad part about it was that Kellen hadn’t gotten a chance to pose any questions of his own.

Sandalon had been there, of course, offering his own suggestions about the items Kellen should have for his wardrobe for various esoteric Elven events. Kellen supposed he should be just as glad he hadn’t really understood most of the suggestions. What was a Flower War? And a Winter Running Dance just sounded exhausting.

Tengitir vetoed all of the young Prince’s suggestions, gently telling the child that “I don’t believe we are going to be holding any of those this year, Sandalon, what with the drought.”

Just as well he wouldn’t be getting outfits for either one, Kellen thought.

He spent the rest of the day entertaining Sandalon—and, not incidentally, helping several of the water-carriers in their tasks. Now that he knew more of what to look for, he could see that everyone in Sentarshadeen was completely occupied in keeping the valley that held the Elven city irrigated. And in the time they could spare from that task, work parties toiled in the forest beyond the canyon rim, fighting the losing battle to save the forest beyond.

Kellen promised himself that first thing tomorrow he’d see about formally joining one of those work parties. He might not be able to help Idalia in her work right now—he was only a half-trained Wildmage, after all—but there was no reason for him to be completely idle.

He only hoped that Tengitir had included work clothes in his new wardrobe—and that he’d be able to recognize them if she had. The new clothes she was promising him didn’t look very much different to Kellen than the old ones—except in color—though it did seem that they would have more decoration, but then again, he really didn’t care. He had more important things to think about.

If there wasn’t anything really suitable for working in, his Wildwood buckskins would do just as well. He might not be able to hold his own in any discussion of Elven art, history, or fashion, but he could pump water and carry buckets as well as anyone. And it wasn’t as if he could disguise the fact that he was human, so there wasn’t really a lot of point in trying.

But in fact, as far as he could tell, his humanity really didn’t seem to bother the Elves overmuch—or if it did, the Elves were far more polite about it than a bunch of humans would have been if the situation had been reversed, Kellen thought gloomily.

He didn’t expect to see the new clothing anytime soon, but in fact, the first of the replacement items for his everyday wardrobe was waiting at his lodging when he arrived back there again that same evening. All that really mattered to Kellen was that the pieces were not (to his great relief) the skintight clothing he saw the Elves wearing, though he guessed they were pretty enough. He did wonder how Tengitir had gotten them done so fast, though.

The next morning, Kellen—who, with Idalia’s help, had found something suitable among the clothes Tengitir had sent after all—joined a work party, and was assigned to a work detail in the Rim Forest to the west.

AT the canyon rim, a system of wind-driven pumps forced the water from Sentarshadeen’s five springs up above the canyon wall into reservoirs and holding tanks. The tanks had not been built for this emergency, Kellen discovered, though the method of filling them had. Normally they were filled naturally by the rains, and kept as an emergency reserve against fires. From there, the water was pumped by hand into smaller barrels and taken out into the forest … when the pump system worked.

Kellen gathered that it had been built in a hurry, on a much larger scale than the Elves’ usual projects. What he did know was that it was breaking down more and more frequently as parts wore out. And if it stopped working altogether, there would be no way to get enough water from the five springs of the canyon floor to the rim.

Watering a forest by hand. It’s insane. It’s impossible.

But they had to try.

Kellen spent most of his time in the days that followed with the various watering parties, working to save the forest around Sentarshadeen. It was important, necessary work, and since he couldn’t help Idalia with what she was doing, he might as well do what he could. His labor was appreciated, too, and if Elves weren’t as fulsome in their verbal thanks as some humans might be, he found tokens of their appreciation whenever he got back to the house, in the form of blister salves, liniments, and bath salts to ease the aches of one who had hauled more than his share of heavy buckets.

Today—it was now the fourth day after his arrival in Sentarshadeen—he was working with Canderil and Llylance in Coral Section. By now, every tree in the forest was marked with a small patch of color on the trunk, so that no one watered a tree twice in any given term. Yesterday Kellen had gone around his circuit alone, refilling the watering troughs for the few forest animals that remained in the area. The Elves had tried keeping the forest pools full, but by now the drought had gone on so long that the water simply sank away into the parched ground, so now there were wooden troughs scattered through the forest for the animals to drink from.

It wasn’t enough. Nothing was. The wild animals were so parched that they were drinking at the troughs in full daylight, ignoring the presence of Elves and human about them, predator even drinking side by side with prey.

“THIS one,” Canderil said, stopping the cart.

Kellen stopped—it was his turn to pull the cart—and sighed in dismay. Even to his untutored eyes, the tree didn’t look all that healthy, and by now he supposed the Elves knew every tree in the forest personally. He straightened, easing his shoulders as Llylance knelt and carefully scraped away the sheltering cover of fallen leaves from the roots of the tree, then dipped a bucket of water from the cart and poured it out, conscientiously working his way all around the tree’s roots. Kellen could see the Elvenborn’s lips moving, and supposed Llylance was saying a prayer for the forest. The earth beneath the leaves was so dry it was almost white; the water pooled on the surface for a moment, then sank away as fast as if it had been poured into sand.

When he was done, Llylance carefully replaced the covering of leaves again, and they went on.

Kellen didn’t know how many colors the Elves could distinguish, but he knew that none of the trees was being watered very often. The Flower Forest in the canyon below was being irrigated with a series of trenches and canals, the water to fill them being pumped directly from whichever spring was nearest, but you couldn’t do that with thousands of acres of wild forest. They weren’t even really keeping the outer forest alive, Kellen knew—if anything, all the best efforts of the Elves could manage was to help it die more slowly.

But just because that was all they could do was no reason to stop doing it. After all, Idalia might find out how to bring the rains back. Or something else might happen. They had to keep trying.

It usually took several barrels of water to irrigate a section. They’d emptied the first one, and were returning to the Rim for more water when Kellen spotted a familiar figure running toward him.

Sandalon.

Despite his work schedule, Kellen tried to spend as much time as possible with the Elven Prince—the kid was as curious about humans and the outside world as Kellen was about Sentarshadeen and the Elves, and besides, Kellen liked him, and knew the youngster was lonely—but it was barely midmorning, and right now Sandalon should be busy with his lessons.

“You’ve been running,” Kellen said, barely turning the obvious question into a statement at the last minute for Canderil’s and Llylance’s benefit. He might be a scapegrace, rag-mannered round-ear, but there was no reason to give anybody the idea he was a bad influence on the Prince, Kellen thought with an inward grin.

Though who was a bad influence on whom might be a matter of opinion …

“They want you—at the House—of Leaf and Star—” Sandalon said, getting his message out between gasps for breath. From the look of things, he’d been running since he left there, and his face was a mixture of apprehension, a little fear, and pride at being entrusted with so important a message.

“Whoa!” Kellen said, reaching out a hand to steady the child. “Start from the beginning.”

“They want you there,” Sandalon repeated impatiently. “Father’s home. And Idalia’s there. And Ainalundore, and Tyendimarquen, and everybody. There’s going to be a big meeting and they want you because there’s something important. And I looked all over for you!”

The names meant nothing to Kellen, but they obviously meant something to his companions from the looks the two adult Elves exchanged.

“You had better go,” Canderil said. “Ainalundore and Tyendimarquen are two of the Advisors of Leaf and Star.”

“Fast,” Llylance added. “And as you are,” he added as an afterthought, in case Kellen had harbored any notions of going home and changing his clothes.

Kellen winced, just a little. He was hot and sweaty and dusty after a morning spent hauling water for the trees, and even Elven-made work clothes probably weren’t suitable for this occasion. But if they said to hurry …

Maybe he could wash up when he got there before he saw anybody. He picked up Sandalon, to the boy’s great delight, set the child on his shoulders, and strode off.

BUT when he arrived at the Palace, rather out of breath himself after hurrying most of the way across the city—fortunately Sandalon had gotten tired of riding and wanted to run on ahead—he was met at the front door of the House of Leaf and Star by someone he didn’t recognize and hustled quickly along passageways he hadn’t seen before into a chamber somewhere in the center of the Palace.

Unlike every other Elven room he’d ever seen, this one had no windows at all, even in the ceiling. It was completely circular, and hanging from the walls were thirteen narrow banners of brightly colored silk, each bearing a single elaborate symbol worked upon it in shining silver. Most of them were completely unfamiliar to Kellen, but one almost seemed to be a version of the Great Seal of Armethalieh. A complex chandelier of mirrored lamps suspended overhead rendered the windowless chamber as bright as day.

In the center of the room was a large round table. If it was made of wood, it was no wood Kellen had ever seen—pale as snow and gleaming like shell. Inlaid in its center, of some shining material so bright it seemed to be lit from within, was a symbol Kellen had seen elsewhere here in the House of Leaf and Star, and on one of the banners here; he supposed it was the symbol of the royal house.

There were nine tall, thronelike chairs with mosaics of colored glass set into their backs arranged in a semicircle around the far side of the table. Eight of them were filled.

Ashaniel was there, and so was Idalia. To Kellen’s great surprise, so was Morusil, though Kellen barely recognized him in the elaborate robes and jewels he now wore. Kellen didn’t recognize anyone else, though the man sitting next to Ashaniel was undoubtedly Sandalon’s father, the Elven king Andoreniel Caerthalien, and two of the other five Elves had to be Ainalundore and Tyendimarquen.

Andoreniel was, well, kingly, and Kellen instinctively recoiled from that air of authority before realizing that there was no cruelty or malice in it. Andoreniel might be a powerful ruler, but there all resemblance to the Arch-Mage Lycaelon ended. This was a man who ruled his subjects through love, law, and unwavering justice, not through fear, malice, and subtle treachery.

My father could have been like this man, Kellen thought. But the realization brought only a faint regretful sadness, before that too was swept away by curiosity as to why he had been summoned.

As he stood there, Kellen heard the doors close behind him. One of the gorgeously robed counselors rose from her seat—by now Kellen was getting fairly good at telling male Elves from female, at least most of the time—and came to the door, sliding several bolts into place. As she did, the King raised his hand, drawing a small shape upon the air, and the symbol in the center of the table flared even more brightly for a moment. Kellen felt a sense of pressure. Something—something magical—had just happened. He glanced toward Idalia, who smiled reassuringly.

“Now we are all present. The chamber is locked and sealed, proof against all intrusion and spies,” Andoreniel said. “We may begin.”

“Come and sit down, Kellen,” Idalia said in a low voice, indicating the empty chair beside her. Reluctantly, Kellen took his seat. He still wasn’t entirely sure why he was here, and he felt incredibly grubby and out of place. They were probably all staring at him, wondering what the gardener was doing here. He and Idalia were the only ones wearing ordinary clothing, and she wasn’t sweaty and filthy from work in the forest.

For a moment all of them regarded one another without speaking.

“I have found the source of your problem,” Idalia said at last. “I know why nothing the Elves have done has broken the drought.”

There was a stir of consternation from the Elves, and Kellen wondered why Idalia didn’t just come out and say it, if she had the answer. But she almost seemed to be hesitating, as if when she gave that answer, it would change everything, and not for the better.

“Someone has created a kind of magical dam or diversion in the mountains to the north, forcing the natural weather patterns to shift. To the north of here, the high desert is getting soaked with what ought to be Sentarshadeen’s rainfall, as the clouds pile against an ethereal barrier created by baneful magic. This does as little good to the desert and its inhabitants as the drought does to the Elvenkind. And while that barrier remains, no drop of rain will reach Sentarshadeen.”

Suddenly it seemed as if all of the Elves wanted to talk at once. Andoreniel held up his hand for silence.

“If you know who is causing this, Idalia, you must tell us,” he said gently.

“I’d hoped I was wrong, but I’m not,” Idalia said, still unwilling to come to the point. “I made very sure of my facts before I came to you, Andoreniel. But there can be no possible doubt. Shadow Mountain wakens again. It is they who have caused your drought.”

The name meant nothing to Kellen, but the Elves all recoiled as if Idalia had just emptied a basket of poisonous snakes onto the center of the table.

“Now that I know what’s wrong, I can craft a spell to fix it,” she said, hurrying on, before any of them could break their shocked silence. “It will be tricky work and demand a very high price—”

“Of course we will pay it, Idalia!” Andoreniel interrupted staunchly. “All the price, if we can, yours and our own. Only show us how.”

Idalia smiled wanly. She looked exhausted, Kellen thought, more so than he had ever seen her, and if there was still spellcasting to be done, her work had hardly begun.

“I will,” she promised. “If I could not count on the cooperation of all of you, the task would be doomed to failure before it began. But I told you this wouldn’t be a simple matter, and it isn’t. I can craft the spell here, but it can’t be cast here. It will have to be placed in a keystone which will have to be formed by magic. That much I can do, with your help. Then the keystone has to be carried to the place where the Barrier is, and triggered there to release the counterspell—by a second Wildmage.” She glanced toward Kellen for a moment. “Naturally, it will be Kellen who goes into the mountains with the keystone.”

Me? Kellen did his best not to look as stunned as he felt, and hoped he succeeded.

“But surely you should go instead, Idalia.” One of the Elven councilors seated beside Morusil spoke up for the first time. “Kellen is barely more than a child.”

“Perhaps in Elven terms, Tyendimarquen,” Idalia answered—rather sharply, Kellen thought. “But he is equal to this challenge and I would gladly trust my life to him. And you will have to, because I will be needed here. Once Shadow Mountain’s spell is broken there will be storms across the land such as perhaps even you have never seen. And when the spell-dam is broken and the rains come, I will have to be here in Sentarshadeen to call the weather back into its normal patterns once more, and shelter the city from flood and wind. Unless you want Sentarshadeen to drown instead of wither away, you’ll need me to guide the weather from the moment the Barrier breaks, and I do not know when that will be. Or you can start building boats.”

Kellen barely heard the rest of what Idalia was saying. He’d been stunned at first at the notion that he’d been chosen to perform this vital task. He’d gotten used to following Idalia around for so long that it was a shock to think of going off alone to do something so important. What if he failed?

But now that it was starting to sink in, he was excited. And proud. And relieved, in a way, because there finally was something he could do, something constructive, something more than carrying buckets.

And something that Elves can’t …

He couldn’t help that thought, but there it was. Elves couldn’t do this; Elves couldn’t be Wildmages. Of all of the folk here in Sentarshadeen, only he and Idalia could do this. And Idalia was needed here. She’d said so. And that left him.

He could do this—he knew he could. Idalia wouldn’t have chosen him if she didn’t think he could. At last, here was something he could do because he was a Wildmage, something he could do that no one else could!

“True enough,” Ashaniel said gravely, inclining her head and regarding Kellen for a moment. She glanced around the table at the other counselors, seeming to reach some sort of silent consensus.

“You cannot mean to send him off alone,” Tyendimarquen said in disbelieving tones. “One blow from an Endarkened claw, and our hopes would lie in ruin.”

“It is in my mind that perhaps we would be overhasty in sending Kellen off into the mountains entirely alone,” Morusil said slowly, speaking for the first time. “But a large escort would only draw the same attention that—as you rightly point out, Tyendimarquen, my esteemed friend and colleague—we very much wish to avoid. So perhaps the escort of a single Elven Knight would be the best compromise between recklessness and caution.”

“A foolish compromise, if the barrier itself is guarded by Endarkened warriors,” another counselor said.

“I do not believe it is so guarded,” Idalia said thoughtfully. “The Endarkened have counted perhaps too much on the fact that you would not discover the source of your trouble. Why waste their resources guarding something they think is perfectly safe? What is more, the Endarkened, for all their evil, are not stupid. I believe they would know better than to draw attention to the source-point of their barrier by heavily guarding it. The faster we—and Kellen—can move against them, the less likely it is that they will figure things out in time to mount such a defense as you fear, Ainalundore.”

“Very well,” the King said, reaching a decision. “Kellen will go, with a single Knight to accompany him. Tomorrow he rides, and now, let every hand be turned to help him on his journey. It is decided.”

The King rose to his feet, and sketched the same symbol in the air as before. There was a change in the air of the room, as though they’d all been in a sealed jar, and somebody had just opened it. One of the Elves—Kellen realized he never had found out all their names—went to unbolt the door again.

It was all over so fast. I thought they’d be talking for hours …

Evidently Elves could decide things quickly, when a fast decision was what was needed.

It seemed as if he’d barely sat down, and now, suddenly, he was being sent off alone, the deliverance of Sentarshadeen in his keeping. He was going to rescue the Elves by magic—him, Kellen Tavadon.

Unbelievable.

“Come on, Kellen, on your feet. We’ve got to get you to the armory,” Idalia said, pulling him out of his chair.

“Huh?” Kellen said inelegantly, roused from his reverie.

“Armory? Where they fit you with armor? You’re going up against Shadow Mountain; you can’t do it in a silk tunic, you know. You’ve got a lot to do before tomorrow morning, and so do I,” Idalia said.

“Tomorrow? He didn’t really mean that,” Kellen said, dropping his voice to a whisper, as the King and Queen were still on the other side of the room, giving orders to their counselors.

“He did. You’ll see. The Elves can do things in a hurry when they want to. Come on,” Idalia said.

Morusil was moving away from the knot of Elves around the King and Queen. He stopped in front of Kellen as the three of them reached the doorway.

“It grieves me to know I will not have the opportunity to tell you more of my stories, young Wildmage. But perhaps upon your return we will all have more leisure,” Morusil said, and laid a hand on Kellen’s arm in a gesture that was at once protective and fatherly, and the comradely reassurance between equals. “I think, perhaps, there is a great deal you should know, in the fullness of time.”

“I’d like that very much,” Kellen answered.

Idalia stared after Morusil as he left, then back at Kellen.

“I didn’t know you knew him,” she said curiously.

“I met him while I was out walking around the city. He was out watering his garden. I didn’t know he was one of the royal counselors.”

“He ought to be. He’s the Queen’s uncle. Now come on.”

IDALIA was right about Elves being able to do things in a hurry when they wanted. Less than an hour later Kellen was standing in the armory, having his first-ever suit of armor fitted to his body.

The process was a lot more complicated than the morning he’d spent at Tengitir’s getting new clothes.

All Kellen knew about armor was that it was heavy, expensive, took several moonturns to make, and was designed to keep you from getting killed by somebody who had a sword, mace, spear, or bow. And that even if the Elves did have a spare suit of it lying around, it wasn’t going to fit him.

It turned out that the only thing he was right about was the last. There wasn’t a spare set of armor in his size lying around the armory, but it looked like he was going to have a full suit of Elven armor by tomorrow morning anyway. And—as he soon discovered—Elven armor was almost as light as a suit of clothes.

They began by taking wax molds of his arms and legs, bending thick sheets of warmed and oiled beeswax over his bare arms and legs and pressing it into place, then carrying the pieces away into the mysterious inner regions of the forge. Kellen was allowed to get dressed again, but not to wander very far; the Master Armorer told him he would be needed for fittings again almost at once.

As it turned out, Kellen had too much to occupy him in the interim to be able to wander anywhere at all, even if he’d wanted to. Elven armor was designed to be worn over a narrow quilted undertunic and leggings, and Tengitir was sent for to supply that. The measuring began all over again, for apparently the measurements she had taken for suits of clothing were not the right ones for the undertunic.

And there were a few items Kellen would be needing that did not have to be made.

An Elf named Tandarion entered, carrying a tray on which lay four swords. Kellen was obscurely relieved to see that none of them was jeweled. Jeweled swords were all very well for wondertales and Festival plays, but this was real life.

“Fortunately we had been forging for the Flower Wars next spring, so there are several here to choose from. Even the King’s command could not forge a sword overnight,” the Master Armorer said. “Choose whichever pleases you best, Kellen. All are fine weapons, suitable to your needs.”

“But how do I—I mean, I’ve never handled a sword before. I would welcome your advice,” Kellen said awkwardly.

The Master Armorer smiled indulgently. “Try them all. I believe you will know the proper one when you heft it.”

Doubtfully, Kellen did as he was told. He lifted each of the swords in turn, flourishing them in the way he’d seen swordsmen do in plays back in Armethalieh. He had no idea of what to do with one, really, but he supposed it came with the armor, more or less. All of them were light, moving through the air like an extension of his arm. He was sure each of them was sharp. How could he possibly choose?

But he kept coming back to one in particular. It just felt better in his hand than the others. It wasn’t that it was prettier—all of them were beautiful, in the simple perfect way of Elven things. It wasn’t much different in size or shape than the others, and Kellen had no way of judging what was a good size and shape for a sword blade anyway.

It just felt right.

“The body sees what the mind cannot.” The Book of Stars says that. Okay. “I’ll take this one.”

“An excellent choice, Kellen. I’ll send it to the cordwainers to have a scabbard made immediately.”

“Immediately.” Now there’s a word I never thought I’d hear around here.

Just then Shalkan walked in.

“Shalkan?” Kellen said, surprised. He wondered if everyone in the forge was, well, fit company for a unicorn, so to speak. But Shalkan seemed comfortable enough.

The unicorn tilted his head, regarding Kellen. “Did you think you were going alone? Or that you were going to be the only one wearing armor?” Shalkan said. “The great Elven Knights used to ride unicorns into battle. You may not be an Elven Knight, but I suppose I’ll have to get used to that.”

Kellen watched with interest while Shalkan discussed his needs with the Elves. Kellen realized with relief that this time, when he rode out with Shalkan, he’d be doing it with a proper saddle; the Master Armorer took Shalkan’s measurements, and in a few moments, several sets of saddles and barding had been brought for Shalkan to choose from. That, in itself, would have been a pretty amusing idea, if Shalkan hadn’t been so deadly serious about it—the mount choosing the saddle and harness, instead of the rider!

Kellen had seen horses in armor at parades in Armethalieh on high Festival occasions. Shalkan’s armor was quite a different matter. For one thing, the unicorn was built nothing like a horse. For another, the unicorn was a thinking, reasoning, independent creature, not a beast meant to be controlled by a rider. Kellen gradually came to realize that it made good sense for Shalkan to choose his own protection; he was the only one who could say what was, and what was not, comfortable for him.

Shalkan chose armor that covered his chest and shoulders, leaving his legs and haunches free. The lower part of his long sinuous neck was encased in a long collar of interlocking rings that moved and flexed as fluidly as Shalkan himself, lined in sheep’s wool to prevent chafing. The armorer urged him to add a shanfron to his armor, a close-fitting piece that went over his head and cheeks and latched beneath his throat and muzzle, and in fact Shalkan tried several. But in the end Shalkan rejected them all, saying they were too confining.

Privately Kellen thought that was too bad, as the shanfron had looked very dashing.

“We will finish these pieces and have them ready for you by tomorrow, Shalkan,” Tandarion said.

Shalkan bowed his head. “Green for the lacings and ornaments, I think,” he said gravely. “To match my eyes, of course.”

Kellen wasn’t sure whether the unicorn was serious or making a joke, but the Elves seemed to think it was a perfectly reasonable request.

Once they’d removed the armor, he wandered over to Kellen.

“Nice sword.”

“Not that I know the first thing about using one,” Kellen said under his breath.

“Just think of it as a large, pointy, sharp-edged club,” Shalkan said helpfully. “You’re good with a club. If you can’t actually cut at an enemy properly, at least you can bash him with the flat of the blade. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a few more arrangements to make before tomorrow, and your work here has just begun.” He pointed with his horn, and Kellen saw the Master Armorer and several apprentices coming out of the forge area with several pieces of what could only be Kellen’s new armor.

THERE was a helmet, a sort of collar, pieces to cover his chest and back, and long metal sleeves with segmented elbows, held in place by gauntlets so meticulously jointed that Kellen could touch each finger with his thumb, just as if the gauntlets were leather instead of metal. The closer he looked at the armor, the more small interlocking pieces he could see: it was as unyielding as any of the hard metals (quite harder than bronze, though it didn’t seem to be steel), but nearly as flexible as his own skin. The armorers swore a man could dance wearing this armor, but Kellen wasn’t looking forward to trying. It might be much, much lighter than anything he’d ever seen of the sort before, but that didn’t make it light.

The entire surface of the armor was ornamented, or would be when it was complete, with subtle patterns that were almost like the pattern of wood grain.

“It adds strength, you see,” one of the armorers told him, seeing his confusion, holding up a finished piece of another suit of armor for Kellen’s inspection. That one didn’t have a wood-swirl pattern, though; its surface pattern looked more like clouds, or billows of smoke.

“A good beginning, though of course much more work will be needed. You may remove the armor if you wish.”

Kellen pulled off the helmet (there would be feathers, he’d discovered to his dismay, in a green to match Shalkan’s ornaments) and slipped off the belly-and-back pieces, which were all he’d had on at the moment, the others having already been returned to the forge for more work. It looked like it was a good thing he was going to have an actual Elven Knight with him, because otherwise he wasn’t sure how he’d get in and out of all this stuff every morning, even if most of the parts did stay permanently connected to each other once the armor was finished.

But at last, late in the afternoon, the Master Armorer told him he was no longer needed for the work to continue. The armor would be ready for him by the time he was ready to depart.

Rolling up the quilted undertunic and leggings to take with him, Kellen left the armory.

HE went directly back to the house, hoping Idalia would be there. To his great relief he found her lying on one of the long benches in the living room, reading her copy of The Book of Sun and eating an apple, the grey cat under her arm.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Better than I will be later tonight,” Idalia said matter-of-factly, sitting up. “Don’t look so worried—with all the Elves of Sentarshadeen providing the energy to create the counterspell and the keystone, all I’ll really have to do is provide energy to channel their power, the skill to craft the spell, and the ability to put it in place. The cost to us all will be no worse than if we’d all worked nonstop for a few sennights, but compressed into an hour or so. We’ll all be exhausted once the spell is cast, but it will be worth it. That’s why you are not going to be participating in what we’re going to do tonight. You’ll need all your resources for what comes after.”

Kellen sat down beside her. The grey cat, dislodged from her previous comfortable position, climbed into his lap, settled down again, and started purring. He stroked her fur absently.

“What does come after?” Kellen asked. “Tomorrow, I mean.”

“Go where I send you and release the spell there. I’ll know more exactly what you’re looking for and how you’ll find it—and what to do when you get there—once I’ve done my part tonight.”

“That doesn’t seem, well, very exact,” Kellen said dubiously.

Idalia reached out and ruffled his hair comfortingly. “If you wanted exact answers and detailed instructions, brother dear, you should have stuck with the High Magick. That’s not what our path is about. Now … don’t you have some packing to do? Or are you going to be like one of those adventurers in the wondertales, going off on his knightly quest with nothing more than a shining suit of armor and great expectations?” She gave him a gentle shove and lifted the cat from his lap. “Don’t worry about food—the Elves are taking care of that, and the mule to carry it. But don’t forget your Books, or you’ll just have to hunt through everything you’ve brought to find out where they’ve gotten themselves to. They won’t allow themselves to be left behind, you know.”

FORTUNATELY Kellen by now had a certain amount of experience with long journeys and the small comforts that made such travel tolerable. Even more fortunately, he and Idalia had been in Sentarshadeen less than a sennight, and his bedroll (and other camping equipment) were still tucked away in the corners of his room, along with his share of the traveling packs.

Despite all that, it took Kellen a long time to decide what he’d actually need. Too many thoughts kept intruding: of the adventure (or possibly disaster) that lay ahead, of the magic to come tonight, of the thought of actually wearing a suit of glorious Elven armor. Would he look silly—or grand?

And, occasionally, darker thoughts. Just what was Shadow Mountain? Who were the Endarkened, and did they live there? And why did they hate the Elves? Was he really going to have to fight? He’d never really fought anyone—other than the stone Hounds—before in his life …

In the Council chamber this afternoon, Idalia had made it all sound like such a simple matter: go to the source of the spell and use the keystone she would make tonight. And at the time, it’d seemed very simple: an adventure, in fact. He’d triggered keystones before—anytime he used their stored energy to fuel a spell, in fact. That part didn’t worry him overmuch.

But he knew it couldn’t be quite as simple—or as easy—as she’d made it all sound. Just finding out what was causing the drought had exhausted Idalia, and whatever was going to happen tonight would be a further drain on her. But whoever it was at Shadow Mountain who had caused the drought in the first place had meant to destroy Sentarshadeen and everyone in it, so just finding out how to stop them had to have been the easy part, if anything in all this could be called easy. That meant there must be traps and barriers between Kellen and undoing their spell that he couldn’t even begin to imagine right now.

And whoever had set the spell certainly wouldn’t want it undone. If they found out about him, they’d certainly try to stop him. Just like the High Council had tried to stop him from leaving the City lands.

For just a moment, in his mind Kellen was back in the pocket canyon facing the Outlaw Hunt. Suddenly he was glad—very glad—that Shalkan and one of the Elves would be going with him. And he was beginning to wish that he’d be going with an entire Elven army, instead …

Chapter Twenty

A Circle of Silver Fire

THAT EVENING, JUST after lamp-lighting time, Kellen and Idalia went down to the meadow beyond the Palace, carrying lanterns to guide their way. Tonight, all of Sentarshadeen was dark. No one remained behind in the Elven houses to tend the lamps, and it would be folly to leave them unattended.

But the meadow itself was bright, for every Elf in the city was there, and the meadow had been ringed with lanterns.

There were no unicorns to be seen anywhere in the meadow, for the work to be done tonight belonged entirely to the Elves. Kellen didn’t really understand why—perhaps, just like him, the unicorns would have a different role to play in the days ahead.

He looked around.

The Elves all wore long robes in pale colors, the fabrics seeming to shimmer in the twilight as if they glowed as well. Kellen could hear the faint susurrus of conversation among the waiting Elves; a quiet sound considering the size of the crowd.

Idalia stopped him outside the edge of the ring of lanterns. She was carrying her walking stave, but aside from that, she hadn’t made any particular preparations that Kellen had noticed.

“Remember, Kellen. Once this starts, I don’t want you being a part of it. You’ll have your price to pay later, and trust me, you’ll pay as much as we do here and now.”

“I remember,” Kellen said.

Privately, he hardly thought it was fair. Whoever would be riding with him tomorrow would be in the circle tonight, part of the spell, contributing their power to its success. Why couldn’t he be here as well?

Still, it was Idalia’s choice, and he would accept that.

“And besides,” she went on, with a sideways smile at him. “You do have one very important part to play here tonight.”

“Thought so,” Kellen said in satisfaction, pleased. Then: “What?”

“When the spell is complete—you’ll know when that happens—and the keystone appears, you need to take it and wrap it up carefully in a protective cloth. The Elves have spent all day preparing it. Ashaniel will have that; I think I see her now. Keep the keystone safe, and don’t unwrap it again until you’re ready to use it. The cloth should keep Shadow Mountain from being able to sense the keystone, which will serve as another layer of protection for you. One thing that we don’t want is for them to know you’re coming, and the keystone’s presence in the world might as well be a blazing torch to alert them.”

That reminded Kellen yet again that he very much wanted to ask just what Shadow Mountain was, and why it—or they—wanted to destroy the Elves, but just then Idalia started moving through the crowd. She handed her lantern to someone at the edge of the gathering, and Kellen quickly followed suit with his own. Fire was still a danger, especially with so many people gathered here together.

Everyone stepped back to give Kellen and Idalia room as they approached. Kellen had never been so conscious of being the center of attention, though he told himself it was really Idalia who was the focus of everyone’s concern tonight. His part would be played out in the future, out of sight, and suddenly he was glad of it. There was a downside to being the center of attention; if you fouled up, there was no second chance to try again and do it right. He wouldn’t fail (of course!) but if he did at least there’d be no one there to see, and maybe he could get that second chance after all.

Because of the way Sentarshadeen was built, even now Kellen wasn’t really sure how big the city was, but tonight he knew how many Elves lived here. Hundreds. More than he could count. They filled the entire meadow, all the way back into the trees.

At the center of the crowd a small open space had been preserved. A large five-sided flat tablet of white stone had been set upon the grass, and a small bronze brazier had been placed atop that for Idalia’s use. The space was ringed with more torches.

Ashaniel approached them as they reached the edge of the open space, holding a small bundle of dark fabric in her hands. She held it out to Idalia. “Here is the spell-caul for the keystone.”

Idalia took it and passed it to Kellen, thanking Ashaniel absently. Kellen could tell his sister’s mind was already elsewhere, on the work that was to come.

Curious, Kellen inspected the bundle in his hands. It was a large square of heavy red silk, embroidered in the same color as the fabric. His fingers tingled as he touched it, and it seemed somehow colder and heavier than it ought to be. Magic. Sewn to the outside was a pair of long tasseled cords, so he could tie the bundle shut once he’d wrapped the keystone in it. He folded the fabric up tightly again and tucked it under one arm.

Now all that remained was to create the contents.

He remembered Idalia’s lessons about withdrawing himself from a spell in order to deny his power and energy to a Working. The Book of Sun also spoke of starving the will and refusing consent; Kellen had thought those injunctions related only to making bargains until Idalia explained that all aspects of a spell were in some sense a transaction: giving power to the spells of another, accepting a spell cast upon you (for good or ill), sensing the effects of a spell cast by another. If the Wildmage refused to participate in the transaction, depending on his own power, he could minimize or even negate the power of the spell entirely. All these things were aspects of shielding, and Kellen’s abilities in that area were going to get a serious workout tonight. Maybe he wasn’t such a “nonparticipant” after all; it would take a great effort of will to avoid being drawn into a working this large.

Idalia stepped into the center of the ring of torches, and as she did, silence spread outward in ripples through the waiting Elves, until the only sound was that of the wind through the trees.

As Kellen watched, she knelt on the center stone and prepared her spell, piling a few leaves and a sharp knife beside the brazier filled with tinder.

Then she rose to her feet and began making her Circle, marking it with her staff.

He knew far more now about the physical components of Wild Magic than he had back when he’d first helped Idalia heal the unicorn colt. A Wildmage’s Circle was an acknowledgment that the world had boundaries, and that the help he or she summoned came into the world the Wildmage knew and served from elsewhere. It also functioned as a reminder that in calling upon the forces of the Wild Magic, the Wildmage was leaving behind the world he or she knew. In Calling Spells, no forces except those the Wildmage had called could enter the Circle; in Finding Spells, it served as a point of departure on the path that would lead the Wildmage to his goal. On those rare and dangerous occasions when the Wildmage was compelling something to appear before him, the Circle served as a beacon to guide it and an enclosure to imprison it, subject to the Wildmage’s will.

But in Kellen’s experience, the Circle was always invisible except to magical senses, or at most a line scratched in the earth by a stick or a knife.

This was different.

Where Idalia walked, a white glow sprang up behind her, a glow as intense as Magelight. And when she had finished, there was a ring of bright white light defining the circle she had marked, its silvery radiance as intense as the noonday sun. Kellen closed his eyes and could still see it through his closed lids.

All around him the Elves seemed to sigh. They began to sing in a strange unfamiliar tongue, swaying gently as they did, their voices rising in a high sweet chorus that vibrated through Kellen’s body like the carillons of Armethalieh. He felt himself begin to sway as well, felt the song resonate within him, calling to something deep inside him that longed—demanded—to answer it.

He suddenly realized he couldn’t be here. Not in the middle of the Elves, not standing so close to Idalia’s Circle. Blindly, he turned and pushed his way through the crowd, forcing his way through the unresisting bodies entirely by touch.

The Elves didn’t seem to notice, but Kellen was gasping for air by the time he reached the edge of the crowd. He looked around—anywhere but at the Circle—breathing deeply and hugging himself tightly to try to shake off the mesmerizing trance state. It felt as if he were trying to force himself awake from the deepest of sleep; he pinched himself—hard—welcoming the sharp immediacy of the pain as something to anchor himself to.

When he was sure he could resist the lure of the rising power, Kellen looked around. He found he was standing on a small rise among the trees, where he could look down on the ceremony behind him. The Elves still sang, but now the sound was something outside him, separate from him, a thing he could shut out with an effort of will. It was unearthly, the kind of song that no human throats could ever form. Not with harmonies built a hundred choruses deep, and so perfectly attuned that even the thought of discord was impossible.

The center of the Circle was only a hazy silvery glow, as bright as if the full moon had come to earth, but Kellen did not need to see Idalia to know what she was doing, for most spells of the Wild Magic followed a similar pattern. She would have kindled a fire in the brazier and used it to burn the appropriate herbs and leaves, along with a few drops of her blood. That was the sacrifice of Power Within that linked the Wildmage to the Power Without, like priming a pump—a metaphor Kellen had neither known nor understood until he had seen pumps in Merryvale.

And somehow the Elves were singing their own power into the spell as well, linking themselves to each other and to Idalia. Kellen could feel that even as he held himself back from it. Unlike the ordinary folk of Armethalieh, who had power, but could neither sense nor use it, though the Elves could not use their power, they not only could sense it, they knew it, intimately and well, and could direct it to the skill of one who could use it.

The song had begun slowly, a call and response, the melody sweeping around the circle of Elves as the counterpoint followed in its wake. But gradually the counterpoint died away, as more and more voices took up the melody alone, and the melody simplified, until all the voices below sang as one, a single, simple, heart-piercing phrase of unutterable sweetness, repeated over and over in a language Kellen didn’t understand.

And step by step that song line shortened as well. Three beats, then two, and Kellen felt the spiraling tension coiling upward, demanding release.

One single note soaring toward the stars, until he thought he would go mad, or the stars themselves would shatter—

—and then—

Silence.

Darkness.

Release.

Kellen staggered backward, as if something he’d been pulling against had abruptly disappeared. He realized that the spell was cast, and that now he needed to get down to Idalia. He forced himself to move.

It was harder, this time, to make his way through the Elves. As Idalia had predicted, they were exhausted by their sacrifice of power to the spell. Some had sat down where they were, others were leaning against the person next to them for support. All of them seemed somehow disoriented, drained. Kellen pushed through them as ruthlessly as he could bring himself to, navigating by the faint steady glow of torchlight ahead of him.

Idalia was kneeling on the white stone, a dark object a little larger than one of the Elven lanterns between her knees. Though it looked nothing like the usual sort of keystone from the quick glimpse he got of it, there was no denying that was what it was. The object drew him, in the same way that the Elven song had drawn him, but this time he did not resist the pull of it. He entered the circle, not a particle of his attention on anything but the object, none to spare even for Idalia.

Hide me! the thing cried out to him. Shelter me, cover me, protect me now!

Kellen quickly dropped the spell-caul over it, swaddling whatever it was up firmly in the red silk—it was surprisingly heavy for its size—taking care to wind it so deeply in the soft folds that nothing could possibly “leak” out to betray its presence. He finished by tying the tasseled cords firmly around it.

When he looked up again, Idalia had collapsed completely, lying unconscious on the ground.

Kellen took a step toward his sister, but he wasn’t quick enough. A male Elf had stepped out of the crowd, stooping and lifting Idalia into his arms as though she weighed nothing at all.

It was Jermayan.

The Elf stared challengingly into Kellen’s eyes, as if daring him to object to his presence.

Now Kellen was torn between duty and duty. He knew that Idalia didn’t want to have anything more to do with Jermayan, but at the moment Idalia was in no condition to complain. Kellen couldn’t carry her and the keystone. And no one else seemed to be in any condition to care for her …

Before Kellen could think of what to say, Jermayan turned away and began carrying Idalia back in the direction of her and Kellen’s house.

Kellen clutched the silk-wrapped bundle tighter and followed.

It looks like they’re well matched in one thing. They’re both about as stubborn as each other, anyway. He sighed. Well, if he wants to do this, and it makes him feel useful … he’s a grown man. I guess he’s a grown man. He looks old enough to make up his own mind about making himself miserable, anyway.

Though true night had fallen while the keystone was being created, Jermayan had no trouble finding his way along the narrow unlighted paths that lay between the unicorn meadow and Kellen and Idalia’s house, and Kellen found himself having to hurry to keep up with the Elf. If Jermayan had not been dressed entirely in white, it would have been even more difficult.

“You can slow down, you know,” Kellen finally said, a little breathlessly. “There’s no rush—I don’t think Idalia’s going to wake up anytime soon. And thank you for taking her.”

Jermayan abruptly slowed, allowing Kellen to catch up with him.

“No, she is exhausted,” Jermayan said tenderly, gazing down at Idalia’s face, her head cradled protectively against his shoulder. “But I would not wish to place you in the position of having permitted my attentions to your sister, should she learn I have taken this service upon myself.”

“What you and Idalia do—or don’t do—is between the two of you,” Kellen said hastily. “She wouldn’t listen to me anyway.” And since I didn’t even know I had a sister until Shalkan dumped me at her front door a few moonturns ago, and since she all but told me off for trying to nose in when you first showed up on our doorstep, I’m sure not going to start telling her how to run her life now.

Jermayan smiled faintly. “Great wisdom in one so young,” he commented.

“Besides,” Kellen added, after a moment, “what do I know, anyway? Somebody who keeps company with unicorns doesn’t have a right to a lot of opinions about people who—ah—can’t.”

He thought he heard a faint chuckle from Jermayan, but he couldn’t be sure.

They continued onward in a more companionable silence until they reached the door. Kellen opened it, and Jermayan carried Idalia inside. Kellen was glad they’d left a couple of the lamps burning; he hadn’t anticipated coming back with so many burdens. He quickly set the wrapped keystone down on the padded bench.

“Show me to her room, of your grace,” Jermayan said, and Kellen went to open that door in turn.

Kellen turned back the covers and Jermayan laid Idalia carefully down on the bed, gazing at her for a long moment, his face unreadable. Kellen could feel the tension of things unsaid and emotions denied fill the room like water running into a cup, so intense it made his head hurt.

“Cover her warmly, and watch over her,” Jermayan said abruptly. “See that she sleeps undisturbed.”

Jermayan left—not seeming to hurry, in the fashion of Elves, but gone so quickly it would have been easy to imagine he’d never been there at all. Kellen removed Idalia’s sandals—she might be willing to sleep in her clothes, but not in her shoes—then covered her and closed the bedroom door, blowing out the bedside lamps before he left.

He picked up the keystone and went to his own room, tucking it securely away in his pack, then went to light the lamps outside the door. Elsewhere in the canyon he could see other scattered points of light, as the Elves who had wearily returned to their homes had done the same.

He built up the fire in the stove and rummaged through the cabinets, setting out a meal for Idalia if she woke up during the night. He realized he was hungry himself—he’d been too excited to eat earlier—and cut himself a slice of cold venison and dried-cherry pie, washing it down with a tankard of cold berry-cider. Eating dispelled the last of the eldritch feeling he’d gotten from being in the meadow, as if a wind had blown him free of cobwebs. And paradoxically, it left him that much more free to worry.

Now that Idalia’s part was done, the keystone made and charged, his part of the task seemed that much closer to beginning. In a few hours, he and Shalkan and one of the Elves would be on their way, riding into the unknown. Kellen was sure he couldn’t possibly sleep, but it would do no harm to lie down for a few hours …

“WAKE up, sleepyhead!”

“What …?”

Kellen came groggily awake out of muddled dreams, thrashing and struggling. The dreams that had seemed so vivid a moment before dissolved instantly, leaving him blinking in confusion.

He didn’t remember falling asleep. But the last time he’d looked out the window of his bedroom, the sky had been black. Now the sky was grey-pale, and Idalia was standing over him, wrapped in a violet house robe the color of her eyes. There were dark circles beneath those eyes that were only a shade or two lighter, but otherwise she seemed quite healthy and alert for someone who had been drained to the point of unconsciousness only a few hours ago.

“Tandarion just came to bring your armor and sword. I’ve made tea. While you eat, I can tell you what to look for and how to trigger the keystone when you reach the Barrier. Then … it’s all up to you, Kellen.”

Her words brought him fully awake as even a bucket of cold water could not have. Kellen sat up quickly, unable to believe he’d actually fallen asleep. “You know?”

“More than I did last night. And you’ll learn more on the way. Now come on.”

She picked up a bundle and tossed it at him—the quilted undertunic for his armor, and the supple leather socks that went beneath the armored boots, and left Kellen alone.

He carried the bundle off to the water closet—one thing he was going to miss on the road was the convenience of Elven plumbing—and as he washed and dressed, Kellen felt odd memory-echoes of the last time he’d dressed in unfamiliar clothing for a long journey into the unknown. It was not so long ago—little more than a moonturn—that he and Idalia had left the Wildwood heading into Elven lands. But then they’d been heading out of peril into safety—or so they’d thought then. Now Kellen was leaving even Idalia behind, going from the near-safety of Sentarshadeen into—

—into grave danger indeed.

Suddenly he knew that, out of the blue, and a chill of apprehension came over him, shaking him to the core and making him shiver.

This is not a wondertale. It’s dangerous. Really dangerous …

Suddenly the glorious Elven armor was no longer just something to look good in; it was something to keep him from getting hurt.

Or killed.

He sat down at the table in the common room and accepted a cup of tea, though he didn’t think he could eat anything. Idalia produced a comb and began braiding his hair—by now it had grown long enough to make a short club at the back of his neck.

“You’ll want to wear it this way,” she said. “Otherwise your hair will just get caught on the inside of your helmet. Now. Where to go. You’ll be riding north, toward the High Desert. Do you remember that vision you had, the first time you tried scrying?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget it,” Kellen said, with an inward shudder.

“I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m not sure it was meant to be a representation of an actual event—more the symbolic representation of the damage the Barrier is capable of causing—but I think the place you’re looking for looks something like that, at least in essence, so you should know it when you see it. As for how you’ll be drawn to it, well, the magic that has created the Barrier has imposed a unnatural sort of order on the natural world, and that kind of power leaves footprints of a sort. What you need to look for as you ride is abnormal patterns, things that are orderly in a way that Nature isn’t when left alone. The Barrier is the source, and the closer you get to it, the more abnormalities you’ll see.”

“Like what?” Kellen asked. Despite his misgivings, the tea had awakened his appetite, and he reached for one of the morning pastries Idalia had set out on a plate on the table.

“Swirls of birds overhead that are flying in an odd pattern and can’t seem to break out of it. Animals—especially small ones, like mice or squirrels—that are running aimlessly in circles or performing repetitive motions over and over. Swarms of insects, especially noxious ones, or ones that don’t belong. Anything that seems wildly out of place. Anything nasty. Anything rotten, dead, or dying that has no business being there.”

“But how will I know?” Kellen asked. “I saw new things in the Wildwood every day, and we’re miles to the west of that. I could guess wrong.”

“That’s what you’ll have Shalkan for. And whoever’s going with you. They’ll know what’s out of place if you don’t: Shalkan, most especially, will be sensitive to the kinds of wrongness that you’re looking for. And trust in the Wild Magic. When you’re not sure, use Finding Spells to show you the way. But be careful about that. Using the Wild Magic may alert Shadow Mountain to your presence, so be sure to move on when you’ve done that.”

It seemed, thought Kellen, that he was to be going off like a wonder-tale knight on a quest after all, looking for something he wasn’t sure how to find, guided by mysterious signs and portents. He tried not to show the unease he felt. Idalia had said to trust in the Wild Magic, and Kellen already knew how much power it possessed. Once he began, in a way he’d be a part of Idalia’s spell as well. He had to trust that.

“Okay,” Kellen said, taking a deep breath. He had a thousand questions, but he knew they were mostly for his own reassurance. Idalia had already told him everything he really needed to know. “And when I get there?”

“You’ll see another keystone—I’m not sure exactly what it will look like, but I do know that you’ll know it beyond a doubt. When you’ve found it, you’ll need to take your keystone and place it on top of the Shadow Mountain keystone, then trigger the counterspell. You’ll do that by the same method you use to charge a keystone, only in reverse: this time you need to tap your keystone, but instead of pulling the power into yourself, you need to channel it directly into the other keystone.”

Kellen thought about it for a moment, reviewing the steps of the spell for triggering a keystone’s power in his mind. “Sort of like a healing, except instead of passing spell-energy into a living being, I’ll be passing it into a second stone?” he said. Suddenly something occurred to him. “But, Idalia … you made the keystone. You charged it. You said that only the Wildmage who charges a keystone can use the energy within it. How can I …?”

Idalia smiled encouragingly, and the expression only made her look more tired.

“This time it won’t matter. This isn’t an ordinary keystone. It’s holding the stored power of everyone in Sentarshadeen, not just mine, and more than that, besides. And the second keystone won’t want to receive it, so you’ll need to work to maintain the link between them and force the power from your keystone into the other one. But once it happens, it should happen fast.” She gave the top of his head a pat. “Now let’s get you dressed.”

Kellen crammed the last of a third pastry into his mouth and came to stand in the middle of the room. His armor lay in neat gleaming piles on the cushioned bench, as perfect as any of the finished pieces Kellen had seen the day before in the armory. He couldn’t imagine how Tandarion and the others had finished it so fast. Even with “small magics,” the armory must have been working all night—and that after everyone there had lent power to Idalia’s spell.

Kellen felt suddenly very humble. I’ll be worthy of everything you’ve all sacrificed for this. I will!

Idalia quickly helped him into his armor, explaining what she was doing as she fitted the pieces over his body.

“Don’t worry. You’ll be able to put it on by yourself with a little practice. Just remember: chest and backplate first, then leggings, then sleeves, then collar, then boots, then gloves, and you’re done. I don’t think you’ll need to wear the helmet; you should be riding through Elven lands today.”

There were indeed feathers on the helmet, but Kellen was relieved to see that it was only a short brushy crest. He held the helmet up for closer inspection. The feathers were pale green, with the glittering iridescence of a hummingbird’s down. They didn’t seem to be dyed in any way. He set it down again, wondering what bird the feathers had come from.

“Here’s your surcoat—no Elven Knight should be without one,” Idalia said with a determined cheer that seemed very forced, holding up a length of heavy sea-green fabric. She helped him slip it over his head. It hung down loosely to his knees in front and back. It had the shine of silk, but was much heavier, like a strong linen canvas, and there was a subtle pattern in the weave.

“And here is your sword, gentle Knight.”

The sword Kellen had picked out yesterday had indeed had a scabbard made for it as Tandarion had promised. It also had a swordbelt and baldric, a strap going over his shoulder and attaching to the swordbelt.

If the sword itself was plain, the swordbelt, scabbard, and baldric more than made up for it. They were of green leather, stitched in pale green silk the color of his surcoat (and, as Kellen suspected he was going to find, the same color of Shalkan’s saddle and decorations) and stitched with silver wire and, to his faint dismay, studded with green moonstones. The sword and scabbard could be unhooked from the sword belt easily.

Kellen raised his arms so that Idalia could slip the belts into place and buckle the swordbelt. When she was done, the sword hung at Kellen’s left hip. He reached down and clasped the hilt experimentally. The armored fingers of his glove closed over the hilt as fluidly as his unencumbered hand might; it felt as if he were wearing heavy leather gloves, nothing more. Kellen sighed in relief and appreciation, releasing the sword and taking an experimental step. The armor moved with him, heavy but not awkward.

Idalia went to get his packs.

There was a tap on the door. Kellen went to open it, finding that even in armored gauntlets, he could still manage the task of clasping the door handle and turning it. Perhaps the Chief Armorer had been right about being able to dance in it as well.

Shalkan was standing outside, saddled and ready. It seemed incongruous to see the unicorn wearing a saddle and armor. The saddle and armor didn’t make the unicorn look more like a horse—quite the opposite. It just made Shalkan look as if he were wearing some sort of unconvincing disguise. Partly, Kellen supposed, it was because when you saw a saddle, you expected to see a bridle and reins as well, but there was absolutely no reason for a unicorn to wear them. A bridle and reins were to control an animal, and Shalkan wasn’t an animal—or if he was, it was only in the sense that Kellen was an animal. Shalkan was a person with hooves.

And Kellen had been right about the color. The seat of Shalkan’s saddle, the stirrup-leathers, the silk cords that knotted the bands of his armor together, and its sheepskin lining were all dyed the same shade of green as Kellen’s surcoat and the equivalent parts of his armor.

“I see you’re ready to go,” Shalkan said, regarding Kellen with approval. “Very nice. We’ll be meeting our escort at Songmairie.”

“I’ll go with you that far,” Idalia said, following Kellen out the door with his packs slung over his shoulder. “Someone has to carry the luggage.”

WHEN they reached the canyon floor, Shalkan stopped.

“Time to mount up,” he told Kellen. “You do know how to use stirrups, don’t you?”

“Of course I do!” Kellen said in automatic protest, though in truth he hadn’t ridden horses very often, and Shalkan was nothing like a horse.

But the Elven armor was just as flexible as its designers had promised, and Shalkan was far stronger than any horse. He set his feet and stood rock-steady as Kellen slipped his left toe into the stirrup and swung his right leg determinedly across Shalkan’s back.

Instead of the narrow slippery surface that Kellen had been forced to contend with when riding Shalkan bareback, the saddle gave him a wide comfortable seat, and the stirrups gave him someplace to put his feet and a way to brace himself. The broad curl of the saddle in front of him would give him something to hang on to, too, if Shalkan broke into one of his bounding runs.

There was a place at the back of the saddle to hook his helmet, so Kellen did.

“Tuck your knees in,” the unicorn said sternly, looking over his shoulder. “You ride like an arthritic granny.”

Meekly, Kellen did as he was told.

Subconsciously, Kellen had expected that everyone in Sentarshadeen would turn out to see him off, but it seemed that the Elves had too much of a sense of propriety for that. The early-morning streets were deserted.

He wasn’t certain for a moment whether he was disappointed or relieved. He finally settled on the latter. It was one thing to daydream about setting off on a quest amid cheering crowds; it was quite another to have a crowd come to see you off when you were not altogether sure you were going to be able to do what you were supposed to do … and actually, didn’t know what you were supposed to do, when it all came down to cases.

As they passed the House of Leaf and Star, in the distance he saw Sandalon standing forlornly in an open window, watching them ride out.

“He will miss you,” Shalkan said quietly.

“I’ll miss him,” Kellen said. He raised his hand and waved. He didn’t care if it was bad manners. Ashaniel would forgive him.

The boy waved back energetically, and Kellen saw Ashaniel come to stand beside him. He forced himself to turn away and not stare after her like a moonwit. Sandalon would know that he’d said good-bye, and that was enough.

The spring was deserted when they arrived.

Unconsciously, Kellen expected to see the landscape veiled in mist, but the air was far too dry for that. Everything was bright and crystal-clear. Idalia set the packs down and looked around.

“I wonder …?” she began.

An Elven Knight in dark gleaming armor was walking toward them from the direction of the Palace, leading a black horse and a white mule.

Jermayan.

Jermayan was going to be his escort?

This could be more than awkward.

The Elven Knight stopped in front of Idalia, gazing down at her. Idalia met his gaze steadily, and once more Kellen could feel the air was full of intense but unspoken communication.

“Take care of him,” Idalia said at last.

Jermayan bowed silently. Idalia turned away and walked off quickly, her back straight. Jermayan picked up Kellen’s packs and added them to the mule’s burden, lashing them down firmly, then mounted his own horse.

There was a long pause as no one moved.

“Where are we going?” Shalkan finally asked.

“Oh. Oh.” Kellen blushed hotly as he realized he was the only one who knew. “North. Toward the High Desert.”

Jermayan silently turned his horse and rode off. Kellen and Shalkan followed.

KELLEN had thought that his own armor was the most elegant thing he’d ever seen, but that was before he got a good look at Jermayan’s—and he had plenty of time to study it, because Jermayan didn’t say anything as they rode, and given the Elf’s look of stony concentration, there didn’t seem to be much point in trying to start a conversation.

He’s statuesque, all right. Lycaelon’s stone golems are more expressive.

The Elven Knight’s armor—what Kellen could see of it beneath the deep blue surcoat Jermayan wore—was lacquered in a dark blue glaze the color of the midnight sky, through which silver stars embossed on the armor’s surface shone and twinkled. It was more elaborately pieced than Kellen’s was, and fitted Jermayan like an elegant suit of clothes, and there was a crescent-shaped shield that matched it—down to the design of silver stars—hanging from his saddle. His horse’s armor matched Jermayan’s exactly, from shanfron to crupper.

The Elven destrier was as much a creature of perfection as Kellen had expected, the exquisite counterpart for Jermayan himself, and leagues beyond the noble beasts Kellen had seen pulling the water carts. With a broad forehead, elegant nose, proudly arched neck, and impeccable carriage, it was every bit as handsome as its rider, and considerably more animated. Once Jermayan had given it their direction, he left its reins slack upon its neck, as if it were intelligent enough to be trusted to find its own way.

It was not, Kellen decided, inspecting it closely, actually black, though it had seemed that way at first. Rather, the destrier was the darkest possible shade of smoke-grey, a color Kellen had never seen before in a horse.

Even the mule that followed placidly behind the destrier at the end of a long lead-rope was attractive, though in an endearing fashion rather than an elegant one. Its ears were rounded, its muzzle small and neat, its eyes limpid, and it resembled nothing so much in Kellen’s opinion as a very large baby rabbit. And there was no mistaking it for anything but a creature of Elven breeding, or Kellen would eat his new armor, feathered helm and all.

After long inspection and consideration, Kellen decided that the mule wasn’t exactly white (especially next to Shalkan), but actually the palest shade of new cream, from pink nose to silken tail-tuft. He was surprised to see water kegs among the mule’s cargo, until he remembered how hard it had been for him and Idalia to find water on their way into Sentarshadeen. Once the water they carried with them was gone, they would have to rely once more on Shalkan to find them water until they reached the edge of the drought area, and to make sure it was pure and fit to drink as well.

FOR a long time they rode in silence, Jermayan in the lead. Soon enough they had left the Flower Forest of Sentarshadeen and even the outer forest that the Elves were able to tend behind them. Now the effects of the long drought were written plain on the autumnal landscape, so much so that Kellen wondered if even rain could revive it once the keystone he carried had done its work.

The day, as usual, was clear and cloudless, and Kellen felt uncomfortably warm in his armor, though Jermayan seemed perfectly at ease. At least they weren’t riding out in high summer: the weather might be unnaturally dry, but the sunlight was the mild sun of autumn.

After a while Kellen began to wonder if they were going to ride all the way to the Barrier—wherever it was—in a polite and chilly silence. From what he’d learned of Elves during his brief stay in Sentarshadeen, it was perfectly possible.

Especially with this Elf. Kellen didn’t know very much about Jermayan, and from the way things looked right now, Jermayan didn’t intend for him to learn any more.

At least he’d have Shalkan to talk to.

But after a couple of hours, Jermayan reined in, dropping back to ride beside Kellen.

“There is a matter I would raise with you, Wildmage,” Jermayan said, breaking the long silence. “And then I would go on to speak of other things.”

“Ah … surely,” Kellen replied. He felt slightly relieved that Jermayan had said something, even though he was fairly sure he wasn’t going to enjoy whatever the conversation was going to be about. Whatever it was, it was still better than silence.

“In Sentarshadeen, in times of peace, it is entirely appropriate for civilized people to behave in a civilized and decorous fashion,” Jermayan said, in tones that suggested that this was not a matter for debate. “But we are not now in Sentarshadeen, nor is this to be a peaceful journey. We are riding into battle, and it is appropriate for us to behave as warriors do.”

“Yes,” agreed Kellen politely, because what Jermayan said seemed self-evident. But he got the strong feeling that he didn’t understand all of what Jermayan meant to say.

“Excellent,” Jermayan said, sounding relieved.

Shalkan made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snicker.

“I coughed,” the unicorn said innocently, when Kellen glared at him.

“Now, as to the second matter. I understand that only you can trigger the counterspell to destroy the Barrier, but is there some reason I do not know of that only you may know how to find it?”

Kellen stared, jaw dropping with shock. Jermayan had just asked him a direct question.

Jermayan shook his head with a sigh, seeing Kellen’s expression. “Wildmage Kellen, I just explained matters to you, and you agreed. Civilized rules are for civilized times and places. We are at war. You humans are always at war. Surely a sennight among the Elves has not civilized you so much?”

Kellen gathered his scattered and perambulatory wits. “No, I … it’s just a surprise, that’s all. I thought you couldn’t ask questions.”

Jermayan regarded him with a haughty expression, one eyebrow raised. “That, Wildmage, is akin to saying one cannot be rude. One chooses not to be, of course.” Seeing Kellen’s stricken expression, Jermayan obviously decided to take pity on him. “Questions are … very direct. We of Leaf and Star consider them a form of coercion, not to be used in civilized times and places. But when one rides to war, one must be … more efficient.”

“Yes. I … okay. Yes. That … seems reasonable.” Kellen didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. Well, he certainly shouldn’t show it. “I … Just … tell me when I stop being efficient and start being rude, okay?”

“I shall try to bring myself to do so,” Jermayan said, with another faint self-possessed smile.

Kellen thought for a moment about what Idalia had told him that morning, gazing northward as he did. “I’m not sure exactly where we’re going, really,” he admitted. “It’s kind of a case of knowing it when I see it. Idalia told me the sort of signs to look for, but I’ll need your help and Shalkan’s to recognize them.”

Quickly he explained the underlying theory about the Barrier, and the unnatural patterns it would produce in the natural world.

“So that’s the best idea she could give me of what we’re looking for,” he finished. “If we don’t see anything like that in a day or so—or if we think we’re missing the signs or might be going off in the wrong direction—I’ll try a Finding Spell to locate our route. Idalia said that was something to avoid if I could, though. She said it would attract attention.”

“Then we shall hope that Shadow Mountain has grown proud and careless,” Jermayan said grimly. “And now, we should stop as soon as we come to a good place for stopping, for Valdien needs rest if Shalkan does not, and there is something I must begin to show you, for all our sakes.”

IN a short while more, they came to an oak tree standing alone in what must have once have been a lush deer meadow. But if the oak had ever had a dryad, she was long gone, and the grass around the tree was nothing more now than greyish stubble that crumbled away into dust beneath the hooves of the animals as they rode over it. The tree itself was bare of leaves, looking sere and winter-blasted out of season.

Jermayan swung gracefully down from Valdien’s back, but though he tied the mule carefully to one of the tree branches, he made no effort to tether his destrier in any way. Valdien followed him about the way a dog might, until Jermayan told the destrier to stand. To Kellen’s mild surprise, Valdien obeyed, though the destrier continued to watch his master hopefully.

Kellen got himself out of Shalkan’s saddle with much less grace, though he managed the feat without tripping and falling.

“Is there anything you need?” he asked the unicorn, seeing that Jermayan was loosening Valdien’s saddle-girths.

“Just some water,” Shalkan said. “I’ll miss Songmairie,” he added wistfully.

“Do you know what he’s planning?” Kellen asked in a low voice.

“Yes. Don’t worry. It won’t hurt. Much.” Shalkan sounded amused.

Kellen sighed and went to get Shalkan’s drink.

Jermayan was already taking both the water barrels down from the mule’s back. For a short stop they wouldn’t unpack the mule completely, but the water was the heaviest part of her load, and they couldn’t leave the load unbalanced.

“The buckets are in the pack on the near side,” Jermayan said when Kellen arrived.

Kellen unbuckled the flap and looked inside. It was easy to see which was his; the bucket was green, to match everything else. Well, Idalia had said the Elves were perfectionists. He lifted it out. The blue one beneath it obviously belonged to Valdien, but fortunately they wouldn’t need to water the horse and the mule until tonight since the weather was relatively cool. Even so, those barrels barely held enough water for a day.

He brought the bucket over to where Jermayan was carefully unscrewing the top of the barrel and dipped it full, then carried it to Shalkan. When the unicorn was done drinking, Kellen carried the bucket back and tipped the last drops down at the base of the tree. It felt odd to remember he’d been doing more or less this same thing at about this time yesterday, with no idea that barely a day later he’d be on the road, riding against Shadow Mountain.

Whatever Shadow Mountain might be. In the flurry of last-minute preparations, he’d never gotten a chance to ask Idalia about that. He frowned. It occurred to him suddenly that Idalia had probably arranged it that way.

Why?

“Now,” Jermayan said firmly, summoning Kellen’s attention. “You know that we ride into danger. I am expendable. You are not. Without your Wildmage skill to break the spell of the Barrier, all is lost. If I should die, who will defend you?”

Kellen stared at the Elven Knight, hoping he didn’t look as disconcerted as he felt. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but whatever it was, it hadn’t been this.

“Exactly,” Jermayan said, as if Kellen had actually answered. “You will have to defend yourself. Yet at this moment you have no skill with the sword, which is the Knight’s weapon. In fact, have you skill with any weapon?”

“Not much,” Kellen admitted. “I’ve learned how to use a bow for hunting, and I’m not bad with it.”

“There is nothing unknightly about the bow,” Jermayan pronounced, to Kellen’s relief, “but it will not do when the foe closes in. And so now I will begin to teach you the Way of the Sword, so that you may walk it as far as you can with me before … that is perhaps no longer possible. Put on your helm, Kellen, and we will begin.”

“But what if I hurt you?” Kellen blurted out, reaching down to touch his sword. He’d held it in his hands yesterday at the armory. He knew it was sharp. A dangerous weapon, designed specifically to strike through the armor they both wore. He’d seen swords at Festival-plays in Armethalieh, and the City Guard and the nobles carried them, and of course the Mages used them in the High Magick, but none of that amounted to actual practical personal experience …

Jermayan smiled coolly. “It is not possible for you to harm me. I am an Elven Knight. I have been upon the Way since before your grandfather first drew breath. You cannot hurt me. And I promise I will not hurt you. There will be pain, yes. But I will not hurt you. Now get your helm,” Jermayan repeated, this time in a tone that brooked no argument.

There didn’t seem to be any way around it, and Kellen felt a faint irritation mixed with dread. Had anyone asked him if he wanted knight-lessons? Had anyone warned him this was going to happen when they told him to pick a sword back in the armory? No, he was stuck out here in the middle of nowhere with a crazy Elven Knight in love with his sister, about to be made a complete fool of just so Jermayan would have something to laugh at. He was a Wildmage, not a knight of any kind! Wildmages weren’t knights, anyway—Mages and knights were two different things. He was out here to work magic, not prance around in the heat with a big knife looking like an idiot. Why was Jermayan doing this to him?

Of course he’d fight if there was trouble. He wasn’t a coward—he’d fought the Outlaw Hunt, hadn’t he?—but it took years to learn to fight with a sword and be any good at it, Kellen knew. Give him a club and he’d do some damage, but a sword …? This was just some complicated Elven plot to make him look stupid, that’s what it was.

Jermayan was waiting patiently, with a look on his face that indicated he was prepared to wait right there until the sun set, if necessary.

Kellen set his jaw and went back to Shalkan, and took his helmet from the unicorn’s saddle, setting it on his head. As its confining weight settled into place and blocked his peripheral vision, Kellen felt himself starting to panic, and forced himself to take deep calming breaths. He’d really impress Jermayan if he tripped over his own feet and fell flat on his face the first time Jermayan swung at him.

He just needs me to prove to him that this isn’t going to work, that’s all, Kellen told himself calmingly. Then we can think of something that will. But he hated the thought that it wasn’t going to work, that he was going to fail. It made him so angry …

He clutched at the sword hilt, wondering how it could feel so right in his hand when he could never learn to use it—knight—Mage—one or the other—not both—when he suddenly remembered something from The Book of Moon.

“The Knight-Mage is the active agent of the principle of the Wild Magic, the Wildmage who chooses to become a warrior or who is born with the instinct for the Way of the Sword, who acts in battle without mindful thought and thus brings primary causative forces into manifestation by direct action.”

He hadn’t been sure what it meant at the time—and he still wasn’t—but—

But in the subtle way that Wild Magic worked, he might have remembered that passage now because the Wild Magic wanted him to. So it wasn’t one or the other, Knight or Mage. And maybe this could work, if he thought of sword fighting as a kind of spell, if he made the conscious choice to try the Way of the Sword rather than having it thrust on him. His anger was a warning and a clue: if he was angry, he needed to pay attention and figure out why, because that meant this was important.

Kellen stood beside Shalkan and thought very hard, trying to fight back his anger. He remembered how he’d fought the Hounds. How he’d been angry, more angry than he’d ever been in his life, and then somehow he just hadn’t been there. He started to shake, thinking about Jermayan lying dead and broken at his feet, the way the Hounds had lain …

No. That wasn’t the message his anger was sending him. He needed to not fail in front of Jermayan, not to kill him …

Please. Tell me, Kellen thought desperately. He wasn’t sure whether it was a prayer, or a spell, or just a hope he could figure out what his own mind was trying to tell him quickly, but whatever it was, it worked. This wasn’t about Jermayan.

This was about the sword. About learning to be a warrior. The thought fascinated and repelled him at the same time. It was like when he’d first picked up the three Books of the Wild Magic, only much stronger. It was about using the Wild Magic in a way Idalia had never even hinted at. It might even be wrong. Maybe this was the way that Wildmages went rogue.

No, that couldn’t be right. Wild Magic was all about balances. If there was healing, then—did there have to be killing?

Maybe. To defend others. He wasn’t sure where that thought came from, but it felt right. It felt as if it fit. Not killing for the sake of it, not for the sake of power, not to impose what you wanted on someone else—but to protect the weak, to defend yourself and others—

Maybe it was like hunting. He hunted and killed; Idalia did, too, for meat and fur and hides, but only for as much as they needed and no more. Balances: death and life, healing and killing. But death and killing—only when you had to.

He knew Jermayan was right. They had to get to the Barrier. And Kellen needed to be able to pull his own weight if there was any fighting along the way. He couldn’t expect Jermayan and Shalkan to protect him.

Maybe the Wild Magic could help him learn the skills he needed. And if it didn’t work, he’d be no worse off than he was now.

And if he’d guessed wrong—if he’d misinterpreted everything, if this was how Wildmages went bad …

Well, then when they got back, Idalia could sew him into a sack and sell him to the Selken-folk, just like she’d promised.

“Kellen?” Jermayan called.

“I’m coming,” Kellen said quickly.

He returned to where Jermayan was waiting for him.

Jermayan drew his sword in one fluid motion, holding it before him in both hands. “Do as I do, Kellen.”

Kellen drew his sword, doing his best to copy Jermayan’s stance and grip. He concentrated, and felt the world seem to still the way it did whenever he was about to cast a spell or use his Magesight. He thought about the canyon, about the Hounds, and finally let go of his fear.

And suddenly there were two Jermayans facing him. They overlay each other, but one was real, and the other was a colorless phantom. Kellen blinked, knowing he was seeing the phantom-Jermayan in the same way he saw the sylphs and dryads back in the Wildwood.

Then the phantom-Jermayan moved, swinging his sword down, and Kellen—acting entirely instinctively, acting without mind—swung his own sword up to block the blow.

Jermayan’s sword rang off Kellen’s with a jolt of steel. Jermayan had not expected Kellen’s sword to be there; he sprang back with a cry of surprise.

For Kellen’s part, he had not expected the jarring force of the contact. He staggered backward, the shock jarring him out of the spell-trance, and the flat of Jermayan’s blade swept around and caught him with a painful thump along the ribs.

But when Jermayan came for him again, Kellen was ready for him, holding the phantom-image firmly before his gaze, and blocking as it struck. Each time, it moved a fraction of an instant before the real Jermayan did, and each time Kellen’s sword was there to meet it.

But no spell-sight could make the sword in his hands weigh any less, or make even light and flexible Elven armor easier to move in. Though they’d been sparring only a few minutes, Kellen was gasping for breath by the time Jermayan stepped back and lowered his sword to rest.

Kellen, grateful that the lesson seemed to be over, fumbled his sword back into its scabbard and pulled off his helmet, dropping it beside him. His hair was soaked with his sweat. He yanked off one of his gauntlets, wiping his face with his bare hand, and staggered over to the tree to lean against it. While they’d been fighting, he’d reacted without thought, just as The Book of Moon said, but now that it was over he felt like he’d spent a whole day at the pumping station, or even behind a plow like the ones he’d seen in Merryvale.

Jermayan pulled off his own helmet and tossed it to the ground, then sheathed his sword in turn. He regarded Kellen expressionlessly for a moment, then went over to the mule and searched through the packs for a moment. He came back with a pair of tankards and opened the water barrel again, dipping them both full and handing one to Kellen.

Kellen took his and drained it thirstily. At the moment he found it impossible to imagine getting through an entire battle wearing this stuff. How did people manage?

Jermayan was still staring at him, as though he’d never seen Kellen before. “I know what you are,” the Elven Knight finally said.

Kellen froze. For so many years of his life those words, or some variation of them, had made him flinch. They’d always been the prelude to yet another lecture on his many inadequacies. But Jermayan, it seemed, didn’t mean them that way. The Elven Knight was smiling at him—a genuine smile at last, one of relief, and something like awe.

“You’re a Knight-Mage, aren’t you?” The words were spoken in tones of approval, even admiration.

Kellen shook his head wordlessly, unable to speak. He wasn’t. He couldn’t be. Could he? He didn’t even know what a Knight-Mage was! The passage he’d remembered, the business about the Knight-Mages, it was just words in the Book. What he’d done was spur-of-the-moment, something he’d tried out of a desperate desire not to look completely foolish and a need he couldn’t explain even to himself.

“You didn’t know, did you?” Jermayan asked sympathetically. “I suppose not: Knight-Mages are very rare. Even another Wildmage won’t always recognize one for what they are, though undoubtedly you would have figured it out eventually. It is said they only appear in times of direst need. I suppose you simply thought that you just weren’t a very good Wildmage.”

Kellen nodded, unable to meet Jermayan’s gaze. He had thought that, all the time. Idalia’d told him not to worry, but how could he not worry about it, seeing what she could do and knowing that the best he could accomplish was so much less?

“Well,” Jermayan said, breaking into Kellen’s thoughts. “You never will be, not in comparison with a true Wildmage, though you will master healing and fire-calling, and other useful skills; they will just never come as easily or naturally to you as to a Wildmage. A Wildmage’s and a Knight-Mage’s Gifts lie in opposite directions, though both belong fully to the Wild Magic.”

That was exactly how he’d felt! Kellen clutched the tankard desperately, and some of that desperation must have entered his expression, for Jermayan’s face softened further.

“Here,” he said, pointing to a fallen limb in what passed for shade under the tree. “Sit—and drink! I will tell you all that I know.”

Kellen refilled his tankard and obeyed, hardly able to contain himself. It was nothing short of a miracle, an Elf offering to tell him everything without having to coax it out, driblet by driblet!

Jermayan settled himself, and took a cautious sip of his water. “A Wildmage,” he began, “reaches out to all the world, knowing it intimately, in touch with all of it. A Knight-Mage’s gifts turn inward, refining himself, so he cannot be turned away from his path once he has chosen it. A Knight-Mage can withstand forces that would destroy a Wildmage, for his power lies in endurance and the alliance of his knightly skills with his Wildmagery. You will never be what Idalia is … but she will never be what you will be, either, Kellen.”

“Is it—bad?” Kellen asked, tentatively.

“You mean, can a Knight-Mage be turned to the bad?” Jermayan asked. “That is a foolish question, Kellen. All things can, as you know. But the Knight-Mage, even more so than the Wildmage, must choose that path, knowingly, and with forethought, and when he does, the Wild Magic will desert him, and he will retain only his own innermost gifts and training.”

So I can’t just slide into evil. And it can’t just sneak up on me and corrupt me. That was easily the most comforting thought he’d ever had.

He looked down at the sword at his side, remembering the feel of it in his hands. This was his, this skill. The sword was his tool. It felt right in his hands, an extension of himself. And with Jermayan’s help …

“Never forget this,” Jermayan continued gravely. “The Knight-Mage makes the choice of life and death, directly and immediately. Be certain that when you claim a death, your reasons are good ones, the death is necessary, and that, to keep your spirit clean, you forgive your foe when you slay him. Anger is not to be shunned. Anger can be useful, and for the Knight-Mage it is a weapon just as is your sword. Good clean anger, full of purpose, will focus you. But as your sword, it can cut you if you clutch it to you. Remember that, and when the time when it is useful is over, you must let it go.”

Kellen nodded earnestly, vowing to remember. He didn’t entirely understand what Jermayan was talking about, but he sensed that he would understand it sometime later.

The Elven Knight smiled again, and drained his own tankard. “Now, come. We have some distance to ride. And now that I know what you are capable of, you will not find your lessons so easy.”

Kellen grinned at him. Even more than that moment beside the spring, when Idalia had explained the truth about the Demons, he felt a sense of relief so intense it nearly made him weep. A Knight-Mage! There was a name for what he was. He wasn’t a second-class anything—not a failed High Mage, not a not-good-enough Wildmage. He was a Knight-Mage.

“Just try me, Master.”

They returned the water barrels to the back of the mule, and Jermayan retightened Valdien’s girths, and they rode on.

“I’M a Knight-Mage,” Kellen said to Shalkan, letting Jermayan get a little ahead. For the moment, all his worries about the future, his fears of the battles he still had to face, the Barrier, were all gone. He knew what he was, now, and it was as if a key had been turned in a lock. He knew that the next time he opened his three Books and read them, things in them that had never made any sense to him before would suddenly be as clear as the water of Songmairie.

Learning his new skills wouldn’t be easy, he knew that too. But for the first time—the very first time—in his entire life, Kellen felt as if he were finally pointed in the right direction. A Knight-Mage. A special kind of Wildmage. It still didn’t seem entirely real to him, but the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. It would take work—a lot of it, he was guessing—to master a Knight-Mage’s special gifts, but what he became would be his. Not a second-class Wildmage, doing things that Idalia could do better. A first-class Knight-Mage. Needed.

A new thought struck him. “Did you know?”

“I wasn’t sure,” Shalkan said after a long pause. “I suspected—especially after you managed to destroy two overlarge packs of the Outlaw Hunt with nothing more than a big stick—and my not-inconsiderable help, of course. Only a Knight-Mage could have done that. But the choice was still yours to make. You could have refused to be, you know.”

Kellen stared down at Shalkan’s ears in surprise. The idea hadn’t even occurred to him.

It felt so right. How could he have refused to be a Knight-Mage?

The same way I could have refused the Wild Magic?

It would have been possible; he could have given in to Lycaelon, burned the Books, gone back to his studies. The Mages would have edited his memories. He might even have been happy.

And if he had?

I wouldn’t have been Outlawed, I’d never have come to the Wildwood. Eventually Lycaelon probably would have found a reason to try to claim the Wildwood, but not for a while. So Idalia might not have come to Sentarshadeen until it was too late.

It could have fallen out that way. It could easily have fallen out that way. He wouldn’t have given in if he’d known they were going to take his memories, of course, but he wouldn’t have known about that part, then or ever.

If he’d given in …

But he hadn’t.

Was this why the Books had come to him when they had? So he could be Outlawed and find Idalia? So Lycaelon would expand the borders, chasing both of them to Sentarshadeen, where she would find out about the drought and the Barrier?

And where Kellen could find someone who could tell him what he was?

It made him dizzy for a moment, as if he had gotten a glimpse of a great pattern, of which he was an integral part. It was intoxicating.

And frightening.

Wildmages served the balance of All That Was. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t safe. To be fair, nobody had ever told him it would be.

To claim his proper place in that pattern meant danger. But to give it up—would leave a hole in the pattern that would mean—well—maybe disaster, for a lot of people he was coming to know and like. What would happen if one who could become a Knight-Mage refused the challenge?

“It is said they only appear in times of direst need.” Hadn’t Jermayan said that?

“No,” Kellen said aloud. “I couldn’t have refused.”

Shalkan just nodded, and let it go at that.

THEY stopped at a dry riverbed to make camp late that afternoon. Jermayan looked grim at the sight. Last season, he told Kellen, the broad sandy expanse before them had been a swift, deep-flowing river, one of many that carried the mountain waters down into Sentarshadeen. But with the drought, it had dwindled away to almost nothing. All that was left was a narrow rivulet still trickling along what had once been the deepest part of the riverbed.

Since they were stopping for the night, this time they unsaddled Valdien and Shalkan—fortunately the unicorn was able to tell Kellen what to do—and unloaded the pack mule.

But when Kellen would have removed his armor in turn, Jermayan stopped him.

“It is time for your next lesson,” Jermayan said cheerfully. It occurred to Kellen that the Elven Knight had become quite unaccountably better-humored since their first stop …

He’s enjoying this! Kellen thought, caught halfway between his own anticipation at another lesson and a flash of exasperation at Jermayan’s high spirits. Of course, he isn’t the one who’s going to get hit.

But despite the fact that he was tired from the long day’s ride, and the fact that he suspected there was a bruise under the armor where Jermayan had managed to land a blow on him that morning, Kellen found his spirits rising to match Jermayan’s. There was an indescribable rightness that he felt when holding the sword in his hands. And the longer he thought about it, the more sure he was that he had finally found the work he was supposed to be doing.

Was this how Idalia felt when she called on the Wild Magic? If so, it was no wonder that she seemed so contented, and so willing to use it whenever she was called upon, even if the cost to her was high. And happy—or at least happy when she wasn’t thinking about Jermayan. Kellen only wished there was some way he could tell her that he understood at last.

On the dry sand of the riverbed, Jermayan used his scabbard to scratch out a circle about twelve feet across.

“Here is our dancing floor,” the Elven Knight said. “You must try to push me out over the boundary. I will do the same to you. If I succeed, you have lost. If you succeed, I have lost. In battle, it is important never to give ground except by your own choice, so that an enemy cannot move you into danger. Come now, and we will begin.”

Kellen quickly discovered that this was harder work than simply blocking Jermayan’s blows had been. Over and over, Kellen found that he had blocked every blow … and still been forced to give ground exactly as Jermayan wished him to.

“How are you doing that?” Kellen demanded as Jermayan stepped back once again and raised his blade in salute, looking down to see his foot once again over the edge of the circle.

“Most warriors step back to block,” Jermayan explained, taking pity on Kellen at last. “It is a common instinct, because it helps to absorb the force of a blow. You, knowing this, will use it against your foes. It will help you force your enemy where you wish him to go. Step sideways when you attack, and you can turn him as well, for he will always turn to face you without thinking about it. Now, let us try again, and this time, step forward as you block.”

They went on, and Kellen discovered that Jermayan was right. This time Kellen forced himself to push forward instead of stepping back each time Jermayan attacked, and this time Jermayan was unable to force him out of the circle.

But that only meant that the sparring match continued without the breaks that had come each time he’d stepped out of the circle, and Kellen’s muscles were not yet hardened to the burdens of sword and armor. If Jermayan was a patient instructor, his kindness did not extend to their physical combat, and if he pulled his blows at the last moment, he showed Kellen no other mercy. As the blows came faster and faster, Kellen’s sword seemed to drag at his arms, until at last Kellen saw a blow coming but was unable to get his tired arms up to move his sword quickly enough to block it.

Jermayan pulled back at the last minute, the flat of the sword landing with a gentle click against Kellen’s armored thigh.

“A good beginning,” he said warmly, stepping back. “Stamina will come with practice, young Knight.”

Kellen took a couple of staggering steps backward, his head swimming with exhaustion and his body beneath the Elven armor—how in the name of all that was holy had he ever thought it was light?—soaked with sweat. With shaking muscles, he sheathed his own sword and staggered out of the teaching circle, feeling as if he were barely able to move. He was sure his armor suddenly weighed a thousand pounds.

He twisted his gauntlets to the side and pulled them off, but was barely able to force his cramped fingers to undo the clasps of his helmet. Gritting his teeth, he set the helmet and gauntlets carefully on the ground, pulled off the leather gloves beneath, then moved to unbuckle his swordbelt.

“Not easy, is it?” Shalkan asked, looking on. The unicorn had been an interested spectator at Kellen’s first real lesson, but, Kellen had been relieved to find, had not offered any helpful advice—or distractions.

“No,” Kellen said, discovering at just that moment that although he could unbuckle the swordbelt, he couldn’t reach up to pull it off over his head while wearing the armor. “But I guess nothing worth having ever is,” he added, trying to sound as grateful as he knew he would be when he wasn’t as hot, sweaty, and just plain tired as he was at this particular moment. Until he could get the baldric off, he couldn’t get the surcoat off, which meant he couldn’t get any of the armor beneath it off.

“Good answer,” Shalkan said. “Reach up under the surcoat and pull out the shoulder-pins on the gorget—that’s the big neck piece. The sleeves will slip free, then. With the sleeves off, you can reach up to loosen the gorget and lift the whole thing off in one piece.”

It was difficult to reach across himself in full armor, but possible. Kellen drew the locking-pins free and slid the armored sleeves down his arms, then unpinned the gorget, and, with a burst of inspiration, bent and wriggled out of the whole mass—armored collar, surcoat, unbuckled baldric, and all, off over his head. He set them down quickly and lifted off the back and breastplate, suddenly impatient to be free of the armor. The quilted padding beneath was soaked through with sweat, and clung to him clammily.

He felt strangely light and unfinished without the weight of the armor, though, as if it had somehow become an extension of him today, and almost regretted removing the last pieces, though certainly not enough to leave them on. He untangled the elements of the armor carefully, folding the surcoat neatly, replacing the locking-pins in their places, and setting everything where he could find it easily in the morning, then went to find a change of clothes.

There was one other important thing he had to do as well.

When they’d ridden out that morning, the keystone had been tucked safely up in one of the mule’s packs, but the more he’d thought about the arrangement, the less Kellen had liked it. The keystone was vulnerable. All their enemies really had to do to win was destroy it or get it away from them, and even if he hadn’t seen any sign of enemies so far, Kellen couldn’t assume that happy state would continue as they rode north.

He dug through his gear until he found the satchel Idalia had given him—filled with herbs and supplies for Wild Magic—and stowed its contents carefully among his other gear. The satchel was just large enough to hold the keystone wrapped in its spell-caul, and he could attach it to his sword belt. He might look a little odd that way, but he’d feel better if he had the keystone with him at all times.

“Good,” Jermayan said briefly when he glanced up and saw what Kellen had done.

And after all, he didn’t have to say anything more.

By the time Kellen was done making his arrangements, Jermayan had already changed and had started a fire. Kellen changed as well, toweling himself off briskly all over, then rubbing himself with a bag of herbs that Idalia had given him for the purpose in lieu of a bath. The creek here wasn’t deep enough to bathe in, and the water was muddy and uninviting besides. At least Shalkan could purify what they’d have to drink later.

As he’d expected upon close inspection, there was a greenish tender patch along his ribs where Jermayan had gotten him. Kellen winced as his fingers explored it. That was going to hurt tomorrow, and if the way the rest of him felt was any indication, it wouldn’t be alone. Why did all of his adventures seem to start out with a fresh set of bruises?

He regarded his underpadding unhappily as he spread it out to dry. He hoped there’d be some way to clean it along the way, or after a few more bouts with Jermayan, he was going to smell about as attractive as week-old carrion.

It was starting to get dark now, and Kellen felt the weight of a full day of riding and hard physical work. But he felt much better for being dressed in clean dry clothes with his hair combed out, and whatever Jermayan was cooking smelled good. He picked up the satchel with the keystone—he felt better keeping it where he could see it—and came over to the fire.

“Take off your tunic,” Jermayan said, greeting him.

“I want to see how badly you’re bruised,” he added, when Kellen didn’t move, “and without a good application of allheal to your muscles, you’ll be too stiff to train tomorrow morning, let alone to ride for a full day afterward. Now sit,” he said mercilessly. “You can eat after you’ve been tended to.”

Kellen pulled off his tunic again and sat, trying not to wince as he folded himself into a sitting position. He was already starting to stiffen a bit.

Jermayan poured, and reached across the fire to press Kellen’s fingers around a tall pottery cup. “Tea.”

Idalia had always seemed to greet every crisis or stirring event with a cup of tea, and now Kellen knew where she’d picked up the habit. The Elves seemed to feel that every moment, good or bad, called for a cup of tea; Kellen was only surprised that he hadn’t been asked to fight with a cup in one hand and a sword in the other, though possibly that would come later. He raised the cup and inhaled, sipping cautiously. The tea tasted strongly of mint, with other musky but not unpleasant flavors beneath, and was heavily sweetened with something that wasn’t the honey he was used to.

Jermayan knelt behind Kellen, a large pot of salve in his hand. It was that, Kellen ruefully realized, that he’d smelled heating, and not dinner; it must contain some of the same herbs as the tea did.

Jermayan inspected the bruise on Kellen’s ribs critically. “Not as bad as it could be, but you would dislike to ride with it tomorrow.” He scooped up a generous dollop of the salve—Kellen watched out of the corner of his eye—and applied it to the discolored area, kneading strongly.

It hurt. Kellen set his teeth and refused to complain as Jermayan worked the allheal into his aching side, working with no more respect for Kellen’s flinches than if Kellen had been a bowl of dough. When he stopped, Kellen breathed a sigh of relief—cut short when Jermayan began again on his neck muscles, with as much ruthlessness as before.

“Hey—ow!” Kellen exclaimed, despite his best intentions, spilling tea on himself.

“You’re tight as a drum,” Jermayan said, announcing the fact as if he were discussing the weather. “If you want your body to be able to do what your mind tells it tomorrow, you’ll let me work … or do you want me to be able to give you a set of bruises to match that one?”

Not really.

Kellen forced himself to try to relax as Jermayan worked the allheal into the aching muscles of his neck and shoulders and arms. Once he got used to it, it actually felt good.

“Now you can dress, and we’ll eat,” Jermayan said at last.

Kellen straightened up and reached for his tunic, realizing he’d actually almost fallen asleep. The next thing he realized was that he could stretch without stiffness. He felt tired, but that was all. Tired, but good. And beneath that, confident. That was something he’d never really felt before, Kellen realized with quiet surprise. He couldn’t really remember a time in his life when he hadn’t been worried about something—being found out; not living up to expectations that seemed to change daily. But now, when there were real things to worry about for the first time in his life, somehow, he wasn’t bothered about them. What would come, would come. And he would face it then.

“Allheal is sovereign for ills of the body,” Jermayan told him, holding up the jar where Kellen could see it. “Its herbs can be made into a tea as well, and in that form give strength and rest. It can be used to doctor bruises and small cuts, and to poultice a lame hoof.”

“I hope you’ve brought a lot of it,” Kellen said, grinning wryly as he pulled his tunic back on.

“More than I think we’ll need,” Jermayan said with simple approval.

Kellen shrugged his shoulders experimentally beneath his tunic. They felt fine. “Huh. Jermayan, that stuff works!”

Jermayan smiled quietly, and said nothing.

By now it was almost fully dark. Jermayan prepared their dinner, showing Kellen how it was done so that Kellen would be able to take on his fair share of the chores once he’d adjusted to the new routine of lessons and riding. Not that Kellen needed to be shown much, except for the differences between Elven taste and human—different spices and herbs, mostly. He’d taken his share of the cooking at Idalia’s insistence that everyone should know how to cook, and that the only way to learn to cook was to do so. Kellen had never been a good cook—and had never mastered baking at all—but he wasn’t helpless, especially on the trail.

Since they were heading into unknown lands and could neither expect to find friendly villages nor stop to hunt along the way, Jermayan had brought Elven journey-food. These rations were simple and efficient; compressed blocks of dried meat, fruit, and grain that could be either eaten as they were or cooked to produce a stew.

Kellen was relieved to see that at least for the first night or so, there was fresh bread and cheese to accompany the journey-food, because he meant to fill up on that. He and Idalia had eaten journey-food that she’d gotten from the Mountain Traders on the way to Sentarshadeen, and Kellen remembered it vividly: tough, bland, greasy, and nearly indigestible (as well as nearly indestructible). Even Idalia hadn’t been able to make it palatable. Better than starving, of course. Probably.

But when Jermayan passed him a bowl filled with a thick soup, Kellen received a pleasant surprise.

It smelled good.

Kellen reached for his spoon and took a cautious taste.

It had spices and flavor, and when he encountered a bit of meat, it was actually chewable. He glanced at Jermayan, hoping he didn’t look as startled as he felt.

“It is better if it has longer to cook, of course, but well enough,” Jermayan said critically. “Ah, I see from your face that you have experience of human journey-food. Vile stuff. I would not shoe mules with it. Kellen, we Elves have had a very long time to learn to do things properly. If one must travel, there is no need to starve while doing so, and there is surely no need to make every meal an ordeal.”

Afterward, all that was needed was to prepare for morning, bank the fire for the night, and to make ready for sleep. Tonight they were still well within the borders of Elven lands, so there was little danger of ambush, and both Valdien and Shalkan slept lightly, so there was no need for either Kellen or Jermayan to stand guard. Later, they might need to find some way to keep watch, but for now, they could rely on the keen senses of their hooved companions.

KELLEN slept deeply that night. He dreamed half-consciously; once he realized he was dreaming he struggled against it, for the only dreams Kellen ever remembered having were nightmares of his flight from the Outlaw Hunt, and of Demons.

But these dreams were different. In them he soared in flight over an unfamiliar landscape, looking down upon it as he imagined a bird in flight must view the world.

He realized with a distant sense of discovery that he was looking down at the terrain ahead, and as that knowledge came to him, it seemed he could see it in a way that no human could, as if he were seeing it as something that had been assembled from a thousand different elements, and somehow he could see every part at once. Not seeing the surface, but seeing all the way through it, yet seeing all of it, as though he were the architect of its creation.

And as he viewed the scene below him, he had a sense of the land’s weakness and strength. It seemed to him that he could feel the baneful orderliness radiating outward from the Barrier he could not yet sense, and feel those things that had fallen prey to its spell as well as those that yet withstood it and remained true to their own natures. In the land below he had a sense of things struggling and dying, and other things resisting … so far.

It was as if vast amounts of information were being pressed into his mind, so much that he could not consciously contain it all. The more he tried to grasp what the land was trying to tell him, the more the knowledge slipped away, leaving nothing behind but the impression that it had once been there, until at last, filled with frustration, knowing that he was forgetting important things but unable to stop himself, Kellen awoke.

It was still dark, and the fire was no more than a few dim coals. He could see Shalkan, sleeping curled with his legs tucked beneath him, his head upon his knees, but Valdien and the mule—a pale blur and a dark—were no more than a vague impression of size. That he could see them at all meant that dawn was not far off, though.

Kellen sat up quietly, feeling for the keystone and his sword. They were where they should be. He took a deep breath, calming himself and trying to summon back his dream, but could remember nothing more than the feeling of flight and the memory of being able to see everything about the true nature of the world at once. And that there had been definite signposts of the route they were to take.

He looked around, orienting himself more by the landmarks he’d picked out when they’d made camp yesterday than by the stars, since they were unfamiliar and the moon had long set by now. Even though the dream was fading, enough of it remained to enable him to match the dream-landscape to his real-world surroundings. North and west … he concentrated, dropping into a light trance and trying to bring back the same perception of unnatural order he remembered from the dream. It was hard to put into words—almost a flavor, almost a color—but Kellen knew now that he’d recognize the Taint of the Barrier when he encountered it.

And he had a sense, almost a strong hunch, of the direction to follow. It deviated a little from the course they’d picked yesterday. Today they could see if he was right.

“Is everything well?” Jermayan asked quietly. The Elf Knight had not moved, going from sleep to wakefulness in silence.

“I had a vision.” Yesterday it would have seemed silly to Kellen to say something like that. Today the words seemed almost natural. “I think I have a better idea of the way we should go, anyway.”

“That makes good hearing.”

Jermayan sat up and lit one of the small lanterns they carried with them—Elven cooking fires were designed to produce heat, not light, so they carried lanterns with them as well. By the bright cheery glow of the lantern, Jermayan unwrapped a disk of charcoal and slid it in among the coals of the fire’s embers to kindle, then got to his feet and stretched.

“We will eat, then prepare the packs. By then, it should be light enough for your morning lesson. Afterward, we can load the mule, saddle Valdien and Shalkan, and ride. Tonight we will still be within the borders of Elven lands, and perhaps tomorrow as well, but the day after, we will be in the Wild Lands beyond, and must be on our guard.”

“What’s there?” Kellen asked. He lit the other lantern and used it to find the water barrel, setting the lantern down to unscrew the lid.

“It is an inhospitable mountainous land, thinly settled, and that by Men who have never heard of your City, though I believe some Centaurs also live there as well, and may by now have had word from their kindred who fled before the Scouring Hunt. We Elves know little of it; its inhabitants have no love for outsiders of any race, and are fearful and suspicious of anything new or strange.” Jermayan shrugged, as if that did not matter, but Kellen was better able to read him now, and he sensed that something about the inhabitants of that wilderness made him uneasy and suspicious.

They should get along just fine with Armethalieh, then, if they ever get together. Why was it that no matter how far away he got from the Golden City, he never really got away from it?

Kellen left the lantern beside the water barrel and returned to the fire for the teapot, filling it full at the barrel and bringing it back to hang it over the fire.

“Sounds like we’ll have a good time there,” he muttered, starting to roll up his bedding.

“Let us pass through alive—assuming our goal lies beyond their lands—and I shall be well content,” Jermayan said simply.

Maybe “suspicious” was too mild a term.

THEY breakfasted on bread and cheese and tea. Valdien and the mule ate grain; Shalkan had bread and journey-rations. By the time all of them had drunk their fill, one barrel was empty and the other nearly so. Jermayan tipped the last of the water from Songmairie into water-bottles, and Kellen rolled the barrels down to the trickle in the creekbed to fill them. Perhaps when they reached the Wild Lands they would be able to do without carrying their own water, but for now it was still a necessity.

He winced inwardly as he poured bucket after bucket of the turbid brown water into the barrels, filling them to the brim. Shalkan was standing behind him the entire time, watching in an eloquent disapproving silence. When the barrels were full, he minced forward, and lowered his horn into each in turn.

As the tip of Shalkan’s horn touched the surface of the water, there was a blue shimmer, and the water went from brackish brown to crystal clear, as pure as the unicorn spring itself.

The touch of a unicorn’s horn not only destroyed all baneful magic, but could purify water—and any other harmful substance as well. In the City, Kellen had been taught that a cup made from a unicorn’s horn would allow its owner to drink even poison safely, a little nugget of information he didn’t think he was going to share with his friend anytime soon. In fact, the very thought made him sick now. Who could be so vile as to kill a unicorn? Even despoiling one found dead of its horn seemed obscene.

“Thanks,” Kellen said.

“I have to drink it, too,” Shalkan pointed out inarguably.

By now it was fully light, and time to put his armor on and go to work. It was only as Kellen was settling his helmet into place that he realized he ought to be sore today … and wasn’t. The allheal had done its work. He felt fine.

He hoped he’d be able to say the same thing once the lesson was done.

BY now the novelty of wearing armor and swinging a sword was past, and he could concentrate fully on the work of learning what Jermayan had to teach him. As a Knight-Mage, a lot of his abilities came from his connection to the Wild Magic, but instincts and innate abilities wouldn’t build muscles and hone skills. What Kellen really needed to sharpen his Knight-Mage skills was practice, lots of it, and Jermayan seemed to be prepared to give him an infinite amount. This morning, to Kellen’s surprise, they even spent a few moments on extremely simple drills: how to stand, how to hold his sword, how to advance, the basic forms of attack and defense and their names.

“As a Knight-Mage, your body knows these things already, but your mind does not. Therefore, I will tell them to you: once. Try to remember what your body already knows, so that you do not get in your own way,” Jermayan said dismissively.

Though the Elven Knight was ruthless in his training, never letting Kellen get away with anything, and his corrections were always swift and painful, Kellen found that he did not resent his new teacher in the slightest. For the first time in his life, Kellen knew that his instructor not only had his own good at heart, with no other agenda in mind (other than keeping him alive), but that he could master what he was being taught, if he worked hard. And—also for the first time in his life—it was something that Kellen actually wanted to learn. He applied himself to Jermayan’s lessons wholeheartedly, with a passion that would have surprised all of his previous instructors, Idalia included.

At first, these simple things seemed useless, as useless as tracing and retracing the glyphs of High Magick. But then, as Kellen went through the patterns for the third and fourth times, something clicked in his mind.

Because on the third and fourth time—he did them correctly. Absolutely correctly. And his body recognized that fact.

What was more, with the recognition came another realization; there was a good reason for insisting on perfection in these fighting moves. A perfected movement went as far as it was possible to go in eliminating strain, minimizing the risk of damage, making the most efficient use of strength and energy. Which, of course, was why it felt right. This was fighting; obviously he could not completely eliminate injury and damage, and when he actually fought, he probably wouldn’t be able to do those perfect moves because his enemy wouldn’t give him the proper setup. But the more Kellen drilled, the more doing it the right way became habit and muscle-memory.

This wasn’t mindless repetition for the sake of humiliating the student; it was mindful repetition to make the movements second-nature, so that he would never have to think about them. Because thinking took time, and in a fight, as Kellen very well knew, there never was any time.

Which must be the explanation for that passage of The Book of Moon.

And maybe it went a long way toward explaining why he and Shalkan had been able to fight their way free of the Outlaw Hunt. Because at some point, he hadn’t been thinking at all, only letting his body act.

Exactly what The Book of Moon said …

“VERY nice,” Jermayan said, an hour later, as Kellen stood, winded and panting, in the center of the teaching circle. What mind and heart knew, muscles were being forced to learn—and fast. Kellen was ruefully coming to accept that while the muscles that came from a season of chopping wood and hauling water might be a good foundation for becoming a Knight-Mage, they were only a foundation. Swordplay used those same muscles in an entirely different fashion!

“I accept that under most circumstances you will probably not be hit by one swordsman, should only one swordsman attack you. And unfortunately one swordsman is all I have available to teach you with. We will therefore proceed to other matters. Can you hit me, Knight-Mage?” Jermayan asked.

Kellen wasn’t sure himself. The spell-sight showed him where Jermayan was going to strike, but that meant it was only being used reactively. If he attacked, wouldn’t that mean Jermayan would have as much opportunity to block his attack as he would have any other attacker’s?

“I don’t know,” Kellen said at last.

“Let us see,” Jermayan said. “Come, you have blocked my attacks often enough to see how it is done. Do to me what I have done to you.”

Easy enough to say. Kellen took a deep breath and put himself into a trance once more, gazing at Jermayan. Only this time, instead of waiting for Jermayan to hit him, he intended to hit Jermayan. Hit him, he told himself.

This time, instead of a blue ghost that moved before Jermayan moved, Kellen saw Jermayan overlaid with a web of red. One spot burned more brightly than the rest. Without thinking, Kellen struck at it.

Jermayan blocked him, of course, but Kellen had already broken off that attack before he completed it, striking at his next red-flaring target. Once Jermayan was in motion, Kellen was always ahead of him, and no matter how many times he was blocked, he kept moving on to the next target.

Until at last Jermayan’s blade was not there to block his. Kellen swung toward the undefended target with all his strength.

Wait! NO!

He could not pull the blow, but at the last moment—barely—he managed to shift the sword, so that the flat, not the edge, hit Jermayan’s armor. It struck with a solid “clang!” like a hammer hitting a muffled bell, taking Jermayan high on the left thigh.

Kellen staggered back, gasping in horrified reaction when he realized what he had nearly done.

He’d been attacking full-out, because that was the way they’d always sparred. And he hadn’t expected to hit Jermayan, because he never expected anything when he fought.

But if the strike had gone home edge-first, instead of with the flat …

Elven blades were meant to cut through Elven armor.

He could have hurt Jermayan.

Badly.

Kellen stepped back, the sword falling from his hands to the ground. “I’m sorry,” he said miserably. “I didn’t think. I could have hurt you.”

“So you could have,” Jermayan said quietly, and though his voice was calm and steady, his face invisible behind the helmet’s guard, Kellen had the sense that the Elven Knight was as shaken as he. “It was my error, Knight-Mage. I will not make it again. And so I think that in future combat, it will be better if we fight with padded blades, lest we do the enemy’s work for him.”

“Jermayan—” He felt horrible. “I didn’t mean—I didn’t want—”

Jermayan sheathed his sword and pulled off his helm, then managed a wan smile. “Of course you didn’t. Do you think me foolish as a babe unweaned, not to know this? It was my fault, to have urged this upon you without forethought myself, and for my folly I shall have a set of bruises to match yours. And—” he added meaningfully, “—think you. You did turn your blade in time, though in the heat of combat, and with what, barely a scant two days’ true training? You acted with discipline and care. And now, that is sufficient for the morning. We should prepare to ride. There will be another lesson at midday. In which you will learn not to drop your sword when you are surprised.”

THIS time they followed the route that Kellen chose, with a midday stop to rest Valdien and the mule and for Kellen to practice again, both his attack and defense. Before they began, Jermayan made sure that both blades were padded, with a layer of tough wadding made from a spare undertunic over each edge and the point, then well wrapped in a thin layer of leather—and for the first time, he carried his shield. Kellen discovered that Elven shields were meant to be worn high on the arm, so that the Knight could still wield his sword two-handed if he chose.

“At home, there would be practice-sheaths to protect the blades—and our armor—but alas, I did not think to bring them,” Jermayan said. “It did not occur to me they would be needed.”

“Well, I expect you thought I’d barely figure out how to keep from cutting myself on my own sword,” Kellen offered.

“True enough,” the Elven Knight agreed, to Kellen’s chagrin. “But we shall contrive.”

There was, of course, no need at all for Jermayan to wrap his own blade as well as Kellen’s, but Kellen supposed it had something to do with Elven notions of propriety and fair-dealing. As it was, he felt bad about the sacrifice of the undertunic. He just hoped they weren’t going to need it later.

Though he tried his hardest, Kellen didn’t manage to land another blow on the Elven Knight, but for the first time, a bout with Jermayan didn’t leave him feeling afterward as if he’d run ten miles uphill in his armor, and Jermayan actually seemed to approve of his progress. Kellen was feeling pretty good about things as they went on again.

The feeling didn’t last. He’d started feeling unaccountably nervous as they rode along … twitchy, really, as if something were watching them, but though he kept looking around, he never managed to spot anything.

They were riding through a forest, one that was suffering less from the effects of the drought than other places in Elven lands, as it grew along the banks of a river Jermayan said was called Angarussa the Undying, which even now ran strongly, though far lower in its bed than it should have been.

“It runs above caves, doesn’t it?” Kellen asked suddenly.

“The Caverns of Halacira are very near here, yes,” Jermayan said, puzzled. “The Undying goes down into them and runs underground for some distance.”

“I have to look for something,” Kellen said. “Stop.” He’d seen the Angarussa last night in his dream, and something … wasn’t right here.

Shalkan halted, and Kellen dismounted. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he headed toward the sound of the river, trying to feel the same sensation he had last night in his dream. It was frustrating, like trying to listen for music you weren’t even sure was there at all, made worse because he knew he wasn’t going to like what he found, and didn’t actually want to find it.

He walked toward the river, not looking so much as listening, until he reached the spot. Or perhaps it wasn’t listening, it was feeling. The way he felt the Wild Magic.

Here.

He looked down, and discovered he was standing directly over a patch of low-growing flowers. They looked like tiny lilies.

“Jermayan?” Kellen called.

The Elven Knight quickly joined him.

“What are those?” Kellen asked, pointing downward.

Jermayan stared at the ground. “They look like starflowers,” he said. But he didn’t sound at all sure, and his voice was shaken. He stepped quickly backward, off the patch of flowers.

“Are starflowers supposed to be … black?” Kellen asked, when Jermayan said nothing more.

“No,” Jermayan said with certainty. “Starflowers are—or ought to be—white. Silvery white. And they glow at night. They should be beautiful.”

Idalia had said to look for things that were “just plain bad,” and the more that Kellen looked at the spreading patch of sooty black flowers, the more he was sure they fit into that category. He didn’t know what real starflowers looked like, but these looked wrong. He stepped back carefully out of the flowers.

“What should we do about them? I don’t want to just leave them here.” He didn’t know why, but he knew he couldn’t leave those so-called flowers there. They felt—obscene. Or poisonous. Or both.

“Let me,” Shalkan said. “If this doesn’t work, we can dig them up and bury them.”

The unicorn approached the patch of black flowers and knelt so that he could touch them with his horn. As he did, the flowers curled up and withered, the effect spreading swiftly until in a few moments there was nothing but bare earth where the patch of flowers had been.

Shalkan rose to his feet again and shook his head strongly, as though he were shaking something nasty from his horn.

“I suppose this means we’re on the right track,” he commented blandly to no one in particular.

Chapter Twenty-one

Beyond the Elven Lands

BY THE END of their third day on the road the travelers had left the borders of the lands claimed by the Elves and were well into the mountains. It was no longer difficult to find water—these lands were not suffering under a magical drought—and the water barrels the mule carried were now empty, to save weight.

But even without drought to afflict it, it was a hard land, one of rocks and hidden springs, near-barren hills covered with sparse grass and scrubby bushes. The small party spent as much time going down as up, often having to detour out of their way in order to find a path that Valdien and the mule could follow. Even a few days and a few miles had made a difference in the weather, and now Kellen was glad of the protection his armor offered in more ways than one, for the days were chilly and the nights decidedly cold.

Kellen’s lessons continued—morning, noon, and night—and with every exercise, he became more comfortable with both sword and armor, more confident of his skill, and above all, his endurance, coordination, and strength increased almost with every new lesson. Jermayan was a matchless teacher, patient and firm, and most of all certain of Kellen’s excellence.

In addition to the disciplines of combat, Kellen had learned many other things as well—how to care for his sword and armor, how to get into and out of his armor easily, how to cope with the dozens of small chores of life on the road. He realized now how many of those Idalia had handled on their flight from the Wildwood, but now he was learning to take care of them himself.

He was also learning how to care for and even saddle Valdien as well as Shalken—not because Jermayan intended ever to leave that particular task to him, but because, as the Elven Knight constantly reminded him, they could never foresee what disaster might lie ahead. It might come to pass in the future that Jermayan wouldn’t be able to take care of Valdien himself, either due to injury, or … for some other reason.

Though Valdien blatantly preferred Jermayan’s attentions to Kellen’s, and made no secret of it, the pack mule was more than willing to become a friend to anyone who fed her and brushed her and cleaned her hooves. Lily, for all the high-flown poetry of her name, was a very tolerant and down-to-earth sort (though Kellen supposed that went with being a mule), patiently enduring Kellen’s rather clumsy (at first) attempts at hostlery. But by the time they were out of Elven lands, he could see to her needs as well as Jermayan could, and nearly as fast.

He’d been a little surprised in the beginning to find an Elven Knight so expert at such homely tasks, but as Shalkan reminded him, Jermayan hadn’t always been an Elven Knight. He’d begun as an apprentice, doing even more lowly tasks. And even in a city as beautiful as Sentarshadeen, garbage had to be hauled away and manure composted for the gardens Kellen had admired so much.

Maybe so, Kellen agreed. But it was still hard to imagine the stately and graceful Elves doing any of those things, even though he’d seen Morusil pulling weeds and Iletel up to his elbows in mud—or potter’s clay, anyway.

Though—at least when Jermayan managed to get past his guard and land an especially stinging blow—it was nice to imagine there’d once been a time when Jermayan had been getting hit that hard on a regular basis.

TO Kellen’s secret relief—if you could call it relief, to see such disquieting things—they saw enough signs of the Barrier’s influence along their way to assure them that they were definitely on the right track. One day it had been strange tall structures of mud, as if wasps had built giant nests upon the ground. Jermayan told Kellen that these were termite hills, and that the nest-builders were creatures that rightly belonged to the deserts of the far south.

Another day they had seen a flock of starlings flying far overhead in an intricate unnatural pattern that had gone on for as long as the riders had been able to see them. Starlings normally flew in a pattern that looked, from a distance, like a thick, billowing ribbon going from horizon to horizon, as they left their daytime foraging ground to seek the groves of trees where they would perch overnight in such numbers that they outnumbered the leaves of the trees. This flock still looked like a ribbon, but a ribbon that was looping in on itself until the loops formed a multipetaled flower, and the birds flew the loops over and over and over again. There were birds lying exhausted on the ground under the flock, and more dropped out of the sky even as they passed.

TODAY they rode through the bottom of a narrow gorge. On either side, sheer granite walls rose straight up; the only way out was straight ahead, through a dense birch forest. The ground underfoot was thick with fallen yellow leaves. None of them was very happy about their route, and it was not one that Kellen would have freely chosen, but there didn’t seem to be any other way, not if they were to keep to anything at all like their proper course northward.

Suddenly a flash of blue on the ground off to his right caught his eye. Kellen looked toward it. One of the drifts of leaves at the base of the trees was … blue?

“Look there,” Kellen said, pointing. “I’m going to go check that. That’s not right.”

Shalkan stopped, and Kellen dismounted, with far more grace and assurance than he’d exhibited even a few days previously. He walked toward the strange blue leaves, drawing his sword as he did—the gesture was almost second nature by now. Behind him, Jermayan was dismounting as well, telling Valdien to stand.

When he reached the pile at the base of the tree, Kellen prodded it with the tip of his sword.

Not leaves.

Butterflies.

Dead butterflies, blue ones, hundreds of them. They’d flocked here, drawn somehow by the Barrier’s power—did butterflies flock, or swarm?—and frozen to death in the harsh northern autumn. He sighed, depressed by the senseless destruction of so much innocent beauty.

“Kellen!”

He whirled at Jermayan’s anguished cry, and stared in shock.

Running toward them was a mob of men and Centaurs with swords and clubs.

How … ?

Kellen stifled the automatic question. There would be time for questions later—if they survived. He summoned his battle-mind and ran toward the enemy.

He was closest to the group; they reached him—or he reached them—before Shalkan and Jermayan had taken more than a step or two.

Around him, the double-sight overlaid every one of the attackers; he fell into the fighting-trance without effort, and he met the attack of the nearest with no more thought than he had to put into taking a step forward. He had no shield, and his helmet was on Shalkan’s saddle; that didn’t matter. He automatically adjusted his defense to deal with those handicaps.

Jermayan hadn’t had time to get his helm and shield either. And their opponents did have helmets, and shields that could turn or even stop a sword, and had the weight of numbers on their side as well. But they were facing an Elven Knight and a Knight-Mage, and their skills and their shields were not enough to protect them. Kellen knew that, bone-deep, blood-deep, and gave no more thought to it than that.

Kellen heard the slam of metal upon metal as Jermayan engaged his foe just behind him, and knew from the shouts and cries of pain just beyond Jermayan that Shalkan and Valdien were attacking as well. Good, he thought, then shut out all distraction to focus on his own battle.

He chose his target—a man wearing a shaggy bearskin vest with a chainmail shirt beneath. On his head he wore a close-fitting round helmet with a flat nosepiece, and carried a small round shield on his forearm, but his only heavy armor was a steel collar and shoulder guards. He smiled when he saw Kellen, and in that smile Kellen could almost read his thoughts—bright surcoat—fancy armor—no helmet—only a boy—easy prey.

Step and slash, Kellen told himself.

This was different from facing Jermayan in the practice ring. It was almost harder, because his enemy kept backing away, searching for an opening that Kellen wasn’t willing to give him, all the while making wild swipes with his sword that had no chance of connecting. After a few seconds, Kellen realized that he needed to lure the man into attacking in order to finish him. He set up an easy patter of parry-right, strike-left, and parry-right, taking his parries farther and farther out away from the proper defensive line, and waited for the man to spot it and think he had found the weakness in his opponent’s defenses.

As he’d hoped, the man rushed him, sword held foolishly high. Kellen stepped inside his opponent’s swing with ease, felt the man’s forearm jar harmlessly against his shoulder, grabbed the sword-arm with his left hand, and brought his own blade down on his foe’s undefended shoulder with all his strength.

This time he did not turn his blade when he struck.

The razor edge of Elven steel slipped in between the steel shoulder guard and the steel neck-collar of his enemy’s armor, sinking through bearskin vest, chain armor, flesh, and bone, to sever his attacker’s arm cleanly at the joint.

The man reeled back, his torso spraying dark blood from severed arteries. He screamed in horror, pain, and shock, falling to his knees in a pool of spreading blood, groping after the limb that was no longer there before he fell over entirely.

Kellen dropped the arm he still held as if it had burned his hand, abruptly shocked out of his battle-trance. The man’s screams of pain razored through him and he stood staring stupidly at the blood, and the dying man.

This was no game, no wondertale. It wasn’t a practice session. This wasn’t like the bloodless destruction of the stone Hounds. This was noisy and messy and real. He’d killed a man.

One moment he’d been alive, with a wife perhaps, or a sweetheart, siblings, parents. The next, he was dead.

And Kellen had killed him.

Then Jermayan jumped in front of him, shoving him back just as one of the Centaurs swept a spiked mace down just where Kellen’s unprotected head would have been. Jermayan blocked, but the blow had caught him off-balance. The mace slammed into Jermayan’s ribs, just where the jointed Elven armor was weakest, and Jermayan fell, crumpling awkwardly to the ground, his coiled black hair spilling free around him in a sudden untidy tangle.

No!

Kellen snapped back into full warrior mode again. Anger spilled around him, but did not touch him. He forgot everything but his training and his purpose. He stepped over Jermayan’s body—always advance—and forced the Centaur back, away from Jermayan. It reared, striking at Kellen with metal-shod forehooves, and Kellen showed no mercy, crippling it swiftly and then moving in for the kill.

This time he did not stop, did not hesitate for a single instant. When the Centaur was dead he turned, looking for other attackers.

The other Centaur was already down, its belly open in a spill of glistening entrails. Four left, all human. They spread out, trying to keep an eye on Kellen and Shalkan at the same time.

He thought he heard a groan from Jermayan, and rage filled him again; before it could interfere with the battle-trance, he seized it, fed it into the trance, and felt it nourish his muscles with new strength, give a sharper focus to his vision.

Kellen circled around, giving them the choice of facing either him or Shalkan, knowing they’d see him as the greater threat—or the easier prey. The possible attacks all converged into one as he moved, the ghost-images coalescing into a single path for each man. They’d try to attack him all together, hoping he’d get rattled and careless.

But he wouldn’t.

He backed up—Jermayan had also taught him that, to retreat as gracefully and as easily as to advance—leading them away from the bodies and the blood, onto surer footing. Away from Jermayan.

They tried to rush him all at once, but to attack in a group took training, and they only got in each other’s way, while the ghost-images told him the best way to move to ensure that they tangled with each other. In the space of a breath, he struck while they were still trying to sort themselves out, one after another.

You could dance in Elven armor—a dance of death. Kellen moved now as if he wore nothing more than his Wildwood buckskins.

Cut high. Sidekick. Parry on the spin and cut low, parry high. Two were killed outright at the end of that pattern. High, low, high, rush, hilt to the chin, thrust. That one he wounded and Shalkan rushed in from the side and finished him. Kellen left his sword in the body and sidekicked the last attacker into Shalkan’s path, and Shalkan killed that man by himself, standing over the body with a look of grim satisfaction, horn and hooves dyed scarlet with blood.

It was over. The entire battle had taken less time than the warm-up to a practice session.

Kellen fell out of his trance, and blinked, staring around himself. He wasn’t winded, not even close, but he took the moment to breathe deeply, watching the bodies for any sign of movement, for another thing that Jermayan had warned him of was that an enemy might merely pretend death in order to take the supposed victor unawares—or attack in two groups, holding back half his strength.

But as he watched, Shalkan moved among the bodies, testing for signs of life, then raised his head, looking in every direction, testing the air. When he was done, the unicorn shook his head silently. There were no survivors, and no further threat.

Kellen reclaimed his sword. It was bloody from hilt to point, blood dripping from the quillons and the end, as wet as if he’d dipped it into a vat of the stuff. His surcoat was sodden with blood. He shook his head to clear it, feeling as though he were half-asleep, dazed, but knew he did not have the luxury of sinking to his knees and resting as his body suddenly urged him to do. There were urgent matters to attend to and no time for either panic or self-reproach.

Jermayan.

Still carrying his sword—there was no way he could sheathe it in its present condition—he hurried quickly back to his fallen friend and knelt beside him.

To Kellen’s enormous relief, the Elven Knight still lived, though he was unconscious from his wound. Blood was seeping steadily through the armor, soaking the edges of the gash in the dark blue surcoat. His breathing was shallow, and his face was far paler than usual, nearly as white as shell-clay.

For one moment, Kellen felt a blinding flare of panic—what should he do? What could he do?

But as soon as it had come, it was gone. He knew what to do. He had to heal Jermayan with his magic. Fortunately, Idalia had taught him enough of the Healing spells to manage that. It was a simple spell, but costly—and with Jermayan unconscious, he couldn’t ask him to share the cost. Kellen would have to pay the entire price.

Unless …?

He glanced up at Shalkan hopefully, but the unicorn shook his head.

“I can’t,” the unicorn said, shaking his head unhappily. “I’m sorry, Kellen. He’s not a virgin.”

So it was all up to him alone. And when it was over, Kellen would be laboring under some sort of new responsibility or geas, as the Wild Magic exacted its payment—and it was barely possible that this price might be something that ran counter to his current mission. On the other hand, if Idalia ever found out that Kellen had let Jermayan take the blow meant for him, and then let him die afterward when he could have saved him, he knew she’d kill him. Twice.

He quickly stripped off Jermayan’s surcoat, trying to be as gentle as possible. The armor followed, though it was like trying to peel a crawfish out of its shell. At least he could see the pieces of the armor and their fastenings, which was more than he could do when he was taking off his own. Then he lifted the padded undertunic to get a look at the wound. He bit down hard on a pang of nausea as he discovered he had to pull the undertunic out of Jermayan’s side: the Centaur’s mace had been spiked; there were deep punctures in the flesh, and Kellen suspected broken ribs besides. A serious wound, but not as bad as the gash in the surcoat had suggested. One of the spikes must have caught in the fabric and torn it.

I can’t cast a circle on bloodstained ground… . He looked around for a clean place to cast his circle, then, as gently as possible, eased Jermayan onto his own cloak and dragged him there. The Elven Knight groaned in pain, but did not rouse to consciousness.

Since he was not as good a Wildmage as Idalia, there were things Kellen would need to cast the Healing Spell, and thanks to Idalia, he had them with him. Kellen covered Jermayan with his bloodstained surcoat for warmth, then went to Lily and rummaged through her packs, looking for knives, bandages, waterskins, and the leaves and herbs he would need.

The mule was skittish and upset, disturbed by all the blood and trying to pull away. But she was tied securely to Valdien’s saddle, and Valdien—trained to war—stood steadily. Kellen was grateful; he didn’t have the time to soothe her fears or try to catch her if she bolted. Jermayan needed help now, before he bled to death.

He took the jar of allheal as well. Jermayan had said it was really only useful for minor abrasions, but there was a lot of bruising involved in the wound. He wasn’t sure how far he’d be able to heal Jermayan, and he wanted all the help he could get.

In a way, though, he was glad that he had something to concentrate on besides what he’d just done. If he thought about all those dead bodies—

So he wouldn’t think about them.

“Can you find us somewhere to camp?” Kellen asked Shalkan as he gathered what he was going to need. “Someplace not too near here—with water?”

He still didn’t know who’d attacked them, or why—whether they were just common hill-bandits, or something more sinister—and he still didn’t have the luxury of waiting around to find out. And even though they’d killed all of them, that didn’t mean they didn’t have friends who might come looking for them, and even tomorrow would be too soon for that.

“I’ll take care of it,” the unicorn promised, trotting off.

His arms filled with supplies, Kellen hurried back to Jermayan. He took off his own armored gauntlets and drew a circle around them both with his dagger. Then he built his fire of bits of dried twigs and charcoal from his packs on a patch of earth scraped bare of leaves. When the charcoal had kindled, he sat cross-legged on the ground beside the Elf, and closed his eyes to assume the spell-trance that was so like, and yet unlike, the battle-trance.

Taking his knife he cut a few strands of Jermayan’s hair, then added a bit of his own. He curled the strands into a tight lock, then touched them to the blood from Jermayan’s wound, remembering what Idalia had done to heal the unicorn colt.

Cautiously, he ran his thumb along the knife blade, wincing as the flesh parted easily. Quickly, he added his own blood to the spell, and dropped the small bundle into the fire, along with the dried leaves of willow, ash, and yew for good measure, burned them along with three drops of his own blood.

Still in that dispassionate state, he closed his eyes again and gathered his own power in a knot around his heart, slowly pushing it outward until it met the physical barrier of the scribed circle with a faint sensation of resistance.

Grant me the strength to heal my friend, he promised the Powers, and I will pay the price for the healing.

It was done. Now all that was left was to await their answer and hear their price.

He opened his eyes, held in the calm, still center of the trance, to see the faintly glowing dome of his protections above them. He knew he’d done all that he could do with his Wildmagery, and that the rest was up to the Gods, so Kellen began cleaning and bandaging Jermayan’s wound as well as he could, wiping the still-oozing blood away with a dampened cloth, applying allheal to the bruised flesh, making a thick linen pad to place over the ugly wound in Jermayan’s side.

Kellen wasn’t sure how extensive the healing would be—or if he would be granted one at all, after having killed so many men—but the one thing he was certain of was that the Wild Magic didn’t look favorably on those who tried to use it as a replacement for everyday common sense.

Suddenly, as he worked, he had an abrupt sense of heatless force pressing down on him, as if giant hands, impossibly heavy, were thrusting down on his shoulders. He felt Power flow through his hands into Jermayan’s flesh, and all around him the golden summer sunlight went brilliantly green, as if he’d suddenly been plunged into the heart of an emerald.

He felt the Power flood into him, strong and sweet, intoxicating, and he lost himself in it, forgetting everything, simply being, and knowing that beneath his hands, the wounds were closing, blood ceasing to leak from the damaged veins, flesh knitting.

And from somewhere within him there came a voice:

You will know what you must do when the time comes.

Then, all at once, as suddenly as it had come, the sense of Presence was gone. Kellen fell out of the spell-trance, so suddenly that he felt giddy and chilled, and was a little surprised not to feel himself thudding down onto the ground beside his mentor.

Huh. He opened his eyes and shook his head a little. The dome of protection was gone—but then, it had done its work and there was no more need of it.

Cautiously, Kellen lifted the cloth covering Jermayan’s wound. The ugly oozing gash was gone. Only faint bruises remained, and a few dull silvery marks, as if the injury were sennights, even moonturns, in the past.

Well, I know it worked, anyway.

“That was—peculiar,” Kellen muttered aloud, breathing a shaky sigh of relief. He certainly didn’t recall Idalia mentioning anything of the sort happening to her during a healing. He felt almost as if he’d been forgiven, though he wasn’t quite sure for what.

And he was suddenly bone-weary, having paid an immediate price of his own strength for the healing and the protective circle.

Even Jermayan’s color was better, the Elven Knight having gone from a swoon into a natural sleep. He was breathing easier as well.

So the healing was more than just cosmetic, it had worked as well as Kellen could ever have asked if he’d dared—even though Kellen had no notion of what his greater price might be for the spell he had worked here today. So I’ll know what to do when the time comes, will I? That’s useful, I don’t think.

Kellen sat back on his heels, able to stop and take a deep breath himself for the first time since the fight had begun. He crushed out the little fire he’d built, reaching for his gloves and gauntlets and putting them on again before getting stiffly to his feet. As soon as Shalkan got back, he’d wake Jermayan and they’d move. He forced himself to try to think and plan, though at the moment his head felt as if it were stuffed full of feathers.

How had those bandits—or whatever they were—managed to appear out of nowhere without any of them—even Shalkan—noticing them? Had they had magic? Had they been sent by the enemy? If someone had sent them, more might be on the way.

And if they’d only been bandits and nothing worse, then at the very least, a valley full of dead men wasn’t going to be a pleasant place to camp, and where there were some bandits, there would probably be others, even in Kellen’s admittedly limited experience.

And on top of everything else, Idalia had warned him to move on quickly from anyplace where he used his magic, as it was likely to draw unwelcome attention. So whether the bandits had been sent by the enemy or not, he probably had the enemy’s attention now—or at least, would have it soon, if he was still here.

Steeling himself against the sight, Kellen went back among the corpses to reclaim the rest of Jermayan’s armor and sword. The blood hadn’t bothered him while he was fighting—not after Jermayan had been hit—but it was different now. Now the sight of the bodies made him sick, and knowing that he was responsible for killing a good half of them, well …

For the first time, he was able to count the enemy numbers. Six men and two Centaurs, all looking pretty much like what Kellen imagined hill-bandits would look like; dirty, unshaven, and under their armor, their ill-fitting clothing was clearly stolen from their victims. He took the best of the round shields that the bandits had been carrying for himself—after today, he thought it might be a pretty good idea for Jermayan to teach him to fight with one.

Once he’d done that, he led Valdien and the mule over to where Jermayan was. That took even more coaxing; Valdien was excited by the scent of blood and kept dancing away when Kellen reached for his bridle, and Lily was plain and fancy spooked. But Kellen managed that task as well—it helped that he was far too tired to lose his temper with either of them.

He hoped Shalkan would get back soon; if he didn’t, he’d have to find some way to go on without him and meet him on the way. It was already midafternoon, and as soon as the sun got much farther over the canyon wall, it would be dark down here, and Kellen didn’t want to chance trying to lead either Valdien or Lily down an unfamiliar trail in the dark.

By the time Kellen was able to lead the animals back to where Jermayan lay—making a wide circuit around the actual battlefield—the Elven Knight was awake and trying to sit up.

“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” Kellen said. “I’m not sure how badly you’re still hurt.”

Jermayan grunted and lay back, apparently agreeing with Kellen’s assessment.

“The bandits?” he asked tersely.

“If that’s what they were,” Kellen said doubtfully. “Dead. All of them.”

“Good,” Jermayan said with satisfaction. He pressed his fingers against his side, wincing as he probed the site of his injury, and then sat up. His face was pale, but determined.

He looked around, taking in the circle drawn in the dirt, the remains of the fire. “It seems I owe you my life,” he said.

“I owe you mine,” Kellen said, feeling his inadequacy engulf him like a wave. “I’m … sorry, Jermayan. I just … froze.”

And that was when everything fell apart for him.

Kellen dropped to his knees, retching, his stomach heaving, tears streaming down his face as he sobbed between bouts of vomiting. He felt, more than saw, Jermayan getting slowly and carefully to his feet; felt Jermayan kneel beside him, and felt the Elf’s hands steadying him as his stomach emptied. He wept for himself, for a loss of something he could not name, for the blood on his hands and his soul. He wept that he had been so weak that Jermayan had been forced to put himself in danger. He wept that he had simply not been good enough.

And he wept with rage, at the men who had forced him to kill.

“All the practice in the world cannot prepare you to see a man die,” Jermayan said simply when Kellen was able at last to listen. “But you did not let your feelings overmaster you—or we would not be here now.”

“But—” Kellen groaned. He’d failed. He’d gotten Jermayan hurt, nearly killed! “I—”

“Hush. And listen to one who is briefly your master,” Jermayan said gently. “You have crossed a great abyss today. You have chosen death. With your two hands, you have delivered it. Are you sorry?”

“Yes. No. Both.” There was nothing left in his stomach, but Kellen remained bent over, gut aching, throat raw, tears still burning down his cheeks.

“Good. It is a wretched thing to take a life, but it was what needed to be done today. These outlaws could have turned aside from us; they could have broken off combat at any time, and we would not have pursued them. They did neither. We cannot know if they deserved the death they won, but if we had not slain them, they would have slain us, and our task requires that we live. Do you hate them? Do you anger, still?”

That Kellen was sure of. “Yes!” He’d killed today. He would never forget that, never forgive it. Never!

“Do not; we cannot know what drove them. Perhaps their minds were not even their own. Let it go. Forgive them.”

“How?” Kellen cried in anguish.

“Now they are not your foes. Think of them as men and Centaurs once more.”

It was the hardest thing he had ever done, until he remembered that moment of paralysis, when he had looked at the face of the first dying man, and had thought, He has a wife, friends, parents—

Then at last he could, and did. The tears came again, and in weeping for them, Kellen forgave them.

“Now forgive yourself,” Jermayan said. “You could do no other than what you did.”

And Jermayan put a steadying arm around Kellen’s shoulders, and waited until he could.

FINALLY, Kellen was done with forgiveness and forgiving; he was empty and exhausted, but he finally felt—clean. As he had not felt since the fight began.

He got to his feet with an effort, then helped Jermayan to stand. They stood for a moment with hands clasped, looking into each other’s eyes. Finally, Jermayan nodded, as if satisfied by what he saw in Kellen, and let his hands go.

When Jermayan stood, Valdien hurried to his master’s side, nudging at him worriedly. Jermayan put an arm over the destrier’s neck, gripping his mount’s saddle for support.

“You’ll need to clean the swords,” he said matter-of-factly. “Scrub the blades down with earth. Pack my armor on the mule … I think I will have to ride without it.”

For Jermayan to make such a concession meant that the Elven Knight must be far weaker than he wanted to admit, Kellen realized. He said nothing, merely doing as he was told. Most of the blood came off the blades with a few handfuls of earth, and he was able to sheathe them. A thorough cleaning with oil, rag, and whetstone would have to wait, but this would do for now.

By the time he’d repacked the healing supplies on the mule, added Jermayan’s armor, helped Jermayan back into his padded tunic and surcoat (the tunic was torn, and both items were bloody, but they could not spare the time to unpack anything else), and gotten a cloak for Jermayan to wear over the padded undertunic, Shalkan had returned, to Kellen’s great relief.

The unicorn had managed to wash off all traces of blood while he’d been gone, his fur restored once more to its pristine glistening whiteness. Kellen was grateful for that—there’d been something especially disturbing about the sight of Shalkan covered in blood.

The unicorn took in the situation in a glance and nodded in approval.

“I’ve found a place that should do. All ready?” Shalkan asked.

Kellen looked to Jermayan. The Elf nodded.

“Good. Let’s go,” Shalkan said with a wary look around. “We’ve been here too long already.”

Kellen helped Jermayan into Valdien’s saddle—another concession that proved how weak the Elven Knight really was, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. Jermayan rode heavily, as if remaining upright took most of his strength. Kellen hoped they didn’t run into anything else between here and the campsite Shalkan had found for them. Jermayan was in no condition to fight at all, and Kellen wasn’t feeling much better, truth be told. He swung himself into Shalkan’s saddle and landed, despite his best intentions, with an ungraceful thud. The unicorn didn’t comment.

SHALKAN led them through the trees toward the eastern wall of the canyon. Soon Kellen heard the sound of trickling water, and saw that they were paralleling the path of a tiny stream. After a short while, the sound of the little brook was joined by the louder sound of falling water, and through a gap in the trees ahead, Kellen could see what must be their destination for the night: a wide crack in the canyon wall where a tiny waterfall spilled down from above to fill a cuplike catch-basin before spilling away into the narrow stream.

By the time they reached it, Jermayan was swaying dangerously in his saddle. Kellen had saved his life, but he didn’t have Idalia’s practice in healing; whatever had happened had been done by the Powers without any help or guidance from him.

He had the feeling that this healing had been a great deal like forcing a lot of water into a pond by flooding it, rather than allowing it to trickle in. The pond got water in it, but a lot was lost in the process.

And there had been no one to share the price of the healing with him, either, which probably made more of a difference. The Elven Knight was still dangerously weak, and Kellen couldn’t think of any way to fix that except rest and food.

As for Kellen, between the fight and the healing and the aftermath—well, he was exhausted, and really not interested in anything but rest himself.

And what about attackers on their trail?

The thought made his stomach hurt all over again. We’re not up to another attack, he thought desperately.

But the campsite Shalkan had found them was easily defensible—there was only one direction from which anyone could approach, and the entryway was not that much wider than the canyon from which Kellen and Shalkan had fought off the Outlaw Hunt. The moment he saw it, he sighed with relief. He and Shalkan could protect it alone if they had to.

Best of all, there was plenty of water. He was thirsty, and knew Jermayan must be as well, having lost so much blood.

As the light faded from the sky, Kellen was wholly occupied with the chores of setting up the camp, since for the first time he had to do it all by himself. First he got Jermayan off Valdien’s back and settled more or less comfortably against one wall of the narrow canyon while Valdien and the mule quenched their thirsts. He filled one of the tankards from the spring and handed it to Jermayan, then he got Shalkan out of his armor and unsaddled Valdien. He found a twisted bit of tree growing out of the rock wall at the back of the canyon, and tied the mule’s halter-rope to it securely. He was sure that Valdien wouldn’t stray—the big Elven destrier behaved more like a large dog than he did like any horse Kellen had ever seen—but Lily had had a hard day, and Kellen didn’t want to wake up to find the mule gone. Once she was securely tied, he removed his own armor at last and began unloading her.

After that, all that was left to do was to light the lanterns, build a fire, and feed the animals while the tea was brewing—allheal, he thought, since both of them could use it. Once the animals were fed, Kellen unwrapped a couple of trail-bars for Shalkan and began cutting up another couple to make soup.

By the time that task was done, the tea was ready. Kellen added a large disk of crystallized honey to each cup—they could both use the sugar—and poured the two cups full. Maybe Idalia and the Elves were right about the restorative powers of tea after all, Kellen thought. Certainly nothing had ever seemed so welcome as the thought of a hot cup of sweet tea just now.

He carried the other cup over to Jermayan.

“Drink this. You’ll feel better.”

“My thanks.” Jermayan took the cup from Kellen’s hand. His fingers were icy where they brushed Kellen’s own, and his hand trembled.

“You should come over by the fire where it’s warmer,” Kellen said. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, and you’ll be cold.”

“Soon,” Jermayan promised. He drank, eyes closing.

“We ought to have died back there,” he said after a moment.

“I nearly got us killed,” Kellen said bitterly.

“No.” Jermayan reached out his hand with an effort and placed it on Kellen’s arm. “It was I who nearly got us killed, riding bareheaded and unshielded as if I went to bring in the spring-tide, though knowing that I rode through unfriendly lands with an unblooded Knight-batchelor who had not yet won shield or spurs. Against six men and two Centaurs … it is only because you are what you are that we are here now, Kellen Tavadon. And beyond that: you have put yourself under obligation to the Powers to ransom my life from Death’s cold halls. That is a gift of which I am unworthy.”

Kellen wasn’t really sure what to say to that. “Well, it’s not like I could just go back and tell Idalia I’d misplaced you,” he said awkwardly. “She wouldn’t like that.”

“There is much of your sister in you,” Jermayan said mournfully. “Her grace, her nobility of spirit. From the moment I first saw her in Ondoladeshiron I knew it was she for whom my heart had waited through all the long decades of my life. Love among the Children of Leaf and Star is no light thing. It is for ever and always. I would not have troubled her with the burden of my heart, did I not know that hers inclined to me as well. Yet she denies what we both know to be the truth.” He lowered his head and sighed deeply.

I don’t want to hear this, Kellen thought uncomfortably. And yet—

I want them to be happy, and I know damned good and well that neither of them is ever going to be happy without the other.

“I understand that she does not wish to leave me alone and forsaken when the brief span of her mortal years is run, but cannot one so wise understand that I am already alone who has once gazed into violet eyes the color of evening mists? I shall be forever alone without her, my Idalia—would she deny me even the memories of the brief summer’s afternoon of our love to warm me through the long cold winter I must spend without her?”

Urk. This was getting more uncomfortable by the moment.

“Every moment we spend apart is filled with thoughts of her,” Jermayan continued, with a curiously restrained passion. “It is she who completes me, Kellen—would she be so unfeeling as to refuse me the transfiguration for which her own soul must cry as well? Without love, all the treasures of the world are ashes, and the Children of Leaf and Star know that true love comes only once into every life. How is it that she cannot see that, who can see so much else so clearly? We are meant to be together. It matters not how brief the time, only that it is filled with joy.”

“I think the soup is ready,” Kellen said hurriedly, scuttling backward toward the fire.

He didn’t know if Jermayan had ever said anything like that to Idalia—if he had, it would be just one more good reason for her to not want to have anything more to do with him, by Kellen’s reckoning—but he was completely sure he didn’t want Jermayan saying anything more of it to him. It was bad enough having to read things like that in wondertales—and Kellen didn’t; he skipped over those parts—but it was a thousand times worse having to hear someone saying them about your sister.

Grace—nobility of spirit—soul must cry—filled with joy—I didn’t think anybody really talked like that! Kellen thought in disgust. He must be running a fever from that healing I did.

He glanced up and saw Shalkan watching him. From the expression on the unicorn’s face, Shalkan thought something was pretty funny, and Kellen didn’t want to inquire too closely about what it might be, Kellen thought in acute discomfort. He’d have been disgusted if it had been another human who was blathering on like that, but, well—Elves just seemed to talk like that naturally.

Like that kind of thing can be spouted off casually.

As he filled the bowls, Kellen cast about in his mind for a subject that would distract Jermayan from the topic of Idalia.

When he had Jermayan comfortably seated in front of the small fire, Kellen deftly took control of the conversation before Jermayan could start talking again.

“Those people we fought today—who do you think they were?” he asked.

Jermayan frowned. “I’m not certain. Perhaps simple brigands, for all that they managed to take us so completely by surprise. This far from human and Elven lands there are all manner of unchancy things prowling. It is a hard land, one that cannot be farmed or husbanded. Though there are a few who are sturdy enough to eke out a precarious living as shepherds, even they are surly, unfriendly, and half-beast themselves. Those who fell upon us today might be no more than the lawless wolfsheads whose meat is hapless travelers—but the fact that they were able to hide so nearly in plain sight and approach us so closely argues that they may have had magical help to do so.”

“So they might have been related to these people who set the Barrier? Shadow Mountain?” Kellen said.

Jermayan reluctantly nodded.

Aha! “So who—what—is Shadow Mountain, and why are they—it—doing this?” Kellen demanded urgently.

There it was, the question he’d been wanting to ask ever since the name had been mentioned back in Sentarshadeen and the Elves had practically turned themselves inside-out. What was Shadow Mountain? If the enemy was going to be hunting them directly—and now that Kellen had used the Wild Magic outright, he’d been thinking more about that possibility—it was time to stop avoiding the question and find out exactly who and what he might be facing.

Though—now that he came to think about it—everyone, including Jermayan, had been doing a very good job of distracting him from that very question from the moment of the Council meeting back in Sentarshadeen.

There was a long pause. Kellen could tell that Jermayan really wished Kellen hadn’t asked the question, and for a moment Kellen almost withdrew it. But he wanted to know. More than that, he thought he needed to know. If he was going to be fighting Shadow Mountain—if they were going to be sending enemies after him and Jermayan—he needed to know what he was up against.

“Shadow Mountain is what the Children of Leaf and Star call the stronghold of our oldest enemy—indeed, the oldest enemy of every race in this world, if only the rest of you knew it. Shadow Mountain is the home of the Endarkened,” Jermayan answered at last, very reluctantly.

Kellen looked puzzled. The Endarkened. The name meant nothing to him.

“Demons,” Jermayan elaborated. “The Endarkened are what you humans call Demons.”

“Demons?”

All Kellen’s old fears—fears he’d thought long-settled and put to rest—returned in a sudden rush. Idalia had said the Demons were real. The old faun back in the Wildwood had been terrified of them. But even though he’d been hearing about them since he’d left the City—and even before—Demons still seemed so unlikely, a concept Kellen recoiled from believing in even while it terrified him. They belonged to nightmares, not to conversations like this.

Jermayan seemed to sense his hesitation, and misunderstood its source.

“ ‘Demon’ is the name that Men gave to them in the War, and it is a truly fitting one—or so we Elves decided, once we understood the human concept of Demons. The Endarkened are evil, without exception. They are at least as long-lived as Elves, if not truly immortal.”

“They are?” Kellen asked in a whisper. The creatures of his nightmares had certainly seemed unstoppable …

“What—what do they look like?” He didn’t want to know. Except that he did. He had to know if his nightmares reflected the truth, or only his own twisted imagination.

“Unless they are disguising themselves by magic,” Jermayan replied, “they are easy to recognize: they have the horns of goats, the slitted eyes of snakes, scarlet or ebony skin, barbed tails, talons, and often wings or cloven hooves as well.”

Kellen shuddered, suppressing a chill of horror. Jermayan’s description exactly matched the images in his nightmares. But how had he known?

But despite his reluctance to begin, Jermayan was by no means finished with the subject of Shadow Mountain and Demons.

“And unlike other races, all the Endarkened are powerful Mages, able to wield a kind of magic that is neither the High Magick of the City, nor the Wild Magic you have learned, Kellen, but magic of a third kind, wholly abominable, and wholly inimical to Life. The least of the Endarkened is an inherent Mage far more powerful than most human Mages, and the most powerful of the Endarkened Mages can cast spells of incalculable power and devastation. Their power comes from the pain and fear of their victims and from the anguish and despair of their victims’ deaths. The price of Endarkened magic is paid in the blood and suffering of others, as we learned to our cost in the War.

“So if they are not truly Demons as you humans use the term, you will find, should you learn more of them, that they are close enough,” Jermayan said with a bitter sigh.

Kellen knew that Jermayan’s unwontedly expansive mood would probably not last long, and that he should learn all he could while the Elven Knight was willing to answer his questions. Suddenly he remembered some thing Idalia had said to him a long time ago: “… duergar and goblins and trolls … pushed out of the settled lands by the Great War, and even after all this time, I don’t think they’d be foolish enough to come back …”

“You mentioned a war. There was a war, wasn’t there? Between the humans … and the Demons?” And Armethalieh had made sure that no mention of it had survived in the City Histories. Lycaelon had said as much—something about the Black Days, when Demons had prowled the City itself.

He’d blamed that on the Wild Magic—and though Kellen now knew that the Wild Magic couldn’t have been at fault—not in the way that Lycaelon had tried to get him to believe, anyway—his instincts still told him that there was some sort of connection between the Wild Magic and the Demons.

Jermayan smiled just a little, like a teacher pleased with his pupil’s quickness, even though the subject itself was a terrible one.

“The Endarkened have tried twice before to conquer all the living things of the earth—once, when only we Elves were there to stop them, and the second time when Elves and Men joined in the Great Alliance with several other races to drive them back to their caves beneath the earth once more. The Great Alliance left scars in the fabric of the world that are healing still: Men only entered the conflict because there were other humans, their enemies, who had been seduced by the promises of the Demons and had allied themselves with the powers of Darkness. There were dragons in the world then, who fought on both sides of the conflict—dragons betrayed by the humans who had bonded with them into slavery at the hands of the Demons, and dragons who faithfully served the Great Alliance. The unicorns played a vital part in that war, because the Demons, being creatures of Dark Magic, cannot survive the touch of their living horns.”

Dragons! This was the first time Kellen had ever heard that dragons existed outside of a wondertale! The thought distracted him for a moment—

—but not for long, because Jermayan was still talking.

“The Great War took a terrible toll from all the Creatures of Light. Some races were lost forever, some changed beyond recognition. Some withdrew forever from the sight of Elves and Men. Ancient partnerships that had been forged in the morning of the world were sundered forever … It would make you weep, Kellen, did I tell you the story of those days in full, of all that was true and good and fair that passed out of the world then, never to be seen again. Yet in the end we rejoiced, though the land itself was in ruins and the work of rebuilding would be a thing of centuries, for we had broken the power of Shadow Mountain for all time … or so we thought then.”

Jermayan shivered, and Kellen wondered, had he been there? Had he seen the Great War? Surely not; he was far too young—

“But you won—” he ventured. “Surely you could have gotten rid of them forever!”

Jermayan shook his head. “What victory we won came at a great price, one that your race is paying down to this day. When the Great War was over, the few human Mages who were left—and there were not many, for the War had taken a terrible toll of any who had the least magical Gift—banded together to found the City of Armethalieh, where they thought they could be safe. They outlawed the Wild Magic, swearing death to any who should practice its arts and driving the few surviving Wildmages who would not renounce their practice far from human lands. There began the creation of the High Magick, and the history of Armethalieh the Golden, City of a Thousand Bells—a city for humans alone, ruled only by the High Magick that the surviving Mages created to take the place of the Wild Magic they had spurned.”

“But … why?” Kellen whispered, horrified.

“The new High Mages thought that it had been the practice of the Wild Magic that had led to the seduction of their human enemies by the Demons,” Jermayan said mournfully, as if he could not believe that the Mages had been so blind. “And so they outlawed the Wild Magic, lest new Wildmages should become the prey of Demons as well. But it was not the Wild Magic that caused those Mages to fall.”

There it was, the thing Kellen had been dreading. That Wild Magic was dangerous, that Wildmages could be drawn to the Dark—both he knew to be true, though Idalia said it was not true that a Wildmage could serve the Demons with Wildmagery. But she had not told him why Wildmages could be drawn to the Demons …

“But—if it was the Wildmages who were corrupted—” he ventured.

“Oh, no, Kellen,” Jermayan said, and not in the tone people used when they were trying to reassure him (which of course had the opposite effect) but as if this was such accepted truth that Jermayan could no more have doubted it than he could doubt that the earth would uphold him. “It was not the Wild Magic that caused those Mages to fall, rather their attempts to escape or subvert the price of Wild Magic that led them down the dark paths. They were Wildmages who did not wish to pay the cost of their power, and so in the end, they paid a far higher price.”

He looked narrowly at Kellen. “Do you understand me? They wished power without a cost, at least to them. And so, they lost the Wild Magic, and found—that only the Demons would promise what they wanted. And they believed that promise, only to find that there was a price, after all. It cost them their souls, all that made them truly happy, and in the end—their lives.”

Kellen blinked. Power without cost to them—but isn’t that what the High Mages have now?

But was it? The High Magick still cost somebody something, and sometimes the High Mages used their own power …

He thought.

“When we realized what they believed in Armethalieh, we sent them envoys and tried to reason with them, for we knew that the Wild Magic was the only defense against Shadow Mountain, and we could not learn its arts, having given up our part in the Greater Magics long ago. But the humans were afraid. They would not heed us. Fear can make people—anyone—think very strange things. Even Elves,” Jermayan finished softly. “And now it may be too late.”

“Sleep now,” Shalkan said firmly, stepping into the lantern light. “Both of you. I’ll keep watch. I’ve had a much easier day than either of you. Sleep.”

It was hard to argue with such good advice. Exhausted by the events of the day—the battle and all that went with it, the spell he had cast, Kellen knew he couldn’t possibly stay awake much longer, and Jermayan needed to sleep to finish the work of the Healing Spell. Getting to his feet, Kellen quickly washed their cups and bowls and snuffed the lanterns as Jermayan wrapped himself in his bedroll. A few moments later Kellen did the same.

As he looked up at the stars, he thought about what Jermayan had said. He had his answer at last, at least most of it. He thought about his own moment of weakness just this afternoon, how he’d hated the thought of incurring another Mageprice. But he’d accepted it anyway, because that was the cost of the Wild Magic. You paid for what you got, because in paying your Mageprice you were actually helping to tend the garden of the world, as Morusil said.

Only … somewhere in the distant past … there’d been Wildmages who hadn’t wanted to pay, who’d wanted to do spells without incurring Magedebt, to use their power selfishly, for themselves alone. And they’d turned to the Demons to escape paying their price, to keep from repaying.

And so, out of that, had come the High Magick. But while the High Mages paid the price of their spells, they didn’t pay it themselves …

It was precious little comfort to know that as a Knight-Mage, he had a little more immunity to Demonic entanglement than the average Wildmage. “The Knight-Mage, even more so than the Wildmage, must choose that path, knowingly, and with forethought …” It was like knowing you were a little more fire-resistant when you were planning to walk into a firing-kiln. Not a lot of real practical use.

And somehow, tangled up in everything else he’d learned about the history of the Wild Magic and the High Magick tonight—and bigger than all of that, really—was the War Jermayan had spoken of, the one the City’d ended up blaming on the Wildmages. Kellen stared at the sky through half-closed eyes, trying to imagine that long-ago war. Dragons … what must it have been like, to look up and see the sky filled with dragons in flight?

A few moments later he was asleep.

THE morning sun woke him, and Kellen realized he had slept far later than usual. He sat up quickly, relieved to note that the exhaustion of the day before had passed.

Jermayan was already up and moving about. The Elven Knight seemed to be almost back to his old self again, though he moved with a bit more care than usual. His surcoat and padded undertunic—and Kellen’s surcoat as well—were spread out on the grass, damp from a recent washing.

“They should be dry enough to wear by the time we’re ready to leave,” Jermayan said, noting the direction of Kellen’s gaze. “And fortunately, Elven armor doesn’t rust. Tea?”

“Why did you let me sleep so late?” Kellen grumbled, feeling cross and guilty in equal measure, as he rolled out of his blankets. Despite the advanced hour, the air was still chilly, and he pulled one of the blankets around himself, groping for his cloak.

Jermayan tossed it to him, and Kellen pulled it on gratefully, then accepted the cup of tea—a different kind this morning.

“You needed the rest,” Jermayan answered inarguably. “So did I. And there were tasks that needed doing. We have been careless and lucky. No longer.” He gestured, and Kellen saw that a bow and a large quiver of arrows stood beside Jermayan’s armor now, unpacked from their place in the mule’s load. “Today we ride fully armored and weaponed, and woe betide the enemy who tries to take us unawares.”

Kellen saw that the round shield he’d taken from one of the bandits was piled with his own armor. He barely recognized it, for it had been scrubbed and polished until it gleamed.

“I would say that you have indeed earned your shield, Kellen Tavadon, and I only regret that it is not a more fitting one. Later I will teach you how to make the best use of it. For now it must suffice that you wear it.”

So there wasn’t going to be a lesson this morning, either. Just as well, Kellen supposed, if they were starting this late, but he did regret it a little. He was wondering what it would be like to face Jermayan in the teaching circle again after having fought for real, and having killed. Would it make a difference? Could he still do it?

But the answers to those questions would have to wait.

Soon enough they were back on their road again, this time wearing cloaks to conceal their armor—not that any cloak Kellen wore could conceal what Shalkan was, or Valdien’s armor, for that matter. But anything they could do to conceal their own armor might help them to avoid further attacks. Or it might draw bandits to them, who thought them easy prey. It was a gamble either way.

When they left the canyon and Kellen took his bearings, returning to their northward path, they found themselves heading up a narrow cleft in the rock, a track with sheer walls on either side. After the previous day’s ambush, none of them liked it, but to seek another route would take them days out of their way, time they could not afford to lose. They had to act now as if Shadow Mountain knew they were coming, and in that case, speed was their best ally.

The path was barely wide enough for them to ride single file. Kellen and Shalkan led. This time Kellen wore his helmet, with the unfamiliar weight of the round shield strapped to his left arm. The helmet protected his head and face, but left him feeling closed in, unable to see the world very well with his side vision cut off. Fortunately Shalkan’s senses were better than his own to begin with. He’d just have to trust Shalkan to spot any potential ambush.

As in fact the unicorn did, before the sun was very much higher.

“BACK!” Shalkan shouted suddenly, rearing up and turning in place.

Kellen took in the situation behind him at a glance. Valdien couldn’t turn on the narrow path, and the destrier couldn’t back up if the mule didn’t move. Kellen leaped down from Shalkan’s back and squeezed past Jermayan, grabbing Lily by her bridle and putting his shoulder into her chest. Speaking soothingly but urgently, he pushed, and to his great relief she backed up readily enough. Valdien followed swiftly, backing neatly, with Shalkan jammed in beside him.

Just as the Elven destrier was starting to move, a stone the size of a young pig hit the center of the trail right where Valdien had been standing a moment before. It landed with enough force to crack it in half, and a second later it was followed by another, only slightly smaller.

The travelers stared up at the walls of the gorge, knowing that if further attack should come, they were powerless to avoid it.

But no more stones fell. After a long moment Shalkan walked forward, looking down at the stones with dissatisfaction.

“I believe that they are gone,” Shalkan pronounced. “Having failed to topple us, they had no wish to encounter arrows, I suspect.”

“They didn’t originate from above,” Jermayan said unemotionally, gazing down at the boulders. “Those are river stones—see how smooth? Not boulders from farther up the cliff. And soft enough—that’s why the one broke when it landed. They were carried here from some distance away to be flung down at us.”

“By who—and why?” Kellen asked.

“These and other eternally unanswerable questions …” Shalkan commented with a sigh, shaking his head with a rattle of his armored collar as if flies bedeviled him.

His friend was right, Kellen realized with dismay. They had no way of knowing who was trying to kill them—or why. There were too many possible answers. And what was more, there might be no more sinister reason to this attack except an attempt to kill them and steal what they owned. After staring at the stone for a few moments more, Kellen mounted up, and they reluctantly continued on.

Eventually their path led them out of the gorge into a region of windswept hills covered with sparse grass. What few trees grew here were low, twisted by the constantly blowing wind. In the distance, Kellen could see taller hills dark with trees, and beyond them, true mountains at last, bare rock, their peaks white with snow. Perhaps Shadow Mountain was among them. I just hope we don’t have to go all the way there to find the Barrier, Kellen thought worriedly. Such a journey would take months—and Sentarshadeen needed rain soon, for the sake of the spring crops.

As he rode, he’d been continuing to think about all that Jermayan had told him the night before—about the War, and the reason Armethalieh had outlawed the Wild Magic, and the Demons. It made a certain amount of horrible sense, and it certainly didn’t make him feel any better about his own emerging Wildmage—or Knight-Mage—powers. True, Jermayan had said that the Wildmages who did fall to the Demons did so because they wanted to get out of paying the price for their powers and spells … but that was a temptation every Wildmage faced every time he cast a spell. Hadn’t Kellen himself worried about it when he’d done his Healing Spell for Jermayan? What if the Wild Magic had asked a price that had interfered with him going to trigger Idalia’s spell at the Endarkened keystone (and it still could, he knew, because the voice he’d heard hadn’t been very specific about what his payment would be) what then? If he refused to pay the price of his magic, was he on his way to being Demon-bait, even though he only refused because it would get in the way of him fighting the Demons and saving Sentarshadeen?

It was all very confusing. And the confusion didn’t stop here. Even if he paid his Mageprice this time, it was a choice he was going to face every time he cast a spell for the rest of his life.

It was worse, in a way, than when his fears had just been based on a formless misconception that the Wild Magic might be evil in itself. Now he knew it wasn’t. Now that Jermayan had told him about the Great War he knew exactly how a Wildmage got himself into trouble using the Wild Magic, and that was worse, because it wasn’t something that you could make up your mind once and for all not to do. It was a decision you had to keep making, over and over.

What if you got tired? What if you got careless? What if you made a mistake?

How could anybody keep making the right choice, over and over and over again, when the choices kept getting harder and harder?

How could he?

“We should look for a place to stop and eat,” Jermayan said, breaking into Kellen’s thoughts. “Perhaps that grove up ahead.”

To call it a grove was a serious overstatement, but at least the few scrubby trees would provide some shelter from the wind.

But when they neared it, a Centaur came charging toward them from among the trees, shouting angrily.

He had a thick grey beard, and was wearing a long rough coat of goatskins that draped over his dark bay flanks, the goat hair blending with his own shaggy uncurried coat. He carried an iron-shod crook as well. They couldn’t make out his words, but the intent was plain.

“Fool of a shepherd!” Jermayan said angrily, reining in. “Does he think we’re after his flock—wherever they are? Look here, fellow—”

Seeing them pause, the Centaur-shepherd stopped as well. He thrust two fingers into his mouth and whistled sharply.

“I don’t think he likes your tone,” Shalkan commented dryly.

Instantly half a dozen shaggy grey forms appeared out of the grass, loping toward the party purposefully. For an instant, Kellen thought they were wolves, then realized they were instead the largest dogs he’d ever seen—dogs that could easily kill wolves, should they happen to meet any.

“Come on,” he said, urging Shalkan into a run. Jermayan followed—with some reluctance, Kellen thought.

Behind him Kellen heard the sound of the Centaur’s laughter.

He’d thought that would be the end of it. That should have been the end of it: they’d intruded, they’d been driven off, the shepherd should have whistled his dogs back and that should have been that.

But it wasn’t.

Shalkan turned and began to circle back, just in time for Kellen to see Jermayan slipping the mule’s lead-rein free to give Valdien room to maneuver. She was running flat-out, but even her top speed wasn’t as fast as Valdien’s, and neither of them could match Shalkan’s turn of speed. To Kellen’s horror, he saw that the Centaur-shepherd’s grey hounds were harrying her, snapping at Lily’s flanks. One of them had already drawn blood.

“Hold on,” Shalkan said.

He charged directly at the running hounds, head lowered. His horn slid into the nearest hound’s shoulder, skewering the beast neatly. He tossed his head, flinging the beast away. It landed with a thud and a yelp, getting painfully to its feet and limping quickly away.

Jermayan and Valdien were sweeping through the rest of the hounds, Jermayan beating them away from the mule with the flat of his sword, Valdien encouraging them to flee with hooves and teeth. Though the hounds had obviously been trained to take down prey, equally obviously they weren’t prepared to face this much resistance, and a few more well-placed blows from Jermayan’s blade encouraged them to flee back to their master. The one that Shalkan had wounded limped along behind, bloody-flanked.

The moment the hounds broke off their attack, Kellen and Shalkan took off after the mule. Though terrified, Lily was already starting to slow her panicked headlong flight—mules, even Elven mules, were built for endurance, not speed—and Kellen and Shalkan were able to catch up with her easily. Actually catching her was another matter, and Kellen finally had to dismount and have Shalkan drive her toward him until he could grab hold of the trailing lead-rope. They were just lucky she hadn’t gotten tangled in it and broken her leg.

She pulled a little against the rope, shaking. “Here now, girl. It’s all right. It’s all right, girl. You’ve had a rough day, haven’t you, poor girl?” Kellen spoke soothingly, coiling the rope up in his gauntleted hand as he approached her, until she finally allowed him to lay a hand on her neck and stroke it comfortingly. She was trembling and covered in sweat, but she seemed to be all right. The bites on her haunches didn’t go very deep—the hounds had been trying for the bite that hamstrings its prey and leaves it helpless, but fortunately hadn’t been able to manage it. An application of allheal should see her right, but he wasn’t sure that they dared stop for it now.

Jermayan rode up on Valdien, sheathing his sword.

“I should have shot the beast when I had the chance,” Jermayan snarled, and Kellen somehow knew Jermayan didn’t mean any of the hounds.

“He was only protecting his flock,” Kellen answered, not sure the words were true even as he spoke them. He handed the mule’s lead-rope up to Jermayan, who made it fast to Valdien’s saddle once more.

“Was he? He had a very odd way of doing it, to be sure,” the Elven Knight answered angrily. “Come to that, wolfhounds such as those are more likely to savage a flock than to guard it; they are hunters, plain and simple. I wonder whether there was a flock at all, or whether he was set to watch for us, and lull us off our guard.”

“By running out of cover and shouting at us?” Kellen asked doubtfully. Still, it was possible. The shepherd had been quick enough to set the dogs on them—and Jermayan was right—they looked nothing like the kind of flock guards Kellen had seen in Merryvale.

“Come on,” Shalkan said pragmatically. “The sooner we go on, the sooner we can stop.”

THEY moved on at the pace that the mule set, which was even slower than before; she was having trouble with the trail, and it was clear that her wounds were hurting her. The hilltops were bare and rocky, and between them were narrow ravines filled with all manner of brambles. The trouble was, you had to go down one hill to get to the top of the next. At the bottom of one such gully they found a stream where they could pause to rest and eat and tend to the mule’s injuries, but they didn’t linger for very long. Where there had been one attack, there could be another, and all of them knew that whether their attackers were hill-bandits or agents of Shadow Mountain, if the attack succeeded, they would be just as dead.

They rode on, into a cold wind out of the north that howled among the peaks like a damned soul and ate away the faintest trace of warmth.

IT would be dark soon, and they’d reached an unspoken agreement that the next little valley, if it was at all suitable, would be where they would spend the night. Camping on one of the hilltops in the constant wind would be impossible—or miserable at the very least. At least down in the ravine they’d be out of the wind, and warmer.

But they’d barely dismounted when Valdien began behaving skittishly, fretting and shaking his head nervously.

“Trouble,” Shalkan said briefly, his nostrils flaring. “I smell something—odd—”

Kellen drew his sword with a metallic grating sound. He cast his eyes to the left, the right. Down here out of the wind it was quiet, and hard to see much in the heavy undergrowth, but Kellen saw no sign of any trouble. He glanced at Jermayan. The Elven Knight had his bow ready, an arrow nocked, but from his puzzled expression, he saw as little reason for alarm as Kellen.

Even the mule had sensed something wrong now. She was grunting and pulling at her lead-rope, ears laid-back.

“Anything?” Jermayan asked tersely.

Kellen shook his head, and concentrated, trying to invoke the battle-trance. Even to Othersight, the ravine seemed deserted, nothing but shadows moving within the branches as the wind above in the tops of the hills stirred the withered leaves down below.

“I could try a spell …” he began, feeling as if he should be whispering.

Suddenly there was a crashing through the underbrush and a pale rush of movement. Before Kellen could react, Jermayan had drawn his bow and fired several arrows in an action too fast for Kellen to see.

There was an unearthly scream, and a crashing as something fell to earth and began to thrash wildly. Shalkan whirled, and charged, head down, his horn glinting wickedly. He plunged it into the creature, once; the beast convulsed, and was still.

By the time Kellen joined him, it was over, and the unicorn was shaking his head, flicking his horn clean.

“What is that?” Kellen asked, looking down at the body, still outstretched and twisted sideways in its final convulsion.

It was twice the size of the dogs that had attacked them earlier today. Kellen had seen lynxes in the public zoo in Armethalieh, but those were small animals, little bigger than a large house cat.

This was like a lynx grown to giant size. It had long dappled silvery fur, and jutting from its upper jaw, two enormous fangs as long as his hand.

“An ice-tiger,” Jermayan said, kneeling beside the body to retrieve his arrows. “Odd that it should be here. They are creatures of the high hills and mountains, rarely venturing this far south.”

“Especially this early in the year,” Shalkan said, returning from cleaning his horn in the earth. “And very odd for it to be attacking us at all. Look at it, Jermayan. A healthy young male, no broken fangs, no injuries … it should be attacking its natural prey, not an oddly assorted group of travelers like us. They don’t like to be anywhere within leagues of humans or Elves or Centaurs either; they’re terribly shy.”

“Another thing that isn’t where it’s supposed to be,” Kellen said grimly. “But is it just an accident … or is this another trap?”

“Were any of them traps?” Shalkan asked simply. “Or were they all just the sort of misfortunes that would have happened to any traveler that passed this way?”

“Either way, we’d better move on,” Jermayan said tiredly, getting to his feet. “Where there was one, there may be more.”

THEY made an unsatisfactory camp in one of the hilltop groves, keeping a sharp eye out for more rogue shepherds—or anything else. At this point, Kellen didn’t trust anything, not a starling, not even a mouse. Before the light failed entirely, there was time for a few minutes of sparring practice with Jermayan, and Kellen was relieved to find that it was still as easy for him as it had been before the battle.

That night Jermayan began drilling him in the rudiments of shield-fighting—how to draw an attacker’s blows to your shield, how to fight using your sword one-handed for greater reach. But there was not time for much of that before it was too dark to see, and neither wished to risk a misstep or a foul blow in the dark.

In the morning, they struck camp and moved on quickly, none of them willing to linger in such inhospitable territory. By early afternoon they were crossing terrain that was dangerous enough in its own right, without the help of brigands, bandits, or questionable shepherds.

They weren’t trekking now so much as mountain-climbing, their progress slowed to the slowest walking pace by the need to test every foothold before proceeding along slanting, tilting, nearly invisible trails. Shalkan led—the unicorn was as surefooted as a goat—with Kellen clutching the saddle tightly and trying not to look down.

To Kellen’s surprise, for all his size, Valdien was nearly as nimble as Shalkan, the Elven destrier able to follow any path Shalkan chose. The mule scrambled along behind, patient and uncomplaining—or perhaps, now that it had escaped the fangs of wolfhound and ice-tiger, desperate to remain with its “herd” and the protection of the two Knights.

“Once these hills were lush with forests,” Jermayan said when they stopped to rest. “Sweet-smelling cedars as far as the eye could see, and flowering alyon, and fragrant vilya. In my grandsire’s time, we built ships from the trees that grew here in the Forest of Tilinaparanwira to sail the oceans of the world. Our home was here in these forests, and in the mountains beyond as well. In those days, we thought ourselves masters of all.” Jermayan sighed, as if the ancient memory pained him.

Kellen looked around. It was hard to imagine anything at all growing here, let alone trees tall enough to provide the masts for an ocean-going ship.

He glanced at Jermayan. The Elven Knight was smiling ruefully, seeing the expression of skepticism on Kellen’s face.

“But my grandsire lived a very long time ago, as the Children of Men reckon time—just as the Great War itself was so long ago that you have schooled yourselves to forget it. We ride now across the lands where many of the battles of that war were fought—and because of that, for tens of your generations, no blade of grass grew from this tainted earth, no bird flew through these accursed skies. Have you never wondered why the holdings of the Children of Men are so few in this land, yet your cities are armed and walled for war? Though you have purged the very hint of it from your histories, there is a reason for those walls, a reason why Men are so few when they breed so rapidly.” He closed his eyes for a moment, as if weary. “But now Life returns. I wonder—is it that which has roused Life’s old enemy from its slumber?”

There was no answer he could make to that, and Kellen didn’t even try. They rode on, with Kellen trying to imagine what this place might have looked like when it was as lush as the Flower Forest around Sentarshadeen must have been before the drought. Jermayan had said the Great Alliance had paid a terrible price for their victory; looking around at a landscape so scoured that grass barely grew here now, Kellen was only now beginning to imagine what it must have been like.

“Look there,” Jermayan said a few moments later, pointing off to the left.

Kellen looked. Halfway down the slope—probably a couple of miles away; distances could be deceiving here—he saw an odd row of tall narrow boulders standing in a line on what looked like a gentle sloping plain. Kellen knew from his experience today that that sort of terrain was particularly treacherous. Either it was gravel over rock, and just as slippery as oiled glass as a result, or it was a thin layer of topsoil over granite, which meant that the footing would hold just long enough to give you a false sense of security before giving way and sending you tumbling to the bottom of the slope.

He took a closer look at the boulders, since they seemed to be what Jermayan was pointing at. They didn’t look like the rest of the stone around here, which was mostly pale grey granite. The boulders were black, and looked as if they were made of something else. He couldn’t tell what, though, and had no particular desire to investigate more closely, having spent most of the morning getting up an incline that looked pretty similar to that one.

“That is Ulanya, where the last of the Dark-corrupted dragons fell with his Mage. It is said the dragon’s bones endure to this day. As you see.”

“Huh,” Kellen said, shaking his head as they rode on. If those boulders were dragon-bones, Kellen revised his desire to see a living dragon. Judging from the size of them—if they really were dragon-bones, and not just funny-looking rocks—a full-sized dragon must be larger than the Council House where the High Mages met. No wonder both sides in the war had wanted to get their hands on them!

And on the Wildmages who controlled them.

Once again unwelcome worries intruded into Kellen’s mind. Why hadn’t Idalia told him about the Great War, and the dragons, and why the City had outlawed the Wild Magic and invented the High Magick to take its place? Why hadn’t she explained to him what he was going to be facing? She’d told him everything else—except the most important thing: that he was riding off to face an ancient enemy that had a lot of experience in corrupting Wildmages and turning them to its own purposes.

Had she thought ignorance would protect him? Had she thought Jermayan wouldn’t tell him the truth? Maybe he wouldn’t have, if Kellen hadn’t turned out to be a Knight-Mage. Maybe she’d kept it from him for his own protection. Maybe the fact that Kellen now knew the truth was going to make things go wrong somehow.

Or maybe she counted on Jermayan to tell me the truth; counted on me being brave enough to face it. She had put plenty of challenges in his path before, and reckoned on his being able to meet them.

But she could so easily be wrong. She didn’t know him! Not really. She didn’t know how often he failed or messed things up.

He couldn’t afford to worry about things like this—it was too late to change things, and he couldn’t unlearn what he knew—but somehow he couldn’t stop himself from constantly poking at the problem, as if it were a sore tooth. The whole thing was just too big and too complicated, made worse by the fact that the more he learned about the Demons, the more formidable an enemy they seemed to be. No matter how much confidence Jermayan seemed to have in Kellen’s emerging powers as a Knight-Mage and Wildmage, Kellen didn’t have the same confidence, not down where it counted. He knew how many mistakes he’d already made in seventeen short years of life, and now, with so many lives resting on him making all the right choices, he didn’t feel any smarter than he had when his choices didn’t matter to anybody but him. He’d already almost gotten Jermayan killed once.

All it took was one wrong move.

Just one.

THOUGH Jermayan had been reluctant to talk about Shadow Mountain and the Great War initially, as they rode that day through lands he could have never seen—for Kellen now knew that Jermayan, old as he was from Kellen’s standpoint, had been born centuries after the War was over—the Elven Knight spoke of those ancient events as if he had indeed been present at that last great battle between the forces of Life and those of Darkness.

So vivid were his descriptions as he pointed out the landmarks of the conflict that had shaped Kellen’s world that it almost began to seem to Kellen as well that he could see the armies marshaled upon the battlefield: humans, Elves, and Centaurs in their gleaming armor, the swift and terrible unicorn cavalry, their bright horns flashing in the sunlight. Overhead, dragons wheeled and soared in the sky, their scales glittering radiantly—red and green, gold and blue and black—and the air seethed with elemental forces, as sylphs and salamanders awaited the bidding of their comrades and allies.

And arrayed against them, the terrible forces of the Endarkened and their slaves: the Darkmages, the duergar and goblins and trolls, protected from the sunlight fatal to their kind by the magic of the Endarkened—a protection that might be withdrawn at any moment, should the Endarkened need their power for other things.

“Across that valley—there—in the distance—is a place once called The Field of Sorrows. I do not know if it has a name now. There, the army of Countess Karissa of Avoret was utterly destroyed.” Jermayan’s eyes were shadowed with sorrow, as if the tragedy had taken place a decade ago, instead of millennia. “Ten thousand warriors, the flower of human pride and knighthood, were gathered there to do battle, and not one of them escaped alive. It was the first great human loss of the War … you had underestimated the barbarity of the enemy you faced until then, I think, and thought they would fight by the civilized code of human men. But they gave no quarter, slaughtering the wounded, those who had surrendered, the servants and children who rode with the army … all. Not even the supply oxen were left alive, and when our army arrived, too late to aid you, the battlefield was a lake of blood too vast to sink into the earth.”

Kellen blinked, trying to picture it and failing utterly. It was just too horrible to get his mind wrapped around. And this was the enemy they would have to confront!

“When the Count came and saw the place where his daughter had died, he swore that he would not rest until the power of the Endarkened was broken forever and the treachery that had slain his daughter was avenged; that if he must defy Death himself to allow this to come to pass, he would find a way. He was a great Wildmage; how his story ends, the histories do not say, but it was through his tireless efforts that the human kingdoms fought at our side staunchly through all the dark days of the War, though the Endarkened tried constantly to make a separate treaty of peace with you. They would willingly have promised you anything to withdraw from battle, knowing that they would turn on you later once they had achieved victory over us.”

How many humans failed to listen to the Count, Kellen wondered. How many thought that a separate peace could be achieved, and been betrayed? There must have been some, or the rest would never have known that Demonic promises were lies.

“But here is a happier tale, if any story from those days can be said to be a happy one,” Jermayan went on, pointing into the far distance. “See there, that mountain pass?”

Kellen strained his vision—he suspected Elven eyesight was better than human—and in the distance he could just barely make out a notch between two mountains that might be the pass Jermayan spoke of.

“That is Vel-al-Amion, where The Seven held back the entire army of the Endarkened for three days, until Cirandeiron Istemion and King Damek could arrive. Their names have been lost to history, and so they would have wished it to be, remembered only as The Seven, comrades in life and death, who did what could not be done, and so saved us all.”

“How could you forget them if they were Elves?” Kellen asked, since if he’d learned one thing in his time in Sentarshadeen, it was that Elves had very long memories, and kept excruciatingly accurate records of their families and genealogies.

“The Seven were not Elves, not all of them,” Jermayan corrected him crisply. “They were of all the races that fought against the Endarkened. And they were not warriors at all, but scouts, sent out to patrol in advance of the army to learn the disposition of enemy forces and to report back.”

Not warriors? Then how could they ever have held against a host of Demons?

“But this time, knowing what they knew, seeing what they had seen, they dared not. They knew the Endarkened host must come through Vel-al-Amion, and so they retreated to that pass, sending messages to their commanders, messages that they could only hope would reach them, knowing they would never know if word had gotten through in time. And when all the hosts of Darkness and foul magic descended upon Vel-al-Amion, the Demon army found its way barred by seven scouts who would not yield the pass.”

Kellen found himself profoundly stirred by this tale. Only scouts! Yet they had done what needed to be done, against far longer odds than those he and Jermayan faced, against the Endarkened in all their strength, not the weakened creatures hiding in Shadow Mountain. If they could do it …

“No one knows what happened there, though there are many ballads of their bravery. I believe that when the Endarkened saw The Seven could not be easily brushed aside, they tried to tempt The Seven to join their own forces, for that is ever the way of Demons.”

Suddenly Kellen could picture it in his mind, the vast host behind the leaders, the Endarkened leaders offering—what? It would have had to be more than just their lives. It would have to be everything all of them had ever wanted: love, power, riches, fame, everything …

“But that, too, will have failed,” Jermayan said, his voice filled with awe, “and then, surely, the wrath of the Endarkened commander must have been overweening. Yet The Seven held Vel-al-Amion, and the Endarkened army could not advance through it while their way was barred.”

“But how?” Kellen asked wonderingly. “If they were just scouts, how could they have held?”

“There is much we will never know,” Jermayan admitted simply. “It was a miracle, and The Seven gave their lives in payment to the Gods that had answered their prayers for that miracle. What is certain is that reinforcements arrived in time to catch the Endarkened army while it was bottled up in the pass. ‘Then blew the silver horns of the army of Cirandeiron Istemion, then roared the mighty drums of King Damek; brazen and argent marched the human and Elven armies across the bridge of their hallowed dead to engage the foe …’ or so the bards would have it. The Allied armies hurt the enemy badly enough to force them to retreat, and the War went on. The bodies of The Seven were never recovered. Yet if they had not held the pass long enough for the Allies to get there …” Jermayan shrugged eloquently, and said nothing more.

But Kellen thought about that story long and hard as they rode, and he wondered—if it had been him, would he have had the courage to stand?

THEY made an early camp, unwilling to push the tired animals any farther over such difficult terrain. There was no possibility of finding any place that was sheltered, but at least they’d found someplace flat, a stony hilltop with a spectacular view of the barren sweep of parched hills and the mountains beyond. If they could not be comfortable, Kellen consoled himself, at least no one could possibly sneak up on them.

Not for the first time today, Kellen wondered if they’d overshot the mark or taken a wrong turn. He soothed his apprehension with the promise that he’d do a Finding Spell in the morning before they set off. That would quickly set them on the right path again. True, Idalia had warned him against that sort of thing except in a dire emergency, but—

—but by now their presence here in the Lost Lands couldn’t be a secret anymore.

He’d done pretty major Healing Magic on Jermayan, and even though he’d done it within the protection of his circle, some of the power had to have leaked out. And he knew, deep down inside, that at least one of the attacks on them had come from the hands, if not of the Endarkened themselves, at least from their creatures. And since they’d be moving immediately, it wouldn’t draw the enemy to their position.

But the moment he made the decision, doubt set in. What price would the Finding Spell exact? What if paying it ran counter to his current mission? What if it was something he couldn’t—or didn’t want to—do?

What if it was the first in the series of mistakes that would set him on the path to becoming a Darkmage? What if it conflicted with the price he had yet to pay for Jermayan’s healing? Every time he thought of doing magic, things just got more complicated! No wonder the ancient Mages had come up with High Magick, which—

Which has its own prices, and is paid for with stolen energy.

So that wasn’t an answer, either.

He performed his part of the chores of setting up camp in a haze compounded of equal parts of exhaustion and preoccupation. Jermayan helped him dig out and collect several melon-sized stones to build a fire-ring, both to protect their fire and to conserve its heat.

“No practice tonight, I think. We’re both tired. And I think you’ll know what to do when the time comes.”

The Elven-Knight’s words were an unintentional echo of the message Kellen had received from the Wild Magic during the last spell he’d cast, the message he still didn’t understand. Remembering that unfulfilled obligation only worried him more. What would the true cost of Jermayan’s healing end up being? Would it turn out in the end to have been better for Sentarshadeen if Kellen had let Jermayan die? But how could he ever have faced them—Idalia—Shalkan—himself—if he had?

“Ah—all right, if you think that’s best,” Kellen muttered. “I think I’m going to take a look around. Stretch my legs while there’s still light.”

“Be careful,” Jermayan warned, but Kellen could tell from his tone that the Elven Knight wasn’t really worried. Nothing could approach them unseen up here.

Kellen changed out of his armor into the spare set of clothes and boots he’d brought. Wrapping his cloak tightly around him and belting on his sword—an act that seemed like second nature to him by now—he walked off.

He didn’t plan to go far—not even out of sight of the camp—but he’d been telling the truth about wanting to stretch his legs. Spending a day on horseback—or on unicorn-back—was still a kind of sitting, and not the restful kind, either. His legs ached with something that was not quite a cramp, and felt restless, as if they would twitch nervously if he didn’t given them the exercise they craved. Strange, how you could be so tired and yet parts of you still needed more activity to settle down … .

The hilltop was covered with the same sort of dry scanty grass that they’d seen elsewhere; both Valdien and the mule were grazing meditatively. In places the granite beneath showed through, and if that weren’t enough, there were occasional horse-sized (and larger) boulders strewn about, as if someone had been using the hilltop for a target a long time ago.

Considering what Jermayan had told him about what sort of thing had gone on around here, maybe someone had. This would be a natural place to make a stand.

He was keeping one eye on the camp, intending to walk a wide circle around it, when he saw the stele.

At first he thought it was just another boulder, albeit a tall and narrow one. Perhaps snow and rain had sheered part of it away, giving it that tall and narrow shape.

But no. When he got closer, he realized that it had been carved into that shape deliberately, and centuries of wind and weather had softened its shape until it looked like one of the natural boulders.

He came closer. There was writing on it—at least, he thought it must be writing, though the even rows of symbols were wholly unfamiliar.

There was one thing about the stele that was all-too understandable, however, though seeing it came as a complete and utter shock. Carved near the bottom was the glowering, horned, and fanged countenance of a Demon.

“Jermayan!”

Kellen’s shout brought the Elven Knight at a run, sword drawn, with Shalkan close behind. Kellen pointed; he was very proud when his hand didn’t shake.

Too much.

“Ah.” The confusion and alarm eased from Jermayan’s face. He peered at the inscription on the stone. “It is a marker, commemorating a great battle fought here, of an Allied triumph over the Demons.”

Kellen stared around. Suddenly the empty hilltop seemed somehow populated, as if the armies that had once engaged here had not left.

Maybe they haven’t. If any place should be haunted, it ought to be a place like this one.

“Of course, in those days this place had a different aspect,” Jermayan reminded him, as if guessing the direction of Kellen’s thoughts. “But come. We will eat, and consider what route we may take on the morrow.”

Jermayan turned and walked away. Kellen gazed after him. Jermayan seemed awfully calm about standing in the middle of an ancient battlefield, a place where Demons had actually set foot. He glanced at Shalkan, but for once the unicorn’s expression was unreadable.

Grand. Making camp among the ghosts. I hope at least some of them are friendly.

“I guess we’d better go back,” Kellen muttered. He cast a last look at the stele, and followed Jermayan.

Though there was not to be a sparring match that evening, that didn’t save Kellen from a long lecture on the theory of combat, which was, in its way, just as helpful as actual physical practice. There was more to battle than hitting the enemy with a sword, he was coming to discover, just as there was more to magic than casting the most powerful spell you could manage. Just as knowing what spell would produce the best result with the least expenditure of personal power was important for a Wildmage, so, for a Knight (or a Knight-Mage), was being able to make your foe do what you wanted—flee or die—with the least risk to yourself and your allies.

“Glory and honor are important,” Jermayan said sternly, “but they are not the most important things in the life of a knight. He must always keep his ultimate goal in his mind, and be prepared to sacrifice all other things to that goal. Perhaps even his honor, should such a choice be forced upon him.”

Kellen nodded, but he knew his own choices weren’t so simple. A Wildmage’s personal honor involved always paying the price of his magic, no matter what that price might be. And to refuse to pay that price, as he had learned from Jermayan, would lead a Wildmage down the path of corruption, and into the service of the Demons of Shadow Mountain.

Kellen had the horrible suspicion that what that meant was that eventually a Wildmage would inevitably be called upon to betray one loyalty for another, and he didn’t like that thought very much at all. Betray a friend who trusted you for the greater good? Betray a trust to keep a greater one? Betray a secret to save another? But try as he might, he couldn’t see any way around it … if the need to do so ever came up.

Maybe it wouldn’t.

He hoped it wouldn’t.

How could he do that and ever feel clean again?

But the unpaid price of Jermayan’s healing hung over his head, like a sharp sword suspended by the thinnest of threads, and all Kellen could do was worry about a potential disaster he could see no way to avert.

How did Idalia live with this sort of thing hanging over her all the time? How did other Knight-Mages?

How would he? Or would trying to resolve all the conflicts someday drive him mad?

Eventually their small fire burned low, and it was time for sleep. Despite the whirl of worries and fears chasing each other around and around inside his head, when Kellen laid himself down, weariness had its own way with him.

Will-he, nill-he, he slept.

Chapter Twenty-two

Visions of the Past

HE WAS AWAKENED by the ring of swords against armor. Kellen threw himself out of his bedroll, staring around himself wildly. Beside the fire, Valdien and Jermayan still slept, undisturbed. Even Shalkan dozed unconcernedly.

“Kellen! They’re breaking through!”

Someone was shouting his name. But even as Kellen looked in the direction of the call, he realized it was not him they were summoning. Or at least not the Kellen of here-and-now.

He saw with the strange doubling of Othersight, but instead of single objects, or a simple overlay of lines and symbols, as it usually was, this time it was as if he saw into a whole other world. All around him an army was gathered, beautiful and terrifying, and as in a dream, somehow the moment he saw a thing, he understood everything about it, as if he were seeing it and reading about it in a book at the same time. Part of him knew he hadn’t moved at all, that he still lay asleep in his blankets, and did not stand upon the hillside, gazing into the sun.

There was a booming sound in the sky, as loud as a sudden crack of thunder, and when Kellen looked up, he saw that one of the dragons had launched itself into the sky.

Dragons?

He’d wanted to see a dragon. Now he had that wish.

It bore as much resemblance to the lizards of the forest as Shalkan did to a horse, and as little. Long sinuous neck, tail twice the length of its body, ending in a broad flat barb to help it to steer in the currents of the upper air.

As he watched, its spread wings caught and held the light, glowing like colored glass, for somehow Kellen was aware that even though it was still night where his body truly was, what he was seeing was taking place in the day. The plates of its underbelly—all he could see at this angle, as it caught an updraft and began circling higher—glowed like burnished metal.

And on its back rode the other-Kellen, the one to whom the summons had gone.

All around him the tide of battle surged. Though a part of his mind knew that this was dream or vision, nothing that could touch him now, it was so real that it was easy to forget and be swept up in the urgency that surrounded him, the screams and cries of embattled men and creatures.

All thought of Reality faded away as he looked around himself for familiar forms—for humans, Elves, unicorns—and saw none. To his left, a phalanx of towering figures in faceless red armor, twice as tall as a man, waded slowly into battle, swinging thick black clubs slowly before them and chanting rhythmically in deep rumbling voices. On his right, he heard a rumble of hooves, and turned to see a horde of bizarre cavalry rush forward, overtaking the giants. The animals were ponylike, but squatter and stockier, with cloven hooves, yellow eyes, and hairless skin and tails. They snapped and squealed at one another as they ran, like pigs or rats.

Their riders matched their mounts in a chilling way; just as stomach-churning, as bestial, and as terrifying. They were the size of children, but their bodies were thick and apelike with muscle, and their skins were the dark purple-grey of an old bruise. Protruding yellow teeth, like a forest boar’s, deformed their mouths, giving their faces a brutish aspect, and their fingers ended in long hooked claws like a badger’s. They were dressed in rough animal skins, with what looked like animal bones braided into their coarse black hair, and they howled maniacally as they rode. Each carried an iron hammer and a long hooked knife thrust through his belt, the weapons dark with old blood.

Were these the Allies of whom Jermayan had spoken so proudly? Kellen wondered in horror. He looked behind them, to where their General stood before his bright silken tent, its banners flowing proudly against the sky.

Saw the glorious ornamented armor—

Saw the wings—

And realized, with a disappointment too deep for despair, that the Kellen who fought here today, the Kellen who rode his dragon high above the battle, the dragonrider who shared his name …

Fought at the side of the Endarkened.

But he lost. Jermayan said they lost! Kellen told himself desperately.

Across the field, another dragon, then another, launched into the sky.

Fervently, Kellen urged himself to wake up. He didn’t want to see any more. But all he seemed to be able to do was move himself from the hilltop—for so it had been, a thousand years ago—down onto the plain of battle itself.

It was horrible.

Here humans and Elves—and other creatures for whom he had no name—fought and bled and died. It was his own battle with the hill-bandits, magnified a thousand, a million times. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could plan something like this—or direct it—or be willing to go through it twice. He stood it for only a moment before he began to run. He didn’t care what this was—dream, nightmare, vision—he couldn’t stand it. If he couldn’t wake up, he had to get away.

Above him, the two dragons wheeled and screamed, attacking the third that the other-Kellen rode. Their wings cast flashes of blinding light down onto the battlefield, as though someone overhead were holding a giant reflecting mirror over an anthill.

Suddenly, there was a great ripple of magic across the field, and the light became brighter. With the sudden intuition of dreams, Kellen realized that up until now both armies had been fighting in a sort of spell-cast gloom that the Allied Wildmages had been able to break. He stopped and looked back.

The Endarkened forces were burning.

Not all of them, but enough. The horrible dwarves on their misshapen ponies had burst into flame and were running in circles, screaming, to be easily slain by the nearest Elf or human. The giants had stopped where they stood, toppling to the ground like disenchanted stone golems. Elsewhere on the field, other smoky pillars of flame indicated that there were other creatures of the Endarkened’s forces that could not bear the touch of true sunlight either—and whose end was far more spectacular. As Kellen stared, sickened and fascinated, the Allied army began to surge forward, across the battlefield toward the enemy position, regrouping and slaughtering as it went.

It was a great victory.

It was sickening.

It was too much.

“No! Make it stop! No! No—”

“Kellen!”

HE awoke—for real, this time—to find Jermayan shaking him, a hand over his mouth to muffle his shouts, and Shalkan standing over him anxiously.

“Are you all right?” Jermayan said when he was sure Kellen was really awake.

“I … sure. It was just a bad dream,” Kellen said, sitting up. But the details of the dream didn’t fade, the way dreams did with waking. If anything, they seemed to become clearer, sharper, as if they were an old memory that had just been waiting to be summoned to life.

Had that been him—some ancient version of him? Or had the coincidence of names been no more than that—a coincidence? Lycaelon had always taken pains to remind him that he’d been named for a revered ancestor, that generations of Kellen Tavadons had upheld the honor and traditions of House Tavadon in Armethalieh. He wondered how proud his father would be of the name if he knew …

“It must have been some dream,” Shalkan commented sourly.

Kellen looked around. It was still full dark, sometime after moonset but long before dawn. Jermayan had lit the lantern, and was making up the fire to brew tea, the Elven panacea for all ills.

“It was,” Kellen said in a low voice. He hesitated, not wanting to make things more real by speaking about them. But hadn’t keeping secrets caused enough trouble already?

Enough of secrets. If there is something wrong with me, I want Jermayan to know about it, before—

Before it was too late? But what if it already was too late?

But perhaps it wasn’t. All he could do was to tell the dream, and let events play out as they would. “I dreamed about the battle … the one Jermayan said was fought here. I don’t know if it was real, or just my imagination, but …” He stopped, reliving the horror of the moment when he realized that the other-Kellen was fighting for the enemy, had actually embraced the fate that Kellen himself feared so greatly.

“Probably a little of both,” Shalkan said. “You’d have to be blind and deaf not to feel a little of what happened here, but we didn’t have a lot of choice about where to stop, really. So what did you see?”

“Monsters,” Kellen said bitterly. “Monsters, and dragons … they always talk about war like it’s such a grand adventure, but if real battles are anything like what I saw, why would anybody ever do that twice?”

“Because the alternative to fighting is worse,” the unicorn said somberly. “Or people think it is. And in this case, we know it was. But that isn’t what’s bothering you, is it?”

“No.” Kellen glanced past Shalkan’s shoulder. Jermayan was staying politely on the other side of the campfire, keeping busy with the tea-things and pretending not to hear, but Kellen already knew that he wasn’t out of earshot. Never mind. At the moment, he valued even the illusion of privacy for what he had to say.

“There was someone there. A Wildmage, I guess—an evil one. With my name. I didn’t see him clearly. He had a dragon. And he was fighting for the Endarkened.” The words came quick and harsh, and having said them, Kellen felt better and worse, as if he’d managed to gag up a meal of bad meat.

“That’s bad,” Shalkan agreed, lowering his head to rub his cheek against Kellen’s in a quick caress. “But it could be nothing more than your own fears talking, you know.”

“I know,” Kellen said, trying to convince himself.

“No one knows the names of all the Mages who were corrupted,” Jermayan said, coming to kneel beside Kellen and place a cup of tea in his hand. “When we return, I can go to the Hall of Memory and discover what I can, if you wish. But no matter what I find: that man is not you. That you share a name, even a lineage, means nothing. A man is not his bloodline; a man is what he is.”

“I know,” Kellen said miserably. He lifted the cup to his lips and drank, savoring the heat and the unfamiliar spicy flavor. They might be forced to exist on Elven trail-rations, but Jermayan had still packed a dozen different kinds of tea, suitable for every occasion. And the “small magics” of the Elves ensured you could get a hot cup of tea on short notice, even in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere.

“It just … I know it probably didn’t even happen, and if it did, it’s just some kind of coincidence. But I feel … betrayed. It’s stupid, but there just isn’t any other way to describe it,” Kellen said.

“Yes,” Jermayan said softly. “And so were the great dragons of the earth betrayed in those days, who bound their immortality to a span of mortal years in a bond of love and more than love such as even we Elves can only dimly guess at, and found that love profaned in unimaginable ways when their Wildmage mates were corrupted by the blandishments of the Endarkened. It was in many ways the worst of all of the betrayals of the War, for the dragons could do nothing but what their mates willed, and so they found themselves fighting friends, battling their own kindred, and could not stop themselves, though their great hearts were breaking. Perhaps it is that sorrow you sense here, Kellen.”

“This just gets better, doesn’t it?” Kellen said bitterly. It wasn’t bad enough that Darkmages were creatures of cruelty and evil—no, they had to ruin the lives of creatures who had even given up immortality for them. He took a deep breath and sighed. “Look. It won’t be dawn for hours yet, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep, but why don’t you at least try to? No sense in everybody sitting up just because I’m seeing ghosts.”

“Fair words, Wildmage,” Jermayan said gravely.

Kellen had thought Jermayan might argue with him, but apparently Jermayan did him the courtesy of assuming he knew what he was talking about. Without further discussion, the Elven Knight took the empty cup back from Kellen and banked the fire again before returning to his bedroll.

Kellen pulled his blankets up around his shoulders more firmly. It was cold out here.

“You can use me for a backrest,” Shalkan invited, kneeling down behind him. “Warmer that way.”

“Thanks,” Kellen said, leaning back cautiously into the unicorn’s muscular softness. Soon the small camp was utterly still once more, save for the blowing of the wind and the faint rustling of the grass. The stars were very bright overhead.

He’d wondered if Jermayan might have put sleeping herbs into his tea, but apparently the Elven Knight trusted him to make his own decisions and take their consequences, for Kellen remained wide awake. The memory of the dream-landscape overlaid the real one he now saw—a thousand years ago the land here had been more even. Forested, as Jermayan had said. Now the terrain was all blasted away to almost bare rock, the gentle slopes he remembered from the dream entirely gone.

And it really didn’t matter whose magic had done it, Allied or Endarkened, because the end result was the same. What used to be the Forest of Tilinaparanwira was a wasteland, and even another thousand years wouldn’t be enough time to make it the way it had been before the Great War. All the survivors of that war could try to do was hold on to what they had left, because even as hard as they’d fought, they hadn’t fought hard enough to defeat their enemy once and for all. Shadow Mountain had survived, and the Endarkened were ready to go to war again.

And if there was another war, no matter who won it, would there be anything left at all this time?

If? In the cold hour before dawn, Kellen had the depressing certainty that it wasn’t an if. It was a when. And that when wasn’t far off.

Chapter Twenty-three

Allies and Enemies

HE DOZED OFF finally just as the sky was beginning to lighten, to be awakened as Shalkan moved out from under him.

“Rise and shine,” the unicorn said, looking down at him. “It’s the start of a beautiful new day.”

“I’ll rise,” muttered Kellen, rolling over on his stomach and hugging the blankets to him, “but I refuse to shine.”

And in fact the day was hardly beautiful. Though the night had been clear and icy cold, clouds had rolled in toward morning, and the day had dawned—if you could call it that—cold, grey, damp, and overcast. Kellen gave thanks for the thousandth time that Elven armor didn’t rust, but there was no power on earth that could make it warm and inviting on a day like this. Even a mug of hot tea and a bowl of soup did little to cut the biting chill.

He’d been going to do a Finding Spell to seek their path this morning, but after his experiences of the night before, Kellen hesitated to work any magic, still feeling off-balance and out of sorts. If they didn’t find any clear sign that they were on the right road by the time they stopped for their midday rest, he’d do one then, but he hoped he wouldn’t have to. The thought of the mounting cycle of debt and obligation that was a necessary part of a Wildmage’s life still bothered him. In the normal course of things, he wouldn’t mind—or not much—but right now, when any Mageprice might take him away from the vitally necessary task of placing the keystone at the Barrier, Kellen grudged any spell he needed to work, for fear its obligation would lead him astray.

You’ll know what to do when the time comes… . All very well when you were not surrounded by enemies, with Demons sniffing for you, when you were in, say, Merryvale or the Wildwood and the most dangerous creature in the forest was Cormo. And it was easy enough to try and tell himself that since the Wild Magic “wanted” the Barrier broken, it wouldn’t put an obligation on him that interfered with that.

Easy to tell himself that, but hard to convince himself. It was a matter of faith, he supposed, and he just didn’t have a lot of faith in anything or anyone, when it came right down to it.

Not even in himself.

And the consequences of refusing to pay for his magic were not to be considered … .

IT was a relief, coming down off the hillside, to strike a real road at last. It wasn’t what Kellen would have considered a road at the start of their journey, but after so long traveling through the Lost Lands, even this narrow beaten track—obviously going from Somewhere to Somewhere, and frequently used by someone—was a welcome change, providing sure footing for horse and mule. The only thing that marred Kellen’s relief was that he still hadn’t seen any more clear signs of Endarkened Taint in their surroundings—although that wasn’t altogether surprising, since there wasn’t much around them to see besides rocks and a little sparse grass. It was hard for either grass or rocks to go awry in any noticeable way. How warped would grass have to get before he’d notice the Taint?

I suppose it would have to be purple, or something.

There hadn’t even been birds in the sky.

Up ahead the trail forked. One branch led down, into a broad valley, while the other curved off and away around the side of a rocky hillside. Either could have been the right road.

But there was a third path, almost invisible, a narrow goat track leading up over the crest of the hill at right angles to their present course.

You will know what to do when the time comes.

Certainty descended over Kellen like an invisible cloak. This was the moment the Wild Magic had prepared him for. Now was the time to pay his Price.

“Which way?” Jermayan said, reining Valdien to a stop.

“This way,” Kellen said, pointing toward the hill.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jermayan scoffed. “It goes almost straight up—and probably back the way we came, besides. The animals will never make it, and—Kellen! Come back here!”

But Kellen wasn’t listening. There. There! Something—someone—needs me. Is in trouble! He couldn’t have turned aside from the path now if he’d wanted to. And he didn’t want to. “Come on,” he said to Shalkan. “We’ve got to hurry.”

He didn’t know where the sudden sense of urgency came from, but the unicorn accepted it without question. Shalkan bounded up the goat track and lunged along it, as surefooted as the goats it was meant for. Kellen clung to the saddle, ignoring Jermayan’s frustrated shouting somewhere behind him.

They reached the top of the hill, and Shalkan broke into a bounding run. Kellen didn’t know where they were going, but the demand of his obligation drew him onward, and he followed it without hesitation.

In the valley ahead, there was actually some healthy-looking vegetation, trees, a stream—not lush, by any standards, but far more livable than the country they’d been passing through. Shalkan bounded over the stream, and headed up the hillside, following that goat track around the curve of the hill, and a small stone hut appeared up ahead, just under the crest of the hill, on the lee side—a shepherd’s croft, undoubtedly, the sort of crude construction of stone, mud, and thatch that the natives of the Lost Lands might build.

It was the first he’d seen—after their encounter with the Centaur-shepherd, he and Jermayan had steered well clear of any possible locals—but it didn’t take any great act of imagination to figure out what the hut represented, and what sort of inhabitant it had, especially with the small herd of agitated goats milling and bleating in the stone pen beside the door. The only question was, why had the magic drawn him here?

Who was it that was in trouble?

Shalkan slowed from his bounding gallop to a fast trot as they drew closer, caution overtaking urgency.

Then, shattering the silence, ringing out across the valley, came screams. A woman’s screams, coming from inside the hut.

Kellen didn’t have to think twice. He kicked free of the stirrups and vaulted from Shalkan’s back, running toward the door of the hut.

The hut was small and dark, but enough light came in through the tiny windows to allow Kellen to see that someone large had someone else—the woman who had screamed, almost certainly—trapped in a corner of the hut, savagely beating her with a short club. That was enough for him. He crammed himself inside—there wasn’t a lot of room, and three people seriously crowded the tiny hut—and grabbed the man’s arm before he could land another blow.

If the shepherd was surprised to have his beating interrupted by a knight in full armor, he wasn’t surprised enough to keep from attacking Kellen. He swung his club savagely at Kellen’s head, and only Kellen’s helmet saved him from a nasty concussion. The club was thick wood, wrapped in bands of black lead. It was a deadly weapon, meant for killing, and the blow rattled Kellen’s teeth and left his ears ringing.

There wasn’t enough room here for Kellen to draw or use his sword, but he had his fists, and his armored gauntlets, and plenty of muscles from Jermayan’s sword-training and his time in the Wildwood. And he’d taken—and given—enough beatings growing up back in the City to know what to do in a fight.

But this wasn’t the place to try.

He wrestled the man around, then rammed his shoulder into the bully’s gut and shoved, carrying them both outside. They tumbled over together, but the man was swift, strong, and agile, and scrambled to his feet as quickly as Kellen did.

Now Kellen had room to pull his sword—

No.

Blade against club, however deadly the club—no.

He waded in with his armored fists. He took a good pounding—and he added several new dents to his armor, with corresponding bruises beneath—but at last Kellen was able to finish the fight with a solid blow to the gut, followed by a cracking—and heartfelt—punch to the shepherd’s jaw.

The man toppled over like a felled tree, measuring his full length on the ground. He was unconscious, and would stay that way for some time, Kellen hoped uncharitably. But he was alive. Which he would not have been if Kellen had pulled his sword.

Kellen turned back to the hut, to the shepherd’s victim. He had to bend down a little to get in through the door, and in the dimness, all he could see was a huddled female shape in the corner. She was completely muffled in a long dark cloak of homespun with a deep hood. Kellen lifted her gently, hoping she didn’t have any broken bones. At least she was alive as well. A few moments later, and she wouldn’t have been.

He carried her out of the hut, seeing without any particular surprise that Jermayan had finally elected to follow him. The Elven Knight dismounted and came hurrying forward just as Kellen lay the woman gently on the ground and looked up toward him, about to explain what he’d found when he reached the shepherd’s hut.

But to his shock, Jermayan’s face contorted with horror and anger, and the Elven Knight drew his sword and lunged forward, intent upon attacking the woman Kellen had just rescued.

“No!” Ignoring his aches and bruises, Kellen jumped into Jermayan’s path, grappling with him. A quick glance over his shoulder showed him that the woman was awake and moving, crawling weakly away. There was something not quite right about her face, but Kellen didn’t have time to figure out what. Jermayan was far stronger than he was, and determined to free himself from Kellen in order to reach her.

He held tight to the wrist of Jermayan’s sword-hand, and held him like a wrestler trying to force his opponent out of the ring.

“Don’t you see what she is?” Jermayan shouted in his ear. “She’s a Demon! I’ve got to kill her!”

No. If he was sure of anything at the moment, Kellen was sure of that. The Wild Magic had brought him here. The Wild Magic was Anathema to anything Demonic, if Jermayan and Idalia were to be believed. So whatever this looked like, the woman couldn’t be a Demon.

He had to believe that … .

“Think!” he urged Jermayan, holding the struggling Elf’s sword-arm in a vise-grip. “If she’s a Demon, why was she letting that lout in there beat her to death?”

“To trap us, you fool!” Jermayan shouted in exasperation.

Kellen finally managed to get the leverage he’d been seeking, twisting Jermayan’s sword-hand so that he had to let go of the blade or—even in armor—end up with a broken wrist, and with a well-placed shove, sent Jermayan sprawling. When Jermayan hit the ground, he lost his grip on his sword, and it went slithering away over the wiry grass.

But Jermayan didn’t give up. He struggled to his feet once more, obviously deciding that Kellen had to be dealt with before the Demon.

Kellen risked another wary backward glance. The woman was sitting with her back to the hut now, watching both of them with an expression of terror on her face. Her skin was the rosy-red of ripe cherries; her short curly hair a darker shade of the same red, and her ears were as pointed as an Elf’s. Pale gold horns sprouted from just above her slanting eyebrows and curved back over her head. Her eyes were the same yellow-gold as a cat’s, with the same narrow slitted pupils.

He looked back barely in time to block Jermayan’s attack. He knew Jermayan didn’t actually want to kill him, and unfortunately there were few things you could do to a man in a full suit of Elven plate armor short of that. But suppose Jermayan managed to knock him unconscious, or tie him up somehow? What would happen to the woman then?

Then Jermayan slammed into him, knocking him to the ground. As the two men rolled noisily over and over, Jermayan’s fingers scrabbled for the straps of Kellen’s helmet. Kellen gritted his teeth. If Jermayan could manage to get his helmet off, it would be fairly easy for the Elven Knight to knock him senseless.

“Stop it. This has gone on long enough.” Shalkan’s voice wasn’t loud, but it carried, and there was a power in that command that shocked both of them into quiet. For a moment Kellen and Jermayan stopped fighting to stare at the unicorn.

Shalkan paced over to where the woman huddled against the side of the hut and lowered his horn until it touched the side of her face.

Nothing happened.

“But the touch of a unicorn’s horn will slay a Demon!” Jermayan gasped in shock. He got to his knees, releasing Kellen.

Shalkan knelt down and placed his head in the woman’s lap. She flung her arms around his neck and buried her face in his fur. Great wracking sobs shook her.

Kellen glanced back at Jermayan—if there was one thing all Jermayan’s lessons had taught him, it was never to take your attention off your enemy until that enemy was unconscious or dead. Preferably dead, though of course he had absolutely no desire to kill Jermayan.

But Jermayan no longer seemed interested in fighting. He was staring at Shalkan and the woman with an expression as close to utter shock and dismay as Kellen had ever seen on his face, as if everything Jermayan had believed in had been brutally overturned, all in a single moment.

“Still so sure of yourself?” Kellen muttered crossly, rolling to his knees and getting to his feet.

“Apparently,” Shalkan said caustically, keeping an eye on them both, “things are not what they seem. And we need to be gone from here before that brute that was trying to kill this child wakes up. Gentlemen, shall we?”

“Go on,” Kellen said to Jermayan, still not really willing to trust him too near the woman he’d just rescued. While Jermayan seemed to have had a change of heart—or at least a profound shock—Kellen didn’t really trust what he didn’t understand. He never would have thought that Jermayan would attack him, after all, and a moment ago, he had. “We’ll be right behind you.”

As Jermayan silently went in search of his dropped sword, Kellen shook himself like a dog, that being the quickest way to set his armor and surcoat straight.

He sounded, he thought ruefully, like an entire blacksmith’s shop falling downstairs.

Not that the noise he and Jermayan had made fighting had been any quieter.

Carefully, he approached Shalkan and the strange woman. He was thankful he’d had the foresight to leave the keystone on the unicorn’s saddle this morning—if it hadn’t gotten broken in the brawl in the hut, it certainly wouldn’t have survived Jermayan’s attack afterward.

“Uh … hello?” he said tentatively.

The woman raised her head from Shalkan’s neck with a gasp, and cringed back. She was much younger than Kellen had originally thought—a girl, not a woman, someone close to his own age. And terrified.

“Don’t worry,” he said hastily. “I’m not going to hurt you. Nobody is. Not even Jermayan. Not now that Shalkan’s proved that you aren’t—what you look like.”

Very tactful, Kellen.

“He’s my unicorn,” Kellen added, rather awkwardly.

“It would be more accurate to say,” Shalkan drawled, “that you’re my boy. But let it pass.”

“Anyway,” Kellen said, hurrying on, “we’ve got to get out of here before the bas—I mean, the fellow who was hurting you—wakes up and causes more trouble. Do you think maybe you could ride Shalkan if I helped you mount?” He crossed his fingers mentally as he said it, hoping that would be okay with Shalkan as well. But the unicorn had let her touch him …

She blinked up at him, doubtfully, as if she didn’t quite believe what she was hearing. “I … yes,” she said in a trembling voice.

Shalkan stood up and backed away so that she could stand, and she reluctantly held a hand out to Kellen. He took it without hesitation, drawing her to her feet.

She was limping badly, unable to put much weight upon her right foot at all, and after a few steps Kellen simply picked her up and set her on Shalkan’s back. Shalkan made no objection.

“Free with my favors, aren’t you?” Shalkan said in a voice so low that only Kellen could hear.

“Come on,” Kellen said, pointing off to where Jermayan and the mule had gone.

NOW that the Obligation had left him, Kellen felt the mild disorientation he’d come to expect after the Wild Magic was satisfied, but that didn’t stop him from thinking clearly as he walked along beside Shalkan. Yes, the strange girl looked the way he’d been told Demons looked—red skin, slitted pupils, claws, horns, and all. And Jermayan had certainly thought she was one.

But he’d also said that all Demons were evil, and could not bear the touch of a living unicorn’s horn … and she’d certainly proven that she could.

And the Wild Magic had sent Kellen to rescue her as the price for Jermayan’s healing. And Kellen knew he wasn’t Tainted—confused, maybe, but not Tainted. Whatever might happen in the future, whatever his ancestors might have done, he’d so far paid every price the Wild Magic had asked of him willingly. And Shalkan … Shalkan was perfect.

In a way, it was a kind of problem in Maths … you couldn’t end up with evil if there hadn’t been evil in the equation to start with.

And he knew with a conviction too deep and certain to put into words, that she wasn’t evil. But what was she, then? Could you look like a Demon, but not be one?

The answers to that would have to wait until they reached a safe stopping place.

The three of them caught up with Jermayan at the point where the goat track plunged over the edge of the hill. Jermayan untied the mule’s lead-rope from Valdien’s saddle and tossed it to Kellen without a word, then headed Valdien down the trail. He didn’t look back, either at Kellen or at Shalkan and his new rider.

Apparently the truce that Shalkan had forced upon the Elven Knight was something Jermayan was finding very hard to bear.

“I’ll wait till he’s down, then follow him down with Lily. You wait till I’ve gotten down with her, so falling gravel doesn’t spook her, okay?”

“I will,” the girl said softly. She’d pulled the hood of her cloak up again as she rode, and her face was in shadow once more, as if she was ashamed to be seen.

Maybe she was. Or maybe it was just good sense. It stood to reason that just about anyone you encountered was going to try and kill you if you looked like a Demon, after all! Unless, of course, they were Demons.

Which, if you weren’t a Demon, but only looked like one, might be even more dangerous …

Kellen glanced around. From the hilltop he had a good view of the surrounding countryside, and he could see that the right-hand fork of the trail looped around the hill and seemed to run parallel to it. They might as well take the left-hand fork if they wanted to get anywhere, and no Finding Spell needed. That was a relief.

The bruises he’d gotten from the fight at the cottage were starting to ache, and his skin was probably the color of Jermayan’s pretty blue armor in places by now, between the shepherd’s club and Jermayan’s fists. If there’d been any additional price to be paid for his magic, Kellen was pretty sure he’d paid it—in full.

Valdien reached the bottom of the twisting track. To Kellen’s relief, Jermayan didn’t just ride on, but waited for the others to join him. Kellen started down, leading the reluctant mule. His metal boots slipped and skidded on the dusty trail, and the mule set her feet and grunted her displeasure, but they reached the bottom without mishap.

He’d hoped—now that the two of them had a little privacy—that they might talk things out, but Jermayan continued to ignore him utterly. Kellen set his jaw. Fine. Let him.

“I’m here,” Shalkan said.

Kellen turned and regarded the unicorn, suddenly realizing they had another problem. He wasn’t looking forward to spending the rest of the day on foot, and it would slow their speed enormously. On the other hand, he knew the girl couldn’t walk, and there was absolutely no point in asking Jermayan to take her up behind him on Valdien. He could Heal her, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to risk another spell—both because of adding another layer of obligation, and because of the possibility, which seemed much more real now, that the enemy might be watching.

“I can carry both of you. She doesn’t weigh much,” Shalkan said. “And I’m a great deal stronger than you think. She gets down, you mount, then she gets up again behind you. Simple.”

Simple it might be, but it took a few minutes to accomplish, and when it was done, Shalkan’s back felt rather … crowded. But as soon as they were both settled, Shalkan trotted off, leading the party down the left-hand trail and leaving Jermayan to bring the mule, quite as if he was in charge now, and not the Elven Knight.

Perhaps he was.

IT was only after they’d started off that Kellen realized he’d just assumed without asking that the girl was going to come along with them. It had been obvious he couldn’t leave her where she was. Even though he and Jermayan were riding into danger, she’d been in danger when he’d found her.

“Um … I know this is a little late to ask, but … is there somewhere safe we could take you? Do you have any family?” Kellen asked.

“Safe? Me?” The girl laughed bitterly. “I have no family, or none that would not hate me on sight. You’ve seen my face, gentle Knight. Is there anyone in all the world who wouldn’t slay me the moment they saw it?”

“Well,” Kellen said after a moment’s thought, “I didn’t.”

There was a moment of surprised silence from behind him.

“No,” she agreed. “You didn’t. And your companion does not love you for that, I think. But … tell me … if you don’t mind, that is … what are two knights—one of them an Elven Knight—doing here in the mountains? Elves don’t usually come here.”

Kellen hesitated—not because he thought the girl was Tainted—he was certain she wasn’t—but because he wasn’t sure he ought to tell anyone what they were doing here. But Shalkan settled the matter in his usual pragmatic fashion.

“I don’t suppose I need to tell you what Demons are, do I?” the unicorn said.

Kellen felt the girl shudder, even through his armor.

“I thought not,” Shalkan said. “And as you probably also know, Demons hate Elves more than they hate any of the other races of the Bright World, and so they’ve set a nasty spell to destroy the Elven lands, by making sure no rain falls there. Ever.”

“Ever?” the girl said. “They—would make a desert of it? All of the Elven lands?”

“At least,” Shalkan replied.

“Goddess bless—” she said, sounding shaken.

Kellen flicked a glance sideways at Jermayan, who was riding at Shalkan’s flank. The Elven Knight’s face was set in what was threatening to become a perpetual glower, but there was little Jermayan could do to stop Shalkan from saying whatever he wanted. Even among the Elves, Kellen was coming to realize, unicorns were a law unto themselves.

“So Kellen here, who’s a Wildmage, like his sister Idalia, is taking the spell she made to the Barrier that Shadow Mountain has set up to keep the rain from falling. Once Kellen sets Idalia’s spell against theirs, the Barrier will fall and the rains will come to Elven lands again. The only trouble is, nobody’s quite sure where Shadow Mountain hid their spell. So that’s what we’re out here looking for. And hoping we find it before they find us, milady.”

“But—if you’re looking for Demon magic—I think I know where you want to go!” the girl exclaimed in surprise.

“I told you it was a trap,” growled Jermayan, breaking his long silence.

Kellen clutched at the front of the saddle as Shalkan whirled, fleet as a cat, to block Valdien’s path. Behind him, he felt the girl clutch at his belt.

“One—more—word—” the unicorn said through gritted teeth, “and I promise you, Child of Leaf and Star, that your sweet soprano voice will be the admiration of everyone you meet for the rest of your very long life.”

Kellen stared at the unicorn’s horn. It had taken on an odd pink flush he’d never seen before. He looked up at Jermayan. The Elf was staring at the horn as well, face pale and eyes wide.

There was a moment’s tense silence, as the wind whistled among the rocks all around them, and at last Jermayan looked away, bowing his head in submission.

Still nobody said anything, and Shalkan didn’t move.

“You can tell where we want to go? How?” Kellen said at last, to break the silence. He hated seeing Jermayan being put in such a humiliating position, even if it was almost entirely of Jermayan’s making, and probably the politest thing to do, under the circumstances, was to pretend he hadn’t noticed anything.

“You know—you can see—I have Demon blood,” the girl said painfully.

Kellen waited for another outburst from Jermayan, but the Elven Knight had been thoroughly cowed by Shalkan. Shalkan stayed where he was, and Jermayan didn’t even seem willing to move Valdien around the unicorn and continue on their way. It was clear he did not intend to move until Shalkan gave him permission.

“I will tell you the whole story soon, I promise, but I have been hiding from the Demons all my life, and the only way I was able to do it was because I can feel the presence of Demons as a kind of sickness that gets stronger the closer they come. As you can well believe, I’ve worked hard to hone this gift so that it will give me a sense of the direction from which the danger comes as well. I—if they ever find me”—her voice was shaking—“they will do worse to me than any human or Elf ever could.”

Kellen heard the terror there, and he wanted to offer comfort, but couldn’t imagine how. Surely Jermayan heard it too! How could he hear it and not be moved?

Because maybe he isn’t thinking?

“For the past few days—and now, in the direction we’re riding—I have been feeling that same unease,” she continued. “Or—would sickness be the right word? That something is wrong, Tainted—no, not Tainted, merely, but polluted. Not a Demon, but something that tells me that Demonic magic is near, and growing stronger. If we ride toward that, surely you’ll find what you’re seeking?” she finished in a rush.

It was up to him, Kellen realized in dismay. Jermayan was too caught up in his own anger and fear to think clearly, and Shalkan couldn’t—or wouldn’t—make these kind of decisions. Like it or not, Kellen was the leader.

He’d always known that, but somehow it had never been quite so important before. For the first time, Kellen realized how much was riding on the decisions he had to make, and that only he could make them. It was up to him not only to decide to trust this chance-met stranger, but to trust her instincts and judgment as well. To guess, and guess rightly (he hoped), that she was not only a good person, but had the wisdom to use her gifts in the best way they could be used in this situation.

That was what made this a hard choice. It wasn’t as simple as deciding whether or not she was good. She was good—both he and Shalkan knew that much, even if Jermayan was still unconvinced. What Kellen had to decide now was whether she was smart, and clever, and levelheaded enough to lead them close to trouble but not into it.

The Wild Magic led me to her. But had that been for her sake only, or for all of them? Was she a key to this, or only incidental?

“What’s your name?” Kellen asked almost irrelevantly, still sitting on Shalkan’s back in the middle of the trail as if they had all the time in the world to figure things out.

“Vestakia,” she said, sounding surprised.

“Vestakia,” he said. He was playing for time, he knew, hoping the Powers behind the Wild Magic would send him certainty, knowing all the while that the decision was going to be his alone, without any outside help. “Have you lived up here all your life?”

“All eighteen years of it,” she said. She sounded puzzled now, probably wondering why they hadn’t started down the trail again. “I’ve been alone since my aunt died, and that was four years ago.”

“Can you … can you tell how far away the Demon-magic is, as well as what direction?” he asked, thinking hard.

“I can tell how far away one of Them is, right enough,” she answered promptly. “But what you’re looking for … I don’t know. All I know is that it must be bad, if I can feel it at all. As bad as the Demons themselves.”

His last hope was gone. If she was able to tell them how far away from the Barrier she was at any given time, that would make following her gift less of a danger. But since she couldn’t, Vestakia might, even with the best of intentions, lead them right into it without warning.

But the Wild Magic sent you to her for a reason. She has the power to take you to the Barrier. Use it.

“Show us the way,” Kellen said, making his decision.

As if his words had been a signal, Shalkan turned back along the trail.

FOR the rest of the day they followed Vestakia’s halting directions as she led them deeper into the Lost Lands. Even the sparse wiry mountain grass was gone from the rocky hillsides now, and the only vegetation was a thick, dry, mosslike growth, or tough lichens. Vestakia said that no one, even outlaws, came this far into the mountains, and those that did never came back.

Kellen could tell that though Jermayan said nothing (his silent frustration and anger were nearly palpable), he ached to accuse her of leading them in circles, but Kellen didn’t think she was. She’d said that the presence of Demons—or Demon-magic—made her ill, and she seemed to grow weaker and more uncomfortable as the day wore on and the sun sank westward. Soon they’d have to find a place to stop, even though there didn’t seem to be any good ones.

The thought of stopping—of sleeping—anywhere in these mountains made Kellen profoundly uncomfortable, but what choice did they have? He had no idea how close they were to the Barrier, and Vestakia didn’t seem to be sure either.

What he did know was that he’d been right to trust her to show them the way. There’d been no further signs to indicate their path—not very surprising, as there was nothing living to be warped out of its natural pattern. Kellen knew he could never have found this route without spells, and he was more and more unwilling to cast another spell for any reason.

“Vestakia?” he said when she hadn’t spoken for a while.

There was no answer, and suddenly he realized that all her weight was leaning against his back, and that she was starting to slide sideways.

Shalkan stopped as Kellen wriggled free of the saddle, just in time to catch the girl as she slumped to the ground. He lowered her gently and turned back the hood of her cloak. She was gasping for air, and her eyes were half-closed.

“Vestakia? Vestakia, can you hear me?”

“I … oh, it hurts so much!” She rolled to her knees and retched weakly.

Kellen hated to badger her, but he had no choice. “Vestakia, is it near? Which way?”

“There.” Still on her hands and knees, she pointed up between two boulders, at a nearly sheer half-dome of rock. “Near. It must be.”

“We can do it,” Shalkan said, looking the way she had pointed. “But not in the dark. And the animals can’t do it at all. We’d have to leave them here.”

“Stay here tonight?” Kellen said incredulously, gazing down at Vestakia. “She can’t!”

“There are some medicines in your packs that will help her. So I suggest you get them,” the unicorn said impassively.

Kellen got to his feet and gazed up at Jermayan, who was still sitting astride Valdien, gazing down at Vestakia’s misery as if it had nothing to do with him.

“Well? Are you going to just sit there? Do what you came here to do and be of some use,” Kellen snapped harshly, in a voice he hardly recognized as his. “Or I’ll tell Idalia you failed in your task to help me. And how. And why. And she can make up her own mind whether or not you were worthy of her.”

Jermayan flinched back as if Kellen had slapped him, and turned wordlessly away to dismount and unpack the mule.

A heavy weight of oppression seemed to press down on Kellen’s spirit. It wasn’t just the deadness of this place, the gloomy sky, the unforgiving stone, though all of those contributed to the feeling. Something bad lived here. Something inimical to the human spirit. Vestakia was right, or if not right, very close.

He had to fight himself to keep from crouching down, from looking over his shoulder, from peering at every shadow in search of an enemy. Vestakia was already miserable enough; he didn’t want to terrify her.

Kellen turned back to Vestakia, helping her to sit. “You’ll feel better soon, I promise,” he said, hoping it was true. “Shalkan says we have medicines with us, and you’ll have them soon.”

Vestakia smiled wanly at him, blinking back tears. “Please don’t let them get me, Kellen. I’d rather die than that. Promise me.”

Apparently his attempt to put on a cheerful face wasn’t distracting her. Well, if this place seemed oppressive to him, how bad must it be for her?

“I won’t let the Demons have you,” Kellen promised, realizing with a sinking feeling just what it was he was promising. And Jermayan would probably be happy to kill you whether there was a Demon around or not.

He looked up at the sky, trying to decide how much light they had left. By the position of the sun, it was a few hours before sunset, but darkness came quickly here in the mountains. Even if Shalkan’s remedies worked, and Vestakia was well enough to go on today, there was no guarantee that darkness wouldn’t find them halfway along the path, trapped somewhere in the mountains far too near the Barrier.

But Kellen knew he’d been right, too. The thought of camping for the night here on the enemy’s doorstep was not only unthinkable, he suspected it would be impossible. He thought of the dreams he’d had back on the haunted battlefield and shuddered. He wasn’t willing to risk more of the same—or worse. There might not be any sign of opposition yet, but the longer they stayed here, the more likely discovery became. No, they’d go on as soon as possible.

Shalkan had wandered off, and was talking to Jermayan. Kellen would have given a lot to know what that conversation consisted of, but the unicorn’s voice was pitched too low for him to hear. Jermayan was unloading the mule, and unpacking the brazier. Shalkan collected one of the bags in his teeth and sauntered back, depositing it at Kellen’s feet.

“There’s a cup, a black bottle, and a wineskin in there. Put an ounce of the contents of the black bottle into the cup, then fill it up with the wineskin. Then have Vestakia drink it. Jermayan’s brewing tea.” Shalkan’s voice was neutral, conveying nothing of what he might be thinking.

Kellen ought to have expected that. Well, if whatever was in the bottle had allheal in it, the stuff might do Vestakia some good. “Listen, just tell me if Jermayan ever neglects to brew tea when we stop, will you?” he asked Shalkan, trying for a little humor to at least cheer up Vestakia. “If that happens, I’ll know there’s either something seriously wrong with him, or it’s an imposter.”

Shalkan sniggered. Unfortunately, Vestakia didn’t seem to notice, or didn’t realize he was trying to lighten her mood.

Kellen followed the directions meticulously. The contents of the black bottle smelled strongly of herbs, like fresh-cut hay, and the liquid was the bright green of spring leaves, as thick as berry-syrup. The cup was a small one, obviously not meant for ordinary use. It was made of Elven silver, a silver as bright and soft as pure gold. Kellen handled it carefully.

The wineskin contained nothing more exotic than white brandy. It was clear as water, and turned pale green as it mixed with the herbal draught.

“Here,” Kellen said, holding out the cup to Vestakia.

“Oh. I don’t want—”

“Please. Shalkan says it will help.”

“Drink it quickly,” the unicorn advised. “Really quickly.”

Uncertainly, she took the silver cup, and gulped its contents down as fast as she could. A stricken expression crossed her face, and she exploded into a paroxysm of coughing as soon as she’d swallowed.

“It doesn’t taste very good,” Shalkan finished mildly. “Unless you happen to be a horse or some other grass-eater. Now you, Kellen.”

“What does it do?” Kellen asked, suspicious now that he’d seen its effect on Vestakia.

“Among other things, it closes down the magical senses, though not for very long. You’ll need the breathing space. You may not think you can sense the Barrier from here, but you can. Drink it.”

Vestakia stopped coughing and sputtering. “That was horrible!” she said. “But … I feel better now. Thank you.” She took a deep breath that turned into a sigh of relief.

Kellen looked at the cup and the bottle and winced. But Shalkan had never given him bad advice yet, and if his mounting despair was due to sensing the Barrier—well, he needed the help. Much worse, and he’d start weeping over trifles. Or he’d sit down in the middle of the path and refuse to go on. Quickly, he mixed his own dose, and drank.

The brandy seared his mouth and throat with choking fire, and did nothing to mask the incredible gagging bitterness of the herbal liquor. Even braced for it, Kellen choked and sputtered nearly as much as Vestakia had, swallowing over and over to try to get the taste out of his mouth. But once the burning and bitterness subsided, he did feel better. Some of the despair lifted. Now, he was merely depressed.

And who wouldn’t be, around here?

Kellen investigated the bag further, discovering it was the first-aid kit. He pulled out the jar of allheal salve and a roll of bandages.

“You were limping earlier. Which ankle is it? If I use some of this on it and strap it up tightly, you should be able to walk.” I hope, he added to himself. “I wish I could Heal you, but I … don’t dare,” he finished, feeling ashamed.

“You couldn’t do it right now, anyway,” Shalkan said helpfully. “Not after drinking that.”

“It’s because it would call Them, isn’t it?” Vestakia said, shuddering. “Never mind. I’d rather bleed to death horribly than do anything to summon one of Them, and this close …” She shivered again, wrapping her cloak tightly around herself.

“Even without magic, I should take a look at it,” Kellen said. “Some allheal will do a lot to make the bruising heal faster.” Assuming that matters, and we aren’t all dead before morning.

Vestakia seemed to see the sense of that.

“This one,” she said, thrusting out her right foot. “I twisted it when I fell. He’d never have caught me otherwise,” she added proudly.

Kellen removed his gauntlets and eased the boot off. Vestakia was wearing much the same thing the farmers working the fields in Merryvale had been—long tunic, wide calf-length trousers, and heavy boots of rough leather lined in sheepskin. It was the boot that had kept the sprain from being any worse: her ankle was a little swollen, and warm to the touch, but it didn’t seem too painful when Kellen prodded it experimentally, asking her how it felt. With the color of her skin, he wasn’t sure whether he’d be able to tell if it was bruised or not, otherwise.

“I’m afraid this will hurt a little,” he said, as he began to work the salve into her skin. “But it will feel better afterward.”

Vestakia winced as Kellen’s fingers found a particularly sensitive spot. Kellen cast about for something to distract her.

“You said you’d tell us how you came to be here?” he asked. “This would be a good time.” He glanced over his shoulder. Jermayan was taking an awfully long time getting the tea to boil.

“I suppose I owe you the tale,” Vestakia said, hanging her head. “I warn you, Wildmage, it isn’t a pretty one.”

“Well,” Kellen said lightly, “it’s bound to be interesting.”

She managed a wan smile. “My father, as you know already, was a Demon. My mother told us that he called himself the Prince of Shadow Mountain, and though all Demons lie, I have no reason to think that this one time he wasn’t telling the truth.”

Interesting. He wondered why she was so sure, but decided to let Ves takia tell the story in her own way. He could always ask questions later. Beside him, Shalkan was listening with rapt attention.

“My mother was a Wildmage, who lived with her sister in a little village far to the east of here. My father seduced her in human form and got her with child, intending to leave her on some pretext and come back after I was born and claim me for his own. It is a common practice among Demonkind and well known among the Mountain-folk—perhaps you have heard the songs we sing about it?”

Kellen hadn’t. Vestakia shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter, because this time his plan failed. One night my mother wore a Talisman of the Good Goddess made from braided unicorn hair to their bed. He did not recognize it for what it was, and he touched it. It burned him, and he vanished.”

Kellen blinked at that; he’d known that the living unicorns were inimical to Demons, but unicorn hair? He filed the information away for future reference. It could be very useful.

“She knew him for what he was then, of course, but by then it was too late.” Vestakia sighed. “She was with child, of course, and—and that doomed her to lose the life she had always known, and it would be only that, only if she was very fortunate indeed.”

“Why?” he asked, because Vestakia had stopped talking.

“If the villagers found out that she had been Tainted by a Demon’s embrace, even accidentally, they would put her to death,” Vestakia told him flatly. “If they found out she was pregnant by a Demon, they would put her to death even more swiftly—and there was no point in trying to abort in secret what she carried: Demon-children cannot be gotten rid of except by killing the mother. So she faced death twice over for her error—but my mother was a powerful Wildmage, and she was very clever as well, and she was not going to lie down and wait for death.”

If she was anything like you, and I expect she must have been, I can certainly believe that, Kellen thought.

“She took stock of her options and resources, and made plans. No one but she knew that she had taken a lover at all, much less that her lover had been a Demon: she would be disgraced in the eyes of the village elders when she was found to be carrying a bastard, but not murdered—not until the child was born and showed unquestionable signs of Demonic Taint. And—she didn’t intend to give birth to a child that would grow up to destroy and corrupt all that it touched.”

“Well, I can see where that would be a problem,” Kellen replied, keeping his eyes on her ankle, and his tone light, but not too light. He didn’t want her to think he was making fun of her, or not taking her story as seriously as it deserved to be. “I assume she must have had an idea of what to do about it.”

“She did,” Vestakia said solemnly. “She called upon the Wild Magic to help her.”

He blinked. “Oh. My.” It was a completely logical solution, given that the woman in question was a Wildmage, but how many would have had the courage to take it, knowing that the price asked was likely to be very high, and there was no one to bear it but herself? Idalia would, Kellen thought with a flash of pride. But how many others?

“And so according to the ancient ways, because she had asked only for help, and not what kind of help, my mother was offered a choice, and a price.”

He looked up, then, into those solemn, yellow eyes, and thought that he could guess the choice. But he didn’t interrupt Vestakia. Jermayan was eavesdropping, although he pretended otherwise, and he needed to hear this from Vestakia’s lips.

“Her choice was that the child to be could be completely hers in spirit, and its father’s in body; or its father’s in spirit, yet hers in body. So I could look like him, yet be human inside, or look like her, yet be his in every way that mattered—a Demon. No matter which choice she made, she would sacrifice twenty years of her allotted span of years.”

He winced. A hard price; a harder choice. “I think,” Kellen said aloud, “that she must have been very brave.”

Vestakia nodded, accepting his comment as no more than simple fact. “It was—so my aunt always told me later—a hard choice to make, for some claimed that Demons were not by nature evil, and if one could only get an imp young enough, and raise it up in love and law, perhaps its nature could be turned away from Darkness. And if Mama had only taken the choice of having me look human, she could have stayed where she was, among her friends and family, and hoped for the best. Perhaps—so she might have told herself—I could have been turned from my evil ways. And even more temptingly, even if I was evil by nature, there was a good chance that I wouldn’t begin to work my wickedness until I was grown, and due to the nature of her price, she knew she would be dead by then.”

Shalkan made a little, thoughtful sound. “Less risk for her; potentially a disaster for everyone else. Not so much a choice as a temptation?”

“Maybe,” Vestakia acknowledged. “Maybe not. Maybe it is true that Demons are not evil in nature; maybe she would have been doing all of the world a great service by proving it. If it were only her own fate that was at stake, I believe she might have tried it. But it was not. If the child proved to be evil in blood and bone, if my nature had been unredeemable, she would be risking not only her sister’s life and those of everyone in the village—not only with what I might do to them, but in what would certainly happen when my father came for me. And not only theirs, but perhaps the lives of everyone in the surrounding countryside as well, for once Demons are drawn to a hunting ground and find it undefended, they do not stop until they have destroyed everything within reach. Mama saw that one path was easy—for her—and one was hard, but that only one was right. She was very brave,” Vestakia finished proudly. “She told the Good Goddess that she would bear a Demon-appearing but human-spirited child, and sealed her bargain.”

“Good for her.” Shalkan touched Vestakia’s cheek lightly with his horn, and she glowed a little at his praise. Out of the corner of his eyes, Kellen caught Jermayan watching, his frown deepening at this further proof that Vestakia was not what he thought her to be.

She picked up the thread of her story again. “But I would not be born for many moonturns yet, and she had many plans still to make if we were both to survive, for Mama did not intend for either of us to die—nor for either of us to fall into my father’s hands again. She went to her elder sister Patanene, who was unmarried and loved her dearly, and confided all to her, and my aunt was just as brave and strong as Mama. Aunt Patanene got herself put in charge of a flock of goats to be sent out deeper into the mountains for summer pasturage, and Mama went with her. They stole half the flock, and took it away with them deep into the Lost Lands, where they knew they would never be found, walking for moonturns. I was born in a hut the two of them built with their own hands and shared with their little flock.”

Two women and a baby all alone in these mountains? And I thought living in the Wildwood was hard! Kellen thought to himself.

“I suppose it was a hard life for them,” Vestakia said, in an unconscious echo of his thoughts. “As for me, I never knew any other. Mama’s Wildmagery kept us well and safe and fed, and I was always happy, even though the very first thing I learned was that I must never let anyone see me. All was well for ten years, then Mama died, paying her price, and Aunt ’Nene and I were left alone to fend for ourselves. We didn’t do quite as well, I think … Mama’s magic had kept us safe when the Demons hunted me, and when she died, at first we were never sure when they were near. But then, when I …” Vestakia hesitated, and looked away, embarrassed. “When I … began to become a woman … I realized that I could sense them when they drew near, because I became ill. Aunt ’Nene and I had reason to bless that gift, many times!

“But it was a hard life, very hard. And when Aunt ’Nene fell ill, four years after Mama died, I wasn’t skilled enough to nurse her back to health, and though I called upon the Good Goddess, without Wild Magic, I could do nothing for her but to keep her comfortable and ease her spirit. And she died. So then I was alone.”

By now Kellen had finished working the allheal into Vestakia’s ankle, and he began winding the linen bandage firmly about her foot—not too tight, or it would cut off the circulation. He only hoped what little he could do would be enough.

How brave she had been! Compared with what she had faced growing up alone and isolated, his own problems as Lycaelon’s despised and socially embarrassing son seemed like nothing. He’d spent a lot of time feeling sorry for himself, but he could tell, just by looking at her, that Vestakia had never wasted a single moment on self-pity.

“What did you do then?” he asked. “After your aunt died, and you were all alone?”

“What could I do?” Vestakia asked, with some spirit. “If I sat about and bewailed my lot, the goats would starve, I would starve, and what use would there have been of Mama’s sacrifice, of all of Aunt ’Nene’s care? I buried her next to Mama, I tended my flock, I went on with my life. I knew how to hunt, I had milk and cheese and butter from my goats, eggs from the wild birds, and sometimes meat. Though you may not think it, there are wild foods growing in these hills, not abundant, but Mama and Aunt ’Nene taught me how to find them. Sometimes I could trade for bread and flour with the other crofters—I wore gloves, and bandages over my face, and let them think I had some horrible skin disease. I managed well enough. I knew the Demons were hunting for me—Mama had warned me that my father would always know that I was still alive, even if he could not tell exactly where I was because of the boon the Good Goddess had granted her, and that he would never give up searching for me. So I hid whenever I felt the Demons nearby, but I dared not leave the hills, or go anywhere there were more people, because I would be killed at once or, and that would be nearly as bad, lead the Demons among people. Mama made sure I learned those lessons well, so that I would never be tempted to show my face to anyone. She warned me that anyone who saw it and pretended not to care must be a Demon in human guise; of course, she never lived to know that no Demon would ever be able to trick me that way …” Vestakia sighed and bowed her head. “When I saw you … when you saved me … I was so afraid! I thought my power had failed me somehow. If Shalkan hadn’t been there …”

She reached out to the unicorn, and Shalkan stepped forward so that Vestakia could stroke his cheek.

“Usually, of course, the maiden rescues the unicorn,” Shalkan commented, and Kellen was pleased to see Vestakia smile gravely.

“As for what I was doing there in the first place: that was my home, up until today. A month ago, someone started stealing my goats. I couldn’t let that go on, so I set a trap to catch the thief, intending to give him a good drubbing and get my goats back—any of them that he hadn’t already eaten, at least.

“But there was Demon-magic in the air, and I wasn’t paying enough attention. I twisted my ankle, and he cornered me. If you hadn’t come along when you had, I’d be dead now. And so he has all my goats, and my hut as well! And I wish him much joy of them, whoever he is.”

Kellen finished wrapping the bandage at the top of her knee and tied it off to hold it fast. He held up her boot, and Vestakia slipped her foot into it.

Both of them looked up as a shadow fell across them. Jermayan was standing over them, holding cups of tea. The Elven Knight’s face was a stony mask of disapproval. Kellen realized that with Elven rigid-mindedness, Jermayan still didn’t believe any part of Vestakia’s story—though he’d certainly heard all of it—despite all the proof Shalkan had given him.

Idiot. He’s as blind sometimes as Lycaelon. If Idalia ever got wind of his behavior—

—if we make it home again—

—she would be sure to give him a well-deserved piece of her mind.

If he amends his behavior, I’ll consider not telling her.

Kellen rocked back on his heels, wincing at his own soreness, and reached for the cups. Reluctantly, Jermayan placed them in his hands. Kellen passed one of them to Vestakia.

Kellen sipped the tea in silence. Considering everything, Kellen didn’t think he was going to tell Jermayan that he’d been led to save Vestakia by the Wild Magic, or why the Wild Magic had exacted that particular price from him, as satisfying as letting the haughty Elven Knight know that Vestakia’s rescue was the price of his own healing would be. It would only irritate Jermayan further, and Kellen didn’t need Jermayan any more irritated and upset right now. He needed Jermayan alert and cooperative.

“There’s soup,” the Elf said reluctantly.

So that’s what took him so long. Kellen forgave Jermayan slightly.

“We’ll need to eat,” Kellen told Vestakia. He got to his feet and handed his cup to Jermayan. He knew Jermayan would want tea as well, and they’d only brought two cups. And he was sure just by looking that Jermayan wouldn’t want to drink out of a cup that had been used by Vestakia.

“After we eat, we’re going ahead, as far as Vestakia can lead us. From the way she was feeling before Shalkan dosed her, the Barrier must be close by, and the animals can’t get up the rock, so we’ll have to leave Valdien, the mule, and everything we don’t absolutely need here, and hope it’s here when we get back.” If we get back, Kellen added silently.

For a moment Kellen was certain Jermayan was going to refuse, to demand that Kellen find some other path, or decide to strike out on his own. But the Elven Knight merely bowed, the same stiff formal bow Kellen had seen so often back in Sentarshadeen. “As you command, Wildmage,” he answered tonelessly, turning away back to the campfire.

“Well, that went well,” Kellen said, under his breath.

“He hates what I represent,” Vestakia said sadly, getting to her feet. She tested her foot gingerly, then put more of her weight on it, her expression relaxing into relief. “Well, I hate it, too. Does he think I’ve ever been able to look into a bowl of water without hating the Demon that looks back at me?” she added bitterly.

“Hate the Demon, but don’t hate yourself,” Shalkan said quietly, “for you are not of their kind. Your mother’s Wild Magic saw to that, her courage, your courage. Vestakia, you have been braver than you think. If one who is wholly human can be turned to the Darkness willingly, think how much easier it would have been for you! You would have been accepted without question; all you would have had to do was take the easy path, embrace evil, and join your father. You did not. You are as human as your mother was, brave and true. And just as good.”

“No one will ever believe that!” Vestakia cried wildly, tears starting to form in her yellow cat’s-eyes. “Mama said so!”

“I do,” Kellen said firmly, willing her to believe him. “Shalkan does. And Jermayan will believe in you, too—if I have to beat his Elf-stubborn head down between his shoulders until his eyes are level with his collarbone to make him realize it, I will. But we don’t have time for that, now. We have to get up over those rocks before the light fails. Now come and have some soup. You’ll need all your strength for the climb.”

He was talking in part to keep from thinking. It was quiet. It was too quiet. Surely the Endarkened knew that they were near! Surely he would not be able to just clamber up to the top of the rocks, put the keystone in place, and walk away!

But Vestakia had said that the Taint was here, the dark magic, but not the Demons themselves. And certainly there was no sign of life here except for the moss and grey-green lichen. Maybe—maybe by taking up with Vestakia, they had been able to reach this place before the Endarkened were prepared?

He wanted to believe it, and knew he dared not. He dared be nothing less than prepared for the worst.

Except, of course, that “the worst” would be impossible for anyone short of an army to stop.

Chapter Twenty-four

A Pause Before the Storm

HE LED VESTAKIA over to the campfire. Valdien stood nuzzling his master as Jermayan stood eating thick trail-soup from a bowl. Neither the mule nor the stallion wore any trace of tack now. At the moment, the mule did not look inclined to stray, and even if she did, she probably wouldn’t go far. If none of them returned, the beasts would have to fend for themselves as best they could.

Maybe they’ll make it back to Sentarshadeen. If nothing else, I suppose they’ll find their way to where there are some people. The people can’t all be like that bastard that tried to kill Vestakia …

Of course, by his way of reckoning, he was killing a Demon, so maybe I shouldn’t call him a bastard.

Except that he was stealing her goats before he thought she was a Demon, so I guess he is.

These and other inconsequential thoughts chased around and around in his mind, and he let them. Better that than think about where they were going and what he might meet.

Kellen ladled more soup into the remaining bowl for Vestakia, and then ate his portion directly from the pot and unwrapped several trail-bars for Shalkan.

Afterward, in silence, he took his heavy green cloak from his pack and pulled it about himself, then took the bag with the keystone from Shalkan’s saddle and hung it from his belt.

“I don’t think I’ll want the armor where we’re going,” the unicorn said, so Kellen unbuckled the saddle and armor from Shalkan’s back as Jermayan retrieved his own dark blue cloak from the pile of packs on the ground, and his bow and heavy quiver full of arrows as well. At least no gleam of their armor would betray them to any watchers.

“How long until your medicine wears off?” Vestakia asked Shalkan in a quavering voice.

“Not long now,” the unicorn said gently. “You’d better make as much distance as you can while it still has some effect.”

Kellen picked up his gauntlets and locked them into place as Jermayan scuffed out the small fire. And then there were no preparations left to make.

He turned away and followed Vestakia and Shalkan over the crest of the hill, across the shallow ravine, and on toward the rock face. Behind him, he saw Jermayan turn back to Valdien, and stand with his arms around the storm-grey destrier’s neck for a long moment. Only then did Kellen truly realize that Jermayan was being forced to abandon someone who loved him and depended on him, and whom Jermayan loved in return—and worse, someone who probably could not survive without him. If they did not come back …

Kellen gritted his teeth, forcing the thought from his mind: the image of Valdien, starving, alone, desperately and hopelessly seeking his dead master in this wilderness. They had to go on. There was no choice. More lives than Valdien’s were at stake. Many more.

He glanced behind him, in the direction of the sun. A few hours more of light at most, and then they would be in darkness. At least they had sun, though it had to fight with the clouds. The way this place felt, it should properly be shrouded in shadows, under a grim, grey, lowering sky, with clouds too thick to actually see the sun.

There was a faint, peculiar, bitter smell to the wind. He couldn’t put a name to it. He wondered if the others noticed, and glanced at Shalkan. The unicorn’s expressive nostrils were held pinched shut.

I guess he’s noticed.

His hand went to the pouch at his belt, where Idalia’s keystone waited, cocooned in layers of magical Elven silk, and examined the steep rock slope.

Shalkan crouched on his haunches and then sprang strongly upward. The unicorn’s unshod hooves scrabbled for a hold against the rock for a few moments, then Shalkan found his footing and began to climb.

“You’re next,” Kellen said to Vestakia.

She gave him an effortful smile and followed Shalkan up the steep incline. Kellen waited until he was sure she wouldn’t slip back, then got ready to start after her. He glanced back at Jermayan, standing stiff and forbidding behind him. He wished there was something he could say to close the gap that had opened up between them, something that could repair their easy fellowship, but he couldn’t think of anything. Jermayan was as stubborn as all the Elves, and wasn’t going to change his mind about Vestakia, or be pleased with Kellen for taking her part.

But if Jermayan hated Vestakia, it was because he hated all Demons, and Kellen had no doubt that destroying the Barrier was his highest priority. Jermayan would do what he had come to do.

“It will be over soon—one way or another,” he said to Jermayan.

“One way or another,” the Elven Knight echoed grimly. “And I hope your human heart has not betrayed you, Wildmage.”

Kellen supposed that this was as good as he was going to get in the way of a reconciliation. He turned away and began to climb.

The half-dome was steep, and it was also absolutely bare rock. There was a sort of furrow in it that gave purchase to his hands and feet, and Kellen used it to pull himself up to where the incline was less steep and he could actually move forward in a sort of crablike crouch over the pale stone. Without Vestakia, he and Jermayan would never have found this route to the Barrier, not in weeks of searching.

As he caught up to Vestakia, he could see her shuddering. She would shake for a moment, clinging desperately to some invisible cracks in the rock, then the spell would pass and she would creep forward a pace or two before the shivering started again.

“It is wearing off,” she said glumly. She pointed, ahead and to the left. “Whatever it is, it’s that way.”

Kellen looked where she was pointing. They still had to climb a good distance to reach the top of the dome of rock they were on, and he could see nothing beyond that, but what he saw around and behind him suggested more of the same kind of terrain—mountains and high hills, the only vegetation a little moss and lichen at most, the rock scoured clean by the battles of that long-ago war. Once they got to the top here, they might have some serious climbing ahead, and none of them had brought so much as a coil of rope. And worst of all, there was no more than an hour or two of good light left at best.

But they were close to their goal—close enough that they had to press on immediately, because they were already within the pall of Shadow Mountain’s influence, and Kellen was coming to suspect that spending very much time here wasn’t very healthy for living things. He followed Vestakia and Shalkan. He was relieved to see that the unicorn was staying close to her, but Vestakia seemed to be completely recovered from her earlier beating, and was moving without difficulty.

And they were close to their goal—

Now he sensed it; the despair and the bitter ache at his bones had a source, close enough that they had to press on immediately.

When they reached the top of the rock dome, it proved to be no more than the foothill of a true mountain, and Vestakia was miserable for other reasons. She’d thrown back the hood of her cloak, and her ruby skin was beaded with sick-sweat. She was breathing hard, almost panting, holding her stomach as if she were in pain. Kellen wondered if she could go on.

“Still want to take the lead?” he asked. “Or do you need to rest a little?”

“I’m fine,” she said irritably, in answer to his query. “It’s far worse than this when there’s a Demon around.”

“There’s a path up the mountain,” Jermayan said, as if speaking pained him. “Look, there, where that shadow starts, see? It’s narrow, and you can barely see it, but it’s there.” He looked right at Kellen, obviously waiting for a decision.

Kellen looked in the direction that he had indicated, and made out the beginning of a goat track in the shadows around the curve of the cliff. It didn’t look very wide, and it climbed rather steeply. If it got any narrower, they’d be edging their way to the top with their backs plastered against the stone wall.

“Then that’s the way we go,” Kellen said reluctantly. Vestakia nodded, very slightly, confirming his guess that that was the direction of the strongest Demon-taint. It looked like a long climb. Once they reached the top, it would be too dark to return safely. Kellen touched the pouch with the keystone, more to reassure himself than anything else. In his half-formed imaginings of the moment when he reached the Barrier, he’d always supposed it would be full daylight, that he’d be rested and ready for the final fight, not arriving after a long day of brawls, petty squabbles, and climbing up the side of a mountain. His bruises ached, he was tired, and he hated being at odds with Jermayan. Depression weighed him down as if he were carrying a full pack. Despair whispered that he was about to fail. The bitter air burned his throat and made him horribly thirsty. It seemed that Reality always managed to play tricks with your dreams and imagination, turning your fantasies inside out when it made them come true.

Jermayan drew his sword with a hiss of steel. As Kellen turned toward him, the Elven Knight met his eyes and inclined his head ever-so-slightly. Despite his misgivings, Jermayan would follow where he led.

Kellen turned back toward the mountain, and pointed. “Let’s go. The sun won’t wait for us.”

Shalkan led the way, his white fur glowing almost as brightly as it had the first time Kellen had seen him. So short a time, measured in sennights, but it held a lifetime of experiences. Now Kellen was gambling—with all their lives—that he’d learned the right lessons from them, and was making the right choices now.

Vestakia followed immediately after Shalkan. If the trace of Demon-taint shifted, she would be the one who would know first and be able to alert them to retrace their steps. She would also be the first to know if there were any actual Demons in the vicinity.

That’s one certainty, anyway. She might betray us inadvertently, but she won’t do it deliberately. If I can’t trust a unicorn’s judgment, I might as well just throw myself off this rock and be done with it.

Kellen followed her. Jermayan came last, his sword drawn and ready in his gauntleted hand.

When they reached the trail, they saw it was both steep and narrow, a double-handspan cut into the side of the mountain, with a sheer drop on one side and the sheer cliff on the other. There was no way to hurry. Of the four of them, only Shalkan found it even halfway easy going, and that only because he had four feet, not two, to apply to the trail. The wind blew harder the higher they climbed, and seemed to turn colder with every step, until Kellen could feel the ache of cold right through the padding beneath his armor. The sunlight weakened, not that it had ever had much strength in the first place, but it seemed now as if what light there was came to them past a dark veil over the sun’s face.

Kellen concentrated every fiber of his being on just managing to take the next step—finding the place he would put his foot, moving it there, testing it with half his weight, trusting it with his full weight, moving on to the next step. He drove every other thought to the back of his mind.

At last they gained the top. It was a relief to step out onto secure footing at last, and no longer have to fear that the slightest misstep would plunge one or all of them hundreds of feet down the side of the mountain. Kellen eased his way past the others and looked around.

All during his long journey to reach his goal, Kellen’s greatest fear had been that he wouldn’t know the place he was looking for when he reached it, but now he realized that had been foolish. There was no mistaking it. He’d seen this place before. He’d been here in dreams and visions. This was the place of all his nightmares. This was the place he had seen that time he’d tried to scry in the forest pool, the hilltop covered with warring Demons.

The top of the mountain was broad and flat, as if some impossible power long ago had sliced its peak off with a knife. The flatness was scattered with the same huge tumbled boulders that Kellen had seen at the ancient battlefield where he and Jermayan had once camped, and now Kellen imagined an assassin lurking behind every one, ready to ambush them. The wind whimpered and moaned around the stones, stirring up dust, the source of the bitter smell. Nothing grew here, not even lichen. Sand and stone, grey and black, a landscape of sterility.

In the center of the wasteland was an enormous conical cairn built of dull grey-black stone, larger than the Great Library of Armethalieh and as tall as a four-story building, with a set of stairs spiraling around it to the top. Its base was ringed with more of the boulders that were scattered about the mountaintop, as if someone were trying to fence it in. At its apex stood a glittering black obelisk, the top half of it just visible from this angle.

But in all of this deadness, the obelisk was alive.

All of the obelisk that Kellen could see from where he stood was covered with tendrils of greenish energy like miniature lightning bolts. They spat and hissed along the surface, licking out at the wind. They ran over the sides of it like some terrible fountain, constantly spewing from the crown and running down the sides in an endless cascade like some hideous toxic wellspring of all that was bad and unholy in the world.

This, without a doubt, was the source of the disruption to the natural order of the world, the Barrier that he had come to destroy.

Kellen glanced up toward the sky. Though the day had been overcast when they started and the clouds had not lifted, the sky directly above the point of the obelisk was clear, a huge unnatural ring of cloudless sky that was now the white of mountain twilight.

This was the place he’d seen in his dreams, or as close to it as Kellen ever wanted to come while he was awake. And there was a wrongness about it that wasn’t subtle at all.

“Here,” Vestakia groaned. “This place.”

Kellen turned back to see Vestakia sink to her knees, her face contorted with nausea.

Shalkan managed a few steps toward her and nuzzled her sympathetically, but Kellen could see that the unicorn wasn’t in much better shape. The place reeked of Evil.

Now, that particular phrase had occurred in many a wondertale that Kellen had read, and it happened to be a conceit he thought both trite and overwrought. He hadn’t really understood until this moment that there was usually some truth behind even the most overused of metaphors. The place stank. Not in a physical way, but it was just wrong.

It wasn’t really something he was perceiving through his normal physical senses, Kellen realized. Each time he tried to focus one of his senses upon the pervasive sense of utter wrongness, he realized he wasn’t really sensing what he thought he was, but it didn’t help. When he concentrated, he could tell there was no particular odor to the place, but the moment he did that, the wind took on a discordant, jangling, keening note that was a subtle torment. When he concentrated on the fact that he wasn’t really hearing anything out of the ordinary, the horrible smells returned, and when he could shut out both the scent and sound of the place, his eyes insisted that everything around him was tilting and wavering, moving and yet standing still in a way that made him ill to see it. At least he could pick which sense he wanted to have abused, more or less.

But obviously neither Shalkan nor Vestakia were able to do even that much. It was simplest to say that the place reeked of evil, and to be honest, Kellen couldn’t imagine how the unicorn could bear it. Now that he could feel the wrongness of the structure just as Vestakia did, the presence of the obelisk was agony to him and to Shalkan as well as to her. He didn’t think either of the others would be able to get much closer to the Shadow keystone.

Fortunately Jermayan …

Then he took a good look at Jermayan.

The Elven Knight was leaning on his sword for support, using it as if it were a cane. His hand was pressed to his side where he’d taken the blow from the Centaur’s mace, as if it were still fresh and unhealed. His face was pale and set—with pain now, instead of hatred. But Kellen had healed him …

Then Kellen realized what must be happening. The Demon-magic was very powerful here, powerful enough to undo Kellen’s magic, or at least to suppress its effects. At this moment, Jermayan’s wound was suddenly as fresh as if Kellen had never worked his Wildmagery and it had only had a few days to heal on its own. At least it was partly healed: it meant that Jermayan wouldn’t bleed to death on the spot.

“I’m sorry,” he said aloud. I’m sorry I got the three of you into this. I should have come alone. I’m sorry …

“Do what you came to do,” Jermayan said, his voice harsh with pain.

Kellen looked back at the sky. In an hour—no more—it would be dark.

He took off his armored gauntlets and the gloves beneath and set them down on the ground. The chill wind—real or illusion, it hardly mattered—bit into his flesh, numbing his fingers. He flexed his hands, willing warmth and suppleness into his fingers, then reached into the pouch that held Idalia’s keystone. He drew it out and unwrapped it.

This was the first time he’d actually had a chance to take a good look at Idalia’s keystone.

It didn’t look like a standard keystone at all. All of them were round or oval, and small enough to fit into the palm of the hand. Even Armethalieh’s golden Talismans were flat rune-scribed disks, nothing like this. The last time he’d seen it—by torchlight, at the unicorn meadow in Sentarshadeen—he’d thought it was black. Now it looked as if it were made of the same opaque white crystal Idalia had always used for her keystones.

It was the size of a small melon. On the outside, it was shaped just like a section of natural mineral crystal, a squat six-sided tube that tapered to a six-sided cone at the end. But inside, the keystone had a different shape. Inside, there was a four-sided cup that tapered to a point inside. It would obviously fit right over the top of the black obelisk he’d already seen. The Wild Magic had known what exactly he’d be facing, even if Idalia hadn’t.

As he held it in his bare hands for the first time, it began to glow softly.

At that moment, knowledge filled him—the same utter certainty that he felt when he worked a spell of the Wild Magic and gained his knowledge of the Mageprice. Idalia was right; he did know what to do! He felt as if Idalia was standing behind him now, her hand on his shoulder, lending him her strength as she murmured her final instructions into his ear. He knew precisely what he had to do to use this keystone.

The only problem was that it would require a little preparation.

He set it back gently into the spell-caul for the moment, and set the silk on the ground, and slowly began to remove his armor.

“What are you doing?” Jermayan demanded, his voice tight with pain.

“I can’t wear my armor for this,” Kellen said. No armor, no weapons, nothing of metal. Anything metallic would attract that power crawling all over the obelisk. He wasn’t sure what would happen then, only that it wouldn’t be good.

Not that marching up there without armor and weapons was good, either, but he didn’t have much of a choice.

He was far from being as calm as he felt, or as certain. Releasing Idalia’s spell was no longer something he was going to do sometime in the future, it was now, in the next few minutes, after which nobody, least of all him, would ever again be able to say that he wasn’t a full-fledged Wildmage.

If he could do it.

Doubts flooded his mind as he peeled off pieces of armor and laid them aside. After all, who was he to be attempting this thing? Even without an army, or even a guard of Demons watching the obelisk in the open, he was certain there were things lying in wait around here. Or at the least, there must be some species of alarm that he would set off when he entered the enclosure. Then what?

A lot of bad things, almost certainly.

What am I doing here, anyway? What possessed anyone to think I was up to this job, when all I ever do is muck things up? Kellen thought despairingly.

When he’d found the three Books of the Wild Magic in the Low Market, he’d had a home and a family and a bright future available for the asking. He’d thrown away all three for stubbornness and willful pride. He was probably never going to see Armethalieh again, and the longer he was away from it, the more he realized how much he missed the City.

No, not the City. He missed what the City could have been—a place of justice, and honor, and law. He missed the fact that he’d used to believe that it was. He missed the sound of the City bells on a winter morning, and spice-bread and hot black tea, the small good things that you couldn’t get anywhere else. Suddenly he missed them very much.

Sentarshadeen was gorgeous, but—it was full of Elves, who weren’t the most comfortable of neighbors. Merryvale—well, there probably wasn’t much left of Merryvale now, even though Idalia hadn’t been able to get any news of it. He longed for the company of simple, uncomplicated humans (and Centaurs) with a kind of craving.

And in a way, he longed for his old life, as well, and the days when his only responsibilities were to be the good son and student his father wanted.

And most of all, at that moment, Kellen realized that the more he learned about the Wild Magic, the more he realized that it really was truly a dangerous thing. Beneficial, yes, necessary, yes, but not a tame magic, one with the consequences all laid out in advance, where you could see them before you acted. The Wild Magic demanded belief, a faith that the world’s needs were more important than your own comfort and safety, and far more important than your own peace of mind.

And that—well, that implied that it could be dangerous to him one day. Someday—and maybe that day was now—it might very well ask a Mageprice of him that would kill him, cripple him, or change him beyond recognition, and the Wild Magic wouldn’t care, because it couldn’t care, any more than a general could care about whether or not one of the individual soldiers in his army got hurt in war. The general knew that the war itself was worth fighting, that was all. The Wild Magic would bargain whatever it needed to, for the greater good of all—and some would fall in seeing that greater good accomplished. Wonderful if you were one of the survivors, but pretty hard on the ones who weren’t.

Piece by piece, Kellen removed his Elven armor and set it aside, as carefully as if he were certain he would be coming back for it. And as he did, a second set of thoughts occurred to him, no more comforting than the first. In neutralizing this spell—if he had the strength, the luck, the will—he would be placing himself—not Sentarshadeen, not Idalia, but him, Kellen Tavadon—in direct opposition to the Prince of Shadow Mountain. The Demons, the Endarkened, the creatures that haunted his innermost fears, the monsters that frightened even Jermayan and Queen Ashaniel, that terrified Vestakia, would be hunting him.

He’d stood up to the Arch-Mage of Armethalieh—his own father—and the consequences of that had been grim enough to make him wary of the penalties of rash defiance. The full cost of that act was one Kellen was only barely coming to realize, one that he was going to face for the rest of his life. What would be the price of making a personal enemy of the Prince of the Demon Legions of Hell and his allies?

Kellen stood shivering in his underpadding and leather socks. He picked up the keystone again. The crystal was warm in his hands, the only warmth in all the world. It seemed to pulse with sleeping life.

He hesitated, glancing up at the fog of green lightning around the obelisk.

He was afraid. He had to acknowledge that. In fact, he was terrified. Not because he didn’t know what would happen, but because he was fairly sure he did. No matter what was to come, it was going to be bad. The only question was, how bad?

For a moment Kellen felt nothing but panic and despair that held him frozen in place where he stood. He felt the hatred here, in a way that was hard to articulate. The things that had created this place, the emotion they had for everything that was not them was so malevolent that the word hatred didn’t begin to describe it. Even if he succeeded here—and there was no guarantee of that—nothing would be over. All the four of them would have done was end the drought in the Elven lands and alert Shadow Mountain to the fact that the Elves knew the Endarkened were moving against them and preparing to strike at the World Above once more. Shadow Mountain would still be as powerful. The Elves would still be as weak. Armethalieh would still be as blind and arrogant, thinking of nothing but itself.

Nothing much would change for anyone, except for Kellen. He would have made powerful enemies, enemies that would not stop until they had taken their revenge for what he’d done here today. Was even Sentarshadeen strong enough to protect him? Would they, if they could?

Would he want them to? Could he live with being the reason why Shadow Mountain brought their agents, their armies, against the Elves of Sentarshadeen?

He looked down at the keystone. He held his future in his hands. He could drop it and run. It would break. If not here, then he could do it once he got to the other side of the cairn, where the others wouldn’t see. He could throw it off the side of the cairn. Then he wouldn’t have to make this choice. He wouldn’t have all the Demons of Shadow Mountain after him personally. He could sneak down the far side, get back to Armethalieh somehow. Lycaelon would forgive him—especially if he renounced the Wild Magic and told him everything he knew about the trouble among the Elves and in the border lands.

Oh, he could see it so clearly: he could become his father’s favored son again; there’d be some tale put about of his having been sent out as a special agent, and he’d be safe, safe, safe …

But then he looked at Vestakia. She’d struggled to her feet, clutching at Shalkan’s shoulder for support. Vestakia had lived every day of her life on the run from the Prince of Shadow Mountain—not hypothetically but really—she’d been fathered by a Demon but had never given up the fight to be human. He looked at Jermayan, who hated Demons with every fiber of his Elven soul, but stood beside a woman who looked like one, who had been fathered by one, and did so now because he trusted Kellen.

Both of them—and Shalkan—were counting on him to keep his part of the bargain he’d begun when he first began to read The Book of Moon. He couldn’t back out now. This was his price. He wouldn’t refuse to pay it.

Maybe I’ll die here, Kellen thought in a kind of grim hope. Compared to being the target of the entire race of Demons, death didn’t seem terribly bad. Death—or failure—if he died trying, surely Jermayan would take up the stone (if it was still intact) and see the task to its end. Surely, now that he knew what to do with it, it didn’t require a Wildmage to actually put it in place!

He clutched the keystone tighter, imagining it cracking in his hands—accidentally!—knowing that even amid the guilt and horror he would feel nothing so much as relief at the choice and responsibility that would be taken from him in that moment. I’m only a boy! I’m only seventeen! a voice deep within his mind shouted despairingly. I’ve never done anything special in my life! I’m not ready for this!

Part of him yearned desperately to believe that, but even if it were true, it couldn’t be allowed to make a difference now. Ready or not, able or not, he had to do what he had come here for, because so very much depended on him.

He turned away from the others and began to walk slowly across the broken wasteland toward the cairn. Taking the first step was the hardest thing he’d ever done, and it was only after he’d begun to walk that Kellen realized he hadn’t even said good-bye. But he knew that if he stopped, or turned back, or spoke, he would never have the strength to start walking again, and so he gritted his teeth and kept walking. If he got back, he’d be able to explain. If they all died here, it wouldn’t matter.

He had not gotten more than twenty paces away before the first attack struck him.

Only it wasn’t the first attack, was it? They’d been under attack from the moment they set foot on the mountaintop, Kellen realized. Why else would he even have considered betraying his friends and going back to Armethalieh?

It was terrifying to realize he couldn’t even trust his own thoughts!

I won’t give in, he told himself stubbornly. I WILL take the keystone to the top of the cairn. I WILL do what Idalia trusted me to do. I WILL …

The next attack was subtle as well, though now Kellen was suspicious of everything. It began with pain, but not intense pain, only the dull aching of every muscle in his body. As if he were in the throes of a fever, except that he was so cold … as if he had been beaten from head to toe. But the pain increased the nearer he drew to the cairn. His real injuries hurt far more than they should have. Each step was an agony, as if his muscles were filled with lead. Each impact of his foot against the ground jarred his bruises into sullen life, until his whole body ached like a rotten tooth, and he trembled with pain as much as cold.

Though he knew his friends were only a few yards away, that if he turned and looked back he could still see them, Kellen felt utterly alone, as if when he had taken that first step he had somehow passed into a place where they could not follow.

And despite the fact that he was the one who had moved, he felt as if it was they who had abandoned him. He was out here alone, likely to die, and they didn’t care.

Jermayan doesn’t care about me. He never did. He only cares about the Elves, about ending the drought. He only pretended to like me to get me here.

If Idalia was such a great Wildmage, why hadn’t she come back to the City for him? Why had she left him to suffer, lonely and despised in his father’s house? She knew better than anyone else what it was like, but she had left him there. And then, Idalia had left him again, to do this thing that he wasn’t ready for, and she didn’t care.

Why had Alance left both of them with Lycaelon, knowing what kind of man he was? What kind of mother would abandon her children to a man like that? His mother had thought only of herself and the trap that she was escaping. She didn’t care either, about either of her children.

Why had no one in all the City cared what Lycaelon did to either of his children? The Law was supposed to be Armethalieh’s greatest treasure, but the Mages set themselves above the Law. No one would interfere in a Mage’s personal life, and so—corrupt, petty, vindictive as they were—the Mages of Armethalieh were a Law above the Law, and their families suffered for it. And the Mages gave everyone the safe little world that they wanted, no one cared what that cost.

No one cared.

He knew his thoughts were petty, unworthy, coming from a part of him that wanted to live at any price, that would do anything, say anything, to get him to give up and turn back. He knew the thoughts came from the cairn, from Shadow Mountain, from the Demons. Kellen ignored the voice, letting it say what it would, letting the words pass over him unheeded. He didn’t even care if that inward voice reflected who he truly was. It wasn’t who he wanted to be. It wasn’t who he would be.

He had a choice. He was free.

Kellen walked on.

He kept his eyes fixed on the ground, both to shut out the terrifying sight of the obelisk, and to keep from stepping on a stone. The only thing covering his feet were the thick leather socks he had worn beneath his armored boots. Kellen’s feet were quickly growing numb with cold, but if he stepped on a stone and cut himself, or twisted his ankle, he might not be able to walk. And he had to be able to walk, at least as far as the top of the cairn.

Even if he was alone and abandoned. Even if he had no true friends, no family worthy of the name. Even if despair weighed him down so heavily that it felt as if he should be staggering beneath the weight of it. Despair drove him even to tears; he felt them leaking out of the corners of his eyes, but he was too sunk in despondency to care.

At last—he had no idea how long it took—Kellen reached the ring of stones at the foot of the cairn. They were not directly at the base, he saw now, nor did they completely enclose it. There was a gap about six feet wide between two tall stones, and through the gap he could see that the cairn did not rest on the same level ground as the rest of the mountaintop, but at the bottom of a deep pit which began a few feet inside the ring of stones. The sides of the pit were absolutely vertical except where a long sloping path led down between the stones and into the pit.

The cairn was much taller than he’d realized; from where the four of them had stood, they had only been able to see the top two-thirds. He would have to go down in order to go up. Down into a place that had almost certainly been designed as a trap.

Kellen hesitated just outside the tall stones, almost unable to force himself to walk between them. The closer he got to the obelisk, the more he could sense the Darkness radiating from it. The air seemed thick and dirty, heavy now with that bitter scent and taste, making him reluctant to breathe, as if he were accepting the obelisk’s foulness into his lungs when he did. With a conscious effort, Kellen compelled himself to breathe deeply. There was no point in half-measures when he was actually going to have to touch the thing.

He felt a little better once he did, as if the icy air had cleared his head, and a few good breaths had actually swept some of that despair away from him. He was shivering in earnest now, and his body ached with cold. He wished he had his sword, or even a dagger, but the instructions that had come with the keystone had been quite specific. He could bring nothing with him but the keystone. The stone and himself.

He continued forward, stumbling a little through the stones, down the path to the cairn itself.

In the temporary relief from the wind, it was almost warm. He could still hear it moaning, but at least the cold wasn’t cutting through to his bones. Going down was a little easier than going up, which made it a little easier to resist the spiritual attack on him, the attempt to make him give up before he started.

And in a way, that was heartening. If despair was the Demons’ primary weapon—perhaps the odds weren’t as great as he feared.

Soon he was facing the cairn itself, and the long winding grey stone staircase that led to the top.

Here was where the Demons had battled in his vision—hordes of them beneath a black-red sky filled with green lightning. Had his vision been of the past, or of the near-future? Would they come now?

He could feel them, though they were not visible. Their presence was everywhere. And one step on the stairs would be the trigger that released them.

He almost turned back then to warn the others, though he wasn’t sure even now what he’d say. Why hadn’t he told them earlier, when there was time?

You’re stalling, he realized, and smiled grimly to himself. Stalling didn’t make this any easier, and not going up those stairs didn’t guarantee that the monsters from his dreams and visions wouldn’t come. No matter what he did, they would come.

He took a step forward and placed his foot on the first of the steps.

Suddenly the wind’s force increased, changing from a steady monotonous whine to a howling gale in an instant. But even that was not enough to mask the shrieks, the howls, the tumult of the creatures as they were released from whatever arcane concealment they’d been held in.

He looked back. He could see nothing but the wall of the pit, but he didn’t need to see to know what was happening now, this instant.

This was the place of the monsters of his vision, and the monsters were on their way. Imprisoned in the rocks, perhaps, or held in pits, or even materializing out of the thin air, taking the path between the rocks to the cairn, to tear him limb from limb and end the threat of the keystone forever.

He had never had a chance, of course, and he stood there in a state of fatalistic resignation, waiting for them to come.

But fast as they must be, Jermayan and the others were faster. Ill and wounded as they were, it was Jermayan, Shalkan, and Vestakia—not the monsters—who appeared between the rocks that guarded the entrance to the path. They took a stand just between the tall rocks Kellen had passed through. The stones formed a natural gateway to the cairn, and one that could be defended.

As the Seven defended that pass?

He saw Vestakia snatch Jermayan’s bow and quiver from his shoulder, and nock an arrow on the string, and fire.

Kellen hesitated, on the verge of turning back to help them. But he had no weapons, no armor, only the keystone in his hands.

It could be that this was what the Demons wanted him to do—turning back to help his friends would certainly doom them, for unless he placed the keystone on top of the obelisk and triggered the spell, all was truly lost.

He trembled in place, almost physically torn in two.

—Longing to run to join them as a Knight-Mage should.

—Knowing his duty as a Wildmage and a Knight-Mage lay in finishing the task he’d begun.

A Wildmage’s honor lies in betrayal. Finally I understand.

With a bitter cry, he turned away from the sight of his friends, blinking hard against sudden tears.

They were going to die. Jermayan was wounded, Shalkan and Vestakia were poisoned by the emanations of this hellish place. The three of them could barely stand. How could they fight?

Go on. Don’t make them die for nothing.

He took a second step, then a third, up the grey stairs. And then, he began to run.

“HOW long?” Vestakia asked in a small voice, watching Kellen walk away from them.

“As long as it takes to climb the tower and set the keystone into position,” Jermayan answered shortly. He took a step forward, leaning heavily on his sword as he peered after Kellen. His wound—or the hell-spawned magic of this place—must be affecting his vision. The boy seemed somehow insubstantial, as though he moved through mist. But no. The rocks around him were as sharp as ever to Jermayan’s sight. It was only Kellen who had taken on the aspect of unreality.

He darted a suspicious glance at Vestakia, but the sight of her obvious misery was enough to make even Jermayan think twice about accusing her.

“Where he goes now, even you cannot follow, Elven Knight,” Shalkan said. The unicorn sounded utterly weary, and pressed close against Vestakia, as if seeking comfort there.

“Will he die?” Jermayan asked, putting his greatest fear into words.

“We will all die if he cannot do this,” Shalkan said flatly. “We three. Sentarshadeen. The Wildwood. Even Armethalieh and beyond. If they cannot be held here, the trickle of gravel that heralds the avalanche will have begun.”

When Jermayan looked again, Kellen had nearly reached the rocks surrounding the cairn, moving toward the natural gateway in the stone ring. Yet he could not have gone so far at the slow pace he’d been making in the short time since Jermayan had last looked. Jermayan shuddered. This was a horrible place. Nothing was as it seemed, but all of it was evil, polluted, and vile. The pain of his wounds was a wholesome thing compared to the crawling sense of uncleanness that seemed to fill the very air, and Jermayan was neither Wildmage, nor Demon-bred, nor creature of magic. How much worse must it be for the others?

There was nothing to do but wait.

Slowly it grew darker.

“Ah, Good Goddess save us!” Vestakia cried in a high terrified voice, jerking away from Shalkan. “Something is coming!”

Jermayan whirled, swinging his sword up and taking a defensive stance, though the movement made him feel as if someone had plunged a red-hot poker into his side. For a moment he saw nothing, then his keen Elven eyes detected a flicker of shadow at the edges of several of the boulders.

Without thought, he grabbed Vestakia’s hand and ran.

The stone ring—they’re after Kellen—

Behind him, he heard howling.

Chapter Twenty-five

Battle at the Cairn

THE THREE OF them reached the stone gateway and turned to face their pursuers. Jermayan leaned against one of the pillars for support, and as he did, he felt Vestakia reaching under his cloak, pulling his bow and quiver free.

“I know how to use these,” she said grimly, slinging the heavy war-quiver over her shoulder. It held six dozen arrows, but she shouldered its weight without difficulty. She strung the bow and nocked an arrow with one swift expert motion.

“This is the only way to the cairn,” Shalkan reported, drawing himself up and preparing to fight. His horn had begun to glow: the bright silvery blue of moonlight.

“We have to hold them here for as long as we can,” Jermayan said grimly. The pain of his wound was forgotten; an Elven Knight was trained to ignore such things. But it would sap his strength, his speed …

He didn’t say what they all knew: they were going to die here. The Demon-girl was welcome to his dagger as well as his bow, but they faced overwhelming numbers. All they could do was buy Kellen time.

Running toward them across the broken ground of the stony waste was an army of goblins, their bulging silver eyes squinting against what was to them the painful brightness of twilight and the unicorn’s horn. They gibbered and cackled and howled as they ran, opening frog-wide mouths to expose endless rows of shark-bright teeth. Their glistening hairless skins were all the colors of bruises: purple and black and green. Some swung themselves along on their elongated forearms, like the apes they somewhat resembled, others shambled upright, the better to carry weapons. Most preferred to rely on their natural weapons—teeth and claws, speed and strength.

The Endarkened, Jermayan knew, kept them as pets. In the Great War, they had used them as shock troops. They could move through earth as if it were air, and that, of course, was how they had lain hidden until some trap-spell alerted and released them. Goblins would eat anything, and not wait until it was dead to begin. A goblin horde could devour an ox down to the bone in minutes.

Vestakia fired, choosing her targets with both speed and care. Each time she fired, she hit her mark, and the goblins nearby the victim stopped to devour their fallen comrade.

And that was an unexpected help. Fights broke out over the division of the spoils, as members of the horde turned on each other and fought. Vestakia was careful to space her targets, to spread the chaos as far as possible, and to conserve her arrows.

But some got through.

“Back!” Jermayan shouted as the goblin sprang at him. A quick slice of his sword cut it nearly in two, and left it twitching out its life at his feet. He killed four more almost immediately. They were easy to kill, and as long as they didn’t get close enough to spit poison in his eyes, or onto his exposed skin, he was safe enough. Their deadliness lay in their sheer numbers, and the fact that they were too single-minded to retreat even when they were being slaughtered. They’d just keep coming.

And sooner or later they would wear him down, and poison him. They were strong enough to rip his armor off to get at what was underneath while he lay paralyzed. And then it would be over.

Vestakia ducked out from behind him again and again and began shooting, and Jermayan took advantage of that to throw the dead goblins as far toward the horde as possible.

“They spit poison!” Jermayan shouted at her, afraid suddenly that she might be taken unawares.

“I’m immune!” she shouted back. “I found that out a long time ago! And Shalkan can purge you of poison!”

Jermayan spared a moment for a pang of relief. Another help, and one he had not expected; the unicorn might not be able to heal him, nor share a Healing Price for one who was not a virgin, but the touch of his horn would neutralize any poison, even from a goblin bite.

So all they had to worry about was being torn to pieces and eaten alive. That was comforting. Jermayan glanced toward the unicorn. Shalkan had a goblin skewered on the end of his horn. With a snap, the unicorn sent the body flying back into the horde.

But the goblins kept coming.

Somehow the creatures decided that Vestakia was the most vulnerable. They feared Shalkan, and Jermayan was well protected by his armor, but they kept taking desperate risks to get at Vestakia, and finally Jermayan realized why.

It’s not that she’s the most vulnerable. They want her. They must have orders to take her alive!

His suspicion was confirmed when several goblins managed to get past Shalkan and knock Vestakia down. Rather than bursting through the gate after Kellen—or beginning to devour Vestakia on the spot—they grabbed her legs and began dragging her back toward the horde.

Vestakia screamed, a wail of nightmare terror. The goblin horde swarmed forward. But it didn’t attack. It was waiting, waiting until it had claimed Vestakia.

Shalkan was too far away. If he came to her aid, the goblins would have the opening they sought without having to wait. They’d pour through the gate and be after Kellen in an instant.

Jermayan sprang forward and grabbed her by the hair. He hauled back with all his strength, jerking Vestakia toward him, pulling her and both the goblins into the air. He got his hands, sword and all, under her armpits and whirled, though the pain of his wound made him cry out in a high-pitched wail of his own.

He cracked her legs like a whip as he lifted her, retreating between the stones, but the two goblins refused to let go. She kicked and struggled frantically, screaming at the top of her lungs, but the goblins dug their claws into her legs and hissed.

With another howl of agony Jermayan caught her up around the waist with his unencumbered arm. Still holding her in the air, Jermayan swung his sword, thrusting more goblins back as they rushed forward to help their horde mates. He wouldn’t be able to hold her up much longer—already it was torture—and the moment the goblins got their feet on the ground, the battle for Vestakia would be lost.

Then Shalkan appeared. Almost delicately, the unicorn slipped his horn through the body of one of the goblins. The wound smoked. The goblin convulsed, and Vestakia whimpered as its claws dug deeper for a moment before it dropped off, dead. Jermayan marveled to see that even then, its horde brother still clung to Vestakia, as if having reached the long-sought prize, it could not bear to relinquish it. What price, what price had been set upon her by her Demon father?

All true, Jermayan realized in that instant. All she said—true.

The goblin glared at Jermayan, and spat. The poison struck his surcoat harmlessly and bubbled away, steaming. The vile liquid stank.

Shalkan killed that one, too. Jermayan kicked the bodies away, stumbling backward into the gap again.

The fight over their fallen comrades kept the goblins occupied for a moment, giving the defenders a respite. Jermayan could only thank the Powers that it had been goblins that had been sent against them. Anything else would not have been distracted from battle by food. For the moment, the horde was only a snarling, slavering feeding frenzy, ignoring their real foes.

“Can you stand?” Shalkan asked.

Vestakia nodded.

“Can you fight?” Jermayan asked.

She nodded again, blinking back tears.

“I thought—I thought—” Vestakia gasped.

“Not—while—I’m—here—” Jermayan snarled, his voice shaking with pure rage. How dare those unclean things think they could steal one of his battle comrades from beneath his arm, a woman who had stood beside him in this place of death and hell, and that he, Jermayan of the House of Leaf and Star, would stand by and do nothing?

He thrust her dropped bow into her hands and turned away, letting his fury flow into his sword, banishing weakness. The horde surged forward again, and Jermayan’s sword filled the air with sprays of goblin ichor.

THE moment of respite passed, and the horde came again, and they fought. Another moment of peace, while the dead were eaten, and then another wave. It was now too dark to make out the individual forms of the dark-skinned goblins, even by the light of Shalkan’s horn, but as far as they could see, the plain was filled with hungry watching silver eyes that glowed brighter as the darkness deepened. The howling of the goblins was loud enough to drown out even the ever-present moaning of the wind.

The space before the stone gateway was clear of the dead. Under cover of their attacks, the goblin horde tidily dragged away its dead to devour them. But there were always more goblins, and the monsters were always hungry, and every moment the battle continued, true night drew closer, and true night was the time of the goblins’ greatest power. How long since Kellen had begun his ascent? Had something gone wrong?

How much longer could they hold the gateway?

“Jermayan!” Vestakia shouted over the yammering howls of the goblins. “I’m running out of arrows!”

UP and around the circumference of the cairn he went, and as he did, the wind slowly increased again as he drew level with the surface of the plain. His legs ached so badly he thought that he would surely never be able to rise if he fell; his side burned, and Kellen hardly seemed to get any air at all from the panting gasps he pulled into his lungs. The wind itself was his enemy, tearing at him, blurring his vision, trying to rip him off the stairs or freeze him in place. It seemed to Kellen now as if the source of the wind was the obelisk itself, as if it blew out of the obelisk from someplace not of this world. The wind was colder even than before, and with each step Kellen took the force of it increased, until it was blowing so hard that he had to lean into it and press himself hard against the side of the cairn to keep from being blown off.

As if from a great distance, he could hear inhuman yelping and the sounds of battle. If he looked, he would be able to see it as well, down over the plain, but he refused to look. He could not afford to be distracted from his battle with the obelisk; it took all his concentration to keep his footing on the stairs against the ceaseless hammering of the increasingly frigid wind. Kellen’s teeth chattered uncontrollably; tears that now owed nothing to grief streamed from his eyes and froze along his cheeks and lashes. He gripped Idalia’s keystone hard against his stomach and prayed that it would hold together as fervently as he had once hoped it might crack.

And then, as a further torment, grit began to pelt him, mixed with the wind, as if the force of the storm were starting to dissolve the cairn itself. Fine sand at first, that left him blinking and half-blind, but soon heavier sand that left his skin feeling raw, then good-sized pieces of gravel and small rocks that hammered his skin, leaving bruises and even drawing blood. He could taste grit between his teeth, on his tongue, feel it in his nose, in his lungs, choking him. He pulled his undertunic up over his head. It was hard to breathe through the heavy quilted material, but as he heard the wind-driven sand hiss over its surface, Kellen was glad he’d done it. Better to be half-stifled than arriving at the top of the cairn blind. Slowly his tears washed his eyes clean.

He was even gladder to have done it when the sandstorm became heavier, quickly escalating from fine grit to stinging particles that left his exposed skin feeling raw, and good-sized pieces of gravel and small rocks that pelted his skin stingingly, and even drew blood. At this rate, he’d be dodging boulders soon.

And he needed to protect the keystone as well as his eyes and lungs. Kellen quickly tucked the keystone under his shirt, and turned toward the wall so it was protected by his body. It was as icy against his skin as it had once been warm against his hands. He ducked his head beneath his tunic, turning his face against the wall, and crept, crabwise and even more slowly, up the stairs. The sand made them slippery, and he knew that Something was hoping he’d fall and break the fragile keystone.

As he’d feared, small stones were soon joined by larger stones, as the fury of the gale—or the intelligence behind it—tore off pieces of the mountain and flung them at Kellen. He groaned as fist-sized chunks of rock struck him—on the shoulders, the ribs, the leg, hammering against the bruises the shepherd’s club had made. Only that morning? It seemed an eternity ago. At least the howling of the wind and the booming of the rocks against the stone shut out all sound of the battle below. If it was still going on. If all his friends weren’t dead already. If Vestakia hadn’t been taken, kidnapped into a slavery and torture she feared more than death. Please, let that at least not have happened.

I won’t look back, Kellen promised himself. Whatever happens, I won’t look back.

He couldn’t believe he was doing this. And it was so unfair for the enemy he faced to be throwing rocks at him in addition to hurricanes, monsters, and all the rest. It seemed so petty, somehow, so much like the action of something that saw him as a mere nuisance, an insect—or as if he faced, not a dignified enemy that fought with solemn strategy, but a petty spoiled child that had lost its temper.

Or else that he meant so little, that he was so unimportant, so meager a threat, that the enemy deemed it sufficient to batter him with a few rocks, figuring he would turn tail and run.

That, as much as all the pain, the uncertainty, the grief and despair, nearly broke Kellen’s spirit.

Only his anger at the insult saved him.

Anger is a weapon, as much as your sword.

“I’ll—show—you!” he snarled through clenched teeth. And went on. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, blind, aching, terrified, but now, above all else, angry, he went on.

The worst part was when there was no more wall beside him. Kellen realized that must mean he was near the top of the cairn. Groping blindly, his head still muffled in his tunic, he slid his hand along the wall in front of his face, upward until he touched emptiness. The wind pushed at his fingertips with the force of a wave of water. If he tried to simply walk up to where the obelisk was, the wind would pluck him off and hurl him to the ground.

Very well. Then he would crawl.

Kellen got down on his hands and knees and crawled up the rest of the stairs, brushing the sand away carefully from each step before him. It caked on his abraded hands, and every time he wiped them clean on his tunic, one after the other, always keeping one hand wrapped tight around the keystone beneath his tunic, fresh blood welled up from a thousand tiny scratches. And the wind still blew, cold enough to leach all sensation from his flesh.

He reached a flat place, and crawled out onto it, pushing against the wind.

Suddenly the wind stopped.

“Well, you make a fine sight,” a voice said from somewhere above him, sounding amused.

The voice was elusively familiar.

Kellen dragged his tunic down around his neck and stared, blinking, into the watery green light.

He was facing … himself?

Another Kellen stood on the other side of the obelisk, grinning down at him nastily. The point of the obelisk came just to his heart level. This Kellen was sleek and manicured—no one would ever call his smooth brown curls unruly!—and dressed in the height of Armethaliehan finery, from his shining half-boots of tooled and gilded leather to his fur-lined half-cape and the pair of jeweled and embroidered silk gloves tucked negligently through his gleaming gilded belt. The cape and gloves were in House Tavadon colors, of course. No one would ever forget which Mageborn City House this young man belonged to, not for an instant.

Slowly, Kellen got to his feet, though his cramped and aching muscles protested. Instantly, Other-Kellen clapped his bare hands over the point of the obelisk, blocking Kellen’s access to it.

“Think about what you’re doing,” Other-Kellen urged him. “Really think about it. Now, before it’s too late. You’ve had a chance to taste freedom, and you’ve found it’s a bitter wine. Only power can make it sweet, but you already know the responsibilities that power brings. Even the powerful aren’t really free—everyone serves someone, or something. The only real freedom we have is of choosing our master, and most people don’t get even that. But you can choose.”

“I don’t serve anyone!” Kellen said angrily.

“Oh? And you a Wildmage,” Other-Kellen said mockingly. “I should think you would have learned better the moment you opened the Books.”

Kellen snapped his mouth shut abruptly. If this was a fight, he’d just lost the first battle. He did serve the Wild Magic, and so far he’d done exactly what it told him to do, no matter what that was. How free did that make him?

“You’ve made some bad choices in the past,” Other-Kellen continued smoothly. “Even you’re willing to admit that. Wouldn’t you like the chance to just undo them? To go back and start over, knowing what you know now? To make it right? You can have that. Erase the bad choices but keep the wisdom you’ve gained. Few people get that opportunity.”

Other-Kellen smiled, and for the first time, Kellen could see his father’s face mirrored in this stranger’s that was his own. The sight shocked and distracted him, even in this moment and in this place. Assurance … competence … or just corruption?

No. Temptation—there it was. Even if he’d never put it into just those words, wasn’t it exactly what he himself had thought so many times of doing?

“You left Armethalieh because you rebelled against Arch-Mage Lycaelon’s plans for you, but you know better now, don’t you? The life of a High Mage has its compensations—and the High Mages were right to want to build safeguards against the prices and bargains the Wild Magic required,” his doppelganger said, his voice as silken and sweet as honey, reasonable and logical. Kellen himself had never sounded like that. “What’s so wrong with trying to improve something? They still practice magic, and they still give their citizens a good life—and if life in the Golden City is too restrictive, well, when you’re Arch-Mage, Kellen, you’ll be able to make all the changes you’ve dreamed of, and make the City an even better place to live, one where the citizens have choices.”

That shocked Kellen so much that he almost dropped the keystone. Of all of the things he had imagined and fantasized about, that was never one that had occurred to him!

“And you can be Arch-Mage,” the double said, persuasively. “You have the gift and the talent; your father isn’t wrong about that! If everyone must serve, then choose your service. Serve the City. Go back now, beg your father’s forgiveness—it won’t be that hard; he needs you to shore up his own failing prestige. He’ll be grateful when you turn up again, full of repentance! Give up the Wild Magic. That won’t be hard, either, will it? Step back into the life you should have had, and work for the good of Armethalieh. You’ll have everything you wanted. All you have to know is where to look for it. And you know that now, don’t you? You’ve learned. You’ve gained wisdom. Wouldn’t it be a shame not to be able to apply it, to be able to give others the benefit of your experience? To help them? You’ll be able to keep your memories, of course—what good is experience if you don’t remember it? And you won’t be wholly without resources. Or allies. Just think of all you can do for the City when you return …”

Kellen stared in horrified fascination at his doppelganger. Was this really him? The person he could have been—or could still be? If Lycaelon had been able to create the perfect heir by magick—If, a year and more ago, someone had asked Kellen what he wanted to be, and he hadn’t thought clearly enough—

To help them. Even against the Demons? If he did this, could he even turn the City to help the Elves, and forge a new Alliance as in the old days?

But Jermayan would know what had happened—

Shalkan surely would—

“Your companions are already dead. You have no one to consider but yourself. No one will know what happened here but you. Isn’t it time you did what you want, for a change? Here is your future, Kellen. You have but to reach out and seize it. Power—glory—mastery—fame—everything you can imagine, even love. It can all be yours. And you will receive nothing but praise for your actions.”

Now Kellen looked away, down toward the plain below, but he could see nothing at all of the battle that might still be raging there. Everything below the top of the cairn was covered with a thick layer of yellow-green fog. It was as if the rest of the world had vanished. Quickly he looked back at his doppelganger, suspecting a trick, but Other-Kellen had not moved. His doppelganger smiled at Kellen sympathetically, as if guessing the direction of Kellen’s thoughts.

“But if you go through with this foolish adventure that you have undertaken at the behest of others, your future will be set. If you think you have troubles now, you can’t even begin to imagine what your life is going to be like afterward—assuming you don’t die right here. Think of the Demons. They know your name, Kellen. The Queen and Prince of the Endarkened know who you are.” The double’s voice caressed the names. “They know all about you, and they’ll find you wherever you go. You won’t have an easy death, or a quick one. They love Wildmages. They love to play with them and their power. Torment—oh, for them, it is the highest form of Art, and they have had millennia to perfect it. You won’t die, but you will long for death with all of your being. For years, Kellen, for years …”

Other-Kellen shuddered in mock-sympathy, his eyes never leaving Kellen’s face. Kellen trembled, remembering his nightmares, knowing they must have fallen far short of the truth.

“Oh, you might survive triggering the keystone. You might even manage to get back to Sentarshadeen alive, I’ll grant you that. And I’m sure your friends the Elves will do their best for you. But it hasn’t really been much of a best so far, has it? They couldn’t even manage to save themselves without a Wildmage or two to help. And when it comes right down to it, they’re going to take care of themselves and their families first once the trouble starts, aren’t they? So it’s just going to be you and Idalia, all alone with no one to help you, and how long do you think the two of you will survive? After all, you two are only humans, and blood is, as the saying goes, thicker than water. If anyone is protected, it will be other Elves, not a couple of barbaric, mayfly humans who can’t even manage a conversation without being rude and uncouth.”

The doppelganger snickered, and Kellen flushed, remembering his stumbling attempts to converse with anyone in Sentarshadeen other than the child Sandalon.

“I wouldn’t say we’re friends, exactly, but I would say I’m the closest thing to a friend you’ve got. Right here. Right now. Think about it, Kellen. This is your last chance. After this, you have no choices left. Think. Use what you’ve learned. They’ve all tried to keep the truth from you—even Idalia—so you wouldn’t know what the stakes are. Think how hard you’ve had to work to find out what little you have. Why is that? So you wouldn’t know enough to make a fair choice,” Other-Kellen said.

Fair, Kellen thought bitterly. Nothing about this is fair. Nothing had ever been fair and out in the open, from the moment he’d found the three Books in the Low Market, and hearing all his secret fears and unworthy hopes in the mouth of this manicured popinjay was the least fair thing of all.

He remembered Jermayan telling him about The Seven—how when they’d faced down the Endarkened army at the pass of Vel-al-Amion and first beaten them back, the Endarkened had tried to seduce them to the Dark.

As one of the Endarkened was trying to seduce him now. This, then, was their last line of defense, and the most compelling of all.

“Well …” Kellen said, walking closer and lifting the keystone in his hands as if he were about to hand it over. “I guess I really ought to be smart and do what you say.”

The Other-Kellen smiled triumphantly and relaxed, certain of its victory.

“But I’m not going to!” Kellen shouted.

He brought the keystone down—hard—on the doppelganger’s hands. It howled and recoiled as if it had been burned, jerking its hands back from the point of the obelisk.

And in that moment, it … changed.

The Other-Kellen was gone. In its place stood a Demon.

It—she!—towered over Kellen, her wings spread wide. He caught a confused glimpse of bloodred skin, of horns and claws, but she was barely there for an instant, for in the moment that the Demon had released her hold on the obelisk, Kellen slammed the keystone down over the tip of the stone.

The instant Idalia’s keystone touched the obelisk, the Demon howled in fury and vanished, her cheated rage a whiplash across his senses. For a moment he was blind and deaf in a paroxysm of pain. He cringed, but kept his hands on the stone.

They had not counted on his experience with being lied to. And perhaps that was the greatest weapon Lycaelon Tavadon had given to him.

I know a lie when I hear it, you bastards.

Kellen trembled all over, realizing in that moment how close the Demon had come to winning. But it hadn’t.

Now it was up to him. Despite everything he had already gone through, the hardest part was still to come. He took a deep breath and reached down into the keystone with his Wildmage senses, touching the power waiting within. The power leaped toward him eagerly, but Kellen knew that he was not to be its destination. Gently he turned it toward the obelisk.

He felt the obelisk’s resistance, and pushed harder, adding the last of his strength and all of his will to the keystone’s power, forcing the link into being. It was like healing an unwilling subject, if such a thing were conceivable.

One by one, the obelisk’s defenses gave way. Kellen felt the triggering force begin to rush through him and into the obelisk. He kept his palms pressed against the keystone’s sides; without him to maintain the link, the spell would be broken before the Barrier was breached. And all of it—the journey, the others’ sacrifice—would all have been for nothing.

Then, breakthrough. And his body spasmed, convulsed, his mouth going open in a silent scream. It was nearly impossible to keep his feet; he wouldn’t have been able to if his muscles hadn’t all locked at once, freezing him in place; head flung back, back arched. He felt as if he were being struck by lightning, a bolt of energy that somehow went on and on and on, searing its way through him.

His hands were burning. He stood the pain as long as he could in silence, but then he had to scream. Holding the keystone was like clutching red-hot metal fresh from the forge, and there was no respite, no mercy. He could smell the pork-like scent of his cooking flesh, could feel blood running down his wrists as blisters swelled up and burst, and then, in a thunderclap of agony, the fire was everywhere, coursing through his veins with every beat of his heart.

Kellen howled unashamedly, great wracking sobs of hopeless agony. And he held on. Perhaps it was stubbornness, but he had always been stubborn. And he would not give the Demons this victory.

I’m going to die.

Suddenly he realized that was the price of the spell, the rest of the cost. It must be. A Wildmage’s life. Idalia must have known when she created the spell that the price of casting it would be the life of the one who triggered it. His life. Kellen felt a flash of pride in his sister at keeping the painful secret so well.

But he would have to consent. No Wildmage could give up that which belonged to another—not without turning to the Dark.

She had known the price of the magic, but she could only have hoped he would pay it.

If that’s the price, he shouted silently to the Powers, then I will pay it! I wish I didn’t have to, but I swear I pay it willingly and without reservation!

But more than ever, having surrendered his life, he yearned to keep it. To see the sun again, to feel the gentle summer wind, to walk through the forest or drink a cup of morning tea. But all those things had their price, and so did keeping them. And some prices were too high to pay. The price of his life would be the destruction of all those things, soon or late. The price of keeping his life would be victory for the Endarkened.

No. Never.

My life for the destruction of the Barrier. A fair bargain. Done. Done!

Then the pain was too great for thought.

As if it were made of flesh, not stone, the obelisk began to warm. Beneath his hands, seen even through his closed eyelids, it glowed an unhealthy green. The ground started to tremble beneath Kellen’s feet, and a low rumbling sound filled the air, growing louder, becoming a roar, then a wail.

Abruptly the obelisk began to swell, its stark lines distorting as if the malign power it contained was backing up inside it, filling it beyond its capacity. Its swelling carried him upward; he collapsed against its surface, clinging to the keystone, and still it swelled. Now the stone was a baneful pus-yellow color, nearly spherical. Kellen lay upon its surface, unable to preserve the thought of anything beyond the need to maintain the link.

The whole cairn shook like a tree in a windstorm.

The wail rose to a scream. The toxic light flared lightning-bright.

And for Kellen, there was sudden darkness and a release from all pain.

Chapter Twenty-six

Storm Wind and Silver Feather

WAITING WAS THE hardest thing.

No matter how many times Idalia told herself that Kellen had the more difficult and dangerous task, her own part—waiting for the Barrier to fall—ate at her self-control.

There was nothing she could do until the Barrier did fall, and the fact that she spent her days in comfort and safety while the two men she loved most in all the world—Kellen and Jermayan—rode off into danger did nothing to soothe either her nerves or her temper. And if Shadow Mountain should capture them, Idalia knew very well that the Endarkened would account both an Elf and a Wildmage—not to mention a unicorn—very great prizes. Jermayan and Shalkan would certainly die horribly. As for Kellen … death by torture would be the kindest of the things the Endarkened would do to a Wildmage who fell into their hands.

She thought about Jermayan often as the days passed. It was safe enough now, she thought bitterly. He was probably going to die making sure Kellen reached the Barrier alive. Why had she been so stubborn, so proud, so arrogant?

Stubborn as an Elf … When you came right down to it, everyone, Elf and human, had the same life span. They lived until they died, that was all—and with Shadow Mountain moving against the Bright World again, the lives of Elven Knights would be measured in years, not centuries.

A few days, a few hours, of happiness would have been something—a gift to him, a gift to herself, something they could have shared, a moment of sweet fulfillment with which to defy the monstrous Darkness that Jermayan was even now laying down his life to destroy.

Her thoughts were bleak, anguished, and the passing of the days only increased her despair.

Even if they succeeded, she would probably never see either of them again. The energy released when the spell was triggered would be … well, she did not know enough even to guess at the effects. Add to that the power of the unbound weather patterns, unleashed from their unnatural binding … lightning, hurricane, gale-force winds, and there, high in the mountains, in winter, snow. Heavy snow.

How could two men and a unicorn, probably wounded, battered, definitely alone, ever hope to survive even a single night in a blizzard?

Even success would not guarantee their safety, or their lives.

And so Idalia took care to keep entirely to herself in the days that followed Kellen’s departure, lest her unhappiness contaminate the hope that was growing in Sentarshadeen with each passing day.

IT was over a sennight since they’d been gone. Idalia had been restless all day, wandering far beyond the city, into the Flower Forest beyond the House of Leaf and Star. There were no flowers now. She could feel the sorrow of the trees and plants, their slow withering starvation and death, and her helplessness in the face of their need was like a fresh grief. The narrow canals the Elves had dug to bring water to the forest held only dampness, for the five springs were not inexhaustible, nor were there enough Elves in Sentarshadeen to man the pumps to fill the canals every day.

Who shall live and who shall die? They have had to make so many choices already, and if my spell does not succeed, if Kellen and Jermayan do not succeed, they will have to make more …

Sick at heart, Idalia turned away from the slowly dying forest and crossed the unicorn meadow again. It was nearly lantern-lighting time, the bright, ever-cloudless sky dimming as the sun set. She should go home, and rest. Tomorrow morning she would come back here, to the spring called Songmairie and do as she did every morning. She would cast her Seeking Spell to see if the Barrier was down. Perhaps tomorrow she would scry as well, but she had been afraid to do that for fear of what her spell would show her. Like the Elves, Idalia wanted to hope until all hope of hope was gone.

Suddenly there came a pulse of magic so strong it staggered her; a lightless flash perceptible only to her Wildmage senses, but it blinded and deafened her to all else for one incredulous moment.

Kellen has triggered the keystone!

Wild hope and sudden fierce joy filled her. He’s gotten through!

She stood, staring northward, fists clenched, willing him to hold out, to keep the link true until the spell was complete. She hadn’t known she’d be able to sense it, but the keystone was part of her, formed of her magic and linked to her, and so she’d felt that first fierce uprush of energy as the keystone began to give up its spell. But now … nothing.

Nothing but hope, and her faith in all she knew Kellen to be.

Idalia turned and began to run.

She was back in less than half an hour with her tools and a full bag of charged keystones. Heart hammering, hands shaking, she dipped each in the spring and began to lay them out in a circle around her. There was a bag of crystallized honey-disks in her tool-bag as well, used for sweetening tea, and as she worked she pulled one out and popped it into her mouth. She’d need the energy, now and for the rest of the night. If the spell had worked.

Please, you Gods who shape the world. Let it be so!

She paused for a moment, waiting. But the spell would run fast once it was triggered. If it had worked, she would be able to sense the results now. Or the failure.

Once more—as she had done so many days ago—she dipped water from the Elven spring and scattered it around herself, touched water to her lips, raised her dripping hands to the sky, and called to the rain.

Hesitation. Confusion. And then …

Haste. Urgency. Frenzy. Need. Long-penned forces boiling across a barrier that had suddenly been cast down, roaring through the parched and empty halls of air with the force of a landslide, carrying a tidal wave’s worth of water with them, shedding it indiscriminately and violently on the desert-dry land below …

Kellen had won! The spell was cast. The Barrier was down. And all the pent-up rain that belonged to Sentarshadeen and the Elven lands was coming this way.

Fast.

She needed to slow it. Holding the clouds back would mean heavy snows for the mountains—that couldn’t be helped. She must hold cloud-packs over lakes and rivers as much as possible, and let them gently into the Elven lands to provide the gentle soaking rain the forests needed, or else the rain would do as much damage as the drought had done. Keep storm systems from forming to minimize as much as possible the devastating winds and lightning storms that could still set tinder-dry woods ablaze even through the rain …

She had time to think carefully. Even the fastest-moving storm system would normally take several days to reach here from the mountains. This storm was coming as if sucked through a vacuum—the abnormally dry air saw to that—but she had time—barely, but enough—to be sure she made the right decisions.

This was not the sort of weather-working Idalia usually did, giving a gentle nudge to normal weather patterns. These weather patterns were abnormal to begin with, and she was trying to set them back into their normal ones. If she simply dissipated the force of the storm when it reached here, and broke up as much of it as she could as far away as she could reach, the pattern of the weather should quickly return back to normal, and Sentarshadeen wouldn’t be drowned by flooding in the process.

She took out another honey-disk and crunched it between her teeth with nervous need. There weren’t enough keystones in the entire world to provide energy for the work she had in mind. And it wasn’t much more than a sennight since she’d called upon the Elves to lend power to the forging of the keystone she’d sent off with Kellen. She couldn’t call upon them to share in a spell-price twice in so short a time. Many of them were still recuperating from the last Working. She knew they would help her willingly—and if they did, this time there would be deaths. She would not have that on her conscience.

It’s all up to me, then.

She ate another honey-disk, thinking about what she needed and what she would pay. She would not set a price—it was always safest, and if she refused the bargain, she would be free to try again. But she must think carefully about what was needed before she began.

What was the most important thing? The Book of Stars said that all true magic came from the heart, and after she had thought about that for a long time, she had realized that one of the things it meant was that in every request a Wildmage made, there was one thing that was most important, the central element from which the rest of the request came. Focus on that, and see what else you could leave out. That was the most elegant way of working magic. Simplicity.

The weather patterns needed to be returned to normal. That was the most important thing. But in this case, it wasn’t the only thing, because the Elven lands had to be protected from the damage that the weather would do while it was settling back into its normal patterns. She couldn’t ask for either one without asking for the other, not and be certain of getting both.

So what was the best way to ask for both?

To ask for the strength to do it yourself. She knew she had the skill. All she lacked was the power. The Wild Magic would grant her that—if she was willing to pay the price it asked.

It would be a high price. She knew that already, even before the spell. The more specific you were, the higher the price.

Would it be worth it? Mageprices could be bitterly hard.

She looked around. How could she even ask? The flooding would drown everything in the canyon. It would destroy the city. And the forests and grasslands for hundreds of miles around were still tinder-dry. When lightning struck them, they’d burn. It wouldn’t matter how hard it was raining. They’d burn.

She’d promised to protect the people of Sentarshadeen from that. She’d sent Kellen to the Barrier to end the drought, knowing how dangerous it was, knowing that the journey would probably take his life, knowing that if he lived to reach the Barrier, the spell would almost certainly ask for his life—and that Kellen, being Kellen, would give it freely, even joyfully. What was one more sacrifice? With power came responsibility.

With great power, greater responsibility.

She opened her work-bag and took out a tiny brazier and a bag of herbs. She set the small cake of charcoal into the brazier’s pan and called it alight with a snap of her fingers, then burned her herbs. As she did, she formed her intention clearly in her mind, and asked her boon of the Gods.

To give me the strength to help the rains come gently and safely, and to return the weather to its rightful pattern, repairing the damage done to it by the Barrier. She did not specify the price she was willing to pay.

When she heard the Mageprice that was her magic’s cost, Idalia took a deep breath and lowered her head for a moment, closing her eyes tightly. For a moment she was tempted to refuse. Surely there was another way, a different spell she might cast!

But now the choice was hers. After a moment, she raised her head.

“I accept,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

She felt the heavy sense of listening depart—the sensation Idalia always associated with the making of the bargains associated with Wildmagery—and then there was only the sense of competence and ability,

the deep ever-filling well of Wildmage power, hers for use.

She got to work, putting the thought of the bargain aside.

She reached out with her heightened senses, touching the storm.

It was as if she were in Silver Eagle form once more, riding through the air on great, long-feathered wings. But now she was larger than any Silver Eagle ever hatched, her body so vast that she could sweep thunderheads aside with one beat of her great wings. She flew into the heart of the storm itself, shepherding the clouds where she wished them to go, spreading them across the landscape, slowing their eastward rush.

Again and again she dove into the heart of the storm, feathered shepherd to her dark woolly sheep, but instead of bunching them, she kept them well separated, and instead of hurrying them, she slowed them—though, also like sheep, they resisted her efforts, trying always to return to their own ways despite her best efforts.

Idalia lost all track of time. There was only the glory of flight, and the necessity of the task. The storm wind buffeted her, flinging her thousands of feet toward the sky in one instant and tumbling her toward the ground in the next moment as if she’d suddenly lost her wings. Each time she recovered and doggedly returned to her work, though her phantom muscles began to ache with exhaustion. It must be done. There was no one else to do it.

And she had made her bargain.

THE first fat drops of rain on her face woke her from her trance. It was day, but heavily overcast.

Idalia opened her eyes slowly, blinking against the light. She was cold, and ravenously hungry. The first drops of rain were joined by more until it was raining steadily, and in moments Idalia was soaked to the skin. Rain! She’d never felt anything so wonderful.

ALIVE … ? she thought in confusion. But—

Ashaniel was standing over her, in the middle of a half circle of Elven courtiers. All of them were gazing down at her with expressions of identical worry.

Idalia stared up at the sky. Day. But it had been night when she began.

“I must—” her voice came out in a hoarse croak. She coughed, and licked rain from her upper lip, and tried again. “I must have been here all night.”

“Idalia,” Ashaniel said, very gently, “you have been sitting here for three days.”

HE smelled wet earth. The scent puzzled Kellen, drawing him slowly toward consciousness. How could earth be wet? It had been dry for as long as he could remember.

Wondering drew him back into his body, and he became aware of the sensation of cool hands bathing his face with a damp cloth. His raw skin stung, but the motion of the soft cloth felt good, and he smelled the faint spicy scent of allheal tea. He opened his eyes.

“He’s awake!” Vestakia cried. “Jermayan! He’s awake!”

Kellen tried to sit up. The effort produced the sensation that someone had lashed his back with a bundle of hot wires. He could not feel his hands at all, and in a distant foggy part of his mind, he knew that was a good thing. He groaned faintly, and relaxed again, only then realizing that his head was in Vestakia’s lap. He blinked. It was a great effort.

He and Vestakia were in a cave. Not very far in—he could see the entrance from where he was. Outside, he could see that it was raining, a hard, steady, soaking rain.

Rain!

Jermayan appeared in the doorway, ducking his head to clear the entrance. The Elven Knight was stripped to the waist, his hair tied back with a length of rag. He smiled in relief when he saw Kellen, and quickly came to kneel at his side.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“I’m alive,” Kellen said, sounding baffled, even to himself. “But … I thought …” The Other-Kellen said you were dead. But that was a lie, just like all the rest of it, just a lie to get me to give in.

And I thought I was supposed to die. Wasn’t that the price of the spell?

Or was just being willing to die enough?

I don’t understand …

“You thought we were dead,” Jermayan said. “And I must say, without this young lady and her skill with a bow, we might very well have been.” Jermayan paused to exchange a look of warm comradeship with Vestakia that left Kellen gaping in shock. Things had certainly changed while he’d been unconscious!

“But once you destroyed the cairn, the goblin army fled, and your healing regained its power. Once we found you, we got out of there as fast as we could. Fortunately Shalkan was able to light our way back to Valdien and Lily, and praise the powers of Leaf and Star they’d stayed where they were left,” Jermayan said. Kellen could hear the relief in his friend’s voice.

“We bandaged you up as well as we could,” Vestakia added. “Your poor hands! And I thought of bringing you here—this is one of the places where I hide from the Demons. And at least it’s dry.”

“And there’s plenty of fresh meat—if you like goat,” Jermayan added, smiling as if at a private joke. Vestakia giggled.

“Do you think you can sit up?” Jermayan asked.

“No,” Vestakia said firmly. “I’ll lift him up.” Gently she cradled Kellen in her arms and raised him into a half-sitting position. Abused muscles shrieked in protest, but he managed to keep from crying out.

Jermayan produced the inevitable cup of tea and held it to his lips. Kellen drained it thirstily, and then another, and then a large bowl of broth. He felt better after that—not well enough to try moving on his own for anything short of a Demon attack, but better.

“My hands,” he said, once Vestakia had returned him to a supine position once more. “You said they were burned. I can’t even feel them. Can I … do you think … will I be able to hold a sword again?”

“You are a Knight-Mage and a Wildmage,” Jermayan answered with a smile. “The healers in Sentarshadeen are very good—and Idalia is there. I believe you will. But now, let us savor our victory. It hasn’t stopped raining once in the last three days,” Jermayan said, sounding satisfied. “And if it rains so out of season here in the Lost Lands, then the drought must be truly broken in the Elven lands as well. And as for Demons, my girl, your days of hiding from them in caves and under rocks are over. You’re coming back to Sentarshadeen with us, and any Demon who comes after you will have to answer to me. As will anyone else,” he added meaningfully.

“To all of us, I think,” Shalkan said, stepping into the cave. The unicorn was covered in mud, but looking very pleased with himself.

Kellen sighed with relief, feeling himself relax completely. The Barrier was down, his friends were friends with each other, and he was alive. He couldn’t stop grinning, even though it made his sand-abraded face hurt a great deal.

“We did it!” he said. It was finally starting to seem real to him.

“Yes, we did,” Shalkan said approvingly. “And once you’re well enough to travel, we can bring the good news to Sentarshadeen … although I suspect they already know, somehow,” the unicorn mused, switching his sopping tail back and forth.

“It will be a wet trip back,” Jermayan said cheerfully. “And I’m sure there will be floods and mudslides and—well, it doesn’t matter. We did it, all of us. The Barrier is down, the drought is ended. We’ve broken the power of Shadow Mountain.”

Vestakia dipped the cloth in the bowl beside her and began to bathe Kellen’s face again with the allheal tincture.

“Thank you,” she whispered, bending over him. She kissed him, light as a butterfly wing, upon the forehead, then replaced her lips with the soothing cloth.

And suddenly, Kellen was anything but soothed. Suddenly he felt a peculiar unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach, and was utterly conscious of Vestakia’s presence, her nearness, in a way he hadn’t been even a moment before.

Now that he realized he was going to live after all, there was the matter of the future to deal with. And he was starting to get the feeling that his vow of celibacy and chastity was really going to be a lot harder to keep than he’d thought.

A whole lot harder.

QUEEN Savilla was angry.

In the Heart of Darkness, her anger was more dangerous than sunlight, more deadly than the touch of a unicorn’s horn. All who lived in the World Without Sun feared her fury.

Save one.

PRINCE Zyperis entered the private pleasure chamber of his Queen. The mosaic floor of gold and polished skull-ivory was red and wet, for Queen Savilla had been about her Art for many hours now, slaking her disappointment upon the bodies of those captives who could not be broken or subverted. There were a dozen creatures in various elaborate and ingenious forms of restraint scattered about the chamber, so that Savilla could move from one to the next as her fancy struck her. Most were still capable of screaming, the Prince noted with a connoisseur’s eye, though naturally none dared. To make the slightest sound would be to draw Savilla’s attention to them once more. There was only a faint pleasing background music of gasps and whimpers, stifled sobs, and the steady beat of the barbed lash that the Queen was using on the current object of her attention, a once-unruly Centaur.

The creature was far beyond standing under its own power, but all six limbs were held fast by a seemingly delicate cage that could be adjusted almost infinitely to provide the Queen full access to any part of its body she wished to torment, without protecting it from her attentions in the slightest.

Prince Zyperis noted, with interest, that Queen Savilla was so thoroughly engaged in her amusement that she hadn’t noticed his arrival. That must be rectified. The Barrier was down, the rain had returned to the Elven lands, the Endarkened’s plans had been utterly ruined, and even the blood and pain of several of the captives in his own dungeons had not been enough to take the edge off his anger and despair. He needed more. He needed danger.

“One weak and uncertain Knight-Mage, dearest Mama, yet you could not convince him to cast aside his pretty pebble and join his fortunes to ours? How droll.”

QUEEN Savilla turned away from her victim. Only one creature in all her kingdom would dare to speak to her like that. With a snarl of rage on her lips, she turned to face her arrogant son. For a moment her eyes burned white-yellow with the force of her passion. Then, with a change of expression so sudden it came as a shock, she licked blood from her claws, and smiled.

“Ah, Prince Zyperis. And your own plans on that day went so well, of course? When may I greet my dear granddaughter Vestakia, and welcome her to our Court?”

PRINCE Zyperis growled. His great wings trembled as he fought his temper. Tweaking the Queen’s tail was one thing. A true battle for dominance was something he did not want.

Yet.

“They will pay,” he whispered in a low, shaking voice. “The Elves—the accursed Wildmages—my love, we were so close … !”

He could not help himself. To have the one thing he longed for with a longing that was torment snatched out of his claws in the moment of victory! He felt tears of rage burning his eyes.

“And now we must begin again,” Savilla said firmly. With a gesture, she banished her servants from the chamber, then went to him and drew his head down against her bosom, stroking his hair and his wings as he wept tears of outrage and fury against her blood-red skin. “But come, let us think of more soothing things for a time.”

She recalled her servants, and together they dispatched Savilla’s victims one by one.

IT was good to do things together, Queen Savilla reflected. It gave you insight into those who might one day become your enemies, against the day when you might need to destroy them. Meanwhile, the cheated rage that burned in Zyperis’s soul was balm to her own. Let others grieve as she sorrowed, for the victory that had been taken from them by the arrogance and pride of a young Knight-Mage. She had spoken no more than the truth when she had told Kellen Tavadon that he had doomed himself. She would make sure of it. Everything and everyone the Knight-Mage loved would die, and he would die with them. Slowly. But only after he had watched her extract the last drop of pain from the ones he cherished.

At last the two of them reclined together, taking refreshment as they watched human servants clean away the disorder. In some ways, this was the sweetest pleasure of all, for Savilla took care that the servants chosen for this task were the newest ones, those it was still possible to shock, and their reactions—oh, but they tried so hard to hide them, knowing their masters were watching!—thrilled across her senses like harp-song.

“What now?” Prince Zyperis asked, in a tone that marked him as sated, but unsatisfied.

“Now the Elves know to fear us once more,” Queen Savilla said, popping a sweetmeat into his mouth. Her expression was distant, her voice brooding, her anger banked but far from quenched. “And that is … unfortunate. If the Elves have renewed their ancient Alliance with the Wildmages, who knows how many they may call to their banner? But fear not, my darling, my love. I do not hazard all on one stroke of the lash. There is still the Golden City, and my agents there may yet prove to be the most useful of all …”

IT had been a moonturn since the rains came—not that the moon was visible through the clouds—and it hadn’t stopped raining once in all that time. Sentarshadeen had turned from a city of gold to a city of silver with the long-delayed autumn rains, becoming a city of streams and fountains once more, losing its desert aspect as its growing things awakened into life, even in autumn. The snows would be heavy this year, even this far south, but by spring, all would be well.

It had taken Idalia several days of rest in the House of Leaf and Star to recover from her cloud-herding exertions, and the knowledge of her Mageprice still weighed heavily on her, even though she had come to realize it would not be asked of her immediately.

But when?

Would she have any warning at all?

Dared she make any plans for the future?

There is no future, Idalia told herself with a sigh. Or—not one any of us can plan for. Yes, Sentarshadeen was safe—from drought and floods. But now Shadow Mountain knew that its ancient enemy was aware of it once more, and another attack would inevitably come. Over the winter Andoreniel and Ashaniel would have to send envoys to the other Elven cities, to their allies, and to the other Wildmages, to tell them that Shadow Mountain was moving against the Bright World once more. And someone would have to at least try to warn Armethalieh.

Oh, Jermayan—I wish you were here, so I could tell you what a fool I have been! She had spent so long thinking of the centuries he would live beyond her own—but an Elven Knight was not likely to live very long at all, once the Elves went to war with the Endarkened once more. Their two lives, now, were exactly the same length.

If only he were here, so she could repair the damage her pride had caused them both.

But as one sennight, then two, passed without sign of him, or Kellen, or Shalkan, her hope for their survival dimmed. She began to accept that they were dead, lost in the aftermath of the fall of the Barrier. If not for the fact that a Wildmage’s scrying was a notoriously uncertain method, more likely to show you what you ought to see than what you wanted to see, she would have tried that, and used it to search for them. Another day or two without word, and she would try it anyway, and see whatever sights the Wild Magic brought her. Whatever revelations it sent could be no more painful than not knowing.

THE morning she had made up her mind to scry, Idalia awoke, as always these days, to the drumming of the steadily falling rain and the distant music of Elven rain-chimes. No day since the coming of the rains had passed without some sort of celebration—though the Elves knew as well as Idalia did that war was inevitable, they were pragmatic enough to know that one must rejoice when and where one could. She had declined a dozen invitations in the past fortnight to rain-picnics and rain-dances and rain-concerts of all sorts, lest her bleak mood contaminate the happiness of the celebrants.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, shivering in the damp morning chill—everything always seemed to be damp, now—and hurried into the common room of her little house to build up the fire, pulling a heavy shawl around her shoulders.

The grey cat hurried ahead of her, springing up to huddle against the warm stove and complain, plaintively, about the weather. Idalia smiled.

“It will be warm soon, Greymalkin. And you would have liked it less if the rains had not come, I promise you.”

The cat sneezed, disagreeing emphatically.

The stove began to radiate heat, warming the room. Idalia filled the kettle and set it on the fire, then wandered over to the window and looked out.

The river at the bottom of the canyon was full once more. If she opened the window, she would be able to hear its strong purling music, and soon fish would return to its waters. Across the canyon, she could see the forest. The moonturn of rain had stripped the last of the autumn leaves from the trees, but even bare-limbed, the forest looked healthier than it had before, and the evergreens had begun to regain their dark healthy green. The canyon wall itself was silvery with water, gleaming in the diffuse morning light like polished glass. Tiny rills and freshets of water jumped along its face as they trickled down, spraying out into the air in tiny outbursts engineered by the canyon wall’s long-ago designers. It all looked entirely natural, yet Idalia knew that everything she saw was the work of subtle Elven artifice.

The kettle was hot now, and Idalia made tea.

She dressed in her fringed leathers. A thick cloak of oiled wool and her Mountain Trader hat would keep off the worst of the rain, and Idalia hated being encumbered.

She filled a bottle with the rest of the tea, and wrapped a couple of breakfast pastries to eat later, tucking them into her shoulder bag. She added a pouch of charged keystones, a tiny flask of wine, and a leaf of dried fern, enough for the spell. If she held her cloak out over Songmairie, she should be able to still the water enough to use it for her scrying. In an emergency, a Wildmage could scry in a simple bowl of water, but the most power—and the best results—came from using natural pools, and today Idalia wanted all the help she could get.

Greymalkin accompanied her as far as the door, scolding her in a plaintive voice for her abandonment before retreating to the warmth of the stove. Once outside, Idalia took a deep breath. The air smelled strong and alive, and she could hear the purl and plash of fountains, the ting of rain-chimes, and the deep peal of rain-drums. The city made its own music.

Idalia made her way slowly through Sentarshadeen, briefly greeting the Elves she passed. The small gardens that were a feature of many Elven homes had suffered least from the drought, but even these were brighter and more alive thanks to the natural rain. She did not take the fastest or most direct route to the spring, but paused frequently to admire fountains and pools, shut down and emptied during the drought, and now brought to life once more. It was as if the city had been reborn in water.

At last her slow progress brought her to the unicorn meadow. Here the rain had worked the greatest change of all, banishing the silver from the grass and turning the whole meadow a rich deep dark green the color of emeralds. The unicorn herd was scattered across it, grazing greedily, their coats glossy with rain. The scent of the fresh grass was almost overpowering, as if its greenness were a palpable thing.

The path of smooth stone leading up to Songmairie was gone, though the decoration around the lip of the spring itself remained. In the distance, Idalia could see an Elven work party moving among the trees of the Flower Forest, gently filling in the irrigation canals. Soon the trees would come into leaf again; the fragrant alyon and the flowering vilya would bloom, even in the depths of the coming winter. Even now, if she concentrated, Idalia could smell the scent of the forest, wood and rising sap and new growth mixed with the cinnamon scent of the wet unicorns.

This was peace, all the more precious because it was about to be swept away by war. Idalia stood there, watching the herd, feeling the moment heal the bruised places in her soul.

Suddenly the herd’s quiet was shattered. They scattered in all directions as a young Elven scout, mounted on a red unicorn stallion, plunged through them, heading for Idalia. Both scout and rider were soaked to the skin. The unicorn stopped a good distance away from Idalia, prancing skittishly, nostrils flaring.

No virgins here, Idalia thought, amused in spite of herself.

It lowered its head and shook itself like a dog, spraying water everywhere and nearly unseating its rider before raising its head and regarding her with bright turquoise eyes.

“Wildmage!” the young stallion said excitedly. “People coming from the north! One of them’s Shalkan!”

Shalkan? One of them? Great Powers, does that mean—“Is—It would be interesting to know if you might have seen anything else,” Idalia said, pleased to find her voice was steady and that she could still summon the proper forms of Elven good manners.

“Shalkan. His rider. And Jermayan with Valdien as well, Wildmage,” the young scout said, her voice high with excitement. “Queen Ashaniel bid us come and tell you at once.”

“I will go now and thank the Queen for her courtesy,” Idalia said gravely. She bowed to the unicorn and his rider. The stallion, taking this as permission to leave her uncomfortable presence, immediately dashed off, forcing his rider to emit an undignified yelp and clutch at his neck for support. Idalia turned her back quickly and pretended not to see, hiding a smile.

Kellen was alive! Kellen was coming home!

And Jermayan …

She would see him again! And this time she would not be a fool. Whatever time they could have together—hours, minutes—she would take as the great gift it was and make every moment count.

Shrugging her bag higher onto her shoulder beneath her cloak, Idalia squelched off through the wet grass toward the House of Leaf and Star.

Oh, Jermayan, come soon!

UNDERMAGE Anigrel made his residence in one of the buildings on the grounds of the Mage College that had been established for those few Mages who, for one reason or another, could not or did not choose to live in the opulent demi-places of the Mage Quarter.

Some were not of Mage-birth, and thus did not have family homes in the Quarter. Some lacked the wherewithal or the inclination to maintain such an expensive establishment. Some had been asked by their families to situate themselves elsewhere, either temporarily or permanently. Thus, the buildings of the Mage Courts were the residence of the young, the less-than-prosperous, the eccentric … by the narrow standards of Armethaliehan society, of course. All were Mages, from Journeyman to High Mage, and it went without saying, vastly superior to any of those who had not the talent and the Gift.

The moon was dark again tonight. Anigrel hurried home from his duties, intent upon his evening’s task.

His chambers consisted of two small rooms on the top floor of the building, a study and a sleeping chamber. The bathing room was down the hall, and Anigrel took his meals elsewhere. No servant ever came to trouble the quiet of these rooms, though there was little to find, should anyone think of doing so: only the books and apparatus that any working Mage might own, and a small curious iron bowl, easily overlooked. Lycaelon’s private secretary spent little time here.

He entered the room—the door panel dissolved at his touch and reformed behind him—and crossed to a chair. There he sat, and waited.

Slowly the sounds of activity in the building around him—they would be inaudible save for the intercession of the spells he had laid down years before and renewed each moonturn—died away. When all was silent, Anigrel got to his feet and went to a small casket. It was not kept locked. Locks implied valuables, and long ago Anigrel had learned that the best way to keep something hidden and safe was in plain sight. Misdirection was the greatest protector.

On the table in the center of the room, he set out the small iron bowl and a sharp steel knife. It was his penknife; it would not do to allow an object such as a knife to gain too much sense of purpose. That in itself could betray him. Thus, the knife he used for his darkest magic was also the knife he used for the humblest of his everyday tasks.

His preparations made, Anigrel crossed to the window and opened it. He picked up his wand from the top of the bookcase and drew a careful sigil in the air; an ordinary sigil of the High Magick. It glowed brightly in half-a-dozen colors, then slowly faded.

A moment later two plump sleepy pigeons fluttered down onto the windowsill. With lightning swiftness, Anigrel reached out and grabbed them. Closing the window with a gesture, he carried the pigeons over to the table and beheaded them over the bowl, one after the other, with the sharp steel knife. His gestures were quick and neat. He had been doing this for a very long time.

Anigrel had first seen the Dark Lady as a child of eight, in a mirror in his father’s study. He had been her devoted servant from that moment. With her aid he had come quickly into his inheritance, for siphoning another’s life force without their knowledge was the first of the things she had taught him. No one had thought Torbet Anigrel’s early death was in the least unusual, and from that moment, young Anigrel’s sense of power and purpose grew.

Once the bowl was full, he set the birds aside. Another spell would dispose of them once his work here was done.

He bent over the fresh blood, eager for his communion.

A blast of furious rage struck him, its force enough to fill his head with agony. Tears of pain streamed down his cheeks and he clutched at the table, his manicured nails digging into the wood, marring the finish. Disjointed images poured into his mind, frightening, hideous beyond bearing, until he screamed for them to stop, begged for them to stop.

Suddenly the connection was gone. Anigrel fell to the floor and huddled there, weeping. She was angry with him. His Dark Lady was angry with all the world.

Because of The Outlaw. Because of Kellen.

Somehow Kellen had hurt her, hurt Anigrel’s Dark Lady. He could not imagine how such a thing was possible—that Kellen, Lycaelon’s Tainted whelp, could summon the power to strike out at such power, such perfection, such beauty … but he knew she could not lie, not to him.

His purpose was clear. As the worst of the agony receded, Anigrel realized that as always, he had gained much wisdom from the mere touch of her mind. What he had learned would become clearer to him in the days to come, but for now, he knew one thing absolutely.

Kellen Tavadon must die.

It would be difficult to persuade Lycaelon to renew the Hunt for his rebellious son, now that The Outlaw had taken refuge in the Elven lands, but not impossible. Lycaelon wanted to bring the Council to heel, to regain his lost prestige, to unseat Lord Volpiril from his present position of smug superiority before Volpiril managed to topple Lycaelon from power completely.

What if proof came to light that Volpiril had conspired with The Outlaw? How else could the border lands have gotten word of the Scouring Hunt in time to prepare a defense?

Proof would be difficult to arrange, but not impossible. Anigrel must move carefully. But for his Dark Lady’s sake, it would be done.

“There are no failures, only opportunities.”

And now Kellen Tavadon would have the opportunity to die.

Chired Anigrel would make sure of it.

To

Light a

Candle

The Obsidian Trilogy:

Book two

Mercedes Lackey

and James Mallory

To my amazing editor at Tor, Melissa Singer

To Natasha Panza at Tor for the details

To Russ Galen, the best agent a writer could have

And to the “Bad Boys” (1st Platoon), “Charlie” Company, 1-16 Infantry Regiment: good fortune and safe home.

Chapter One

In the Forest of Flowers

KELLEN TAVADON could never have imagined fighting a battle so one-sided as this, but he no longer had the energy to spare for despair.

Up and around the circumference of the Black Cairn he went, and as he did, the icy wind slowly increased. It seemed to Kellen as if the source of the wind was the obelisk itself, as if it blew from someplace not of this world. As if from a great distance, he could hear inhuman yelping and the sounds of battle. If he looked, he knew he would be able to watch his friends die.

But he refused to look. He could not afford to be distracted from his battle. It took all his concentration to keep his footing on the stairs. Kellen’s teeth chattered uncontrollably in the cold; tears that owed nothing to grief streamed from his eyes and froze along his cheeks and lashes. He gripped Idalia’s keystone hard against his stomach and prayed that it would hold together.

If he had been able to think, he would have been certain that his situation could not be any worse, and then, as a further torment, grit mixed with the frigid wind began to pelt him. Fine sand at first, that left him blinking and half-blind, but soon good-sized pieces of gravel and small rocks that hammered his skin and even drew blood. He could taste grit between his teeth, on his tongue, feel it in his nose, in his lungs, choking him. He pulled his undertunic up over his head It was hard to breathe through the heavy quilted leather, but as he heard the wind-driven sand hiss over its surface, Kellen was glad he’d buried his head in its folds. Better to be half-stifled than blind. Slowly his tears washed his eyes clean.

Soon it was not just gravel that the wind carried, but rocks the size of a fist. At this rate, he’d be dodging boulders soon. And one direct hit from anything really large and he’d be dead—and the fate of Sentarshadeen, and perhaps of all of the Elves, would be sealed.

He needed to protect the keystone as well as his eyes and lungs. Kellen quickly shoved the keystone up under his shirt, and turned toward the wall so it was protected by his body as well. The keystone was as icy against his skin as it had once been warm against his hands. He turned his face against the wall, and crept even more slowly, up the stairs. The sand made them slippery, and he knew Something was hoping he’d fall and break the fragile keystone.

At least the howling of the wind and the booming of the rocks against the stone shut out all sound of the battle below. If it was still going on. If all his friends weren’t dead already.

I won’t look back, Kellen promised himself. Whatever happens, I won’t look back.

It was so unfair for the enemy he faced to be throwing rocks at him! Unfair—no, it wasn’t so much that it was unfair. It was humiliating. The Enemy wasn’t even going to bother wasting its Demon warriors on stopping him; he wasn’t an Elven Knight, after all. He wasn’t any sort of a real threat. He meant so little to the Enemy that the Enemy thought it was enough to batter him with a few rocks, certain that he was so cowardly, so worthless, that he would turn tail and run.

That, as much as all the pain and despair, nearly broke Kellen’s spirit.

Only his anger saved him.

Anger is a weapon, as much as your sword.

“I’ll—show—you!” he snarled through clenched teeth. And went on. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, blind, aching, terrified, but now, above all else, furious, he drove onward.

Then came the worst part—when the wind and rocks began hitting him from all sides. Kellen realized that must mean he was near the top of the cairn. Groping blindly, his head still muffled in his tunic, he slid his hand along the wall in front of his face, until he touched emptiness. The wind pushed at his fingertips with the force of a river in flood If he tried to simply walk up to where the obelisk was, the wind would pluck him off and hurl him to the ground.

Very well. Then he would crawl.

Kellen got down on his hands and knees and crawled up the rest of the stairs, brushing the sand away carefully from each step before him. It caked on his abraded hands, and every time he wiped them clean on his tunic, fresh blood welled up from a thousand tiny scratches. And the wind still blew, cold enough now to steal all sensation from his flesh.

He reached a flat place, and crawled out onto it, pushing against the wind.

Suddenly, without warning, the wind stopped. The silence rang in his ears.

“Well, you make a fine sight,” a man said from somewhere above him, sounding amused.

The voice was elusively familiar.

Kellen dragged his tunic down around his neck and stared, blinking, into the watery green light.

He was facing … himself?

Another Kellen stood on the other side of the obelisk, grinning down at him nastily. The point of the obelisk came just to his heart level. This Kellen was sleek and manicured—no one would ever call his smooth brown curls unruly!—and dressed in the height of Armethaliehan finery, from his shining half-boots of tooled and gilded leather to his fur-lined half-cape and the pair of jeweled and embroidered silk gloves tucked negligently through his gleaming gilded belt. The cape and gloves were in House Tavadon colors, of course. No one would ever forget which Mageborn City House this young man belonged to, not for an instant.

Slowly, Kellen got to his feet, though his cramped and aching muscles protested. Instantly, Other-Kellen clapped his bare hands over the point of the obelisk, blocking Kellen’s access to it.

“Think about what you’re doing,” Other-Kellen urged him. “Really think about it. Now, before it’s too late. You’ve had a chance to taste freedom, and you’ve found it’s a bitter wine. Only power can make it sweet, but you already know the responsibilities that power brings. Even the powerful aren’t really free. The only real freedom we have is of choosing our master, and most people don’t get even that. But you can choose.”

“I don’t serve anyone!” Kellen said angrily.

“Oh? And you a Wildmage,” Other-Kellen said mockingly. “I should think you would have learned better the moment you opened the Books.”

Kellen snapped his mouth shut abruptly. If this was a fight, he’d just lost the first battle. He did serve the Wild Magic, and so far he’d done exactly what it told him to do. How free did that make him?

“You’ve made some bad choices in the past,” Other-Kellen continued smoothly. “Even you’re willing to admit that. Wouldn’t you like the chance to undo them? To start over, knowing what you know now? You can have that. Few people get that opportunity.”

Other-Kellen smiled, and for the first time, Kellen could see his father’s face mirrored in this stranger’s that was his own. The sight shocked and distracted him, even in this moment and in this place. Assurance … competence … or just corruption?

“You left Armethalieh because you rebelled against your father’s plans for you, but you know better now, don’t you? Arch-Mage Lycaelon only wants for you what he has always enjoyed himself! And that’s not so bad, now, is it? What does it matter if it takes a bit of groveling and scraping, and a lot of boring make-work to get there? Think about how you used to live—and how you live now. The life of a High Mage has its compensations—and the High Mages were right, back when they walled themselves off in their city. They were right to want to build safeguards against the prices and bargains the Wild Magic required,” his doppelganger said, his voice as silken and sweet as honey, reasonable and logical. Kellen himself had never sounded like that. “What’s so wrong with . trying to improve something? They still practice magic, and they do so without the prices that the Wild Magic demands. They give their citizens a good life—and if life in the Golden City is too restrictive, well, when you’re Arch-Mage, Kellen, you’ll be able to make all the changes you’ve dreamed of.”

That shocked Kellen so much that he almost dropped the keystone. Of all of the things he had imagined and fantasized about, that was never one that had occurred to him!

“And you can be Arch-Mage,” the double said, persuasively. “You have the gift and the talent; your father isn’t wrong about that! If everyone must serve, then choose your service. Serve the City. Go back now, beg your father’s forgiveness—it won’t be that hard Give up the Wild Magic. That won’t be hard, either, will it? Step back into the life you should have had, and work for the good of Armethalieh. You’ll have everything you wanted. Just think of all you can do for the City when you return …”

Kellen stared in horrified fascination at his doppelganger. Was this really him? The person he could have been—or could still be?

If he did this, could he even turn the City to help the Elves, and forge a new Alliance as in the old days?

But Jermayan would know what had happened—

Shalkan surely would—

Vestakia—

“Your companions are already dead. You have no one to consider but yourself. No one will know what happened here but you. Isn’t it time you did what you want, for a change? Here is your future, Kellen.” His doppelganger leaned forward, his face wearing a mask of pleasantry, his voice eager, urging. “You have but to reach out and seize it. And you will receive nothing but praise for your actions.”

Now Kellen looked away, down toward the plain below, but everything below the top of the cairn was covered with a thick layer of yellow-green fog. It was as if the rest of the world had vanished. Quickly he looked back at his doppelganger, suspecting a trick, but Other-Kellen had not moved.

His doppelganger smiled at Kellen sympathetically, as if guessing the direction of Kellen’s thoughts.

“But if you go through with this foolish adventure, your future will be set. If you think you have troubles now, you can’t even begin to imagine what your life is going to be like afterward—assuming you don’t die right here. Think of the Demons. They know your name, Kellen. The Queen and Prince of the Endarkened know who you are. They know all about you, and they’ll find you wherever you go. You won’t have an easy death, or a quick one. Torment—oh, for them, it is the highest form of Art, and they have had millennia to perfect it. You won’t die, but you will long for death with all of your being. For years, Kellen, for years …”

Other-Kellen shuddered in mock-sympathy, his eyes never leaving Kellen’s face. Kellen’s face. Kellen trembled, remembering his nightmares, knowing they must have fallen far short of the truth.

“Oh, you might survive triggering the keystone. You might even manage to get back to Sentarshadeen alive. And I’m sure your friends the Elves will do their best for you. But it hasn’t really been much of a best so far, has it? They couldn’t even manage to save themselves without a Wildmage or two to help. And when it comes right down to it, they’re going to. take care of themselves and their families first once the trouble starts, aren’t they?

“I wouldn’t say we’re friends, exactly but I would say I’m the closest thing to a friend you’ve got. Right here. Right now. Think about it, Kellen. This is your last chance. After this, you have no choices left. Think. Use what you’ve learned. They’ve all tried to keep the truth from you so you wouldn’t know what the stakes are. Think how hard you’ve had to work to find out what little you have. Why is that? So you wouldn’t know enough to make a fair choice,” Other-Kellen said.

Fair, Kellen thought bitterly. Nothing about this is fair. Nothing had ever been fair and out in the open, from the moment he’d found the three Books in the Low Market, and hearing all his secret fears and unworthy hopes in the mouth of this manicured popinjay was the least fair thing of all.

He remembered Jermayan telling him about The Seven—how when they’d faced down the Endarkened army at the pass of Vel-al-Amion and first beaten them back, the Endarkened had tried to seduce them to the Dark

As one of the Endarkened was trying to seduce him now. This, then, was their last line of defense, and the most compelling of all.

“Well …” Kellen said, walking closer and lifting the keystone in his hands as if he were about to hand it over. “I guess I really ought to be smart and do what you say.”

The Other-Kellen smiled triumphantly and relaxed, certain of its victory.

“But I’m not going to!” Kellen shouted.

He brought the keystone down—hard—on the doppelganger’s hands. It howled and recoiled as if it had been burned, jerking its hands back from the point of the obelisk.

And in that moment, it … changed.

The Other-Kellen was gone. In its place stood a Demon.

It—she!—towered over Kellen, her wings spread wide. He caught a confused glimpse of blood-red skin, of horns and claws, but she was barely there for an instant, for in the moment that the Demon had released her hold on the obelisk, Kellen slammed the keystone down over the tip of the stone.

The instant the keystone touched the obelisk, the Demon howled in fury and vanished, her cheated rage a whiplash across his senses. For a moment he was blind and deaf in a paroxysm of pain. He cringed, but kept his hands on the stone.

They had not counted on his experience with being lied to. And perhaps that was the greatest weapon Lycaelon Tavadon had given to him.

I know a lie when I hear it, you bastards! His father had lied to him so smoothly, so. convincingly, and so often, that Kellen had learned every guise that a lie could wear.

Kellen trembled all over, realizing in that moment how close the Demon had come to winning. But it hadn’t.

Now it was up to him. Despite everything he had already gone through, the hardest part was still to come. Hardest—and yet, in its way, the easiest. All he had to do was surrender—surrender his will, surrender his power, and put it all in the service of something far outside himself.

He took a deep breath and reached down into the keystone with his Wildmage senses, touching the power waiting within. The power leaped toward him eagerly, but Kellen knew that he was not to be its destination. Gently he turned it toward the obelisk.

He felt the obelisk’s resistance, and pushed harder, adding the last of his strength and all of his will to the keystone’s power, forcing the link into being.

One by one, the obelisk’s defenses gave way. Kellen felt the triggering force begin to rush through him and into the obelisk. He kept his palms pressed against the keystone’s sides; without him to maintain the link, the spell would be broken before the Barrier was breached And all of it—the journey, the others’ sacrifice—would all have. been for nothing.

Then, breakthrough.

And his body spasmed, convulsed, his mouth going open in a silent scream.

This was worse than anything he could have imagined He felt as if he were being struck by bolt after bolt of lightning, a torrent of energy that somehow went on and on and on, searing its way through him.

His hands were burning. Holding the keystone was like clutching red-hot metal fresh from the forge, and there was no respite, no mercy. He could smell the pork-like scent of his cooking flesh, could feel blood running down his wrists as blisters swelled up and burst, and then, in a thunderclap of agony, the fire was everywhere, coursing through his veins with every beat of his heart.

Kellen howled unashamedly, great wracking sobs of hopeless agony. And he held on. Perhaps it was stubbornness, but he had always been stubborn. And he would not give the Demons this victory.

Then came a single thought, emerging through the fire and the pain.

I’m going to die.

He realized at that moment that this was the price of the spell, the rest of the cost. It must be. A Wildmage’s life. Idalia must have known when she created the spell that the price of casting it would be the life of the one who triggered it. His life. Kellen felt a flash of pride in his sister at keeping the painful secret so well.

But he would have to consent. No Wildmage could give up that which belonged to another—not without turning to the Dark.

She had known the price of the magic, but she could only have hoped he would pay it. Well, he wasn’t going to let her. down. He would be everything she had hoped And if he had been an uncouth barbarian to the Elves of Sentarshadeen, at least he would be an uncouth barbarian whose name would live on in their legends forever.

If that’s the price, he shouted silently to the Powers, then I will pay it! I wish I didn’t have to, but I swear I pay it willingly and without reservation!

But more than ever, having surrendered his life, he yearned to keep it. To see the sun again, to feel the gentle summer wind, to walk through the forest or drink a cup of morning tea. But all those things had their price, and so did keeping them. And some prices were too high to pay. The price of his life would be the destruction of all those things, soon or late. The price of keeping his life would be victory for the Endarkened

No. Never!

My life for the destruction of the Barrier. A fair bargain. Done. Done!

Then the pain was too great for thought.

Abruptly the obelisk began to swell, its stark lines distorting as if the malign power it contained was backing up inside it, filling it beyond its capacity. Its swelling carried him upward; he. collapsed against its surface, clinging to the keystone, and still it swelled. Now the stone was a baneful pus-yellow color, nearly spherical. Kellen lay upon its surface, unable to preserve the thought of anything beyond the need to maintain the link

The whole cairn shook like a tree in a windstorm.

The toxic light flared lightning-bright.

And for Kellen, there was sudden darkness and a release from all pain.

THEN, of course, there was a return to life, and pain. And since the latter meant that he still had the former, it was less unwelcome than it might have been. And through the pain, the faces of Vestakia and Jermayan—so they had survived!

It had all been worth it then. Only afterward did it occur to him that the compounded trouble he had fallen back into might make him begin to regret that return to life …

IT had taken them only a sennight to travel from Sentarshadeen—easternmost of the Nine Cities—into the heart of the Lost Lands to face the power of Shadow Mountain.

The return trip took longer, though at least nobody was trying to kill them this time. That did not mean, however, that the journey was less trying. If anything, it was physically harder.

To begin with, it was raining—although rain, Kellen reflected grimly, wearily, was a mild word to apply to the water that had been falling from the sky nonstop for the last moontum.

It was just a good thing that Elven armor didn’t—couldn’t—rust.

Jermayan, of course, didn’t mind the rain at all. But the Elven lands had been suffering under the effects of a deadly spell-inflicted drought for almost a year. Kellen had only spent a few days in Sentarshadeen before heading north toward the Barrier, and even what little he’d seen of the Elves’ desperate attempts to save their city and the forest surrounding it had been enough to daunt him. How much more terrifying must it have been for an Elven Knight, one of the land’s protectors, to watch everything he loved wither and die for sennight upon sennight, knowing there was nothing he could do about it?

No wonder Jermayan welcomed the rain.

Vestakia didn’t seem to mind the weather all that much either. But then, Vestakia had spent her entire life living nearly alone in a little shepherd’s hut in the wildest part of the Lost Lands, with only a few goats for company. A little rain—or even a lot of rain—probably didn’t bother her too much.

But it felt increasingly like torture to Kellen. For one thing, he still wasn’t all that used to uncontrolled weather. He’d grown up in the Mage-City of Armethalieh, where everything—including the weather—was governed by the rule of the High Mages. He’d never actually seen rain until he’d been Banished by the High Council for his possession of the three Books of Wildmagery—and his Banishment hadn’t been that long ago. He’d never had to stand out in the rain in his life.

But now … well, there wasn’t anything like a roof for leagues and leagues, probably. Even when they stopped to rest, they never really got out of the rain. The most they could manage was to drape some canvas over themselves, or, if they were lucky, find a half-cave, or shelter under a tree.

To add to his misery, he was still suffering from the injuries he had gotten in his battle to break the Barrier-spell. He’d been so sure that his life would be the price of the spell that awakening afterward had been a shock. After all, every kind of magic required payment, and the first lesson the Wildmage learned was that each spell of the Wild Magic came with a cost, both in the personal energy of the caster, and in the form of a task the Wildmage must perform.

But in this case, it seemed his willingness to sacrifice his life had been enough. Or perhaps, just perhaps, the cost had been his willingness to live and endure.

If you can call this living, he thought, as he rode along behind the others in the direction of home. His injuries had been so severe that it had been a sennight before he’d been able to ride at all, and his burned hands were so heavily bandaged that he couldn’t possibly wear his armored gauntlets, much less hold a sword. Any protecting that was going to be done was going to have to be done by Jermayan, and maybe Shalkan, and possibly Vestakia; he was strictly along as baggage.

He had become so used to pain that now he could hardly remember a time when he had lived without it as a constant presence. And underneath the pain was fear, fear he never openly expressed, but was constantly with him. The fear of what was underneath those bandages.

He would much rather dwell on the minor misery of the rain.

His heavy hooded oiled-wool cloak was soaked through. His heavy silk surcoat was wet. The unending rain had managed to make it through both of those layers and even through the tiny joins and chinks in the delicately-jointed Elven armor that he wore, soaking the padding beneath.

It wasn’t that he was cold—he wasn’t, even with winter coming on. All the layers he wore saw to that. But he’d never felt so soggy in his life.

He rested the heels of his hands—wrapped in goatskin mittens to keep the bandages dry, and medicated to the point where the pain was only a dull nagging—against the front of his saddle, gazing around himself at the transformed landscape. Everything looked so different now! On the outward trip, they’d been navigating mostly by his Wildmage intuition to find the direction of the Barrier; his sister Idalia, who was a much stronger Wildmage, hadn’t been able to locate it by scrying, and until he and Jermayan had linked up with Vestakia, they’d had no way of sensing it directly. So for the first part of the trip, they’d been traveling mostly by guess … and through a far different countryside than this.

The rain had changed everything about the landscape that had once been so parched and barren. There were lakes where none had been before, meadows had become impassable swamps, trickling streams had become rivers, and all the landmarks he’d memorized on the outward trip were gone. On their return passage, they’d had to rely on Jermayan’s familiarity with the Elven lands and Valdien’s and Shalkan’s instincts to find them a route that wasn’t underwater or under mud.

“Are we there yet?” he muttered under his breath.

“Sooner than you think,” Shalkan answered.

Kellen sighed. He hadn’t thought Shalkan would be able to hear him over the sound of the rain. But by now, he should know better than to underestimate the keenness of the unicorn’s hearing.

“How long?” he asked.

“Less than an hour. We’ve already passed the first scouts from Sentarshadeen. They’ve probably gone back to warn the welcoming party to be ready to greet us.” The unicorn’s voice was bland, but Kellen’s stomach clenched in a tight knot of tension. He’d lost all track of how long they’d been traveling, and hadn’t had any idea they were so close. Now the aching of his body was joined by the clenching of his gut. They had gone out a party of three. They were returning a party of four. And one of the four was not going to be welcomed with open arms by the Elves.

“Does he know?” Kellen asked. He nodded to where Jermayan rode on Valdien, with Vestakia—thoroughly bundled up, of course—sitting behind him on the destrier’s saddle. At the end of a long tether, the cream-colored pack mule ambled along behind Valdien, every inch of her covered with the black mud splashed up from the road. At least once they were back in Sentarshadeen it would be someone else’s job to try to get her—and Valdien—clean.

“He saw them, I imagine,” Shalkan said, without adding the obvious: that naturally Jermayan would recognize exactly where he was, even if Kellen didn’t. And that Elven senses were much keener than Kellen’s. Especially now, when most of Kellen’s awareness was wrapped in pain.

Almost home—at least, as much home as Sentarshadeen was. Dry, out of the rain, and a chance to sleep in a proper bed again. And most of all, a proper Healer to deal with his hands and anything else that was wrong with him. Kellen tried to look forward to those things.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of things about their welcome home that he wasn’t looking forward to. And unfortunately, he was not really certain that a Healer would be able to set his hands right again.

EVEN at the beginning of winter, the Elven valley bloomed. The silver sheen of the unicorn meadow had turned to deep emerald when the rains came, and the parched city had come back to life.

Released from their desperate hopeless task of attempting to irrigate the forest lands surrounding their canyon home, the Elves had resumed their patrols of the deep woods and the extended borders of their homeland, for now, more than ever, it was vitally necessary, with their ancient Enemy roused to life once more. And only a short time ago, one of those scout-pairs—a unicorn and his rider—had brought word to Queen Ashaniel that Kellen and Jermayan had been sighted upon the road.

Idalia had been about to scry for news of them when the Queen’s message was brought to her. She had immediately gone to the House of Leaf and Star, both to thank the Queen for the news and to hear more of it than the scouts had brought to her.

Though the House of Leaf and Star was—in every sense that humans understood the word—the palace of the King and Queen of the Elves, it was not even as grand as the house Idalia had grown up in. Elven buildings were not meant to be imposing, but to be suitable, and although the House of Leaf and Star was one of the largest structures in all the Elven Lands, it still managed to look welcoming and homelike. It was a low, deep-eaved house built of silvery wood and pale stone, and age and strength radiated from it as from an ancient living tree.

By the time she had crossed the long roofed portico, her cloak and wide-brimmed Mountain Trader hat had shed most of their burden of water, and her boots had dried themselves upon the intricate design of slatted wood with which the portico floor was inlaid—crafted for just that purpose, as all the works of the Elves managed to combine beauty and practicality with flawless ease.

She was not surprised to see the door open before she reached it.

“I See you, Idalia Wildmage,” the Elven doorkeeper said politely.

“I See you, Sakathirin,” Idalia answered with equal politeness. Elvenkind was both an ancient and a long-lived race, and except under extraordinary circumstances, its members were unfailingly courteous and unhurried. Part of the courtesy was the assumption that a person might not wish to be noticed; the greeting I See you was meant to convey acknowledgment of one’s presence, with the implicit right being that one did not have to respond if one wished to be left alone. “I have come to share news with the Lady Ashaniel, if she would See me as well.”

“The Lady Ashaniel awaits you with joy,” Sakathirin said gravely. “Be welcome at our hearth.” He stepped back to allow Idalia to enter.

The rain pattering down on the skylight echoed through the tall entry-hall, its music a counterpoint to the splashing of the fountain that once more bubbled and sang beneath it. Idalia smiled, seeing that reflecting pool was once again filled with fish, their living forms mirroring the mosaic they swam above, that of fish swimming in a river. The Elves delighted in this form of shadowplay, combining living things with their copies so expertly that it was often hard for mere humans to tell where Nature ended and Elven artistry began.

By the time Sakathirin had disposed of her cloak and hat, one of Ashaniel’s ladies-in-waiting had appeared to conduct Idalia to the Queen’s day-room.

In Armethalieh, such a room would have been called a “solar,” but that was hardly an appropriate word for this room today. The walls were made of glass—hundreds of tiny panes, all held together in a bronze latticework—and the room seemed to hang in space, surrounded by a lacework made of light and air.

And water.

Raindrops starred the palm-sized windows, and streaks of rain ran down the outside of the glass like a thousand miniature rivers. The effect might have been chilly, despite the warmth of the lamps and braziers that filled the room, save for the fact that the room’s colors were so warm. The ceiling had been canopied in heavy velvet—not pink, which would only have been garish—but a deep warm taupe, rich as fur. The pillows and carpets picked up those colors and added more: deep violets, ember-orange, a dark clear blue shot through with threads of silver … autumn colors, and those of winter, concentrated and intensified until they kindled the room.

The Queen herself was dressed in shades of amber, every hue from clear pale candle-flame yellow to the deep ruddy glow of sunset’s heart. Her hair was caught back in a net of gold and fire opals, and she wore a collar of the same stones about her throat.

“Idalia,” she said, smiling and setting aside her writing desk as she indicated a place beside her on the low couch upon which she sat. “Come and sit beside me, and we will talk. Your brother and Jermayan will not reach the edge of the city for some time yet, and there is much to do in preparation. They seem well enough, so Imriban said,” she added, answering the question Idalia could not, in politeness, ask. “Though Imriban said that the Wildmage rides as one lately injured.”

Idalia came and seated herself, taking care that her damp buckskins didn’t touch Ashaniel’s elaborate velvet gown.

“It would be good to hear all of what Imriban had to say,” she offered carefully.

Learning to speak in accordance with the dictates of Elven politeness was one of the hardest lessons for the humans who came to live among them to learn. The closest it was possible to get to asking a question was to announce your desire to know something, and hope your hearer took pity on you.

“Imriban said …” Ashaniel paused, and for the first time seemed to be choosing her words with great care. “Imriban said that they do not travel alone.”

“Not alone—” It was a struggle to keep from turning her words into a question, but Idalia managed. “It puzzles me to hear that,” she finally said.

“It puzzles me as well,” Ashaniel admitted. “The one who rides with them rides cloaked and hooded beyond all seeing. And it occurs to me to wish that perhaps Imriban had been less … impetuous.”

And maybe stopped and spoken to them, instead of just tearing back to Sentarshadeen to bring the news that they were on the way. Idalia finished the Queen’s unspoken thought silently. It was hard to imagine who Kellen and Jermayan could have run into on their quest, and why they’d bring whoever it was back to Sentarshadeen.

“I suppose we’ll know soon enough,” she offered reluctantly.

“Indeed,” Ashaniel said with a sigh. “And yet … it will be well should we meet them as close upon the road as we may, so Andoreniel has said. Even now, a place is being prepared at the edge of the Flower Forest, where we may receive them in all honor.”

“LOOKS like they couldn’t wait to meet us,” Shalkan said dryly, dipping his head to indicate the flash of yellow in the distance with his horn.

“What’s that?” Kellen said superfluously.

Jermayan cleared his throat warningly before answering. “A pavilion.”

Kellen took the hint. On the road, their manners had been free and easy—War Manners, Jermayan had called it. The Elven Knight had set aside the elaborate code of Elven formality; he’d asked Kellen direct questions, and Kellen had been allowed, even encouraged, to question Jermayan directly in return.

But they were back in Civilization now, and he guessed he’d have to get used to it all over again. It hardly seemed fair. He’d gone through so much—and why must he be burdened with this stifling formality now, when it was all he could do to pretend that he was certain he would be all right?

Well, he’d better warn Vestakia.

He was trying to figure out the best way to phrase it when Jermayan beat him to it.

“In Elven lands, except in time of war, or dire need, to question another directly is considered to be unmannerly. I do not say that this is good or bad, merely that this is our custom, and perhaps we are fonder of our customs than we ought to be,” Jermayan observed, as if speaking to Valdien. “Perhaps it is a failing in us. Perhaps it is merely that when one lives as long as an Elf, custom becomes habit, and habit is often so difficult to break that one gives over the attempt”

Kellen heard Vestakia’s muffled snort of nervous laughter. “I don’t think I’m going to be asking anyone any questions anytime soon, Jermayan. I’ll count myself lucky if they don’t fill me full of arrows on sight.”

“That they will not,” Jermayan said, his voice filled with grim promise now.

As they rode closer, Kellen could see the yellow pavilion more clearly.

It was rectangular, and quite large—large enough for them to ride right inside, as Kellen suspected they were meant to. Colored pennants flew from the centerpost and from all four corners—and whether from the artfulness of their construction, or from a touch of the “small magics” the Elves still commanded—they did fly, and were not simply sodden rain-soaked rags wrapped around the gilded tent posts. The tent was trimmed in scarlet, and the tent ropes that held it firm against the buffeting winds were scarlet as well.

In the grey gloom of the day, the lamps inside the walls of yellow silk made it glow like the lanterns the Elves hung outside their homes at dusk, casting shadows of tables and moving bodies against the fabric.

As they came closer, a flap in the near side of the pavilion began to rise. Kellen saw two Elves in full armor walk it out and peg it into place with tall gilded poles, so that it formed a sort of canopy entrance. Now he could see into the pavilion, and see that there was some kind of flooring as well. Trust the Elves to do everything … thoroughly.

They rode forward, into the tent.

The sudden cessation of the rain drumming on his head felt wonderful. Kellen glanced quickly around as he kicked his feet free of Shalkan’s stirrups and swung his leg over the back of the saddle. It was awkward not being able to use his hands, but he managed.

Idalia was there, and it looked like all the cream of the nobility had turned out to meet them as well, all wearing their finest robes and jewels. There were a few Elves wearing armor like Jermayan’s, but even their colors blended into the harmonious whole: nothing clashed, nothing was out of place.

Both Ashaniel and Andoreniel were present, dressed in what Kellen thought of as full Court robes—Ashaniel in gold, Andoreniel in bronze—along with several of their counselors, and—

“Kellen!

He’d barely steadied himself on his feet when a small bundle of energy detached himself from his nurse’s skirts and ran forward, flinging his arms about Kellen’s waist.

“You came back! I told them all you’d come back!” Sandalon said defiantly.

“Of course I came back,” Kellen said, patting the young Elven prince’s back awkwardly with one of his goatskin mitts. “And I brought Jermayan back, too.”

“He’s got someone with him,” Sandalon said, with a young child’s directness.

Kellen turned, to see that Jermayan had dismounted from Valdien, and was lifting Vestakia down from the saddle. As he did, her hooded cloak fell back, and her face was exposed.

She grabbed for the hood, but it was too late. Everyone there had seen.

“A Demon! Jermayan brings a Demon here!” Tyendimarquen gasped. All around him, the pavilion was filled with frightened whispers as the Elves drew back.

Lairamo rushed forward and grabbed Sandalon, the Elven nurse snatching the boy up into her arms and hurrying back behind Andoreniel and Ashaniel.

“Jermayan, you will explain yourself,” Andoreniel demanded, his voice harsh.

Before he answered, Jermayan made sure that Vestakia was steady on her feet—and then, very deliberately, drew the hood of the cloak back so that all could see her face.

Her skin was the rosy-red of ripe cherries; her short curly hair a darker shade of the same red, and her ears were as pointed as an Elf’s. Pale gold horns sprouted from just above her slanting eyebrows and curved back over her head. Her eyes were the same yellow-gold as a cat’s, with the same narrow slitted pupils. All these things, everyone knew, were the marks of the Endarkened, the evil race that was the enemy to all that lived and walked in sunlight. But despite her appearance, Vestakia was no Demon. And had anyone bothered to look past the mask of her face, they would have seen her expression—frightened, pleading, open, and desperately hoping for some kind of acceptance.

“Lord Andoreniel, Lady Ashaniel, I bring before you Vestakia, an ally, without whose help the Barrier would not have fallen,” Jermayan said evenly, turning to face the other Elves. “She is without Taint, a fellow-victim of Them, and I have promised her refuge here.”

Shalkan took a step backward, toward Vestakia. Knowing what was expected of her, Vestakia placed a hand on his neck, her scarlet fingers sinking into his soft silvery fur. At this, the murmurings from the gathered Elves broke out anew. Everyone knew that the touch of a unicorn was death to Demonkind. If Vestakia were truly what she seemed, she should not be able to touch Shalkan.

But it wasn’t enough. Andoreniel was shaking his head.

“No. You have promised that which you cannot fulfill, Jermayan son of Malkirinath. She will not enter the city.”

“Then we’re leaving.”

For a moment Kellen wondered who’d spoken, then realized it was him. But the words felt right. The decision felt right. And—all right, he needed a Healer, but surely Idalia would follow them and fix him, even if they left. Surely—

He glanced at Shalkan.

“I’m with you,” the unicorn said.

“And I,” Jermayan said firmly.

“We won’t stay where all of us aren’t wanted,” Kellen said, locking eyes with Andoreniel. “Without Vestakia’s help, the Barrier would still be standing. She’s the one who found it for us. She—and Jermayan, and Shalkan—protected me while I destroyed it. No matter what she looks like, she isn’t one of Them. She’s as human as I am. So—”

“There’s a simple way to solve all of this.”

Idalia stepped forward, into the open space between the new arrivals and the Elves of Sentarshadeen.

“If you won’t take the word of an Elven Knight, a unicorn, and a … Knight-Mage … for the fact that Vestakia bears no Taint, it would be good to hear that my word will suffice. There are simple tests I can perform, right here in the Flower Forest, to determine beyond a shadow of a doubt whether she can bring any harm to Sentarshadeen—if you will trust me and accept my judgment in this matter,” Idalia announced matter-of-factly.

Kellen felt a wave of relief wash over him, and saw the tension ease in Andoreniel’s face as well.

“Of course we will trust you, Idalia,” Andoreniel said, bowing slightly. “We are in your debt”

Andoreniel might feel that way, but Kellen doubted everyone there shared his feelings. Elven expressions were notoriously difficult for mere humans to decipher, but the tension in the pavilion was thick enough to cut with a sword.

“Kellen?” Idalia went on, turning to Kellen and Jermayan. “Will you abide by my judgment as well?”

Though Kellen was the one she asked—for the sake of politeness—the question included both of them, and it was Jermayan who answered first.

“I have no doubt of what you will find, Wildmage,” Jermayan said austerely.

“Well, I, uh … yeah,” Kellen said. He knew Idalia wouldn’t lie, and he knew Vestakia wasn’t Demon-tainted. So how could she be a danger to Sentarshadeen?

“Go with her, child,” Jermayan said softly to Vestakia. “She will do you no harm.”

THIS was not the grand reunion she had envisioned between herself and Jermayan, Idalia thought with a flash of irritation, as she settled her hat more firmly upon her head and led Vestakia out of the pavilion and into the rain once more.

Trust Kellen to manage to work a few surprises into a simple homecoming—and to come home a Knight-Mage, as well!

He was thinner than he’d been when he’d left There were shadows and hollows in his face that hadn’t been there even a scant few sennights before. And he’d found his way into his magic—his own magic. What he had become was unmistakable in the sight of any Wildmage.

A Knight-Mage. The rarest kind of Wildmage, only appearing in a time of direst need. If they’d needed any more proof that they were all in deep trouble, Kellen’s manifestation of Knight-Mage powers should provide it. But despite that, she found it in her heart to be happy for him, because for the first time since her little brother had been dropped back on her doorstep through the auspices of an Outlaw Hunt, she sensed that Kellen had a real sense of his place in the world, of who he was and what his purpose was.

It was just too bad it was so very dangerous …

She and Vestakia reached the edge of the Flower Forest, and Idalia led Vestakia beneath its leafy canopy. The force of the rain was muted almost at once, to a gentle patterning on the dense canopy of leaves.

Though it was late autumn, the Flower Forest was in full leaf. Since the destruction of the great Elven forests in the Great War, many of the trees that grew in the Elven Flower Forests no longer grew anywhere else in the world, and the Flower Forests—as had the great Elven forests of which they were the only survivals—paid little heed to the turning of the seasons.

Thick moss cushioned the ground beneath their feet, and the air was appreciably warmer within the forest than it had been outside. The air was filled with the spicy scent of the trees and the rich fragrance of their flowers.

“It’s so beautiful,” Vestakia breathed in wonder, staring about herself in awe. “I never … I was raised in the Wild Hills, you see. I saw forests when we rode south, and Kellen said that there were even larger forests further south, but …”

“Well, nothing could really prepare you for the Flower Forest,” Idalia said kindly. “There isn’t really anything anywhere like a Flower Forest … except maybe another Flower Forest.”

Vestakia giggled nervously. “Are there many of those?”

“Well, there are nine Elven cities, and every Elven city has a Flower Forest, so there are probably at least nine,” Idalia said gravely. “I’ve only seen two of the Elven cities—counting this one—so I can’t say for sure.”

“It must be wonderful to be able to travel and see things,” Vestakia said, sounding very young. Idalia wondered just how old she was. It was hard to tell, given the girl’s rather exotic appearance, but she didn’t seem to be much older than Kellen was.

They stopped in a little clearing, where the rain had made a small pool. Tiny white and purple flowers starred the deep green moss about its verge. The forest canopy stretched overhead, protecting them from the rain.

“We didn’t actually have to come all the way in here,” Idalia said, “but I thought you’d like a little privacy. Elves can be rather daunting when you meet a lot of them for the first time. Although you and Jermayan seem to get on well enough.”

“Oh.” Abruptly recalled to the reason they’d come to the forest, Vestakia regarded Idalia nervously with wide golden eyes.

Idalia reached into her bag and pulled out a small flask, offering it to the girl. “Here. Have a drink. It’s just brandy and hard cider. My name’s Idalia, by the way, if you didn’t catch it back there in the tent. I’m Kellen’s sister.”

“Yes,” Vestakia said, unstoppering the flask and drinking gratefully before returning it to Idalia. “He told me about you—a little. You’re a Wildmage. My mother was a Wildmage, too.”

Idalia’s eyes widened a little at that, but she said nothing. So Vestakia’s mother was a Wildmage, was she? Even more reason for Kellen and Jermayan to trust her.

“And how did you come to find my brother?” Idalia asked. She drank in turn, and as she slipped the flask back into her bag, she closed her fingers about a charged keystone.

Show me truth, she commanded.

“Oh, I didn’t find Kellen,” Vestakia said simply. “He found me. He rescued me from a bandit who was stealing my goats—and then I went with him and Jermayan to the Barrier, just as they said. They never would have found it without me,” she added proudly.

All at once her shoulders seemed to droop with more than weariness.

“Jermayan told me his people would accept me here. But … I do not think they will. No one will, when I look the way I do!”

The keystone spell had told Idalia nothing, which was in itself an answer. The truth was already here for her to see.

“They’re afraid,” Idalia said neutrally. “But tell me the rest—if you’ve known my brother for any length of time at all, you’ll know he’s miserably bad at telling a story, and if I wait to hear the rest of your tale from him I might very well wait forever!”

It took very little prodding to get the rest of Vestakia’s story out of her, of how her mother, a Wildmage, had been seduced unawares by the Prince of Shadow Mountain; how discovering that she was pregnant with a half-Demon child, she called upon the Wild Magic to help her … and been offered a choice.

The unborn child could be completely hers in spirit, and its Demon-father’s in body; or its father’s in spirit, yet human in body. Vestakia’s mother had made the harder choice; Vestakia had a human spirit, but a Demon’s body. To keep her unborn child from being slain at birth, Vestakia’s mother had fled with her sister deep into the Lost Lands, where Vestakia had been born. There Vestakia had lived alone after both women had died, until Kellen had found and rescued her.

Her Demon-father, of course, continued to hunt for her, but Vestakia had one great gift that kept her safe, though it came at a price. She could sense the presence of Demons, because they made her ill. The closer they were, the greater her distress, and she learned quickly to hide whenever she felt a hint of their presence.

“And then I found—when Kellen asked me to try—that my gift worked just the same way with the Demon magic, if the spell is strong enough. So we found the Barrier,” Vestakia said, her voice a mixture of triumph and remembered horror. “Jermayan saved my life there. And Kellen … Kellen saved all of us,” she said softly.

THERE was a moment of awkward silence after Idalia and Vestakia left, and Kellen wasn’t quite sure what to do next. At least he was sure that everything was going to turn out all right. Of course Idalia would find that there was nothing wrong with Vestakia, and they could all stay. Of course. Idalia could do anything she set her mind to.

And if he had to—well, wait until Jermayan told them the whole story of destroying the Barrier. Elven custom would force them into such overwhelming obligation to him that they would probably do anything he asked of them. For once, the intricate dance of Elven custom would work in his favor, for by the time Vestakia got enough accustomed to the Elves that she would be able to tell when welcome was forced and when it was not, it would be too late, for they would have discovered for themselves just how worthy of their trust she was, and the welcome would be real.

Jermayan settled the matter, removing his cloak and handing it to another Elf who seemed to appear out of nowhere. Another arrived to take his sword and shield, then Jermayan removed his helmet and gauntlets, handing them off in turn before moving to Kellen’s side.

It was a little embarrassing—okay, a lot embarrassing—to have to just stand there while Jermayan removed his cloak, helmet, shield, and sword for him, but Kellen couldn’t really do any of those things for himself with his hands in the goatskin mitts. And he knew that only nervous tension was keeping him on his feet now.

“Come and sit,” Jermayan said softly, taking him by the elbow.

When they stepped forward, the waiting Elves settled gracefully into their places, just as if they’d rehearsed every motion for years. There was a long table draped in heavy damask set along the right side of the pavilion—the left side apparently being reserved for the comfort of the animals—with simple wooden chairs clustered around it.

“You must be weary after your long journey,” Ashaniel said when they had seated themselves.

Looking across the pavilion, Kellen could see that servants—if there were servants among the Elves, something he still wasn’t completely sure of—were unsaddling Valdien and removing Lily’s packsaddle, and even helping Shalkan off with his armor and saddle. That wouldn’t make it easy for them to leave in a hurry, if they had to, but Elves did not hurry. Even if they were angry, Kellen supposed.

“It was a journey I did not think we would live to complete,” Jermayan answered somberly. “But Leaf and Star favored us, and brought us safely home again.”

“And you, Kellen Knight-Mage. I trust that you also fare well,” Ashaniel said, pouring cups of wine with her own hands and setting one in front of each of them.

“Well enough, Lady Ashaniel,” Kellen said, though “well” was nothing like what he felt. Elven custom, Elven courtesy; he was surrounded by them, and pulled along as if by a strong current he could not hope to swim against. He pulled the goatskin mitts off and carefully set them in his lap before reaching for the cup with both hands. It was awkward, but he managed. His hands were still numb, but now that he wasn’t soaked to the bone, the pain was getting worse, and he was beginning to long for something to take the edge off, at least. “I do wish things weren’t quite so … damp … though,” he said ruefully. He took a sip of the wine. It would probably help.

“Idalia says that soon the rain will turn to snow,” Ashaniel said, smiling, “which will not be quite as—damp. And by the spring the weather will perhaps have returned to its accustomed ways. It gladdens my heart that you have returned to see our city as it should be seen—and soon you will be healed of the hurts you have taken in our service.”

Kellen glanced down at his hands. Only the very tips of his fingers were visible in the thick cocoon of bandage, and Vestakia and Jermayan had made sure he never got a good look at them on the infrequent occasions they changed the bandages. He wondered just how badly his hands had been burned, back there at the obelisk. Very badly, if the pain he felt whenever the salve started to wear off was any indication. So badly his mind itself flinched away from thinking about it.

“I’m certain that is so,” he said politely. It was hard, very hard, to sit here making polite conversation when what he wanted was to down another of those pain-killing potions, soak in a hot bath, then sleep for, oh, a year or so …

Shalkan came wandering over, and stuck his head over Kellen’s shoulder. “Those little iced cakes look delicious,” he said pointedly. Shalkan had a notorious sweet-tooth, one that the unicorn indulged at every opportunity. This time, however, he was going to have to wait. Kellen couldn’t manage anything as small as a cake with his bandaged hands, and everyone else was too busy making polite noises at each other while they listened for Idalia’s return to favor him with a treat.

“If the snow is to be heavy this year, then the Winter Running Dance should be exceptionally fine,” Jermayan observed.

All this politeness was enough to make Kellen want to scream. Except that he hadn’t enough energy to do more than sit there, look solemn, and nod. Even his nervous energy was beginning to flag.

“Indeed it should,” Ainalundore said, from her position behind the Queen. From her tone, the Counselor greeted the introduction of such an innocuous subject with great relief.

To Kellen’s faint disbelief, the Elves, Jermayan included, embarked upon a lively discussion of forthcoming entertainments to be held in Sentarshadeen—just as if the threat of Shadow Mountain wasn’t still hanging over all of their heads. Just as if they weren’t all dying for Idalia and Vestakia to come back. Just as if they were totally oblivious to the fact that Kellen himself was about to fall over from exhaustion.

“Cake,” said Shalkan, “is very nice. One could spear a cake with a fork, if one was so inclined, and place it on a saucer, and I could eat it.”

Shameless. But it made him smile, and he did exactly what Shalkan wanted, now that he knew how he could manage to maneuver things. And out of politeness, he ate a cake himself, and discovered that the sugary thing gave him a little more energy. He sat and listened, carefully feeding Shalkan most of the plate of little iced cakes—and taking one or two for himself—as he finished his cup of wine. The wine did help; he would have liked more, but he was afraid in his current state he could slip from pleasantly numb to clearly intoxicated with very little warning, and that would probably horrify the Elves. Sandalon was still safe in Lairamo’s clutches, somewhere out of sight at the back of the pavilion.

What was taking Idalia so long? Surely she just had to look at Vestakia to know that she was Good?

But there was no point in starting an argument here and now, particularly one Kellen was pretty sure he’d already won. Andoreniel and Ashaniel had promised to abide by whatever Idalia said, and their word was Law here.

“They’re coming.” Shalkan’s breath tickled Kellen’s ear.

Kellen glanced up. A few moments later, Idalia and Vestakia appeared in the doorway of the pavilion.

All conversation stopped.

Idalia approached the table with Vestakia, her arm around the girl’s shoulders. Kellen had the feeling that without that support, Vestakia might have run.

“I have searched thoroughly with the Wild Magic,” Idalia said without preamble. “Vestakia is not one of the Endarkened, nor does she bear Demon-taint.”

Jermayan half-rose from his seat. Idalia held up her free hand, indicating that she had more to say.

“Yet, by her heritage, the Endarkened do have a kind of link to her. They can affect her physically by sympathetic magic, though she will sense anything they attempt, through the gift passed to her by her Wildmage mother. And for this reason, anyone who has been in intimate contact with her is similarly at risk.”

Here Idalia broke off, eyeing Kellen sharply. She didn’t have to say what he knew perfectly well: if Shalkan hadn’t demanded a vow of celibacy and chastity from him in exchange for his aid in helping Kellen escape from Armethalieh, they might all be in very deep trouble right now.

“But the bad is balanced—and exceeded—by the good. By her gift at locating Demons and piercing their illusions, Vestakia can aid us to track the Endarkened, just as she found the Black Cairn for Kellen. Though her range is not great, nor can she see into the future, with her aid, should she choose to give it, we can know when something is just an accident and when it’s the work of the Endarkened. And if there are Demons around, however disguised, Vestakia will know.”

There was a long pause, while Andoreniel weighed Idalia’s words. “This is a great gift,” he said at last, getting to his feet. “It would make good hearing to know that you will use your power for the good of the Nine Cities, Vestakia.”

Idalia must have coached her back in the forest, because Vestakia seemed to have no difficulty understanding what Andoreniel meant.

“Yes,” Vestakia said, her voice very soft. “Yes, I will. It would be my honor to help you, however I can. How could—I mean, anyone who has any sort of gift that could be used to oppose such evil would do just the same.”

“Then be welcome in Sentarshadeen,” Andoreniel said . gravely. “Jermayan and Abrinath will see you to your hearth.”

That seemed to settle it. No matter who had doubts about this—and there were probably plenty who did—there could be no arguing with the King. At least, not in public.

And in private—well, that didn’t matter. Kellen felt almost dizzy with relief, and was very glad he hadn’t drunk that second cup of wine.

Jermayan and Abrinath weren’t the only ones leaving with Vestakia. Quite a number of those present made preparations to leave as well, including a couple of grooms leading Valdien and Lily away, presumably to their stables. Kellen watched, fascinated, as they unfurled large parasols at the door of the pavilion—only, unlike the ones he’d seen in Armethalieh, these were apparently designed to keep off rain, not sun.

“You’ll be fine,” Kellen told Vestakia, under the cover of the preparations for the departure. “You’ll like it here. I’ll see you soon.”

“Do you promise?” Vestakia asked, sounding a little desperate.

“I promise,” Kellen said. “Ah, they’ll be giving you your own little house, by the way, one of the guest-houses. Just be sure to invite Jermayan to come inside when you get there. I don’t think he can come in otherwise.”

Vestakia smiled, a fleeting nervous smile. “I’ll remember,” she said.

And then Jermayan offered her his arm, and the two of them walked away.

Kellen glanced back at Idalia, to see her watching the two of them go. The expression on her face caught him by surprise.

Something’s changed here.

When they’d left, Idalia had been holding Jermayan at arm’s length. Kellen knew that she loved Jermayan as much as he loved her, but the fact that Elves bonded once, and for life, and that Idalia was inevitably going to die centuries before Jermayan did, had made her refuse to acknowledge that love, hoping that Jermayan would find someone else.

But now Idalia’s attitude seemed to have changed, if the expression on her face was any indication.

It isn’t any of my business, Kellen told himself firmly. He got to his feet, glancing from Shalkan to Idalia uncertainly. He wasn’t quite certain what to do now. And then, he started to sway, just a little, as exhaustion caught him by surprise.

“Oh, no, brother mine,” Idalia said firmly. “You’re not going anywhere until I see what’s under those bandages.”

Kellen stared around in alarm. Here? Now?

“I’d take you home first, but if it’s something I need to call in extra help for, I’d just have to bring you back through the city again. Might as well deal with it here,” Idalia said, leaning close and speaking softly, for Kellen’s ears alone.

Ashaniel gathered up most of the remaining courtiers—and all of the women, including Lairamo, who was still clutching Sandalon tightly—and prepared to leave. Andoreniel and Morusil stayed, along with several others whose names Kellen didn’t know.

“We look forward to celebrating your triumph before all Sentarshadeen once you are properly healed and rested, Kellen Tavadon,” Ashaniel said gravely.

“Thank you,” Kellen said simply. Somehow this didn’t seem like the time to complain that he hated parties.

Ashaniel turned and swept away, reaching out to take Sandalon’s hand in hers. The young Elven Prince was gazing back at Kellen forlornly over Lairamo’s shoulder.

“I’ll see you again soon,” Kellen called to the child, and saw Sandalon’s face light up with pleasure. Then the Queen and her court were gone, and two attendants were closing the pavilion awning behind them.

“Why don’t we get you out of that armor?” Idalia said pragmatically. “Better now than later.”

As deftly as if she’d done this a hundred times—and Kellen didn’t know she hadn’t—she unbelted his surcoat and lifted it off, then pulled out the locking-pins that held the armored collar in place and slipped it free, then lifted off the armored breast-and-backplate. Next came the multijointed armored sleeves, then the boots, then the leggings, then Kellen stood wearing nothing more than the thin quilted leather undersuit that went beneath the Elven armor.

It was damp from the rain, and had shiny worn scars on its surface where the armor had rubbed it.

Kellen felt peculiarly light and unfinished without his armor. In the short time since he’d first donned it, it had grown to be an extension of his self, as much as his sword was.

One of the attendants handed Idalia a thick belted robe—in the same shade of soft green as Kellen’s surcoat—and she helped him into it and tied the sash. Heavy soft over-the-knee boots of green-dyed sheepskin, woolly side in, completed the outfit. The Elves did nothing by halves.

“Comfy now?” Idalia asked.

“So far,” Kellen said cautiously.

Idalia snorted eloquently, and opened a large box that someone had placed on the table while Kellen hadn’t been paying attention. The box was large but not deep—though still too big for one person to carry comfortably—and made of a satiny golden wood, so beautifully crafted that Kellen couldn’t make out where the pieces were joined. When Idalia opened it, Kellen could see that it was lined in padded leather, and filled with small glass flasks. Idalia inspected the contents critically for a moment before choosing one.

The liquid inside was a lurid violet color. She picked up the goblet Kellen had used before and poured a generous portion of the violet liquid into it—it was thick and syrupy—before filling the cup the rest of the way with wine.

She lifted the cup to his lips. “Drink it all, as fast as you can,” she ordered.

“I suppose it tastes terrible,” Kellen said resignedly, having some experience with healing potions.

“Not this one,” Idalia said, sounding amused. “But it needs to start working before I can start working.”

Steadying the cup with his bandaged hands, Kellen complied. She’d been right; it didn’t taste that bad—particularly in comparison with other potions he’d had to drink—but the violet syrup gave the wine an odd sweetish undertaste that he didn’t actually care for, like eating candied flowers.

Idalia took the cup back and set it carefully on the table, then reached for his hand. Reflexively, Kellen drew back.

“I have to see what’s under there,” Idalia said gently. “It won’t hurt. Not once what I put in the wine takes effect anyway. Tell me what happened.”

“I burned them,” Kellen said simply. He knew he ought to tell her more, but somehow he really couldn’t bring himself to talk about what had happened at the top of the cairn. Not to Jermayan. Not to Shalkan. Not to anyone. “It was the keystone,” he finally added reluctantly.

“Do they hurt now?” Idalia asked, as impersonal as any physician.

“No. Not much, anyway. Jermayan. had some kind of salve in his pack.”

“Night’s Daughter,” Shalkan supplied. “Mixed with all heal.”

“Well.” Idalia seemed surprised, and Kellen wondered what “Night’s Daughter” was. “Just as well he came prepared for every occasion.”

“And he gave me something horrible and brown to drink every night so I could sleep,” Kellen added. “It tasted like moldy hay.”

Idalia raised her eyebrow. Evidently she recognized what it was without Shalkan telling her. “It’s just as well you came back to us so soon, then.”

She knelt in front of him and unwrapped his hands slowly, alternating hands so that both would be exposed at the same time. Shalkan stood close, his cheek nearly touching Kellen’s. Kellen could tell that whatever was in the wine was starting to work. He felt sleepy, and it was hard to concentrate. As the outer layers of bandage came away, he could see the inner layers, sticky and glistening with greenish ointment.

And the more layers Idalia peeled away, the more Kellen could see that his hands looked wrong.

They just looked wrong.

Jermayan and Vestakia had never let him watch when they tended his dressings on the trail. He’d gone along with it then. He didn’t remember why just now, but he had. Maybe he’d been asleep when they’d done it. Maybe it was that brown stuff.

But he wasn’t asleep now.

“Don’t look,” Shalkan suggested, as Idalia lifted away the last layer of bandage, but Kellen couldn’t manage to take that good advice.

He looked. And wished he hadn’t.

His hands were warped and charred, caricatures of themselves. All the flesh was burned away from the palms, and Kellen thought he could see bone showing. Toward the edges of the burn, puffy moist colorless flesh hung in sloughing rags. His fingers were crooked into claws, the tendons pulled tight by the burns. He tried to flex his fingers and couldn’t. There was only pain—dull and distant, but there.

He made a strangled sound, and would have risen from his seat if not for Andoreniel’s hands on his shoulders, pressing him firmly down. Even through the effects of the draught Idalia had given him, Kellen could feel a rising tide of panic.

I’ll never hold a sword again!

Idalia made a hissing sound of dismay, and somehow that turned Kellen’s panic into anger.

“Well, what did you expect?” he said harshly, struggling with his feelings. He’d known he was burned. He’d known the burns were bad—very bad. But to see them … !

“I expected you to die,” Idalia said, all the grief she hadn’t shown before thick in her voice. “Oh, little brother, I’m so glad you came back alive!” She put her hand over his arm—above the burns—and squeezed gently, then sat back, looking over his shoulder.

“Kellen. Don’t look at your hands. Look at me,” Shalkan demanded. “Now.”

With a great effort, Kellen pulled his gaze away from his hands and met Shalkan’s gaze. The unicorn had beautiful eyes—deep green, and fringed by the longest silver lashes Kellen had ever seen.

“It will be all right,” the unicorn said softly. “You’ve seen Idalia heal worse injuries. Remember the unicorn colt? Just look at me and keep breathing. Let the potion do its work.”

Kellen took a deep breath. Anger was a tool of the Knight-Mage, but panic was his enemy. He wasn’t going to panic. He concentrated on Shalkan.

As if from a great distance, he heard Idalia’s voice:

“Will anyone here share in the price of this healing?”

“I will,” he heard Andoreniel say. “For what Kellen has done for my city, I stand in his debt forever.”

“And I,” Morusil added. “It is a small repayment for the refreshment Kellen has brought to my garden, and the saving of the forest.”

“And I—”

“And I—”

In a few moments, all the Elves who had remained behind had pledged themselves to share in the price of Kellen’s healing.

Chapter Two

A Healing and a Homecoming

THAT WILL MAKE things easier, Idalia thought absently. She reached out with her small knife and cut a few strands of Kellen’s hair, then a few of her own.

Bless the boy, he didn’t even notice. He was staring into Shalkan’s eyes as if he’d found his one true love, breathing slowly and deeply, doing all he could to aid her in her spell. For a moment there, when he’d first seen his hands, she’d thought she was going to have to waste valuable energy putting him into Sleep, but he’d pulled out of his panic admirably.

Morusil had already gathered strands of hair from everyone else there. She added her own and Kellen’s hairs to the bundle, then pricked the ball of her thumb with her knife, and squeezed out a drop of her own blood, holding the nowbloody bundle of hairs under her hand so that the drop of blood fell on it and bound them all together.

Power flared up in the yellow pavilion, encircling them all and settling into a dome of protection. Once it had steadied, Idalia tossed the hair and the herbs necessary to her spell into the brazier that Morusil had also prepared, and whispered her spell.

Normally she would not need to do so much work to prepare a Healing. But Kellen, was very badly injured. And Idalia was already laboring under the shadow of an unpaid Mageprice, incurred when she had cast the spell to bring the rains safely to Sentarshadeen. Though Andoreniel, Morusil, and the others would bear much of the cost of Kellen’s healing, there was always Magedebt to be paid: this was the law of the Wild Magic.

The weight of the Presence filled her, and she waited to hear the price. But instead, a voice seemed to speak within her: You have already paid your price in full.

No! Her denial was automatic. There was no magic without a cost—that was the first and most basic tenet of the Wild Magic. What price she had paid was for gifts she had already received, not for this.

But Kellen needed healing, and it would be foolishness to argue with the Presence. I accept, she said, and felt the Presence depart, just as if she had accepted a normal geas.

Green fire filled her hands, as thick and rich as wild honey. She tilted her hands and it spilled over, splashing onto Kellen’s hands and clinging, and where it touched, ruined flesh began to heal and re-knit as if it had never been burned. Once that damage had been repaired, the green fire spread—up Kellen’s arms, across his torso, down his legs—repairing all the lesser damage he’d sustained at the Barrier.

In moments the Healing was over. After a moment, Idalia dismissed the sphere of protection. She got stiffly to her feet.

At least she felt just as tired as if this had been normal Healing, and judging from the faces of the Elves, they all felt the same.

Kellen met her eyes, his expression dazed and unfocused with exhaustion. He looked down at his hands, his eyes opening wide in delight and wonder at the sight of them whole and unmarred. He opened his hands wide, and then closed them into fists.

“They’re all right,” he said, his voice blurry with the aftereffects of the potion. “They’re all right!”

“Of course they are,” Idalia said, with an assurance she hadn’t felt until that moment, and with affection and love flowing over into her voice. “And now we’ll go home.”

“I’ll help,” Shalkan said. “I’m not sure Kellen remembers where it is. And even if he does, I’m not sure he could get there without deciding to lie down on the path for a nap. Which would severely inconvenience anyone else who needed to walk there.”

Kellen grinned tiredly, but did not contradict his friend.

Idalia brought Kellen’s cloak, then Kellen swung his leg over Shalkan’s bare back, and the three of them made their way to the small house Kellen shared with Idalia. Morusil accompanied them for part of the distance, until his path diverged from their own.

This time, Kellen didn’t even mind the rain.

No one seemed to take any particular notice of them. Elves were tactful in that way.

“HERE we are.”

Kellen was nearly asleep by the time they reached their door. He blinked at it in surprise.

Everything looked different—familiar and strange at the same time. While he’d been gone, Sentarshadeen had taken on something of the aspect of a dreamworld in his mind; something too good to be true. But here it was again, as real as the rocks in the road. He took a deep breath and swung his leg over Shalkan’s back.

“I’ll see you later,” Shalkan said. “Get some sleep.” When the unicorn was sure Kellen was steady on his feet, he turned neatly on the path before the door and trotted delicately away.

Idalia opened the door, and Kellen hurried to get in out of the rain.

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“Rain. It’s been raining since we started back. It’s raining now. Doesn’t it ever stop?” he asked, yawning as he walked inside. Everything was just as he’d left it, with the addition of a cloak-tree and drip-pan just inside the door. Kellen hung his sodden cloak on the highest peg, stretching and yawning again.

“Eventually,” Idalia promised. “Normally I’d suggest a hot bath before bed, but frankly, I don’t think you’ll stay awake through it—and I’d hate for you to drown after all my hard work. Why don’t you get out of those damp leathers and into your nice dry bed? You’ll need to sleep off that Healing. And then we can talk.”

Kellen nodded, heading toward his room. Bed! His own bed! And it would be dry, and warm, and he would not have to drag himself out of it at first light for sword practice, or another long day in the saddle …

With a mumbled thanks to Idalia, he slid back the door and walked inside.

The bed was turned down and waiting for him. Everything had been changed to autumn colors; there was a new bed-robe laid out, and—Kellen grinned to himself—towels as well. He sat down on the bench beneath the window and pulled off his clothes, toweling himself thoroughly dry afterward.

Even in the exhaustion that was the aftermath of the Healing spell, every time he used his hands he felt an enormous pang of relief. Just to pick something up, to close his hands, to look down and see, not numb bandage-covered lumps, but ten healthy responsive pink fingers was almost enough to rouse him to wakefulness again—almost. He’d lived with the fear for so long, that—because of the way they’d been burned, by magic—there’d be nothing Idalia would be able to do to Heal him.

But now that was all over. He was fine. Better than fine. Healed.

Time to move on to the next crisis, Kellen told himself, stumbling toward the bed.

He was asleep before he’d pulled the covers up over himself.

A few minutes after Kellen disappeared into his room, Idalia looked in. She found Kellen’s clothing strewn all over the floor, and Kellen asleep like a hibernating bear. She smiled faintly to herself and went to brew tea.

She was tired, but not tired enough to seek her own bed. There had been several present to share the cost of the Healing, and so the physical cost to her had been minimal. Normally, she would have also had a price to pay …

But not this time, apparently.

Idalia frowned. She’d never heard of such a thing before, but Wildmages didn’t run to libraries of books setting down the accumulated lore of Wildmages past. For one thing, the Wild Magic itself was fluid and ever-changing, and the way things had happened in the past wasn’t the way things would necessarily happen in the future.

As it seems I’ve just proven. Ah, well, if there are explanations to be had, I suppose I’ll find them in the Books of the Wild Magic.

Once the water was hot and her tea was steeping, she went to her room and got out her three Books.

The Book of Moon, The Book of Sun, and The Book of Stars were the three Books every Wildmage possessed. The Books were magical in themselves, and once they had found their Wildmage, they could not be separated from him or her by any means save the death of the Wildmage. Nor could they be destroyed. In them was everything a Wildmage needed to know in order to set their feet on the path of the Wild Magic, and a lifetime was not enough time to master their contents.

Idalia sat in the front room and read, drinking tea and listening to the rain. Though she found comfort in the familiar pages, she found very little in the way of enlightenment about what had happened when she’d healed Kellen. There was no gift—no magic—without payment. That was the way the world worked. All magic—whether the Wild Magic, the High Magick of Armethalieh, or the Shadow Magic of the Endarkened—had to be paid for, either in advance, with stored personal energy, or afterward, with a Mageprice—or sometimes both. Any attempt to subvert that Balance led to disastrous consequences: it was just such a temptation that the Endarkened had offered to the Wildmages during the Great War—a temptation to which some of them had succumbed, that of power without price.

So why had she not been asked for payment?

If the question bothers you enough, ask, she told herself, putting down The Book of Stars. She picked up her cup of now-cold tea, frowning down into its bowl.

Subconsciously, she realized she had been waiting for something.

No, not something.

Someone.

Jermayan.

Surely he ought to have been here by now?

“Fool,” Idalia muttered under her breath. She’d been sitting here like a maiden in a wondertale, expecting Jermayan to come to her just because she’d changed her mind—but after the thorough job she’d done of driving him away when she and Kellen had first come to Sentarshadeen, if there was to be a reconciliation, the first move in that dance would have to be hers.

She retreated to her room again, opened her desk, and penned a brief message.

There were times when it was distinctly advantageous to be a Wildmage, and this was one of them. She went out into her garden, and sent out a silent call.

She’d expected a bird to come to her call, but it was raining, and birds did not fly in the rain unless they must. To her surprise, a sleek white hound appeared, cocking his head alertly and regarding her curiously, tail wagging slowly.

He was no masterless animal—his smooth coat and the collar about his neck told her that much—but was apparently willing to take time from his own pursuits to do her a favor. And his price was easy enough to meet: a slice of meat-pie from her larder satisfied him. She tucked her note into his collar and secured it with a ribbon. And then, she sat down to wait.

JERMAYAN arrived with admirable promptness. He was dressed in blue and silver, his waist-length hair elaborately braided with long silver cords that had a tiny teardrop of midnight-blue lapis at the end of each. They matched the larger drops of lapis that hung from each ear, his cloak-brooches, his rings, and the lustrous bloom of the deep-piled silk-velvet breeches tucked into butter-soft high-heeled boots that swept extravagantly all the way to mid-thigh.

His tunic was a pale grey heavy silk brocade oversewn with thousands of beads of crystal and moonstone in a seemingly-random pattern meant to mimic a shower of raindrops. The latest fashion among the Elves was clothing that looked as if it was wet when it wasn’t. Idalia was impressed—the man had barely been here half a day and was already leading the style.

“Be welcome in my home and at my hearth,” she said, meaning the words as she had never meant them before.

Jermayan shook out his cloak—wet with real raindrops—and hung it on the cloak-tree, and set his rainshade—blue and silver, of course—beside it.

“Well met, Idalia. It is good to be welcome in the home of friends.”

“Kellen is asleep,” Idalia said, decoding the unspoken question with the ease of long practice. “The Healing went well, and he is restored to complete health; a good, long sleep and a few decent meals will complete the Healing, leaving him as hale as when he left here.”

“That makes good hearing,” Jermayan said. “Then he will be ready to resume his lessons soon. There is much yet for him to learn in the ways of a Knight-Mage.”

And so little time for any of us!

“I would offer you tea,” Idalia said in a faintly-strangled voice, turning toward the stove that stood tucked neatly into one corner of the room. “And it would be interesting to know how Vestakia finds Sentarshadeen as well.”

But Jermayan did not answer, and the silence stretched as Idalia set the kettle on the stove to heat, and rinsed and filled the Elvenware teapot with several measures of Autumn Rain tea.

Why didn’t he say anything? If he were angry with her for any reason, he would not have come, so that could not be the reason. Could something have happened to Vestakia?

Darkness damn all notions of Elven propriety! If he didn’t explain himself soon she was going to break down and ask him.

Idalia turned around—why was it so hard to face him, now of all times?—and found that Jermayan had not moved away from his position near the door. He was standing, watching her with that utter Elven stillness, his face expressionless. She forced herself to meet his eyes.

“Idalia, you once played our courtly games far better than this. Now you are as awkward in our ways as Kellen is,” Jermayan said, very gently. “You have changed your mind. Perhaps you would show kindness to one who is your brother’s friend and who has always meant you well.”

She forced herself to take one step away from the table, then another, noting with a distant measuring part of herself that her legs trembled. Why was this so hard? There was no place in a Wildmage’s life for dishonesty and false pride. She had abandoned those things—she thought she had—years before.

And because that was true, she knew the reason now. She’d taken risks that mattered before. She’d hazarded her life and her safety. But not her heart. Before, she’d only offered up her life, or a Wildmage’s honor … not something that, if everything went wrong, would leave her whole in body, able to mourn and suffer, without even the chill consolation that she’d done it all in the name of Service.

Because she was doing this for herself.

“Idalia?” Jermayan asked. A question. She felt her face quirk in an uncertain smile. She held out her hand.

His fingers closed over hers. Warm, when his touch had always been so cool before.

“Because—when you were gone—I realized that we’re all going to die.”

Jermayan’s fingers tightened over hers.

“No, it isn’t magic, not a vision, don’t worry. Just common sense. You’re an Elven Knight—”

She felt him relax. Looking up, Idalia could see that he smiled. She let him draw her closer.

“My heart, I have been an Elven Knight since before your grandparents met,” Jermayan said.

“And I am a Wildmage,” Idalia agreed. “And never in either of our lifetimes has Shadow Mountain begun moving so actively against our peoples. You know, and I know, we’re going to war. Kellen destroyed the Barrier. Shadow Mountain won’t stop because of that; if anything, it will speed their plans. Of all of the creatures of Light that the Shadow hates the most, the Wildmages and Elven Knights are at the top of the list of those first to be destroyed.”

“Yes,” Jermayan said, meeting her gaze steadily, “I fear that you are correct. And so you think I will die before you, and for this reason you are at last willing to hear the counsel of my heart.”

No, Idalia thought, closing her eyes for a moment. But I think you will not survive me long enough to grieve overmuch.

“I think I have been foolish to throw away the chance for joy,” Idalia said softly. “And I thank the Gods that I have been given a second chance.”

She went into his arms willingly, as she had not since the day she had first realized he loved her, and such felt a sense of peace and joy well up as she had never experienced outside of the Wild Magic.

“Then let it be so, Idalia,” Jermayan said. “And if I do not share your optimism at the length of my life, it is no matter—I shall surrender upon any terms you set. Now be merciful in your victory, and grant one concession more: name the day upon which we may be wed.”

IDALIA only barely managed to keep from recoiling in horror from Jermayan’s words. Taking Jermayan as her lover was one thing. But marriage … ?

Elves had given up their share in the greater Magics long ago in exchange for peace and long lives. But they had had many, many years in which to learn to use the small magics they yet possessed in the most effective way possible, and some of them were very potent. Elves mated for life. None of the Elvenkind would offer marriage to someone that they did not recognize a soul-bond with, and when they wed, one of the purposes of the ceremony was to strengthen that soul-bond with those small magics, binding the partners together body, mind, heart, and soul.

If she married him—perhaps if she did so much as accept his betrothal pendant—they would be linked. It was not impossible that Jermayan would have a certain amount of access to her thoughts—including, possibly, knowledge of the price she had accepted to bring the weather down safely to Sentarshadeen.

And that was something she didn’t dare allow.

“Not yet,” Idalia said firmly. “A proper wedding takes time to plan, Jermayan!” she added, making her voice light. “You are no lowly herb-tender, to expect to leap a broom with your chosen goose-girl and call it done! You have an obligation to Sentarshadeen and to your liege to create an occasion that all may treasure in memory!”

This time she blessed Elven custom for its intricacies. Jermayan would have to ask permission of the King and Queen, who would in turn have to debate this—for Idalia was human, and while such marriages were not unknown, they were rare. He would have to arrange for the appropriate sort of wedding, and it would have to be a very public occasion. And by the time even half of that was accomplished—

Sentarshadeen might well be a city under siege, and such considerations as weddings would be forgotten.

“Time—and perhaps fair weather and dry,” Jermayan teased. “And I do not doubt that we will find other things to beguile us during the moonturns of waiting …”

HE’D thought he’d heard voices.

Kellen awoke, disoriented by the unfamiliar sensation of sleeping in a warm dry bed. For a moment he couldn’t remember where he was, or how he’d gotten here, but then the memories slipped into place. Sentarshadeen. Home. He felt better than he had in sennights. No bruises, no torn half-healed muscles. And his hands—his hands. He stretched, luxuriating in the feeling that there was nothing whatsoever wrong.

He’d definitely heard voices.

And he was hungry. Hungry enough to eat—if not Valdien, then something of approximately the same size as Jermayan’s warhorse, and he wouldn’t really care how thoroughly it was cooked, either. He knew it was the aftereffect of the healing Idalia had performed on him, but that didn’t make him any less hungry. He only hoped the larder was well stocked.

He belted on the heavy overtunic he’d worn home, too hungry to stop and look for the bedrobe he remembered seeing, and slid back the door into the common room.

Jermayan and Idalia were there.

Both of them.

Together.

And from the look of things, they had definitely settled their differences.

Kellen retreated quickly, feeling his cheeks flush, and slid the door shut a shade too forcefully, leaning against it. His hunger was momentarily forgotten.

He felt himself growing hot with embarrassment. He stared around the room, and as he did, he saw a bowl of fruit and a carafe on the bedside table. He walked over to it, discovering that there was not. only fruit, but a plate of cheese pastries covered by a cloth. The carafe contained cider.

See? Kellen told himself, sitting down on the edge of the bed and biting into a pastry. There’s food in here. You don’t need to go out there.

In fact, he thought he might not ever go out there again …

There was a faint rattle as the door slid open again.

“You can come out now,” Idalia said, stifled laughter in her voice. “It’s safe. I promise. And we wouldn’t want you to starve to death in here.”

Kellen got to his feet, setting the remaining half of the second pastry back on the plate and brushing crumbs from the front of his robe. He thought of all the things he could possibly say, and decided not to say any of them. They were all simply too horribly embarrassing, especially with Idalia looking at him that way and obviously trying so hard not to laugh.

“I wish both of you all happiness,” Kellen said instead. He was surprised—both to find that he meant it, and that it was exactly the right thing to say.

THE following evening a formal banquet was held to officially welcome Kellen and Jermayan home to Sentarshadeen.

Kellen spent the day preceding it indoors. He had a choice, or so Idalia told him that morning. He could stay inside. By Elven standards of etiquette, that would mean he was not officially “here,” and no one would bother him.

Or he could go out. But once he crossed his doorstep, he’d be fair game, and though the Elves were notoriously—and unfailingly—polite, they also lived to gossip, and he would probably be the center of more attention than he liked.

“What about Vestakia?” Kellen asked. He’d just as soon avoid the attention, but he didn’t want to abandon Vestakia on her first day in Sentarshadeen.

“Vestakia,” Idalia had answered with a wicked smirk, “will be spending the morning—the entire morning, and possibly most of the afternoon—receiving a new wardrobe from Tengitir, who announced that she has waited her entire life for such a challenge as Vestakia represents. You know, I do believe that if the Prince of Shadow Mountain were to appear before her, Tengitir would demand that he take off his clothes and step into the light so that she could best determine what colors and fabrics suited his skin,” Idalia added bemusedly.

Kellen laughed. Having been dressed by the Elven seamstress himself—Tengitir’s specialty was in designing clothing for the non-Elven—he thought that was almost possible.

“Afterward—if there’s time before the banquet—Jermayan and I will take her around Sentarshadeen a little. To show her the city—and to show her to the city as well, of course. The sooner everyone sees that there is nothing to fear from her, the better,” Idalia added.

“And if there is anything wrong in the city, she’ll find it,” Kellen said.

“Yes,” Idalia said. “I’d thought of that, as well.”

So with one thing and another, Kellen spent the day at home, mostly by himself. Idalia seemed to have a great many errands to run, going in and out all day, returning more often than not with mysterious parcels which she wouldn’t let him unwrap.

“Time enough for that later, little brother,” was all she would say. She seemed cheerful enough, and Kellen was glad of that. When they’d first arrived in Sentarshadeen, she’d seemed so … grave. He preferred this Idalia better. It made it easier to pretend that in destroying the Barrier they’d solved all their problems, though Kellen knew they hadn’t. They’d only bought themselves and the Elves some time—though how much time, and what form the next attack would take, was something he doubted even Idalia could guess.

To distract himself from the unavoidable banquet—though the son of the Arch-Mage of Armethalieh had a certain amount of experience with formal banquets, this would be the first such event Kellen had attended among the Elves—Kellen spent the day cleaning and polishing his sword and armor, having found that his gear had been delivered to the house the previous day. Not that it really needed doing—someone had obviously been at it before him—but it gave his hands something to do, and settled his mind.

When he’d finished that, he got out his Books, and turned to The Book of Stars.

The Book of Stars was the most esoteric and puzzling of the three books. The Book of Moon was the simplest, containing basic cantrips and the building blocks of spells. A budding Wildmage could begin working Wildmagery within minutes of opening The Book of Moon.

The Book of Sun contained some information about spells as well, but was more occupied with why spells should be cast than how, and often with whether they should be cast at all, since the Wild Magic was a magic of Balance, and often things tended to slip back into balance without the Wildmage’s help.

The Book of Stars seemed to be about the underlying principles of the Wild Magic. Idalia had once told Kellen that studying it helped the Wildmage become a better Wildmage, although Kellen had never been able to see how, as nothing he’d read in it had ever really made a lot of sense to him. She’d said he should study it anyway, so Kellen had.

It seemed to make a lot more sense now that Kellen knew he was a Knight-Mage instead of a regular Wildmage.

The Book of Stars said that “The Knight-Mage is the active agent of the principle of the Wild Magic, the Wildmage who chooses to become a warrior or who is born with the instinct for the Way of the Sword, who acts in battle without mindful thought and thus brings primary causative forces into manifestation by direct action.”

When they had discovered that this was what Kellen was, Jermayan had told him that a Wildmage and a Knight-Mage’s gifts lay in opposite directions; that while a Wildmage reached out to all the world, a Knight-Mage’s gifts turned inward, so that he could not be turned away from his course once he had chosen it. Because of that, Kellen’s abilities in Wildmagery would never be as strong as Idalia’s, but Jermayan also said that a Knight-Mage could withstand forces that would destroy a regular Wildmage, for the Knight-Mage’s true power lay in endurance and the alliance of his knightly skills with his Wildmagery.

It all sounded very fine, but kind of unsettling, and while Kellen had a lot more confidence in his Wildmage skills—especially now that he wasn’t measuring them against Idalia’s—he knew he still had a lot to learn about this knight business. And he’d better learn fast.

Fortunately, he had Jermayan to teach him.

He wasn’t surprised to find that The Book of Stars seemed . to make a lot more sense now that he knew what he really was. For the first time, the words in the tiny handwritten book seemed to be speaking directly to him, as if the long-gone Wildmage who had copied it out from his or her own Books—why? Kellen still sometimes wondered, and as part of what Mageprice?—were here, and speaking directly to him.

“Only when you cease to try, will you achieve. Only when you cease to seek, will you find. Only when you are emptied, will you be filled.”

If that wasn’t exactly what finding the Way of the Knight-Mage was like, he’d eat his boots. It gave him a kind of comfort, to know that whatever might come to pass, it was somehow within the sphere of the Wild Magic.

And for the first time, he wondered if all copies of the three Books were the same. Oh, probably The Book of Moon was, and maybe The Book of Sun—but what about The Book of Stars? Because what was in his Book certainly wouldn’t apply to Idalia, would it? Was every copy of The Book of Stars suited only to the Wildmage who was supposed to. read it?

“Kellen? Come back to the world, little brother.”

Kellen startled at the sound of Idalia’s voice, disturbing Greymalkin, who had insinuated herself into his lap as he read. The cat yawned and stretched, stalking slowly from his lap.

Kellen blinked up at his sister, surprised to see how far the light had failed. He’d been sure he was still reading, but now he saw that it was too dark to make out the words on the page.

“Which Book?” she asked.

Kellen closed the worn leather volume and brandished it in explanation. The small gold star glinted faintly on the spine. Idalia raised an eyebrow and smiled, saying nothing.

“Time to have a bath and get dressed. It’s going to take you a while to climb into all your finery,” she said teasingly.

Kellen sighed, getting reluctantly to his feet. His experiences with formal dress when he had lived in his father’s house had not been pleasant ones, and he doubted he’d show to advantage in a roomful of costume-obsessed Elves. One of the oldest Histories in Armethalieh said that “the Elves have elevated mere living into a form of Art,” and that included clothing, of course. Even if his own outfit for tonight had been designed to take into account the shortcomings of clumsy short-lived humans—and since Tengitir had certainly made it, it undoubtedly had—among the Elves, he’d look like a turnip in a rose garden.

Just as out of place as he had back in Armethalieh.

“Bath,” Idalia said firmly, taking him by the shoulders and turning him in that direction. “I’ll lay out your clothes while you do that. And hurry up, because I still have to wash and change myself.”

Kellen headed for the bathroom—he could get his robe while the tub filled. He felt a little better, knowing that Idalia was going to be there, and just as overdressed as he was. He could hardly imagine what she’d look like in high Elven finery.

AND by dusk, he knew.

Idalia was wearing a dress—Kellen’s first reaction was to laugh, but he didn’t; she would have slain him on the spot—whose main color was the same violet as her eyes.

On second look, there was no reason to laugh. He’d never seen Idalia in a dress before. In fact, after what little she’d told him about her childhood, he’d thought she wouldn’t be caught dead in one, but somehow, it didn’t look … unsuitable. There was nothing ornate or frivolous about it, just clean simple practical lines, as businesslike as a good sword.

But it wasn’t plain, any more than an Elvenware bowl was plain. The shimmering violet silk glowed like glass, as if it were somehow lit from within, and was accented by insets of dark bark-brown velvet almost the color of her hair, velvet that somehow had a furtive, iridescent glimmer of the same violet rippling along the surface of it wherever the light struck it. There were insets along the collar, at the shoulders, and inside the full outer sleeves. She looked—elegant. He hadn’t known she could look elegant.

“I’ll be tripping over my skirts all night,” Idalia muttered, stalking across the room to glare into a mirror, but Kellen knew she wouldn’t. They only seemed to touch the floor, but that was a clever illusion. The hem was actually uneven; it didn’t touch the floor at all, and was several inches shorter in front than in back.

“You’ll be fine,” Kellen said soothingly. “And you look”—he sought for a word that would convey what he thought—“dignified. Amazing, actually.”

“So do you,” Idalia said. She slid a pair of ebony and Elvensilver dp n="61" folio="53" ?> combs into her hair—her only jewelry—and turned to regard Kellen critically.

He’d been relieved to find that he hadn’t needed help dressing after all. His costume (he really couldn’t think of it any other way) was not very much more elaborate than Idalia’s—and fortunately, the sheer, body-hugging styles that the Elves favored for themselves were nowhere in evidence in Kellen’s own garb.

There were a few notes of the same sea-green that was the accent color for his armor—he guessed he’d better get used to the idea that the Elves thought of it as his official color now—in the very plain heavy silk trousers and long-sleeved tunic that were the bottom layer of his outfit. But over those went a long sleeveless vest that fell to mid-thigh, closed all the way to its high neck by a double row of tiny silver buttons that had taken him ages to do up. It was made of a sheered velvet in a leaf-pattern—parts were sheer, and parts were thick velvet, and Kellen couldn’t quite decide what the color was. Silver? Gold? Brown? All of them?

Eventually he gave up. It looked okay over the green, anyway, making the silk undertunic (where it showed through) shimmer in a silvery—definitely silvery—way.

Over that came a long full-sleeved robe that fell to midcalf, in a green so dark it was almost black. It was a kind of cloth he’d never seen before, soft like wool, and smooth, but faintly iridescent. It was lined in dull gold satin, and belted with a wide—and very long—sash in a slightly brighter shade of green than the overrobe. That had nearly been his undoing, until Idalia had taken pity on him and showed him how to wrap and tie the sash properly.

Low boots, of a reassuringly normal-looking pale gold calfskin, completed his outfit.

“I don’t look bad,” Kellen agreed. And I don’t feel silly, he realized with relief. Nobody was asking him to wear earrings, braid jewels into his hair, paint his face, or do any of the other things the Elves did when they got themselves done up for some festive occasion. Now, just as long as nobody asked him to make a speech …

“Except for your hair,” Idalia agreed. “Come over here.”

A few minutes with a comb, and Idalia had pulled Kellen’s mop of light-brown curls back into a short twisted braid at the nape of his neck. It felt reassuringly normal—it was the way he wore his hair under his helmet, after all.

“There. Presentable.” She craned around and kissed him lightly on the forehead. “You’ll definitely do. I’ll just get our raincapes and rainshades, and we can be off. Don’t worry—they’re bespelled to keep the rain off—and I actually think it’s slackening a bit this evening. Not stopping, of course, which is just as well,” Idalia said.

“Where are we going?” Kellen asked, thinking to ask for the first time.

“The gardens at the House of Leaf and Star. There’s no other place large enough to accommodate the guest list—and the unicorns will want to be able to listen—from a distance, of course.”

“Outside? In the rain?”

Idalia snickered at Kellen’s expression.

“Under canvas—or silk, actually. Relax. Everything that should be dry, will be dry. You look like you’re being sent to an execution, not to a banquet.”

All things considered, Kellen would rather have gone to an execution.

THE formal gardens of the House of Leaf and Star were subtly beautiful, like all the creations of the Elves: the natural world raised to an impossible pitch of perfection.

He’d never seen the gardens, but then, he hadn’t been in Sentarshadeen long, and had gotten most of his tour of it courtesy of Sandalon, who’d shown him the things that Sandalon thought would interest a human stranger … which had not, obviously, included his parents’ gardens.

Kellen looked down, realizing that at some point, without noticing, he and Idalia had gone from the streets of Sentarshadeen to a wide-slatted wooden path laid across the meadow to a path of white gravel.

This must be the garden, then.

Tonight it was filled with more lanterns than Kellen would once have been willing to bet were in the entire city of Sentarshadeen. Before the rains came, it had been necessary to keep the lights of evening from starting any accidental fires in a city made tinder-dry by drought. Now it was only necessary to keep the flames from being drowned by the rain. But the Elves—who accomplished far more through clever engineering than humans had ever done through magic—made it look effortless.

Some of the lanterns shone through tall gauzy windbreaks set up to blunt the force of the blustering, rain-heavy winds, turning them into tall, softly-gleaming rectangles of color. Though they seemed as insubstantial as kites, Kellen doubted they’d fall if the wind blew ten times as hard, though they quivered when the wind struck them. Kellen suspected they were meant to.

Inside the curving walls of windbreaks, the air was nearly still, and the flames inside the artfully-scattered lanterns—some suspended on tall posts, some nearer the ground—burned steadily. But the towering windbreaks were walls only, not roofs, and Kellen was still glad to have his rainshade and cloak for protection. He’d gotten his fill of being wet on his return from the Barrier.

But the other purpose for the windbreaks, besides sheltering the lanterns, was obviously to protect the dining pavilions.

Unlike the place in which he, Jermayan, and Vestakia had first been received—if not entirely welcomed—these were little more than canopies suspended on poles. Even in the rain, the entire garden was lit as brightly as the common room of Kellen’s house, and very little of it was really open to the falling rain. Their cloaks were taken from them as they arrived at the edge of the garden, leaving them their light and elegant rainshades. The garden was already filled with Elves, their rainshades making them look like fabulous flowers.

“Like it?” Idalia said, gesturing around.

“Everyone’s already here,” Kellen said uneasily. “Are we late?”

“No. The honored guests arrive last. And of course, having spent all day putting this together, they certainly expect you to take some time to admire it before the banquet begins. Let’s look around.”

Idalia put her free hand on his arm and led Kellen forward. He didn’t see much of the garden as it normally was—but he did see a lot of dining pavilions, and oiled-paper lanterns, and people he knew. All of Sentarshadeen was here tonight indeed, and he and Idalia stopped several times to speak politely to people that Kellen knew from the time he’d spent on the work crews watering the forest, and to several of Idalia’s friends as well.

All the time his sense of dread grew. Everything seemed so quiet, so … formal. He wouldn’t be able to get through this evening without making some terrible error. He knew it.

“We’ll be sitting over there, under that green awning,” Idalia said, when their slow meander finally brought them within range of the canopies.

In the back of his mind, Kellen had been wondering where everyone was going to sit. Under the tents, obviously, but surely there weren’t enough tables and chairs—not to mention plates and cups—in the city to host a banquet for its entire populace? Unless the Elves had built them all—but in two days? He sort of thought that would take greater magic than they claimed to possess.

He glanced around.

He was surprised to see that what was under the awnings wasn’t large, long banquet tables—such as he would have seen in Armethalieh—but instead an assortment of tables in various shapes, sizes, and woods. All harmonious, of course, in the Elven fashion, but certainly not giving the impression they’d all been built for the occasion. In fact …

He was sure he recognized some of the furnishings. Surely that table under the rose-colored canopy was from the House of Leaf and Star? Yes, he was sure of it. He’d eaten dinner at it his first night in Sentarshadeen, alone with Ashaniel, Lairamo, and Sandalon.

Suddenly Kellen realized why the tables and chairs—and the tableware as well—were a harmonious assortment instead of an harmonious whole. It might be held in the gardens of the House of Leaf and Star, but the tables and chairs were from nearly every home in Sentarshadeen.

Andoreniel and Ashaniel weren’t giving this banquet. The entire city was.

Kellen felt himself relax at last. He realized he’d been thinking of tonight in Armethaliehan terms—of this banquet as an event meant to crush spectators and participants with its magnificence and to inspire them with thoughts of their own unworthiness to attend it. But if Elves thought that way, the House of Leaf and Star would be a cold and forbidding palace, terrible in its majesty.

No.

When the Elves said that this was a welcoming banquet, that was exactly what it was. Their ways might be strange, and their code of etiquette difficult for a human to understand or to follow, but that was what they meant. For all the garden’s daunting and ethereal beauty, tonight had far more in common with the party the Centaurs and farmers had held back in the Wildwood to bid him and Idalia farewell than it did with anything that might ever occur in the Golden City!

“The Elves are like no other people in the world,” Idalia said quietly, watching his face. “You read the Histories, back in the City? Where they talk about the Other Races? Do you remember what they say about the Elves?”

“That they make living into Art?” Kellen asked.

“Oh, there’s that,” Idalia said, shrugging. “But it also says they lie.”

Kellen turned to face her, outraged.

“I was surprised,” Idalia said, “so I went to an older, unexpurgated version—the one in the locked case in Father’s library. There, it says that Elves never lie—and never tell the truth.”

“Not much better,” Kellen muttered, but then he thought about it. “Never lied”—he couldn’t remember Jermayan, or any of the other Elves he’d met ever lying to him. But told him the truth? The whole truth, the way he thought he wanted it, as fast as he wanted it?

He had to admit he hadn’t gotten that, either. And maybe still didn’t have it, even from Jermayan, who was his friend and teacher.

“Maybe fairer,” Kellen said grudgingly. Not much though.

“Elves are different from humans,” Idalia said. “Very different. They live much longer, they have a different way of looking at the world than humans do. I am not saying you shouldn’t trust them—you’d say I’d gone crazy, and you’d be right. But don’t expect them to think like humans, because they just won’t.” She stared off into nothing for a moment. “When you live as long as they do, you take your time about everything, and you wait for everything to come in its proper time. So, for instance, an Elf will never tell you the whole truth all at once; he’ll wait for the right time to tell you bits of it, until, in the end, you’ve come to see the shape of it for yourself. Which is the point, for them—that you should come to see and understand a truth for yourself, and not have to be told what it is. Now, give that a lot of thought, and you’ll begin to see how they live their entire lives.”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this when we first came here?” Kellen asked curiously. Surely all this good advice would have been a lot more useful then?

Idalia smiled crookedly. “You wouldn’t have listened. We weren’t going to a formal banquet then. And you weren’t meeting the entire city population on more-or-less equal terms. Oh, there’s Jermayan and Vestakia.”

She pointed.

Kellen turned, spotting Jermayan and Vestakia coming up behind them.

Jermayan was dressed pretty much as Kellen was—the long belted robe seemed to be a standard sort of evening fashion—though Jermayan’s robe was practically transparent, and so were both undertunics. Kellen felt his face get a little flushed. Not that Jermayan didn’t have the body for such an audacious outfit, but still!

But Vestakia … !

There was no possible way to conceal the fact that she looked like a Demon, so Tengitir had obviously decided to make a virtue of what could not be ignored

Her gown left her neck and shoulders bare, and her deep rose skin sparkled as if it had been dusted with gold. It probably had been, in fact, because there had been subtle patterns painted on her forehead in gold, in imitation of some of the filigree diadems worn by some of the Elven ladies. Her eyes had been accentuated with lines of black and gold on the lids, making them look bigger and somehow more innocent.

A wide band of gold and red embroidery held her cherryblack hair away from her pointed ears, exposing both them and her tiny golden horns, and a band of the same material decorated the neckline—if you could call it a neckline—of her long-sleeved dress, holding in the folds of shimmering gold brocade that were gathered into a tightly-pleated waist before sweeping out into a full skirt that was gathered up at the sides to reveal an underskirt the exact shade of her skin.

“You look amazing,” Kellen said.

Vestakia smiled shyly, ducking her head.

“Come on,” Idalia said, looking at him oddly. “I’ll escort Vestakia around. You and Jermayan … mingle.”

“IS she—I mean, it would please me to know that Vestakia is going to be all right,” Kellen said, catching himself just in time. He barely avoided hitting Jermayan with his rainshade, but Jermayan handled his own with as much grace as if it were a sword.

“Idalia will see to her comfort,” Jermayan said. “And certainly no harm nor insult has come to her yet.”

“Good,” Kellen said. About then, his brain caught up with the rest of him and he realized why Idalia and Jermayan had gotten him away from Vestakia so quickly.

He’d been so stunned at the sight of her in that dress that he’d just stared, but now, thinking back …

No. No thinking. Not about that, or anything like that. Not for a year.

He’d sworn a vow of chastity and celibacy to Shalkan in exchange for the unicorn’s help in getting away from Armethalieh and the Outlaw Hunt. And it didn’t matter whether or not Shalkan was his friend. If Kellen broke that vow, Shalkan would have no choice but to exact the penalty for breaking it.

And Kellen didn’t want to break his vow.

But Vestakia—

No.

Kellen tipped back his rainshade—Jermayan ducked gracefully out of the way—and took a deep breath of the cool moist air. It had been easier when he’d been sick and drugged. A lot easier.

“I need a great favor from you. You have to explain for me, Jermayan,” Kellen said, though it was the last thing in the world he wanted to say. “You have to let her know why I can’t—spend as much time with her as I want to. I don’t want her to think I’m avoiding her.”

Although that was exactly what he was going to be doing, at least for a while, at least until he could get all this straightened out in his own mind. Maybe Shalkan would have some good advice for him—not that he’d be seeing Shalkan here tonight, of course. Unicorns were notoriously uninterested in the company of the non-chaste, and even Shalkan’s tolerance had limits.

“I will,” Jermayan promised. “And remember—she is not unfamiliar with the obligations a Wildmage must undertake. As for you, you will be far too busy to worry about the matter. After the Council meeting tomorrow morning, come to the House of Sword and Shield, where we will continue your training—”

“That will be—” Wait a minute. Council meeting? There’s a Council meeting? And I’m supposed to go? Without success, Kellen attempted to come up with a polite way to indicate he wanted to know more about that. “It would be most gratifying to hit you now, Jermayan,” he finally said.

The Elven Knight smiled. “You may attempt the exercise tomorrow afternoon. In the morning I believe you will be accompanying Idalia, to advise Andoreniel and Ashaniel upon the best way to deal with … the problem.”

The Elves almost never spoke the words “Shadow Mountain” or “Demon” aloud, as if to say them might be to summon the Endarkened—and from the very little Kellen knew of Shadow Magic, that might even be true.

So he was going to the Council meeting … and Jermayan was not.

“Idalia goes because she’s a Wildmage … and I think she’s the only Wildmage anywhere around near here. And I guess I go because I’m a Knight-Mage,” Kellen finally said.

“Tomorrow, perhaps we may know if you are correct,” Jermayan said. “But these are grim subjects for a night of celebration! Come, and I will bring you to that which will lift your spirits.”

They passed among the canopies and among the lanterns. Jermayan moved purposefully, but not so swiftly that Kellen did not have opportunities to appreciate the beauty that surrounded him. There was probably no “best time” to see the garden; like every work of the Elves, it was undoubtedly designed to present a different aspect at every hour and season, and even at night and in the rain, it caught and held Kellen’s attention.

But the garden was not what Jermayan had brought him to see.

In a corner of the garden—not quiet, precisely, because there was a rowdy game of chase-and-catch going on, but secluded—there seemed to be a party-within-a-party going on.

“Children,” Kellen said quietly, stopping at the edge of the smaller garden.

“The children of Sentarshadeen,” Jermayan agreed.

They were not alone, of course. There were other Elves there—servants (assuming the Elves had servants), companions, older brothers and sisters, perhaps even their parents. Kellen recognized Sandalon, and a moment later the young Prince spotted him and came running over.

“Kellen!” he shouted happily.

The game stopped instantly—Kellen had the sense that the others had been entertaining Sandalon—and everyone looked at him.

Oh, this is awkward. If dealing with adult Elves could be embarrassing, the potential problems in dealing with Elven children—far more direct than their elders—could be mind-boggling.

“Uh … hi,” Kellen said.

“We’ve been waiting for you! Everybody wants to meet you! This is Alkandoran,” Sandalon said, pulling Kellen firmly into the midst of the group. “He’s nearly as old as you are, Kellen!”

Kellen found himself face-to-face with a boy who—and he saw no reason to assume Sandalon was mistaken—must be about his own age. Alkandoran was dressed in a tunic and leggings and sleeveless vest, but without the long robe and belt of his elders. He was willowy and slender, androgynously pretty, and almost painfully determined not to gawk at the human stranger.

“I See you, Alkandoran,” Kellen said, bowing slightly. He was pretty sure he knew just how Alkandoran felt.

“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Alkandoran said, bowing in return.

“And this is Tredianala,” Sandalon continued.

Tredianala didn’t just look uncomfortable. She looked terrified, as only the very shy could be in the presence of strangers. She was much younger than Alkandoran—maybe ten? Twelve?—and dressed in a knee-length tunic over full trousers. Kellen was reminded of some of the shyest Otherfolk, the ones you might share a forest with for years, but never see.

“I See you, Tredianala,” Kellen said softly, carefully not looking directly at her. “It pleases me to meet a friend of my friend.”

“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage,” another girl boldly said, without waiting for Sandalon to make the introduction.

“I See you—”

“Merisashendiel,” Sandalon supplied cheerfully. Kellen turned toward the child, feeling as much as seeing Tredianala make her escape back behind the adults.

Merisashendiel looked enough like Tredianala to be her twin sister—they were dressed in similar costumes—but there all resemblance ended. Merisashendiel regarded him with frank interest, as if she was bursting with questions that she intended to ask then and there.

But she was enough older than Sandalon to know better than to do that, at least in front of strangers.

“I See you, Merisashendiel,” Kellen said, bowing very low. She giggled, regarding him with speculative approval, then swept into a full low curtsy, watching him all the time.

Kellen grinned. That one was going to provide her parents with more than a few sleepless nights in a few years, at least if Elven ways were anything like human ones.

The byplay was entirely lost on Sandalon, of course. And would be for some years yet.

“And here is Vendalton.”

When Kellen had first arrived in Sentarshadeen, he’d found Sandalon playing alone along the dry riverbed. And Ashaniel had said that Sandalon was often lonely. Kellen had assumed, at the time, that that was because Sandalon was the only child in Sentarshadeen, but it made just as much sense if these were all the children in Sentarshadeen. He wasn’t all that good at judging the ages of Elven children, but Vendalton seemed to be easily twice Sandalon’s age. A five-year difference in age might not matter later, but it was a huge gap now.

“I See you, Vendalton,” Kellen said.

“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Vendalton said. “Sandalon said that you slew a … something evil.”

“With the help of my friends, I destroyed the Barrier that was keeping the rain from falling on Sentarshadeen,” Kellen said, choosing his words with care. “Everyone helped, and even so, it was very hard. It also could not have been done without the magic of my sister, in which all of Sentarshadeen participated. So you see, it was all of us together, as a whole, and not any one individual that broke the bonds of evil. I was only the channel through which all of our effort flowed.”

Sandalon and Vendalton stared hard at each other, and Kellen wondered what long-running argument he’d just resolved—or made worse.

Jermayan cleared his throat significantly, regarding Sandalon.

“But she can’t talk!” Sandalon protested.

“Nevertheless, I am sure she will wish to meet Kellen, if her nurse will permit,” Jermayan said gravely.

“Of course I shall, Jermayan,” a new voice said.

A woman stepped into the light, holding a bundle in her arms. She stopped a few feet away from Kellen and set it down on the grass.

A lady.

A very young lady.

Quite the most enchanting young lady Kellen had ever seen in his life. He fell instantly under her spell, and went down on one knee to greet her properly.

Adult Elves were stunningly beautiful. Elven children had all their elders’ beauty, plus the natural appeal of the young of any species.

The combination was enchanting.

“And this is Kalania,” Jermayan said, a smile in his voice.

Kellen didn’t know how old Kalania was, but it was obvious that walking was a skill she had only lately begun to master. The tiny Elven child regarded him out of grave dark eyes, firmly clutching the hand of the slender woman dressed in rose velvet who knelt behind her.

“Come to me, sweeting,” he coaxed. “You can do it.” In the City he’d seen few children—but still far more than any of his peers had, for Kellen had spent as much of his time as he could on the streets of the Low City. The youngsters he’d seen playing in the streets there had never known how much he’d wished he could change his life for theirs. Now he wondered what it would be like to grow up in Sentarshadeen, with unicorns for playfellows. He held out his hand to the baby. Kalania seemed to study him carefully before making up her mind. She released her nurse’s hand and came staggering toward him, her chubby arms flailing.

The other children—even Sandalon—watched in fascination as Kalania made her uncertain way across the few feet of space toward Kellen. If she showed any sign of falling, he was prepared to swoop her up before she did, but she made it, grabbing his outstretched hand in a surprisingly strong grip to steady herself.

“Oh, well done, Bright Heart!” Kellen said, scooping the baby up into his arms and getting to his feet. Kalania crowed with delight at the ride into the sky.

Kellen crossed the little distance and returned her to her nurse, knowing he’d been given a great gift tonight. Jermayan had been right. Seeing the Elven children had made him stop brooding.

After a few minutes more—Kellen found himself answering quite a number of artfully indirect not-questions about his journey to the Barrier and about Vestakia—they left the little garden again. He was very careful to edit his answers, too. There were things that these children did not need to know. It was enough to tell them that the man he had rescued Vestakia from was trying to steal her goats, and not any of the rest of it. Telling them that she was Shalkan’s great and good friend now told them that no matter what she looked like, she was not to be feared.

Once they were away from the others, he found Jermayan regarding him curiously. “Idalia told me you didn’t know the Old Tongue.”

“I don’t,” Kellen said, puzzled. There were days when he felt that getting along in the Common Speech of the City—which the Elves now used as well—was enough trouble.

He knew that there were other languages in the world—spoken over the sea, and therefore anathema in the City. Probably there had once been other languages spoken on this side of the ocean as well, before the Great War had destroyed most of civilization. The Elves had probably learned the commonest human language in order to communicate with their allies, and then never abandoned it.

“Yet you knew what Kalania’s name meant,” Jermayan pointed out reasonably. “You called her ‘Bright Heart.’ Kala means ‘heart,’ and Ania means ‘bright’ in the Old Tongue.”

“Coincidence. My nurse used to call me that,” Kellen said uncomfortably. Only he’d never had a nurse. He remembered a nurse—quite a succession of them, in fact—but those memories were at least partially false, implanted through magic by his father, the Arch-Mage Lycaelon, to conceal the fact that he’d been cared for as a child by his sister Idalia, Banished from the City as a Wildmage when Kellen was six.

And whom Lycaelon had not wanted Kellen to remember.

But it was far too pleasant an evening to think of old troubles.

“Undoubtedly a coincidence,” Jermayan said, sounding unconvinced.

“Really,” Kellen said. “If I’d suddenly developed the ability to understand Old Elvish, I’d tell you.”

Jermayan said something liquid and incomprehensible. Kellen gazed at him expectantly.

“I said that all Elven names come from the Old Tongue.”

Jermayan, Kellen suddenly realized, positively enjoyed making leading remarks—of the sort that, in any human society, would cause the hearer to respond with a question. And knowing perfectly well that Kellen’s first impulse would be to ask that question.

I am almost sure I didn’t need to find out what passes for a sense of humor among the Elves.

“I am very nearly certain that Idalia knows what your name means, and will tell me if I ask her,” Kellen said with a wicked grin.

Jermayan smiled faintly, acknowledging that Kellen had won this round. “It means ‘strong shield,’” he said. “A mayn is a shield. And now, I believe we are bidden to take our places, for the banquet is about to begin.”

Suddenly Kellen realized that for the last few minutes he’d been hearing music—a music that blended into the rain-chimes and rain-drums, but music nonetheless. He bowed elaborately to Jermayan.

“Be my guide, O Elven Knight.”

Chapter Three

The Banquet in the Garden of Leaf and Star

AFTER JERMAYAN AND Kellen left, Idalia tucked her arm reassuringly through Vestakia’s and drew her firmly along beside her. From what Vestakia had told her about her childhood, the poor girl probably had never seen so many people gathered together in one place in her entire life.

“Kellen certainly left us very quickly,” Vestakia said. “I’d been hoping to talk to him,” she added wistfully.

“Maybe later,” Idalia said. She wondered how much to tell Vestakia. From the way Kellen had looked at her when she’d showed up in the festive—and very flattering—gown, someone should, and it was a good bet Vestakia didn’t know the details of Kellen’s vow, or possibly even that it existed.

Well, no time like the present. And one advantage to escorting Vestakia around was that it gave Idalia rather more privacy than she’d have otherwise. While everyone in Sentarshadeen knew that Vestakia wouldn’t be here at all if she were Tainted, she still looked like a Demon. And Elven memories were long. Even if none of the Elves now living had fought on the battlefields of the Great War, the fathers and grandfathers of many of those here tonight had.

“You know that Kellen is a Wildmage—as your mother was,” Idalia began slowly. “And you know the price we pay for our magic—the vows and obligations we offer up to the Gods …”

“Oh, Blessed Lady!” Vestakia gasped, stopping dead and clutching Idalia’s arm. “He’s not going to die?”

“No, no—nothing like that,” Idalia said hastily, remembering suddenly that Idalia’s mother had given up twenty years of her lifespan in exchange for Vestakia’s human spirit. Quickly she explained Kellen’s obligation—and the reason why Kellen was able to spend so very much time in the company of a unicorn.

“Not many people know,” she finished. “Most of the time it doesn’t … impinge.”

To her surprise—and secret delight—Vestakia gave a great whoop of laughter, startling the Elves walking nearby.

“Oh! Oh, my,” the girl said. She sobered quickly, glancing around, then looked back at Idalia. “Does that mean I—he and I—won’t see each other at all?”

“I don’t know,” Idalia said honestly. “But if you don’t see him, try not to mind too much. It won’t be because he doesn’t like you, or care about you. Rather too much the reverse, perhaps. I know he wants you to be happy here; he is very, very concerned that you are comfortable.”

“With water—and hot water, too—available for the turning of a handle? And every kind of food—fruit, too!—there when I reach out my hand? And such a warm soft bed that I don’t think I shall ever be cold again? How can he wonder?” Vestakia asked in bafflement.

“I think he is worried that the people may be unkind,” Idalia said gently, trying not to smile.

Vestakia sniffed, shaking her head. “It isn’t important, now that they know in their heads that I want to help, and I know that eventually their hearts will understand. Yes, they stare—and point at me when they think I am not looking. But no one will try to kill me here for what I am, and … there are goats here, too. I can herd them, and milk them, and make curds and cheese. I can deliver a kid if the nanny has trouble. I can be useful, even beyond making sure that They do not come here. The Elves will see that, too, with time.” She smiled shyly. “You know, and they surely know, that you cannot lie to an animal. They know when someone is good or bad. Sooner or later most people here will understand in their hearts. And until then, there are so many wonderful things to see, and to do—and not everyone turns and runs, you know. Some talk to me, and—” Vestakia’s eyes grew wide, and she lowered her voice, as if about to confide a great wonder. “There are books here, Idalia! Oh, hundreds of them! I do not read very well—we only had one or two that Mama traded for—beyond her three Books, and those of course I could not read—so I learned my letters out of them and memorized them long ago. But with all the books here to practice on, soon I shall read so much better than before …”

Vestakia was quite right about being able to make a place for herself in Sentarshadeen, Idalia thought. She’d probably been a very good goatherd back in the Lost Lands—calm, cheerful, and patient, all qualities one needed when dealing with goats. Idalia tried to imagine one of the spoiled daughters of the City in Vestakia’s situation—wrenched away from everything she knew, and dropped among a strange people who despised her. No matter how luxurious the surroundings, Idalia knew that the Armethaliehan girl would be weeping and complaining, demanding that things be adjusted to her liking.

But Vestakia had not complained once. She sounded so happy—and so determined to be happy—that Idalia kept her fears of the future to herself. If war came—when war came—mere would be no room in it for the quiet, gentle future Vestakia spoke of so easily.

And yet—

And yet Vestakia surely knew that too. Or guessed it, at least. She was the daughter of a Demon. She knew what the Endarkened did, and wanted. So the quiet, gentle future she was envisioning was one she must know could not last for long.

She and Idalia were very much more alike than Idalia had thought, for Vestakia was seizing her own chance for peace and joy while it was there, and would live every moment that had been granted her to the fullest.

And when trouble came, as it would—well, Idalia had the feeling that Vestakia would meet it head-on.

ONE thing about the evening did match Kellen’s expectations of how a formal banquet would go, and that was that he was seated at the same table as the King and Queen. Idalia and Jermayan were there as well, and Vestakia, and Sandalon with Lairamo.

He was glad to see both Vestakia and Sandalon, and surprised to see both of them together, though Sandalon was next to him, and Vestakia was at the far end of the table. He supposed that Andoreniel and Ashaniel were making a point. And Vestakia deserved to be here as much as he and Jermayan did.

Sandalon was gleefully delighted to be among the adults, and painfully conscious of his manners.

“You won’t go away again, will you, Kellen—I mean, it would be interesting to know if you contemplated a journey soon, wouldn’t it?” he said, looking up at Lairamo for approval.

“I don’t know if I’ll have to go away again, Sandalon,” Kellen said gently. “I hope I won’t. I’ll tell you as soon as I know. I can promise that.”

“Good!” the boy said. “I hope you won’t have to go away either. Idalia was sad while you were gone. She stayed in her house and wouldn’t talk to anyone.”

THE banquet went on until quite late. There were more—and more elaborate—dishes offered than Kellen had yet seen, but fortunately he quickly realized he didn’t have to try everything offered, and stuck to the things he could identify.

Or so he thought. The Elven love of illusion extended even to their culinary arts—the slice of venison in sauce he took turned out to be made of mushrooms, and the “roast goose” was not fowl, but fish. Still, both were perfectly edible, even delicious. And a roast turnip could look like few other things—though he was a little surprised to find it had been hollowed out and stuffed with apple.

At one point Kellen looked up to find Vestakia gone, and realized that she must have slipped out sometime after the main courses were served—at least, he didn’t see her again during the evening.

He wished he could do the same. Though the banquet was entertaining in an exotic fashion, it was tiring, and Kellen couldn’t help feeling that there were more important things to be doing than throwing a big party right now. While he tried to keep from worrying about tomorrow’s Council meeting, he was a human, not an Elf, and he didn’t have their seeming ability to let tomorrow take care of itself.

And he did know what was proper good manners in this situation, having checked with Jermayan to make sure. So despite the fact that he’d rather have been out in the meadow with the unicorns—despite the rain—or back in his own home, he stayed at the banquet through the long dessert course—iced cakes, candied fruits, flavored ices, custards, and even xocalatl—did his best to make polite conversation with dozens of people whose names he was sure he wouldn’t remember in the morning, and entertained himself with thinking how horrified his peers back in Armethalieh would be if they could only see him now.

Eventually the last round of fruit cordials had been poured and drunk. Fortunately there didn’t seem to be very much alcohol at all in Elven wines and cordials, but since custom required everyone to change tables for every course of the desserts—and there were a lot of courses—Kellen was just about as confused as to just where in the garden he was as if he’d been drinking strong Armathaliehan ale.

“But now the hour grows late, and we do not wish to weary those whom we also honor,” Ashaniel said, rising gracefully to her feet “And so we give grace to the night and to the season, and bid you all fair rest and refreshment in the name of Leaf and Star!”

At that signal, the guests began to prepare to depart. Kellen was already on his feet. He looked around, but couldn’t see Jermayan or Idalia anywhere. It didn’t matter. He could catch up with Idalia at home.

BUT when he reached the house once more, Idalia wasn’t there.

No reason to wait up for her, Kellen told himself, hanging up his cloak and shaking out his rainshade before setting it in its tray to finish drying. She’d probably stopped to talk to friends. He’d just make sure to leave a few lamps burning for her, and make sure the stove had plenty of fuel.

All in all, his first Elven banquet hadn’t been all that bad, he decided, folding his new finery neatly and climbing into bed.

SINCE the rains had returned—with a vengeance—the brooks and streams that criss-crossed Sentarshadeen had refilled, and in some cases done more than that. It was not the ruinous flooding that could have occurred if the rains had been let to reach the Elven Lands unchecked, but it could have been messy and inconvenient, so the banks of some of the shallower tributaries had been shored up and reinforced. Since the work had been done by Elves, it had been done beautifully, with walls of brick and stone and tile edging the rivulets, until they took on much the look of canals.

Whoever had been looking after Jermayan’s house while he was gone was apparently someone with a lot of free time to make certain that Jermayan never be inconvenienced by the flooding of his home. This highly industrious individual had built the restraining walls especially high. Higher, in fact, than the footbridge to the front door, which fitted as neatly into it as if they had always been meant to be together.

In one way, that was a good thing, because the little stream that flowed around the cottage was running very high. However, this conscientious person had not been particularly good at imagining what would happen if the stream actually did get that high, because that little footbridge should have been raised along with the walls.

When he and Idalia reached it, Jermayan cleared his throat uncomfortably, regarding the bridge.

“Generally it is, ah—”

“Drier?” Idalia suggested mischievously.

“Yes. Drier. In the sense that the bridge is not quite so wet.”

“It would, of course, be drier if it were not raining,” Idalia said agreeably, watching the river foam over the planks of the bridge. To be fair, the bridge was not so very much underwater.

“It would be churlish of me to expect an honored guest to ruin her dancing shoes because of my unruly stream,” Jermayan said decisively. He advanced upon Idalia and swooped her up into his arms before she could protest.

Idalia was not a small woman, but she’d felt in no danger of being dropped as Jermayan carried her across the bridge and up the walk, managing both their rainshades with elegant ease. In fact, it was a remarkably pleasant experience; there was something significant in allowing someone else to take charge of her safety for once. Even in so small a thing as keeping her feet from being soaked. As Jermayan carried her over the stream, she had the rather light-headed sensation of crossing something more important than just a bit of running water.

The bridge was hung with pale blue lanterns, and there were more at the door. The ones at the door were in the shape of seashells, a watery motif particularly suited to the weather, and their surfaces were starred and speckled with flecks of green.

Jermayan thrust the door open and set her down inside.

“We arrive without incident,” he observed. “Be welcome, Idalia, in my home and at my hearth.”

“I am welcome,” Idalia said, removing her raincape and furling her rainshade. “And it’s quite … dry.”

“And perhaps the stream will subside by morning, though I do doubt it. There is tea, of course, or if you prefer, I might warm some cordial.”

“Tea, I think,” Idalia said. “There has been quite enough cordial this evening.”

Jermayan went off to prepare the tea, after setting his cloak aside. The cottage was larger than the guesthouses, and had a separate kitchen. While he was gone, she looked around.

It much resembled his home in Ondoladeshiron, where she had once been a frequent guest. There were several familiar tapestries hung upon the walls, and between them, on small shelves, exquisite pieces of Elvenware, meant for display and not for use.

A low table was pulled up to one of the long padded benches that lined the room. It was heaped with books—both conventional bound books, and the older scrolls that some Elves still preferred. A xaqiue board with a half-finished game took up about half the table.

In an open case on the bench was Jermayan’s harp.

It was a small instrument that could be held in the crook of one arm, suitable for carrying into the field. The wood was black with age, and polished smooth by the caress of countless hands over the centuries, and it was strung with silver.

An Elven Knight was expected to learn to master at least one of the “gentler arts” as well as those of war and warfare; most chose something like carving, mosaic-setting, or gardening, all things where beauty could be achieved in the laying out of mathematical designs according to established rules. A slightly smaller number became musicians, but were players rather than composers. Very few chose the more challenging realms of music composition, poetry, or the creative visual arts.

But Jermayan, being Jermayan, could never do anything by halves. He had taken up and mastered several instruments, the harp becoming his favorite—and he wrote music for it. Or at least, he had done so when Idalia had last known him.

She did not touch the harp herself, for she was feeling unwontedly sensitive, and was afraid she might pick up far more than she wanted or he intended if she did so. Instead, she settled herself beside the fire to wait.

He came in with tea set out on a footed tray; the ones like it in her home were of carved wood, but this one was actually more practical if you were going to carry liquid about, being made of sculpted metal with an inlay of glass mosaic. She made a mental note to commission one like it, but knew better than to admire it—because Jermayan would immediately try to give it to her.

Instead, when he put it down carefully between them and settled himself, she poured tea for both of them and nodded toward the harp. “I’d been wondering if you still played,” she’d said, in order to keep the stillness from deepening into the uncomfortable. “I was hoping nothing had happened to make you lose interest—” Then she smiled. “Or worse, decide that the harp wasn’t challenging enough and move on to the pandehorn!”

“Ah, the ill woodwind that never blows good,” he replied with a rare chuckle. “No indeed. I have found a great deal of comfort in music. And I have continued to compose as well.” And without waiting for her to ask, he set down his tea and reached for the harp and began to play.

It was not a piece with which she was familiar, and within moments, she fell under the spell of it. If this was one of Jermayan’s own works, he had improved out of all expectation as a composer, and he had been good to begin with.

But it was not a comfortable piece, nor could it be described as “pretty,” though it was so very powerful that before long Idalia had found her eyes stinging with unshed tears. It was full of a deep sadness and inarticulate longing. There was a sense of things left unfinished, not because they had been abandoned willingly, but because abandonment had been forced.

Even the ending cried out with emptiness that yearned to be filled.

Idalia swallowed down the lump in her throat, and said, thickly, “It’s very—beautiful.”

Jermayan set the harp aside, and replied, almost casually, “I wrote it about you. And for you. After you left Ondoladeshiron.”

But then, before she could manage to stammer anything in reply to that astonishing statement, he turned, and the gentle smile he graced her with took her breath away.

“I shall have to write something happier now.”

THE next thing Kellen knew was that someone was shaking him, and watery morning light was streaming through his windows.

“Sometimes I think you’d sleep through a unicorn stampede! Wake up, slug-a-bed!”

“Idalia?”

Groggily, Kellen sat up and stared at his sister.

She was still wearing the dress she’d worn last night. Hadn’t she been home?

“Council meeting in less than an hour. You’ve barely got time to get up and dressed—and I’ve got to change, too.”

Kellen abandoned the question of where Idalia had spent the night in favor of more pressing issues. He realty didn’t want to go to the meeting.

“Why do I—?” he began.

But Idalia, seeing him awake, was already leaving the room.

If he wanted to argue his point, Kellen realized, he was going to have to be up and dressed to do it. He flung back the covers, shuddering at the chill of the air, and grabbed for his bedrobe. Wrapping it firmly around him—and wondering where his house boots had gotten to this time—he hurried over to the clothespress. Grabbing the first things that came to hand—it really didn’t matter much, since all his Elven clothing was suitable and becoming—he dressed quickly, dragged a comb through his now almost shoulderlength hair (thankful that he’d taken the time to unbraid it last night before going to bed), and hurried into the outer room, boots in hand.

When he came out of the bathroom, Idalia was ready. She was wearing Elven clothing today instead of her usual Wildwood buckskins: boots and tunic and a knee-length coat in several shades of violet.

“Ready? Good,” she said.

“But I haven’t had breakfast,” Kellen complained.

“Then you should have gotten up earlier,” Idalia said implacably.

“And I don’t really see why I have to go at all,” Kellen added mutinously. “I don’t know anything about … whatever the Council is going to talk about.”

“Then it’s time you learned,” Idalia said, reaching into the cupboard and handing him a chunk of yellow cheese, a small loaf of bread, and an apple. “The Council will be discussing its plans. Attending meetings like this is something Knight-Mages do, so you’d better get used to it. Besides, you might even be helpful.” She reached up and patted him on the shoulder.

Kellen made a rude noise, and bit into the cheese. Since he could hardly say he wasn’t a Knight-Mage, he supposed he’d better go along to the Council meeting. At least the afternoon promised to be more interesting. He’d be meeting Jermayan for his first formal lessons in knightly practice then.

Jermayan had taught Kellen all he could on the way to the Barrier, and the fact that Kellen’s Wildmage gifts lay in that direction helped a great deal. But that was no substitute for training and practice—a lot of practice—under conditions that Jermayan simply hadn’t been able to reproduce on the trail. Kellen was looking forward to continuing his education.

And meanwhile, he guessed he was pretty sure he knew where Idalia had been last night, and he was happy for both her and Jermayan. He just hoped that neither one of them would start quoting poetry at him.

ONE concession that had been made to the eternal rain was that a slatted wooden pathway had now been laid across the meadow to the door of the House, so that one arrived on the doorstep, if not quite dry-shod, at least not covered in mud.

Just as on the previous occasion on which Kellen had been brought to a meeting of the Council, he and Idalia were met on the doorstep and conducted deep within the House, to a windowless circular chamber deep within the center of the Palace.

Hanging from its walls were thirteen narrow banners of brightly colored silk, each bearing a single elaborate symbol worked upon it in shining silver. The last time, they’d been a complete mystery to Kellen, but he knew a little more about the Elves now.

Nine for the Nine Cities, probably, but that leaves four. That one symbol almost looks like the Great Seal of Armethalieh: could the other four be for the Other Races? Men, Centaurs, and … but that doesn’t work either, because there are more other races than four, aren’t there? Fauns, and selkies, and dryads, and unicorns, and …

Despite Idalia’s insistence that they were going to be late, she and Kellen had been the first to arrive. Now his musings were interrupted by the arrival of the others: Ashaniel and Andoreniel, Morusil, Ainalundore, Tyendimarquen, and two others he’d met and learned the names of the night before: Dargainon and Sorvare.

Six of the seven Elves took their seats around the large round table of gleaming pale wood—Tyendimarquen remained standing. In the table’s center, the inlay of the symbol of the royal house gleamed as brightly as if it were aflame, reflecting the illumination of the mirrored lamps which hung above it

Though Kellen and Idalia were by far the most plainly-dressed of the group, Kellen found he felt no sense of awkwardness, and Idalia obviously felt perfectly at ease. He supposed that though the Elves could make someone feel uncomfortable and out-of-place if they chose, they obviously weren’t choosing to do so on this occasion.

Or perhaps what he was wearing was perfectly suitable for the situation.

As before, the doors swung shut behind them, seemingly of their own volition, and Tyendimarquen slid several bolts into place, locking it securely. As she slid the last of the bolts home, Andoreniel raised his hand and sketched a small shape in the air, and once again Kellen felt a brief sense of pressure , as the room was magically sealed against all manner of intrusion and eavesdropping, both magical and mundane.

“Now we may begin,” Andoreniel said, when Tyendimarquen had taken her seat. “We call this meeting to discuss what provision we have made thus far in dealing with the Enemy, and what provision we have yet to make.”

Ainalundore was the first to speak. He rose gracefully to his feet—as if the Elves ever did anything awkwardly—and began to speak in measured tones.

Kellen discovered that a report on the drought had been sent to the Viceroys of the other eight Elven cities: Ondoladeshiron, Lerkalpoldara, Windalorianan, Deskethomaynel, Thultafoniseen, Valwendigorean, Realthataladon, and Ysterialpoerin, to explain that it had been discovered to be the work of the Enemy. A further report had been sent when the Barrier had fallen, explaining that with the destruction of the Enemy’s first ploy, further attacks could be expected. Response from the other cities, according to Ainalundore, had been gratifying; Andoreniel could be assured of their vigilance, and could expect regular reports.

That’s it? Kellen thought in disbelief. That’s all? Shadow Mountain is waking up again—the biggest threat in a thousand years—and all the Elves are going to do about it is WRITE REPORTS?

Dargainon was next to speak. And before he did so, he glanced aside at Kellen and Idalia. Particularly at Kellen.

“The Enemy is long-lived, as are we; it is my assumption, which I know is shared by others on this Council, that as this last attack upon Sentarshadeen was a subtle one, long in the planning and execution, so is the next move in this campaign likely to be. The Enemy has learned from his mistakes; we believe that he is unlikely to make any sudden or overt attacks; rather, this war is likely to be a slow and drawn-out campaign of attrition. This would have had a great likelihood of success; had it not been for the efforts of Idalia Wildmage, we probably would not have known it for an attack until it was too late.” He bowed a little to Idalia, who in her turn bowed back.

“Nevertheless, there are other considerations. We cannot be sure of what the next move may be. It has been suggested, since Idalia Wildmage is unable to advise us from what direction the next attack of the Enemy may come, nor are the woman Vestakia’s abilities reliable in that regard, it is an important consideration to look to the safety of our children. Therefore, a plan is presented for the approval of the Council to secure their safety by conveying all of our children to the Crowned Horns of the Moon.”

Kellen looked questioningly at Idalia.

“A fortress high in the Mystral Mountains, that was never taken during the War. A good choice,” she said in an undertone.

A good choice it might be, but that hardly prevented a number of comments from being made on it, even though Kellen got the impression that this was old business that had been hashed out pretty thoroughly before the Council met today. At last it was decided by Andoreniel that the plan would go forward as it stood. Convoys from each of the Nine Cities would begin stocking the fortress immediately. In a few weeks, once winter had made travel in the higher elevations a bit dryer, parties of Elven Knights would begin taking groups of children to the fortress a few at a time, where they would remain with their protectors and guardians until the situation with the Enemy had changed.

Or until they’ve all grown up, Kellen thought wryly. He didn’t know how long that would take, but if Demons were immortal, and Elves were very long-lived, neither side might be in a real hurry about going to war, inevitable as it might seem.

Sandalon, of course, being the Heir, would be the greatest prize for any enemy to capture, and for that reason, the young Prince would be sent at some point in the middle of this migration—as neither the first nor the last—to avoid drawing attention to him.

He’ll hate that, Kellen thought ruefully. But maybe, among all those kids from the other cities, he’ll find some his own age to. play with. He hoped something like that would happen, for the boy’s sake. And he was just as glad not to be the one to have to tell Sandalon he was being sent away from the people and things he’d known all his life.

“Let it be done,” Andoreniel said, ending the discussion.

“And now,” Ashaniel said, sounding almost reluctant, “there is the matter of the Others. If the Enemy walks again, in the end, its foe is all the children of the Light, not merely the Children of Leaf and Star.”

There was a moment of silence around the Council table.

“Certainly they must be told,” Tyendimarquen said unwillingly. “Yet to waste good counsel on those who would not believe it, when such telling might make matters worse, is the action of a fool.”

“The High Hills will listen,” Idalia said. “They, too, have felt some of the effect of the Barrier and its fall. You still trade with the High Hills, after all. And as for the Otherfolk, the creatures of forest and woodland—the unicorns can carry your warning there, and be believed.”

Tyendimarquen seemed relieved. “Yes. There is a good solution, Idalia. We will warn the High Hills, and the Other Folk, and let both of them spread the warning as they will.”

“The Out Islands may well listen,” said Ashaniel, thoughtfully. “Let the unicorns also take word to the People of the Water, for the merfolk and the Out Islanders are allies still.”

“But what about Armethalieh?” Kellen said, asking the question before he could stop himself. “I mean … the Mountain Traders don’t trade with Armethalieh, not directly, and not at this season. They won’t pass a warning on, or if they do, the City won’t believe it. The City needs to be warned about the Endarkened.”

There was another long moment of silence, as all the Elves looked at each other, seeming to share a moment of unspoken communication.

“Surely it would grieve us to see any of the Children of the Light fall to the Great Enemy, even those who inhabit the Golden City, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Sorvare said slowly. “But as one who has lately lived within her walls, you more than most will understand that it is no light matter for one of the Children of Leaf and Star to attempt to carry a warning there. Perhaps such a warning would be believed. Perhaps—and you may search your own heart for the truth of my conjecture—it would be seen as a form of attack, and gain us, instead of an ally, a new enemy at a time when we can ill afford one. And so I must counsel caution in any attempt to deal with Armethalieh directly, lest intended good become unimagined harm.”

“It is not impossible that we will find an ally of the proper sort to carry our message to Armethalieh, Kellen,” Morusil added kindly. “Perhaps an Out Island captain, for instance. But neither you nor Idalia can return there under pain of death, and our kind is now similarly barred from setting foot upon City lands. Still, knowing the Enemy’s ways, we will do what we can.”

“The proper sort” being human, Kellen thought in dismayed realization. Both Morusil and Sorvare were right—neither he nor Idalia could act as the Elves’ envoy, and if the Elves couldn’t go themselves, what did that leave? And if the High Mages saw the Elves’ warning not as a help, but as an attack …

He couldn’t fault their logic. But all the same, his mind did go back to the words the Demon had taunted him with back at the Barrier: that when war came, the Elves would look to their own first.

Wasn’t that just what they were doing now?

And if someone did manage to warn Armethalieh now, would it do any good? Was there anyone who would be believed?

The meeting ended, with plans having been made to remove the Elven children to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns and to send a message—soon—to those lands bordering on those of the Elves that Shadow Mountain was once more spreading its blight across the face of the land. Once more Andoreniel dismissed the seal that sequestered the Council chamber, and the Elves departed to their tasks.

Ashaniel stopped Kellen as he was about to leave.

“Perhaps you do not think we act with sufficient haste, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Ashaniel suggested, placing her hand upon his arm.

Kellen glanced wildly around for Idalia, trying to locate her without seeming rude. But she was nowhere to be seen.

“Lady Ashaniel, I’m really sorry if I offended anybody today,” Kellen said. “It’s just that I …” He tried to think of how to phrase his thought politely, and gave up. “If there’s going to be a war, we should be preparing for it. That’s all.”

“Yet to say what form our preparations must take, when the Enemy has not yet declared the shape of his own intention, might be to doom us all,” Ashaniel said gently. “We have met the Enemy upon the battlefield twice before, and by the grace of Leaf and Star, we prevailed. Fear not for your friends. They will be warned in good time.” She turned away.

They’re not my friends, Kellen thought with a sigh. He couldn’t think of one person back in Armethalieh that he could reasonably call a friend … but that hardly meant he wanted the City to fall to a Demon attack. There were hundreds, thousands of perfectly innocent people there, people who were harming no one, leading contented lives, trying to be good to each other, and if they were unreasonably prejudiced about outsiders, well, those prejudices had been carefully taught and carefully nurtured …

He left the Council chamber. An Elf was waiting for him in the hallway, to conduct him back down the labyrinth of passageways that led to the front door of the House of Leaf and Star. Kellen was fairly good at not getting lost, but he was glad of the guide; he was willing to bet that he hadn’t taken the same route to or from the Council chamber twice.

Idalia was waiting for him on the portico.

“Ready to head over to the House of Sword and Shield? You look like you could stand to hit something,” she said.

Kellen groaned faintly. “Ashaniel was just telling me not to worry, because the Elves have everything under control, and the moment They make a move, the Elves will make the appropriate response. But what if it’s something else like the Barrier? They already know that They are a threat, and out there: why don’t they just gather up the biggest army they can and go get them?”

Idalia pulled up the hood of her raincape and stepped off the portico, unfurling her rainshade as she did. Kellen followed, copying her gestures. For a minute or two they walked down the wooden path through the rain in silence.

“Those are reasonable questions, considering how little you actually know about the Enemy—and the Elves don’t really know all that much more. For instance, they don’t really know how strong the Enemy is, either in terms of numbers or magic—but they do know that if They can call in as many allies and slaves as They could in the Last War, They can probably put a larger army into the field than the Nine Cities can, and this time the Elves can’t count on having much in the way of human allies. Next, the Elves don’t have any magic, while the Enemy are the strongest Mages there are. I’m not even sure that if we got all the Wildmages, and all the High Mages, and all the Good Otherfolk to work together there’d be as much magic on our side as there is on the Enemy side. Not after the Great War and the death of the dragons.”

“That’s comforting—I don’t think,” Kellen said uneasily. “Especially since the High Mages won’t fight on the same side as Wildmages. Or Elves.”

Idalia shrugged. “They might, eventually. But it doesn’t really matter. Because you can’t attack what you can’t find, and no one’s exactly sure where Shadow Mountain is. It might not even be entirely in this world. North of here, that’s all I know. That’s all anyone knows. And well-enough shielded that all the Seeking spells in the world aren’t going to find it. So … we can’t find the Enemy stronghold, and if we could find it, we don’t have the strength to attack it and win.”

“So what are we going to do?” Kellen asked.

“What Ashaniel said. Wait … and hope,” Idalia said. “I know it sounds like a recipe for disaster, but the Elves have fought the Enemy before, and won. And once we see what They are going to do, we might be able to think of something creative.” Now she smiled a little. “That is one of the strongest weapons we have, actually. No creature of the Enemy can match our creativity and imagination—the ancient saying is, ‘The Endarkened cannot make, they can only mar.’ No matter what else has happened to the Endarkened, I doubt that has changed.”

THE World Without Sun was changeless and eternal. Not for its inhabitants the ceaseless erosion and decay of the seasons of the Bright World: theirs was a world of stone and darkness, utterly suited to their nature.

The Endarkened did not change. Let the Elves dwindle and fade, becoming a mockery of what they once were. Let the humans pass from savagery to senescence without ever reaching true civilization. The Endarkened would remain just as they had been at the moment that He Who Is had first created them, an unchanging tribute to His foresight and wisdom.

And in the end, they would triumph, because of their unchanging nature. Because in all the millennia of their existence, they had never forgotten that they had one goal, and one goal only.

The utter destruction of all who walked in the Light.

UPON her Rising—for though adult Endarkened did not sleep, they regularly entered a sort of deep trance—Queen Savilla summoned her slaves, and as they groomed her, she heard, as was her custom, the Petitions of the Grooming Chamber. These were usually—though not always—trivial matters of a personal nature, suited to the surroundings.

But today, though she was careful to give no sign of it to her courtiers and attendants, her thoughts were not upon the endless details of her Court, but elsewhere, for the news from the Bright World was good.

Things were going especially well in Armethalieh. Conditions were deteriorating in the City, even as her human agent moved upward in influence and position, and soon—very soon, as the Endarkened reckoned things—he would be in a position to influence, if not dictate, policy on the High Council itself. Then she could move on to the next step in her plans: to bring the Golden City over to the Endarkened side, its resources intact, its people ripe to feed the Endarkened need for ever more power.

Savilla smiled inwardly. In a thousand generations of the Endarkened, such an audacious coup had never been attempted. The single largest enclave of humans in the land; an inexhaustible supply of power, slaves, and food—allying itself with the Endarkened willingly because they would have convinced themselves that all the rest of the Brightworlders were their implacable foes and only the Endarkened—the poor, misunderstood, Endarkened!—could save them.

With Armethalieh as their vassal, the Endarkened would be invincible. And all it would require would be the subjugation of the High Council—a handful of foolish humans. The High Council had turned everyone else in the Golden City into witless sheep long ago. The Armethaliehans would do whatever their Mage-masters told them to, and ask no questions.

Once the business of the Grooming Chamber had been dealt with, Savilla dismissed her attendants and headed for her Stone Garden, a lovely private monument to her past triumphs in the Endarkened’s greatest art, that of torture. The Stone Garden belonged to her alone, and her subjects knew that she was never to be disturbed there.

But today was different.

Prince Zyperis stood at the gateway to the garden, obviously waiting for her.

“I wondered if I might walk with you today,” he said deferentially, furling his great scarlet wings tight to his body submissively.

“Of course,” Savilla said graciously. So her son and lover wanted something, did he? She was not entirely displeased. It was the way of their kind. He was a promising youngster. But the greater the promise, the greater the threat.

She offered him her arm. He took it, and the two of them passed into the garden. For a while Zyperis made idle conversation, speaking with knowledgeable pleasure about the history of her trophies, for he had been present at the collection of some of them.

Within each colored crystal, Savilla had trapped some moment of agony of one of her special victims, so that she could treasure it forever. As she and Zyperis strolled along the paths where nothing grew, she would stop occasionally to waken a stone into life with a touch of her power.

—Here, the death of the last of the bearwards. They had been formidable enemies to many of Uralesse’s slave-races; strong as giants, and utterly committed to the Light. Their inroads had weakened Uralesse to the point where it had been possible for her to destroy him and take the Shadow Throne. Yet flay them of their bearskins, strip them of their magic, and they were as weak and vulnerable as any human. She had killed his mate and his cubs before his eyes, savoring their blended agony … .

—There, the death of a nest of firesprites. They were difficult to torture; it had required all her creativity. But water, or better yet ice … oh, yes, that had served her very well.

The minds and souls represented here were long expended, gone to fuel her magic. But the trophies of her past triumphs remained.

Zyperis was silent for some time, conscious of the honor of being invited into Savilla’s private garden. But at last, as she had known he would, he raised the true reason for his visit.

“How goes the war, my sweet Crown of Pain? I know the destruction of the Barrier was only the merest and most minor of setbacks, but since the moment when it fell, you have told me nothing,” he said, pouting prettily. “I languish in ignorance that only you can remove.”

“You will be pleased,” Savilla said, allowing her long ivory fangs to gleam in a smile of pleasure. “Our agent in Armethalieh rises higher in the confidence of the Arch-Mage, and will soon gain a seat on the High Council itself. From there it should be a simple task for him to convince Lycaelon and the rest that we are not the true enemy, and that someone else—it hardly matters who!—has misled them all these centuries for his own fell purposes. I suspect they will pounce upon some long-dead Arch-Mage whose progeny they wish to discredit as the source of their misinformation, and proceed to purge their own histories of anything they believe to be tainted by his hand and thoughts.”

Zyperis preened with delight. “Then they shall—so they think—become our allies, when in fact they will become our slaves. I have an idea, my Liege-Mother. You must convince them that there is a vast conspiracy of Wildmages ready to destroy their city, allied with the Elves. They already loathe both the Elves and the Wild Magic, and the Arch-Mage will not soon forget that his own son was Banished for dabbling in it. The combination should drive them absolutely wild. That way, we can save them from the two things they hate and fear the most—Elves and Wildmages.”

“I do not think my agent will find that very difficult,” Savilla said, reluctant approval in her voice.

It was a good idea—a clever idea—one more proof, if she needed it, that inevitably Zyperis would someday make a try for the Shadow Throne. So the longer she could keep him off-balance, uncertain of his ability, the longer it would take for that day to come.

“But it will take time to get him onto the Council, and time for him to eliminate his rivals,” she said, as if the idea had just occurred to her. “Until his position is secure, we have to keep the Elves securely occupied with their own problems. We must keep them from managing to warn Armethalieh. How do you propose to do that?”

She stopped strolling and gazed demandingly into his eyes.

Zyperis’s wings unfurled and drooped slightly, and Savilla felt a hot spark of triumph. Obviously the boy hadn’t thought that far ahead.

“We could carry off their messengers,” he suggested doubtfully.

“But we don’t want to act openly … yet,” Savilla said. “And direct opposition only strengthens the foe’s will to resist. No. The Elves have no real interest in warning Armethalieh, so we will make it easy for them to avoid it. We will provide a diversion that will occupy all their energy … the sacrifice of a pawn.”

“Oh, don’t tease me so!” Zyperis begged. “You’ve had a plan all along—you know you have. Tell me what it is!”

“No,” Savilla said archly. “I don’t think I shall. You have not yet impressed me with your … sufficiently sincere desire to know.”

THE House of Shield and Sword was located on the southern edge of the city. From his rambles with Sandalon, Kellen had gotten the impression he knew the city fairly well, but somehow this was one of the places that had never been included on their walks.

It was out beyond the firing kilns, separated from the city proper by a dense plantation of balsam-bough trees. There was no pathway through the forest; nothing to indicate that anything lay beyond the evergreens but more woodland. If Idalia had not been with him, Kellen might well have turned back at the forest’s edge.

“Here you are,” Idalia said, stopping at the far side of the trees. “Think you can find your way from here?”

“I … oh.”

A whole pocket canyon spread out before him, its floor rich with tall grass. The forest, he realized, had been planted—and carefully tended—to screen its opening. Horses grazed loose in the meadow, their coats shiny with rain.

About halfway down the canyon floor was the House of Sword and Shield.

Like all Elven architecture, it blended in to its surroundings so harmoniously it seemed to have grown there instead of being built. Unlike the House of Leaf and Star, it was all of simple golden stone except for the roof; one story, and with the high-peaked roof making it look even lower and wider.

“Why is it out here in the middle of nowhere?” Kellen asked.

“You’ll have to ask Jermayan,” Idalia said, amused. “I think he’s coming now.”

She pointed. A rider was coming toward them. Jermayan, and Valdien.

Today the Elven Knight wore no armor at all, merely a simple tunic and leggings in green beneath his raincape, with soft boots to match, and Valdien wore only a simple halter. Elf and destrier moved as one being, and Kellen wondered absently if he could learn to ride a horse, and if he could ever manage to equal Jermayan’s easy grace.

“The student approaches,” Jermayan observed. “I promise, Idalia, that he will be returned to you … reasonably unscathed.”

“Oh, don’t bother on my account,” Idalia said cheerfully. “As The Book of Stars tells us, ‘There is nothing worth knowing that is not bought without effort or pain.’ I’ll see you later.” She turned away, walking back through the pines.

Jermayan dismounted from Valdien and slipped the halter from Valdien’s head.

“Come,” Jermayan said to Kellen, beginning to walk back toward the House of Sword and Shield. “It is time for your proper training to begin.”

Valdien followed Kellen and Jermayan like a hopeful pet, occasionally nudging Jermayan in the back.

Kellen felt a flutter of nervousness at the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t that he doubted his own skill—he didn’t; he was a Knight-Mage after all. But all of his experience with formal training of any kind had been disastrous, and all of a sudden he was afraid that this was going to turn out the same way.

“Jermayan—” he said, stopping.

His friend looked at him questioningly.

“I’m … well, I’m not very good at some things,” Kellen said awkwardly.

“That.” said Jermayan, “is why you are here. The House of Sword and Shield has trained Knight-Mages in the past. The House remembers.”

“But I …” There just wasn’t any good way to say this! “I don’t want to make trouble.” Or get into trouble. “I just don’t … I asked the Council a question this morning,” he admitted dolefully.

That surprised a startled laugh from Jermayan.

“No doubt certain members of the Council were surprised by your boldness, and were instantly forthcoming,” he commented.

“Not really,” Kellen said with a sigh.

“But to allay your fears, there will be times within the House when questions will be encouraged, for War Manners are taught here, along with all the other arts of War. You will learn all that we can teach you, my word on that, Kellen.”

By now they had reached the doors of the House. Jermayan turned to Valdien and dismissed the stallion firmly with a pat on the shoulder. The stallion lingered for a moment, for all the world as if hoping to be invited inside, then turned and trotted off with a reluctant sigh.

Kellen realized that the building was taller than he’d thought, the height of the indoor riding rings back in Armethalieh. The doors added to that impression; they were tall enough to admit two mounted knights riding side-by-side.

But they were not constructed like the doors back home. These seemed designed to fold back in four panels rather than just open. Jermayan opened one tall narrow panel, and the two of them stepped inside.

“Be welcome in the House of Sword and Shield, home to all who bear the sword for the Nine Cities,” Jermayan said formally.

Kellen looked around.

The first thing that caught his attention was the ring of steel on steel. In the center of the room, four armored Knights whirled and danced around one another, swords flashing in a deadly pattern of light and motion. Kellen studied them, his attention caught. Were three attacking the one? Was it two against two? It was impossible for him to tell; they moved so fast …

Then a fifth man, unarmored, wearing dark green robes, his hair the silver-blue of great age, walked into the midst of them. All four immediately put up their swords. The man began talking, too low for Kellen to hear.

“Belesharon is one of our greatest teachers of the sword,” Jermayan said quietly. “His father once trained a Knight-Mage. He looks forward to meeting you.”

Kellen blinked, slowly reasoning it out. If Belesharon’s father had trained a Knight-Mage, that meant that Belesharon’s father had fought in the Great War, since that was the last time there’d been any Knight-Mages. He looked away from the armored Knights, unwilling to draw Belesharon’s attention to him any earlier than he had to.

Although, if he could actually ask Belesharon questions …

Kellen looked around as he pulled off his sopping raincape and hung it next to Jermayan’s on one of the row of hooks beside the door. Having seen on the night of the banquet how few Elven children there were, he didn’t expect this place to be actually crowded, even if, as Jermayan implied, all the Elven Knights from all the Nine Cities were trained here, so he wasn’t terribly surprised.

But if we’re going to war … and this is all we can put into the field …

Including the four in armor, there were about twenty Knights in the room. Some of them, to Kellen’s vague surprise, seemed to be female, though he supposed there was no reason they shouldn’t be. He didn’t really know enough about the way Elves did things to know whether they cared about things like that or not. Armethalieh certainly did, but the way Armethalieh did things wasn’t the way Kellen wanted to run his life.

None of the other groups of Elves were in armor. They were all dressed just as Jermayan was—loose tunics, pants, and soft boots, though the colors varied from pale green to deep yellow to red. The ones in pale green were sitting in a corner, apparently listening to a lecture—Kellen recognized Alkandoran in that group.

Pale green for the youngest students, then.

Those in yellow were practicing simple forms and stances—as Kellen remembered doing a few times himself—with wooden practice blades under the guidance of a few of the red-tunic’d students. The few remaining red-tunics were sparring against each other, also with wooden swords, under the watchful eyes of other Elven Knights, all of whom seemed to be wearing some shade of darker green, though none was wearing quite the same shade that Belesharon was.

Kellen already knew that the Elves could distinguish a much wider range of colors than humans could, and he imagined all those colors meant something very particular. He only hoped he wouldn’t be expected to be able to tell what it was—he suspected that in comparison to the Elves, humans were practically color-blind.

Kellen turned his attention from the students to the building itself. The interior was the largest single room he’d ever seen. The ceiling was high—the building was actually closer to two stories in height than one—and a gallery ran around three walls of the room, with open stone staircases leading up to them on the two long sides of the building. Long windows without glass pierced the walls at regular intervals. They could be closed with heavy wooden shutters, but today the shutters were folded back.

Despite that, Kellen wasn’t in the least cold, and after a moment he realized why. Heat radiated up through the brick floor of the room, a gentle pervasive warmth that filled the air.

“There is a furnace in the chamber below this, that heats a network of pipes that warms the floor. It is one of the apprentices’ duties to keep it stoked—a duty that you will be spared,” Jermayan said with a faint smile.

Kellen grinned back. He’d chopped enough wood in the Wildwood not to be afraid of chopping more.

“It is a marvelous thing,” he said teasingly, “to have seen the Elven armies in their flower.”

“You think we are few,” Jermayan said shrewdly. “But most are in the field, and winter—especially this winter—is not a time when you will see the House heavily frequented. You worry too much, Kellen.”

“You worry too little,” Kellen said, stung to sudden honesty. You didn’t see her—the Demon Queen—you didn’t talk to her. The Endarkened mean to kill you all, and you sit here worrying about your clothes, and the proper time to let everybody else know they’ve got a problem …

“Then teach us to worry,” Jermayan said gently. “And meanwhile, hone the skills you will need when the battle comes, as we both know it must. And learn what I could not teach you alone.”

He took Kellen’s arm and led him out of the entryway, onto the stone floor of the hall. Belesharon had concluded his instructions to the armored Knights, and turned to face Jermayan.

“I See you, Jermayan,” he said, bowing.

“I See you, Belesharon,” Jermayan said, bowing in return. “I bring you Kellen Knight-Mage, who comes from the lands of Men to learn what you can teach him.”

“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Belesharon said. He did not bow, but studied Kellen with cold black eyes.

What’s going on? But this wasn’t the time to wonder about it. Kellen bowed deeply. “I See you, Belesharon.” He rose from his bow and studied the Elven swordmaster in return.

He’d thought Morusil was old, and until this moment, Morusil had been the oldest Elf Kellen had ever seen. But next to Belesharon, Morusil was a mere child. Up close, Belesharon’s bone-pale skin was spiderwebbed with the fine lines of age; his eyebrows nearly white. Perhaps Elves had run shorter centuries ago, or perhaps age had shrunk him; Belesharon was as small as a child, making Kellen feel lumpish and ungainly as he had not since his days in Armethalieh.

But no matter how old he was, there was nothing of infirmity about the ancient swordmaster. His eyes sparkled with alert intelligence, and his movements—as Kellen had seen previously—were lithe and swift.

“Well,” Belesharon said after a moment. “Staring gains only so much. Bring practice swords, Ciradhel.”

One of the green-tunic’d teachers hurried off.

“I don’t understand,” Kellen said. Always a safe enough statement when dealing with Elves.

Belesharon snorted. “When one undertakes to teach a student, young Kellen, one begins by judging his quality. We will spar. You will attempt to strike me, holding nothing back. If you fail in this, I will know. And you will no longer be welcome in my House.”

“But—” Kellen glanced at Jermayan with indecision bordering on agony, but Jermayan’s face was unreadable.

He remembered facing Jermayan at their streambed camp, and nearly killing his mentor and friend by accident simply because neither of them had been prepared for the scope of Kellen’s newly-awakened Knight-Mage powers. And Kellen still didn’t know their full extent.

If Jermayan had expected this, he would have warned Kellen—if that was allowed by the strict rules of etiquette that governed every aspect of Elven daily life. Kellen bit his lip, thinking very hard. He did not doubt for a minute that Belesharon was speaking the simple truth.

But killing—or injuring—the Master wouldn’t be a very good start either.

He bowed.

“Master Belesharon.”

“The fool speaks. Come, take your weapon and face me. Choose either.”

Ciradhel had returned, carrying two practice swords similar to the ones he’d seen the yellow-garbed students working out with. They were the length and shape of Kellen’s own sword, but made entirely of wood.

But even a length of wood could be deadly in the hands of a Knight-Mage.

Kellen bowed again.

“If you like, I am a fool. And you have trained fools and children for a very long time, so you will understand when I say that there is a saying among my people that nothing is foolproof, because fools have too much ingenuity. I do not wish to hurt you.”

He waited, holding his breath.

Now Belesharon bowed, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

“Such courtesy! Such respect for age! You rascals would do well to heed it, and have more consideration for an old man who is nearly on his deathbed. Young Kellen, your honesty and thoughtfulness do you credit, and I honor the truth of your words. Therefore, our contest will be closely watched, and if I am in danger, my students will intervene. You, however, must look to yourself.”

Kellen bowed again, and reluctantly took the sword that Ciradhel held out to him. He’d hoped to avoid the match altogether, but it was a good compromise.

He hoped.

Belesharon took up his own practice sword and strode to a practice circle marked out on the stone floor. Kellen recognized the dimensions as being equal to the ones Jermayan had marked out on the ground when his training was just beginning. The rules were simple: stay inside the circle at all costs.

For a moment Kellen considered simply letting Belesharon push him outside the circle, then dismissed the notion. If he didn’t do his best, the swordmaster would know. He had no doubt of that. The only thing he could do was to pull his blows as much as possible. Surely there’d be no objection to that? .

Reluctantly, he took his own place in the circle. The four armored knights, swords drawn, took their places just outside it. They didn’t seem at all worried. Jermayan was the only one who seemed concerned—but then, Jermayan was the only one who’d seen him fight.

Kellen realized with resigned dismay that all other activity in the hall had stopped. Everyone was watching.

Grand. Either I end up looking like an uncouth barbarian, or else I do something like I did to Jermayan. And either way, I’m in trouble.

“Now we shall begin your education,” Belesharon said. He raised the wooden practice sword in a fluid salute.

Kellen copied the gesture, at the same time summoning up his spell-sight At once there were two separate Belesharons: the living man, overlaid with a web of glowing red showing Kellen how he must strike, and a glowing ghost, indicating how Belesharon might move.

That’s never happened befo—

WHACK!

Kellen yelped and jumped back, jarred entirely out of battled-mind in time to see Belesharon step back into ready position. There was a stinging welt on his upper thigh.

“Too slow, Knight-Mage,” the swordmaster commented mildly “Perhaps you still think to spare my old bones.”

Not any more, old man.

Resolving to ignore the peculiar doubling of his spell-sight, Kellen summoned it once again. No matter what else it showed him, it still showed him where to hit.

This time he struck without warning—the match was already begun, after all—but somehow, instead of a clean hit, he missed entirely. Belesharon swayed out of the way at the last moment.

Kellen paid no attention, moving on to the next target, and the next. But instead of one clear possibility, his spell-sight showed him a dozen, forcing him to think, to choose—

Forcing him out of battle-mind. Forcing him to be only Kellen.

Each time he summoned it anew, only to have it stolen away again. He realized as the match wore on that Belesharon could have hit him a dozen times. He realized every-one in the hall knew it too. The best he’d been able to manage had been to stay in the circle.

He began to feel a dull desperate anger. I’m better than this! I have to be!

Because if he couldn’t be good enough, people were going to die.

Focus!

He fed his anger into his magic, making it his tool. The enemy’s confidence was also a weapon he could use. Once more he summoned up his spell-sight.

Once again the patterns before his eyes were as confusing . as before. Kellen ignored them. He reached beyond them, to their source, to the Gods that made the patterns, the Gods who sent both Knight-Mage and Wildmage into the world.

And struck.

There was a gasp and a hiss of steel from outside the practice ring. Kellen realized he had closed his eyes. He opened them.

His wooden blade was pressed against Belesharon’s ribs.

The swordmaster’s blade rested gently against the side of his neck.

The swordmaster withdrew his practice blade.

Kellen stepped back shakily, lowering his own blade. He only hoped he hadn’t struck very hard.

“A most instructive bout, young Kellen,” Belesharon said, bowing with no evidence of discomfort. “Of course, you would have been dead as well, but I think time and practice will remedy that defect. And now, if you will be so good as to don your armor, we shall see how you fare against multiple attackers.”

Belesharon handed his sword to the nearest Master, and turned to go.

Kellen barely remembered in time to bow. He felt as if he’d been running for several leagues. Uphill. Carrying Shalkan.

“This way.” Jermayan stepped into the circle and led him out through the gathered crowd. Half of them were staring at him as if he were a Demon Incarnate, and the other half were talking among themselves in excited whispers, too low for him to catch.

“How did I do? What did I do?” Kellen asked when they were away from the others. “I mean—”

“Never mind,” Jermayan said, waving away Kellen’s apologies. “I am merely grateful to have seen such an exhibition of technique. And … you hit Master Belesharon.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Kellen said. “I mean, I did, but—”

Jermayan slid open a panel in the back wall and ushered Kellen inside.

The room was much smaller than the one outside, its walls of wood, not stone, shallowly carved in an intricate geometric pattern. A moment later Kellen realized why, as Jermayan went over to a part of the wall and pulled it out, revealing it to be a drawer.

“Here is your armor and sword,” Jermayan said, lifting out the familiar pieces and handing them to Kellen. Here? What if I hadn’t passed Belesharon’s test? Arms full, Kellen headed toward one of the benches in the center of the room,

“If it had somehow happened that you were not found suitable for the House of Sword and Shield, it would simply have been returned to your home. But you will find it is easier to keep it here during your training.”

Kellen began removing his clothes, surprised to find they were sodden with sweat.

“I hope I didn’t hurt him,” he said, pulling on the leather underpadding for his armor.

Jermayan had opened another drawer and was removing his own armor. He stopped and looked at Kellen quizzically.

“You have no cause for concern. But it was … startling.”

Chapter Four

In Training at the House of Sword and Shield

WHEN BOTH OF THEM were armored, they returned to the main hall. Everyone ignored him so thoroughly that Kellen thought he’d rather have been stared at. The story of the bout was probably going to be all over Sentarshadeen by nightfall—in fact, given the Elves’ penchant for gossip, it was probably already making the rounds.

Jermayan led Kellen back to the teaching circle, where Belesharon was waiting with the four armored knights. Belesharon glanced up when he saw them, and his face crumpled into an almost comical frown of disapproval.

“This armor is a disgrace to the House of Sword and Shield,” Belesharon said. “I see no enamelwork, no gilding, no jewels. It is the armor of a brigand or a hill bandit, not a knight.”

Jermayan had said that direct speech, even questions, were permitted in the House of Shield and Sword, but this was rude speech even for a human.

And once again, it seemed to Kellen that the Elves were obsessed with something that didn’t matter. It was true that his armor wasn’t as ornate as Jermayan’s, but it was still beautiful in its own way.

“Forgive him, Master Belesharon, but it is the only armor he possesses. It was made in a day, and there was no time to finish it properly,” Jermayan said.

“Then let another suit be made, one more suitable,” Belesharon said irritably.

Kellen winced inwardly. Jermayan looked great in gleaming sapphire-colored armor that looked like expensive jewelry. But he didn’t think he would.

“Suitable perhaps, for an Elven Knight, Master Belesharon,” Kellen said. “But I am human; my people are simple, as am I. Please forgive my presumption, but as Elvenware is simple, yet a perfect blend of form and function, it seems to me that for a human, and for me in particular, there should be no more adornments than there are upon a perfect bowl. I am—my people call it a ‘virgin knight,’ one who is untested in battle. If one wears the map of one’s experiences upon the metal he is clad in, then mine should be unadorned. And—forgive me again, but I have an emotional attachment to speak of as well. This is the armor I was wearing when I found out I was a Knight-Mage. I should like to keep it just as it is.”

“The human child is bold and stubborn,” Belesharon observed to no one in particular. “He contradicts me in my own house. Well! Perhaps it is for the best.”

Kellen had the oddest feeling he’d just passed another test.

“Now. Dainelel, Kayir, Naeret, Emessade, and Jermayan will attempt to kill you, just as in a real battle. All swords will be in practice sheathes. I will award injuries. It is not necessary to remain within the circle.”

Ciradhel brought Kellen and Jermayan practice-sheathes—the others already had them. Jermayan showed Kellen how to fit the heavy leather sheath over his blade and bind it over the guard so there was no possibility of its coming loose during a practice bout. With these in place, even the lethallysharp Elven swords were safe to use.

What does he mean, “award injuries”? Kellen wondered.

Then there was no more time to wonder, as the bout had begun.

His main advantage was that—having just seen him fight Master Belesharon—Dainelel, Kayir, Naeret, and Emessade were cautious about engaging. But the Elves knew how to work together as a team, not getting in one another’s way. Quickly they spread out, encircling Kellen, forcing him to defend himself from every side at once.

But unlike Belesharon, the images they presented to his spell-sight were clear and precise …

“Dainelel, Naeret, you are both dead. Retire from the field, if you please.” Master Belesharon’s voice came to Kellen distantly as he whirled to block an attack from behind, and turned about—too late!—to respond to an attack from Jermayan.

“Kellen, you have taken a disabling cut to the thigh. Drop to your knees, if you please.”

“What?” Kellen shook his head, not understanding. The other three had withdrawn, swords at rest, waiting.

“Kayir’s blow got through. I judge it was quite strong enough to have severed the tendons of the leg. You cannot stand, but you can still fight. Drop to your knees, if you please,” Master Belesharon repeated.

Feeling rather foolish, Kellen did so. Fortunately, the Elven armor was flexible enough to permit the move.

On his knees, unable to maneuver much, Kellen was easy prey, though to his secret delight he was able to “kill” one more of his attackers before receiving a “fatal wound.”

If this had been real, I’d be dead now, Kellen thought soberly.

Jermayan helped him to his feet.

“Perhaps you would share what wisdom you have gained this day in The House of Sword and Shield,” Belesharon said when Kellen was standing before him once more.

Despite aches and pains and the fact he was dripping with the sweat of exhaustion, Kellen grinned beneath his helmet. From the way his head hurt, some of his opponents had managed to land more than a few blows, though he hadn’t felt them at the time. Kellen’s adversaries had used their feet, fists, and shields, as well as every part of their swords against him. Only the protection of his armor had kept Kellen from collecting a spectacular set of bruises this afternoon, but his muscles were certainly convinced he’d given them a splendid workout.

“I have learned that I need to learn a very great deal, Master,” Kellen said honestly.

Belesharon smiled. “Good. Jermayan, take this callow youth to pick out a horse. And come early tomorrow, Knight-Mage. You have much to learn.”

“IT would be interesting to know why it is that I am going to pick out a horse,” Kellen said when he and Jermayan had left the House, managing to wrestle the question into the proper form with only a little effort.

“Naturally you expect to ride Shalkan for a year at least,” Jermayan agreed. “But after that, circumstances may change. And learning to understand the mind of a destrier is part of the training of an Elven Knight. I myself chose Valdien’s parents and saw him foaled. But Master Belesharon does not expect that of you. It is enough that you learn to ride properly, and to fight from horseback. You may need those skills. And if the Enemy moves into direct conflict slowly—perhaps it will be that you have ample time to pick your foal and train him before you see true war.”

The rain had settled into a gentle mist; not really unpleasant, and Kellen was quite dry inside his hooded cloak. Before they’d gone out, Kellen had followed Jermayan’s example and kilted his surcoat high above the knee, so it didn’t take on water from the grass.

As they rounded the side of the House, they passed the wooden buildings he’d seen before. Jermayan told him they were bathhouses, where students could soak away the pains of the day.

“It’s all beautiful, Jermayan, but it still doesn’t seem very … large.” Kellen said, trying to sound tactful.

Jermayan smiled. “The impatience of humans! Come, then, and see the rest.”

Jermayan led him past the bathhouses, through a stand of birches, standing stark and leafless now that the winter rains had come. Just beyond them, the ground sloped gently away.

“This is what you wished to see,” Jermayan told him.

What Kellen had thought was a small pocket canyon was anything but. It spread out before him, its farthest edges lost in the mist. From the top of the rise, he could look down on a whole complex of buildings, almost a second city, hidden in plain sight.

“The stables and the blacksmith’s forge,” Jermayan said. “The practice ring.”

There was a wide oval of white sand in the middle of the green, flanked by a complex of low buildings that somehow managed to give the impression of belonging. There were two bare fixed posts set at opposite ends of the oval; a lone horseman moved between them in a figure-eight pattern, his mount moving with slow deliberate grace. Beyond the stables and the outbuildings, Kellen could see more horses scattered across the meadow, indifferent to the rain.

“I wouldn’t have thought the House of Sword and Shield would have a lot of spare time to keep horse herds,” Kellen said, congratulating himself on making a question seem like an idle observation.

“The breeding of warhorses is the business of others,” Jermayan said absently, “and that place is not in Sentarshadeen. The animals here belong to Knights. Some keep mounts too old to ride beneath arms with them here, out of affection and to honor an aged comrade, instead of sending them back to the Fields of Vardirvoshan. And some of them are bred and trained as teachers; it is such a one I have in mind for you, for I think it would be just as well if neither one of you grew too fond of the other. Later, perhaps, you will come to Vardirvoshan and choose a proper mount.”

“Maybe,” Kellen said doubtfully. A time when that might be possible seemed unimaginably far away.

They walked past the riding ring. Jermayan saluted the mounted knight, but did not speak to him. Kellen could see that the knight was not using reins at all; in fact, the reins were tied up to the pommel of the saddle. Nevertheless, as the destrier cantered, he was doing changes of lead and of direction without the knight using the reins to direct him. Kellen could not for a moment imagine how the knight and horse were communicating. Surely they could not be speaking mind to mind …

No, that couldn’t be it. In a battle, the knight would have every bit of his attention concentrated on fighting. No, there was some secret there …

He began to wonder how far they were going to walk, but when they had gone only a little distance past the riding ring, Jermayan stopped and looked around. Apparently he saw what he was looking for, because he stopped, raising his arm over his head in a purposeful gesture.

A few moments later Valdien appeared, three mares at his heels. The four animals stopped a few feet away, all of them regarding Kellen calmly.

“Ah.” Jermayan sounded oddly satisfied. “You keep exalted company these days, my friend,” he said, addressing his mount. “Now, Kellen, choose the lady who will be your companion and teacher while you are here at the House. This is our way; the experienced mounts teach the young riders, and the experienced riders teach the young destriers.”

Kellen sighed inwardly. He supposed this was like choosing his sword—any would do, but one was best. Only the sword had been a piece of metal, and the horses were, well, alive. And seemed to be regarding him with the same doubtfully assessing expressions as Master Belesharon had.

All three of them were soaking wet, and muddy besides, so it was hard to tell their true colors. One was grey, with a darker mane and tail. One was a strange pale red, a color Kellen had never seen before in horse, Centaur, or unicorn. The third was a dark brown with a brown-flecked saddle of white over her rump, long white socks, and a wide white blaze.

All of them were beautiful, of course. The ladies might be past their prime, but Kellen suspected they could still run any horse of human breeding into the ground and not raise much of a sweat. He was tempted to choose one at random, but he knew that would almost be cheating. Perhaps the Wild Magic could help him? He wasn’t sure how, since he certainly wasn’t planning to hit any of them.

“It is easier, of course, if one approaches the animals more closely,” Jermayan observed in neutral tones.

Kellen gritted his teeth. He suspected Jermayan was laughing at him. And he knew the horses were. Cautiously he walked toward them, hoping they weren’t just going to take this as an excuse to run off. The only real experience he had with horses was with Idalia’s mare Prettyfoot and with Valdien. Valdien followed Jermayan around like a large dog, but Prettyfoot would take any excuse to go larking off, and if Shalkan wasn’t around, she could take hours to catch. He knew these were Elven warhorses, but they didn’t know him from Great Queen Vielissiar Farcarinon, and if they were anything like Prettyfoot, they could decide to lead him a chase just for the sheer mischief of it.

Valdien stepped delicately aside as he approached. Kellen approached the grey, reaching out his armored glove and placing his hand gently on her shoulder. She lowered her head and sniffed at him gently. Kellen smelled grass and wet horse; strong, but not unpleasant.

As if that were a signal, the red mare and the spotted one crowded in, nudging and sniffing at him. Kellen wished suddenly that he’d brought treats for them, and stooped carefully to tear up handfuls of the grass at his feet, feeding each of them in turn. They took the morsels neatly and delicately.

Behind him, Jermayan cleared his throat meaningfully.

Oh.

It was time to stop entertaining himself and get to work. He summoned up his spell-sight, wondering what—if anything—it would show him.

As always, the world seemed oddly simplified, though Kellen could never quite put his finger on just how that was. It was almost as if everything that didn’t immediately matter disappeared, though everything he needed to see was there. He could feel Jermayan and Valdien behind him. He could tell that Jermayan was leaning against Valdien’s shoulder, and knew he would sense instantly if either of them changed position. He ought to find “seeing” things he couldn’t see unsettling, but somehow he didn’t. He guessed it was all part of settling in to being a Knight-Mage.

Now he focused his attention on the Elven mares.

The spell-sight overlay was subtle, but present. He could see the ghosts of old injuries and the faint symbolic presences of things he had no words for. Help me to make the right choice, Kellen said, without quite knowing who—or what—he asked.

At last, as he waited, a sense of rightness filled him. He reached out and placed his hand against one of the mares’ shoulders, blinking the spell-sight away. “This one,” he said, looking to see that he’d chosen the tawny red mare.

“A good choice,” Jermayan said. “Deyishene will serve you well. She has trained many a knight. Come, then.”

“Come, my lady,” Kellen said, a little self-consciously. Deyishene shook herself like a wet dog—a very large wet dog—and took a step forward.

“Come,” Jermayan said. “She will follow.”

JERMAYAN led Kellen down to one of the stable blocks that flanked the riding ring. There, Kellen brushed and toweled his new charge dry—or at least merely damp—before going to help Jermayan select saddle and armor from the tack room.

“It will not be in your colors, of course,” Jermayan said, “and the colors here are … unfortunate.” He regarded a large shelf of neatly folded caparisons, the knee-length saddlecloths worn over or under equestrian armor, and the fancy rein decorations that matched.

Kellen saw red, gold, and two shades of green. The pale green wasn’t appropriate for him—he wasn’t that much of a beginner. He wasn’t sure whether Master Belesharon thought he ought to be wearing the gold or not, and he didn’t think it went that badly with the shade of green of his cloak and surcoat.

“But perhaps Master Belesharon will be inclined to be merciful,” Jermayan continued, real concern in his voice.

“Honestly, Jermayan, whatever you think is best,” Kellen said. “Maybe I could just skip this part.”

“It is necessary,” Jermayan said, in tones that brooked no argument. He sighed, and dug through the stacks of folded barding, obviously searching for something. “Ah. I had thought these might be here.” He pulled out a heavy bundle of white fabric, and handed it to Kellen. “Unexceptionable. A bit daring, but no one can quarrel with such a choice.”

Whatever that’s supposed to mean, Kellen thought. Oh, well. It must be just another example of the Elven passion for detail and protocol.

Fortunately Jermayan was with him, for Kellen would have had no idea of how to choose the right sizes of everything from shanfron and peytrel to flanchard and crinet, though he had saddled and unsaddled Valdien enough times to know exactly what items made up an Elven destrier’s armor, and how to put them on. Though the pieces were surprisingly light, they were bulky, and it took both of them—and two trips—to carry them back to Deyishene’s stall.

“Now let us see if you remember your lessons, and afterward, a turn about the ring,” Jermayan said implacably.

While Kellen worked his way—slowly—through saddling and armoring Deyishene, Jermayan made a far brisker job of preparing Valdien, rubbing the stallion dry, saddling him, and armoring him, long before Kellen had the straps and buckles adjusted and the complicated pieces of armor locked into place. He knew better than to hurry, though. Haste now could lead to a variety of disasters later, from saddle sores, to armor that fell to pieces, to a loose saddlegirth which could dump its rider from his mount’s back— which could be humiliating or downright disastrous, depending on when it happened. As he worked, Kellen talked to Deyishene, much as he would have talked to Shalkan, explaining who he was and why he was here. He knew she couldn’t understand as much as Shalkan would, but talking made him feel better. She kept one ear on him at all times, and occasionally uttered a snort that sounded as if she was satisfied with what he was saying.

At last the job was completed to his satisfaction. Kellen led his warhorse out into the daylight again.

Jermayan was already mounted, waiting in the middle of the ring. The other rider was long gone, but Kellen discovered he was not to be without an audience. Shalkan had arrived, standing nonchalantly at the edge of the stable block.

“Decided to replace me, have you?” the unicorn said blandly.

“Oh, uh, hello,” Kellen said uneasily. Shalkan had an unpredictable sense of humor. “This is Deyishene. Master Belesharon said I needed a horse. And Jermayan says I need to learn how to ride a destrier.”

Shalkan switched his tail. “Well,” he said after a moment, “maybe she’ll teach you to ride better than a sack of turnips afflicted with the gout. There’s a mounting block over there.”

“Thanks,” Kellen said glumly. He’d been reasonably proud of his riding skills, considering the fact that Shalkan moved more like a deer than like a horse—including covering ground with great bounding leaps when moving at top speed.

He walked Deyishene over to the mounting block.

It wasn’t that difficult getting into the saddle, but once he had, the ground seemed awfully far away. Shalkan was only the size of a small pony; Kellen had forgotten how far away the ground was when you were sitting on a horse’s back.

Deyishene took a few shifting uncertain steps, as if something worried her. Automatically, Kellen leaned forward, clutching at the front of the saddle to steady himself. Deyishene stopped dead.

“Sit up straight,” Jermayan called.

“And tuck in your knees,” Shalkan added. “And your behind. Rest your weight forward more. Pretend there’s a silk scarf between your leg and her, and you daren’t let it drop.”

So began Kellen’s first riding lesson.

Riding did not come as instinctively to him as swordplay had, but his experience with Shalkan, though very different, had built a good foundation (no matter what the unicorn said to the contrary), and at the end of a couple of hours’ practice, Kellen felt a lot more confident in the saddle. He was still a long way from mastering the intricate partnership of horse and rider that was ultimately required of knight and destrier, and as yet was unable to ask Deyishene to perform the more sophisticated maneuvers in her repertoire—or to be certain of staying in the saddle if she did.

After his lesson was over, Jermayan and Valdien demonstrated the things Kellen would learn in the future. Kellen and Shalkan watched as Jermayan and Valdien cantered to the end of the riding ring, then galloped back. Suddenly Valdien stopped dead and lashed out with his heels, then jumped, spun, and kicked out hard in the opposite direction. He reared up, lashing out with gleaming metal-shod forehooves, then sprang off his hindquarters, lithe as a cat, vaulting over an imaginary fallen enemy. He trotted around in a tight circle, then sprang forward, again leaping an imaginary obstacle from a standing start.

“I hope you don’t expect me to do that,” Shalkan said.

“Oh, do it if you like,” Kellen said magnanimously. “Just don’t expect me to be on your back when you do.” The unicorn could jump like a frog and climb like a mountain goat, but the display Kellen had just seen was mind-bogglingly impressive for a horse—and it certainly explained why the equestrian armor was as flexible and intricate as that of the knights. He wondered how long it had taken Jermayan to train Valdien to do that.

Through all Valdien’s acrobatics Jermayan had remained perfectly composed, sitting as comfortably in the saddle as if Valdien moved at a gentle walk. He cantered Valdien around the oval twice and then returned to Kellen and Shalkan.

“Of course,” Jermayan said casually, “it does take a certain amount of practice to manage lance and sword while one’s mount is engaged in such activity.” His tone was so dry that even Kellen recognized he was being ironic. “But as I do not think the Flower Wars will concern you overmuch, perhaps you will not need to concern yourself with the lance. Now it is time to see to your horse, then to your armor, then to soak the stiffness from your limbs. By then, it will be close upon lamp-lighting time, and you will wish to rest yourself in preparation for the numerous exertions of the morrow.”

And maybe when I get home, I can ask Idalia if anybody’s going to actually DO anything about Shadow Mountain, Kellen thought, suddenly remembering what all this training was for.

THE walls of the Mage City of Armethalieh, called the Golden City, the City of a Thousand Bells, had stood for a thousand years. High Magick had built it, High Magick ruled every detail of its daily life, and the High Council labored tirelessly to make sure that for its citizens, every day was much like every other—and that no one could imagine a time when that would not be so.

Except for a tiny minority among the ruling council of High Mages, their memories hedged about with wards and spells, no one knew the history of Armethalieh. None of her citizens could imagine a time before her walls had risen, a time before wealth poured into her coffers from carefully controlled trade with all the world—a world which was nevertheless barred from walking her streets, for Armethalieh was, first and foremost, a city for Armethaliehans, and outsiders were not tolerated. Her wealth, her privileges, and her magick were for her citizens alone … and, in judicious moderation, for the Home Farms, those lands just outside the Western Gate that provided the crops that fed the Golden City’s teeming multitudes.

Or so matters had stood until recently.

Change had come to the Golden City.

The City was ruled by her Mages, and the Mages were ruled by the High Council. The High Council was ruled by the Arch-Mage, but the twelve High Mages who shared the dignity of a seat on the Council all looked to the day when one of them might supplant him, and now that Arch-Mage Lycaelon Tavadon’s son and heir had been Banished for practicing the forbidden Wild Magic, Lycaelon’s control over his fellows was less than absolute. Each of them looked to consolidate his own power, to make himself the next Arch-Mage of Armethalieh … and soon. Usually the Arch-Mage had to die before the power passed to another—but not always.

And there were those who thought that it might be no bad thing for Lycaelon Tavadon to be … persuaded … to retire.

Of the twelve, High Mage Volpiril was the most ambitious. When Lycaelon’s bid to annex the Western Hills collapsed in disaster, Volpiril had suggested—in a direct, though veiled, attack upon Lycaelon—that the Council withdraw its borders to the walls of Armethalieh herself, abandoning their claim on not only the Western Lands, but the Home Farms.

The Council, rattled by its mysterious defeat and swayed by Volpiril’s speechmaking, had voted its assent. Lycaelon could not overrule them, though he had taken a grim pleasure in casting the lone dissenting vote.

Some of the villagers greeted the news that they were no longer the property of the City—and might set what prices they liked for what had once been Amethalieh’s by right—with cheers of delight. Others, more perceptive, were quick to see that if Armethalieh’s control was withdrawn, so was her magick. There would be no more healing for the villagers, no pest control or destruction of blight, no preservation for their grain storage, no certainty of favorable weather for planting and harvest.

The petitions piled higher on Lycaelon’s desk each day, arriving with each cart of overpriced produce and gaggle of hysterical rustics until, with a malicious sense of justice, Lycaelon had set Volpiril to deal with the matter, reminding the High Mage that it was a violation of Armethaliehan law to expend her magick for the benefit of anyone but her citizens or subject peoples. And so, if the Delfier Valley farmers no longer belonged to Armethalieh, it was Volpiril’s duty to explain to them why Armethaliehan magick would no longer be employed in their service …

And in the marketplace, the prices rose. And kept rising.

It could not be helped. Through Volpiril’s vicious bungling, the farmers must now be paid for their produce. The City could absorb some of the cost, but not all, and not forever. So the prices rose, for everything from turnips to sugar biscuits. No one knew why, of course. It was not in the Council’s interest that they should.

And this year of all years, Lycaelon thought with a sigh, sliding the latest summary of reports into a drawer in his desk and locking it. The winter rains promised to be exceptionally heavy. It wouldn’t matter within the City itself, of course, where the Mages ensured that rain only fell late at night, and only in sufficient quantity to water the gardens and keep the cisterns filled. But there would be flooding in the valley this year. Undoubtedly that would mean a poor crop in the spring.

He got to his feet, cursing the stiffness in his muscles. He glanced toward the small office just off his own, but no light showed beneath the door. As it should be. He had stayed late, reading—and had sent Anigrel home bells ago. As he left his office, waving the Mage-lights to darkness behind him, Lycaelon could feel the faint hum of power from the Council chamber, where Mages worked tirelessly, as they did every night, weaving the elaborate and beautiful spells of the High Magick for the good of the City. He shook his head. Light grant a spell to preserve us from the maddened ambition of fools like Lord Volpiril, Darkness take him!

MASTER Undermage Chired Anigrel—his abrupt increase in rank a sign of the signal favor in which Lycaelon Tavadon held him—regarded his new accommodations with a satisfaction he was careful not to display before witnesses.

The suite of rooms on the third floor of House Tavadon had had every trace of their former occupant ruthlessly expunged. Every stick of furniture had been sent into storage in the house’s vast attics. The walls had been scrubbed down and repainted to an even more marmoreal shade of white. Suitable furnishings had been acquired to outfit one of the two rooms as a comfortable—but not over-luxurious—bedroom, the other—the one with the excellent view of the gardens and the Council House—as a workroom and small study, and all carefully coordinated to be in the House colors of black and white. When the renovations were finished, no trace of the former occupancy of Lycaelon Tavadon’s Banished Outlaw son remained, and the suite appeared to be another perfectly fitted extension of Lycaelon’s taste. There was no sign of Anigrel’s own personality here. This was exactly as Anigrel wanted it. He wished for Lycaelon to think of Anigrel as an extension of himself.

Anigrel retained his rooms at the Mage-Courts on the College grounds, of course. It would not do to flaunt openly what everyone knew—that he now lived at Tavadon House, Lycaelon’s adopted son in all but name.

And perhaps, someday, in name as well, Anigrel thought, settling back in his chair. Lycaelon had no one else. Both his children had given themselves to the Wild Magic and been Banished from the City. And Anigrel had taken pains to make himself so very indispensable to the Arch-Mage over the past moonturns, though he was certain that Lycaelon—so innocent in his way!—did not know the half of what Anigrel did for him.

The Mageborn were greedy for power, and ruthless in their unending quest for rank and position. As Lycaelon’s private secretary, Anigrel saw many Mageborn every day, yet was nearly invisible himself; one more grey-robed underling doing the work of the City. It had been a simple thing to shape the opinion of the Mageborn with an innocent comment here, a casual observation there, and turn it inexorably against Lord Volpiril, so that the Mages now saw disaster in the High Mage’s ever-more-desperate makeshifts and pronouncements before the Council, and they saw it before the trouble actually appeared. As the situation in the City worsened, Volpiril’s position would become even more unstable. It was not impossible that he would be voted off the Council, though such a thing hadn’t happened in centuries.

And if actual shortages began to appear, then Lord Volpiril’s reign on the Council could be numbered in moonturns.

That would leave a vacancy.

Anigrel meant to have it for himself.

He was already a Master Undermage, elevated to that rank years ahead of time, and there was already talk—for once he hadn’t needed to start the rumors himself—that Lord Lycaelon would soon sponsor Anigrel for the tests to the rank of Magister-Practimus, if not Magister-Regnant. Either rank would be sufficient to allow Anigrel to take a seat on the Council.

Anigrel had no doubt of his ability to pass the tests. The difficulty all these years had been in concealing the extent of his power, not passing the tests his Mageborn teachers set.

For Anigrel’s power stemmed from a far different source, and his true teachers were far more powerful, and far, far more dangerous than any High Mage could imagine being.

It was the other reason he retained his rooms in the Mage-Courts, for there were things he did there that could not be done within the walls of the house of the Arch-Mage of Armethalieh.

There was a faint scratching at the door panel. With a gesture, Anigrel caused the door to dissolve. A servant stood in the doorway.

“Lord Anigrel. The Arch-Mage arrives,” the servant said, bowing.

Anigrel nodded, dismissing the servant as he got to his feet. The servant bowed again, and backed away the prescribed three steps before turning to go.

The servants might have treated Kellen Tavadon with indifference and contempt, but it had taken little effort for Anigrel to teach them proper manners in his presence. And just as he wished them to show him every courtesy, so it would not do for him to be remiss in showing Lycaelon every evidence of humility, deference, and respect.

Until the Arch-Mage no longer mattered.

AND just now, a touch of appropriate distress was in order. “Lord Arch-Mage. You are weary.” Anigrel arrived in the reception room just as Lycaelon entered.

“Anigrel. I sent you to your bed hours ago,” Lycaelon said, looking—yes—gratified to see Anigrel.

“Some trifling matters occupied my attention,” the younger man said. “And I was … concerned by the burdens you bear for us all, Lord Lycaelon,” he added softly.

Lycaelon smiled faintly. “I am accustomed to them, my young friend. But perhaps, of your kindness, you will take a glass of wine with me in the library? After so many years of laboring in the Circle for the good of the City while the common folk dream, it still seems odd to sleep at night.”

Anigrel followed Lycaelon through the panel that led into the large formal library. Lycaelon seated himself in a chair beside the window—the long sapphire-blue drapes were drawn now, since it was night—and Anigrel went to the sideboard and collected a decanter and two glasses. The decanter shimmered faintly with the Preservation Spell that kept its contents fresh and unchanged, no matter how long it stood untasted and unopened. Ostentatious, and yet frugal; ostentatious to use a spell on something like a decanted bottle of wine, yet frugal to have the spell to keep the wine from spoiling after it had been opened, when one only wanted a glass or two at a time.

He set the glasses on the small table between the two chairs and poured them both full, handing one to Lycaelon before taking his own seat. He waited for Lycaelon to drink, then sipped his own wine appreciatively. A rare moment and a rare vintage, brought by Selken ships from Ividion Isle, the only place in the world where the salt-marsh grapes could grow. At least the Out Islands were not affected by Volpiril’s policies. This would not be the last such bottle obtainable.

Lycaelon laughed, his thoughts on a private joke. “Ah, if only the Commons could see us now, Anigrel—they would be shocked! They think we live on light and air and pure well water—and we do our part to keep them thinking that way, don’t we?” He drained his glass and filled it again, before Anigrel could do it for him.

“Of course, Lord Lycaelon. It’s unthinkable that the common clay should have any reason to criticize their masters. They’re happier that way,” Anigrel said. “Far better that they believe there is nothing to envy us for.”

“Of course they are,” Lycaelon said. “Everything we do is for them … and for the good of the City. Envy is a bitter thing, and would only disturb their peace.”

“Oh, yes. Of course,” Anigrel said, making sure his words rang obviously hollow. He sipped his wine and waited.

“You must tell me if there is something concerning you, Anigrel,” Lycaelon said. “It is not only the Commons that I serve, but my fellow Mages.”

“I can conceal nothing from you, Lord Lycaelon,” Anigrel said with a rueful smile. “But … you know it better than I, and I do not wish to add to your burden. And yet … you know that I hear what you do not, simply because there are those who will say in front of me what they will not say to the Arch-Mage?”

“I depend upon it,” Lycaelon said. “I do not think you can surprise me, Anigrel, and your words may serve the City. Tell me what worries you. Do not fear to offend me, for I already know that you love the City as much as I.”

“You know that Lord Volpiril has—perhaps!—not acted entirely in the City’s best interests in a certain recent instance. At present, the circumstances are known only to those of our own class, but the effect of that action cannot be concealed. Many believe that soon these circumstances will become known outside the Mageborn. The effects of that knowledge could be … unfortunate.”

“Unfortunate? Disastrous!” Lycaelon nearly groaned. “There will be famine in the Delfier Valley in the spring—and no food available for sale to the City at any price. Yet that fool blocks any attempt to reverse his policies, saying they will bear fruit with time. Fruit! Oh, yes, and the fruit will be a bitter and withered harvest!”

Anigrel leaned forward. “Lord Lycaelon, do not let your merciful and charitable nature keep you from doing what must be done. To discredit Volpiril’s policies, discredit Volpiril first. Without him to goad them on, the Council will gladly abandon something so worthless—”

But Lycaelon had raised his hand, silencing Anigrel.

“To force him from the Council without the support of my fellow Mages would be a greater disaster than riots in the streets of the City. I shall seek that support, and pray to the Light that I find it in time. And now, I find I am weary, Anigrel. I give you good night.”

“Rest well, Lord Arch-Mage.” Anigrel got to his feet, bowing, and left the library.

He was not wholly dissatisfied with the evening’s work. He had planted the ideas in Lycaelon’s mind that he’d wanted to. Now Lycaelon was thinking about eliminating Volpiril before the City was in open rebellion against the Mageborn. All Anigrel had to do was give Lycaelon a good excuse.

And just as Lycaelon once had, Volpiril had a son.

A most malleable son …

CILARNEN Volpiril was a perfect example of Mageborn breeding. All the Mageborn were slender and fine-boned, their bodies shaped by no physical labor more arduous than lifting a wand or a pen. Their coloration was vivid: black, blond, or red hair running strongly in particular Mage families; in this they stood out sharply from the Common-born, whose hair color was muddied with brown, and whose bodies were stockier than those of the pure-blooded Mages. Oh, from time to time one with Mage talents arose in a common family, but such were marked by their very appearance as Commons-born, and though it would never be openly acknowledged, that appearance would keep them from rising far within the ranks. Perhaps, such a Commons-born Mage could find a pure-blooded daughter of an insignificant family to marry, and his descendants would be of an acceptable appearance. But for such a one—well, there were limits, and properly so.

The Volpiril line had auburn hair; Cilarnen could inspect the portraits of noteworthy Mage ancestors that graced the walls of House Volpiril and see his own russet hair and pale blue eyes depicted there with the precision of his bathing-room mirror. Only the styles changed, and that not by a great deal, except in the very oldest portraits, for was it not Armethalieh’s greatest boast that she was as unchanging as her walls?

His family’s history had been one of privilege, service, and High Magick for uncounted generations, and the niches in the walls of the family Chapel in House Volpiril were filled with golden alabaster urns containing the ashes of great Mages who had brought luster to the family name. Until last winter, Cilarnen had been serenely certain that he would follow in their footsteps just as his father had, rising quickly and pleasantly through the ranks of Adeptship—for his studies in the High Magick had always come easily to him—and seeing no other possible future for himself than one spent as a Mage of the Mage-City. A privileged post in one of the more important City Councils, inevitably, just as soon as he attained sufficient rank. A seat on the High Council, not impossible. And perhaps the Arch-Mageship itself, for Volpirils had held that post in the past, nearly as often as the Tavadons, and Lord Lycaelon Tavadon could not live forever …

But all that had been—before. Before his mistake; before his disgrace.

Cilarnen had two sisters, much younger, who were being carefully groomed to someday take their places as the pliant dutiful wives of his peers, but they scarcely mattered to his carefully-ordered life, his sisters having been placed under the care of nurses and governesses—and Cilarnen’s distant, well-bred, Mageborn mother—from the time they could walk. Dialee had been born when he was six, and Eshavi when he was eight, and Cilarnen, encouraged by his father, had already been looking toward the future, toward the day when he could pledge himself as a citizen of Armethalieh and begin his studies in High Magick.

Women had no place in the life of a young Mage. Students did not marry, did not court, did not admit the existence of women. Nor did Apprentices. A Journeyman might, but only after he had reached his thirtieth year, if his patron gave him permission, and only if he had decided he did not wish to advance further in the ranks of the Art Magickal. Only if one advanced so swiftly that a higher rank than Journeyman was in one’s grasp, did a young Mage have cause to think of women before the age of thirty.

And even then, marriage among the Mageborn was not a matter of love, but of consolidating one’s position, of repaying past favors or of buying future ones, of choosing the best possible mother for future Mageborn sons. Cilarnen knew all that. Love was a madness that afflicted the unGifted, a sickness of the magickless Commons who thronged the streets of the City outside the Mage Quarter. His kind were above such things.

Then he saw Lady Amintia.

It was quite by accident. He’d come home unexpectedly in the middle of the day—a spell had gone awry during the morning lessons, and his tutor had fallen ill and been unable to see him for his afternoon’s private lesson. On a rare whim, he’d decided to go riding instead, and gone home to change.

His rooms overlooked the gardens of House Volpiril. He’d gone to the windows and opened them, stepping out onto the small balcony, and as he did, he stepped through the Silence spell that shielded his rooms, and heard peals of laughter coming from the garden below.

He looked down.

The garden was filled with females.

He recognized none of them—though logically, two of them must be his sisters. There were perhaps two dozen of them, all running about in a fashion Cilarnen himself had given up a dozen years before, playing some sort of elaborate game of touch-and-run, crying out and laughing as they scored off one another. Their faces were flushed and shiny with exertion, their hair tumbled down around their shoulders, their City-Talismans—the golden rectangle of citizenship that every citizen of Armethalieh wore—flying to the ends of golden throat-chains and colored neck-ribbons as they played. Shawls and scarves were scattered about the grass like strange drifts of brightly-colored mist. Along one wall of the garden, a long table stood, severe and correct in white linen, its burden of refreshments awaiting the moment when the ladies tired of their fun.

Cilarnen blinked, feeling almost as if he had opened one of the Forbidden Books and read something he was not meant to see. He looked away from the others and saw … her.

She did not join in the jostling games of the others, but stood watching them, her back to the base of the enormous magnolia tree that dominated the Volpiril garden. Her raven hair was bound neatly and suitably at the base of her neck, and just as Cilarnen looked down, she looked up. Her eyes were such an intense shade of blue he could see their color clearly, even across the garden.

He did not know what he expected her to do. Like all proper young Mageborn youths, Cilarnen had barely even seen a woman of his own class. But she simply regarded him, saying nothing, and doing nothing to draw unwelcome attention to him.

“Amintia! Come join us!”

One of the others called her name, and she looked away, shaking her head and smiling gently. Cilarnen backed into his room, blushing in hot confusion as the blessed silence of the Shielding Spells enfolded him once more. He touched his own City-Talisman on its jeweled chain, pressing the cool metal against his skin.

What had just happened?

He didn’t know. But he liked it. He went to the window again, taking care to stay well within the spells. Here he could see out without being seen. He stood at the window, watching, until the garden was empty, his plans for the afternoon forgotten.

IT was easy enough to find out who she was. His father kept a comprehensive genealogy of the Mageborn families in his library, and the Mageborn did not repeat names within generations. She was Lady Amintia of House Amaubale. Lord Amaubale was a Mage who served on the Council of Public Safety; she had two brothers, Nathuren and Pretarkol, who were several years behind Cilarnen at the Mage College.

She was someone House Volpiril might ally itself with—someone he might have. But not for years—an unimaginable number of years, more years than he had already lived. And what if her father bestowed her elsewhere in the interim?

It was an unbearable thought, and one that began to obsess him as the sennights passed. His studies suffered—if only a little—by his distraction. He even disgraced himself so far as to seek out the Amaubale residence and walk past it. Once.

And at last, he came up with a plan.

He would seek his father’s agreement to a betrothal. That would solve all his problems. No one else would marry Amintia. She would be his, waiting for him until the day when he was prepared to claim her. It was the perfect solution to his problem—his obsession.

Unfortunately, his father did not agree.

Once each sennight, Cilarnen was accustomed to receive a private audience with his father, so that he could make an informal account to Lord Volpiril of his progress with his studies—though of course his father received detailed reports from his tutors—and give Lord Volpiril his own assessment of his current, and perhaps future, rivals. Generally these occasions had been relatively pleasant affairs, with Lord Volpiril taking the opportunity to make some small gift to Cilarnen—of pocket money, a book, or some newly-fashionable accessory—to indicate his pleasure with Cilarnen’s diligence. That audience seemed the perfect time to make his plea, and he approached his father’s study fully confident that he would emerge from it with all his troubles smoothed away.

He opened the door, and bowed. “My Lord Father.”

As always, Cilarnen entered his father’s private study precisely at the Second Afternoon Bell of Light-Day. So it had been since he had begun his studies in the Art Magickal, and Cilarnen could not imagine a time when it would not be so. His interview invariably lasted precisely two chimes.

He stopped before his father’s desk and bowed a second time. As always, his father was working, even at home and on Light’s Day. Lord Volpiril was a High Mage and a member of the High Council. His duty to the City was neverending; this was a credo he had drummed into his son from the day Cilarnen could walk, talk, and perhaps, make demands on his father’s time. So from that time, it had been made very clear to him that the City came first, and Cilarnen a very distant second.

“Ah, Cilarnen.” His father looked up as he approached the desk. “So it is Light’s Day once again. What news do you have to bring me?”

For most of a chime Cilarnen spoke of ordinary things; his progress in his Magickal studies and his relationships with his fellow students. Then, quickly, he presented the matter nearest to his heart.

“There is another matter, sir, a matter of a young woman, my Lord Father—a daughter of House Amaubale. Her name is Amintia; I am sure Mother knows her. I believe—subject to your approval, of course, sir—that this would be an excellent alliance for us when the time comes. I know that it is far too soon for me to consider marriage—far too soon; I had not thought of such a thing before I saw this young woman—but she is—I find her—it is a good match. I have consulted the genealogy, and House Volpiril has married into House Amaubale in the past. So I thought, if you would consider it, perhaps a pre-contract—”

Intent upon convincing his father of the logic and worth of this plan, Cilarnen was not watching Lord Volpiril’s face. Then, with a scrape of his chair that startled his son, the High Mage rose to his feet, his expression furious.

“‘A pre-contract’? To think that I would hear such words upon the lips of my own son! Are we merchants or nobles? We are Mageborn! Magick flows in our blood! It is a sacred calling, one that requires the utmost dedication.” Volpiril’s face was flushed scarlet, and Cilarnen shrank back involuntarily before his wrath. “There can be no room in the thoughts of the Student or the Apprentice for anything but dedication to his Art. Have you gone utterly mad?”

“But—” Cilarnen stammered.

Volpiril’s jaw clenched. “Your tutors had mentioned you were strangely unwilling to apply yourself of late I had meant to ask you the reason today! And now, now you flaunt it proudly, and dare to demand that I aid you in your foolish descent into emotionality. Where did you come by such a notion? Why, I would have expected this sort of nonsense out of a silly girl, not out of a well-educated son! Shall I remove you from school and dress you in a gown, next?”

Cilarnen flushed, his face and neck growing uncomfortably hot. He said nothing. He could not bring a single word up out of his constricted throat.

His father snorted. “It is fortunate you did not forget yourself entirely, and brought this to my attention before you made yourself a public scandal.” Lord Volpiril’s tone was harsh.

“I—But—It has been done in the past …” Cilarnen protested weakly. “Great-grandfather—”

“If you need no other lesson in why the companionship of females is forbidden to young Mageborn, consider your own actions today! Look what this has brought you to!” Volpiril stormed. “Open rebellion, daring to contradict me beneath this very roof! I will not have it! You, sir, may consider yourself on notice. And be sure that I will speak to Lord Amaubale and make quite certain his daughter never sets foot in this house again.”

Cilarnen felt himself grow as cold as he had been heated a moment before. Never to see her again! But—

“You have displeased me greatly today, Cilarnen.” Volpiril took a deep breath, and stared down at his son. “Very greatly. But you still have a chance to make amends. Apply yourself strictly to your studies. Reclaim your pride of place in your classes. Forget this cozening creature—no doubt she merely thought to entrap the son of a High Council Mage for her own advancement. Women are manipulative, secretive, and no matter how sweetly innocent they may seem, even the youngest of them is as adept at spinning webs to ensnare an unwary young man as any spider. When I speak to her father, I shall advise him to see her quickly married. That will put an end to her foolishness!” Volpiril said darkly.

Cilarnen stood, frozen in shock. Amintia—his Amintia—married to someone else?

“You may go, Cilarnen,” Lord Volpiril said brusquely, sitting down once more and returning his attention to the papers before him. From his demeanor, his son might as well have ceased to exist. All that Cilarnen could do was to bow, and take himself out.

HIS father’s displeasure was bad enough, but far worse was the terrible inevitability that Amintia was going to be lost to him forever. Once Lord Volpiril put his mind to something, it was as good as accomplished. Cilarnen knew that if he was to get back in his father’s good graces, he must do as his father instructed and put her from his mind, but somehow he did not think that he could manage to do that without telling her—just once—how much she had meant to him.

He thought of writing her a letter, but after several attempts, Cilarnen gave up. He couldn’t find the proper words, and anyway, if he sent a letter to her house, her parents would read it first. His father read all of his infrequent correspondence, and Cilarnen had no doubt the custom was universal.

But he could write her a poem. An anonymous poem. That would be best, and safest, too. Poetry was one of the classes taught at the Mage-College, and Cilarnen was fairly confident of his ability to write something suitable, something that would move her heart, and perhaps make her pity him. Besides, ever since he’d seen Amintia, somehow poetry had made so much more sense to him than it ever had before.

He labored over his work for sennights, as winter passed into early spring, copying the final result out onto a slender scroll, which he tied with a silver ribbon. After moonturns of watching the house, he knew all of the Amaubale servants by sight. He would simply arrange to be in the Garden Market at the same time that one of them was there, and give the creature a few coins to pass the scroll on to Lady Amintia.

Then she would know that someone had loved her—not for her family or her position, but for her incomparable eyes, rare as blue roses, for her grace, for her quiet beauty, for all that made her the Lady Amintia.

The scroll had vanished before he could deliver it, and the next time Cilarnen had seen it, to his utter horror and humiliation, it had been in the hands of Mage Hendassar, in his History of the City class. Mage Hendassar had read it out loud to the entire room of students.

They had laughed. Laughed at him, at his weakness, at his foolishness.

Cilarnen would gladly have died. He hated Mage Hendassar, hated his classmates, hated his father—there was no doubt of how the scroll had come into Mage Hendassar’s hands—and most of all, perversely enough, he hated the Lady Amintia as much as he had heretofore loved her.

This was her fault. If he had never seen her, none of this would have happened. No female was worth such agony.

His father had been right.

Life might have been utterly unbearable if his father had ever made any reference to the matter, but Lord Volpiril did nothing of the sort. Of course, he had not needed to. The tale spread all over the Mage-College, of course, and might have hounded him for the rest of his years, if not for the faet that only a fortnight later, the Arch-Mage’s only son Kellen Tavadon was summoned before the High Council, and after that none of them ever saw Kellen Tavadon again.

This was a far more interesting scandal than a simple love poem, since not one of the students had the least idea of what Farmer Kellen might have done, and none of them was ever able to find out. Some swore they had seen Kellen working as a laborer down in the Low Quarter—as if that were possible. Others said he had fought with the Arch-Mage and been sent to live in one of the farming villages as a punishment.

All Cilarnen knew was that if people were talking about Kellen, they weren’t talking about him, and he was profoundly grateful. He had learned his lesson, and he would work harder than ever before to be the son his father wanted.

But somehow it did not seem to be possible. Because from that moment on, nothing, nothing that he did was ever good enough.

Spring became summer. Lord Volpiril’s temper was always short these days. No matter what Cilarnen did, his father only told him he must do better, in ever-harsher words of criticism. And all of it was so unjust! He was trying! He was at the top of several of his classes! His tutors all voiced themselves satisfied with him! Yet his father acted as if he was putting forth no effort whatsoever. Cilarnen seethed with resentment under the unjust critique. And he began to wonder if it was not he who was at fault, somehow failing, but his father.

The sons of the other Council Mages whispered fantastic gossip of unrest on the High Council, of great plans afoot.

Cilarnen did not know what they were, of course. Volpiril did not speak of them, and the days when Cilarnen might bring the rumors to his father and ask for more information were long gone now. If Cilarnen had taken second place in his father’s concerns before, he now felt as if he had descended to last in priorities. He felt oddly lost, and somehow cheated.

If not for his tutors, he would have been utterly alone.

Like most young Mageborn, Cilamen’s lessons included practice in dance and swordplay as well as in the Art Magickal. He had little practical use for either, but both were good exercise, and the practice of the Art Magickal was an arduous business, requiring great stamina, both mental and physical.

Three times a sennight he went to Master Kalos’s salon at the edge of the Mage Quarter for his lessons in reed-blade.

The sword he studied there was nothing like the ponderous steel weapons the Militia carried, and certainly nothing like the wide heavy blades used in High Magick. The reed-blade was an elegant thing, smaller than his little finger at its base and tapering to a blunt, squared-off point. It was used to touch one’s opponent, elegantly, and in the proper style. Special Talismans worn by each of the combatants ensured that the blades could not go awry and accidentally strike outside the permitted target zones.

It was incredibly hard to score according to Master Kalos’s exacting specifications, and at the end of each bell-and-a-half lesson, Cilarnen was as exhausted as if he’d spent the entire time running around the inside of the enormous hall, instead of standing nearly still attempting to hit a man with a length of metal he could balance on two fingers. But Master Kalos praised lavishly for each improvement, and told Cilarnen he could have made a fine swordsman, if he had not had the misfortune to be born a Mage.

A joke, of course, and Cilarnen had smiled dutifully. Master Kalos’s odd sense of humor was well known.

For one of the sennightly lessons he saw Master Kalos alone, for the other two, he was part of a class of about twenty other young Mageborn. Since the classes were grouped by skill, not age, Cilarnen soon found himself among not only some of his fellow students, but grouped with some older Mageborn as well. They treated Cilarnen with casual good-fellowship, as if he were one of them. He found it an odd and interesting experience to be in a place where rank very nearly didn’t matter.

It did, of course. Lord Volpiril’s only son would be a fool to believe otherwise. Bur the illusion was comforting, and for a little while, he could pretend that he actually had people around him he could call “friend.”

HIS dancing teacher was Lord Nendimos, a Mage who specialized not only in teaching dance, but in the history of dance, and the magic of dance, a series of lectures that one must be a Journeyman-Apprentice to sit for.

Lord Nendimos was a Journeyman-Undermage. He had been a Journeyman-Undermage since long before Cilarnen had been born, and would never rise higher in the ranks, though his power and his knowledge outstripped many of his betters, and if he could only have gained the sponsorship to do so, he could have passed a dozen of the qualifying tests with no difficulty whatever. Gaining such sponsorship might even have been possible, though difficult, for the same reason that Lord Nendimos was still a Journeyman after four decades.

Lord Nendimos liked women. He liked them as people. He enjoyed their company, their fellowship, and even claimed that some of them were his friends. He made no secret of it. When he was not putting the students of the Mage-College through their paces, he was dancing master to half the Mage Houses of Armethalieh, and there he was welcomed by the Mageborn women with—if he was to be believed—as much warmth as if he were a family member.

His fellow Mages regarded his eccentricity with dismay, and with resignation. But once they were satisfied that he would not pass on his bizarre tastes to their sons, they decided to tolerate his peculiarities. His family was old and well connected. His brothers were perfectly normal—and highly-placed. His sisters were married into some of the best families.

And his talents were too valuable to lose.

The dances of Armethalieh were slow, stately … and very complicated. It took time to learn them well—even more so since it was not to be considered that Mageborn sons and Mageborn daughters should learn them together. That sort of foolishness could be left to the Tradesmen, the Nobles, the Laborers, and all the rest who lived lives of foolish self-indulgence.

Dancing practice was held in the auditorium at the northern end of the quadrangle. Students were grouped by age, not academic rank, and drilled, endlessly, in the set figures of Armethaliehan dance, taking the roles of the “sun” or the “moon” in turn.

Once a Student reached his fifteenth year, attendance was no longer mandatory, but Cilarnen had chosen to continue because he found the class interesting and even pleasurable. At this point, his class was made up of the older students and Apprentices and even a few Tutors. He enjoyed the stately movement, like a slower form of swordplay, and Nendimos drilled this oldest class hardest of all, for having had years to master the steps, he told them, he now looked for perfection of form.

When the music played, and Cilarnen concentrated on mirroring his partner’s moves, his mind on nothing beyond the moment, sometimes he felt almost as if he were a sort of living wand, tracing through the glyphs of a spell. He’d said as much to Lord Nendimos one day after practice.

The old man had regarded him shrewdly. “I trust you will come to my lectures when you are old enough, Lord Cilarnen. I shall save a place for you.”

But of all his teachers, Cilarnen’s most important was his private tutor in Magick. Master Tocsel had been his tutor in Magick since he had been a small child. The venerable Master Undermage knew everything there was to know about the practicalities of High Magick, from the simplest spell to the most abstruse conjuration. He had trained Cilarnen’s father, and his grandfather. He was certainly not a kindly man, but if Cilarnen was truly making an effort, Tocsel was endlessly patient. His one concern was to see his pupil do well. His feelings had been quite hurt during that period when Cilarnen had been unable to pay attention to his lessons, but to Cilarnen’s intense relief, his renewed efforts had been rewarded with praise and encouragement, and Master Tocsel had been willing to forgive Cilarnen’s dereliction, even when it seemed his own father would not.

“Mark my words, young Cilarnen,” Tocsel said one day as Cilarnen’s lesson drew to a close. “You will soon be a mere Apprentice no longer. It is in my mind to recommend you for the tests for Entered Apprentice the next time the Board sits. No more blue robe for you!”

There were three ranks of Apprentice: Student Apprentice (which Cilarnen had passed long ago), Apprentice, and Entered Apprentice. Of the three, only the last was entitled to wear the grey robe of Magecraft and cast spells for any purpose other than practice. Entered Apprentices still pursued their studies at the College, but they also worked elsewhere in the City, assisting Mages at their work.

“Thank you, sir! I—” He nearly asked if Master Tocsel thought he was ready, and bit back the question. Master Tocsel would not have made the comment if he did not think Cilarnen was ready. “I only hope my lord father will be pleased,” he said instead.

Tocsel made a rude noise, the privilege of age. “And why should he not be? You’ve come along splendidly. Not like the Arch-Mage’s son. Bad blood there. Oh, everyone knew it, but Lycaelon wouldn’t be told; once he set eyes on that ridiculous barbarian woman, nothing would do but that he marry her. And look what happened! Learn from his mistake, boy, and let your father pick your bride when the time comes. Emotion should never play a part in marriage.”

A bride! Cilarnen winced inwardly, though he was careful to let nothing of his feelings show on his face. He hoped he never saw another woman until he was as old as Master Tocsel!

Chapter Five

Secrets in the City of Golden Bells

WHEN THE BOARD SAT, he passed its tests easily, and advanced in rank to Entered Apprentice. Lord Volpiril seemed to think it was no more than the consideration that House Volpiril deserved and was not due to any effort on Cilarnen’s part. This hurt, but Cilarnen was careful not to show it; the traditional celebration was held—House Volpiril’s consequence demanded no less—but to Cilarnen’s mind, the festivities seemed rather perfunctory, and he knew for a fact that every aspect of the event had been handled by Volpiril’s secretary, including the gift presented to him in Volpiril’s name: a fine silver-and-ebony Wand-case. Once he would have cherished such an item, thinking it had come from his father. Now he could barely bear to look at it, though of course he had said everything that was proper at the time. Whatever his private feelings, he would do nothing to diminish the consequence of House Volpiril in the world. All this would someday be his, after all.

As an Entered Apprentice, in grey robe and soft cap (to distinguish him plainly from Journeymen, who also wore grey robes, but hooded ones), Cilarnen saw far more of the City than he ever had before. He worked with—or more precisely, for—Mages in every aspect of their tending of the City, reporting back to the Master of Apprentices each time a Mage released him to be set to a new task.

Cilarnen also began to make friends among his fellow Entered Apprentices, knowing that these would be his colleagues and confederates for the rest of a life spent in service to the City. Perhaps “friend” was not the right word; emotion didn’t enter into the choices he made for his associates. “Allies” would be more accurate. And the associations felt hollow. Unsatisfying as one of the puff pastries that looked so delicious and were nothing more than a dusting of sugar over a thin crust that fell to insubstantial bits at the first bite.

He could not name the day on which he realized that he would never again be readmitted to his father’s favor, no matter how hard he worked and what honors he achieved, but surely it was a blessing sent by the Light, for at about this same time, rumors began filtering down from the highest levels of Mageborn society that Lord Volpiril had caused the High Council to repudiate the City’s ancient contracts with the Home Farms, withdrawing the City’s boundaries to the walls themselves.

At first Cilarnen gave the matter little thought—what did the farms have to do with the City, after all?

But soon he began to learn. No one paid any attention to an Apprentice. His seniors spoke freely in front of him. Before long, Cilarnen soon knew what “everyone” knew about Lord Volpiril.

And none of it was good.

“THE Light-forgotten fool will be the ruin of us all. Wand.”

Cilarnen lifted the instrument from the insulating cloth and placed it carefully into Juvalira’s hand. The Senior Journeyman began tracing the complicated pattern of a Preservation spell in the air as his assistant—another Journeyman; Cilarnen was far from being allowed to actually assist in a Casting as yet—drew a complementary pattern on the stone floor of the warehouse with a sword. Both patterns flared and settled.

They were working in one of the cereals warehouses near the Market District. The building’s spells needed to be constantly reinforced, for there were a great many of them—not only spells against vermin of all kinds, but spells against fire, damp, and leaks. Not only were there spells upon the building itself, but there were also a host of spells upon the building’s contents—a separate matter, each needing to be worked separately, and in a precise order. Spells against spoilage, against rot, and against the destruction of any of the myriad containers of the grain, for since it had all been brought from the farms or from Selken ships, it came stored in sacks and barrels, some as milled flour, some as whole grains.

This was Cilarnen’s first visit to this particular warehouse, but even he could see that it was emptier than it ought to be. There were empty spaces upon the shelves, stacks of barrels that weren’t quite even, a sense of vacancy that made him faintly uneasy.

“More incense, boy,” Thekinalo said curtly.

Cilarnen hurried to dip several carefully-measured spoonfuls of powder onto the glowing coals, chanting the appropriate spell under his breath.

“It’s hardly a surprise,” Thekinalo said, continuing the conversation. “They see a chance for profit now that they are free, and so our warehouses empty, and the farmers’ pockets fill with Golden Suns. And the price of a baker’s loaf has doubled in the last moonturn, may the Light defend us.”

“From Lord Volpiril and his policies,” Juvalira agreed, raising his wand again. “And from the Commons, should they ever discover the reason bread is so dear.”

His partner simply laughed, and lowered the sword to the floor once more.

“SOMEONE must do something,” young Lord Gillain said earnestly.

At the end of their daily duties, many of the Apprentices gathered at a tea-house at the edge of the College. The Golden Bells sold nothing stronger than kaffeyeh, teas, and fruit juice, of course, but it was a place where Apprentices and the younger Journeymen could gather together and socialize, free of the constraints of their elders. And providing their elders approved, of course.

Cilarnen shook his head minutely, saying nothing. Gillain was a fool. His rash speech would get him into trouble someday—and soon, no matter that his grandfather sat on the High Council.

“What do you suggest?” Flohan asked, with a touch of sarcasm. “Do we petition the High Council? My cousin says that half the farmers in the valley are already doing that. The Council won’t change its mind and take them back.”

“Its tiny mind,” Gillain said, and there was laughter from the young men gathered around the table—some genuine, some merely nervous.

Only two didn’t join in the general amusement. Cilarnen, and a Journeyman named Raellan.

Raellan had been coming to the Golden Bells for several sennights now. He was a quiet man, having little to say, but when he did speak, it was always sensible and to the point.

“I think that if someone wanted to change the Council’s mind about its policies,” Raellan said now, looking straight at Cilarnen, “he would have to be very brave, and very dedicated to the good of the City.”

“This is getting too deep for me,” another Entered Apprentice named Viance said hastily. “Let us talk of pleasant things. Who has tried the Phastan Silvertip that has just come in?”

The talk quickly turned to tea, and the moment passed.

CHIRED Anigrel—known in the Golden Bells, and in a few other select establishments in the City as Master Raellan—left the teashop a few chimes later, well pleased with the evening’s work.

Few would recognize his face there and elsewhere, and to baffle those who might, the smallest and most subtle Cantrip of Misdirection cast over his features before he left his rooms ensured that he would not be recognized.

If Lord Lycaelon needed a reason to dispense with Volpiril’s services, Anigrel would give him one.

As well as the opportunity to rid himself of all other Mages who might prove to be—inconvenient.

IF the specter of Shadow Mountain hadn’t been hovering over events, Kellen would undoubtedly have been happier than he’d ever been in his entire life.

He got up each morning while the dawn mists still filled the valley of Sentarshadeen, dressed, and, carrying his breakfast with him, walked to the House of Sword and Shield, eating as he walked. Sometimes Shalkan came with him, and the two friends talked of nothing in particular. The weather—it continued to rain, but Kellen was getting used to it. How Vestakia was settling in.

When Kellen arrived at the House, he would either change to his working clothes (he wore a distinct shade of green—not his signature color, either—a hue which had been arrived at after a great deal of debate, apparently) or into his armor, depending on what he was to work at that day.

Kellen was learning things that Jermayan had lacked the resources to teach him. To attack, and to defend himself against multiple attackers. And more—he was learning to keep the choices in every combat in his own hands, so that he could kill or not as he chose. Under Master Belesharon’s guidance, he was learning to trick an attacker, to stun or disarm him, to simply be elsewhere when the blow fell.

It was more than simple misdirection, far more than the feints and dodges that Jermayan had tried to show him. It was—well, if he had to put a name to it, it was a new state of mind. Part of the battle-mind, to be sure, but a state in which he could choose to be like a fish in the water. He could see where the fight was going, the way a fish could sense a rock in the stream ahead of him, and he could move with the fight, or around it. When he finally got the trick of it, it had all come at once; suddenly, the sense was there, and he’d slipped aside from every blow that the four other knights were trying to land on him, without needing to counter any of them. And the state of mind he had been in was so uncannily peaceful—as if it was a kind of meditation! It was only when Master Belesharon had called a halt to the fight and he dropped automatically out of that mental state that the exhaustion hit him.

“I would not toy with that, if I were you,” Master Belesharon said, neutrally. And Kellen had readily agreed. Useful that might be, if he were surrounded by attackers that he dared not strike at, but the effort this state took was greater than actually defending himself.

With his Knight-Mage gifts to guide him, Kellen learned fast, but there was always more to learn. There was the theory of war itself, not of knight against knight, but of armies in the field.

And so he was introduced to the two great Elven strategy games, gan and xaqiue.

Gan was played on a square board divided into 864 tiny squares. There were 144 counters, divided into six suits, and up to six players could play, though usually only two or three did. The simple object of the game was to be the last person with counters on the board. The complex object of the game was to win beautifully and with style. An opponent’s counters could be removed from play either by surrounding them, or by forcing them to the edge of the board.

So far Kellen had lost every gan match he’d played. But he was starting to lose more slowly.

Xaqiue bore a faint resemblance to shamat, which was played in Armethalieh. In shamat, there were two armies of playing pieces, each of which could move only a certain way, and the object was to capture the other player’s City.

Xaqiue was similar—in that one of the points of the game was to capture the opposing player’s pieces. But in xaqiue, captured pieces remained on the board, in the service of whoever captured them last, and the moves each piece could make changed depending on how many moves it had already made and what other pieces were nearby.

Kellen found xaqiue fiendishly complicated.

“It is no more complicated than a battle,” Naeret would say, when Kellen had been forced to resign yet another game in the middle, hopelessly tangled in a welter of moves and countermoves, and having managed to forget which pieces still belonged to him. “Yet you would remember that well enough.”

“I could get killed in a battle,” Kellen muttered.

“Yet all life is war,” Naeret said, setting the pieces out once again. “Perhaps it is all worth considering equally seriously.”

BETWEEN sword exercises and games—though Kellen suspected that the Elves did not think of “games” in quite the same way he did—there were the lectures (though he supposed “instructions” might be a better word). Seen simply, these were tales of ancient battles—and just what he’d wanted to hear ever since he’d realized there had been ancient battles.

Seen another way, they were histories, or chronicles, or even guidebooks of a sort, filled with instructions and warnings.

Kellen shared these lectures with the novices, of course, for he had never had the opportunity to hear these stories before. He was fascinated to discover that they were not only stories of the Great War—what the Elves called among themselves the Second War—but the First War as well, fought so long ago that humans had not yet been civilized. It was oddly sobering to realize that the gentle, supremely cultivated Elves—so polite that they considered a direct question to be the height of barbarian rudeness—had been a warrior people since before his own folk had discovered fire. But perhaps that was the very reason why they placed so high a value on peace and civilization.

Most afternoons were spent with Deyishene, and Kellen was already a much better rider than he had been when he began. He’d ended up being introduced to the Elven lance after all. Though there was little likelihood Kellen would ever use it under combat conditions, learning to handle it—without breaking it—taught grace, balance, and concentration. Kellen had already broken half a dozen.

When he wasn’t actually busy at the House of Sword and Shield, Kellen was mindful of the promise he had made to Sandalon, and spent as many hours with the young Prince as he could. He even brought him to visit at the House of Sword and Shield—after obtaining Master Belesharon’s permission, of course—and showed him all around. There was no reason, according to Jermayan, that Sandalon should not someday train as an Elven Knight if he chose to.

Someday. If he ever gets out of that fortress before he’s got a long grey beard. If Elves grow beards, that is.

Ashaniel had broken the news to Sandalon that he would be going away to the Crowned Horns with the rest of the Elven children not long after the meeting at which the plan was decided, and for a few days the boy had been upset and unhappy. But Sandalon was very young, and as the leave taking didn’t happen immediately, after a sennight or two the young Prince seemed to forget the matter entirely.

But today, when Kellen went out to the stables to Deyishene, he found Sandalon and Shalkan both there, waiting outside her stall.

The young Prince had obviously been crying, though his tears were under control now, and he smiled dolefully when he saw Kellen.

“I am to go—the day after tomorrow!” Sandalon blurted out, obviously unable to contain the unhappy news one moment longer than necessary.

“Oh.” There didn’t seem to be very much to say, but Kellen tried. “But there will be children from all the Nine Cities there—perhaps you will make new friends. I am sure that there will be at least one person who is almost exactly your age, and there may be more. Think, Sandalon, how good it will be when there are several others around you who want to do the same things that you do, and play the same games that you like!”

Sandalon was too well mannered, even at five, to contradict Kellen, but his face plainly said that he found the possibility highly unlikely.

“Will you … there will be a great many Knights riding with us. And unicorns, too! Maybe—”

But Kellen was already shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Sandalon. I’m just starting to learn all the things a proper Knight has to know. I still have a lot more to learn before I get to do something that important.”

Oddly enough his answer—meant in all honesty—sent Sandalon off into a fit of the giggles, and even Shalkan swiveled his ears and coughed, indicating the unicorn was trying very hard not to laugh out loud.

After a moment, Kellen realized why, and grinned sheepishly.

A short time ago he’d destroyed the Black Cairn, just about single-handedly, and now he was saying that something as simple as convoying a bunch of kids through peaceful territory to a well-defended stronghold was too difficult for him. And put that way, it did sound ridiculous, but a job like that was a lot more complicated than just riding off with Jermayan and Shalkan into the unknown. And Kellen couldn’t afford to spend the time away from his lessons.

“Go ahead, laugh at me, both of you,” Kellen said good-naturedly. “But Master Belesharon would not think I was a very good student if I asked to be released from my lessons just because something more interesting came along. I have a lot to learn right here. But I don’t think he would mind too much if we took tomorrow off to go exploring, just the four of us.”

“The four of us?” Sandalon asked doubtfully.

“You, and me, and Shalkan, and Vestakia. I thought I’d ask Vestakia to come with us—if you didn’t mind, of course.”

He’d seen very little of Vestakia since he’d begun training at the House of Sword and Shield—of course, Kellen had seen very little of anyone but his fellow students. Idalia had assured him that Vestakia was doing perfectly well, and understood the reason for Kellen’s absence.

But he missed the easy comradeship they’d shared on the road, and wanted to see for himself that she was okay. A picnic should be the perfect opportunity. And nothing could go wrong with Shalkan there to play chaperon.

“Oh, no,” Sandalon said happily. “Vestakia’s nice. And she isn’t nearly as bossy as Lairamo is.”

“Then it’s settled, providing your nurse and my Master both agree,” Kellen said, though he doubted Master Belesharon would have any objections to Kellen spending a day making Sandalon feel a little better about being sent away. “Now, want to come watch me practice? You might be doing this yourself someday, after all.”

“I will!” Sandalon said enthusiastically. “I’m going to become a Knight just like you and Jermayan, and win all the Flower Wars, just like he does!”

LATER Kellen would look back at the day he spent roaming through the hills beyond Sentarshadeen with Shalkan, Vestakia, and Sandalon as the last truly serene day he was to spend for a very long time, but at the time he only thought of it as his farewell to Sandalon, and a way of making the child’s departure less painful. Though Idalia had told him that there was to be “a break in the weather,” in fact it had rained most of the day, but none of them had minded. When Vestakia had left him at the end of the day, Kellen had been unsettled by more than the strain of the thoughts forbidden by his geas, though Shalkan had kept him from getting into any real difficulty.

As he took Deyishene back to the stables, he found himself wondering if—and hoping he was going to have—a future that included Vestakia. He found himself simply wanting her company, quite apart from anything else. She was simply the best friend he had ever had: she was clever, she was kind, she knew how to have fun, and how to make it too.

But with the storm clouds of Shadow Mountain gathering on the horizon, he couldn’t quite make himself believe that any kind of future, much less a peaceful one with Vestakia in it, was ever going to exist. He wasn’t used to thinking that far ahead and he wasn’t used to feeling this—grim—about things. Idalia was the dour introspective one—and all Kellen’s attempts to try and get a grip on the situation only left him feeling troubled for no reason that he could put his finger on.

Fortunately Shalkan interrupted his thoughts before he sank too deeply into depression.

“The caravan will be leaving from the House of Leaf and Star tomorrow before dawn. You’ll want to be there.”

“I don’t know,” Kellen said, surprised at the suggestion. “Elves aren’t much on big going-away ceremonies, I thought.”

“No,” Shalkan agreed. “But you’ll want to see it, just the same. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you’re here in plenty of time.”

THE next morning the unicorn routed Kellen out of his cozy bed in what seemed to be the middle of the night. It was still dark when the two of them made their way through the sleeping city back to the House of Leaf and Star, but the convoy was already gathered.

Most of the supplies that the evacuees would need at the Fortress of the Crowned Horns had already been sent on ahead. These wagons would only carry supplies for the journey, and the people themselves.

There were two wagons for the children and their attendants to sleep and travel in. They looked like houses on wheels, down to the softly-glowing colored lanterns hung from each corner, and were drawn by four mules each. Four more wagons carried what Kellen supposed must be supplies and camping gear for the rest of the party, and each of those had six mules hitched to it.

Kellen assessed the caravan with a newly practiced eye, seeming to feel Master Belesharon standing over his shoulder. It was true that a herd of thirty-two mules was a lot to take care of—and carry feed for—and certainly both the carts and the wagons could be drawn by fewer. But if some went lame on the road, there would be no place to get replacements. Better, Kellen supposed, to start with more animals than you needed than have to turn back.

Then there was a sudden drumming of hooves, and Kellen saw the real reason Shalkan had brought him here.

The Elven Knights had arrived.

And only some of them were riding horses.

The unicorns danced—there was no other word for it—as if the earth could not hold them down. They sprang forward, ahead of the horses, circling the wagons once as if to make sure all was well, then trotting off to stand in an easy formation a little ways off in the meadow while the equestrian Knights distributed themselves closely around the wagons.

“I thought you’d like to see that,” Shalkan commented.

The doors of the House of Leaf and Star opened. Kellen was too far away to hear what was said—he’d come only to see, not to intrude—but he saw Andoreniel and Ashaniel standing there, bidding a last farewell … not as Sandalon’s parents, Kellen realized, but as the rulers of the Elves.

Slowly the little party exited the portico and climbed into the wagons. The drivers climbed onto their seats, and the train began to move off. The Unicorn Knights stood watching it for a moment, the horns of their mounts gleaming faintly in the first pale rays of dawn, then trotted briskly after it, quickly passing the wagons and forging on ahead.

“Well,” Kellen said with a sigh, “I guess it’s time to go to work.”

AT the end of her seventh Rising following that walk in the Stone Garden, Savilla was pleased to see that Zyperis had been driven half-mad with curiosity. He had wooed her favor with every gift and attention he could think of, including the gift of several of his own personal slaves to do with as she wished.

All this was most satisfactory, and in addition, proved two things. One, that he was still submissive enough to be malleable, and two, that his clandestine sources of information within her personal household were not as well-developed as he might wish, for if there had been some way for Zyperis to discover her intentions on his own, he would certainly have done it.

But having made her point, she was prepared to relent before he turned sullen. Besides, it was such a lovely plan that it would be a shame to have no one to share it with …

THAT Rising, she commanded Zyperis’s attendance, and after the business of her courtiers had been dealt with, she drew him aside.

“I have a lovely surprise for you, my dear,” she said, her voice husky and playful. “Come with me.”

She took him to a small chamber nestled among her private rooms. Its walls, ceiling, and floor were made of ivory, intricately joined and carved. The walls were golden with age, for the room was very old; a place to summon visions and see what must be seen.

The floor should, perhaps, have been the same warm golden hue, but it was not. Instead, it was a deep brown, like old leather, for centuries of shed blood had permanently darkened it.

A small ebony table stood in the center of the room, and on it was a large shallow bowl carved from one piece of black obsidian. It gleamed in the light of the shining golden orbs burning overhead.

A naked human girl knelt beside the table, waiting with utter stillness. Her long blonde hair was elaborately jeweled and coiled on top of her head, and every inch of her pale skin had been intricately painted. When the two Endarkened entered the room, she did not move. She had been very well trained; one of those humans was taken captive so young she remembered no other world than this, and no other way of life than service to her Demon masters. She had been Zyperis’s most recent gift to his mother.

“Fill the bowl,” Queen Savilla said, holding out a small ebony and crystal knife to her son.

He did not hesitate a moment; if anything, his eyes lit with avidity. “Come here, precious,” Zyperis said to the girl. He took the knife as the human slave got to her feet and stood as he directed her. He positioned her so she was standing in front of the obsidian bowl and he was standing behind her.

With quick precise movements, he bent her forward, turned her head to the side, and cut into the pulsing vein in the side of her neck. The bowl rang faintly as the girl’s hot blood spurted into it, and she gasped and at last began to struggle. Zyperis held her firmly until she quieted, and then lifted her body off the floor so that it would drain more easily.

“It does seem something of a waste,” he observed, watching the blood fill the bowl. “For it to be over so quickly, you know.”

“There’s very little sport in the tame ones,” Savilla said consideringly. “And we can enjoy her later. Filendek does thrive upon a challenge, and he has been complaining that I do not tax his culinary skills enough of late. But come. Now I will satisfy your wanton curiosity, my son.”

The bowl was full, and Zyperis tossed the girl’s body aside, leaning eagerly over the bowl of steaming blood. Savilla joined him.

“Show me what I wish to see,” the Queen commanded, staring into the bowl of shimmering blood.

The surface of the bowl shimmered, going from dark to pale. Faint shadows began to swirl mistily beneath its surface, then grew brighter as the images in the bowl steadied into mirror sharpness.

Zyperis looked into the bowl and saw a caravan of Elves moving through a wintry landscape. Six wagons—four obviously carrying nothing but provisions—and perhaps twenty outriders, at least a third of them mounted on unicorns.

“More Elves, Mother!” Zyperis protested. “But why show me this, when you have decreed that we must let the caravans pass unharmed, no matter how tempting the opportunity? And Elves, Mother—it has been so long since we have had Elves to play with!”

“Oh, yes, it is true that I have allowed the previous caravans to make their way to that annoying fortress of theirs unmolested. But unfortunately—for the Elves and their little Prince—nothing lasts forever …”

THE party from Sentarshadeen had been on the road for nearly two sennights, and by now they were deep into the mountains. Although back in Sentarshadeen it was no more than early autumn, here the hand of winter rested implacably on the land.

The snowfall had already been heavy—only the unicorns found it easy going—and at the village of Girizethiel the party had transferred from wheeled wagons to sledges. Fortunately, the trail had been well-broken by the previous convoys.

The day was overcast, and it was snowing lightly but steadily, though the wagonmaster, who had made this trip several times before, said that the snow would grow thicker throughout the day. Visibility was already bad, with the prankish wind whipping up veils of powdered snow and carrying them through the air to cloud the sight.

If they had not been where they were, Ciradhel would have been more concerned about a possible ambush, but the Fortress of the Crowned Horns was well within the borders of the Elven Lands, and all patrols had reported the land secure for moonturns. Ciradhel was more worried about keeping his young charges from getting into trouble along the way.

Kalania was no more than a babe in arms, and Hieretsur kept her young charge well under wraps. And Tredianala was a shy girl, who stayed close to her nurse and rarely ventured away from the wagons at any time.

But her cousin Merisashendiel was her opposite in every way, always underfoot and into everything, wanting to explore at every stop, no matter how brief it was. She and Vendalton were partners in every kind of innocent mischief, and wherever the two of them led, Prince Sandalon would inevitably follow. Ciradhel found it hard to begrudge the youngsters their youthful high spirits, for it was hard for them, he knew, to travel such a long distance to live in a strange place when you were so very young.

As for Alkandoran, he had already begun his training as a Knight, and had argued long and hard that he should be allowed to remain to defend Sentarshadeen against possible attack. But he was far too young—little though he thought it—so over his protests he had joined the others. He continued to let his unhappiness be felt, despite Ciradhel’s assurances that his knightly training could continue at the fortress.

Ciradhel clucked to Jilka, and the Elven mare trotted forward over the snow to where Rhavelmo sat upon Calmeren, waiting for the convoy to make its slow way past.

The unicorn’s white coat was a perfect match for the snow. Where it was not covered by the saddle and armor, it was fluffed out against the cold, giving the little creature a downy appearance that almost made the unicorn seem insubstantial. Her horn glistened like ice.

“Another day, and we’ll be rid of them,” Rhavelmo said, looking up at him. Her rose-colored armor and cloak were already powdered with a fresh fall of snow. “We should reach the Crowned Horns by midday. Evening at the latest. Look. You can already see it—or you could if not for this blasted weather.”

She pointed.

Automatically, Ciradhel looked. All that was to be seen was white, and more white, but he had been here many years before, and let imagination show him what his eyes could not.

The Fortress of the Crowned Horns did not occupy the highest peak in the Mystral Range, but as Idalia had told Kellen, it had never been taken by an enemy, nor could it be.

The fortress had been carved out of the living rock thousands of years past, in the days when the Elves had faced the Endarkened for the very first time. The surface of the mountain had been made too steep and smooth for a dragon to land upon it, and the very top of the fortress—the only level place—was too small and too well-defended to be accessible by Dark-tainted dragons. The only access to the fortress was up a long narrow causeway that led to the outer gates. The causeway was so narrow that only one cart could travel up it at a time, and at need, the defenders had a hundred ways of rendering it completely impassable.

“It will be faster going back, too, if we don’t have to wait for the wagons,” Calmeren said hopefully, switching her tail to shake it free of snow.

“Faster even with the wagons,” Ciradhel pointed out. “Since they’ll be all but empty. And we can’t leave them unprotected. Even if there aren’t—”

“Wait,” Calmeren said. The unicorn shifted, raising her head and turning into the wind. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled deeply.

Suddenly there was a faint howl in the distance, a single eerie ululating wail. It hung alone on the air for a moment, and then was joined by others, a chilling wolflike chorus.

But all three of them knew that whatever creature had made that sound, it wasn’t a wolf.

“We have to run,” Calmeren said. “Now.”

Neither of the Knights considered doubting the unicorn’s word. There would be time for questions and incredulity later, when—if—they were all safe. Ciradhel cast one despairing glance at the wagons. They could not possibly move any faster, especially in this weather.

“Bring in the unicorns—quickly. We’ll put the children on them,” he said.

Calmeren and Rhavelmo sprang away, and Ciradhel turned Jilka back to the wagons.

“Stop the wagons. Everyone out. Bring your cloaks. Tuika—Henele—unhitch the teams as fast as you can. Cut the harness if you have to. Naeret—Emessade—get the children onto the unicorns. We have to run for it.”

He swung down off Jilka’s back and strode forward, running tallies in his head. Seven unicorns—six children. Each of the unicorn-mounted Knights could take one of the children—Kalania could go in her nurse’s arms—and they would send Sandalon’s nurse on the last of them. That left thirteen warhorses, seven of which would have to carry an extra passenger, but no one would be left behind for whatever was making that howling noise.

“This is most unexpected,” Hieretsur protested, coming down the steps of the wagon with Kalania in her arms.

“There is no time to explain,” Ciradhel snapped. Calmeren had returned with the others, and he seized the nurse and deposited her on the unicorn’s back.

“Run,” he said.

“Like the wind,” Calmeren agreed, and bounded off.

There was another chorus of howls—closer—and this time everyone heard it.

“One presumes that is what we are running from,” Naeret said, her nervousness showing in her stone-like expression. She settled Vendalton in front of Vikaet’s rider and the black unicorn took off after the others.

“Yes,” Ciradhel said briefly.

Now only Sandalon and Lairamo were left.

“I will see you again soon,” Lairamo said firmly, setting Sandalon into the saddle in front of Dainelel. His unicorn sprang into motion the moment the boy was settled, following the others.

Lairamo looked at Ciradhel. “Perhaps—” she began.

“He will need you. Go.”

Lairamo climbed carefully up behind the last of the Unicorn Knights, and it followed the rest.

Getting the children onto the unicorns had been the work of moments, and it had taken easily as long to finish unhitching the mules and to get the wagon drivers and the rest of the children’s companions onto horseback. Now Ciradhel sent those carrying double off after the others.

The mules had caught the scent carried upon the wind, and though normally the most docile and well-mannered of creatures, they had been terrified. The moment they were free, they had fled across the ice, slipping and skidding in their haste to be away. Tuika and Henele had not been able to properly unhitch the last teams, and had simply cut the main traces as the mules fought to be free. Even the Elven destriers were agitated, looking to their riders for reassurance.

“What about the rest of us?” Naeret asked, falling easily into War Manners.

Ciradhel smiled at her, swinging up onto Jilka’s back and loosening his sword in its sheath. He looked around at his four remaining companions.

“I thought we might go see what is making that infernal racket, were you all so inclined,” he answered politely.

THEY were barely a hundred meters from the wagons when the pack appeared in the distance, a shimmering patch of darker silver in the snow. Beyond it, the five could see a small army of moving upright figures. The sunlight glittered off their armor and weapons, and the Elves could see the faint shimmer of the magic protecting those of them for whom sunlight was lethal.

“Frost-giants—ice-trolls—and a pack of coldwarg,” Ciradhel said grimly. “All ancient allies of the Enemy.”

“How could they come here without our knowing?” Naeret demanded, her voice high with outrage and anger.

“The cold is their element,” Abrodiel, eldest of them all, said.

“Come,” Ciradhel said, spurring Jilka forward. “We must buy the others as much time as we can.”

COLDWARG had been created by Endarkened sorcery during the Great War. They were nearly the size of a unicorn, with enormous jaws capable of ripping out the throat of a horse—or a man—in one bite. In the last war, the Enemy had needed to spell-shield them on the battlefield, for coldwarg suffered in the heat, and died when the temperature grew too warm.

But here in the mountains, they were in their element.

Ciradhel knew that he and his companions were doomed. It was a small pack—not much more than a dozen beasts—but five Knights could not hope to kill them all and the creatures that followed. All they could hope for was to kill some of them, and to buy the rest of the party precious time to escape.

And because they were trying to stop the pack, not save themselves, they could not use the one maneuver that would give them any hope of survival: grouping into a tight pack to protect one another.

“Bows first, then swords,” Ciradhel said.

Spread out into a line, the five Elves charged down the slope directly into the coldwarg pack.

The frost-giants cheered when they saw the Elves, and their shambling turned into a trot, and then into an eager run.

The battle cries of the Elven Knights mingled with the howls of the coldwarg. They shot until their quivers were empty, but the arrows had little effect on the monsters, though every shaft found its mark. Then they drew their swords, and the battle was joined. The Elven destriers fought viciously, with teeth and steel-shod hooves, but one after another, they went down beneath the tide of dappled silver bodies.

Then it was the turn of their riders.

Ciradhel saw Naeret stagger to her feet over Ashtes’s fallen body. The crippled stallion was screaming and thrashing, trying to rise as a coldwarg ripped at his belly. Blood fountained from the stump of Naeret’s sword-arm, and as she fumbled in the snow for her sword, another coldwarg leaped for her throat. She went down.

One of the beasts leaped at Jilka’s throat. Jilka danced back, and Ciradhel struck at the coldwarg with his sword, feeling a hot flash of pleasure to see the blade bite deep into the hellbeast’s shoulder. The coldwarg sprang back, jaws gaping wide and pink tongue lolling. Its yellow eyes danced with a feral amusement. It’s only a matter of time, the beast’s gaze seemed to say. It turned and loped off in the direction of the caravan.

Ashtes had stopped screaming.

Henele was trapped beneath his fallen horse. Its head was gone. Two coldwarg were on him, one with its jaws clamped around each arm. They were pulling, shaking their heads and growling, like puppies with a toy. Henele should have been screaming, but he made no sound, and from that Ciradhel knew he was already dead.

They were all dead.

All but him.

Why?

He looked around.

The surviving coldwarg had broken off their attack to take up the pursuit of the others again.

And the marauders that had followed the pack had arrived.

“Nice puppies, to save one for Dalak,” the frost-giant said, giggling nastily, a high-pitched sound that sat ill with the giant’s size and bulk. “You go on,” he said to the others. “This one’s mine.”

Ciradhel used those precious moments to assess the enemy, on the faint chance he would ever be able to make a report.

There were a full dozen ice-trolls, all wearing Talismans to protect them against the sun, for they were creatures of night and caves. Their skin was the pale blue of pack ice, and they wore nothing more than a narrow loincloth, whether male or female, for they needed—nor wanted—no protection from the cold. Around their necks they wore elaborate collars of bones taken from their dead enemies, and carried bags which contained their hunting implements. Their main weapon was a bone atlatl, a notched rod with which they could launch polished bone shafts with deadly force and skill.

There were twice their number of frost-giants in the band, and they were formidable foes. The shortest of them was twice Ciradhel’s height. They had hair the color of frost, and pale eyes, and—unlike some of their cousins—no need of protection from the sun. Frost-giants were notable smiths and metalworkers, and all the giants wore articulated plate armor, well-padded with fur against the cold. But despite their ability at crafting swords, the frost-giants’ preferred weapon was the club, and it was a club that Dalak unlimbered now, swinging it back and forth as he smiled at Ciradhel.

The others grumbled at being denied a chance to watch the fun, but Dalak seemed to be their leader, and after a few moments of indecision they complied, lumbering off after the coldwarg with stupefying speed.

“Come, little Elf. I promise I’ll be gentle,” Dalak rumbled. “And you will reach the Cold Hells long before most of your friends.”

“And I shall wish the same for you,” Ciradhel said politely. He urged Jilka forward.

Dalak had superior reach, but Ciradhel and Jilka were faster. They were equally matched, and Ciradhel began to hope he might win. At the very least, every moment he could delay Dalak left the marauders without their leader.

But suddenly he felt a rushing presence above him, and a burning pain in his shoulders as great talons seized him, shearing through his armor as if it were silk.

Something lifted him from his saddle.

He cried out.

Dalak stepped forward, swinging his club with all his strength. It hit the side of Jilka’s head, and Ciradhel heard her neck snap.

Then Dalak reached up and grabbed him by the ankle. There was a tearing pain, a shrill soundless cry that lanced through Ciradhel’s head, and suddenly he lay upon the ground, looking up at the frost-giant.

Dalak put his boot on Ciradhel’s chest.

“Say good-bye to the Light, little Elf,” Dalak said, raising his club again.

And then Ciradhel knew nothing more.

THE seven double-burdened warhorses ran over the snow in the direction of the Crowned Horns. None of the Knights knew what they fled from, but no one was foolish enough to disregard Calmeren’s warning, and all of them had heard the howling.

The unicorns were far ahead, springing over the snow at their fastest pace, one that no horse could match. Athonere hoped they and their precious cargo could reach the safety of the fortress. He cursed the fell weather. If the day had been clear, the sentries would have been able to see them. They might even have been able to see what lay behind the fleeing party.

But even if that had been true, none of them could have expected assistance from those within the citadel. The defenders would not have dared to come out, lest this be a trap, a ruse to lure them away from the children they guarded.

Just then Athonere saw a flash of movement through the veils of blowing snow, as a sinuous rill of silver fur flowed over the snow, easily passing the galloping horses.

They seemed to be monstrous misshapen wolves. Some of them were bleeding from fresh sword cuts, and several had the stumps of Elven arrows protruding from their necks and shoulders, but despite the blood that starred the snow in their wake, they moved with terrifying fleetness.

No. Not wolves. Coldwarg.

Athonere risked a glance behind him—and saw, over his passenger’s shoulder, a host of squat bluish creatures running toward them, moving nearly as fast as the galloping horses. Without slowing, they began to hurl objects toward the mounted Knights.

The woman clinging to Athonere’s back screamed. She thrashed frantically for a moment, then fell from the saddle before he could catch her.

One of the horses beside Athonere grunted heavily and went down, its hind legs tangled in a contraption of stones and leather cord. The force of its fall spilled both the Knight and his passenger into the snow with stunning force.

Athonere reined in, turning back. His passenger was lying in the snow, three shafts protruding from her back, dead. Screams—Elven and animal—told him that more ice-troll shafts were finding their mark. Their only safety lay in attack, lest more of their charges be slaughtered as they fled.

He drew his sword and charged into the mob of ice-trolls.

“To me! To me!” he shouted.

But the ice-trolls refused to stand and fight. They scampered back and forth across the hard-packed snow, calling mocking taunts in an unknown tongue, trying to lure the knights off the trail and into the drifts. And always came the deadly volleys of hard-flung arrows. Though the Knights returned fire with their own bows—those who had not given them to arm the surviving caravan drivers—they missed more often than not, for the ice-trolls were fast-moving and hard to see, and to stand still long enough to take aim was to become an attractive target.

“They’re waiting for something,” Luamzir said grimly. She’d recovered from her fall, though Perta had not been as fortunate. Merisashendiel’s nurse had had no armor to protect her, and lay dead in the snow. And though Luamzir had cut the leathern cords from Panorak’s legs, the animal was dead lame, barely able to stand, much less run.

“We dare not run—and they will not fight,” Athonere said grimly. If only it would stop snowing …

Suddenly the ground began to shake. A moment more and the frost-giants were upon them.

At least the children are safe, Athonere thought. Neither trolls nor giants could outrun a unicorn.

THE seven unicorns ran steadily through the blowing snow, Calmeren in the lead.

Suddenly there was a high shrill wailing that made her head hurt. She sprang sideways, crouching and staggering as something swooped down out of the sky and passed low above her head. She heard the sound of claws grate against Rhavelmo’s armor, and Hieretsur screamed.

“They’re here!” Calmeren cried, the stench of the Enemy in her nostrils, and the other unicorns wheeled and stood, searching for the foe. There were shadowy shapes in the sky, difficult to see through the blowing snow, wheeling over them like a flock of carrion birds.

“No!” Rhavelmo vaulted down from the saddle and pushed Hieretsur forward. “Go! Run!”

Calmeren gave Rhavelmo one agonized glance, and sprang forward again.

Rhavelmo unlimbered her bow and shot a dozen arrows into the sky. It was a difficult mark, but her aim was true. One of the creatures fell to earth—a monstrous bat, its body as large as a man’s, its fur and its wings as white as the snow itself. It thrashed in its death agonies, red eyes gleaming with mad hatred.

All around her, the Knights were quickly dismounting. It was the best chance they could give the unicorns carrying the children and Lairamo, because the children must be saved at all costs.

“YOU must be strong now, Prince Sandalon. Hold tight to Queverian’s saddle and don’t let go, whatever you do,” Dainelel said quickly.

The boy nodded, too frightened to speak.

“Take care of him, my love,” he said to Queverian, a tremor in his voice.

“I will,” the unicorn said, and Sandalon had no time to say anything more, for she was off, speeding across the snow, with death flying ever nearer overhead.

CALMEREN had barely hit her stride again when more of the bat-things began to dive upon her, slashing at her face, and, worse, at the precious burden she carried. They stank of Taint and carrion, and try as she might, she could not escape them. She found herself turning away from the Crowned Horns, fighting to keep from being driven into the deep snow away from the trail.

None of the others fared any better. The younger children cried out in fear as the monstrous bats swooped down through the storm, snatching at them.

She had nearly made up her mind to make a dash back the way she had come when the coldwarg pack arrived.

And they were not alone.

Appearing out of the storm like ghosts were a host of cloaked and hooded figures, their white garb rendering them nearly invisible against the snow. At first she thought they were Elves come to their rescue, then she knew they were not. All carried long spears.

“Do what you must!” she cried to the others. “But run!”

A coldwarg leaped at her. She reared to meet its charge, praying that Hieretsur could hold on. She thrust her horn into the wolf-thing’s belly and shook her head savagely, flinging its dying body aside.

Teeth raked her unarmored frank, and she spun and kicked at the new foe. A yelp told her that her sharp hooves had connected.

Then leathery wings enfolded her head, blinding her. Enormous wings battered at her with punishing force, and she felt Hieretsur’s weight leave her saddle. She could hear baby Kalania wailing in terror and pain. She felt sharp claws scrabbling at her throat and chest, shearing through her armored collar, and raking into the flesh beneath. She shook her head savagely, and felt her horn slide into the leather of its wing, but these were not creatures of Dark Magic to die at the touch of a unicorn’s horn.

Blindly and desperately she fought, hearing screams all around her, and the yelps and howls of the coldwarg.

At last she managed to drag the monster beneath her hooves to trample it.

The children—where are the children?

She heard faint screams overhead. Looking up, she saw two of the bat-creatures soaring away, bodies struggling in their claws.

The snow was red with blood. The other unicorns, some dead, some mortally wounded, lay on the snow. The coldwarg were quarreling over the bodies.

The cloaked figures moved through the carnage, checking for survivors and gathering up fallen weapons.

At the moment, no one was looking at her.

Calmeren moved, silently as only a unicorn could, away from the battlefield. When she was sure she was concealed by the storm she began to run with utter determination, agony lancing through her with every step.

Sentarshadeen must be warned. Whatever the cost.

WHEN Idalia had brought the rains safely to the Elven Lands with the Wild Magic, there had been, as always, a price. It had been a high one, and a hard one to accept, but she had weighed the cost in lives and pain if she did not, and made her bargain.

The price for the power to save the Nine Cities had been her life—but it seemed that the Gods were slow to collect.

She had been surprised to awaken from her working trance at all, and had spent a sennight in the House of Leaf and Star, recovering from the heavy demands the magic had placed upon her body. Each day had been a gift, and an odd surprise, but she had come to realize that Gods’ time was not the same as mortals’. They had accepted her bargain, and would collect upon it in Their own good time. But she knew that every hour she lived now was borrowed.

When Kellen had returned from the Barrier, and she had healed him, Idalia had almost grown used to that, but then she received another unsettling reminder of how much things had changed. When she summoned up the power to heal her brother, no personal price was asked of her … and there was always a price to the Wildmage over and above the personal power expended.

But no longer. Wildmagery still drained her personal energy, just as it always had, but now no additional obligation was set upon her when she did her work, as if all prices had already been paid.

Perhaps they had. Perhaps accepting the greatest price she could pay had negated the need to pay any other. Ever.

As much as possible, she tried to forget the choice she had made, trying to live in the present moment, as the Elves did. When she was not with Jermayan, she went where she was needed in Sentarshadeen, or worked steadily at creating a store of items that would be useful later, when Shadow Mountain showed its hand at last. Tarnkappa were the most obvious of these; cloaks that would conceal all sight, sound, and scent of the wearer from enemy detection. Such things would be useful for spies and scouts.

But each one took sennights to complete, and she had other things to do as well; the distillation of medicines that only a Wildmage could make. The Elves were master herbalists, and she had learned many of the recipes she used from them, but even their most potent cures for Taint and Shadowed poison were stronger when infused with a Wildmage’s power.

No one questioned the obsessive haste with which she worked. The Elves thought all humans rushed around anyway. Only Kellen would have noticed anything out of the ordinary in her behavior, and he was away from dawn until well after dusk these days, engrossed in learning all that his Elven Masters could teach him about the Way of the Sword.

Gone was the gawky unsure boy who had ridden into her forest clearing half a year ago on Shalkan’s back, half-dead of his wounds. Gone even was the uncertain half-trained young Wildmage who had set out with Jermayan to destroy the Barrier. No one would ever call Kellen Tavadon clumsy again, in or out of armor. And now that he had accepted his Knight-Mage gifts, there was an assurance, a maturity to him that simply hadn’t been there before.

And had he stayed in Armethalieh, there never would have been that assurance. Not with the way Lycaelon Tavadon tried to break his spirit! Idalia thought with a rare flash of spitefulness.

Idalia’s happiest hours of all were spent with Jermayan in his home. Every hour—every moment—was a gift that might not come again.

And certainly would not last.

THE temperature had been dropping for the last sennight, and the morning frosts and fogs had been growing heavier. To complicate matters, though the rain had lessened recently, it had never really stopped. It had turned to sleet instead, so that everything became covered with an increasingly-thick shell of ice. Beautiful, but treacherous. Even the simplest journey became fraught with unexpected peril, and the newest article of outdoor wear was cleatbottomed sabatons to strap over one’s boots for the navigation of the ice-covered streets. Crews went out at intervals, day and night, to use simple, minor magics to break the ice from the tree branches, lest the branches themselves snap under the weight of the ice.

With all the ice, it was no longer possible for Kellen to work with Deyishene in the afternoons, as the practice-ground had become a solid sheet of ice, too slippery to use. Master Belesharon said he would be able to resume his practice once the snows came, for snow provided a less treacherous footing than ice, but at the moment, Kellen’s afternoons were spent with extra sword practice.

It had also become necessary to begin laying out fodder for the horses, since the meadow grass was fast being covered by the ice. But neither activity took as much of his time as working with Deyishene had.

It gave him a lot of time to think about other things.

ONE afternoon he left the House of Sword and Shield early, and went home to change into his best clothes. He intended to go to the House of Leaf and Star and ask a favor of Ashaniel—if she would see him. And since he was going to ask a favor, it only made sense to look as if he really meant to approach the Queen with the greatest of respect.

When he opened the door—having stopped on the porch to shake frozen sludge from his heavy hooded cloak—he saw Idalia leaning over a large bowl on the table, peering into it intently. She glanced up when she saw him, startled.

“Kellen! I wasn’t expecting you this early.”

“I’ve got an errand to run, and I thought I’d change first. What are you doing?” he asked, coming over and peering down at the bowl. It was a large blue-glazed bowl of heavy pottery, filled to the brim with water.

“Scrying—or trying to. Normally I’d try this at one of the springs, but I’d rather not freeze solid. And I haven’t been having any luck anyway.” She sighed. “I’ve been trying to see what’s been going on back in the Wildwood after the Scouring Hunt went through there. I’ve been trying to find out for moonturns, actually, but my scrying won’t show me anything reliable.”

“It’s supposed to show you what you need to see, not what you want to see,” Kellen reminded her.

“Yes,” Idalia agreed. “And nothing I’ve seen makes any sense from that point of view either, really. Just a lot of flowers.”

“Want me to try?” Kellen offered.

“Well, a change is as good as a rest, so they say,” Idalia said. “If you wouldn’t mind, I would be glad of your help.” She sighed. “Perhaps I’m just trying toe hard.”

The ingredients—fern leaf (dried, at this time of year) and wine—were ready beside the bowl. Kellen cast four drops of the wine into the bowl and then floated a bit of the fern leaf on the water.

“‘You who travel between Earth and Sky, show me what you see,’” he said.

He remembered the first time he’d scryed, in the spring behind Idalia’s cabin in the Wildwood. How reluctant and resentful he’d been at having to try, and how sure he’d been it wouldn’t work. Now it seemed an obvious and natural thing to do.

The vision came immediately. The water in the bowl turned white.

“Snowstorm,” Idalia said, since she could see what Kellen saw.

“Not really helpful,” Kellen said, peering into the bowl. “Unless this just means there’s a really, really big blizzard going on somewhere—or coming straight at us. Which it is, I can’t tell. Even if there’s something there I ought to see, I can’t see it.”

As if taking exception to his comments, the snowstorm faded, and was replaced with the image of a face.

It was a young man, about Kellen’s age. His face bore the unmistakable stamp of Mage-breeding. He had auburn hair and pale blue eyes, and looked angry—or possibly scared. Or both. Kellen knew that feeling only too well. He was wearing the pale grey cap-robe-and-tabard of the Entered Apprentice. Wherever he was, it was dark, for Kellen and Idalia could see nothing more than his head and shoulders.

Then that image, too, faded, and the bowl held nothing but water once more.

Kellen frowned. “I think I know him—or knew him. But I don’t remember his name. Why show me that, though? It’s not as if I’m going back to Armethalieh—or an Apprentice is ever going to leave it.”

“Who knows?” Idalia asked. “What I do know is that if I can’t get any sense out of this pesky bowl of water, I think I’m going to have to take a trip over the Border to see for myself how things are in the Wild Lands. That will serve a double purpose, as I can warn the crofters and the High Hills that the Enemy is on the move again. Maybe I can convince Jermayan to go with me.”

“I don’t think you’ll have much of a problem there,” Kellen said, grinning. “I think you’d have a lot harder time keeping him from coming with you.” He picked up the heavy bowl carefully and walked over to the sink to pour out its contents.

Chapter Six

The Room of Fire and Water

AN HOUR LATER, suitably dressed, Kellen presented himself at the House of Leaf and Star.

Ice had turned the entire building into something magical, and the Elves, connoisseurs of natural beauty, had left it as it was. Every surface was covered with a thick sheet of nearly transparent ice, so that the House took on the unreality of a structure cast out of colored glass. Long icicles hung down from the eaves, and each one was filled with rainbows from the watery sunlight.

Kellen knocked at the front door, and, when it was opened, asked if the Lady Ashaniel would receive him—or to be more precise, he suggested to the august personage who answered his knock that it would give him very great pleasure to attend upon the Lady Ashaniel, if she happened to be at home, and was willing to take time from her busy day to allow him to do so.

“Be welcome within our house, Kellen Wildmage,” the august personage told him, bowing.

Kellen bowed back—his bows were much improved, after a few fortnights under Master Belesharon’s tutelage—and he followed the Elf into a small side parlor.

“I will see to your refreshment,” the august personage said, closing the doors behind him as he departed.

It was only after he’d left that Kellen realized the man hadn’t said he’d tell Ashaniel that Kellen was here, but he supposed she’d find out eventually. He doubted there was much that went on beneath her roof that the Lady Ashaniel didn’t know about.

Even if he had to wait a long time, there was much here to keep his attention. At one end of the room was an enormous fireplace, its elaborate hearth stretching all the way to the ceiling. It was designed after the fashion of a dragon—the hearth being in the belly—and the outswept wings were carried out in tiles that covered the entire wall of the room. A cheerful fire leaped and crackled on the hearth. It was an astonishingly cheerful-looking dragon. Quite friendly, in fact. More like a winged cat with scales than a dragon; the artist had managed to convey the impression that this dragon not only did not mind that its belly was being used to warm the room, but positively welcomed the idea.

At the opposite end of the room, a fountain played. A column of water bubbled high into the air, falling back into itself and down into its catch-basin. There were glittering motes of color caught within the water; coming closer and inspecting it, Kellen realized they were tiny shapes of colored glass, but they were moving too fast for him to be able to tell quite what they were meant to represent …

“I see that the fire-and-water room pleases you,” Ashaniel observed from behind him.

Kellen turned around. While he’d been studying the fountain, Ashaniel had entered the room, Morusil with her. A servant entered behind them, bringing a wheeled cart with tea-things.

“Yes, it does. Very much,” Kellen answered honestly. Looking around—now that he was not so thoroughly distracted by the fountain—he could see that the end of the room with the dragon fireplace was decorated in reds and oranges and fire motifs, while the other end, where the fountain was, ran to greens and violets, and the walls were covered, not with tiles, but with seashells in every shape and size. It should have looked garish or busy, but somehow it managed to be a harmonious whole.

“And Morusil,” he said, bowing. “I am happy to see you again.”

“And I to see you, and to have the opportunity to thank you for bringing me such an eager student,” Morusil replied.

“I am glad that Vestakia has found a friend in you,” Kellen said, as sincerely as he could manage. “Your wisdom inspires her, and your encouragement heartens her.”

“It is always a privilege to hear the words of the young,” Morusil said. “But you will have come to visit with Ashaniel, and I do not wish to intrude.”

“I don’t wish to interfere with your plans, but I would welcome your company as well,” Kellen said hopefully.

“Then we shall all take tea,” Ashaniel said decisively.

They settled themselves around the fire, and the servant set out the teapot, the cups, and a plate of assorted cakes on a small table between them. When she had left, Ashaniel and Morusil began discussing the weather, and the prospects for the Winter Running Dance, which would be held on the first Full Moon after the first snowfall, which was expected any day now.

“Perhaps you will not wish to participate in the Dance, young Kellen—not everyone does, you know—but it is quite beautiful, and few humans have seen it,” Morusil said.

“I am quite certain it is worthy of seeing,” Kellen agreed politely. Elves do not rush, he reminded himself. And it would be nice to finally know what a “Winter Running Dance” was, since people had been mentioning it, one way and another, since he’d gotten here.

“But though we find your company agreeable, of course, and it has been too long since you visited the House of Leaf and Star, I think perhaps you did not come to talk upon these subjects,” Ashaniel said with a teasing smile.

Kellen found himself smiling in return, half-dazzled, as always, by her beauty. “I am afraid I’ve come for something else, and perhaps to raise a subject that you will find tiresome, for I have probably spoken of it far too much for your comfort.”

Morusil and Ashaniel exchanged a look, one that Kellen was unable to interpret.

“It is to be hoped that you will always feel free to speak your heart here in the House of Leaf and Star,” Morusil said, after a pause. “Even if the ways of humans are not our ways, there is often much wisdom to be gained from listening to the words of those who are unlike ourselves.”

The two Elves regarded Kellen expectantly.

Kellen took a deep breath, trying to get everything he was about to say organized in his mind.

“I know I’m not going to get this all right, but … at the Council meeting, I know you really didn’t want to send someone to tell Armethalieh about the—the Enemy. Because, well, you didn’t think it would do any good. And you thought it might make matters worse. And you might be right. But, well, what if—I mean, that might not be true. And they need to know. They hate De—the Enemy there. Really, they do! The reason I was cast out was that they believe that the Wildmages are allied with—the other side. If they knew the Enemy were active again, they might not help us—they probably wouldn’t—but they’d at least protect themselves. And that’s important, too. So is there—Maybe there’s some way to get a message to Armethalieh that they’d listen to. Because I think it’s important to try, at least.” He swallowed, his mouth gone dry despite his tea, feeling as if he must have sounded as clumsy as an untutored bumpkin. “And I think we ought to try as soon as possible; I can’t tell you why I feel this way, because I don’t know, and even though I’ve tried scrying, it hasn’t told me anything. But I still do. That’s all.”

Kellen sat back in his seat, trying not to look as agitated and anxious as he felt. Some diplomat he turned out to be!

But maybe he hadn’t been as persuasive as he could have been? Maybe, secretly, he didn’t want Armethalieh to be warned, because he still resented the Golden City, but he wanted to be able to say—assuming anyone ever asked—that he’d done everything he could to save it.

Maybe he should go himself. Or try to. Perhaps with a suitable disguise …

“I think perhaps that you are right, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Ashaniel said after a very long pause. “Perhaps we have been overhasty in dismissing the threat the Enemy poses in human lands. Certainly a timely word of warning would not go amiss, could the Golden City be persuaded to accept it. Yet the selection of a proper envoy is a delicate matter.”

“I would say that it must be either Bevar or Hyandur,” Morusil said consideringly. “Both have been to the Golden City in the past—though not for many years, of course—and both are familiar with the ways of humans. I shall speak to each of them within the moonturn to see if he is willing to go. I believe that one of them will be, and if he is, he will leave before the heavy snows. Rest assured, young Kellen, warning of the Enemy’s intentions will be carried to the human city in a timely fashion, though whether it may be successfully delivered is something which only the Gods Themselves may say.”

“Thank you both,” Kellen said feelingly. “I know it doesn’t seem like a very important matter to you—”

Ashaniel raised her hand, silencing him.

“In the tapestry of the weaving of the Gods of Leaf and Star, none who are living may see the whole pattern and know its completion,” Ashaniel said gently. “Perhaps the threads of your spinning are as important as the rest.”

Perhaps so. Kellen only hoped the Gods thought so—and that they could make someone in Armethalieh listen to whoever Ashaniel and Morusil sent.

ABOUT a sennight and a half after the caravan left, the first snowfall came to Sentarshadeen, and a few days after he went to the House of Leaf and Star, Kellen awoke to find Sentarshadeen transformed once more. Snow had begun to fall during the night, making the whole city silent and white. As a result, he slept later than usual, only to be awakened by a messenger from the House of Sword and Shield, who had come to tell him that Master Belesharon had decreed that there would be no classes today, so that all could honor the first fall of snow.

Kellen stood in the doorway, wrapped in his house robe, watching the messenger leave. He stared up at the sky, then looked away quickly, blinking and shaking his head.

Snow was dusty. And cold.

He brushed his face clean and stepped back inside, closing the door and frowning suspiciously.

Idalia had described snow, of course. It was fluffy frozen water that fell from the sky in winter whenever it felt like it. But they’d barely had rain in the City, and the only snow Kellen had ever seen was either already on the ground in the City parks—since the Mages in charge of the weather made sure it fell only on the parks, and only at night—or sold in the City markets in Preservation-spelled containers. It had not been coming down from the sky as if it would fall forever.

He wasn’t sure he liked it.

“Was there someone at the door?” Idalia slid open the door of her sleeping room and poked her head out, her sleeping-braids hanging loose about her face. “It’s snowing,” she added unnecessarily.

“Vinshan came to tell me that there are no classes today. We’re to honor the snow,” Kellen said, hoping he didn’t sound too grumpy about it. He didn’t know why, but the snow made him feel uneasy. As if there were something bad about it.

“Then I guess you should do that. At least it will be warmer now that it’s started snowing,” Idalia said, which certainly didn’t make any sense.

She retreated back into her room and came out a few moments later, her braids secured on top of her head with a few bone pins, and wrapped in her favorite winter house robe. She moved immediately to the stove and began building up the fire.

Kellen went over to the window and stared gloomily out at the snow. It sifted down steadily, making everything white. Even the pines in the forest opposite had turned a pale silvery grey. The only spot of color in the landscape was the surface of the swiftly-moving river below.

“Will you stop pacing, please?” Idalia said a few minutes later. “You’re acting like a caged bear.”

Kellen came to himself with a start, realizing he’d been doing exactly that.

“The tea’s ready. Go get dressed. Have something to eat. Maybe that will settle you down.”

Sheepishly, Kellen retreated to his room, dressing in warm working clothes, a half-formed notion brewing in his mind. Master Belesharon had said it would be safe to ride again once the snow had started, after all. And Vinshan hadn’t said Kellen couldn’t go down to the House of Sword and Shield, only that there were going to be no lessons today. Maybe a workout with Deyishene was just what he needed to take the fidgets out. And that would be honoring the snow, wouldn’t it?

He came back out and accepted a cup of tea from Idalia, but when she offered him the plate of breakfast pastries, Kellen found that he wasn’t really hungry. He tucked a couple of the dried fruit ones into his pockets for later—if he didn’t want them, Deyishene would relish the treat.

“Are you feeling all right?” Idalia asked, sounding worried.

“I’m fine,” Kellen said, forcing himself to sound as if her question didn’t make him want to scream. “It’s just … well, snow takes some getting used to, you know. It doesn’t seem natural; maybe that’s what’s getting on my nerves.”

Idalia smiled. “I keep forgetting you haven’t seen very much wild weather. And the snow’s going to be especially heavy this winter because the weather patterns are still settling back to normal. But you’ll soon get used to it. And it’s quite beautiful really.”

“And warmer,” Kellen said sardonically.

“Warmer than bright clear days where everything’s covered in ice. Really. You’ll see,” Idalia said. “Not a lot warmer, I’ll grant you that, but even a little can seem like a lot in winter. And snow is easier to walk in—and over—than ice. Now that it’s finally come, we can trade our sabatons for snowshoes, and the going will be a lot easier.”

“If you say so,” Kellen said doubtfully. He set down his empty teacup. “I think I’ll get going.” He rubbed his head.

“Headache?” Idalia asked.

“Not really. Everything just feels … tight. I’ll feel better with a little fresh air and exercise.”

But the feeling didn’t go away on the walk down to the stables, and by the time Kellen reached them, he felt definitely unsettled. It wasn’t anything like the feeling he’d had when he’d faced the Endarkened Barrier—nothing in the world could compare to that!—but it was almost like remembering that feeling. He felt touchy and out-of-sorts, and was glad there was no one around to see him but the horses. The stable was fuller than he’d ever seen it, with a number of the animals having come in to seek shelter from the snow. An equal number, of course, were reveling in it, romping and rolling in the icy stuff, kicking up great plumes of white. All of them were in full winter coat by now, their heavy coats making them look round and shaggy, not at all the sleek gleaming creatures they were at high summer.

Deyishene was glad to see him, of course, but the Elven mare seemed to catch some of his mood as soon as Kellen put his hands on her. Though she’d let him groom her, and was happy to eat both his breakfast pastries, every time he tried to put a saddle on her back she made it clear in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t having any, and at last he gave up. Not only the weather, but his lady was playing him false today.

When he finally put the tack away, she followed him to the tack room, nuzzling at his neck and shoulder as if to try to apologize for something she couldn’t explain. Kellen patted her shoulder resignedly.

“Never mind, Deyishene. I guess I’m just not having any luck today. I’d better go find some place quiet to drown myself,” he said with a halfhearted grin. “That is, if I don’t have to break the ice to do it!” Someplace where I won’t make . trouble for myself that I just have to clean up later when I’m feeling better.

The unicorn meadow and the Flower Forest beyond was the obvious destination. If he was lucky, he might run into Shalkan, who might be able to talk him out of this peculiar mood, or at least provide a counter-irritant—since Shalkan could be very irritating when he tried. And the Flower Forest was beautiful enough to make anyone feel better, and it was always warm in there.

Maybe he just missed Sandalon more than he thought he would. Even though sending the Elven children to the Crowned Horns had been a sensible decision, their leaving had cast a pall over all of Sentarshadeen.

Yes, the unicorn meadow was a good choice. But he needed to stop at home first—for a dry cloak and boots, a cup of tea, and to see if there was anything in the pantry that might serve as unicorn-bribes. If he was lucky, Idalia might be out (honoring the snow herself, he had no doubt) and he wouldn’t inflict his sour mood on her.

But when he got home, not only was Idalia there, Vestakia was with her.

IDALIA had been relieved to see Kellen leave that morning. He was radiating distress like a beacon—finally strong enough to notice it himself, though Idalia had known there was something not-quite-right for a sennight.

But that wasn’t really it. It wasn’t that something was not-quite-right. It was that Kellen felt there was something not-quite-right, and that even he didn’t feel it strongly enough to notice it consciously. She only sensed him sensing it because she knew him so well. And finally it was starting to come toward the surface of his conscious attention.

She didn’t want to say anything, lest she disrupt the fragile process of his magic—assuming it was Knight-Magery at work, and not just growing pains—and cause him to lose the intuition completely. So she kept quiet, although if there were going to be many more days like today, she might just settle for burying him in the nearest snowbank and see if he’d figured the matter out by spring thaw.

She’d spent a soothing and solitary morning preparing a batch of Drawing Salve—a similar sort to the one Jermayan had used on Kellen’s hands, and a delicate process because many of the herbs and oils involved were poisonous in the wrong quantities—and was just preparing to charge it when there was a knock at the door.

She opened the door to find Vestakia standing there, bundled in a violet and mulberry cloak crusted with snow, looking as bedraggled and woebegone as a half-drowned kitten.

“Vestakia!” Idalia said, surprised. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Vestakia burst out, sounding frustrated, irritable, and apologetic all at the same time. “I just … I … there’s just something not right, is all, I didn’t want to be alone, and I wasn’t quite sure where else to go.”

“Well, come in and have some tea. You look half-frozen. And tell me what seems to be the problem,” Idalia said, resigning herself to the fact that no more work would get done today. But friends came first, and the poor child looked half out of her mind with worry.

“It isn’t—the Enemy,” Vestakia said immediately, stepping inside and hanging up her cloak to dry. “You know I would have warned everyone if I’d felt anything like that. I just woke up with the worst headache, and nothing I can do will make it go away! I even tried snowpacks, the way I did in the mountains. I was hoping there was something you could do to help?”

“Perhaps a little willowbark syrup?” Idalia suggested.

“But I tried that!” Vestakia cried pettishly. “Nothing works. I just feel as if I’m about to fly into a thousand pieces.”

“Well come and sit down and have a cup of tea. I’ll see if I can make something up that will help,” Idalia said soothingly.

Now this was puzzling. First Kellen, now Vestakia—and Vestakia was normally the most well grounded of people, with no particular magical Gift, other than her ability to sense the nearness of Demons or strong Demonic Taint. Yet Idalia felt nothing at all.

Vestakia said that her headache had nothing to do with Demonic activity, and she should know if anyone did, yet if willowbark syrup hadn’t had any effect on it, Idalia hesitated to offer her anything stronger. Still, a little something to calm her nerves wouldn’t come amiss, and do no harm. While the tea was brewing, she went to her shelf of tinctures and syrups—it was much easier to work with a number of medicinal herbs when they had been refined this way—took down an Elvenware cup from the shelf, and prepared a quick mixture, including a healthy dose of strong syrup of chamomile. She diluted it with a measure of white brandy, and stirred it thoroughly, then brought it over to Vestakia.

“Here. Drink this. It should help.”

Vestakia took a deep breath and gulped it down quickly—herbal medicines were not noted for tasting good. She choked only slightly, and took a deep breath afterward. “Thank you. I hate to be so much trouble—”

Idalia smiled. “Oh, don’t be silly! It’s a positive relief to have someone come in and ask me straight out for what they want, for a change, you know. I do love the Elves, but even when they think they’re being direct, every conversation always starts with half an hour’s prattle about clothing and the weather—the weather is obvious, and I’m not that interested in clothes, you know!”

She was relieved to see that she’d won a faint smile from Vestakia. Though it was impossible to tell whether Vestakia was looking pale—since her skin was always a deep cherryred—Idalia could tell that the lines of tension were starting to fade from around her eyes and mouth, though the girl was still very keyed-up. “And now, I think the tea is ready.” They were just finishing their first cup—Idalia had had little success in getting any more information out of Vestakia about her unsettled condition—when Kellen showed up again.

If anything, he looked even more rattled than when he’d left several hours before. He’d obviously been out in the snow for most of that time, because his cloak and boots were crusted heavily with snow in the process of turning to ice. He looked sheepish and disgruntled, and not very pleased to find people there.

“Oh … hi,” he said ungraciously.

“Hi yourself,” Idalia said. “You look like a soggy, half-frozen snow-rat. Go change into some dry things, then come say hello to Vestakia. She’s got the same headache you have.”

Kellen looked rather thunderstruck by the idea that he had a headache at all, but meekly went and did as he was bidden. He went off to his room, coming back a few minutes later in fresh clothes, his other cloak bundled under his arm. He managed to smile at both of them, though Idalia could see he was making a real effort to do so.

“I’m not really fit company for anyone today—human or otherwise, so Deyishene tells me—so I thought I’d take a walk up to the unicorn meadow and let Shalkan tell me off. I thought I’d stop back here and see if I could find any suitable bribes, first, though.”

“As luck would have it, I have a few things,” Idalia said, smiling, “though with the drought, the sugaring certainly isn’t what it ought to be this year. Have some tea while I make you up a package. Have you eaten?”

Kellen winced, shaking his head. “I’ll eat later.” He poured himself a large mug of tea, though, and dropped in several of the crystallized honey-disks that were the usual form of sweetening.

“Why don’t you take Vestakia with you?” Idalia said suddenly. “I’m sure she’d like to see Shalkan again.” And if the source of Vestakia’s unease was the same as Kellen’s, maybe throwing the two of them together would bring it to light more quickly.

She saw Kellen frown, then his face abruptly cleared as if the notion suddenly struck him as a good one as well.

“Oh, no,” Vestakia said quickly. “You said you wanted to be alone—”

“I said I was horrible company,” Kellen corrected her. “If you don’t mind that, you’re more than welcome to come along—if you don’t mind a hike through a blizzard. And maybe Shalkan won’t beat me up as much if he has an audience, though I doubt it.”

“Blizzard!” Vestakia scoffed. “This little bit of snow? In the Lost Lands, we call this autumn! I’d love to go with you, if you don’t mind.”

“Then it’s settled,” Idalia said quickly. “Only you’d better take my cloak, Vestakia. I don’t think yours is dry yet. I’ll spread it out in front of the stove while you’re gone, and it should be dry by the time you get back.”

KELLEN found he was actually glad of Vestakia’s company as they walked through Sentarshadeen in the direction of the unicorn meadow.

Everyone seemed to be taking a holiday from their regular tasks today. Kellen saw a number of Elves with brooms out in front of their houses, sweeping the paths clear of snow—a fruitless task, it seemed to him, as the stuff was still falling. Larger, horse-drawn brooms were going through the streets, making sure that only an inch or two of snow stayed atop the ice. Everyone worked to clear the snow away, but—this being Sentarshadeen—it was not simply being left in piles at the edges of the road. Certainly not. Everywhere there was space and raw material, fantastic shapes were rising—half sculpture, half structure—so that a second city, marmoreal and evanescent, seemed to be rising in the interstices of the true Sentarshadeen. Kellen and Vestakia moved slowly through the streets, admiring the display. It was strange and beautiful, and it made him feel better than he had all morning.

“I just hate all this waiting,” he said to Vestakia, as they reached the edge of the city and left the snow sculptures behind. “I know that it isn’t really waiting—I’m training to be a Knight, and learning so much I need to know—but at the same time, we’re all just waiting to see what They’re going to do next, and that just doesn’t feel right. When I think about it too much, it starts to drive me crazy. But it’s not that I want there to be a war …”

“I know,” Vestakia said mournfully. “It’s stupid, but I keep having this horrible feeling that something’s happening—or has happened—that I ought to know about, that I just can’t sense. But I wouldn’t be able to sense it, would I, unless it was Them, or Their magic, and that can’t happen anywhere near here, can it?”

“So Andoreniel and Ashaniel say,” Kellen said broodingly, his dark mood returning full force. “But they didn’t know about the Barrier, either, until Idalia found it. So I just don’t know. You didn’t always have the ability to sense Them. Maybe you’re developing new abilities now.”

“Oh, I hope not!” Vestakia burst out feelingly. “Not if it means I’m going to be sick all the time and not know why!” She rubbed her head and heaved a deep sigh.

“Well, maybe Shalkan will be able to give you some good advice. Look, there’s Songmairie. He should be around here somewhere. We’ll just—”

But suddenly Vestakia sank to her knees, groaning. She pointed wordlessly off in the direction of the hills, shaking her head in pain.

Kellen didn’t stop to question. He drew his sword—he wore it everywhere these days as a matter of habit—and took off running in the direction she’d pointed.

The snow gave him good traction. It was deep, but not so deep that it slowed him down very much—not a Knight who had survived the worst Master Belesharon had managed to throw at him so far. As he ran, he summoned up his spell-sight. The world shifted subtly. He could see exactly where he must go, though he couldn’t see his destination yet. His magic lent strength and speed to his muscles, and Kellen fled over the snow with the speed of a running hare.

He topped the rise that led to the road out of Sentarshadeen and stopped, his battle-trance broken by the sight he saw before him.

The snow was dappled with blood. Lying in the snow was a unicorn mare. Her fur had been white once. Now it was streaked with blood, some old and brown, some red and fresh. All hers. Kneeling beside her were an Elven border guard and his unicorn mount. The fallen unicorn’s ribs heaved as she gasped for breath.

Kellen ran down to join them.

“Get Idalia. Now!” he ordered.

The Elf stared at him for a moment in shock, as if he could not imagine where Kellen had sprung from, then swayed to his feet—almost ungracefully—and mounted his unicorn. The two of them sprang off in the direction of Sentarshadeen.

Kellen knelt down beside the fallen unicorn, set his sword within easy reach, and gently eased her head into his lap. “Easy, girl, easy,” he said soothingly. “Help is coming.”

He only hoped she could hear him. He wished he could heal her himself, but healing didn’t come easily to him—not like it did to Idalia. He needed herbs and tools that he didn’t have with him to summon that particular aspect of the Wild Magic.

Her body was painfully thin and wasted, as if she hadn’t eaten for days, and there were deep claw marks covering her shoulders and haunches. Kellen wasn’t sure what kind of animal could leave those marks. Maybe a bear? But bears should all be asleep at this season, and most animals in Nature wouldn’t attack a unicorn to begin with. At least her horn was intact.

Shalkan arrived, leaning down to nuzzle gently at her face. The unicorn whimpered painfully, but did not open her eyes.

“Hush, darling, hush,” Shalkan said, in a voice unlike any Kellen had ever heard him use before. “It will be better soon. I promise.”

“I sent for Idalia,” Kellen said.

“Yes,” Shalkan said. “I passed Sharmet on the way into the city.” He seemed to gather himself to impart bad news, and gazed steadily into Kellen’s eyes. “Her name is “Calmeren. She was with the party sent to the Crowned Horns with Sandalon.”

Kellen had the sense, all at once, of a pattern. No, more than a pattern, a picture, or perhaps a diagram, or—well, whatever it was, he knew, he knew what this meant, and why he’d been feeling ready to kill something and why Vestakia was feeling the same way! It formed like a crystal exploding into place around him, all of its lattice forming a whole he could, at long last, read.

“They were attacked by the Enemy,” Kellen said. “Vestakia sensed it somehow. She was feeling awful today, and when Calmeren got close enough, she got sick.”

“Taint,” Shalkan said calmly. “It will be gone once Calmeren’s been healed.”

The two of them stayed with the wounded unicorn, Kellen gently brushing snow from her head. Others of the herd arrived, forming a protective circle around them, all gazing down at Calmeren in worried silence. It seemed a very long time until Idalia arrived, though Kellen knew she would have come as fast as she could.

She arrived on horseback, Sharmet and his rider running ahead. Idalia rode one of the horses that Kellen had seen plowing the city streets—obviously the quickest form of transportation she could grab. The unicorns scattered as she approached, bunching up into a small herd several yards distant.

“See if you can get her to drink this,” Idalia said, handing Kellen a waterskin. “And you,” she said to Sharmet’s rider, “go and see if Vestakia’s all right. She’s back by the spring.”

Kellen gently eased Calmeren’s mouth open and squeezed some of the contents of the waterskin onto her tongue as Idalia began to unpack her equipment. Even in the cold, he could smell a green minty scent. It wasn’t just water, then.

Calmeren swallowed convulsively as the liquid trickled over her tongue, and then began to suck greedily at the waterskin. Her eyelids flickered, but she still didn’t rouse.

Kellen smelled a whiff of burning as Idalia called the charcoal to light. She handed Kellen a large pot of salve.

“Put this on her injuries, but don’t try to turn her. Just slop it on. It’s sovereign for Taint, and will make it easier to heal her.”

Kellen pulled off his gauntlets and scooped up large handfuls of the stuff. It was a bright violet color, and even in the cold it was as thin and drippy as honey. He wiped it on as gently as he could—Calmeren seemed to sigh with relief as soon as it touched her—emptying the jar, and then scrubbed his hands clean in the snow.

By then, Idalia was ready to begin. “Who will share the price of this healing?” she asked.

“We will—all of us.” A black unicorn mare, who seemed to be the little group’s leader, stepped forward and spoke.

Shalkan shook his head mutely, stepping back from Calmeren. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, so low that only Kellen could hear.

“Me, too. I’ll share.” Kellen said. If Shalkan couldn’t help Calmeren—he didn’t understand but this was no time to ask questions—he’d take his friend’s place.

“That should be more than enough to make this easy,” Idalia said. She handed Kellen a knife, and at her direction, he gathered strands of hair from each of the waiting unicorns’ manes, then presented the bundle to Idalia. She reached out and cut a few blood-soaked hairs from Calmeren’s mane, added a few strands of her own hair, and pricked her finger to add her own blood to the mix, then tossed the little knot of hair onto the brazier.

Once again, Kellen felt the sheltering weight of Presence reach out to enfold them all—him, Idalia, Calmeren, all the other unicorns except Shalkan. But this time, there was a difference. Calmeren’s body sizzled and smoked when the protective dome came down over it, as if there were something about her that could not survive within it. A dark oily smoke seemed to rise out of her coat, and especially out of her wounds. In a few moments, it was gone. Kellen felt lightheaded, as if there had been a cost to do that much. But Calmeren’s wounds still remained, stark and ugly against her matted fur.

“Now I can begin,” Idalia said. She reached her hands out and held them over the unicorn, and green fire spilled out of them like water, striking the unicorn’s coat and making it glow as if Calmeren were filled with the sun.

In a few moments—Kellen was always surprised at how quickly something so miraculous could run its course—Calmeren’s wounds were healed. It was as if they simply melted away, sinking back beneath the surface of her coat as the flesh knitted together, though the salve and the streaks and clots of blood remained, matting the white fur.

Kellen didn’t hear the Mageprice that the Powers asked of Idalia, of course—that was between her and her magic, though she might tell him if she chose. Whatever it was, he hoped it was something small and easy to pay; she was doing so much for Sentarshadeen these days that it hardly seemed fair that much more should be asked of her.

Kellen felt the protective shield disperse and the Presence depart once the healing Spell had run its course. Idalia was already dousing the brazier, scattering the coals in the snow, and packing her things away in her bag, then moving back, because her nearness would be uncomfortable for Calmeren and the rest of the herd.

“Is she going to be all right?” Vestakia asked, coming up behind Kellen. Her cloak was covered in snow where she’d fallen to the ground, but the pain in her voice was gone.

“Yes … now,” Kellen said. “Idalia healed her”

The unicorn mare was already struggling toward consciousness. She opened her eyes—they were as green as Shalkan’s—and gazed wildly around, breathing a shaky snort of relief at the sight of the unicorns.

“Home!” she gasped. She rolled onto her stomach, trying to get her legs under her to stand, but was obviously still very weak. Kellen and Vestakia hurried over to her, lifting and steadying her. She leaned heavily against Kellen, and he could feel that she was nothing more than skin and bones.

“Thank you,” Calmeren said huskily. “I must see Andoreniel and Ashaniel at once! Coldwarg—others I have no name for—they attacked us within sight of the Crowned Horns. They carried off the children. All the rest are dead.” Her head drooped in despair.

Ciradhel? Naeret? Dainelel? Emessade? Kayir? He’d trained with all of them in the House of Sword and Shield. Naeret had taught him xaqiue. Ciradhel had helped to teach him to ride. He’d practiced with Dainelel a hundred times. They’d all gone with the convoy.

And Calmeren said they were all dead, killed by Shadow Mountain.

“I fought and fought—but they took the children and killed the rest. All the rest—all gone—all gone.” Her head hung down to her knees, and her sides heaved. Unicorns couldn’t weep, or at least, if they could, Kellen had never seen it happen, but the sorrow and despair in her voice was enough to bring tears to his eyes. “There was nothing I could do.”

“You brought us warning,” Shalkan said quietly. “That is a very great deal.”

“I should have known!” Vestakia burst out. “I should have known that was why I felt so strange!”

“We should all have known that They wouldn’t just leave us in peace,” Kellen said bitterly. “But we didn’t.”

“Do you think you can walk as far as the House of Leaf and Star?” Idalia asked. “I’ve healed you, but you’re still very weak. You’ll need rest, and care, and food.”

But the unicorn’s head came up again at that. “I have to go back,” Calmeren said, sounding frantic. “I have to save the children!”

“No,” Kellen said, his voice hard. “You have done your duty, and more than your duty, Calmeren. You aren’t strong enough, even healed; now your duty is to pass the task on to someone else. You only have to tell me where to go. I’ll save. them. That’s my job.”

LESS than an hour later, the Elven Council had gathered again. This time Vestakia was present as well, so that they could hear what she could tell them about what she had sensed that morning.

On the way to the House of Leaf and Star, Kellen had heard the rest of what Calmeren had to tell him.

“Not the Enemy—” Calmeren shuddered. “And not Elves. But enemies!” She shook her head so hard she staggered, and Shalkan, walking beside her, leaned into her to steady her.

She’d managed to slip away as the hooded ones moved among the wounded Knights and unicorns, finishing off any who still lived. She knew—she knew that she was only one wounded unicorn, and that to stay would be to die, but to run would be to bring help. So she had run, as hard as she could, stopping for nothing, back along her trail to bring warning to Sentarshadeen. Along the way, she’d seen the slain bodies of the rest of her friends—every Knight, every servant, every destrier that had ridden out from Sentarshadeen a fortnight ago was dead.

“But they did not die alone,” Calmeren said with grim satisfaction. “They were able to take some of their attackers with them, and so I could see what else had been hunting us. Ice-trolls and frost-giants. A small war-band, but enough.”

“Both creatures of the Dark, long-time allies of Shadow Mountain,” Shalkan said.

“And they knew exactly where to strike, and when,” Kellen said. “And how to sneak right up on the caravan without being seen. How?”

“With help,” Shalkan answered. “The question is … whose?”

NOW Kellen stood before the Elven Council and told them everything that Calmeren had told him.

“Calmeren said they were careful to take Sandalon and the other children alive,” he finished. “That isn’t good, but it’s better than it could be. It means we have a chance of getting them back. First, we need to find them, and I think we have a way of doing that.”

“Tell us,” Andoreniel said simply.

“Vestakia can track them. You know she can sense when They are nearby, or when They’re working strong magic.” He glanced at Vestakia.

She bowed her head a little. “Yes. I could sense the presence of the Demontaint on Calmeren when she came close enough—I think my powers are growing stronger. If there is Demontaint near the Crowned Horns, I should be able to follow the trail it leaves.” She brought her head up again, and now her eyes shone with tears, and with anger, as well as justifiable fear. “I will gladly do all I can to rescue the children.”

Kellen patted her shoulder, knowing what those brave words had cost her. If Vestakia fell into Demonic clutches, her fate would be too terrible to contemplate.

“While of course we all appreciate Vestakia’s kind offer in the light in which it has been extended,” Councilor Sorvare said, “it might be in the best interests of the children to consider matters carefully at this delicate pass. Certainly, as no one will deny, our ancient Enemy seeks to weaken us by striking at our most vulnerable point. We must analyze the situation carefully from all possible aspects before moving forward, lest we overlook an avenue of possible threat.”

Kellen wasn’t sure what Sorvare was getting at, but from the looks on Andoreniel’s and Ashaniel’s faces, they’d had no trouble at all unraveling his little speech.

“I say again—and for the last time—that I repose all trust in Vestakia,” Andoreniel said, an edge of true anger in his voice. “She is a citizen of Sentarshadeen, as much as any of us here, and gladly and willingly do I place the life of my son in her hands.”

Oh. Oh. Now that he’d had it translated for him, Kellen felt angry as well. Sorvare had as good as called Vestakia a traitor, saying she’d probably lead the rest of them into a Demon-trap.

“There is going to be a rescue party,” Kellen said, cutting off Dargainon as he began to speak. “And you might as well resign yourselves to the fact that it is going whether or not you like it; debate all you want in our absence, but we are going, and going now. I am not going to leave the children in Enemy hands for a single moment longer than it takes to reach them. Idalia, Jermayan, Shalkan, Vestakia, and I have already agreed. You can send anyone else you like, but it leaves at first light tomorrow morning, and anyone who goes had better be able to keep up.”

“I would say that you handed some of the Counsellors a rather stinging rebuke,” Idalia said, sounding surprisingly calm, as the three of them walked back toward the house a little while later. “I think you shocked them.”

“How could he say something like that about Vestakia?” Kellen burst out.

“It’s all right,” Vestakia said. “I do know what I look like, Kellen.”

“It’s the Council’s business to be cautious,” Idalia added. “Not just to agree with everything Andoreniel and Ashaniel want to do.”

“But not to be idiots,” Kellen countered angrily. “For the Light’s sake, Idalia, the Enemy has the children! And one of them is Sandalon! How could they stand there and even think about debating when every moment that passes could mean—”

“Well, you won,” Idalia said, “and I don’t think half the Council will ever get over the shock.” Now she smiled, though grimly. “That’s the price of having Wildmages around, and I think that they’d forgotten that. Now, Vestakia and I both have a lot of packing to do before morning—and shouldn’t you get over to the House of Sword and Shield and see what knights you want to take with you for tomorrow?”

“Me?” Kellen said, stopping and staring at her in confusion.

“You,” Idalia said, giving him a little push in the right direction. “You’re the only Knight-Mage we’ve got—and unless I’m very much mistaken, you’ve just appointed yourself the leader of this rescue party.”

THE cellar was damp and cold, located at the edge of the Low Quarter of Armethalieh. It was, however, well lit. Balls of Mage-light hovered near the ceiling, illuminating every corner with a spectral azure glow.

Before he’d become an Entered Apprentice, Cilarnen would not have been able to imagine that such a place could exist. That he had come to enter it at all, however, had little to do with that, and much to do with his new friend, Master Raellan.

In Master Raellan, Cilarnen had found an ally and confidant who did much to fill the aching void left by his father’s continuing displeasure. Master Raellan shared Cilarnen’s love for the City—and more, his fear that all was not as it should be.

Now that his eyes had been opened, Cilarnen could see the signs. Oh, not everywhere. There was no change in the lives of the Mageborn. But among the people they served, there were subtle indications everywhere he looked. Not of unrest, of course. But of confusion. All was not as it had always been in the Golden City, and the change was not for the better.

Despite the best efforts of the Provenders Councils, prices were rising, and wages were not rising to match. Some foodstuffs had simply disappeared from the regular markets. And all because the High Council—pushed by Lord Volpiril—had removed Armethaliehan protection from the Home Farms. So far as Cilarnen knew, there was not actual hunger in the City yet, but the day was not far off when there would be. The sellers of small luxuries that did not happen to be edible were looking anxious; when bread cost twice what it had in the summer, people had to stop buying other things to afford it.

Something must be done. And if the High Council would not—or could not—set things right, then the Mageborn themselves must act. For the good of the City.

It was a terrifying thought, one that would have paralyzed him completely without Master Raellan’s support. But Master Raellan seemed to know his thoughts almost before he voiced them. It was Master Raellan who assured him that many of the High Council felt just as he did. They merely needed to be brought to see that it was safe—in fact, vital—that they speak openly. Someone had to be brave enough to make the first move, to begin saying aloud what others only thought Someone young, but known for his good sense and devotion to the City and his duty. Someone charismatic enough to lead.

Someone like Cilarnen …

Thus supported, Cilarnen began making cautious overtures among his fellow Entered Apprentices, to see which—if any of them—might have the wit and the stomach to do more than grumble around a table in the Golden Bells.

Gillain he dismissed at once. The young lord was far too reckless, and could not keep his mouth shut to save his life. Besides, he was notoriously scatterbrained—he’d actually managed to lose his City Talisman on more than one occasion! Viance and Flohan were too timid—while they were more sensible than Gillain, neither of them would be willing to do what it would take to save the City.

He would certainly have despaired had not Master Raellan steered him gently toward a different group of Mageborn.

Jorade Isas was the great-great-grandnephew of the Isas who sat upon the Council.

Geont Pentres was the youngest son of House Pentres, a minor Mageborn House which was distantly allied to the Breulin line, and thus much at odds with the Volpirils at the moment.

Kermis Lalkmair’s family had the rare and odd distinction of never having held a City office or a Council seat. The Lalkmair line produced scholars exclusively, and it was said that Lord Lalkmair would rather Burn the Gift out of one of his sons than see him hold a seat on any of the City Councils.

Tiedor Rolfort was the son of a tradesman. His Gift had appeared early, and he had been fostered with House Arcable. He had repaid the House’s kindness with utter loyalty, and complete devotion to his new class.

Margon Ogregance was the son of High Mage Epalin Ogregance, who oversaw the Merchant’s and Provender’s Council. More than any of the others, he knew exactly what was going on with the City’s food supply, and knew just how bad things were.

“We shall starve by spring,” he said bluntly.

The other five stared at him in shock, unused to such plain speaking.

“Well?” Margon said impatiently. “Isn’t that what you wanted to know? Isn’t that why we’re all here? Jorade—Cilarnen—Tiedor—Kermis—Geont—we didn’t all slip away from our families and hide out in this drafty cellar to take tea.”

“But …” Tiedor began.

“Starve,” Margon repeated flatly. “The Home Farms can’t—or won’t—supply us with what we need at any price. I suspect the answer is that they can’t; without us to control the weather and the pests, they have only enough to feed themselves. The Council has already authorized Father to contract with the Selkens for grain, but that’s not to say it will get here in time. And one can’t depend on foreigners, you know.”

“Besides,” Jorade said slowly, working it out, “to ask them to bring in food—and so much food—that tells them we’re weak, doesn’t it?”

“They’ll attack us, not help us,” Geont said, looking at Cilarnen. “And it’s all your father’s fault.”

“The Peace of the Light be between you,” Kermis said firmly, raising his hand. “If not for Lord Cilarnen, none of us would have the least idea how bad things really were, let alone that there might be something we could do about it.”

“But what?” Tiedor asked.

And that, indeed, was the question.

The six young men looked at each other. Finding one another and daring to meet—and openly criticize the High Mages—had been hard enough, both to imagine and to do. To actually go from words to deeds …

“Master Raellan will know,” Cilarnen said firmly. “We must try to come up with a plan, and I’m sure he will have an idea of how to implement it.”

But though they talked until Second Night Bells rang out, none of them was able to come up with any practical notion of how they might cause the High Council to realize the gravity of the situation, or to avert the danger to Armethalieh that they all saw so clearly. They did manage to agree to meet here again in three days’ time, with Cilarnen to bring Master Raellan if he could.

Chapter Seven

Discord in the City of a Thousand Bells

A GIRLS’ SEWING-CIRCLE would make more efficient conspirators, Anigrel decided, entering the now-deserted cellar a chime later and triggering the spell that would release the stored memory of the boys’ conversation into his consciousness. An evening’s worth of pretty speeches, and not one sensible—or useful, from his point of view—suggestion among them. The young idiots could talk from now until the City walls crumbled around them, and do nothing more treasonous than flout curfew!

That would hardly be enough for Anigrel’s purposes.

With a sigh, he dismissed the globes of Mage-light that the boys had forgetfully left burning. It would hardly do for anyone to wonder why Mageborn had been lurking here. Not just yet, anyway.

And it seemed he would have to take a more active hand in this “conspiracy” than he had first intended. It was just as his late father had said. “If you wanted something done right, you had best do it yourself.”

IN the sennights that followed, Cilarnen found himself split into three people, and none of them got much sleep. There was Cilarnen the dutiful son and student, who attended lectures at the Mage College and ate his meals at House Volpiril. That role was easy to play: he’d been doing it all his life. And if it was harder now, it was only because he now knew there was so much more to Life than he had once thought. But he dutifully went through the motions, studying hard—for the High Magick obsessed him now more than ever—and being all that was polite to the father he saw ever more infrequently.

Then there was Cilarnen the Entered Apprentice, who went about his tasks throughout the City with ears open wide, listening closely for any scrap of gossip or careless word from the Mages he served, for anything he heard might come in useful later. In this role he practiced effacing himself completely. Gone were the lordly airs and mannerisms suitable to a son of House Volpiril; this Cilarnen made himself meek, and humble, and as invisible as the lowliest Entered Apprentice from the lowest-ranked House in all Armethalieh. He was no one of importance. He was only Cilarnen, a pair of hands to be called upon at need, and ignored when not actually being ordered about.

Last of all there was Cilarnen the Conspirator, who had learned a hundred ways of slipping out of House Volpiril by night, of stealing a few chimes here, half-a-bell there, for errands that served the City in ways that would horrify the City if it knew.

But all would come right in the end. He was sure of it.

“ARE you sure this works?” Jorade asked curiously, looking down at the small lump of silvery-grey stone in his palm.

“Of course it works. Haven’t you ever seen umbrastone before? Here, I’ll show you,” Kermis said.

He took the lump of stone from Jorade’s hand and set it down on the table. “Who’s got a lantern?”

Several of them did—the back streets were dark at night, and it wouldn’t do to advertise their Mageborn status by walking the streets lit by balls of Mage-light, after all. Margon produced his, and Kermis set it on the table beside the lump of umbrastone.

“Now light it. A Fire Spell’s simple, right?”

Jorade simply glared at him. The spell to summon fire was the first one every student of the High Magick learned. He concentrated on the lantern.

Nothing happened.

“You’ve warded it,” he accused.

“I swear by the Light—I haven’t,” Kermis said. “Try any spell you know. It won’t work. Umbrastone eats magic. The only reason the Mage-lights are still glowing is because they were already lit when I brought this piece in. We couldn’t cast them now, and if this were a bigger piece of umbrastone, it would put them out.”

“How much magic can it eat?” Tiedor asked with interest.

“I’m not sure,” Kermis admitted. “A lot. When it gets full, it crumbles away, though. I know that much from the books in my father’s library.”

“So we’ll need a lot more,” Cilarnen said thoughtfully. “For the guards, for the Stone Golems … enough to absorb all the spells the High Council will throw at us.”

“Where are we going to get that much?” Geont demanded. “You’re talking pounds of this stuff, and it took all our allowances together to bribe that Selken to bring in this much!”

“If I might make a suggestion … ?” Master Raellan said.

The boys turned and looked at him hopefully.

“Now that we have a sample to work with—and have proven that it will meet our needs—wouldn’t it just be simpler to make it here? I grant you that it’s a delicate process, and proscribed, of course, but I am not without certain resources myself, and among you, certainly you have the knowledge to oversee the work? Surely the recipe is to be found in one of your fathers’ libraries?”

Anigrel waited with barely-concealed impatience, wondering if he was going to have to bring them the book from Lycaelon’s library himself. He took care to stay well away from the small piece of umbrastone on the table, for if it touched him it would dispell the small glamouries of misdirection that disguised his true self. And even if Rolfort, Isas, Pentres, and Lalkmair weren’t close enough to the seats of power to recognize him, both the Volpiril brat and young Ogregance would certainly recognize Arch-Mage Lycaelon’s so-effacing private secretary.

At last Kermis spoke. “I think I can find it in my father’s library. He never notices when I go in there, or what I do.”

Anigrel breathed a faint inward sigh of relief. Once the manufactory for the umbrastone was in place—well, that was treason, pure and simple. And easy enough to hang High Mage Volpiril himself with it: yes, and any other members of the High Council he chose to implicate …

“How long will it take?” Geont asked. “To make enough, I mean?”

“Does it matter?” Margon answered. “The problem isn’t going to go away. Or get better. White flour’s being rationed in the Market now, and even the Commons are starting to wonder why. Father’s been in meetings every day for the past moonturn, trying to figure out what to do about it. And the only thing possible is to get the Council to reverse its decree, and take the Home Farms back.”

“But why can’t they just see that?” Jorade said miserably.

“The High Council will never reverse itself,” Cilarnen said bitterly. “Not when it means doing so publicly. By now everyone”—he meant, as his listeners knew, all the Magebom—“knows about the decree to draw back the Borders to the City Walls. Lycaelon Tavadon was the only one who voted against the decree. That means that reversing the decree is endorsing the Arch-Mage, so they’ll never do it.”

“So the City suffers … for petty politics,” Kermis said grimly.

“Unless young men like yourselves—who love the City, and who set themselves above such things—will save her,” “Master Raellan” said.

The six young Entered Apprentices regarded each other. What they’d done so far was serious, but if it came to light, they could expect no worse than a severe scolding—at the worst, a censure from the Council. What they were contemplating now, each of them knew, had far graver consequences.

“We’ll meet here again on Light’s Day,” Kermis said. “I should be able to get the book we need by then. We can study it to figure out what materials and equipment we need to buy—or steal.” He looked at Cilarnen.

“If anyone wants to back out, do it now,” Cilarnen warned. “Because once we start making umbrastone … well, there’s no going back.”

“I’m in,” Jorade said.

“You know I am,” Kermis said. “Light blast all politicians.”

“And I,” Tiedor said. “For the City—and the Mages.”

“I know what the stakes are better than any of you,” Margon said. “I won’t back out now.”

“If you’re in, House Volpiril, so am I,” Geont said gruffly. “You’re twice the man your Light-damned father is.”

“Thank you all,” Cilarnen said warmly. “Then we’ll meet back here on the day. And the Light go with you all.”

ALL was proceeding perfectly, Anigrel thought to himself as he walked back toward House Tavadon. He was careful to take a more circuitous route than the boys, for they believed that “Master Raellan” was a younger son of a minor Mage House, and it would not do to have their illusions shattered. He might well wish to play this game again someday soon, with new players.

And what a splendid game it was! Lycaelon would certainly be furious to discover additional plots against him among the Mages, and the foiling of this one would provide him with all the leverage he needed to take back control of the Council from that eternal pest Volpiril.

And to further Anigrel’s ambitions as well …

He reached the Mage Quarter, where no one would think it odd to find Undermage Anigrel upon the streets, even at this late hour, and a wave of his hand dispelled the glamourie, restoring his own natural appearance and that of his clothing. At length he achieved his own—or rather Lord Lycaelon’s—doorstep, passing between the stone mastiffs without incident, and a waiting servant hurried to open the door for him.

“Good evening, Undermage Anigrel,” the butler said, bowing deferentially as he hastened to receive Anigrel’s cloak.

“Good evening. Is the Arch-Mage at home?”

“Arch-Mage Lycaelon is still at the Council House, Undermage Anigrel,” the butler said, bowing again.

“In that case, have a tray with a light supper brought up to my rooms in two chimes. See that I am not disturbed until then.”

Anigrel passed through the panel and ascended the staircase, his immediate thoughts on a hot bath and one of the exquisite meals served up by Lycaelon’s talented cook. Beyond that, there was much to do to ensure that the plot against the High Mages—such as it was—turned out satisfactorily.

For some people, at least.

TO create a measure of umbrastone took approximately three moonturns, once all conditions were right. And for all conditions to be right, as Cilarnen had discovered that Light-day, was one of the reasons that umbrastone was expensive, in addition to being proscribed.

There were a lot of ingredients that went into its manufacture. Some of them were rare and difficult to acquire—certain herbs and flowers—while others, such as gold and sea-pearls, were merely expensive. And some were just peculiar, like fresh chicken eggs. It seemed a lot more like cooking than like any branch of the Art Magickal than Cilarnen had yet studied.

Strangest of all, no spells seemed to be involved at any stage of the stone’s manufacture.

“That’s because this is the Art Khemitic,” Kermis had explained when Cilarnen had questioned him. “It’s Proscribed, of course, but its essential doctrine holds that the objects of the natural world have an elemental nature possessed of innate qualities, which, when combined in specific amounts, can create objects with certain powers.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Geont had said, with a look of distaste.

“It is,” Kermis answered with a thin smile. “There are more warnings in this book than spells. Looks like fun, though, if you don’t mind getting blown up.”

“What do we do after we put all the things together?” Cilarnen had asked, trying to head off what had promised to be a lengthy debate.

“They have to be kept in total darkness at a constant temperature for three moonturns in a sealed container inside a special brazier. The Khemiticists call it an athanor.”

“An athanor?” Margon had said in surprise. “That’s a magickal tool? It’s just an oven. The Baker’s Guild uses them to extract oils from spicebark and finish delicate pastry. I can get one. They’re kind of big, though.”

“How big?” Cilarnen had asked warily.

Margon sketched a shape in the air with his hands.

“Not too bad,” Tiedor said with relief. “My birth-father is a carter. He’ll let me borrow one of the carts and teams, and he won’t ask any questions if I tell him it’s Mage-business. I can drive a cart and team, too.” He regarded the rest of them, a faint smirk on his features, and Cilarnen felt a faint pang of … guilt? Relief?

He’d always looked down on Tiedor—who hadn’t?—because of his Common blood. But it was just that—the fact that he came from the Commons and remembered what he’d learned there—that would make their plan work now.

“That’s good then. And, Tiedor—thank you. I don’t think this would work without you.” He turned to the others. “We seem to have a plan. Margon will get us the athanor, Tiedor will get the cart to transport it here, Kermis will write out the list of materials that we need to make the umbrastone, and we’ll all work on getting them. We can work out the rest of our plan while we’re actually making the umbrastone.”

IT was a good plan—Cilarnen had discovered, over the last several moonturns, that he had a talent for planning—and the first part of it went exactly as he intended. The athanor was acquired, installed, tested, and seasoned—both Margon and Kermis agreed on the necessity for that.

Obtaining the ingredients for the recipe took far more ingenuity, though the six of them were wealthy by any standards but those of the Mageborn.

But finally, almost two moonturns later, they were ready to begin.

It had not been an easy time for Cilarnen. He had the disturbing feeling that his father was watching him more closely than he had for a long time, and the gossip he overheard in his work as an Entered Apprentice was not encouraging. Though the City was protected from inclement weather, the Delfier Valley was not. And outside the City, the autumn storms had been ferociously hard; Cilarnen did not precisely understand the details or the logic, but apparently because of the bad weather, the farmers were withholding the rest of their food, just as Margon had warned would happen.

And what was the Council doing? Engaging in screaming debates (so it was rumored) as to whether—and if so, how—to continue its trade with the High Hills, now that it no longer had a Trading Outpost available in Nerendale. Would the caravans even be willing to come into Armethalieh as they had a generation ago? And if they were, would the Council be willing to allow them in?

Well, they won’t have to. By spring, this will all be settled. I hope, Cilarnen told himself uneasily. He still wasn’t sure what they were going to do once they had the umbrastone. The making of the stuff had turned out to be so complicated that none of them had even begun to discuss the next phase. Deep down in his heart, he just hoped that the Council would see how serious things were, and understand that they had to take the Home Farms back.

Perhaps he was going about this all wrong. Maybe he should just petition for a private audience with the Arch-Mage Lycaelon. It was every Mageborn’s right—a right rarely invoked, but still the law of the City. He could ask the Arch-Mage what to do.

Tonight he’d been the first to arrive at their secret meeting place, and his train of thought was interrupted by the arrival of the others.

“I’ve brought wine,” Geont said. “I think we’ll need it.”

Kermis shuddered faintly. “Well, I’ve brought tea—and decent water.” He flourished a packet and a large flask. “Phastan Silvertip. I hope the pot’s clean.”

“And I’ve brought the mixing bowl,” Jorade said, lifting a huge shallow container of pure gold from beneath his cloak and setting it on the shabby wooden table with a grunt. The rickety table creaked and shifted beneath the weight. “I borrowed it from the family chapel. Nobody will miss it—so long as it’s back before Morning Devotions, of course.”

“It will be,” Kermis said. “And Tiedor?”

“One dozen hen’s eggs, fresh from the hen and this morning’s market,” the young Entered Apprentice said. “The ways of Mages are mysterious,” he added with a grin. “The silly woman had no idea why I’d want to be down in the Fowl Market buying my own eggs. She fluttered as much as one of her own geese!”

“Women!” Cilarnen agreed, dropping his own contribution into the bowl—eight ounces of white roses (heads only). The recipe had specified that they had to be cut precisely at sunrise without the use of metal, so Cilarnen had been unable to simply buy them in the Flower Market. Rather, he’d had to slip out of bed at an unspeakably early hour, make his way across the City to the Park, charm his way into one of the greenhouses with a tale of a youthful dare, and bribe one of the gardeners heavily to allow him to cut them with an ivory letter opener he’d sharpened for the purpose. And hope that nobody—like his father, or his tutors—checked up on his story, because it would be a little awkward to explain.

Though not nearly as awkward as the truth.

The eggs and the roses were the only fresh ingredients. The others they had been able to gather and store here over the last several sennights. As Tiedor carefully broke the eggs into the bowl—they weren’t sure from the recipe whether to break them or not, but as Kermis pointed out, if they didn’t break them, what they would have would be chickens—the others added the rest of the ingredients. Last of all, Kermis added several ounces of fluid—and rather poisonous—quicksilver, and then dropped in the original piece of umbrastone. It would form the raw materials in its own image, making the creation of new umbrastone more certain. It instantly sank to the bottom.

All of them stared down at the golden bowl full of peculiar and unappetizing varicolored slime. The quicksilver floated on the top, eddying around the broken eggshells and the rose-heads. It smelled … odd.

“Well it isn’t going to do anything yet!” Kermis said, sounding irritable and nervous. “Help me pour it into the containment vessel. Then we’ll light the athanor. Then we wait.”

It took four of them to pick up the bowl now that it was full, and it hadn’t been light to start with. The room was dark, lit only by entirely mundane lanterns, for Kermis was worried that any use of the Art Magickal would interfere with the delicate operation of the Art Khemitic. They would be using ordinary wood and coal to heat the oven, which meant that one of them would have to be here every day to make sure it stayed at the proper temperature.

Cilarnen locked eyes with Master Raellan across the lip of the bowl as the four of them lifted it in unison. Master Raellan gave him a small smile of triumph.

“Halt in the name of the High Council!”

Suddenly the cellar blazed bright with Mage-light. Cilarnen heard the clatter of Stone Golem feet on the steps leading down into the cellar. He didn’t know who dropped the bowl first, only that it slipped from his hands to strike the floor with a ringing clang, spattering its noisome contents everywhere.

Spell-fed panic gripped him, and despite the Mage-light glare, it was suddenly hard to see. Cilarnen backed away from the mess on the floor until the wall jarred hard against his back.

“Run!” someone shouted, but there was nowhere to run to. There was only one entrance to the cellar, and it was filled with Stone Golems and grey-clad Journeyman Mages, their wands tracing glowing Glyphs of Containment in the air.

This has all gone terribly wrong. It was a ridiculously understated thing to think, and it was the last conscious thought Cilarnen had before one of the floating glyphs touched his face. It seemed to burst, stealing his senses from him.

ANIGREL watched with grave approval as the Stone Golems carried the last of the unconscious conspirators from the cellar. It had been the work of an instant for Master Raellan to vanish, and Undermage Anigrel, here on the Arch-Mage’s orders, to take his place. And though the children might speak of Master Raellan all they liked, no one would ever be able to locate the fellow, no matter how hard they searched—which would only add to the High Mages’ paranoia once the full extent of this night’s work was disclosed. It would be obvious that the children were merely the spearhead of a conspiracy to destroy the very fabric of life as the City knew it.

At least, it would be once he was through explaining things to Lycaelon.

“THE conspirators have been secured, my lord.”

Anigrel stepped into Lycaelon’s private office in the Council House. Outside, the single carillon of Midnight Bells rang through the night air.

“Good.” A flame of triumph kindled in Lycaelon’s grey eyes. “And their fathers?”

“Remain—so far—in ignorance that their activities have been discovered,” Anigrel said smoothly.

“You feel they were involved as well?” Lycaelon said sharply.

“My lord, how could they not be?” Anigrel said, feigning surprise. “Young men of good families … how could they mount a conspiracy of this magnitude without assistance from their families? Could young Lalkmair have gained access to the information he needed to create umbrastone without his father’s assistance, for example? And I’m sure you will find, when you question them, that there are others involved as well. Assuming their memories have not already been erased by magick to protect their fellow conspirators, of course.” There! That should do much to explain the inconvenient fact that Cilarnen and the others would insist they were alone in their plans.

He watched as Lycaelon contemplated the prospect.

“There must be trials,” he said at last. “There can be no accusations without evidence of guilt. But it is a time for the testing of fealty, Anigrel. Yes, and a time to reward loyalty.”

“Trials, of course,” Anigrel said smoothly, “but you will wish to proceed with the utmost caution, naturally. It seems obvious that this is yet another attempt by the Wildmages to subvert our ranks, for who else would need to weaken our magick in order to replace it with their own? Further, it now seems clear that Lord Volpiril has been involved all along, and that his insistence on reducing the borders of our influence is in fact another aspect of this very conspiracy. He will have to resign his Council seat at the very least—and as for Cilarnen, I imagine the Council will recommend Banishment, don’t you?”

Lycaelon smiled. “Indeed. Banishment for Cilarnen and for the tradesman’s whelp—and that means the re-enlargement of our Borders to make that punishment more than a meaningless reprimand. Volpiril, Isas, and Breulin—at the very least—will lose their Council seats over this night’s work.”

Anigrel merely nodded, and schooled his face into an expression of humility.

“And that leaves vacancies on the Council,” Lycaelon continued. “And I know precisely whom I intend to appoint to one of those places. Oh, it hasn’t been done for centuries, but there is precedent for it. I have the power. I shall raise you, my loyal aide, to the rank of High Mage at once, and you shall take Volpiril’s place, to serve me loyally as he never did.”

Anigrel waited a beat, as if the news had not actually penetrated, then assumed a look of mingled pleasure and surprise. Not shock; shock would be a little too much. “My Lord!” he said, gazing at the Arch-Mage. “I—I hardly know what to say!”

“And I do not think I shall fill the other vacancies at all,” Lycaelon went on, with grim satisfaction. “Let those seats stand empty, rather than being occupied with those who would only become my enemies.”

The next few bells were full of feverish activity; messages sent and received, certain Mageborn notified, certain of them kept in ignorance. And through it all, Anigrel worked quietly at Lycaelon’s elbow, as if nothing had changed. Which was exactly what Lycaelon wanted, of course.

So now he would be a member of the High Council, Anigrel thought to himself. And afterward—little though Lycaelon might suspect it at the moment—they would go on winnowing the ranks of the Council of those who were not perfectly loyal to the Arch-Mage.

The Arch-Mage and his so-devoted acolyte.

THEY were somewhere underground, that much Lairamo knew for certain. Despite her best intentions, she had lost consciousness several times during that frightful aerial journey, when she had dangled far above the surface of the ground, half-frozen and battered by the winds of the storm.

When she had regained consciousness, it was dark. She could smell damp stone, and knew by the stillness of the air that she was somewhere far beneath the earth’s surface, in a tunnel or a cave. She was being carried in some kind of sling by beings who did not need light to see by, and had not known whether to pray that the children were with her, or not. She knew that if they were not with her, they were surely dead, but perhaps death was better than her own eventual fate.

But as they traveled, each step making her sway nauseatingly back and forth in her sling, faint sobs and whimpers told her that at least some of the children still lived.

At last their journey ended. There was a break in the darkness; a patch of eldritch purple light, almost blinding after the unrelieved darkness. Having a point of reference in the blackness made Lairamo feel even more ill. She had no choice but to close her eyes tightly.

She opened them again as the sling was being set down. The source of the violet light was now visible: a thick encrustation of luminous lichen high on the walls of the small grotto.

Her captors’ forms were concealed in deep hooded cloaks. They moved with silent efficiency, and even though she knew she ought to try to find out why they had been brought here, Lairamo was afraid to speak to them. There was something about these silent creatures that horrified her somehow—even though they were completely muffled in shapeless cloaks—Lairamo could tell that there was something about them that was so deeply, poisonously wrong that it revolted her very nature.

They quickly deposited their burdens and departed, as silently as they had done everything else. The moment they were gone, she raised her head and counted the slings.

Six. She got to her feet, pushing the enveloping folds of her sling aside, and hurried among the bundles. She began unfurling them, wrinkling her nose at the odd, fusty odor they exuded. All the children were there, and safe—some unconscious, some merely terrified into unblinking immobility. She caught up Sandalon and Kalania in her arms, unable to think of what to do next. The children were groggy from cold and shock. Sandalon clung to her wordlessly and tiny Kalania trembled, too terrified to cry.

Lairamo looked around, clutching the youngest children to her. Apparently they were to be kept alive for a while, for the edges of the cavern were piled with boxes and bundles, some bearing the marks of great age.

“Alkandoran!” she said, calling out his name until the boy roused. The teenager sat up slowly, looking around groggily and then with increasing apprehension.

“Look through those bundles. Get the others to help you. We need to find a brazier or something that will serve as one, and some way to start a fire. It is cold in here. We need light—and heat.”

“Yes, Nurse Lairamo.” Alkandoran was not so many years away from having had a nurse of his own, and from his expression, Lairamo could see that it was far easier for him at the moment to take orders than to think about where he was.

Tredianala, Merisashendiel, and Vendalton had freed themselves from their hammocks at the sound of familiar voices, and were looking around with a growing curiosity. Lairamo didn’t think it had occurred to the younger children yet that the others were dead, and if the Gods of Leaf and Star were kind, it might not occur to them for a long time to come.

“Come on,” Alkandoran said sturdily. “We need to look for useful things.”

Merisashendiel and Vendalton were eager to help. Tredianala, the more timid of the cousins, came and curled up next to Lairamo.

“Will we be going home soon?” she asked trustingly, leaning her head against Lairamo’s shoulder.

“Soon, I hope,” Lairamo said, since it would hardly do to tell the child the truth: that they might be going home to the Gods, but they would almost certainly never see Sentarshadeen again.

She doubted anyone at all had survived the massacre. Creatures that could outrun unicorns—and kill them, as she had seen, to her horror—must certainly have destroyed everyone else in the caravan first. There would be no one left to warn Sentarshadeen that they had been taken, and though the Fortress of the Crowned Horns would know they had not arrived on schedule, it would be sennights before they could send word to Sentarshadeen to warn Ashaniel and Andoreniel of the disaster.

And by then … whatever fate was planned for them would surely have befallen them. And where could their rescuers begin to look for them?

“I found a brazier!” Alkandoran cried delightedly, tipping the pieces out of their bag with a clatter and peering at them in the dimness. Further discoveries followed: lanterns, and oil, some odd amber-colored, waxy cylinders that Lairamo identified as candles—something the Elves did not use—and thankfully enough charcoal to keep the two braziers Alkandoran had found burning for quite some time, though they would have to be careful of the toxic fumes. Still, the air seemed fresh enough now that Lairamo thought they probably had more to worry about from the cold than from suffocating. Down here the air was always cold, and there was the danger of falling into a body-chilled lethargy that could end in death.

Though perhaps that might not be a bad end …

Most of the looted goods that had been left for them were of Elven manufacture, but there was enough of peculiar and unfamiliar design—and therefore probably of human origin—to suggest that their captors had plundered human trade-caravans as well as Elven ones.

There were no blankets—at least they’d found none so far, though there were many more bundles to search through, and searching should keep the children occupied for at least a while. Lairamo sighed. Perhaps the peculiar slings could be used as blankets.

“Light two of the lanterns first, Alkandoran. We’ll feel better with some light.”

The boy hurried to comply—his hands shook only a little—and the shadows rushed back as the welcoming golden light blossomed. In the stronger illumination, the fungal glow disappeared, the lichen becoming merely a greyish encrustation on the cavern walls.

“The walls glitter!” Merisashendiel cried, pointing.

It was true. Beyond the reach of the lichen, the pale walls and ceiling of the cave glittered in the lantern light like a snowfield in the sun.

“Crystals,” Vendalton said. “Sometimes they grow a lot bigger than that.”

“They look like eyes,” Tredianala whispered, burrowing in closer to Lairamo.

“They are not eyes,” the nurse said firmly. “As Vendalton said, they are crystals, which are often found in caves. Now, Merisashendiel, you may light one of the braziers, after which it will be a great deal more comfortable in here. And Tredianala, you may fold up those … slings. Tidily, now, and be sure not to tangle them.”

“I don’t want to touch them, Nurse Lairamo,” the girl whimpered.

“We all do a great many things we do not wish to do in life,” Lairamo said firmly. The child was all set for a nasty bout of hysterics, and if she gave vent to them she would certainly set the others off. And they could not afford that. “You will oblige me now.”

Her firmness worked. Tredianala gave her a look equally compounded of hurt and resentment, and went off to fold up the peculiar hammocklike slings.

“The rest of you: go through all the bundles and sort the contents neatly. I wish to know everything that is here, and how much there is of everything. Tredianala may help you, when she has finished her task.”

A ragged chorus of “Yes, Nurse Lairamo,” greeted her latest order, and the children—all but Kalania and Sandalon—set to work.

Once some of the lanterns were filled and lit, and the lit brazier began radiating heat, everything seemed less nightmarish, but no less terrifying. Lairamo only hoped the children didn’t really realize the extent of their danger, though she suspected, from the look on Alkandoran’s face, that the youngster knew perfectly well that they were in deep trouble. He said nothing, though, simply taking charge of the others in sorting out the stockpiles.

Lairamo tucked her cloak more tightly around Kalania and Sandalon. At the movement, Sandalon raised his head.

“It’s my fault,” he whispered, so low that only she could hear. “We’re here because of me.” There was an unchildlike bitterness in his voice.

“My heart—no!” Lairamo said, hugging him tightly.

But he shook his head, for the first time contradicting her. “Yes. I am the Prince. And my father is King. We are here because of me.”

THE rescue party from Sentarshadeen left at first light the following morning: Kellen, Shalkan, Jermayan, Vestakia, Idalia, and six Elven knights, all that could be gathered at such short notice. A second party was being assembled, which would follow with additional supplies and as many knights as Andoreniel could call up quickly; Calmeren would be able to lead them as far as the place from which the children had been taken. But it would be at least a sennight before the larger rescue party was ready, and it would only be able to travel at wagon-speed. Kellen had no intention of waiting for anything or anyone.

Elven palfreys had been found for Idalia and Vestakia. Though the two women could certainly have ridden pillion with Jermayan and Kellen, Shalkan and Valdien might need to be able to carry other passengers later, and every rider was burdened with their own supplies: journey-food, of course, but they must also carry supplies and medicines for those they hoped to rescue.

The caravan had taken nearly two sennights to reach the ice-meadows below the Crowned Horns, and die. Calmeren, wounded, running flat-out at a unicorn’s top speed, had covered the same distance—in the opposite direction—in a little over two days, though it had cost her dearly.

It was five days before Kellen’s party reached the spot, rising before dawn and riding long after sunset, and pausing only when neither man nor beast could place one foot in front of the other.

The first thing they encountered was the place where the guard of Elven knights had faced the coldwarg pack. The remains of the dismembered bodies of Elves and horses still remained after a sennight, half-buried in new snow, and strangely undisturbed by the natural predators known to inhabit these mountains.

“No natural beast will feed from a coldwarg kill,” Jermayan said, rising to his feet and brushing his gauntlets free of snow. They had stopped long enough to uncover one or two of the bodies, for as important as it was to rescue the captive children, they dared not rush to that rescue blindly. “We cannot tarry now to send you to your final rest, my friends,” he said, looking around at the snow. “But do not fear. We shall return for you. You will not lie in the dark earth, but return to the wind, and the stars.”

“The caravan road lies in that direction,” Idalia said, pointing. “I flew over it often enough when I was a Silver Eagle. They must have heard the ’wargs coming and split the party, half of them riding toward the pack, the rest fleeing toward the Crowned Horns, and safety … or so they hoped.”

“They wanted to slow the pack, to give the unicorns as much of a head start as they could,” Shalkan said. He put his head down, sniffing at a drift of snow and then beginning to paw at it. “But the coldwarg weren’t hunting alone.” He nudged his prize free.

“What’s that?” Kellen asked, walking over and picking it up. He stood it on end and regarded it curiously. It was a club—he could see that much—black and polished with use, and very nearly as tall as he was. But that really didn’t answer the question of what it was.

“Frost-giants—just as Calmeren said.” A knight named Artaliar spoke up. “The pack was traveling with frost-giants.” His voice was a mixture of disgust and despair.

Jermayan sighed, shaking his head. “It should not have been possible.”

“Vestakia?” Kellen asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing here.”

“Then let’s go on.”

THEY stopped at the wagons only long enough to make certain that no survivors had taken refuge there—a slim hope, but one they had to make sure of. Something had been at them after the party had abandoned them; they had been looted—or vandalized, or searched; by now it wasn’t quite clear, and whatever had done it had left traces that made Shalkan and the other two unicorns wrinkle their muzzles in disgust, and made Vestakia look distinctly uncomfortable.

But there was no one alive, and no clues that would help them in their search, so the party rode on.

FINALLY they reached the killing ground where all but Calmeren had died. Some freak of weather had swept the area free of new snow, and the bodies of the Elven knights and the unicorns in their armor glittered starkly against the field of ice like savagely disjointed dolls.

They smelled the battlefield before they saw it. Even in the cold, something here was decaying, and the smell was worse than anything Kellen had ever encountered—worse than cleaning out Perulan’s cesspit back in Armethalieh, worse than the sensory derangement at the Black Cairn. The Elven destriers, well-trained and battle-tried as they were, balked at approaching it, and rather than force them, the party left them with the unicorns to guard them, and approached the site on foot.

Today the air was still, the weather was clear and bright. The harsh mountain light showed every detail clearly. The dryness of the air had leached all moisture from the bodies, and not even birds had come to despoil what little the coldwarg and their allies had left behind. Every detail was starkly, terribly, clear.

The source of the stench was quickly apparent. Kellen gazed down at the gruesome remains of something that lay entangled with the remains of one of the unicorns. Long delicate wings covered with greyish membrane were spread across the snow—it had the proportions of a bat, but a bat the size of a small sailing ship, and its head was shaped more like a wolf’s than a bat’s, with a long muzzle and yellow carnivorous teeth. Its body, rotting swiftly even in this cold, was covered in a thick white fur.

He looked around, then off into the distance. The Fortress of the Crowned Horns was clearly visible, a tiny doll’s castle a few hours’ ride away. So very near to safety, and then, to be taken by Demons on their very doorstep, within sight of their greatest stronghold …

Their Enemy was mocking them. Telling them how helpless they were. Telling them that they could be struck down anywhere, at any time, by the forces that Shadow Mountain could deploy against them.

But how? Kellen frowned. Andoreniel was no fool, and Idalia had certainly warned him that Shadow Mountain was active once more. The Barrier had been ample proof of that. And Kellen knew that Elven Knights were patrolling all the Elven Lands, even more thoroughly than before. And half a dozen parties before Sandalon’s had come this way—all well guarded—and none of them had reported anything suspicious.

Yet coldwarg, and frost-giants—and Idalia had said it looked like ice-trolls as well—all creatures of Darkness, all predators of the High Cold—had slipped into the heart of Elven lands undetected to mount a raid and kidnap the young Prince.

How?

He looked back down at the remains of Death on the wing.

“It stinks of Taint,” Shalkan said, coming up behind him.

“Well, it stinks, anyway,” Kellen said gloomily. “You’d think someone would have noticed.”

“You would,” the unicorn said noncommittally. “In the sky, these things would be visible for leagues, and frost-giants don’t move all that fast on the ground. It would take them some time to get here.”

“Which means that They knew our plans all along—and picked this caravan to attack. Specifically,” Kellen said.

“Not that we’d leave any child in the hands of Demons,” Shalkan observed, “or anyone else for that matter. But you know what the basis of Endarkened magic is. And Sandalon is the Heir.”

Kellen took a deep breath. Endarkened magic drew its power from blood and pain and death—from torture. And the death by torture of the Royal Heir would undoubtedly be a source of greater power than any other sacrifice the Demons could marshal, as well as being a great blow to the Elves.

Kellen gazed around the battlefield again. The others were walking among the dead—saying prayers, Kellen supposed, or trying to identify fallen friends. He glanced over his shoulder. Vestakia had stayed with the horses. She was standing beside her mare, leaning against the saddle, the hood of her cloak pulled well up over her face.

Kellen turned back to the battlefield. It was almost as if the bodies—where they lay, how they’d fallen—told a story, and it was one he needed to disentangle. None of the children were here. Calmeren had said they’d been taken, by things that flew, but the only reason she’d survived was because she’d fled before the battle was over. He needed to know more than she could tell him.

Could his magic help him here?

It was worth a try.

Tell me what I need to know, Kellen said silently, summoning up his battle-sight.

There was a shimmer, a faint doubling of vision as the battle-sight rose up, peopling the icy battlefield with the silent silvery ghosts of the dead. He watched as the battle replayed itself before his eyes: the moment when the unicorns realized that flight would not save their precious charges, when they turned, desperately, to fight. They’d been facing the coldwarg pack—the ice-giants would not have been fast enough to keep up with the pack—and … something?

Kellen glanced up at the sky, empty now.

Yes. When the unicorns had turned to face the coldwarg, the flying creatures had attacked as well, forcing the unicorns back into the lethal jaws of the pack, and then carrying off the children and Lairamo. He watched the Deathwings as they attacked, agile and deadly, the long razor-sharp talons on their feet clawing and grasping at the unicorn’s heads and shoulders, snatching Knights into the air with a fell swoop only to drop them to the ground once more with a stunning impact.

But the coldwarg had possessed other allies as well.

Kellen watched as the last of the unicorns and their riders were pulled down, and saw, with distant surprise, a party of cloaked figures move onto the field. Calmeren had said it had been snowing heavily that day. The cloaked figures would have been concealed by the snow until the last instant.

The silvery vision-ghosts moved among the dead and dying without fear of the feeding coldwarg. Allies, then, and too heavily cowled for Kellen to be sure of what they might be. Perhaps even men.

The vision faded, and Kellen blinked, seeing only the battlefield once more.

“What did you see?” Shalkan asked quietly.

“The battle,” Kellen said simply. “Calmeren was right. Those bat-things—Deathwings—carried the children off … somewhere.”

“But where?” Jermayan’s voice was tight with frustration.

“I don’t know,” Kellen said, feeling a moment of utter despair. To come so far, and to fall just short of success …

“I can find them,” Vestakia said.

She’d come up behind him while Kellen was watching the past unfold. She’d pushed the hood of her cloak back, and Kellen could see that her face was set with a mixture of horror and determination. If her skin hadn’t been the color of ripe cherries, Kellen would have bet she would have been pale. As it was, she looked as if she might be sick at any moment, and not just from the ugliness of the sight before her. Shalkan said the killing ground reeked of Taint as much as the stench Kellen’s physical senses could perceive, and Vestakia’s gift and curse was that she was peculiarly able to perceive Demonic Taint. And more than any other creature of the Light, she found it debilitating, sickening, perhaps even painful. Kellen didn’t know for certain; she had never elaborated, and he could only guess.

Shalkan took a step sideways to press his shoulder against her hip.

“They were taken by Demons—or for Demons,” Vestakia said in a small, determined voice. “They were taken by things like that.” She indicated the Deathwing with a shudder. “I think I can track them.”

Jermayan regarded Vestakia with warm approval.

By now the others had gathered around as well.

“There’s something more you need to know,” Kellen said. “When I saw the battle”—he shrugged, not sure how else to say it—“there were others, helping the coldwarg and the Deathwings. Not giants, and not Endarkened. Figures in cloaks, man-sized. I don’t think I could have seen them clearly even if I’d been there in the flesh. But that means we have another enemy to worry about.”

“Not Elves!” Trotaliath exclaimed. “Elves would never betray their own to the Enemy!”

“Men. Yet it would be desirable to know how Men could come so far into our lands without our knowing,” Debamiekel said, eyeing Kellen with disfavor.

“As well wonder how came the frost-giants, or the ice-trolls, or any of our misfortunes,” Jermayan said grimly. “And we do not know yet that they were Men, Debarniekel.”

“I guess we’ll find out when we catch them,” Kellen said. He knew from what Vestakia had told him that Demons could change their shape, and appear in almost any form, but he couldn’t imagine why they’d bother to disguise themselves to come here. They couldn’t have expected to be seen, after all.

And hadn’t the whole point been to have the caravan disappear without a trace? A few more sennights—another big blizzard or two—and there wouldn’t have been any traces at all left for them to find. Only the charred remains of the wagons, if that. The Deathwing would have been completely rotted away.

“Come on,” he said, turning and walking back toward the waiting mounts. “Vestakia, what do you need us to do?”

It felt odd to be taking charge and giving orders like this—especially since he was pretty sure he was the youngest one here, Vestakia included—but Idalia had been right. This was his rescue party. He was the leader, and even while it felt odd, it felt right.

The wind rose while they walked, and the air cleared. All of them breathed easier.

Vestakia had obviously been thinking as they moved.

“I think we need to get away from here, to where I can’t feel that … thing. Kellen, you said you ‘saw’ the battle. Which way did the creatures fly?”

Kellen thought for a moment, then pointed into the sky. “But you know that doesn’t mean anything,” he added conscientiously. “Once they were in the air, they might have circled around, gone in any direction.”

“I know,” Vestakia said. “But it gives us a place to start, doesn’t it? We’ll get out of range of this, and then I’ll see what I can sense, and we’ll follow it. I know I’ll be able to pick up the trail when we’re clear of that dead thing,” she said, determination in her voice. “They thought going by air would leave no traces to track, but they were wrong. I even think I feel it now, but I want to be sure.”

They mounted up again and rode away from the battlefield.

A few minutes later they stopped. The destriers were calm again, and even Kellen felt better, as if an annoying sound just below the threshold of audibility had stopped.

Vestakia dismounted and walked away from the animals. She paced back and forth for a few minutes. Kellen could see the steam of her breath being whipped away by the wind, and hear the crunch her boots made as they broke through the crust of the hard-frozen snow.

It all depended on her, and on her using her gifts in a way she’d never used them before. Jermayan was a fine tracker, but there was no physical trail to follow. Idalia might cast a Finding Spell with the Wild Magic, or Kellen might, but for either of them to do that would be to incur Magedebt, and there would be no guarantee that it would work. The Endarkened were powerful magicians, easily able to cast greater spells than any either he or Idalia could summon. They could certainly shield their stronghold, just as they must have shielded the presence of the attackers within the Elven Borders. The one thing they could not conceal was the presence of their magic, and that was what Vestakia could follow.

After a nerve-wracking interval, Vestakia returned.

“That way,” she said with certainty. “I’m sorry … I don’t know if it’s the children. But it’s Taint …”

“And it’s within Elven Borders,” Jermayan finished grimly. “So we must investigate it, and pray that it leads to what we hope to find.”

SEVERAL times Vestakia stopped to reassure herself they were continuing in the right direction. Kellen was relieved to see that though she seemed to be uncomfortable at sensing the presence of Demon-taint, it was not draining her as badly as it had when she had approached the Black Cairn.

The trail led them deeper into the mountains, back below the edge of the tree line, where there was more shelter from the wind. Soon, as Vestakia became more assured in following the trail, they became able to move at the fastest prudent speed over the snow, with the unicorns breaking the trail for the heavier destriers.

It had been noon when they had left the battlefield. The short winter day was drawing to a close by the time they reached their destination.

And their destination looked exactly like everywhere they had already been; the granite mountain rising up out of the pine forest, cold and silent and forbidding. It was silent here; it had been silent in most of the forest as they had backtracked the trail of the mysterious flyers. Evidently it wasn’t only Vestakia who could sense the Taint; the birds, at least, did not want to be anywhere near where the Deathwings had passed. There should at least be crows, sparrows, something—and there was nothing. Not a sign, not a call. Empty sky, empty trees.

The snow—waist-deep in some places—had impeded every step. It would have shown the signs of any life, and there were none.

“There,” Vestakia said, pointing to a cave opening in the rock. “The trail leads in there.”

It was impossible to tell in the reddish sunset light whether the opening was natural or man-made. The riders had stopped down the slope, near the edge of the trees, and watched it warily, alert for sentries, though there didn’t seem to be any. There were no tracks in the smooth mantle of snow that led up to the narrow dark opening in the stone wall, but it had been snowing heavily and almost steadily in these mountains for the past sennight, and even the meanest outlaws knew enough to use brooms on the snow to conceal their tracks.

Vestakia looked tired—far wearier than even a day’s hard riding could account for—and pressed her hand to her forehead as if trying to rub away a pounding headache. This close to the source of the Taint, it was obvious she was feeling its draining effects.

“We’ll set up camp here,” Kellen decided, gesturing toward the pines. It was closer to the cavern mouth than he liked—and too close for Vestakia’s comfort, he knew—but they were losing the light, and to travel through snow this deep by night would be a bad idea. Besides, they were all cold and tired. They needed hot tea, hot food, and a breathing space to plan their next move.

The Elves moved beneath the trees, found a clearing, and began setting up camp with quiet efficiency, clearing a space for the braziers and setting snow to melt for tea and soup. Kellen unsaddled Shalkan and gave him a quick rubdown—sweat would quickly turn to ice at this temperature—and then saw to Vestakia’s mount as well. She’d already done more than her share of work today.

By the time he was finished, the tea was ready. He collected two cups and brought one over to her. She was leaning against a tree at the edge of the clearing, staring broodingly back the way they’d come.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

“Not too,” Vestakia said bravely. “More like a sore tooth than anything else. So it isn’t Demons in there. Just something they’ve touched.” She shuddered. “As if that isn’t bad enough.”

Kellen held out the steaming cup of tea. Vestakia took it, and sipped.

“Do you want some of that stuff? I know Idalia brought some. You know, the thing that shuts down your magical senses? That way you wouldn’t be able to feel it,” Kellen offered.

Vestakia opened her eyes very wide. “Oh, Good Goddess, no!” she exclaimed, almost sputtering. “Kellen, I’d rather feel something a thousand times worse than this than have Them be able to sneak up on me and not know!” She reached out and patted his arm awkwardly. “I’ll be fine. Well, not fine, exactly, but I’ll be all right. It’s those children you should be worrying about. What are you going to do now?”

“I’m not—” Kellen began.

“And by Leaf and Star, I say you will not!” Jermayan declared.

He had not shouted—not quite—but he had certainly spoken loudly enough to catch Kellen’s attention. Kellen’s head whipped around.

Jermayan and Idalia were facing each other in the center of the clearing. Idalia held a small bundle in her arms.

“I will,” Idalia said quietly. “It’s the best chance they have. And you know it, Jermayan.”

Kellen hurried over.

“Um … what’s going on?” he asked.

“Your sister has this foolish notion—” Jermayan began.

“Jermayan thinks—” Idalia shot back.

“No.” Kellen held up his hand. Both of them stopped, looking at him in surprise. “You’re arguing. I can see that. Arguing wastes time and energy. Let’s find another way.” It was one of Master Belesharon’s favorite sayings. “Idalia, what are you holding?”

“A … a tarnkappa,” she said reluctantly.

“And what were you going to do with it?” He had a sinking feeling he already knew, but Master Belesharon always said it was better to know than to guess.

“I’m going to put it on and go in after the children. I’ll be safe,” she said, sounding defiant.

“Madness!” Jermayan protested vehemently.

“It will work! Nothing in there will be able to sense me while I’m wearing it—and I’ve added a spell to this one to give me darksight. I’ll be able to see even if there’s no light. We can’t just go rushing in there—it might be a trap—”

“Of course it’s a trap!” Jermayan and Kellen said, almost in chorus.

“Then you see why I have to be the one to spring it,” Idalia said inexorably. “And—with luck and skill—come away with the bait—or at the very least, find out that it isn’t there, so Vestakia can cast about for a fresh trail.”

“No!” Jermayan said again, a note of desperation in his voice.

“It’s my tarnkappa,” Idalia said. “I am not only the most expendable member of the party, I’m the logical one to go. If there are any traps of Dark Magic down there, I can sense them and avoid them—can you, Jermayan? And I’m a much better tracker than you are, Kellen. If there’s a trail to be found, I’ll find it.”

She was right. Kellen realized it even as he hated the fact. It was a trap, so the safest, the most logical thing to do was to send one person to spring it. And the person in the party with the best combination of skills to get into—and out of—the trap alive was Idalia.

Both Idalia and Jermayan were looking at him. She might go no matter what he said. But they were waiting for his decision.

“So you can find your way in,” he said. “But how are you going to find your way back?”

Idalia opened one hand to reveal a thick stick of chalk. “Why, I’ll blazon my way, brother dear, just as I would in an unfamiliar forest. And I’ll use the marks to lead me home again.”

She’d answered every objection.

“All right,” he said, feeling suddenly old and weary. “But—” What was he going to say? Be careful? “Don’t take too many chances. If it’s a trap, they might not be there at all.”

Idalia laughed. “Don’t worry, brother dear. I’m in no hurry to die.” She hugged him quickly, the tarnkappa a bulky softness between them, then turned back to Jermayan.

Kellen moved quickly away to give the two of them a little privacy.

“You did well,” Shalkan said, moving up to stand beside him. Even through his armor, Kellen could feel the heat of the unicorn’s body, as if Shalkan carried his own private summer with him.

Kellen grinned without mirth. “I just pretended I was Master Belesharon. Besides, I knew she’d go anyway, and there was no point to wasting the time that would be spent as she and Jermayan shouted at each other.”

“Ah,” Shalkan said dryly. “The beginning of wisdom.”

IDALIA moved over the snow in the direction of the cavern mouth, the tarnkappa wrapped tightly around her. Only the footprints she left in the snow betrayed any hint that someone moved here; while wearing the magical cloak she could not be seen, or heard, or scented.

She hoped it would be enough to keep her safe once she entered the darkness—both figurative and literal—ahead.

She was not quite as confident as she had let on to Jermayan and Kellen. Everything that she’d told them was true—she was the logical candidate to explore the trap—but she wasn’t sure that getting in and out again would be as simple as she’d made it sound, especially if that was a natural cave. Idalia had a little bit of experience with natural caves, and knew that they could stretch on for leagues, twisting and turning more elaborately than any Elven-crafted labyrinth. Despite her tracking skills, she might well get lost, and if she needed to cast a spell of the Wild Magic to find her way out …

It might very well bring the enemy right down on top of her.

Idalia shrugged beneath the tarnkappa. There was no use borrowing trouble before it came to call. Her life was already forfeit to the Greater Powers. When They chose to claim Their price was Their business.

Hers was getting the children out of danger. If they were even there.

When she reached the mouth of the cavern, Idalia pulled the hood of the tarnkappa well forward. She could see through the fabric as if it wasn’t there at all, and through the magic’s aid, everything became sharp and clear, the dim twilight vanishing to be replaced by a bright, clear—though monochromatic—landscape.

She took a deep breath, touching the long knife at her belt, and stepped inside.

She walked a few feet down the passage—it was narrow, and except for the levelness of the floor, looked very much like a natural cave—moving carefully and listening intently for sounds from within. Except for the sound of the wind whistling over the cavern opening, she heard nothing, and as she moved deeper into the mountain, even that sound stopped.

At first the path was simple to follow, for there was only one possible way to go. But soon the passageway opened out. She quickly took the chalk and made a small arrow, low on the stone, pointing back the way she’d come.

She stood for a long moment, gazing out into the daybright darkness. Passages opened out to the left and the right, both bearing recent marks of use. The one to the right seemed to have been more heavily trafficked, though, and taking a few steps along it, Idalia could see traces of scrapemarks along the walls, as if something large and heavy had been brought this way fairly recently.

Good enough. She went to the right, making another mark on the wall to indicate her choice.

At one point she stopped and lifted her hood. Utter blackness enveloped her, and she could smell no trace of lamp-oil torch-smoke in the air of the cave. Whatever lived here did not need light to move through the darkness. She lowered her hood, relieved to be able to see once more.

At intervals she paused to mark her way, for if the signs were too far apart there was a danger of missing one. As she moved deeper into the caves, she saw signs that Nature’s work had been improved upon—stone had been crudely cut away, paths had been widened and leveled. All these things were signs, not of a temporary hiding place, or even a carefully-constructed trap, but of a place where something made its home.

And that should not be—not if what lived here was Dark-tainted enough for Vestakia to be able to track it.

By now she had penetrated quite far into the cave system, and though she was on the trail of whatever lived here, she wasn’t sure she was any closer to finding the children.

Suddenly she became aware that there were faint sounds, coming from somewhere ahead—though the direction of sounds could be misleading underground. They were barely louder than her own breathing, but she wasn’t making them.

Idalia moved faster.

The path led to the edge of a cliff. Here the cave opened out into the largest space Idalia had yet encountered. Crude stairs were cut into the cliff face, leading down to the space below.

Below lay a sort of village, and Idalia got her first good look at what must be the mysterious hooded figures that Kellen had described.

From where she stood, she counted about twenty of them. They were gathered around a central cooking fire, where some indeterminate carcass smoked and sizzled over a bed of coals. When Idalia risked another peek without the tarnkappa, she could see it was a bed of carefully banked charcoal, giving as little light as possible, and none of them looked at it directly. She pulled her hood back down and continued watching.

Their garments were primitive, consisting of little more than a crude loin-wrap for males and females both. The halfdozen children that she could see wore no clothing at all.

They were no race that Idalia knew, or had ever heard described. Their skin was a dull fish-belly white, save for a long dark stripe down their spines, and a matching one that covered their lower face and extended down their stomachs. Their hands and feet seemed to be a darker color as well, though whether that was natural pigmentation, or just dirt and callus, Idalia wasn’t sure. Their bodies were entirely hairless, but shaggy dark hair, left long and untended, grew from their scalps. From everything she could see, they existed at the most primitive tribal level.

Their faces were the most unsettling, as if someone had taken something familiar and cruelly distorted it. Their eyes were large, round, and bulging. They were practically chinless, upper and lower jaws pushed forward in a muzzlelike fashion, and when one of them opened his mouth to speak a few words in a curious low barking language, Idalia could see that the mouth was filled with long discolored fangs.

And their ears were pointed.

When she saw that, the nagging sense of almost familiarity Idalia had felt when she’d seen the creatures settled into place with a sense of almost physical force. It was as if … it was as if someone, somehow, had managed to breed Elves and Goblins together, and this was the result.

Oh, that isn’t possible, Idalia thought with a wave of nauseated faintness. But she knew it was. The Endarkened delighted in perverting any of the creatures of the Light that fell into their hands, and they were masters of Dark Magic. The creatures they had created to fight their battles in the Great War still plagued the world today—the coldwarg were just one sample. Why not these … Shadowed Elves?

And it would explain how they could be here undetected, she told herself with brutal pragmatism. If these debased creatures possessed Elven blood, it was more than likely they could circumvent the ancient wards against intruders placed upon the Elven lands. They would, after all, be Elves, in a sense, able to come and go within Andoreniel’s domain as they wished. The could have brought the ice-trolls and the frost-giants over the border through their own caves. No wonder no one had seen them until it was too late!

Idalia stared down into the Shadowed Elf village with cold horror. How many of them were there? It had been centuries since the Endarkened had possessed Elven captives to experiment upon. And more important—where were they? This couldn’t be the only encampment of them.

She hesitated, on the verge of turning back right now to warn the others. This was a greater threat than the missing children—a Dark-Shadowed race living undetected within the borders of the Elven realm itself.

Suddenly a chorus of furious barking down below drew her attention back to the village. An argument had broken out at the central firepit.

Several of the Shadowed Elves were standing in front of it. One had a large basket at his feet, filled with what looked, from this distance, like large mushroom caps or flat loaves of bread. He was gesturing at the roasting carcass, and speaking urgently.

The other, facing him—the chief?—was speaking equally imperatively, underscoring his words with gestures that Idalia had no trouble in interpreting as a refusal. No meat, then. But for who?

The argument concluded, and the first Shadowed Elf picked up the basket and walked away. His companion—a female—followed.

Idalia watched as they paused to don long hooded cloaks that covered them all the way to the ankles, and for the female to pick up a large jar of the sort that might contain wine or water. From the way she moved, it was heavy.

That was curious. They obviously weren’t going outside—they hadn’t put on boots, or gloves, or any undergarments. The cloaks were plainly for concealment.

Feeding prisoners on “bread and water”? Prisoners that they didn’t want to see them?

Idalia’s heart began to beat faster.

Once they were cloaked and provisioned, the two Shadowed Elves began ascending the steps. Idalia moved quickly back along the rim, looking frantically around for a niche to hide in. They couldn’t see or hear her, but nothing would save her from discovery if they walked right into her.

She found nothing, and was forced to retreat back the way she came, hoping that wouldn’t be the direction they ended up coming. But luck was with her, and when the two Shadowed Elves reached the top of the steps, they headed away from her. Idalia chalked a quick trail-sign and followed them.

Fortunately—because the water-jug was heavy and fragile—they moved slowly, and Idalia was able to follow them at a prudent distance, making marks along the way. The only danger was that they might hear the sound of the chalk against the stone, but she was well behind them, and apparently it did not occur to the Shadowed Elves that there might be any interlopers within their stronghold.

Without them to follow, Idalia wasn’t sure she would ever have found the prisoners, for the path they took involved a number of twists and turns. But at last they reached their goal, a pocket cavern deep within the bowels of the mountain.

The doorway to the cave stood open. The Shadowed Elves had trusted—and rightly so—to the darkness outside to serve as a more perfect jailer than any doors or locks. Only the truly desperate would try to find their way through that blackness, and if the captives did not fall to their deaths over an unseen precipice, they would be easily recaptured before they ever found their way to the surface.

Chapter Eight

Prisoners of Darkness

LAIRAMO DID NOT know how long they had been here. It was hard to measure time even by sleeping and waking. Their cloaked captors had fed them seven times since they had arrived—baskets of flat tasteless fungus, and jars of stale water—and so she had scratched seven marks upon the wall. But the meals, such as they were, might not be coming at regular intervals, or if they were, those intervals might not be the same as a day.

She kept her thoughts to herself. There was no point in adding fresh terrors to a situation that had already grown beyond horror.

At first she had been grateful that they were left together. That no atrocities were visited upon her charges. It had been peculiar that the door to the cavern was left unbarred and unguarded, and it had been Alkandoran who had first suggested that they must try to escape. He had persuaded her to let him take one of the lanterns and see if he could find the way out, and at last, reluctantly, she had let him have his way.

He was gone a very long time.

At last he had returned—in the hands of two of their hooded captors. His face was white and strained, and the lantern was gone. They had shoved him back into the cavern, then entered, selecting one of the remaining lanterns and smashing it carefully. The lamp oil had kindled in a bright brief flare as it burned away into darkness.

The silent message was clear. Escape was impossible. Further attempts would be punished by the removal of more of the lanterns.

Lairamo did not think any of them could stand this captivity in the darkness. And the hooded ones might take one or both of the braziers as well, and the children surely could not survive the cold.

So they huddled together in the wan light of the two remaining lanterns, keeping their spirits up as best they could. All of them were cold and filthy—especially the baby—and slept huddled together beneath a pile of their cloaks and the strange hammocks in which they’d been carried here. Lairamo encouraged the children to sleep as much as they could, and did everything she could think of to keep them from talking or thinking of what the future might hold. Among the items left behind here by their captors had been a gan set. Alkandoran had taught the younger children to play, and bullied them into it constantly. No one was very good at it, but it kept their minds off where they were, at least a little.

The only thing they could do was wait. Alkandoran had told her of what little he’d managed to see before he’d been recaptured—he’d wandered for what seemed like hours through cave passages that all looked alike, and he’d been pretty sure he’d been going in circles. The hooded ones had waited until his lantern ran out of oil before taking him, so he was fairly sure they’d been following him the whole time.

A faint scuffling in the outer darkness heralded the return of their captors once more. Reflexively, Lairamo drew the children to her and scuttled back against the farthest wall of the cave. They huddled against her skirts, and she put her arms around as many of them as she could.

A few moments later, the two cloaked and hooded figures appeared, faint ghosts in the dimness. As always, one carried a wide shallow basket and the other carried a water jar. They set their burdens down just inside the doorway, where the shadows were thickest, then one of them moved to collect the empty jar. In moments the two were gone again.

Lairamo made them all wait for several minutes before they approached the food and water, though they were hungry all the time these days, and thirsty as well. She rationed their supplies as best she could, but they were entirely at the mercy of their jailers, and without constant supplies, they would die of thirst long before they starved.

Just as she was getting stiffly to her feet, Kalania balanced on her hip, there was a sudden blur of motion, and a figure appeared out of nowhere, standing in the middle of the chamber. Tredianala gave a hoarse cry of alarm, and Alkandoran jerked the slender girl behind him.

But after a moment’s pang of terror, Lairamo recognized the intruder.

“Idalia! Praise to the Gods of Leaf and Star!”

“I’ve come to get you out of here. There’s a rescue party waiting nearby.”

IDALIA had followed the two Shadowed Elves to their destination. She waited until they were well out of sight before advancing on the cave. She didn’t know what prisoners it might contain, but she meant to rescue them whoever they were—she would leave no one in the hands of these creatures.

She edged closer, wrinkling her nose. The cavern smelled of long—and unsanitary—occupancy. When she rounded the corner and looked inside, her heart leaped. Lairamo and the children—and as far as she could see, they were all alive and whole, though filthy and haggard.

She stepped into the cave and flung off her tarnkappa.

Instantly the world became dim—though by some whim, the Shadowed Elves had left their Elven prisoners a lantern or two to see by.

“They will catch you,” the oldest boy said grimly. “I tried to get away once. They followed me for a long time, then they brought me back here.”

“Ah,” Idalia said lightly, hoping to rally their spirits. “But I have magic. This cloak conceals me from sight and sound—and anything I have under it as well. I’ve marked the way to the surface, and with the hood down, I can see in the dark as well as they can. I can carry you all to safety, and no one will suspect a thing.”

But it will take several trips.

“Sandalon and Kalania will go first,” Lairamo said calmly. “They are the youngest, and the smallest. The rest of us will wait here.”

“THERE’S something moving out there.”

The unicorns had excellent night-sight—better even than the Elves’—and the three unicorns in the party had volunteered to keep watch on the cave mouth from the edge of the trees. Shalkan had the first watch.

Kellen was standing with him—not because he could be at all useful; the darkness was nothing but dark to him, and the moon was too new to give any proper light, the merest fingernail crescent in the sky, sennights from full—but because this was, in a sense, his plan, or at least his responsibility. He was too keyed-up to sit at the warmth of the brazier with the others, waiting for Idalia to come back. His fidgeting would do more harm than good to their spirits. He was wise enough to know that much.

“What is it? What do you see?” Kellen fought to keep his voice low and level.

“Footprints in the snow,” Shalkan said. “Coming this way.”

Kellen loosened his sword in its scabbard. He hoped it was Idalia in the tarnkappa, but other beings possessed the secret of invisibility as well. Or someone might have taken it from her. But Vestakia had given no warning, so Kellen was merely alert, not preparing for battle.

A few yards away from where Shalkan stood, the air seemed to shimmer. Suddenly Kellen could see Idalia clearly. She was holding a bundle in her arms. There was a wriggle of movement, and Sandalon dropped from her back and ran to Kellen. Kellen dropped to one knee to receive the Elven Prince, who buried his face in Kellen’s shoulder. The boy was trembling, but did not make a sound.

“I’ve got to go back,” Idalia said without preamble. “The rest of them are still there—alive and safe, for now, but I’m the only one who can get them out, and it has to be done quickly. There’s more news, and worse—that cavern is home to a whole race of Dark-tainted creatures that seem to be some kind of Elven-Goblin hybrid.”

She thrust the bundle—the baby Kalania—at Kellen, swirled the tarnkappa around herself again, and vanished.

“Come on,” Kellen said, picking up Sandalon and trying not to drop the toddler. “Let’s go back and find the others. Jermayan and Vestakia are here. They’ll be glad to see you, you know. You’re safe now.”

Sandalon began to tremble even harder, and Kellen felt the warmth of soundless tears against his cheek.

KELLEN was able to hand Kalania to Vestakia when he reached the others; Sandalon flatly refused to let go of him. Everyone had leaped to their feet when he approached, taking in the sight of the two children and understanding what it meant.

“Where is Idalia?” Jermayan demanded, the normal courtly speech of Elvenkind subsumed beneath War Manners.

“Gone back for the others,” Kellen answered briefly. “She says they’re all alive and well, and that she can get them all out.”

“Everyone on your guard and ready to ride,” Jermayan said. “We need to move as soon as everyone has been recovered.”

The knights moved briskly about the campsite, saddling horses and unicorns and checking equipment. Evanor, the Elven Healer, took Kalania from Vestakia and laid her down on a blanket near the brazier, and peeled off the layers of sodden foul garments to examine her. Though the toddler was thin and filthy, and obviously stunned with terror, Evanor was able to apply soothing salves to the worst of her rashes, swaddle her in clean cloths, and get her to drink a little broth with a soothing potion mixed in, after which the child fell immediately asleep.

“It would be well if I were to examine young Sandalon as well,” Evanor said, when he was finished with Kalania.

“I’m fine,” Sandalon said sharply, his voice high with fear. His hands were wrapped around a cup of broth, and he was sitting on Kellen’s lap. At Evanor’s words, he recoiled.

“Of course you are,” Vestakia said, coming to kneel beside Kellen. She smoothed back Sandalon’s hair, it was greasy and matted after so long without washing or combing. “I can tell that. I know about these things. We found you because I can sense Them, you know. That’s the trail we followed. But I couldn’t sense any of you at all. We didn’t even know for sure you were in there until Idalia went in to look. So that’s how I know you’re all right.”

“You’re sure?” Sandalon asked, his voice torn between pleading and suspicion.

Poor little fellow! Kellen well remembered his own agonized fears of being Demon-tainted—and he hadn’t been a five-year-old child who’d seen all his friends horribly slaughtered, then been held prisoner by monsters down in the dark. No wonder the boy didn’t want to be examined too closely!

“I’m sure,” Vestakia said firmly.

Sandalon looked at Kellen.

“She’d know,” Kellen assured him. “And you should let Evanor make sure you’re not hurt, or going to become ill, and give you clean dry clothes to change to. We’re going to have a long way to ride tonight.” If Idalia gets the others out safely. And what if she doesn’t? What are we going to do then?

Reluctantly, Sandalon allowed himself to be examined by Evanor, who pronounced him to be in better shape than Kalania, and dosed him with a strengthening cordial.

Just then, two of the unicorns trotted off, as if summoned by a voice only they could hear. And Shalkan walked into the clearing with Tredianala clinging to his mane.

The girl was crying and quivering with terror—Kellen recalled that she had been particularly timid—and Evanor quickly took charge of her, speaking soothingly to her and leading her over to the brazier.

“Four more to go,” Shalkan said, coming over to Kellen. “Four more trips.”

Kellen didn’t ask the question that was uppermost in all of their minds: How long can Idalia’s luck hold out?

LAIRAMO had sent the oldest girl on the second trip because Tredianala was the most fearful of the remaining children, and Idalia had blessed the sound-cloaking properties of the tarnkappa with every step she took, as the child had cried the entire way, just as if she were not on her way to rescue and safety. The second in-and-out went much faster than the first, and she was able to deposit Tredianala within sight of Shalkah, and turn back to the cavern.

By now her tracks were a deep rut in the snow. The sight of them gave her a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, but there wasn’t much she could do about them. If the Shadowed Elves came outside, the proverbial goose was cooked anyway; they just had to hope they could get the captives out and make it to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns with them before the Enemy could come up with any more Deathwings or coldwarg.

Down into the dark again, and the caverns began to seem like an old friend. This time she took Vendalton. Now only Alkandoran, Merisashendiel, and Lairamo were left. The boy rode piggyback, his arms clutched about her throat. Her back was starting to hurt; this was different from carrying a pack all day in the Wildwood. A pack didn’t squirm around trying to get comfortable, and occasionally kick you in the stomach by accident.

She reached the cave opening and stepped outside. She looked around, wary of ambush.

“I will take the child, Idalia.”

Coethare materialized silently out of nowhere. With a grateful sigh, Idalia set Vendalton into the unicorn’s saddle and turned back into the cave.

Merisashendiel was next. The girl regarded her with big-eyed fear, suddenly unwilling to leave the others. Lairamo had to scold and bully her before she would take her place on Idalia’s shoulders.

“But what if they die?” Merisashendiel said. “What if the others come while you’re gone and take them?”

“Hush,” Idalia said brusquely. “Talking can’t change what will be. And if they haven’t come yet, they probably won’t come at all.” I hope. Did the Shadowed Elves check on their captives between feedings? There’d be no real reason to. And they’d just been fed. She tried to put from her mind what Alkandoran had said about how he’d been tracked and tormented on his one escape attempt As she’d told the child, talking couldn’t change what would be.

Up through the twisting maze of tunnels that led to the village cavern. Along the rim. Back through the maze of tunnels that led to the surface and safety. She could no longer remember for how many hours she’d been doing this, how far she’d walked through this underground world.

The surface once again, and another waiting unicorn. Merisashendiel wanted to argue with her, to suggest that she should be the one to go back down. Idalia dumped her rudely into the unicorn’s saddle and turned away.

“LAIRAMO should go first,” Alkandoran said when Idalia arrived.

“Certainly not,” Lairamo said calmly. “You will heed me in this, child. Go with Idalia.”

Lairamo looked up at Idalia. Their eyes met, and Idalia knew that they were both thinking the same thing. She couldn’t carry Alkandoran, but he was small and slender. She could fit him under the tarnkappa with her, if he put his arms around her waist and pressed very close to her, and they moved slowly.

She could not fit Lairamo under the tarnkappa with her at all.

I will find a way, Idalia vowed silently.

“But—” Alkandoran began.

“We’ll do it her way,” Idalia said. “Now this is going to be awkward and slow. I’ll need your help, and your full cooperation if we are to get out of here alive.”

Alkandoran swallowed hard, doing his best not to look as frightened as Idalia knew he felt.

“The sooner I have you out of here, the sooner I can come back for Lairamo,” Idalia said calmly.

Alkandoran nodded.

This trip to the surface was agonizingly slow, as the two of them shuffled along beneath Idalia’s cloak. Over and over Idalia blessed Lairamo’s practical no-nonsense calmness—after a sennight in the hands of the Shadowed Elves, the captives could all have been completely hysterical, too terrified to cooperate in their own rescue. She wasn’t sure what she would have done if that had been the case—the younger ones she could have bespelled into unconsciousness, perhaps (and hope that using the Wild Magic didn’t draw their captors to them immediately) but she would never have gotten Alkandoran to the surface without his intelligent cooperation.

Shalkan was waiting at the cave mouth.

“You were gone a long time, this time.”

“Slow going,” Idalia said, untangling the cloak from herself and Alkandoran. The youngster stepped away from her, drawing a shaky breath. “Just Lairamo, now.”

“We’ll be waiting for you. Come, lad,” Shalkan said.

Idalia took a moment to stretch, wrapping the cloak firmly around her, before stepping back into the cave once more. She’d already made up her mind what to do about getting Lairamo out. She suspected that Shalkan had guessed her plan.

Lairamo wasn’t going to like it. But it was the only way. And she only hoped she’d be around so that Jermayan could scold her for it later.

“NO,” Lairamo said, when Idalia told her.

“Yes,” Idalia said, just as firmly. “I’ve been over the route several times by now, and besides, I’ll be right behind you. I know how to move silently. Just follow the marks I’ve left, and they’ll lead you straight to the surface.”

“I will not buy my life at the expense of yours.”

“And what of the Prince?” Idalia was fighting dirty and she knew it, but she intended to win this argument, and swiftly. “He has seen his friends killed, and goes now to live among strangers at the Fortress of the Crowned Horns. Do I tell him I have left you behind to die? He needs you, and the Nine Cities need him. You will take the tarnkappa.”

Lairamo’s shoulders slumped as Idalia’s arguments hit home. “Best done quickly then,” the Elven nursemaid muttered. “But I do not forgive you this debt you place upon me, Idalia Wildmage.”

“I do not expect it.” I carry too many unpaid debts these days. She quickly flung the cloak over Lairamo’s shoulders and pulled the hood down over her face, showing her—by touch, since Lairamo was now invisible—how to hold the cloak to keep herself concealed. Then, with her hand on the shoulder of the now-invisible presence before her, Idalia and Lairamo made their way out of the cave.

They moved more slowly than Idalia would have liked, for Lairamo had to stop and look for the marks that Idalia had left, but they gradually made their way toward the surface, and freedom.

All along Idalia worried more for those waiting than for herself. They were pressing their luck every moment the party waited outside the cavern mouth—if this were her home, she would certainly post a watch over its entrance. But perhaps the Shadowed Elves did not think like Elves, or like Men. Or perhaps letting the captives escape was just another aspect of the trap.

All went smoothly—though with agonizing slowness—until they reached the path around the underground “village.” Idalia recognized it by the feeling of space, and by the faint glow of the firepit below—not enough for human eyes to see by, but enough to mark the place, since she had passed it so many times already this evening. She only hoped the creatures were all asleep, but thought that was too much to hope for—the meat she had seen roasting earlier argued that they were hunters, and probably hunted at night. She strained her ears for sounds from below.

Suddenly she heard what she had feared and dreaded—the stealthy approach of bare feet on rock. There was a faint click—as of a spear butt hitting rock—and a flurry of muttered whispers.

She felt invisible hands plucking at her frantically. Perhaps Lairamo had tried to shout a warning, not realizing that the tarnkappa would muffle all sounds.

“Go, Lairamo!” Idalia shouted. “Go on for Sandalon’s sake!” Praying the woman would heed her, she turned and fled back in the opposite direction, her eyes tightly shut, hoping desperately that she remembered the tunnels as well as she’d claimed.

A chorus of guttural cries greeted her night—no more need for silence now that the prey was wise to the hunt—and Idalia heard the sound of bare feet slapping against stone as the creatures ran after her.

LAIRAMO stood frozen in horror as five creatures out of nightmare ran after Idalia None of them so much as paused to glance at her, so strong was the Wildmagery of Idalia’s cloak. A choking sensation rose in Lairamo’s throat as she realized that Idalia had given up her life to draw the hunters away, so that Lairamo could gain the surface alive.

For the young Prince, Lairamo thought, her heart stone-heavy. Grimly, she turned away to look for the marks that would lead her to the surface.

“PACING won’t get them here any faster,” Kellen said to Jermayan.

The Elven knight shot him a dark look, and did not reply.

Everyone was standing to saddle, ready to ride the moment Idalia and Lairamo appeared. It was better than tempting fortune by lingering here a moment longer than they had to. Vestakia was standing watch now at the edge of the trees, adding her own magical senses to that of the unicorns, alert for trouble. If the creatures Idalia had named Shadowed Elves came near to the surface, Vestakia would know.

Kellen had been dearly tempted to send the others on ahead, but he did not want to split the party into two small groups. If there were an ambush laid along the way, they needed to be at their full strength.

So they waited.

Suddenly Sandalon gave a high scream of terror, and a moment later, Lairamo appeared, kneeling beside him and clutching him to her chest, stroking his hair and gabbling apologies for having frightened him. The tarnkappa was pooled at her feet.

“It was the cloak, my heart, I forgot the cloak, oh, forgive me, my darling—”

Sandalon clung to her, sobbing in relief.

Jermayan snatched up the cloak and shook it, as if its empty folds might somehow produce Idalia.

“Idalia,” was all he said.

Lairamo looked up at him, her face filled with grief and misery. She looked at the tarnkappa as if she wished to burn it on the spot.

“Only one could wear it. She was seen. She ran … deeper into the cavern, lest—Lest I be discovered.”

“Come on.” Kellen barely recognized the voice as his own. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

“I’m staying,” Jermayan said, wadding the tarnkappa in his hands.

And probably charging right in there after her, if no one stops you, Kellen thought.

“Vestakia, you go with them,” Kellen said, continuing as if Jermayan hadn’t spoken. “You’ll need to keep watch along the road, to let them know if there are any traps along the way. Jermayan and I will keep watch here, and bring Idalia along when she comes.”

The way he said it, it almost seemed as if it were possible. And if he were to think of it logically, they should all leave now, together. But Idalia was a Wildmage of great power, and Kellen wasn’t ready to give up on her quite yet. As for Jermayan, well, the world would fall apart around him before anyone could make him leave.

“Leaf and Star be with you,” Evanor said quietly.

Vestakia and the knights quickly mounted, taking Lairamo and the children up with them, and rode off in the direction of the Crowned Horns, the unicorns leading the way. In moments the clearing was deserted except for Jermayan, Valdien, Kellen, Shalkan, and Idalia’s palfrey.

“I’m going in after her,” Jermayan said.

“No, you’re not,” Kellen said, snatching the tarnkappa out of the Elven Knight’s hands. “Not if I have to knock you senseless to keep you from doing it.”

“As if you could, Knight-Mage,” Jermayan said. But there was a grudging willingness to listen in his voice. Kellen might be able to convince his friend, if he spoke quickly.

“One, we both know Idalia can take care of herself. Two, neither of us knows where she is. Three, she hasn’t been gone that long—not if she’s leading pursuit away deeper into the mountain. What we’re going to do is wait for her—here, where she knows to find us. If she hasn’t come back in a reasonable time, then I’ll do a Finding Spell, and based on what that tells us, we’ll come up with a plan. But I don’t know whether those things can sense Wild Magic, so I don’t want to do one before it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Very well,” Jermayan said grudgingly. “I will wait. For a while. But do not try my patience for long.”

IDALIA ran through the darkness, her hands outstretched in front of her to keep herself from running full-tilt into a wall. She dared not slow her headlong pace, for she could hear the sounds of pursuit close behind. She no longer knew where she was in the cave system.

A flung spear made her flinch aside, then another, and suddenly there was no rock beneath her feet, only air.

Idalia fell.

CILARNEN awoke lying on the floor in a tiny room that could only be described as a cell. It was a cubicle a bit less than eight feet square—though at least three times that in height—with a stone bench at one end. The only light came through a small grille set in the door. When he ran to the door and looked out, he could see that the corridor was as featureless as his cell, though it was lit to blinding brightness by globes of hovering Magelight.

He wrapped his arms around himself and shivered, gulping several times to try to banish his fear. When they had begun this adventure—and he now realized, with the clarity of despair, that in some sense it had been an adventure for all of them—it had never occurred to any of them that it could end like this.

He had no idea of where he might be, though he knew he was in the hands of the High Council. Somehow they had discovered what they were doing, and arrested them all.

He hoped the others were all right.

All right? Cilarnen’s mouth twisted in a bitter smile. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen to them, but he doubted any of them was going to be “all right.”

He walked stiffly over to the bench and sat down, leaning back against the wall. Whatever the Council decided, he knew his own fate. His father would burn the Magegift from his mind and disinherit him.

What in the name of the Light was he supposed to do with the rest of his life? He was a Mage. That was all he was. That was all he’d ever wanted to be. To study the intricacies of the High Art—to use his power for the good of the City—to perhaps, someday, create a refinement of one of the spells in the Great Book and to gain his father’s seat on the High Council or even to serve beside him.

And now it was all over.

He wasn’t even nineteen yet.

What in the name of the Light did you think you were DOING?

It was like awakening from a beautiful dream only to discover that it had been a nightmare all along. Everything had seemed so plausible: with the umbrastone, they could convince the High Council to listen to them before the City was in ruins.

Idiot. Idiot. Whatever made you think they’d listen to you when they wouldn’t listen to half the Mages in the City? All you’ve done is bring disgrace on House Volpiril and ruination on your friends! Farmer Kellen couldn’t have done better. With the thought of Kellen Tavadon, a new thought struck him. If the High Council made Lycaelon Tavadon’s son disappear, maybe they’ll send me to the same place.

Strangely, the thought brought comfort.

AT the same time Cilarnen was awakening in his cell below the Council House, Setarion Volpiril was being escorted into Lycaelon’s private offices as the chorus of Second Night Bells echoed through the City.

He had not, of course, been asleep. The High Mages were, by necessity, creatures of the hours of darkness, since the quiet night hours were best for the elaborate workings of the High Magick. He had been called from the Grand Circle—which was by day the Council chamber—by the Arch-Mage’s personal authority, and escorted to Lycaelon’s office by six stone golems and the Arch-Mage’s personal private secretary.

Anigrel stood aside to let him pass, then followed Lord Volpiril into the office. He kept his face carefully neutral, betraying no hint of the exultation he felt. Tonight was the culmination of plans carefully-nurtured for years—plans that would deliver such a blow to the Golden City that would weaken it past all ability to defend itself.

He had seen Lord Volpiril before—almost daily, in fact—but for the first time, it struck Anigrel how very much Cilarnen resembled his father—the same russet hair, the same pale blue eyes. Proper Mageborn breeding saw to that, of course. Among the sons of the Mageborn, only Kellen Outlaw had not taken after his father … in more ways than one.

“What is the meaning of this?” Volpiril demanded before Lycaelon had a chance to speak. “You interrupt the Working upon the City-Wards—we shall have to begin again from the beginning—all that time, all that preparation—wasted! This had better be worth my time.”

“Another will take your place,” Lycaelon said calmly. “Be seated, Lord Volpiril, and calm yourself. Because of your long service to the City—however misguided—I have brought you here tonight to offer you a choice.”

Whatever Volpiril might have been expecting to hear, obviously it was not this. He turned sideways, glancing back at Anigrel, who was still standing beside the door.

“I repose all confidence and trust in Anigrel. And what you will hear from him has every bearing on the decision you will make here,” Lycaelon said.

“Decision? What decision?” Volpiril demanded, sweeping his robes about himself and settling into the seat opposite the Arch-Mage’s desk. His pale eyes glittered with exasperation.

“Whether to give up your seat on the Council and retire utterly into private life. I am willing, in that case, to accept your oath and parole, providing you do nothing to interfere with Cilarnen’s trial and Banishment.”

“Cilarnen?” Lord Volpiril half-rose from his seat, thought better of it, and settled slowly back again. “What has the boy to do with anything? He is at home asleep in his bed.”

“He was arrested not two bells ago—for treason,” Lycaelon said. He smiled, gazing fully into his enemy’s eyes.

“Treason!” Volpiril leaned back in the low chair, visibly shaken. “I do not believe it. I will not believe it!”

“A dozen Mages saw him—and the cabal he had formed—preparing to make umbrastone,” Anigrel said, speaking for the first time. “There can be no doubt.”

“Where would he have gotten such a notion?” Lycaelon demanded, his grey eyes hard. “Where would he have gotten the materials—the information? There is only one place. Oh, he has not been questioned yet Whether he is questioned … that is up to you.”

“But I am innocent! I knew nothing of this! Question me under Truthspell, and by the Light, I will give you your proof!” Volpiril demanded, his face the ashy grey of shock.

“My dear Setarion,” Lycaelon said, shaking his head ruefully. “I am certain that you no longer remember your part in this. No Truthspell would implicate you, as you well know. And I doubt young Cilarnen remembers who it was that set his foot upon the path to treason. But your recent actions in Council speak for themselves about your oft-professed love for the City.”

“My—recent—actions—” Suddenly Volpiril grew even paler, if that had been possible. Seen in the light of this, his demands to remove the protection of the City from the farmlands outside it, and the subsequent results, would look like the beginning of a plan to destroy Armethalieh.

“No. There is no profit to be had from this, Setarion, and the best you can hope for is to escape with your own skin intact,” said Lycaelon. “Either resign your seat, and retire utterly from public affairs, or I shall see you tried for treason beside your son. And when you are Banished with him—as you shall be—I shall see House Volpiril brought down to ruin, and all who bear your name shall live out their days in poverty and shame.”

Anigrel’s face was impassive. Lycaelon’s was almost as expressionless, but there was, perhaps, the trace of a gleam in his eye.

“Choose.”

Lord Volpiril got to his feet, trembling with rage, and perhaps—at last—even with fear.

“This is a plot,” he said, his voice hoarse with anger.

“Indeed,” Lycaelon said. “And your son was its instigator.”

“You leave me no choice.”

“There is always a choice,” the Arch-Mage said dispassionately.

There was a moment of tension, then Volpiril bowed his head.

“Very well,” he said in a low voice. “I resign.”

“And I have your oath that you will work no further treason?” Lycaelon asked silkily.

Volpiril’s head snapped up, and he took a quick step toward Lycaelon, fists clenched. For a moment Anigrel, watching, thought that Volpiril might actually attempt to strike the Arch-Mage, and regretted leaving the stone golems outside the door, but Lycaelon had judged the character of his enemy well.

“You have my oath,” Volpiril said, his voice a groan. “I shall work no treason—against the High Council, against the City … or against the Arch-Mage.”

As he spoke the words, Lycaelon lifted his wand from his desk and sketched a glyph in the air, keying the prepared spells. Each one drifted outward from the walls and settled over Volpiril’s body, binding him more firmly and eternally than golden chains.

“Very good, Lord Volpiril,” Lycaelon said, a note of patronizing approval in his voice. “Now go home.”

Anigrel opened the door for Lord Volpiril, and closed it quietly behind him. He wondered, in a disinterested fashion, if the man would still be alive by morning, or would contrive to end his life in some spectacular fashion. Certainly he no longer had anything to live for.

“Come, sit,” Lycaelon said to Anigrel, indicating the chair beside him. “Now we have made a place for you on the Council, but I am not finished yet. Breulin and Isas must go—they are implicated as well, are they not?”

“Jorade Isas is the great-great-grandnephew of Lord Isas; his heir, I believe, as Lord Isas has never married. Geont Pentres is the youngest son of House Pentres, which is allied to House Breulin. I believe a case can be made for both lords’ involvement,” Anigrel said smoothly.

“You’re certain Cilarnen was the ringleader—at Lord Volpiril’s instigation?” Lycaelon demanded eagerly.

“Absolutely. His magickal abilities were rated by his teachers at the Mage College as exceptional. I would not be at all surprised to learn that there were spells of compulsion involved on at least some of the others.”

Lycaelon smiled. “Very good. A little judicious mind-healing, and Pentres and young Isas won’t remember their parts in this terrible matter. I will offer that to Lord Breulin and Lord Isas as an inducement to see reason. If they will not, of course, there is no reason to believe that their dependents have the proper character to wield the High Magick, now is there, Anigrel?”

“Certainly not, Lord Lycaelon,” Anigrel said gravely.

“And the other three?” Lycaelon asked, moving on.

“One is Tradeborn. With your permission, we can burn the Gift out of him tomorrow and Banish him tomorrow evening or the day after, once the boundaries have been extended over the Central Valley once again. He is being fostered by House Arcable. Fines and restrictions there, I’d suggest.”

“Very good. I’ll see a proposed schedule for that on my desk by the end of the sennight. Ah, I must remember to stop giving you such orders, Anigrel. You must instruct my new secretary to be as efficient as you have been.”

“I will see to it, Lord Lycaelon,” Anigrel said with a smile.

“The last two conspirators present unique difficulties, each in his own way. One is Kermis Lalkmair—you will recall the family?”

Lycaelon sighed. “An eternal thorn in my side!”

Anigrel permitted himself another smile. Dyren Lalkmair was an eccentric scholar devoted to study and research. The family shunned politics utterly. “It is said that Lord Lalkmair would rather Burn the Gift out of one of his sons than see him hold a seat on a City council. He would view treason even more harshly. You will be seen as both merciful and just if you simply hand Kermis Lalkmair over to his family for judgment … and I do not think he will ever be a problem to us again.”

“An excellent notion, Anigrel,” Lycaelon said warmly. “You will be a formidable asset to the High Council. And the last? You said there were two problems.”

“Margon Ogregance. He is the son of the High Mage Epalin Ogregance, who oversees the Merchants and Provender’s Council.”

Lycaelon sighed. “And Lord Ogregance has been telling me since before the rains came that Volpiril’s decree would be the ruin of us all—as if I didn’t know it!” He frowned.

Anigrel regarded the Arch-Mage with faint curiosity. He’d never thought that either charity or disinterested kindness were a part of Lycaelon’s emotional makeup. Such hesitancy over young Margon’s fate was most unlike him.

Or perhaps this was the considered rumination of a consummate political game-player, weighing all the possibilities before coming to a decision. The High Mage Ogregance was an important figure in the City—especially now—and to alienate him at this delicate juncture could be disastrous. It was Ogregance who dealt most directly with the Home Farms, and kept the skittish and quarrelsome merchants in line.

“It is, of course, a transgression worth Banishment,” Lycaelon said at last. “Or at the very least, the removal of young Margon’s Magegift. But—as I will make plain to Lord Ogregance—House Volpiril has been at the root of all of this, from the attempt to starve the City by the ruinous and ill-considered reduction of our borders, to this latest attempt to overthrow us utterly. His son was but a pawn.

“There will be punishment, of course. Margon Ogregance’s advancement in rank will not be as swift as it might have otherwise been. We must be certain that this … cankerous growth was entirely of House Volpiril’s instigation. But once these inconvenient memories have been pruned from his mind—I shall do that myself—perhaps the young tree will grow straight once more.”

And Mage Ogregance will be your devoted partisan and supporter for as long as he lives, lest you suddenly discover “evidence” that Margon was, in fact, a willing participant in Cilarnen Volpiril’s plot, Anigrel thought admiringly. Lycaelon Tavadon might be foolish in many ways, but the man was a master manipulator of his fellow Mages, and even Anigrel stood in awe of his grasp of politics.

All for the good of the City, of course. As defined by the Arch-Mage Lycaelon Tavadon.

“An excellent solution, Arch-Mage,” Anigrel said, allowing his voice to fill with the warmth of admiration. “And, if you will permit, I will take care of the preparations for Rolfort and young Cilarnen. After all”—he smiled coldly—“it need not be elegant.”

“Indeed.” An answering wolf-light kindled in Lycaelon’s eyes. “But I know that your work could never be anything less than perfection, Anigrel. You are … you are the son I should have had.”

Anigrel bowed his pale head modestly, casting his eyes downward.

“Lord Arch-Mage, I—”

“And why should you not be?” Lycaelon said, struck by a sudden inspiration. “I have no children—you have no family. You have been my son in all but body. It is not right that the name of Tavadon, which has served this great City so well and so long, should die with me. I shall adopt you—make you my heir—and you will serve the City after me, in the name of Tavadon!”

“My lord, I—” This was going even better than he had dreamed. As the Arch-Mage’s heir, Anigrel would be in an unassailable position of power and influence. No one would dare speak against him. Such adoptions were not common, but they weren’t entirely unheard-of, either. Especially in the light of Lycaelon’s personal history. Both his children Banished, and both half-breeds; he’d never actually had a true Mageborn son. “I shall serve you more faithfully than you can imagine.”

“My son.” Lycaelon seemed to savor the words as if they were some rare delicacy. “My true son. Come Light’s Day I shall have you entered on the rolls of the Temple of the Light as my true son and heir. You shall take Volpiril’s seat in Council, and I shall see you raised from Master Undermage to the ranks of the High Mages themselves!”

“My lord,” Anigrel said, a faint modest note of protest in his voice. His present rank was Master Undermage; his elevation to that rank from Journeyman Undermage had been unwontedly swift, and a signal mark of Lycaelon’s favor. To go from there to High Mage was normally the work of decades of study: many Mageborn never reached the higher ranks of Magery at all.

“What? Do you not think my son is worthy of such an honor?” Lycaelon demanded with heavy-handed humor. “I know you are more than capable in the Art.”

“I think, my lord,” Anigrel said practically, “that it will cause jealously and bad feeling among your fellows.” And that will work to my advantage, in time.

“Bah! The petty quibbles of petty fools! I swore I would bring the Council to heel when Volpiril forced his madness upon me, and so I shall. This is but the beginning. We shall do great things together, Anigrel.”

“Indeed we shall, Lord Arch-Mage. Indeed we shall.”

HE must have slept—though Cilarnen had no memory of dozing off—but the hard click of stone-on-stone roused Cilarnen to heart-pounding wakefulness.

Footsteps in the corridor outside. Stone golem footsteps.

He was on his feet before he realized he’d moved, his back pressed against the wall of his cell as if he could somehow transport himself through the unyielding stone.

They were coming for him.

His hands clenched and unclenched without his conscious volition. He made a hundred plans and discarded them in an instant—not for escape; he knew that was impossible; but to somehow save the others. Surely the High Council would give him a chance to explain, to tell them that this had all been his idea …

The cell door opened. Cilarnen blinked as light flooded the cell. A globe of Mage-light floated in over the man’s head and rose toward the ceiling, and in the new brightness, Cilarnen could see that his visitor was a blond man who wore the plain grey robes and tabard of a Master Undermage. Behind him stood a pair of Stone Golems.

“Cilarnen Volpiril. You are in a great deal of trouble,” the stranger said pleasantly. “I am Undermage Anigrel. I am here to explain matters to you.”

Anigrel? But … the Arch-Mage’s private secretary? Here?

One of the stone golems stepped into the cell and set down a large basket beside the door.

“The necessities of your imprisonment,” Undermage Anigrel said.

Cilarnen did not bother to glance toward the basket. His whole being was focused on the Undermage. Imprisonment? For how long? Forever?

“What … what about the others?” It was the hardest thing Cilarnen had ever done to get the sentence out. His mouth was dry, and his tongue seemed to have grown unbearably clumsy. He stumbled over the words as if he had forgotten how to speak.

Undermage Anigrel raised his eyebrows in mild reproof. “The other traitors? They will be dealt with appropriately. You should consider your own fate.”

“They—It was my idea. All of it.” Words came easier now, and it seemed terribly important to make Undermage Anigrel believe him.

“Oh, we know that. All a plot of House Volpiril to seize power in the City for itself. But you have failed.”

Cilarnen stared at the Undermage in dawning horror. It had never occurred to him—never!—that no matter what he did, anyone would think his father was involved in it.

“No! He—my father—Lord Volpiril—No—” He took a step forward, though he had no idea why. The ingrained habit of submission to lawful authority held, even now.

Undermage Anigrel raised a slender hand. “Do not try to protect him. He has already confessed everything, and resigned his seat on the High Council, preparing to await his fate. Now there is only your fate to consider.”

Cilarnen staggered backward again, leaning now against the wall of the cell for support. The cell seemed suddenly airless, its atmosphere stifling. His father had confessed?

To what?

“I don’t understand,” Cilarnen whispered. “I told him nothing.”

“But it was he who first planted these ideas in your mind, then erased the memory of the conversation—though not the seeds of treason—by Magecraft,” Undermage Anigrel said kindly. “How else could you have come by such foolish notions? What could you have been thinking of?”

“I don’t know—I don’t know—” Cilarnen moaned. He staggered the few steps to the stone bench and flung himself down, covering his face with his hands. Could that truly be what had happened?

He didn’t know. He didn’t remember.

“I want to talk to my father,” Cilarnen said, raising his face from his hands. He would confront Lord Volpiril, demand an explanation—or at least the truth.

“Alas, that is no longer possible,” Undermage Anigrel said. He did not sound sorry at all. “It will never be possible again. And now you must pay for your part in these events as well, for even if your father planted the compulsions in your mind, had you been a true son of the City and loyal first to her welfare, you would have thrown off those compulsions, recognizing them as treasonable.” He shook his head, sadly. “No, I fear that the fruit does not fall far from the tree, and treasonous blood breeds treasonous blood.”

Cilarnen simply stared at Anigrel, stunned now to numbness. He’d thought the plan was all his own idea. Now the Undermage was saying that it wasn’t—but he was saying that Cilarnen was still to be punished for it.

“Oh, come, Master Cilarnen,” Anigrel said chidingly, sounding in that moment so much like one of Cilarnen’s Mage-College tutors that for a moment he had the surreal feeling he was back in school. But Anigrel’s next words returned him to reality with a chilling jolt. “It does not matter where the foul notion of overthrowing the High Council came from. You were still free to reject it—to go about the lawful business of serving the City. But you did not.”

“But we—but I—but we never … we only wanted the Council to listen to us,” Cilarnen said in a very small voice.

“And so you chose to create a weapon that destroys magick. What an odd way to make someone listen, to be sure,” Undermage Anigrel answered caustically. “You dabbled in the Proscribed Arts, Master Cilarnen, and for that crime you are to be stripped of your Gift and Banished from the City, just as soon as her Bounds are restored. At sunset three days hence you will be set outside the Delfier Gate, garbed in the saffron cloak of Felony. From that moment, you are Outlaw, forbidden sanctuary anywhere within Armethaliehan lands. You will be provided with a day’s supply of bread and water; after that is gone you must find sustenance on your own. At dawn, the Outlaw Hunt will pass through those same gates, and if you are still within the bounds of Armethaliehan lands, they will rend you limb from limb, so you would be well advised to spend the night getting as far away from the City as you can. You may not go to the villages. By tomorrow’s dawn they will once more belong to the City. Do you understand?”

“Banished?” Cilarnen stared at Undermage Anigrel, stunned. “From the City? But … no one is Banished. Not any more. Not for centuries.”

It was a tale to frighten children with—like Demons. Surely …

Anigrel smiled. “Believe what you wish for as long as you can. In two days’ time, Rolfort will know the truth. In three, so will you.”

“But … where will I go?” Cilarnen asked blankly.

Undermage Anigrel shook his head in exasperation. “Boy, it does not matter to us. From the moment you don the Felon’s Cloak—from the moment you are set outside the City gates—you are no longer a citizen of Armethalieh. You are dead to the City and to everyone you ever knew, just as your father is. You will never return here. You are Banished. Now do you understand?”

EVEN in the azure Magelight, Anigrel could see that the boy was deathly pale, his face sheened with the sweat of terror and growing despair. Anigrel felt a warm glow of satisfaction. Let the pampered highborn brat think his father was dead—he would never know otherwise.

“I understand,” Cilarnen said at last. His voice trembled.

“Very good. And since we cannot have Mages wandering around outside the City—especially rebellious, half-trained Mages—you would do well to heed me now.”

The key-phrase triggered the prepared spell, and Cilarnen’s eyelids fluttered closed as he slipped quickly into the spell-fed trance. He barely struggled: the stronger the Gift, the more susceptible the subject to certain forms of Magick.

Anigrel moved closer, catching Cilarnen as he slumped and laying him out on the stone bench. He felt the pulse of Cilarnen’s Magick, hot and strong, and when he entered Cilarnen’s mind, he could see that the parts of the boy’s brain that sensed and handled Mage-energy glowed as bright as a furnace. Cilarnen was a strong Mage, with a strong, well-trained Gift.

IT took Anigrel nearly two bells to do what needed to be done—Lycaelon was quite right; his work was never less than perfection—and there were few other Mages in the City, of any rank, who could have equaled it.

And none who could have detected it.

When he had finished, Anigrel felt the weight of weariness pulling at him. Perhaps he should sleep and rest himself before dealing with young Rolfort, though the work he would do there would be much simpler. He considered the matter for a moment, and decided against it. No, to wait might raise questions—he could pass off the length of time he’d spent here by saying he was questioning the boys, but not the need to rest between Excisions. And if his work on Rolfort was less than elegant, well, the boy wasn’t going to live long enough to show evidence of the fact, now, was he?

Unlike young Lord Cilarnen.

Anigrel had plans for Cilarnen.

He gazed down at the sleeping Mageborn with the fondness of a craftsman for a tool that would yet give good service.

To anyone who might think to look, it would seem that Cilarnen’s Gift had been burned from his mind, just as was proper for any of the higher ranks of Magery who were Banished. It would seem that way to Cilarnen himself, for a time.

But Anigrel had other plans. Cilarnen Volpiril was far too valuable a pawn to cast away simply because he had been useful once. And if he were to be useful again, Anigrel wanted him intact and at the height of his powers.

It was possible, for the first time in recent memory, to survive the Hunt—enlarging the City’s boundaries to their old limits would be the work of moonturns, and when Cilarnen was turned out of the Delfier Gate, the City Lands would only extend over the Central Valley. A determined man—a man who had the wit to steal a horse—might actually escape the City lands in a night.

Rolfort, of course, would not be so fortunate. Anigrel would make certain of that.

But when Cilarnen escaped—and a desire to escape was only one of the compulsions Anigrel had laid upon him in his long Working—there was only one place he could go.

To the Wild Lands, where the Outlaw Kellen lived.

Like would surely call to like. Fellow Outlaws, fellow victims of misfortune, surely they would become as brothers?

And then Anigrel would spring his trap.

Taking a deep breath, and marshaling his strength, Anigrel summoned the globe of Mage-light and walked from the cell, preparing to pay a call upon his other victim.

AT Dawn Bells, Lycaelon was given the exquisite pleasure of entertaining Lords Isas and Breulin in his Council chambers.

Both Mages, of course, already knew most of the details of the plot and the arrests that had occurred at Midnight Bells. If servants’ gossip ran swiftly in the City of a Thousand Bells, then gossip among the Mageborn ran swifter, and Lycaelon had seen no reason to stifle it. He had known that within a bell at most, the Undermages who had arrested the boys would have seen to it that the details of the matter would reach their families, whether out of spite or from a hope of currying later favor. He had entertained himself with imagining the petitions that must be flying back and forth between the families involved and their High Mage heads—Isas and Breulin—as everyone scrabbled for information that simply wasn’t available.

Isas had always been something of an ally to him, but even Isas had not voted with him against Volpiril in the end, and he would pay for that now. And Breulin had always opposed his policies. It would be well to be rid of both of them.

He saw Isas first. The aged High Mage was escorted into Lycaelon’s chambers by the same Stone Golems who had summoned him from his house. The old man was quivering with such indignation that for a moment Lycaelon was sure Isas was going to drop dead on the spot and save him a great deal of trouble.

“Lord Isas,” he said cordially, “do sit down. You really don’t look well.” Light forgive him, but he was enjoying this!

“Lord Lycaelon—what is the meaning of this?” Isas demanded.

“Oh, I think you already know,” Lycaelon said, almost purring. “The question is, what are you prepared to do about it?”

THE meeting went very much as Lycaelon intended it to. Jorade was Lord Isas’s only possible heir; to keep the boy whole and unmarred Isas was willing to give up his seat on the Council and take the same oath Lord Volpiril had.

He was, in fact, absurdly grateful to do so.

“My dear Lord Lycaelon—I had no idea—no idea …” he quavered.

The elderly Lord Isas seemed to have aged a decade from the moment he had entered Lycaelon’s chambers. His skin had taken on a greyish tinge and his breathing was harsh.

“Did I not warn you—all of you—what Volpiril was, time and again?” Lycaelon’s voice was stem. “Yet none of you listened—even you, Lawell, and I thought you my friend.”

“I was—I meant to be—” Isas protested. “But—after Kellen—all of us thought …”

Lycaelon’s face froze at the mention of the forbidden name. Yet, he consoled himself, he had a new son now. A better son. A son who would be all to him that The Outlaw had never been.

“You thought I had let my emotions overmaster me,” Lycaelon said heavily. “And now you see that I acted—then, as always—for the good of the City.”

“Yes,” Lord Isas said, bowing his head humbly. “I see that now, Lycaelon.”

“Go home, Lawell,” Lycaelon said, almost kindly. “I will send Jorade to you when the mindhealers have finished with him. Treat him well. A true son is a precious gift.” He reached for the bellpull. “Let me summon a servant to escort you home. You really don’t look at all well.”

THE meeting with Lord Breulin went a bit more awkwardly. Breulin had always been his opponent in Council; he was a man in the vigor of his prime, ambitious enough to wish to become Arch-Mage himself someday.

But Lycaelon was firm.

“My lord, if you wish to see the matter come to a public trial before the Council, that is, of course, your right. But I and many others find it very difficult to imagine how a handful of children conceived of a plan of this nature by themselves. The question that must be asked—and will be asked, frequently, in the moonturns to come, should you force me to put the matter of young Geont before the Council—is not only where they came by their peculiar notions and the means to carry them out, but who would benefit from a, shall we say, radical rearrangement of the Council?” Lycaelon said.

Lord Breulin regarded him warily, obviously not liking the note of confidence he heard in Lord Lycaelon’s voice.

“May I direct your attention to the names of the conspirators?” the Arch-Mage continued. “Isas—Pentres—Lalkmair—Rolfort—Ogregance—Volpiril. Isas, Lalkmair, Rolfort, and Ogregance we can dismiss at once. Three of them have no Council ties, and all the world knows that Isas is—was—my supporter. He could hardly be expected to see benefit from the overthrow of the Council. This leaves Volpiril and Pentres, and House Pentres is a Breulin supporter, its fortunes tied to those of your House, my lord Breulin.

“How odd. The world believes Volpiril and Breulin to be at odds. Certainly the two of you seemed to be in opposition in Council—except when you were opposing me. How singular to find Volpiril’s heir and Breulin’s dependent so closely linked. Perhaps you believed you could share the spoils. Or perhaps you intended a further betrayal of one another?”

Lord Breulin’s face had turned a deep shade of maroon, making his stiff silver beard stand out even more brightly against his skin.

“You have no proof of that,” he said through gritted teeth.

“I have Lord Volpiril’s resignation from the Council,” Lycaelon said simply. “Lord Isas has also resigned.”

Breulin’s eyes narrowed. Resignation—for a man as ambitious as Lord Volpiril—was as good as a confession of guilt, yet how could it be otherwise, when Volpiril’s heir was the acknowledged ringleader of the young conspirators? Lycaelon needed no spell of Mindhearing to know Lord Breulin’s thoughts. They were plain upon the man’s face, as at last he awoke to his own peril.

“What will be done with the boys?” Breulin asked, after a long pause.

“For some, Banishment,” Lycaelon said. “As soon as the Hunt has space to run free once more.”

“And Geont?” Breulin said when Lycaelon said nothing further.

“In the end, his fate is in your hands, Lord Breulin,” Lycaelon answered. “As is my understanding of the degree of your involvement.”

THOUGH the matter was an open secret, it was not yet a public scandal—and perhaps Lord Breulin’s conscience was not quite as clear as he wished it to be. Certainly, if he allowed Geont Pentres’s Gift to be taken from him, Lord Breulin would make enemies of those who had been his allies and supporters. And in the end, whether the hearings proved him culpable or innocent, he would still be tainted by the shadow of conspiracy.

So to avoid the shame and publicity of a Council inquiry—and incidentally to save himself from the humiliation of giving up a kinsman to the Excision of his Magegift—Lord Breulin, too, resigned his position on the Council and gave his binding oath before the second bells of day rang out through the City.

Chapter Nine

The Council of fear

AT FIRST MORNING Bells, the High Council convened in special session.

The Council chamber was one of the most imposing rooms in all the Golden City, though few but Mages and Outlanders ever saw it. It had been built by Magecraft, as had been the whole of the Council House, and its unadorned walls of white marble gleamed, polished to mirror-perfection, their flawless curves unrelieved by any ornament save two golden doors opposite sides of the circular chamber. Each door was wrought with the symbol of the Eternal Light in gleaming high relief, so that the planes and angles of their exquisite surfaces glittered as if they were aflame.

If the walls were stark and unornamented, the floor was their opposite. It held a complex pattern of black and white marble. Though it might seem to be nothing more than an overelaborate decorative pattern, it was in fact a series of keys that allowed Adepts to keep their proper places during the nighttime Workings, for the Council chamber was also the Temple where the Great Circles were held for the Mage’s nighttime Workings.

At one end of the Council chamber stood a curved judicial bench twice the height of a tall man, as black as the wall behind it was white. It was here that the High Council sat to pass judgment upon every aspect of life in Armethalieh. The room had been designed by the ancient Mages who had wrought it to overawe the mind and numb the spirit. Even the Mages who worked here daily were not immune to its effects, and that was as it should be. Let all who entered here know that the individual was as nothing, and the City was all.

The Arch-Mage’s thronelike chair was in the center of the bench, with six lesser seats on either side. Until today, every seat had always been filled.

The remaining Mages—Meron, Perizel, Lorins, Arance, Ganaret, Nagid, Vilmos, Dagan, and Harith—entered the chamber where Lycaelon was already seated. When the nine of them had taken their places, they looked with various degrees of consternation at the three empty seats.

“Breulin, Isas, and Volpiril have resigned from the Council, for reasons of which I think all of you are aware,” Lycaelon said. His voice filled the chamber, resonating from the polished marble walls. “This special session will be devoted to dealing with the matter of the traitors, discovering the extent of the corruption, and repairing the harm that they have done to the City. But first, there is the matter of filling the vacancies created.”

There was a stir of anticipation in the room. Vacancies on the High Council were rare. For there to be three at once was unprecedented, and every man in the room had his own candidates to fill the vacant chairs.

But Lycaelon was not finished speaking.

“I propose to you my own candidate, Chired Anigrel, who is to become my son and the heir of my House this Light’s Day. Many of you will know him as my private secretary, but in these past moonturns he has done far more for the good of the City than scribing mere paperwork. It was through Undermage Anigrel’s tireless work that the traitors were uncovered and the conspiracy disarmed before the threat could grow. He has demonstrated an uncommon devotion and loyalty to the City, as well as a mastery of the Art that much exceeds his rank. I open the matter now for discussion before I call the vote.”

“Discussion … ? But Arch-Mage, surely you do not expect us to vote upon the matter today?” Lord Dagan asked, almost timidly.

“My lords,” Lycaelon said ponderously, “I wish from the bottom of my heart that we had the leisure to consider the matter in our usual deliberate fashion. But the empty seats among us are proof enough that this cannot be. For the other vacancies, yes, of course, we shall take as much time as you like. But in light of the service he has already rendered to the City, I do not wish to deprive us of Anigrel’s sapient counsel for another moment. Providing, always, that we are all in agreement.”

“My lord Lycaelon, may I be the first to offer you congratulations upon your heir? May the Light defend him in all his works. It is heartening to hear good news when the shadows seem to gather on every side,” Lord Harith said.

“I shall convey your congratulations to my son,” Lycaelon said, bowing his head. “We are both gratified.” He smiled inwardly. Harith had obviously decided which way the hare would jump and was anxious to assure Lycaelon that he would continue to support him.

Perizel leaned forward, signaling his intention to speak next. The man was a consummate political animal, and cloaked his ambition in a punctilious insistence on the observance of proper form. If Lord Perizel disliked an idea, he could delay it for sennights by debating every detail of the form of its presentation.

“My lord Arch-Mage. Without in any way speaking to Undermage Anigrel’s character or other qualifications to join our Council, I must raise a point of order regarding his possible appointment. As you yourself have remarked, his rank is but that of Undermage. Yet one must be of the rank of High Mage to serve upon the Council. Is that not so?”

There was a murmur of agreement—not unmixed with relief in a few cases—as the remaining members of the Council conferred among themselves, whispering and nodding their heads. Lycaelon allowed it to continue for a few moments before speaking again.

“My lords, I believe you will find there is precedent for a Mage of lesser rank serving upon the High Council, should his other qualifications be exceptional. I direct your attention to the case of Undermage Camorin in the 427th year of the City and your ancestor, Lord Arance, who served with distinction upon the Council beginning in Year 719, though he had not yet attained the distinction of High Mage. And should Lord Anigrel be permitted to test for advancement upon an accelerated schedule, then this consideration would certainly be set at rest.”

Lord Perizel regarded the Arch-Mage for a moment, then smiled faintly and nodded, settling back in his chair. “You are correct, Lord Arch-Mage. There is precedent. I withdraw my objection.” ,

Lycaelon glanced around at the other Mages. Their faces were studiously blank, but there was no way they could argue with facts. Both Mage Camorin and Arance’s ancestor had been of lesser rank when they served upon the Council—not only had Anigrel found the citations for him to strengthen his argument, but every man here should recall the cases from History of the City under Mage Hendassar.

THOUGH the Mages continued to debate—with Lycaelon and with each other—Lycaelon could tell that their words were merely a cloak for the furious debate each Mage was having with himself.

What was Lycaelon’s real motive in proposing Anigrel for the Council? Was there more to be gained by supporting Anigrel’s nomination or by blocking it?

Every Mage here knew about the arrests and the resignations that had followed them, of course. All of them were shocked—as Lycaelon had been—that such a thing could happen, and fearful of how far the treasonous taint might have spread. If Mageborn could conspire against Mageborn, then no one was safe.

Further, each one of them—none better, in all the City—had seen what disaster their ill-considered support of Lord Volpiril’s plans had led them into. Now it seemed that Lycaelon—and Anigrel—were poised to lead them out of it, to undo as much of the damage as could be repaired, and take steps to ensure that the rest was handled suitably.

“How did Lord Anigrel discover the traitors?” Lord Ganaret asked, after a full bell of debate.

Lycaelon smiled sadly, and spread his hands wide. “My lord, it is with regret that I cannot disclose Lord Anigrel’s methods as yet. You see, I am not entirely certain that the entire cabal has been uprooted.”

That got their attention! Nine pairs of eyes focused on Lycaelon’s face, and the Council chamber was suddenly silent.

“But … they were arrested …” Lord Ganaret gasped.

“Boys making umbrastone,” Lycaelon said, scoffing. “Terrible in itself—but my lords, who told them to make it? Who put that idea into their unformed minds? Who nurtured them in rebellion and then covered his tracks so flawlessly? Could mere boys have come up with such notions on their own? Could they have known where to find the proscribed instructions so easily, had they not had experienced help? I have prayed—I have hoped—there was another answer. But I can find none.”

“Because there is none.” Ancient Lord Vilmos, spoke, his quavering voice cracking with certainty. “Lord Lycaelon, you are right. This conspiracy touches us all. We must have Lord Anigrel on the Council.”

“Yes—appoint Anigrel to the Council and make the City safe again,” Harith said. “Discover the traitors and Banish them!”

Lycaelon allowed himself a small nod of approval. Clever of Harith not to be the first to suggest Anigrel’s appointment. That would look too pointed.

“My lords, do you wish time for further discussion?” Lycaelon asked. “Or will you vote now?”

One by one, the assembled High Mages placed both hands, palm down, upon the table before them, each signifying his readiness to vote.

“Then I call the vote,” Lycaelon said. “Admission of Undermage Anigrel to the High Council.” He raised his hand, palm out. Assent.

One by one, the nine remaining High Mages copied his gesture.

The vote was unanimous.

Anigrel was to be admitted to the High Council.

IN the antechamber, Anigrel waited. It took all of his skill at concealing his true nature to disguise his nervousness now. Lycaelon was a master of manipulation, and after the events of the night before, the Council was a pack of nervous frightened old men begging for decisive leadership, whether they knew it or not. But it was still far from certain which way the vote would go.

Either way would serve his—and his Dark Lady’s—ultimate goal, of course.

If the Council accepted him, he would have a direct voice in the ruling of Armethalieh. He would be able to put forward his ideas himself, and not have to manipulate Lycaelon into coming up with them.

If the Council rejected him, it would enrage Lycaelon, and make the Arch-Mage that much easier for Anigrel to manipulate. But the son of Torbet Anigrel, himself the son of a tradesman—Torbet Anigrel, who had died in obscurity, spurned with contempt by the highborn, pure-blooded Mageborn—would burn with hatred and humiliation at the rejection. Not even his adoption into House Tavadon would salve that wound.

And either way, he must go before the Council and hear their verdict to his face.

At last—it seemed as if eons had passed, though Noon Bells had not yet rung—a Journeyman came to conduct him to the chamber.

Anigrel passed through the golden door and crossed the vast expanse of black and white floor. He reached the white marble square that marked the center of the chamber, turned to face the judicial bench, and bowed. The ten men looking down upon him might have been carved of the same material as the walls and floor, and for a moment Anigrel’s heart beat faster. Had it gone as badly as that?

Then Lycaelon smiled.

“Welcome. Welcome, Lord Anigrel, to the High Council of Armethalieh. May you serve the City long and well.”

Anigrel bowed—more deeply this time, and for once, he did not have to disguise his expression as he rose. An expression of joy was not at all amiss on such an occasion. What Mage worth his robes would not be overjoyed to hear such a pronouncement?

And if his voice trembled with emotion, well, that was not amiss either. “My lord Arch-Mage—my lord Mages. I vow to you that I shall render to Armethalieh such service as she has never seen in all her long and glorious history. This I do swear, from the bottom of my heart.”

“Then come, join us. There is much to do,” Lycaelon said.

Anigrel came forward and mounted the three steps he had ascended so often in the past on some errand for the Arch-Mage. But this time, he was not an errand-boy. He was a member of the High Council.

He glanced around quickly, found Volpiril’s chair, and seated himself.

“OUR first order of business: the boundaries of the City Lands,” Lycaelon said.

“I think we can safely agree that we must take the Home Farms back at least,” Lord Meron said smoothly.

“Certainly we must do more than that,” Anigrel said promptly, “but Lord Meron is quite right to remind us that we have a number of calls upon our resources at the moment. We must begin with the Delfier Valley, of course, so that the Banishings on our calendar proceed as scheduled.”

“No difficulty in outrunning a Hunt if the bounds extend no further than the City walls, eh, Meron?” Lord Nagid pointed out, and there was general, if slightly nervous, laughter from the assembled Mages.

“And meanwhile, in the light of the current emergency—though I understand this is only a formality—I propose that we immediately sever all ties, both explicit and implicit, with all Lesser Races,” Anigrel added. “In my work for the Arch-Mage, I noted that there were still active trade agreements in our records with the Elves, which is an intolerable threat to our security. Need I remind any of you that the Elven-born have long maintained cordial relations with the Wildmages? I do not say that they are the source of the umbrastone that lately plagued us … but now, more than ever, we must be strong in our loyalties to our blood and our race.”

He knew from his contacts with the Dark Lady that the Elves might attempt to warn the City that the Endarkened were active once again. Though there was little chance that the Mages would pay any attention to the words of one of the Lesser Races—or even allow them within the City walls—why take the chance?

“These matters must be voted upon as separate items,” Lord Perizel pointed out irritably. “First we must vote upon remaking the boundaries, then we must vote to sever all agreements with the Lesser Races. And what of the Mountain Traders? They trade with the Elves as well.”

“You are an example to us all, Lord Perizel,” Lycaelon said gravely. “Very well. Let us first settle the matter of the boundaries. The debate—and the vote—is upon the matter of extending them once more over the Central Valley. Discussion?”

But no man there wished to be seen as supporting Lord Volpiril’s policies. There was no discussion, and the vote was unanimous in favor of extending the boundaries back over the entire valley once more.

“So voted,” Lycaelon said, his voice rich with satisfaction. “Tonight we will Work to extend the Borders once more, and at tomorrow dusk we will begin to cleanse Armethalieh of her traitors. We will resume at First Afternoon Bell to debate the second matter upon our agenda.”

WHEN the Council resumed after luncheon, at first it seemed that the matter that Anigrel had raised would occupy the Mages for the rest of the day. No one was in favor of trading with the Elves, of course, but the question of precisely what to do about it seemed—with Lord Perizel’s help—to become more tangled the longer it was debated. Were Elyen-made goods also to be excluded? What of those humans known to deal with Elves, such as the Mountain Traders, even though they no longer traded directly with the City? And should the ban be extended to those, such as the Selken Traders, who might be trading without any regard to proscriptions—who, in fact, might well be trading with anyone and anything that approached them?

Lycaelon might have been forced to table the debate—in the name of getting other necessary work done—if Auronwy hadn’t chosen that opportune moment to enter with a message.

“Your pardon, Arch-Mage,” the young Journeyman said, leaning over to place a single sheet of velum in front of Lycaelon, “but there is a … person outside the gates, requesting an audience with the High Council.”

Lycaelon glanced up at the odd note in the Council page’s voice. The boy looked positively terrified.

“What sort of person, Auronwy?” he said gently.

“A … an … Arch-Mage, it is an Elf!” Auronwy whispered. “He—it—he asked for an audience with the High Council …”

Lycaelon glanced down at the paper in front of him. It was the standard report from the guard tower on any who approached the Delfier Gate unexpectedly, listing the numbers of the party and the general description. The creature had come alone.

“Very good, Auronwy. Now go. Rest. We will deal with this.”

He waited until the Journeyman had left the chamber.

“My lords,” he said, raising his voice to cut across the discussion. “We no longer have the leisure for debate. At this very moment, one of the proud and haughty Elven-born stands outside the Delfier Gate, demanding admission to this very chamber. By our ancient laws and treaties, we must admit him … but what purpose can he have here? Is it not suspicious that he chooses this moment to arrive?”

“Yes!” Lord Vilmos shouted. “It is the Elves—the Elves are behind it all! They must be! Send the creature away! Send it away at once!”

Lord Vilmos, Lycaelon thought, would definitely be the next to go. He had obviously reached that time of life at which the stress of Council business was proving far too much for him. But for now, the man’s willingness to jump at shadows was proving useful. His hysteria stampeded the Council as nothing else could. Perizel suggested that they call the vote at once, but confine it entirely to the matter of the Elves and the Lesser Races; Lycaelon graciously acceded.

It was unanimous. Ties with the Lesser Races would be severed immediately.

Lycaelon summoned another Page. He scribbled a few lines on the Gate-captain’s report and sealed it with his Council ring.

“Take this to the head of the City Guard. Tell him that the creature waiting outside the Delfier Gate is to be turned away. Tell him he is authorized to use supreme force if necessary.”

CILARNEN had no idea how long he spent in the gloomy cell. When he awoke, Lord Anigrel was gone, and his head ached terribly. He felt dull and ill. This must be the way the unGifted felt all the time; he knew he had been stripped of his Magegift: the thing that made him a member of the ruling classes of Armethalieh, City of Mages.

Eventually, hunger and thirst drove him to investigate the basket the stone golems had left. It proved to contain several loaves of penance-bread, a large jug of water, a small tin cup, and a larger tin utensil whose purpose was not hard to guess. Though the water was flat and warm, thirst made it bearable, but he hadn’t the stomach to try the bread just yet. He still felt too sick.

Drinking cleared his head—enough to worry about his friends and his family. What would happen to his mother and his sisters now that Lord Volpiril was dead? Would his mother’s family take her back, with such an awful disgrace hovering over her? He vaguely recalled that his elder sister Dialee had been betrothed, but could not remember to whom—would her suitor call off the match? Undoubtedly. And poor Eshavi would certainly never find a husband now at all. Unless some common-born fellow deigned to take either of them. He groaned at the thought.

But such matters could not occupy him for long when he had his friends to worry about. Were they all to be Banished as well? Or was there some more terrible fate in store for them? He shuddered. What could be more terrible than being stripped of one’s Gift and being turned out of the Golden City to face an unknown future?

Or—were the rest of them to be spared, and only he to be Banished?

He would never know. Unless, somehow, by the mercy of the Light—and Cilarnen wasn’t entirely sure it would be a mercy—he managed to evade the Outlaw Hunt, and they did too, and he met them upon the road.

Cilarnen’s conception of the world outside the City walls was hazy at best, and his mind rebelled from contemplating it now. He would know soon enough, whether he wanted to or not.

Eventually hunger drove him to try the penance-bread. It was like no food he had ever encountered in his life. The bread was coarse and unpalatable, very strong-tasting, and required a great deal of chewing before he could choke it down. He supposed, dourly, that he should be grateful that an Outlaw-to-be was given any bread at all, considering the state of food supplies in the City.

He ate it all, but no one came to bring him any more.

In fact, no one came back at all, for a very long time.

The water in the jug—by now sour and brackish—was nearly gone when Cilarnen heard footsteps in the hall again. Not Stone Golems this time. The softer footsteps of leather boots on stone.

When the cell door opened, he could almost have cried with relief—he had nearly convinced himself that Undermage Anigrel had lied: that he was not to be Banished at all, but left in this tiny cell to starve and die of thirst. But he caught his breath in dismay at the sight of two City Constables in the deep scarlet uniform of the City Watch.

They were fully armed with truncheon and halberd, and regarded Cilarnen with expressions of disgust and contempt.

“Time to leave, Outlaw,” one of them said. He tossed a bundle to the floor. It skidded across the stone and stopped at Cilarnen’s feet.

He reached down and picked it up. Some kind of a pack. And a Felon’s Cloak.

He had seen Felons paraded in the City Square, of course: social unfortunates condemned to wear the lurid yellow Cloak with its black Felon’s Mark for a sennight or a moon-turn for some infraction of the City’s laws. But never—never!—had he thought that the day would come when he, a Volpiril, would be forced to handle such an object. Though the cloak was thick and warm—made of heavy felt—the fabric was harsh to the touch, and stank of cheap dye. He wondered who had worn it last.

“Put it on, Outlaw. And give me your Talisman. You don’t belong to the City any longer,” the Constable said.

Cilarnen touched the Talisman he wore around his neck. Though they might wear it on a leather cord or a cotton string or a silver chain or one of gold and jewels, every citizen of Armethalieh wore the same gold rectangle, marking them as a citizen of Armethalieh.

Now it was to be stripped from him.

With shaking fingers—feeling more light-headed than either hunger or panic could account for—Cilarnen unlaced his tunic and drew out his Talisman on its jeweled golden chain. The sapphires were colorless in the dimness.

It took him a long time to undo the catch, to work the Talisman to the end of the chain and slip it off, and when he got to his feet and walked over to the Constable, golden rectangle in hand, the man wouldn’t take it. Cilarnen stood there for a long moment before realizing that the man would not touch him, then bent and set the Talisman carefully on the floor. He’d thought nothing could make him feel worse than waking up and knowing he’d been stripped of his Gift, but losing his Talisman—his last tie to the City—was somehow worse. He clasped the chain again carefully and tucked it back into his tunic.

“Now put on the Cloak, pick up your pack, and let’s go,” the Constable said, drumming his halberd-butt on the floor of the cell to emphasize his point

Quickly Cilarnen picked up the Cloak. As he did, the Constable picked up his discarded Talisman and put it into the pouch on his belt.

“Put it on, Outlaw!” the man barked, apparently having used up what little patience he possessed.

Thoroughly cowed, Cilarnen quickly put on the Cloak and pulled the hood up over his face. It tied at the throat with a drawstring, but his hands were shaking too hard for him to manage that, and he settled for wrapping it around himself. He picked up the leather pack and held it in his arms, uncertain of what to do with it.

One of the Constables stepped outside the door. The other—the one who had done all the speaking—gestured with his halberd for Cilarnen to follow. Cilarnen staggered after him, wincing at the brightness of the corridor after so long in the dimness of his cell.

He wanted to cry, to scream, to run. But there was nowhere to run to.

He followed the Constable up a flight of stairs, wishing now only that the nightmare would end as swiftly as possible. As he neared the top of the stairs, he heard the first notes of Evensong begin, and discovered, with sick surprise, that he was in the Western Courtyard. Ahead lay the Delfier Gate, with the lesser gates within the Great Gate standing open. Waiting for him.

It was sunset—of what day? a foolish part of his mind wondered—and the day had been bright and clear. He hesitated, shivering as he breathed in the cold winter air, and was rewarded with a sharp poke in the back from the Constable’s halberd. It registered only dimly through the thick fabric of the Cloak, but that the man had dared to do it was shock enough.

“Keep moving, Outlaw.”

The golden bell of the Council House joined the Evensong, its booming ring so close that Cilarnen winced as he staggered forward. Constant proddings in the back urged him to quicken his pace, and soon he was almost running toward the open gate.

He stopped in shock the moment his feet touched dirt. He was outside the walls.

Behind him the Lesser Gates boomed shut. Cilarnen stood there in numb shock as Evensong slowly faded into silence. He clutched the Cloak around himself, shivering with cold—back in the cell he would never have thought he’d be happy to have it, and it was not nearly as warm as any of his own warm winter cloaks, but it was far better than nothing at all. He took the time, now, to tie the drawstrings at the throat closed, but the cold made him clumsy, and he dropped the bag he’d been holding. It hit the ground at his feet.

As he picked it up, he remembered Undermage Anigrel’s words. The bag contained bread and water. Food!

He tore open the sack, revealing another penance-loaf and a full waterskin. He tossed the sack away and drained half the waterskin in a few gulps, then tore into the loaf, wolfing it down hungrily. It did much to still the growling in his belly, but when it was gone he was still outside the gates of the City.

It was dark—twilight—and growing darker quickly. He was colder than he’d ever been in his life—as much because he knew there was no welcoming hearth and hot cider at the end of his journey as because of the temperature. He ought to just sit down right here and wait for dawn. But some strange impulse of restlessness made him head down the rutted cart track that led away from the City.

ONCE he might have summoned Mage-light to light his way, Cilarnen thought bitterly, as he stumbled along in the dark. Or at the very least, he might have Called Fire to warm him. Now all he could do was grope his way from tree to tree, unable to understand why he didn’t simply lie down in the middle of the road and wait for it all to be over.

But something deep inside wouldn’t let him.

He startled at every unfamiliar sound—and there were many. The very bushes seemed to be alive with unnameable creatures, and moonturns of neglect had left the road crusted with ice and hard-packed snow. Cilarnen fell several times before he learned to walk upon the treacherous surface.

At least—once the moon rose—the whiteness of the snow made it a little easier to see where he was going.

How far was it to Nerendale? That was the nearest village to Armethalieh—he knew that much of the world beyond the City walls. He would reach it—somehow—before dawn—force them to give him food, shelter …

No. He would take a horse. They must have horses. With a horse he could outpace the Outlaw Hunt, and be beyond the bounds of the City Lands before it reached him.

He could not quite remember when it had become so important to outrun the Hunt. It hadn’t been anything like a conscious decision. If he’d had anything approaching a plan for his future, it had been to face the Hunt: surely there would be a Mage with it, to control it? Perhaps he could ask for more time to make his way out of City lands? Or perhaps the Hunt would escort him the rest of the way? That must be it. All that talk of Undermage Anigrel’s about the Hunt tearing him to bits had only been to frighten him. It must have been. How was he supposed to know where the boundaries of City Lands lay? It wasn’t a subject studied at the Mage College, after all. The night spent outside the walls must only be a punishment, and the Hunt sent to escort the Outlaw to the boundaries of the City Lands in the morning. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made.

But now he’d abandoned all notion of awaiting the Hunt. The only thing that mattered was getting as far away as he could as fast as possible.

Then he saw the light.

Here in the darkness, among the winter-bare trees, it was easy to see: a bright spark, burning steadily. For a moment Cilarnen wondered if his eyes deceived him. He blinked hard, but it was still there, somewhere tauntingly ahead.

With renewed purpose, he moved toward it.

“I See you, human child.”

The cool voice came out of the darkness when Cilarnen was still too distant from the light to make out anything but that it burned. He stifled a yelp and froze where he stood. Though he strained his eyes against the darkness, he could not see the speaker, though from the voice, whoever had spoken must be very near.

“You have seen my lantern.”

This time the voice came from nearer yet, though he’d seen no sign of movement. Cilarnen ground his teeth shut on a moan of terror.

“I see by your raiment that you have been cast out by the Golden City.”

This time the disembodied voice actually seemed to expect some reply. Cilarnen took a deep breath, mustered all his courage, and answered.

“I—Yes. I was cast out. Banished.” His voice was hoarse, but steady. Speaking reminded him of how thirsty he was, and he wished he hadn’t thrown away his waterskin when it was empty. But what good had it been to him then?

“Come. Warm yourself at my fire. The night is cold.”

Cilarnen took a shaky step forward, and immediately tripped over a stone. An iron grip just under his left elbow steadied him. He yelped aloud at the contact.

“Forgive me. I had forgotten what poor vision you humans have. I will conduct you, if you will permit.”

Cilarnen nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Even this close, his rescuer was still no more than a shadowy cloaked and hooded figure to him, although he was standing right next to him. And could apparently see quite well, for at Cilarnen’s nod, he began to move forward, leading the young Outlaw through the darkness toward the unwavering light.

As they approached, Cilarnen could see that it was a small lantern. By the light it gave, he could make out a tidy campsite. There was a brazier such as the Mages used in making Magick, and beside it a bedroll spread out upon the ground, with a pack set at its head. Some sort of traveling merchant, then. A horse and a pack-mule were tethered nearby, and regarded him incuriously. Even in Cilarnen’s distracted state, he could see that they were animals of great quality.

The brazier radiated a surprising amount of heat. Cilarnen moved toward it gratefully, holding out his icy hands toward its warmth. Only then did he turn and look back toward his companion.

The man was wearing a dark grey cloak with a deep hood lined in silver fur. As Cilarnen watched, he raised gloved hands and pushed the hood back, affording Cilarnen his most profound shock of the last several days.

It was not a man at all, but a—well, it wasn’t a human creature.

Skin nearly as pale as snow, dark slanted eyes, long pointed ears that rose up through the sleek black hair elaborately coiled at the base of the neck. With a jarring sense of unreality, Cilarnen realized he was gazing upon a member of one of the Lesser Races. An Elf.

An Elf, within City Lands! For a moment he felt a spasm of indignation and righteous wrath, before he realized it simply didn’t matter to him anymore. He’d been Banished.

His momentary fury vanished, to be replaced by numb weariness. He simply stared at the Elf, unable to think of anything else to do.

“So. You have been Banished. And I—have been barred from your gates. It seems we have something in common, then; and I suspect that it would be best if we took ourselves elsewhere. We will drink tea, and then we will prepare for the journey. I think it would be well if we were both out of the lands claimed by the Golden City before dawn,” the Elf said, regarding Cilarnen calmly.

The Elf was going to take him outside the City Lands ahead of the Hunt. At the moment that was all Cilarnen cared about. With a sigh of exhaustion, he sat down next to the brazier.

ANIGREL’S formal investiture as a member of the High Council took place at the Chapel of the Light at the Mage College that Light’s Day. It directly followed his formal adoption into House Tavadon, and it was hard to say which ceremony was the more significant of the two, though one had been overseen by as many people as could cram themselves into the Great Temple in Armethalieh’s Central Square, and the other was attended by only a select group of the highest-ranked Mages of the City.

In the first ceremony, Anigrel (now and forever Anigrel Tavadon, having chosen that as his new name) knelt before Lycaelon and the Arch-Priest of the Light as he swore his Oath of Adoption. He rose, was divested of his plain grey tabard and given a new one embroidered in the Tavadon. colors—black and white—making his new status plain for all to read. He then gave his new father a formal son’s kiss.

Then the City Rolls were brought out—the great record in which every citizen’s birth and occupation, marriage and death, were recorded. And with the whole City to witness, the Arch-Priest altered them, adding Anigrel’s name beneath Lycaelon’s own.

And so it was done.

The Chapel of the Light was smaller, and the oath he swore there was more complicated than the one he had sworn in the Great Temple, but Anigrel meant it as little—and as much—as he had the other. It was that which kept the Mages who administered it from detecting any deception on his part, he suspected. Anigrel sincerely intended to serve the City. And bringing it under the rule of the Endarkened would surely be best for all, in the end.

There he exchanged his new tabard for yet another—this one with additional embroideries marking him as a member of the High Council, this time in his own, newly-chosen colors: red and gold. He received his staff and his ring of office, and the second ceremony was complete.

Normally the day would end with festivities at Lycaelon’s house, a party such as had marked his first son’s Naming, or Lycaelon’s own ascension to the dignity of Arch-Mage. But these were troubled times, and there was much work to be done. Instead, after a brief flurry of congratulations to the newest member of the High Council, the Mages returned to the Council House—even though it was Light’s Day—to debate Anigrel’s latest proposal.

AS this was a more complicated matter than either of the others, Anigrel had gone to the trouble of drafting a formal written proposal, which had been circulated to the Council earlier in the Day. He was fairly confident it would be accepted, at least eventually. After all, there was still the matter of the other conspirators to run to earth—and with Jorade Isas’s, Margon Ogregance’s, Kermis Lalkmair’s, and Geont Pentres’s memories thoroughly edited, and Tiedor Rolfort and Cilarnen Volpiril Banished—and Rolfort certainly dead—the Council had destroyed any possibility of tracing the true genesis and scope of the problem.

He wondered if any of them realized that.

He’d had to move fast to get his hands on Kermis Lalkmair before the boy was returned to his father—not wanting to risk the possibility that Lord Lalkmair might choose to be merciful, Anigrel had wished to remove all memory of “Master Raellan” from the boy’s mind—but the man had reacted entirely as expected. Young Kermis was now living upon the charity of distant relatives while he recovered from the Excision of his Magegift and the destruction of all memories related to his Mage-training and to the conspiracy. Frankly, Anigrel did not expect the boy to live very long.

But though the actual “conspiracy” was quite dead, Anigrel had no intention of allowing it to seem so. Its success had not been his purpose for starting it in the first place. Even his seat on the Council had only been a welcome dividend.

No. His intention had been to create a climate of fear among the Mageborn. Fearful men were easy to manipulate.

IN the Council chamber, Lord Lycaelon called the Council to order.

“We are gathered in this special session of the High Council of Armethalieh to consider Lord Anigrel’s proposal for the good of the City. You have all had an opportunity to review a copy of his proposal, as is our custom. Now Lord Anigrel will make his formal presentation.”

Anigrel allowed the silence to gather for a moment before speaking. He knew that the members of the Council would already have discussed the matter among themselves. But this was his chance to sway them further.

Harith would back him, of course, once he saw that the Arch-Mage approved. Vilmos, was ready to start at shadows, and would vote in favor of anything that held out the faintest hope of security. Four sure votes out of eleven—only two more would give him a sufficient majority to pass his measure. Fear: that was his best ally now. Fear killed thought, and the more fearful men were, the more they were ready to give up in exchange for the promise that the source of their fears would be dealt with.

“Lord Arch-Mage—my fellow Councilors—in this past sennight we have been led to the shocking and unwelcome revelation that our fellow Mageborn—whom we thought above corruption, above reproach—can be led to conspire against their fellow Mages and against the City. Let me assure you all that I will not rest until I have rooted out every last tendril of corruption and exposed it to the healing fire of the Light.”

There was a murmur of reluctant approval from the men seated around him.

“But—as we are all unfortunately aware—that is not enough. We face a time of great trial. Where there was one assault upon our security and the safety of our City, there may be more, and as you, my august brethren, have pointed out so many times, our enemies are many.

“And so I propose to you that we be vigilant inwardly as well as out. I propose a Council of Magewardens, its members to be drawn from the ranks of both Journeymen and High Mages, who can move freely among the Mageborn, seeking out trouble before it starts. No longer will we be forced to bear the burden of such tragedies as have so recently befallen us. We can be warned against them before they have a chance to happen—and more. We will know the names and the faces of our enemies, whether within or without, before they have the opportunity to steal the hearts and minds of our innocent children as they slumber peacefully in their beds.”

So far, there was no sign that any of the Council members found this to be an outrageous notion. That was good. He pitched his voice to sound reasonable, reasoning, and calm. “Such a vast undertaking is not without its mundane costs, and I know as well as you all what a heavy burden our precious City labors under at this moment—a burden that it will be the work, not of moonturns, but perhaps of years, to redress. And so I propose two further measures—not only that there be an organization similar in nature to the Magewardens to move among the common people of the City, actively seeking out those who might wish to change things for the worse, but also I propose a tax upon magick, to fund both Wardencies.”

Some puzzled looks, perhaps, but no outright objection. “The second Wardency upon the Commons I can understand,” said Harith, sounding as puzzled as he looked. “And it is more than reasonable—the commons are so easily led and manipulated, after all, that I am surprised we had not instituted such a thing before. But why a tax upon Magick?”

Anigrel gave him a look of empathy, as if to say that there was every reason to be puzzled. “My lords, Magick is a great gift. We Mages tirelessly labor for the good of the City, expending our lives and our Art like water poured out upon the sand—and our work is as little regarded by the average Armethaliehan, I assure you! They take the privileges we exhaust ourselves to provide as no more than their rightful due. This must change. If the common people wish to profit from the wisdom we have spent so many painful years laboring to acquire, they should pay a price for the benefits we bestow. And if they doubt those benefits, well, it would be no bad thing to permit the farmers from the Delfier Valley to be allowed some free gossip, so that our own citizens understand the calamities that can befall when those benefits are withdrawn.”

He sat back, indicating he had finished.

“This is, as you well know, Lord Anigrel, three separate matters,” Perizel said, sounding bored. “Let us settle the matter of how—and if—you are to fund your grand plan before deciding whether it is to go forward, shall we?”

“Very well,” Lord Lycaelon said, with a faint sigh. “We will consider the matter of the tax first—and separately. Continue.”

“But … the Commons already pay for our services.” Lord Lorins pointed out, after a moment.

“They pay for the spell, yes,” Anigrel said. “But do they pay for the privilege of being allowed to have the spell at all? And so many spells are not actually paid for—those that control the weather, for instance. Or those that keep buildings in repair. I am suggesting a tax, not an increase in fees.”

“They’ll never accept it,” Lord Arance said dryly.

“Then let them do without,” Lycaelon suggested. “Naturally this would not apply to matters affecting the City as a whole—at least; not at first. Simply to private, individual matters—the ones we all find so tiresome. Or simple things that do not truly affect much except minor comfort. Weather Spells for instance. Those that prevent snow from falling within the walls; those that keep rain from falling except at night. A few days of slogging through wet streets might change some minds.”

“But … a new tax?” Lord Lorins asked hesitantly.

To Anigrel’s surprise and delight, here he had an ally, and an entirely unexpected one. “Actually,” Lord Perizel drawled, “it is a very old tax. It merely has not been assessed in the last few hundred years. But you will find it still on the tax rolls, Lorins, if you take the trouble to look. I see no reason we should not reinstate it. We can always use the money for something, and Light knows we have spent enough Golden Suns on the Selkens this past quarter to leave the Treasury in need of replenishment.”

Anigrel should have known that Perizel, that peruser of ancient records, would know there had once been such a tax! That made things much simpler. Something new—well, that would be resisted. But something old—oh, that was to be embraced.

After a bit more discussion, the measure to institute—or reinstitute—the tax on the privilege of calling upon the Mages for Magick was passed.

The discussion over the formation of the Magewardens and the Commons Wardens took far longer. Everyone was in favor of keeping a closer eye on the Commons, of course, but no one was completely comfortable with the idea of spying—for that was what it amounted to—upon their own kind. Only when Anigrel promised that he would head the Magewardens Council himself, and make full and detailed reports of everything it discovered, was Lycaelon able to at last call the vote.

The measure passed, nine to two. Perizel and Arance abstained.

“YOU take too much work upon yourself, Anigrel,” Lycaelon said afterward, as the two of them walked toward Tavadon House through the winter evening. “You will burn yourself out, and end up a doddering friendless old man—like me.”

Spirits of Darkness, the Arch-Mage was making a joke. Anigrel smiled. “Dear Arch-Mage, that will never happen—not while I am alive. But you must see, it was the only way to gain a majority in Council. I confess, I was surprised at how the vote went, at the end.”

Who would have thought that so many of the witless sheep could be stampeded so easily? He’d have to keep an eye on Perizel and Arance, though.

“As am I.” For a moment the Arch-Mage’s expression went hard and distant, then it softened again. “But we shall soon bring those doubters to heel. And now we shall go … home, my son.” Lycaelon’s voice was fond.

Was it at all possible that the Arch-Mage was growing senile ? It was too much to hope for—though Anigrel knew spells that could help the process along—and certainly the man had received enough shocks recently to drive a lesser man to a state of catatonia.

“‘Home.’ It has a good sound, Lord Arch-Mage. But I think—if you will permit—that I will keep my rooms at the College as well.” He smiled. “There are those whom in my capacity as Chief Magewarden, I should not like to bring into our house.”

Besides which, those heavily-warded rooms were where he made his communion with his Dark lady, something Anigrel did not think he could manage unnoticed within the walls of Tavadon House.

“Of course, my son. You must do just as you think is best. And, Anigrel … you must call me ‘Father.’”

“Yes … Father.”

He would serve the City with as much devotion as Lycaelon could wish. And if he served it to a different purpose and a different end, it was entirely possible that Lycaelon Tavadon would die without ever knowing.

IDALIA did not know how long she lay unconscious before the pain roused her. She was disoriented and terribly thirsty, and lay in darkness so absolute that for a moment she thought she must be blind.

Her head spinning, her mind blank, at first she wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Where was she? Where were the children? Then, unwarily, she tried to move, and savage pain shocked her, hammering her senses with nausea and vertigo, and the agony brought her fully to consciousness. She relaxed as far as she could, waiting for the pain to subside.

She was deep within the caves, and safe. Well, safer than she would be if she were in the hands of the Shadowed Elves, anyway. The children and Lairamo—Gods grant—were also safe and far away from here with the rescue party. She knew she could count on that much: Kellen was in charge, and he would make sure that the children were safe away.

She wondered how far she’d fallen, knowing even as she wondered that her mind was wandering—a symptom of concussion. How peculiar that she was alive to be wondering that at all. Her life had been forfeit to the Gods from the moment she had done the weather-working that saved the Elven Lands from flood. Her life had been the cost of that spell, and Idalia had paid it, if not gladly, then willingly and freely.

But though the Gods of the Wild Magic might ask for her life, suicide was no part of her Mageprice. She had the right and duty to preserve her life for as long as possible.

Even now.

Escape on her own—well, that was impossible, for certain. No walking out with two broken legs, a shattered collarbone, and worse. She could not Heal herself—the pain and her injuries made her magic too hard to control.

But she could call for help. She had control enough for that, she thought. Call for help … call for help … oh, fool, you should have agreed to marry Jermayan when he asked … he’d know right where you were, now … yes, and come charging right into a trap against any odds to save you … and then you could be dead together, your lives just the same length, just as you came to realize in the end …

She came to with a start and realized she’d been drifting, only half-aware. She must do what she could now, before her strength ebbed any further.

She shifted position slightly—kindling a new bright flare of pain that brought tears of furious pain to her eyes—and closed her eyes tightly, though closed or open made no difference here in the stygian darkness of the cave. With all her remaining strength, Idalia focused her will on Calling.

A friend—an ally—someone to carry my message to anyone who can hear and will help—

So long a time passed that Idalia began to wonder if there was anything at all within range of her call, or if perhaps the power of the Wild Magic had deserted her utterly. But at last she felt a faint disturbance in the air, and a substantial weight landed on her chest, making her gasp and cough. With her uninjured hand, she reached out toward it.

She could feel the heat of its body, and her fingertips brushed leathery wings as it moved suspiciously away from her touch.

A snow-bat.

White-furred, nocturnal, the size of chickens, they fed on mice, small birds, even fish, and were dormant through deepest winter. There was a certain justice in her aid coming from the distant—very distant—cousin of the creatures that had carried off the Elves in the first place. She extended her magical senses, and felt the spark of the bat’s life; a small consciousness, occupied mostly with thoughts of food and flight. But there was room there to imprint the snow-bat’s mind with her cry for help, and with the last of her strength, Idalia added her Call, giving the little creature a new desire, stronger than any natural desire it possessed: Find an ally. Deliver the message.

She felt the Wild Magic well up in her and flow through her and into the snow-bat, and when the power had crested and ebbed away, Idalia’s consciousness ebbed with it.

THE pulse of magic washed over the bat like a pulse of the strongest moonlight it had ever imagined, sending it hopping awkwardly away from the strangewarmthing, scurrying and flapping across the floor of the canyon until it could manage to take flight. Its new need was strong, sending it soaring through familiar territory, toward the opening that led to its hunting fields. Its keen predator’s senses told it that the weather outside was still and clear: perfect for hunting.

But as it neared the outer tunnels, the light drove it back. Too bright! Too bright! Now is a time for sleep, not flight! It veered back, into the welcoming darkness, and would have resumed its interrupted slumbers if it could have, but the need planted in it by strangewarmthing drove it onward.

It would have approached the cavernothers if it could—even though they often hunted its kind for food—but the Need told it that they were not the allies it sought, and so it flew onward, deeper into the darkness, singing the high-pitched song that created the world around it in pulses of form.

Deeper it flew, far from the sleeping places of its sept, into territory unknown. Its wings grew tired, and many times it stopped to rest, but each time the Need drove it on again.

At last—there! below!—the Need touched a suitable mind.

ANCALADAR dozed, dreaming of centuries past. They weren’t terribly pleasant dreams, but they were his.

They were all he had left.

Something landed on his nose with a thud.

Ancaladar went from half-sleep to wakefulness in an eye-blink. He reared back, dislodging the small weight, which flittered around his head, crying out in a high irritating voice.

A snow-bat.

Ancaladar relaxed. For a moment he’d thought …

But for some reason, the bat wouldn’t go away. It circled his head like a maddened wasp, landing on his head again, and this time Ancaladar caught the scent of magic.

His nostrils flared, nearly sucking the bat inside.

Magic—Wild Magic! It was a scent Ancaladar had fled from all his life, for it posed a unique danger to his kind.

But …

The bat was a messenger. Someone—some Wildmage—needed something. Very badly, if the sense of urgency Ancaladar could read coming off the little creature was any guide. He sniffed—more gently this time—but could detect no more to the message. Apparently the bat had been sent to guide whoever found it back to the Wildmage.

Ancaladar sat back with a sigh.

If he had any sense, he’d stay right here. He could ignore the bat. Or eat it. He was safe where he was.

But a Wildmage?

Here?

It was an odd place for a Wildmage. These caverns were overrun with stinking Tainted mock-Elves. They’d come burrowing in to Ancaladar’s nice safe retreat—oh, he couldn’t really remember how long ago. Sometime after the Great War, anyway. They’d started overrunning the caverns, scaring off the local game, and generally making a mess of things.

Maybe the Wildmage had come to fix things.

And Ancaladar didn’t have to get involved, not really. He could go give the Wildmage whatever he—she—it wanted, and then go back to sleep. So long as what it wanted was something small and insignificant.

He’d be careful.

With a grunt, he levered himself to his feet, careful not to dislodge his furry guest.

“Show me,” he rumbled softly.

THE pain pulled her toward consciousness and pushed her away from it at the same time, until Idalia floated in a dazed state, only half-aware of her surroundings, knowing that Death was only days—perhaps hours—away. Her pain-fevered body was wracked by shivers—it was cold here in the cave—and the cold and shivering stole what little strength she had left.

Sometimes she forgot entirely where she was. Sometimes she thought she was back in Ondoladeshiron, where she had first met Jermayan, walking with him beneath cloudless skies. Sometimes she was still a Silver Eagle, soaring through those same skies.

Sometimes—those fantasies were the worst—she was a girl in Armethalieh again, living in her father’s house, her horizons no wider than the walls of Tavadon House and the short walk to the Ladies’ Academy where the daughters of the Mageborn received their lessons in dancing and painting and other ornamental arts suitable to ornamental females. Prison and torment all in one, knowing she was scorned and shunned by the other girls as a half-breed, knowing there was so much more in the world than she, a mere girl, was allowed to see and be, and knowing that nothing, bar a miracle, was going to give her access to that wider world.

Suddenly she was conscious. The nightmare vision of the Ladies’ Academy dissolved, and the tinkling laughter of the other girls—how she’d always hated it!—became a scraping sound, as of something—something heavy—being dragged over the rock. Her heart beat wildly, and she strained her eyes in the darkness, turning her head cautiously as she tried to locate the source of the sound.

Two glowing lights hung somewhere in the darkness, their size and distance impossible to judge. Eyes? Lanterns? Idalia didn’t know: she only knew that the sudden strength she felt came from the presence of another’s magic, not her own strength. It was a brief gift, she could tell that much, and she dared not waste it.

“Wildmage. You called for me,” a deep soft voice said.

“Help me,” Idalia whispered. “The Endarkened rise against the Elves.”

To speak aloud had taken all the strength the stranger’s magic had lent her, and Idalia fell into a deep and final unconsciousness.

ANCALADAR regarded the Wildmage. He wondered what her name was, not that it mattered to him.

The Endarkened, now, that was another matter. He’d known they were active again—they’d been hunting dragons lately, which was one of the reasons he’d taken such pains to hide himself so carefully. But if they were going to war against the Elves … .

Then the Wildmages would want the dragons to fight for them.

Again.

He reached out one taloned claw toward the woman, and drew back. He could not help her himself. He was a creature of magic, but he could not use his magic himself—only his

Bondmate could. And Ancaladar had no Bondmate.

Oh, yes, he’d been so clever, Ancaladar thought in disgust. He’d watched his brothers and friends die in the Great War—not only in battle, but from linking their immortal span of years to the brief mortal span of their Bondmate’s lives, for a Bonded dragon died when his Bondmate did.

He hadn’t been able to bear the thought of that, and so he’d hidden, making himself safe from meeting the one Mage—whoever he or she might be—who could be his Bondmate. What could one dragon do to tip the balance, anyway?

But there were worse horrors, he discovered, than dying in service to the Light. Dragons had fallen to the Dark when their Bondmates had been corrupted by the Endarkened with the promise of immortality.

Now he was safe. One of the last of the dragons. He ought to congratulate himself on his prudence at surviving this long, but more and more these days, it felt as if he’d cheated, or been cheated, or both at the same time. It certainly felt as if he hadn’t been clever at all, that he’d shirked his duty. He was a creature of the Light, wasn’t he? He was bound to help the cause of the Light. Except that he hadn’t. He’d been a coward, done as little as he could, and run away as soon as possible.

Maybe what he felt like was a failure.

Maybe this was a chance to make things right. He regarded the Wildmage with faint suspicion. At least he felt no hint of a possible Bond with her.

Ancaladar made up his mind. He’d help the Wildmage. And perhaps the Elves would be willing to provide him with something in the way of steady meals in return. In the Old Days, his kind had been able to bargain for nice, tasty domestic cattle or sheep, and having to hunt for himself—and hide while he did it—just was getting to be too hard. Was this what getting old felt like? Or was it only that he was becoming less?

He raised his head and looked around, extending his senses as far as they would go. He didn’t sense any of the mock-Elves anywhere around. It was daytime, anyway—even far underground Ancaladar could sense the position of the sun—they’d all be securely asleep for some time yet. She’d be safe enough while he went to look for her friends.

He didn’t really want to expose himself in daylight, but if he actually intended to help, he had no choice.

Humans were fragile things, and this one looked badly broken. If she was going to be fixed, it would have to be soon.

Chapter Ten

The Return of the Dragons

KELLEN HAD MANAGED to convince Jermayan not to go charging in after Idalia during the night—though it took every bit of diplomacy that he had—but when dawn came, and Idalia still hadn’t come back—he was starting to run out of ideas.

He knew she wasn’t dead. But what if she was a prisoner? Or trapped somewhere? Or hurt? Or just lost somewhere down in the cave system? Jermayan had suggested all those possibilities and more in the past hours.

Any of those things might be true. The one thing Kellen knew for sure was that there was only one tarnkappa, and that if anybody was going down into the caves after Idalia, it had better be him.

The question was, how to convince Jermayan of that.

There’s no way. There’s absolutely no way.

“Look. I agree. You’re right,” Kellen said, about two hours past dawn, two hours of intermittent, polite, Elven “arguing.” “We’ve got to go after her.”

“Finally—!” Jermayan said, making a grab for the tarnkappa.

“But we have to do this right,” Kellen said, holding on to the bundle of fabric firmly. “We need to find a more secure place to leave the horses than right in front of the cave, and I’d kind of like to know if there’s anything out there looking for us before we go in. If Idalia … if she’s hurt, we’re going to have to spend the night right here, and it’s going to have to be a place we can defend if we have to. Also, maybe you can find another way in. They might be watching this one.”

Please, please, let him decide he’s the best one to do this because his woods skills are better than mine …

Jermayan studied him for a long moment, then nodded.

“Very well. You can break camp. Be ready to ride out the moment I get back. I won’t be long.”

Just be long enough, Kellen thought.

He watched as Jermayan saddled Valdien and rode away over the snow.

He hated running out on Jermayan this way—not that the Elven Knight would hesitate to do the same if their positions were reversed—but one man alone had a better chance than two down there in the caverns. Between the tarnkappa, and the fact that Kellen was going to risk a Finding Spell, Kellen was pretty sure he could get to Idalia wherever she was.

He shook out the tarnkappa and looked at Shalkan.

“I hope you can—” Kellen began.

Shalkan cleared his throat. The unicorn was looking over Kellen’s shoulder with a very odd expression on his long equine face.

Kellen whirled, dropping the tarnkappa to the snow, his hand going to his sword.

And stared.

He was face-to-face with a dragon.

A very large, very black dragon. Its head shimmered iridescently in the strong sunlight, the blackness of its armored plates sparkling with all the shades of a midnight opal: blue and gold and fire-red.

He’d seen dragons before, but only in visions, and then only from a distance. They had seemed vaguely lizardlike, but borne as much resemblance to the lizards of the forest as Shalkan did to a horse, and as little. Long sinuous necks, tails twice the length of their bodies, ending in a broad flat barb to help the creatures steer in the currents of the upper air—for most of all, dragons had wings.

This one was only a few feet away. Its head alone was the size of a boat, and took up so much of Kellen’s field of vision that he couldn’t see any of the details he remembered from his visions. It blinked golden pupilless eyes the size of large melons at him.

How had it gotten so close without him knowing? Why hadn’t he at least heard it? The thing was the size of a building—and not a little cottage, either—it should make some noise!

And now what was he going to do? He certainly didn’t dare attack it …

“Wildmage. You are a friend to the other Wildmage.”

It was not a question. Its voice was deep, and surprisingly soft for its size.

He hadn’t known they could talk.

“Idalia! Do you know where she is?” Kellen demanded eagerly.

“Yes. She is hurt, and needs help.” The eyes blinked. “I will take you to her. The way will not be easy: the Tainted mock-Elves that infest the caverns were roused by my exit, and search for me now. To reach your Wildmage, we must return the way I came. They may discover us, and they are eager to take me prisoner.”

“Leave them to me,” Kellen said, touching his sword.

For a moment, he would have been willing to swear the dragon smiled. It hesitated for a moment. “My name is Ancaladar.”

“I’m Kellen. Idalia’s my sister. We’d better go quickly.”

He glanced at Shalkan.

“I’ll wait here,” the unicorn said. “Somebody needs to explain things to Jermayan—and sit on him if necessary.”

Kellen nodded, and scooped up the tarnkappa. He’d need its spells to see once they got into the caves—he’d have to explain the cloak to Ancaladar, so the dragon didn’t worry that Kellen had deserted him.

A dragon …

“Come, then,” Ancaladar said. The dragon spread his wings—blotting out the sun for a moment—and launched himself into the sky in an eerie silence. He flew low, obviously intending Kellen to follow.

“Better wear that,” Shalkan said, nodding at the tarnkappa. “Just in case you run into Jermayan on the way.”

Kellen nodded, swirled the cloak around himself, and took off after Ancaladar at a run.

His training under Master Belesharon served him well—before he had entered The House of Sword and Shield, Kellen would never have been able to run almost half a league uphill over snow to the foot of a cliff without falling flat on his face at the end of it. But though he wasn’t able to keep pace with the dragon—even though he could tell that Ancaladar was gliding very slowly—he reached the spot where the dragon circled very quickly, and flung back the tarnkappa as Ancaladar dropped down to a neat—and silent—landing.

“Here I am,” Kellen said, looking up at Ancaladar. “Idalia made this so she could sneak around in the caverns.”

“I could see you quite clearly,” the dragon said.

Now that was interesting. Ancaladar could see through the tarnkappa’s spells?

“I’ll need it to see underground,” Kellen said, wrapping it around himself again.

“Then it is good that you should wear it,” Ancaladar said. “Humans find these caverns very dark.”

The dragon turned his attention to the cliff face. Several yards up the icy rock wall, Kellen could see a wide slit in the stone. Ancaladar stuck his head into the gap and squirmed in, furling his enormous ribbed wings tightly against his sides. And that was possibly the strangest thing that Kellen had seen in—well, a long time. The dragon shouldn’t have been able to fit in there. What could it do, disjoint all its bones?

My turn. Kellen flexed his gauntleted hands, and began to climb.

Elven armor, it was said by its makers, was flexible enough that its wearer could dance in it, and certainly the combat form practiced by the Elven Knights was very much like dance. Kellen also knew, from previous experience, that you could climb in Elven armor, but he’d never tried climbing a vertical ice-covered wall in it.

He managed to get halfway up, though, before a long black-scaled arm tipped in golden talons appeared out of the darkness and plucked him into the cave.

“You take too long,” Ancaladar said.

Oh.

“Um. Sorry. I’m a lot smaller than you are. It takes me longer to get places.” Kellen squirmed past the dragon��s body—fortunately this entrance to the cave system was fairly wide—and moved forward until he was in front of Ancaladar’s head. Even though he was technically in front, the dragon was so enormous that it was still in the lead—it had only to stretch out its long sinuous neck to put its head several yards in front of Kellen.

The passage here was fairly straight, without any side passages, and the tarnkappa’s darksight spell ensured that it was as bright as day, even though Ancaladar’s body blocked all the light from the outside. Kellen started forward confidently.

Soon the passage opened out into a cavern. It was so large that he could not see the far side of it, even with the aid of the tarnkappa’s magical sight He could feel a faint steady breeze blowing over him—from deep in the earth toward the outside air.

The path ended in a drop-off, but fortunately it wasn’t a sheer drop. There was a slope—steep, but manageable. Kellen gritted his teeth and started down it.

It was steeper than he’d thought, and he ended up making most of the journey to the bottom on his rump. Behind him, he saw Ancaladar step neatly to the cave floor—the dragon’s size made the drop-off no more than a single step for him.

Kellen was about to ask which way they went now, when Ancaladar’s head suddenly shot up. He saw the dragon’s nostrils flare—just like Shalkan’s when he smells something bad—and then, without a word or a sound, Ancaladar gave a great bound and launched himself at the nearest cave wall, climbing quickly and silently until he’d vanished into the shadows.

That was good enough for Kellen, even though he heard nothing. He scrambled quickly to his feet and looked around for a place to get out of the way. He saw a niche between the edge of the cliff and the cave wall—not much, but it would have to do. He quickly moved toward it and pressed himself back into the corner.

Just in time, it turned out. He’d barely settled himself when he began to hear faint noises, as of a large group of people moving quietly, but not entirely silently. A few moments later they came into view.

There were eight of them. Six were male, the two bringing up the rear were female. It was easy to tell, because none of them was wearing much more than a hip wrap. All were barefoot as well.

The two females were both carrying large bundles of netting. The nets were made of some substance Kellen had never seen before—a shiny, silvery-grey substance that looked something like silk.

All of the males were armed, both with long spears balanced for throwing—Kellen’s Knight-Mage gifts told him that—but also with a variety of looted weapons. Kellen recognized swords and daggers that had belonged to his friends from the House of Sword and Shield, and felt a dull surge of anger.

These must be the Shadowed Elves Idalia mentioned—what Ancaladar calls “Tainted mock-Elves.”

They were horrible in their own right, but to anyone who counted Elves as friends, they were especially horrible. There was no doubt of their Elven blood, but just as Idalia had said, somehow it had been mixed with Goblins to produce those fanged muzzles, receding jaws, and pale bulging eyes. Their hands and feet had talons, not nails, as well.

No wonder Vestakia had been able to find this place. And Idalia had said there was a whole colony of these creatures here.

They were obviously searching for Ancaladar. Every few feet the one in the lead would squat down and sniff the ground, then speak to the others in a strange guttural barking language. He was not the leader, apparently, for the leader urged him onward with blows, causing a dispute to break out among the hunting party. During all of this, the females cowered back, hissing.

At last they moved on. They passed right by Kellen’s hiding place without stopping to look, and Kellen blessed the Wild Magic that had gone into the tarnkappa’s making. Even when he could no longer see them, he stayed where he was, waiting for Ancaladar to return.

At last the dragon reappeared, gliding down to the floor of the cavern to land soundlessly. Even now it did not speak, merely swiveled its great head and pointed in the direction they should go.

Ancaladar had told the truth when he said that the Shadowed Elves were desperate to capture him at any cost. They encountered three more patrols as they went. Each time Ancaladar quickly hid, giving Kellen plenty of advance warning to conceal himself as well.

They moved through a series of interconnected caverns. All of them weren’t as large as the first one, but Kellen quickly realized that since they were following Ancaladar’s preferred route in and out of the caves there weren’t going to be any small passages. The only real problem that Kellen encountered—other than having to hide from the Shadowed Elves—was that terrain that Ancaladar could cross with ease presented towering obstacles for Kellen to climb over or detour around. Occasionally Ancaladar would grow impatient with the delay and pluck him into the air, setting him down somewhere several hundred yards distant. Kellen hadn’t quite made up his mind yet, but he thought he preferred scrabbling over slabs of basalt to being whisked through the air in the claws of an impatient dragon.

Not that he was feeling terribly patient himself, with Idalia somewhere ahead, trapped and hurt. He didn’t know, of course, but he had the sense that Ancaladar was being forced to detour by the Shadowed Elf patrols. That wasn’t good.

Finally Ancaladar stopped. He lowered his head, so it was right beside Kellen’s.

“This is the last of the ways we can go to reach your sister,” the dragon said, in a whisper so low that Kellen barely heard it. “It could be the safest of the ways we can go, or the most dangerous—it’s very narrow, and there’s nowhere to hide, but they may not have thought to look this way yet.”

Narrow. Terrific, Kellen thought, following the dragon as he moved forward again.

But “narrow” was a relative term. The passage was narrow for Ancaladar—the dragon had to fold his wings tightly and crouch down on his belly—but there was enough room for Kellen and the entire rescue party that had started out from Sentarshadeen (if they’d been there) to ride down the tunnel.

Suddenly the dragon stopped, stretching out his neck, his nostrils flaring.

“Oh, no—” he said in dismay. “We’re trapped—”

For the first time, Kellen fell into battle-trance immediately, without having to invoke it; it fell over him as he cast off the tarnkappa, as if it were somehow taking the place of the cloak.

In a way, it was; the dual-sight allowed him to see in the dark as the cloak spell did. He saw the Shadowed creatures as they stalked forward out of the darkness just as clearly as if he were still wrapped in its folds. He did not, however, charge.

Instead, he drew his sword, and waited. Waited for his doubled-sight to show him that they saw him for what he was. The aura of threat that surrounded him was unmistakable—that he knew from his lessons in the House of Sword and Shield. He was armed, and he was waiting for their attack. Now it became their choice to fight or flee.

They saw him for what he was—and they charged. One of them threw the net it carried. As if it were floating like a puff of down, Kellen watched it drift toward him, and in that odd slowed-time, he cut it in half as it started to fly past his head, aimed at Ancaladar, evidently, and not him.

The moment that the steel of his sword touched it, the two halves of the net withered and dropped to the ground. Kellen continued the stroke with a sideways twist of his wrist, to take off the head of the unwary creature that was nearest him.

They were frail, these Shadowed Elves; he killed it, and the one behind it, then let the momentum of his blade carry him around in a spin to cleave another across the spine. He made a recovery move, blocked the sword of a fourth as he kicked a fifth in the stomach, cut under the blocked blade to eviscerate the fourth one and as the fifth staggered backward, followed, and gutted it as well. The sixth and seventh were no real challenge; he took them out as they stared at him, dumbfounded.

He whirled. Ancaladar was frozen in place, eyes wide. “Move!” he snapped.

Ancaladar managed to compress himself against the wall of the tunnel enough to let him squeeze by.

This time he did charge, catching the much larger party that thought it was sneaking up in the rear entirely by surprise. For all of the weapons that they carried, for all of their superior ability to see in the dark, they might just as well have had no defensive ability at all. They were absolutely no match for the special advantages of a Knight-Mage, not even at fourteen-to-one.

The battle-trance faded, and the world was utterly black once more. Kellen stood in the darkness, feeling a faint regret.

But nothing more. When he’d drawn his sword, they could have run. When he’d begun to kill the others, they could have run. They chose not to. If he had not fought, he and Ancaladar would have been killed or taken prisoner, and Idalia would die. Because he had refused to accept that, he had chosen to kill. That was the way of the Knight-Mage, the agent of the active principle of the Wild Magic.

He forgave them for attacking him, and he forgave himself for killing them, just as Jermayan had taught him.

Absently he wiped his sword blade dry on his cloak—there’d be time to give the blade a thorough cleaning later—and worked his way back up to Ancaladar’s front.

“Any more of them?” Kellen asked, stooping to grope for the discarded tarnkappa and don it once more.

“No. You eliminated all of them … Knight-Mage.” The dragon moved forward, stepping fastidiously over the corpses. They moved faster now. There didn’t seem to be any need to try to conceal their presence any longer. Not only had the Shadowed Elves found them, but Kellen seemed to have killed most of the ones searching for them.

“They must want you really badly,” Kellen said after a few moments.

“Has your world wholly forgotten my kind? I’m a dragon,” Ancaladar said, with a note of bitterness in his voice. “And no doubt the Endarkened have a Mage or two in thrall, and an arsenal of spells to try to force a Bonding that they ache to try.”

“Dragons Bond with Mages,” Kellen said, half-remembered scraps of what Jermayan had told him about the Great War coming back to his mind.

“Almost correct. Each dragon is fated to Bond with one Mage—his Bondmate. After which that Mage becomes incredibly powerful—having an endless supply of spell-energy to draw on—and the dragon’s life becomes incredibly short, for when his Bondmate dies, he dies as well.”

“Oh.” It didn’t seem fair. All the advantage seemed to go to the Mage. All the dragon got out of the deal was dead. “What about Mageprices?”

“Bonded Mages don’t pay them. Not with our power to draw on,” Ancaladar said simply.

“Why would a dragon … ?”

“I don’t know,” Ancaladar said curtly, ending the discussion firmly. “We’re nearly there, thank Sky and Fair Wind.”

Up ahead, the tunnel opened out. Ancaladar stretched his neck out, extending it through the opening. Kellen followed along until he reached the edge of the tunnel.

He’d moved cautiously, and was glad he had. There was only a narrow ledge at the cave mouth, and it extended for only a few feet in either direction before vanishing entirely. The tunnel had opened out into another of the huge caverns Kellen was growing used to, but this one was different from any of the previous ones. Its floor was criss-crossed with other deep fissures—as though something very hot had cooled here—and littered with enormous boulders, as though there had been an explosion as well. He could hear a distinct sighing sound, as if something even bigger than Ancaladar was breathing, but it seemed to come from the cave itself.

He moved quickly to one side as Ancaladar flowed past him and down to the floor of the cave, then looked around in frustration. He couldn’t climb down, it was much too far to jump, and as far as he knew, his Knight-Mage abilities didn’t include the power of flight.

After a few seconds Ancaladar noticed his plight. The dragon turned back and plucked him from the ledge, depositing him on the cave floor.

“Not far now,” Ancaladar said.

Was it Kellen’s imagination, or was there a note of worry in the dragon’s voice?

IDALIA was lying at the foot of a cliff at the far side of the cavern.

Kellen’s heart twisted in his chest when he saw her. He knew the look of broken bones. He could see—and smell—the blood.

How long had she been lying here? Was she dead?

Then he saw the faint movement of her chest and knew that she was still alive.

He ran forward and knelt beside her. His first impulse was to waken her, but he knew that would be no kindness. She must be in agony.

He had to get her out of here. But even if Ancaladar would consent to carry her, he didn’t dare move her while she was in this condition. Broken legs, broken arm and collarbone … undoubtedly a concussion … probably internal bleeding as well.

“I’ll have to heal her before we can move her,” Kellen said aloud.

Healing was not his strongest skill in the Wild Magic, and he’d never tried this major a healing, especially without someone around to share the Mageprice. He looked hopefully at Ancaladar.

But the dragon cringed away. “You go ahead,” he said, taking a step backward. “I’ll wait over here until you’re done.”

Kellen sighed. I guess it’s all up to me. I just hope I’m good enough.

He had to be. For Idalia’s sake.

These days, he always carried the components for the simplest of the Wild Magic spells with him, and healing was a very simple spell. Here where everything was stone, he didn’t even need a brazier: he simply unwrapped his disk of charcoal and set it directly on the stone floor, and set it alight with a simple word. He pulled out the few herbs he’d need, and set them beside the burning charcoal.

His stomach twisted as he thought of the only other healing involving broken bones he’d ever witnessed. When Idalia had healed a unicorn colt’s fractured leg, she’d worked all the pieces of the break into alignment first. He should do that here, to give the healing the best chance. But the colt had been dosed with a sleeping potion, and he had nothing to give his sister.

If you don’t do it, she’ll die. Do you want your squeamishness to kill her?

Kellen pulled off his armored gauntlets, then drew his dagger and cut a few strands of Idalia’s hair, then a few of his own. He moistened the bundle with Idalia’s blood, then pricked his finger and squeezed out a few drops of blood onto the dried leaves of willow, ash, and yew.

Then he tossed the bundle of herbs and hair onto the coals.

Heal Idalia—please! I swear I will pay the price! Kellen thought fervently. He knew he should be centered in a Wildmage’s dispassionate trance, but that was something he couldn’t manage right now. He cared too much—and if that was something really wrong, then he supposed the Gods wouldn’t have let him become a Knight-Mage in the first place.

The bundle should have smelled horrible while it was burning, but it didn’t. It smelled like spring flowers and fresh-cut hay. Kellen saw the shimmer of the protective shields all around him, and hoped that protection would extend to keeping Idalia from feeling what he was doing.

First he straightened her legs. Feeling the bones move and shift under his hands made sweat run down his face in greasy droplets, but once he’d begun, he knew he couldn’t stop.

Everything was glowing green.

Next, her arm. It seemed to him that it ought to be straightened, so he did that, as gently as he could. That led him to her collarbone—broken, as he suspected. There wasn’t a lot he could do about it, but he prodded at it until he’d shifted the bones about into more-or-less the right places, and left it at that.

Everything was fire. Green fire.

He ran his hands over her head. They came away wet with blood, though Kellen knew that might not mean much. Even the smallest scalp wounds could bleed a great deal. Or it might be a concussion. Without being able to see her eyes, he didn’t know.

Green … all green …

Her breathing was better now, which reminded him to check for broken ribs and broken pelvis. He ran his hands down over her ribs, pressing gently, but everything felt solid. He found her hip bones, and pressed gently, relieved to find that everything was solid there, too.

Abruptly Kellen sat back on his haunches and stared down at his hands. They were trailing greenness as if he’d dipped them in a vat of liquid emeralds. Idalia, too, was green, as if she’d been soaked in the stuff.

When he’d healed Jermayan, the Healing Power had hit him like a hammer-blow, leaving him in no doubt of when the healing began and ended. This time it had snuck up on him; apparently he’d been healing Idalia while he thought he’d just been checking the extent of her injuries.

He wondered why the two healings had been so different. Perhaps because Idalia was such an expert Wildmage, and had been able to direct the healing in some fashion? Or was it for some other reason? Did the Wild Magic itself want her healed?

Slowly the green fire faded away, and Kellen waited to hear the price he would have to pay for this healing.

But to his surprise—and faint alarm—there was nothing. No inner voice setting his Mageprice. Only a certainty that somehow the price—even for this—had been paid in advance.

Kellen shook his head. He wasn’t going to argue, and he wasn’t going to complain.

The dome of protection vanished—Kellen was always surprised there wasn’t an audible “pop” when it vanished—its work done. He felt a sudden rush of dizziness and exhaustion, as the price of the Casting caught up with him. He wasn’t going to be good for much for a while—though he could fight if he absolutely had to—and Idalia would be utterly exhausted.

And they still had to get out of here.

He put his gauntlets back on, picked up the burning charcoal, and crushed it quickly into dust. Brushing the mess from his hands, he got to his feet. Idalia was still unconscious, but it was a natural sleep now, not a deathly coma. He’d like to wait here for her to wake—he didn’t relish carrying her out, especially if they ran into more of those creatures on the way—but he didn’t want to stay here one moment more than he had to.

He got to his feet, staggering a little with weakness. He stood for a moment, breathing carefully until his head cleared.

Ancaladar approached carefully.

“Is it over?” the dragon asked cautiously.

“She’s going to be all right,” Kellen said. He wondered if the odd way the healing had gone had anything to do with the dragon’s nearness, and decided not to ask. Ancaladar seemed to be a little touchy about being a living storage battery for Mages, and Kellen didn’t want to suggest he’d tapped the dragon’s power, even accidentally. “Now all we have to do is get out of here.”

“Do you think …” the dragon seemed almost hesitant “ … do you think I could come back with you? I’m tired of living in a cave and chasing deer. And they’ll never stop looking for me now.”

“You’ll have to ask Andoreniel and Ashaniel if you can live in Sentarshadeen,” Kellen said. “I can’t promise that. But I don’t see why you shouldn’t come south with us and see; they’ve added some … unusual citizens to Sentarshadeen lately.”

And if we’re going to have to beware of Deathwings, it would be a good idea to have someone else around who flies.

“Fair enough,” Ancaladar agreed.

The dragon headed off across the cavern, its enormous sable body moving over the boulders like a pool of midnight.

Kellen bent down, scooped up Idalia, and followed.

Halfway across the cavern, she began to rouse.

She reached up and felt his face—or rather, the hood of the tarnkappa—just as if she couldn’t see. Kellen realized with a shock that she couldn’t. He could see, but everything must be pitch-dark to her. He’d gotten so used to Ancaladar being able to see and hear him through the tarnkappa that he’d forgotten he was wearing it. But Idalia wouldn’t be able to either hear or see him—not while he wore the tarnkappa—not that she could see anything down here, at any rate.

“Kellen?” she whispered. He nodded, knowing she could feel the movement.

She relaxed with a sigh, and Kellen knew she was figuring everything out—that he’d found her somehow and healed her with the Wild Magic.

“Put me down,” she said a minute later. “I can walk—and you might need to fight.”

She was right. It was only common sense, even though Kellen knew how tired she must be after such a major healing.

He set her carefully on her feet and led her the rest of the way to where Ancaladar was waiting for them. Their progress was a little slower, now that he had to lead Idalia, but Kellen was tired himself, and didn’t want to risk a fall.

At the foot of the cliff that led to the tunnels, he stopped and pushed back the tarnkappa’s cowl so that he could speak to Idalia.

Instantly the darkness of the cave rushed in. It was like no darkness Kellen had ever experienced in his life: thick and absolute. There was no possibility of seeing anything, no matter how hard you strained your eyes.

For a moment he felt a bolt of panic, then he realized it didn’t matter.

He didn’t need to see.

He knew.

At the House of Sword and Shield, the Knights practiced blind-fighting, for it was always possible that you would be forced to defend or attack at night, in fog, or under other adverse conditions. You learned to have an awareness of where your targets were, to memorize the positions of your own people and keep them in mind. Kellen had learned then that he could not only remember where all the people on his own side were in a fight, but know where they were going to be. In practice sessions, he’d never hit any of his own side. Master Belesharon had said this was a manifestation of the Knight-Mage gift.

So was this, it seemed.

It wasn’t that he could see in the dark. But he’d come this way once, and apparently part of the Knight-Mage gift was to remember terrain perfectly. He wasn’t going to need the tarnkappa to get out of here.

That was going to make things a little easier.

“There’s an, um, dragon here,” he whispered to Idalia. “He’s going to lift both of us up to a tunnel a few yards up the cliff face.”

“I remember the dragon,” Idalia said dryly.

Before Kellen could raise the hood again, he felt Ancaladar’s talons close around his middle, and heard Idalia give a startled squeak. He felt himself swept into the air and deposited, very gently, just inside the cave. He could see Ancaladar’s eyes glowing like dim Elven lanterns, and could tell from their size that the dragon’s head must be very close. He could even feel the dragon’s warm breath. But he could see absolutely nothing.

“Hello,” Idalia said to Ancaladar. “I guess I have you to thank for my rescue.”

“It was my pleasure, Wildmage Idalia,” Ancaladar said gravely.

“Oh,” Kellen said, realizing he’d forgotten to introduce them. “Idalia, this is Ancaladar. Ancaladar, this is my sister Idalia.” It felt very odd making polite introductions in the pitch-darkness when only one of the parties could see the other.

He swept the hood up for just a moment, to see where Idalia was, and led her a little farther into the cave. Then he took off the tarnkappa.

“Why don’t you wear the tarnkappa?” he suggested. “I can get by without it. Oh, and Ancaladar can see you and hear you even while you’re wearing it. I won’t be able to hear you, though.”

“Don’t tell me you can see down here,” Idalia said disbelievingly. Kellen sensed her reaching for the tarnkappa, and pushed it into her hands.

“No, but I don’t need to. I can remember where we’ve been, and I’m pretty sure we’re going back the same way.”

“Yes,” Ancaladar said softly. “It is not the fastest, but it will be sure.”

Idalia put on the cloak. It was a very odd sensation for Kellen. One moment he could sense she was there. The next moment he couldn’t.

There were a few moments of scraping and slithering while Ancaladar turned himself around in the cramped confines of the tunnel, and then they continued. They moved much faster now that Idalia could see, though she still leaned against Kellen from time to time for support. That was probably the strangest part of the whole adventure, because the occasional contacts seemed to come out of nowhere; Kellen had no sense of her presence until he felt her lean against him.

The absolute darkness wore on his nerves, though his internal map of the cave system was still as reliable as when he’d first discovered it. Now that he couldn’t see, hearing and scent seemed to be magnified to compensate: he could hear a faint dripping of water; something that sounded like a distant river, the constant “breathing” sound of the cave; the faint sound of Ancaladar’s passage over the stone and the louder sounds of his own movements. He could smell wet stone, blood and damp wool, leather and Elven steel and armor-oil, unicorn and horse, and a spicy indefinable scent that he eventually decided must be dragon.

And eventually, he could see light.

It was the faintest hint of light at first—nothing like enough to navigate by. But they were in the last long passage that led to the outside world, and Kellen could smell cold fresh air.

By now Idalia was staggering with exhaustion. Kellen wasn’t feeling much better. All he wanted to do was throw himself down in the nearest snowdrift and sleep for a year or two.

“We’re not going to be able to climb down that cliff,” Kellen said in sudden realization.

“I know,” Ancaladar said gently. “Humans are very fragile.”

Whatever that meant. At the moment, Kellen was too tired to care.

By the time they reached the cave mouth his eyes were watering at the intensity of the light after so long in utter darkness, and he’d pulled up the hood of his travel cloak to try to shield himself a little. He. was faintly surprised to note that from the position of the sun it was only early afternoon. It seemed as if he’d been down in the caves for sennights.

As soon as they’d neared the opening, Idalia had taken off the tarnkappa and bundled it across her shoulders like an over-large towel. She looked pale and exhausted, and there were deep shadows under her eyes. She was filthy with cave dust and dried blood, and her clothes were ragged and torn.

Ancaladar had hurried ahead once he saw the two of them could make it as far as the cave mouth under their own power. He was already outside, only his enormous head poking back into the cave, watching them anxiously as they staggered forward.

Finally they reached the cave mouth. Kellen shivered. He’d managed to forget how cold it was out here.

Once more the dragon reached out and lifted each of them out of the cave and—very gently—deposited them on the snow at the foot of the cliff. Then before either of them could say anything, it launched itself into the sky with a bound.

“Well, I—” Idalia began. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and her knees buckled. She fell forward into the snow.

Kellen lunged for her, feeling for her pulse, but both her breathing and her pulse were steady. She’d simply fainted from exhaustion—and no wonder, after walking who knew how far through the caves right after a major healing? At least he was in better shape than she was.

He looked around warily, but he saw no signs of enemies, and Ancaladar, soaring overhead, gave no sign that he saw anything amiss. Kellen picked up Idalia again—making sure his cloak was wrapped warmly around both of them—and began the long walk back toward the camp.

JERMAYAN and Shalkan met him halfway, and Kellen might have been in for a bad time if he hadn’t had Idalia in his arms. Jermayan immediately took her up before him on Valdien, cradling her tenderly in his arms.

“Is she all right?” the Elven Knight asked, sounding closer to terrified than Kellen had ever heard him before. “Why does she not wake?”

It was a good thing they were operating under War Manners, which allowed Jermayan to ask direct questions. If he’d had to use the normal forms of Elven polite speech, Kellen thought he might have exploded.

“She’s just had a major healing, and had to walk out of the caves on top of it,” Kellen said soothingly, putting his arm over Shalkan’s withers. “She’ll sleep for at least a day, if she can.” And I wish I could. “She’s fine.”

Jermayan held her close, looking unconvinced.

“You were fortunate to have found her,” he said.

Just then, Ancaladar’s shadow swept over them. Jermayan looked up.

Kellen had never seen Jermayan look quite so utterly and completely taken by surprise. It was rather gratifying. “What’s that?” Jermayan sputtered, staring.

“It’s a dragon,” Kellen said, trying to hide a grin. “He’s the one who showed me where Idalia was. His name is Ancaladar. He wants to come home with us.”

He followed me home. Can I keep him?

Jermayan continued to stare in a stunned fashion as Ancaladar swept on over the end of the valley, wheeled, and headed back, soaring higher this time.

“Then … by all means … the dragon must be welcome … in our homes and at our hearths,” he said at last.

“I don’t know about that part,” Kellen said doubtfully. “He isn’t going to fit in my home, anyway, unless he can shrink.”

THEY stopped to collect Idalia’s horse, and then rode out of the valley following the route the rest of the party had taken the night before. Despite Kellen’s tiredness and Idalia’s need for rest, this was not a place any of them wanted to linger. Soon enough the Shadowed Elves would stop searching the caves and nerve themselves to face the punishing daylight. And Kellen didn’t know how many more of them there might be.

Idalia rode in Jermayan’s arms, wrapped in a blanket. As they went on, Kellen told Jermayan everything of what he’d seen in the caverns, particularly about the Shadowed Elves. The more people who knew about them, the better.

“Idalia mentioned an underground village, but I didn’t see it. They were carrying weapons stolen from the caravan, so they’re definitely the hooded figures I saw in my vision.”

“Which means they are Their allies. Here—in Elven Lands. Living undetected,” Jermayan said darkly. “Able to pass the land-wards at will. Andoreniel must hear of this without delay.”

THEY rode through the rest of the day, but though they saw traces of the other party’s passage, it had almost a full day’s lead, and they had not caught up to it by the time Jermayan signaled a halt for the night.

“You are nearly falling from your saddle with exhaustion, Kellen, and Idalia could use better rest as well,” the Elven Knight said, in tones that brooked no argument. “We will certainly catch up to them tomorrow—and travel all the faster for a night’s rest.”

Kellen reluctantly agreed. Even without Vestakia traveling with them to detect any hint of Demonic presence, Ancaladar’s presence overhead ensured that they were nearly as safe as if they were within Sentarshadeen itself.

Although now that he knew that creatures such as the Shadowed Elves could roam the Elven Lands at will, Kellen was no longer sure how safe that was.

Jermayan took most of the work of making camp upon himself, leaving Kellen to sit at Idalia’s side beside the warmth of the brazier. She was awake now, but still very weak.

“Where’s Ancaladar?” she asked.

“Flying around overhead, I guess,” Kellen answered. “Unless he’s asleep somewhere. I’m not sure where he’d sleep, though. He’s much too big to perch in a tree, and there aren’t any more caves around here.” At least I hope there aren’t. “Maybe he can sleep on the wing.”

“I don’t think dragons sleep at all, except when they’re bored,” Idalia said seriously. She shivered, but Kellen could tell it wasn’t from cold. “Thanks for getting me out of there. I mean it.” She sipped her tea.

“You’d do the same for me. And Ancaladar did all the real work. All I had to do was follow him.” He thought about asking Idalia about the odd way the healing had gone, and decided to wait. It didn’t seem to be an urgent problem that needed to be dealt with right now. “He wants to come and live in Sentarshadeen with us.”

“Well, that should give the gossips something new to talk about,” Idalia said. “Though if every time you leave, you bring back another odd stray, they might decide to confine you to the valley from now on.” She yawned, her eyelids drooping, and Kellen plucked the teacup from her hand as her fingers relaxed.

Jermayan arrived, having settled the horses for the night, and stirred the pot of soup that was cooking over the fire. Kellen had already eaten several trail-bars, but was looking forward to hot soup.

“It will be ready soon,” Jermayan pronounced. “Then you will both eat, and you will sleep.”

“I think we can all sleep,” Kellen said. “Idalia said that dragons don’t sleep. Ancaladar can keep watch.”

Jermayan glanced up at the sky. Ancaladar was invisible, save as an enormous shadow that blotted out the stars as he passed between them and the ground.

“Two sets of eyes are better than one,” the Elven Knight said simply.

There was no point in arguing with Jermayan, even if Kellen had possessed the energy right now. If there was one thing he had learned during the time he had spent in Sentarshadeen, it was that it was not an easy thing to change an Elf’s mind, once he had made it up.

Well, if Jermayan wanted to keep watch, let him. No harm could come of it, after all.

They had to awaken Idalia so that she could eat. Jermayan cradled her in his arms while Kellen helped her hold the bowl. The sight of the two of them together made him faintly uncomfortable, but he put it down to exhaustion. She was asleep again almost before she’d finished, and Jermayan wrapped her tenderly in her blankets again, adding more fuel to the brazier.

“She must have been badly injured,” he suggested, handing Kellen his own bowl of soup.

“She was,” Kellen said briefly, bending his head over the bowl to inhale the steam. Jermayan seemed to be waiting for more. “She’d fallen off a cliff.”

“Ah.” Jermayan was silent for a moment. “I well remember my own weakness after you healed me.”

“This …” Kellen hesitated for a moment, wondering how much to tell—and how much Jermayan would understand. Jermayan was no Wildmage: uncounted years ago the Elves had sacrificed their part in the Greater Magics for peace and length of years, so their legends told. There were no Elven Mages.

“This was a much more extensive healing,” he finally said. “And it went differently. She’s going to be fine,” he added quickly, seeing the look of alarm in Jermayan’s dark eyes, “but she’s going to need a lot more rest and recovery time than you did.” He thought of the days after he’d first come to live with Idalia in the Wildwoods, when she’d healed him of injuries sustained fighting the Outlaw Hunt. “Maybe as much as a moonturn.”

“Then there are two reasons to return to Sentarshadeen as quickly as we may,” Jermayan said consideringly. “Now I think it is best that you sleep as well.”

WHEN he awoke the following morning, Kellen felt fully recovered—whatever gift had been bestowed upon him in the cavern to allow him to heal without Mageprice, it had granted him a quick recovery as well.

The morning had dawned damp and foggy; clouds had rolled in, shrouding the sun, and the trees were veiled in mist. The temperature had risen slightly, with a bite in the heavy air that promised snow before midday.

The horses were restless, sensing the coming snowfall, and even Idalia’s placid bay mare, Cella, frisked and played up when it came time to saddle her.

Idalia was still too weak to ride, so once more Jermayan took her up before him on Valdien and tied Cella’s lead-rein to his saddle.

They caught up to the rest of the party near midday. As Kellen had expected, it had begun to snow, and visibility was poor, but unicorn senses were keen.

“They know we’re here,” Shalkan reported, and a few moments later a unicorn-mounted knight came plunging back through the snowdrifts to greet them.

“Kellen—Shalkan—Jermayan—and Idalia as well!” Bendirean said. “Thank Leaf and Star! We had thought …”

“That misfortune had befallen us,” Jermayan agreed. “And so it did, but as you see, we have all slipped free from the Shadow’s grasp. We are fortunate to have reached you before you turned off in the direction of the Fortress of the Crowned Horns.”

“We do not go there,” Bendirean said reluctantly, as if to impart the news pained him. He and Zanaleth turned and began walking along beside Jermayan and the others, at a distance that was comfortable for Zanaleth. “Vestakia says it is too dangerous. We return directly to Sentarshadeen.”

Too dangerous? That doesn’t sound good, Kellen thought.

“That is our destination as well, with all possible speed,” Jermayan agreed, as calmly as if he were discussing a new fashion, or the best way to prepare roast partridge. “We bring news that Andoreniel must have at once—but we also bring a welcome ally.” He pointed skyward.

Bendirean looked up.

As if he could hear them—and for all Kellen knew, he could—Ancaladar chose that moment to make a low pass over them. For a few moments he was plainly visible, even through the veils of snow, then he tilted the end of one vast wing and rose through the clouds again.

“That was a dragon,” Bendirean said, with what Kellen thought was commendable calm under the circumstances.

Zanaleth and Shalkan exchanged eloquent—though silent—looks.

“Yes, Bendirean, that was a dragon,” Jermayan said, his voice faintly unsteady. “His name is Ancaladar, and he wishes to be our ally.”

THE reunion with the larger party was one marked by great relief on both sides. Sandalon was overjoyed to see Kellen again, bursting into unexpected tears and clinging to him tightly. When Lairamo saw that Idalia was alive—though far from well—Kellen thought she might actually lose her iron composure. As it was, the haggard lines of fear and despair in her face eased markedly.

Kellen was glad to see that all the children were well—at least in body. The scars of their captivity at the hands of the Shadowed Elves would be long in healing, and Kellen hoped that the Elven Healers would be able to do something to ease them. To his surprise, he found himself thinking with favor about Armethalieh, something he would have been willing to swear would never happen. But the High Mages were skilled in manipulating the mind: wouldn’t it be a good thing if none of the children remembered any of the horrible things that had happened at all?

Or was this a case of good intentions leading to bad results? Armethalieh as it was now was certainly no paradise, but Morusil, Iletel, and even Idalia had said that the Mages had begun with the best of intentions. And it was wanting to do good that had allowed the Mages bonded to dragons to be corrupted by the Endarkened.

Fortunately this problem’s solution wasn’t up to him.

The stop was necessarily brief. While Vestakia did not sense pursuers, she had the sense that there were more of the Shadowed Elves in the area—and if they came in force, or with the same allies who had proved so disastrous to the first party, there might be little Kellen’s people could do to stop them, even though they now had Ancaladar’s help. With Shalkan’s permission, Kellen took Sandalon up before him on his saddle, and they rode on.

The snow continued to worsen throughout the day, and they finally had to stop a few hours later to make camp. Kellen still felt restless, even though Vestakia didn’t sense any trouble nearby, and decided to ride up the trail a ways to scout ahead for the next day’s travel.

He unlimbered his bow and kept it ready to hand, shielded by his cloak. His archery wasn’t as strong as his sword-work, but he might get lucky and surprise a rabbit or two. Elven trail-food was both nourishing and palatable, but after more than a sennight of eating nothing else, some fresh meat would be welcome.

KELLEN was a bit surprised at the relief he felt to ride away from the rest of the party. The winter silence seemed to envelop him like a soothing cloak, and the only sound was the hiss of falling snow.

“I, uh, didn’t ask you if you wanted to come along,” Kellen said after a while.

“You could hardly go without me,” Shalkan said. “Besides, I thought you’d like to be alone for a while.”

Kellen was grateful for his friend’s understanding. Since the moment he’d realized that the convoy heading for the Fortress of the Crowned Horns had been attacked, he’d been drawn as tight as a bowstring with tension—first to reach the spot, then to find the missing children, then to rescue Idalia, then to get away safely. And while he knew they hadn’t quite accomplished that yet, they were close. He could relax, at least a little.

“It’s a real mess, isn’t it?” he said.

“Having colonies of Shadowed Elves living within the Elven lands, ready to strike at the Nine Cities without warning? I suppose it depends on your definition of ‘mess,’” Shalkan observed.

“I guess we’re going to have to—Wait. What’s that?”

There was a sound up ahead. But when he listened for it, it disappeared into the wind and the hiss of falling snow.

“I don’t hear anything,” Shalkan said, flicking his delicate ears back and forth.

That wasn’t right. Shalkan’s hearing was much more acute than Kellen’s.

“Something’s coming. I think something’s coming. I thought I heard it.”

“You probably sensed it. Knight-Mages know what they need to know. Shall we go see?”

“Yes,” Kellen said. Shalkan broke into a quick trot. Kellen hoped that whatever it was, it wasn’t more trouble than he could handle.

But when they reached the source of the disturbance Kellen had sensed, he discovered it wasn’t trouble at all.

“Kenderk! Tyban! Dervasin!” he greeted the Elves he knew best by name. “I See you. And Calmeren—I am glad to see you so well recovered.”

“I would not let them come without me,” the unicorn said simply, inclining her head.

When he’d left Sentarshadeen, it had been with only those he could gather in less than a day, but Andoreniel and Ashaniel had not been sitting idle in his absence. From what Kellen could see here, they had gathered all the rest of the Knights they could call up in haste and sent them after Kellen as soon as possible—and not only warriors, but light supply wagons as well, to carry the extra supplies needed to engage in winter travel.

“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Dervasin answered. “One hopes, of course, that the news you have to tell will make good hearing.”

“The children are safe,” Kellen said, since that was the extent of the good news. “We’ve made camp a way up the trail. I’ll ride back with you. There’s a lot to tell.” And not much of it good news.

As he led Dervasin’s party back to the others, Kellen provided an abbreviated version of recent events, including the details he now knew of the massacre of the party sent to conduct them to the Elven fortress.

“The fortress itself is safe, but Vestakia doesn’t think it’s safe to try to approach it. And we need to get Idalia and the children back to Sentarshadeen as soon as possible.”

“As you say,” Dervasin agreed.

Even with the snow and the gathering darkness, they were within sight of the camp by now. Kellen and Shalkan rode on ahead to let the others know that the relief party had arrived.

He wasn’t quite sure Dervasin believed him about the dragon.

Yet.

THE arrival of supply wagons meant they could make a proper camp, with better shelter for Idalia, Lairamo, and the children. The relief party included several Healers as well, who quickly went off to consult with Evanor, to see if there was more they could do for the children and Idalia before they reached the city.

And more people meant they were less likely to be attacked … though there had been a substantial guard of Sentarshadeen’s best warriors on the original convoy, and it hadn’t saved them.

“Why so gloomy?” Shalkan asked a few hours later. “You’ve done what you set out to do. If no one attacked Dervasin’s force on his way to us, we shouldn’t have much trouble getting back to Sentarshadeen. So … we’ve won.”

Kellen looked at his friend. He was fairly sure the unicorn was just being provoking—though he suspected he was right that they wouldn’t be attacked on the way back to the city. From what Vestakia had said, the enemy forces were only interested in keeping them away from the Crowned Horns.

“No,” he said slowly. “We haven’t won. This is just the beginning.”

ONE did not prosper in the World Without Sun without knowing the pattern of events almost before they were formed. And Prince Zyperis yearned to prosper. Though he had not known his mother’s plans before she had at last unveiled them to him, once he knew the direction in which her interests lay, it was a simple enough matter to set his own spies—both magical and mundane—to follow the undertaking.

And so Zyperis knew almost as soon as it happened that Sentarshadeen rode out to rescue what Queen Savilla had taken. He waited, baffled, for her to order the captives removed from the hands of the Goblin Elves, but the cycles of rest and Rising passed, and she did nothing.

Almost—almost—he seized them himself, and carried them away to a place of greater safety, but he knew that his dearest Mama would see that as a direct challenge to her power, and Zyperis was not ready to attempt that Nor did he ask her openly about her plans, for to do so would be to reveal his own sources of information.

And so he waited, frustrated and confused, as the accursed Elves, the Wildmages, and—worst of all—his wayward daughter Vestakia forged deep into the Mystral Range, discovering the lair of the Goblin Elves and carrying away the prize.

And adding unspeakable insult to unthinkable injury, carrying away the dragon as well.

Zyperis had known a dragon laired and hunted somewhere in the Mystrals. The Endarkened knew the spells to force a Bond between a human Mage and the greatest of the Otherfolk, and could he only have traced the creature to its lair, Zyperis could have sent one of his cringing Mage-men to it and claimed the prize for the Endarkened.

But now—thanks to Queen Savilla’s maddening inaction—they had lost both Elves and dragon, and it would be long cycles of searching before he could locate another of the rare beasts.

Prince Zyperis was not happy.

THE loss of the dragon was an unexpected setback, casting a faint shadow of misfortune over her victory, but the savor of Prince Zyperis’s frustrations at not being able to act upon his secret information nearly made up for that disappointment. And the creature had not Bonded with either of the Wildmages—so Savilla’s spies reported—so there was yet a chance of reclaiming it to the service of He Who Is. And that would be so much easier now that they knew precisely where it was.

Her son really ought to learn to take the long view of things.

Queen Savilla was not unhappy with the progression of events. And soon official word of her “defeat” would reach the Court, and she could savor new pleasures …

THE emissary of the Goblin Elves reached the Dark Court a handful of Risings later. Once he had left the Elven lands, Savilla had sent an escort—both to speed him on his journey, and to ensure he was not pursued.

She felt a mild curiosity at the prospect of personally viewing an example of this great and secret triumph over the arrogant and condescending Elves. Its creation had been the work of her father, Uralesse, who had mingled the blood of mind-blasted Elven captives taken in the Great War with that of Goblins and Lesser Endarkened to create a race that would deceive the land-wards of the Elves by virtue of its Elven heritage. For centuries, as the Children of the Light reckoned time, the Goblin Elves had been left to go their own way, living in the dark places deep beneath the Elven lands—but never let to forget to whom they owed their ultimate allegiance.

THE emissary’s name was Hnn. Among his own people, he was a hunt-leader, cruel and fearless, but now he had been brought before his gods, and he crouched and cowered, drooling in fear.

Savilla had chosen to receive him in her formal Audience Chamber. She was seated upon the Shadow Throne. Carved of ebony and inlaid with black pearls, it made a striking backdrop for her scarlet skin.

The walls of the Audience Chamber were black as well—a frieze in darkened silver depicting all the ancient races which the Endarkened had destroyed. The ceiling of the chamber was paneled in the skin of a black dragon, its scales still luminous after all these centuries, and the floor was a single polished block of black topaz, so smooth and flawless that the ceiling and walls reflected in it as if in a mirror.

The chamber lent itself to the staging of very effective set-pieces. And was easy to clean up afterward.

“Sweet, isn’t he?” Savilla murmured to Prince Zyperis. She had allowed him to attend—though this was by no means a public audience—and had even allotted him the signal honor of standing beside her throne.

“Barbarian,” Zyperis commented. But he sounded intrigued.

Savilla waved a gilded hand, indicating that Hnn should approach. The Goblin Elf crawled forward on hands and knees, kissing her foot before flinging himself facedown at her feet.

“He’s going to be difficult to talk to in that position,” Zyperis drawled, gazing down at the trembling creature.

Savilla laughed. “Talk to him! My dear boy, they’re incapable of producing civilized speech, and I have no intention of spending half an eternity barking like a coldwarg. No, a simple mind-touch will tell us all he knows. And then … kitchens? Or bedroom?”

Zyperis affected to consider the matter for a moment, and smiled. “Why not both?”

“Ah, Zyperis, you always know what will please me best,” Savilla cooed.

She studied the creature at her feet for a moment more—rather attractive, really, all the more because one could see the remains of his Elven heritage spoiled and twisted within him—then gestured to the Lesser Endarkened that had accompanied him. They came forward, their hooves clicking on the topaz floor, and lifted him to eye level with the Queen. His pale bulging eyes widened further with terror and awe.

She reached out one hand to Zyperis, so that he could share in the spell. With the other she gripped Hnn’s chin.

His fear cascaded over her like sweet perfume, kindling the spell. Delicately, she sipped at the images that lay on the surface of his mind, taking in the message he had come to bring. With him she shared the thrill of the stalk, the slaughter of the Elves, the capture of the strange hot foul-smelling captives. The joy at serving the Winged Ones.

And the terror, the fury, the sense of shame and failure, when the god-offering vanished from his grasp.

All that rushed into her mind and Prince Zyperis’s in an instant. If the two Endarkened had not already been holding Hnn upright, he would have crumpled to the floor like a doll.

When she was sure she had all the information he had to give, Savilla released him. Hnn whimpered faintly. Urine ran down his leg and spattered on the floor, its musky scent filling the chamber.

“Now take him away and bathe him—thoroughly,” Savilla said. “When you are done, bring him to my private chambers. We shall see what other entertainment our young envoy can provide.”

SAVILLA was pleased to see that Zyperis contained himself until the two of them were alone, though his barbed tail lashed fretfully with the strength of his emotions. To tease him, she got to her feet and walked away from the throne—carefully avoiding the puddle—and walked about the room, admiring the designs upon the walls as if she’d never seen them before. So many races, quenched by the cunning of the Endarkened. And soon the Elves would join them.

“Mama—why?” Zyperis burst out, when he could contain himself no longer. “You had them within your grasp—all those tender morsels, and the Elven King’s brat first among them! You could have brought them here before the cursed Wildmages and the others got anywhere near them! And you ordered the Goblin Elves not to pursue the party and take them back—that wretched barbarian didn’t understand it, and neither do I! We’ve failed!”

“Have we?” Savilla turned to face him. “Why did I send the Goblin Elves after the children in the first place?”

“To take the King’s son. And you did, Mama. It was beautifully done.” But there was uncertainty in Zyperis’s voice, as if he was not certain that was the whole truth. Savilla glowed with pride—it had been a subtle plot, and it was not his fault that he did not grasp it at once. That he realized he did not see all of her plan was to his credit, and indicated what a formidable adversary he would be in the years to come.

“If that was what I meant to do, do you not think that the puling brat would be weeping in my dungeons even now?” Savilla said gently.

Zyperis frowned, hesitating. “I … yes, dearest Mama. But if that was not what you wanted, why go after the caravan at all? Now the Elves know about their cousins. They will not rest until they have hunted them down, every one.”

“Yes …” Savilla purred, and watched Zyperis’s face light with understanding and delight.

“Now come, my son,” she said, going to him and putting a hand on his arm. “There is much we can do to amuse ourselves until our guest is brought to us. And with such tender care, he will be a savory morsel at the banquet later.”

Chapter Eleven

The Road Through the Border Lands

CILARNEN WASN’T QUITE sure why the Elf was helping him. For a long time—bells—he was simply too numb to care. The creature gave him its pack mule to ride, doused its peculiar brazier and repacked its gear, and within two chimes, they were on their way.

Several times the Elf tried making conversation with him, even going so far as to offer its name—Hyandur—but Cilarnen only gave one- or two-word replies, and eventually the Elf stopped talking.

Cilarnen couldn’t think of what to say, anyway. He’d been Banished. He was leaving the only home he’d ever known. His Gift had been destroyed. He was nothing at all.

Eventually it occurred to him he ought to say something. He needed to know what the Elf knew, if nothing else.

“One of my friends was Banished too. Did you—”

“I came upon the remains of a body in the woods today. It wore a Felon’s Cloak, and around it were the footprints of dogs—heavy marks, as if made by creatures of stone. Perhaps it was he. If so, I am sorry for your loss.”

The Elf’s words were barely more than noise to Cilarnen. He knew that Undermage Anigrel had said that Tiedor was to be Banished. He knew that the Outlaw Hunt was comprised of enchanted stone mastiffs, like the Stone Golems that—in other shapes—served so many functions in the City. But somehow, in his shocked and benumbed state, he could not bring any sense out of Hyandur’s words.

“I don’t understand,” Cilarnen said at last.

“The body had been savaged by the Outlaw Hunt,” Hyandur said patiently. “The Stone Hounds kill all who are declared Outlaw by the High Council, if they are still within the City’s lands at dawn.”

But no matter how hard Cilarnen thought about Hyandur’s words, they still didn’t make any sense. Why would the Outlaw Hunt kill anyone? They were just supposed to escort the Outlaw to the borders. Of course they were.

The Elf had to be lying. That’s what Elves did.

“Show me where he is,” Cilarnen demanded.

“If we return to that place, we will not reach the edge of the valley by dawn. If we do not leave Armethaliehan lands by the time your Hunt is released, we will both meet the same fate as your friend,” Hyandur said calmly.

Cilarnen wanted to pull away, to ride off in search of the body. Elves were dangerous—everyone said so—and he was only now beginning to awaken to the fact that he might be in more danger from his companion than from the cold and the wilderness. But the mule’s lead-rein was tied fast to the horse’s saddle, and there was nothing Cilarnen could do but ride on, blindly, into the dark.

He was being kidnapped.

He vowed to escape at the earliest opportunity.

AS the sky began to lighten, Hyandur urged the tired animals to a faster pace. They were moving now through a gently rising landscape wholly unfamiliar to Cilarnen—a narrow path bordered by bare earth on both sides, as if someone had re-created the flower beds of the City gardens on a gigantic scale. Each enormous tract of earth was edged by a row of trees, and they seemed to go on forever.

Cilarnen hoped for the sight of a village where he could get help, but he did not see so much as the smoke from a distant hearth-fire.

Behind them, the sun began to rise. Cilarnen imagined it striking the gilded roof of the Council House with fire, heard in memory the sweet high carillon of Dawn Bells, its soft notes ringing out over the City. He swallowed hard with homesickness and loss.

“They will be coming soon,” Hyandur said grimly. “We must hurry now.”

He leaned forward, speaking softly to his mare. Her ears flickered back and forth, as if she understood what he was saying to her. He untied one of the knots in the lead-rope affixed to his saddle, lengthening it by several feet.

And the mare went from a trot, to a canter, to a floating run.

The mule lagged behind for a moment, pulling the lead-rein bowstring tight, and for a moment Cilarnen hoped it would snap. No mule was as fast as a horse anyway.

But this mule was apparently an exception, for after a moment, the rein went slack again as the mule followed after the mare at a pounding, jarring pace. Reflexively, Cilarnen crouched low over the mule’s neck, urging it on. If he had been a lesser rider, he would have fallen off in the first few moments of their mad flight—and deep within, a tiny part of him was suddenly convinced of the seriousness of their peril. Surely no one, even an Elf, would misuse a horse this way without great need.

They passed the last of the open land and were back among the winter-bare trees, where patches of ice still covered the ground. Cilarnen expected them to slow down over such treacherous footing, but they didn’t, and his heart hammered in fear—not for himself, but for the splendid chestnut Hyandur rode. If she slipped, if she fell, lameness would be the most fortunate outcome she could hope for. A broken neck—a broken leg—

But she danced over the ice as if she had wings, with the mule thundering after. The sun was higher now, flickering through the branches, the light making Cilarnen’s head pound with feverish pain. His hands and face were numb with cold—it was as if he couldn’t remember ever having been warm.

In the distance, the trees thinned out again. The road rose in a gentle curve, and he could see a gateway of sorts—or at least a place where someone had placed a large post at either side of the road. What could it possibly mark? There was nothing around it, and the land looked very much the same on one side as on the other.

But it must mean something, because Hyandur was already slowing the mare as they approached it. The mule was only too glad to slacken its pace without any urging on Cilarnen’s part, and both animals passed between the posts at a dead slow walk.

It was snowing on the other side.

Or rather, it had snowed, recently and heavily. And the air was sharp with the promise of more, far colder than the air on the near side of the posts.

“This is the boundary of the City lands,” Cilarnen said in sudden realization. Or at least, the boundary of the Home Farms.

“Yes.” Hyandur dismounted from the mare and began to walk back and forth with her through the fresh snow, speaking gently to her.

Cilarnen dismounted from the mule, wincing and staggering with stiffness. He rubbed its nose apologetically. He wasn’t sure what to do with mules. But he supposed it couldn’t hurt to treat it like a horse, and so he coiled up the lead-rein that Hyandur had released and began to lead it back and forth, as he had seen the grooms do with horses in his father’s stables.

As he did, he looked back toward the boundary. The snow made it easy to see. The snow just … stopped, as though it had run into an invisible wall.

As it had, of course. A wall of Magecraft. Just as Undermage Anigrel had said, the High Council must have extended the boundaries of the City to cover the entire valley once more.

He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. The High Council had reversed its decision. The Home Farms were part of the City Lands once more, just as he and the others had wanted.

He’d ruined his life, caused his father’s death, his family’s disgrace, for nothing.

“You may stop now,” Hyandur told him, breaking into Cilarnen’s chaotic thoughts. “Unsaddle the mule, and build a fire in the brazier. We will rest here before going on.”

Cilarnen stared at him, too shocked to react. The Elf was giving him orders?

Hyandur regarded him for a long moment.

“If you cannot do that, then go to the well and draw water for the animals. They are rested enough to be ready to drink. The well lies over there.” He pointed in the direction of a snowy cylinder of rock.

Cilarnen hesitated, but the mule nudged at his shoulder, then lowered its head to mouth at the snow, obviously wanting water. There was no reason for the animals to suffer just because they belonged to an Elf. Reluctantly, Cilarnen trudged off in that direction, tucking his hands into his armpits to warm them.

He had never seen a well in his life, but it was a simple mechanical design, with a crank and gears to raise and lower a bucket on a rope, and after a few tries, he managed to get the cover off, find the bucket, and fill the trough at the well’s foot with water.

If he’d had his Magegift and Wand, he could simply have Called the water up out of the well. As it was, it was at least a chime before he managed to fill the watering-trough, and he was sweating and damp—and very irritated with the Elf—at the end of it. If this was servants’ work, then the servants in House Volpiril had not had as soft a life as he’d imagined.

But as he turned back to collect the horse and the mule, he forgot all his lesser problems.

Racing toward him, along the last patch of open ground between the woods and the marker-posts, was a pack of Stone Hounds.

They looked just like the pair outside the Arch-Mage’s house, yet these were horribly animate, their fanged jaws opening and closing with soundless barking. There were almost a dozen of them, perfect in every detail from the spiked collars around their necks to the curved nails upon their feet. Every aspect of their manner spoke of murderous threat.

There was no Mage with them.

He ran back toward Hyandur and the animals—thinking he might be able to save the mare, at least—but before he could reach them, the Outlaw Hunt reached the invisible border between the lands claimed by the City and the world beyond.

They stopped as if they had run into a wall.

But even then they did not retreat.

Like any hunting pack frustrated and kept from taking its prey, they milled back and forth on the far side of the invisible wall, their unblinking gaze fixed on Cilarnen. Some crouched on their haunches, barking silently. Some dug at the frozen ground, as if it were possible to dig beneath the magick and reach their intended prey. A few of the Hounds kept trying to cross the boundary, only to be flung back each time they tried, as if by some invisible hand.

The leader of the pack, a mastiff carved of white granite, simply stood at the far side of the posts and glared fixedly at Cilarnen. If it were possible for unliving stone to radiate murderous rage, the creature did.

Watching the pack go mad with failure, a slow cold wisdom settled over Cilarnen. The Elf had not lied. Anigrel had not lied. Tiedor was dead—any of his friends who might be Banished after him would die.

But Banishment was never meant to be a death sentence! It was only meant to cast people out of the City, not to kill them!

He did not know why this terrible ancient custom had been revived, but now he knew this: the Outlaw Hunt was not meant to conduct Outlaws to the borders of City Lands, but to kill them.

And if he had not had the great good fortune to run into Hyandur last night—if the Elf had not aided him for mysterious reasons of its own—he too would be dead now, savaged by stone fangs.

“You may take the animals to drink, now. Take care that they do not drink too much at first,” Hyandur said, coming up to Cilarnen where he stood, still frozen in shock, watching the stone Hounds flail at what was to them an impassable border.

“Yes. I’m sorry,” Cilarnen said, though he could not at that moment have said what he was apologizing for.

“They will not break through,” Hyandur said. “It is, however, unsettling to watch.”

Cilarnen shook his head, unable to stop thinking of himself surrounded by the Outlaw Hunt, pulled down beneath those unyielding stone bodies. He took the animals’ leadropes—Hyandur had unsaddled them while he’d been fighting with the well—and turned away.

CHILD of the City and Mageborn he might be, but Cilarnen knew something of caring for horses. He was careful to let neither animal drink as much as it wished to, and when they were done, he brought them back to where Hyandur had laid out a ground cloth and the brazier. The Elf was brewing tea, indifferent to the Stone Hounds that waited beyond the Border.

They had stopped attempting to batter their way through the boundary, and now simply stood in a silent row, gazing hungrily toward Cilarnen. Eleven unmoving granite forms—but Cilarnen had no doubt now that if he took one step back across the Border, they would rouse terrifyingly into life. And the Council’s decree—its true, its secret decree—would be carried out.

Death for Cilarnen Volpiril.

But Mages do not kill ���

“Come, stranger. We will drink tea,” Hyandur said. “Then we will move on.”

Cilarnen wrapped the stiff felt of the Felon’s Cloak around himself. “I … my name is Cilarnen. Thank you for saving my life.”

Hyandur bowed his head slightly. “The Outlaw Hunt is a foul thing. I would willingly leave no creature to its mercies. Perhaps someday we will talk of what caused you to leave the City.”

Cilarnen just shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about it, or even think about it. The farther away the events got, the less sense they made to him. All he knew was that people were dead, and it was somehow his fault.

He didn’t want to ask where the Elf was taking him, either. He wasn’t sure whether it was because he didn’t care, or was afraid of what he might hear.

THE days after that passed in a numb haze for Cilarnen. They followed what Hyandur said was the caravan road the Mountain Traders used, though Cilarnen couldn’t imagine how the Elf could see where the road was in the snow, much less follow it. He simply assumed it was some vile magic possessed by the Lesser Races.

He was always cold, though the Elf had gifted him with a heavier cloak and a pair of fur-lined gauntlets from his supplies. Cilarnen would have happily burned the Felon’s Cloak, or at the very least abandoned it, but Hyandur had pointed out that his clothing was not suitable to the weather, and the Cloak was of sturdy fabric. He had taken the Cloak and crafted a pair of heavy leggings to lace over Cilarnen’s trousers. The heavy felt kept Cilarnen dry, and if the leggings were ugly, he no longer cared what he looked like. There was no one around who mattered to see.

His head hurt all the time—a constant stabbing ache that the glare of sun on snow only worsened. He kept the hood of the new fur cloak pulled down as far over his face as possible, trying to shut out the light, but it didn’t help.

Just when Cilarnen began to think he would be riding through wilderness for the rest of his life, they came to signs of civilization, at least of a very primitive sort.

Someone had built a wall out here in the middle of nowhere. It was like a crude tiny imitation of the City, though the wall was made of wood, not stone. As they approached the gates, they swung open, and a horseman rode out to meet them.

No.

Not a horseman.

Cilarnen swallowed hard, recognizing the abominable mingling of man and beast as another of the Lesser Races, one mentioned only in passing in his studies. A Centaur.

It wore human clothes upon his human half, with a short cloak that came to its waist. Its horse half was shaggy with a heavy winter coat.

But Hyandur greeted it as if it were a sentient being, and even Roiry and Pearl did not shy away from the unnatural creature.

“Ho, Hyandur—so the humans did not put you into a cage after all!” the Centaur said, switching its tail back and forth.

“No, Grander. They would not see me at all, nor would they hear my words. Yet my journey was not accomplished without bearing some fruit, as you see.”

“A human colt—City-born, I’ll wager. Looks half-dead and half-frozen. This is no weather for gallivanting,” Grander said disapprovingly.

“Nevertheless,” Hyandur said calmly. “I had no choice, nor did Cilarnen.”

“Well, Stonehearth will see you both warm and fed this night at least,” Grander said. “Come, both of you—I’ll see you housed in my own home, with the best of everything!”

“That makes good hearing,” Hyandur said. “We thank you for your hospitality.”

Hyandur dismounted, and regarded Cilarnen steadily until he had no choice but to do the same. The prospect of a hot dinner made his stomach churn. He wondered what Centaurs ate. Hay? Babies?

When they passed through the gate, he saw that there was an entire village crammed within its walls—almost like one of the poorest quarters of Armethalieh, but with everything much smaller. He expected the streets to be narrower, too, but they were wide, and swept free of snow.

Everyone Cilarnen saw on the streets was a Centaur, all of them dressed much as Grander was, in tunics and short cloaks, and wearing hoods or soft knitted caps. It did not make them look more human. It made them look as if someone were dressing up an animal for a play, but Cilarnen had no desire at all to see a naked Centaur.

Their horse parts were stocky and heavy-boned, like no horse he had ever seen. Some of the creatures had elaborately braided tails, with ribbons or jewelry braided into the hair. Cilarnen tried not to look.

They reached what must be Grander’s house. A younger Centaur appeared, and led Roiry and Pearl away.

“Hot dinner for them, too, and a warm stable,” Grander said cheerfully. “Marlen can bring your packs to the house once he has them unsaddled. There will be time for a bath before dinner, I think—and we should be able to find you house-robes.”

Hyandur smiled at that, as if at a private joke the two of them shared.

Grander’s house was built all on one level. There was very little furniture inside, though what there was—a few tables—was beautifully, though simply made.

“You know the way. I’ll send Marlen to you with the hot water as soon as it’s ready. Sarlin will bring you mulled ale.”

“I thank you for your courtesy to the weary traveler,” Hyandur said. “Come, Cilarnen.”

THE chamber at the back of the house was small by the standards Cilarnen was used to. It held a stove in one corner, a clothespress for storing clothes, a table, and a washstand with basin and ewer.

There was no bed at all. Cilarnen stared around in confusion.

“Few who are not Centaurs come to Stonehearth,” Hyandur said, as if that were an explanation. He removed his cloak and gloves and set them in the clothespress, then turned to the stove.

As Cilarnen stood in the middle of the room, hesitating, there was a tap at the door. Before he could make up his mind what to do, it opened, and another Centaur walked in.

There was no doubt at all that this one was female. All she wore was a thin woolen blouse, heavily and colorfully embroidered. She was as opulently female as the figurehead on a Selken Trader’s vessel, and her long, cream-blonde hair exactly matched the color of her horse-body. There were bright ribbons braided into her tail, their colors matching the embroidery on her shirt.

In one hand she carried a large, brightly-colored earthenware pitcher, its contents steaming, and in the other, two wooden mugs. Flung across her back was a pile of cloth.

“Ah, Hyandur, you’ll never get that balky thing to light,” she said cheerfully. “Let me—and drink up while the ale’s hot. Grander would never forgive me if I let you wait until it went cold.”

“Then we must not allow you to fall into disgrace, Sarlin,” Hyandur answered. Cilarnen realized with a distant sense of surprise that Hyandur actually liked these creatures. He considered them to be his friends.

Well, you could hardly expect better of an Elf, he supposed doubtfully.

Sarlin walked past Cilarnen—who was still staring—and set the pitcher and mugs down on the table. Hyandur straightened up from his crouch before the stove and relieved her of the bundles of cloth, tossing one to Cilarnen. It fell in a heap at his feet.

Sarlin knelt—with more grace than Cilarnen would have expected—before the stove, and began to rummage purposefully about its interior. Hyandur moved to the table, and poured two mugs full of the steaming ale. He brought one to Cilarnen.

“Drink. And do not stare at her so. She’s Grander’s daughter.”

“Oh, I don’t mind a bit of staring,” Sarlin said cheerfully over her shoulder. “But I’ll kick him into next Harvest if he tries anything. I’ve heard about those City sorcerers and their ways. Tried to drive us off our own lands, they did! Ah, that’s got it.” She got to her feet, closing the door of the stove and brushing her hands clean of ash.

“I’m not a sorcerer,” Cilarnen said, very quietly. He wasn’t quite sure what that was, but it sounded bad.

“He’s been Outlawed,” Hyandur said. “I believe they take away their magic when they do that.”

“Oh!” Sarlin turned to face Cilarnen, her broad inhuman features filled with sympathy. “Did they do that to you? How horrible!”

If there had been any place to run to, Cilarnen would have gone there. If he’d still had his Magegift and his wand, he would have happily reduced both Hyandur and Sarlin to a pile of ash. The one thing he was certain of was that he wasn’t going to accept sympathy from a talking horse—or the next best thing to one, anyway.

He pulled off his gauntlets quickly, took the mug, and drank. He’d never tasted ale in his life, and it was filled with unfamiliar spices, but anything was better than having to answer her. He gulped it down, holding his breath to avoid tasting the foul bitter stuff, and felt its heat fill his belly. He hoped it poisoned him.

“He doesn’t talk much. Maybe he’s simpleminded,” Sarlin suggested.

“Perhaps he’ll talk later,” Hyandur said.

She tossed her head. “Well! Father will certainly want to hear all about what they’re planning to do next in the City, so I hope he knows.” With another flirt of her tail, she walked out again.

Cilarnen rubbed his eyes with his free hand. He felt very much as if he ought to sit down, but there weren’t any chairs. And the stove seemed to suddenly be putting out a great deal of heat. He undid his cloak and let it fall to the floor as well, then walked carefully over to the nearest wall and leaned against it.

“You will find things very different here than your life in Armethalieh,” Hyandur said. He seemed to be trying to tell Cilarnen something, but Cilarnen wasn’t sure what it was.

Cilarnen slid carefully down the wall and sat on the floor. He set his mug down on the floor beside him and pressed both hands against his face as hard as he could. Maybe the ale had poisoned him, but his constant headache seemed to be going away, just a little.

“There aren’t any chairs,” he said. It seemed particularly important that Hyandur understand that fact.

“You are not accustomed to strong drink,” the Elf observed dispassionately.

“Mageborn do not drink,” Cilarnen told him grandly. It was what they told the Commons, after all. The Commons believed that the Mageborn existed on nothing but air, pure well water, and Communion with the Light, so the saying went. But his power had been stripped from him, and he’d been cast out from the City. Could he even call himself Mageborn any longer?

Hyandur seemed to sigh, and went to place Cilarnen’s discarded cloak in the clothespress.

A few moments later Marlen arrived, bringing Hyandur’s packs. He was not alone. Two more Centaurs accompanied him—one carrying a large copper tub, and the other with his arms filled with towels and with two large kegs of steaming water slung across his back. They deposited their burdens in front of the stove and left again.

“If there’s anything else you need, just shout,” Marlen said. He glanced at Cilarnen, and frowned. “A Healer, or … anything.”

“You are most kind, as always,” Hyandur said.

When Marlen left, Hyandur drew the latch and began filling the tub. By then Cilarnen felt less dizzy. In fact, he felt better than he had since the City gates had closed behind him.

He got to his feet and walked over to the pitcher, pouring himself a careful half-mug of the ale. He knew about getting drunk—though his infrequent—and unauthorized—experiments had been with the wine from his father’s cellars, and not with ale, which in Armethalieh was strictly something in which the Commons indulged. While he had no intention of getting drunk in the middle of a bunch of talking animals, he liked being free of pain.

“You dislike the taste, yet you drink more of it,” Hyandur. remarked.

“It makes my head stop hurting,” Cilarnen said. He didn’t know why he felt the need to explain himself to Hyandur, but the creature had saved his life, so he supposed he owed the Elf common courtesy.

“And your head has hurt for a long time.”

“Since I left the City. Or before that. I can’t remember.” Cilarnen raised the mug and drank. The ale still tasted vile, but he supposed he’d better get used to it.

“I have no skill in healing, but the Healer here is excellent. Perhaps she can craft a potion to ease your pain. Now we will bathe, and eat. Perhaps that will help as well.”

As he spoke, Hyandur was removing his clothing, setting each piece neatly aside, and Cilarnen finally realized that Hyandur not only intended to bathe, but to bathe right in front of him.

He looked around desperately, but there was still nowhere to go. If he left the room, he’d be outside with a bunch of Centaurs, and that was unthinkable. So he did the only thing he could think of. He refilled his mug to the very top, draining the jug, and retreated to the far corner of the room.

By the time he’d finished that mug as well, everything had taken on a strange unreality. It seemed perfectly reasonable to take off his own clothes at Hyandur’s insistence and climb into the cramped tub. It felt good to be clean again after uncounted days of sleeping and waking in the same clothes, and if the soap was harsh and foul-smelling in comparison to what he was used to, it did its job.

When he climbed out again and toweled himself dry in front of the stove, he put on the house-robe that Sarlin had brought. It was fur-lined, and fell past his knees. He still had to wear his own boots with it, but that didn’t seem so bad. He was clean.

And maybe talking animals weren’t so bad after all. Cilarnen liked horses.

HYANDUR guided him carefully down to dinner afterward. The dining table was as immense as anything that might be found in a Great House, and so high that Cilarnen thought it was going to be rather difficult to eat at, until he noticed two stools, obviously placed for his and Hyandur’s use.

The food was what Cilarnen supposed coarse peasant food must be like—roasts and meat-pies and hot bread and dishes of preserved vegetables, all served without ceremony—and no one exhibited anything approaching proper table manners. The table-talk among the dozen or so Centaurs gathered there was rowdy and entirely impolite—if Grander was the patriarch of this peculiar family, then he certainly didn’t seem to care whether people showed him proper respect or not.

It only proved, Cilarnen supposed, that the Other Races simply didn’t have the same advantages as the inhabitants of the Golden City, though they did all seem to be enjoying themselves. He felt something that wasn’t exactly homesickness—as this was entirely outside his experience—but he still felt as if he’d lost something that he didn’t have any words for and was only now discovering it. The sensation frightened him.

But the food was hot and plentiful, and Grander kept encouraging him to eat more, and for the first time since that dreadful night in the cellar when the Stone Golems had come for him and his friends, Cilarnen discovered that he actually had an appetite.

After what Sarlin had said back in the room, he’d expected to be interrogated about the City and its plans, but to his relief, nobody asked him anything. And tomorrow he and Hyandur would be gone from this disturbing place.

After the meal was eaten, Hyandur suggested he go off to bed, and Cilarnen was glad enough to get away from the Centaurs to accept the Elf’s suggestion readily, even though it still bothered him when the Elf gave him orders. When he returned to the room, he found that the bath-things had been cleared away, and two large piles of furs and blankets had been carefully laid out on the floor. Not proper beds, but after having slept for so long on the frozen ground, a soft pallet out of the wind and the snow seemed like paradise. Cilarnen chose the one nearest the window, rolled himself up in a couple of blankets, and was instantly asleep.

He awoke to the sunlight streaming through the slats of the shuttered windows and sat up groggily. He looked around, expecting to find Hyandur still asleep on the other furs.

But Hyandur was gone—as were his packs and everything he had brought with him.

Cilarnen’s own City clothes were there—clean and neatly folded. He dressed quickly and ran from the room.

The first person he encountered was Sarlin. She was working on a piece of embroidery at a large standing frame.

“Good morrow, Cilarnen,” she greeted him cheerfully, just as if nothing were wrong.

“I—He—The Elf—Hyandur—Where is he?” Cilarnen gasped out.

Sarlin looked faintly puzzled. “Why, he left at first light. Grander urged him to stay, of course, but he said he had news to carry that would not wait.” She regarded him for a moment. “Surely you did not expect to go with him?”

Cilarnen stared at her in shock, realizing that, somewhere deep inside, he’d expected exactly that. “He left me here,” he said flatly.

“Well, you couldn’t expect him to take you into the Elven Lands, now, could you?” Sarlin said, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. “But he made sure that you would have a place in Grander’s house. He says you are good with horses. You can work in the stables. He said you won’t know much, but don’t worry, we can teach you. Come spring, you can help with the plowing—and at Spring Fair, if you want to go to another village, why, no one will stop you. What could be fairer? Marlen is even making you a chair. Hyandur said you like chairs.” She smiled encouragingly.

Cilarnen took a deep breath as his world crumbled around him once more. I can work in the stables. In the spring, I can help with the plowing. He felt like screaming.

But he was a Volpiril. Even here, even now. His father had taught him that it was important not to make enemies without cause, and to be courteous to one’s inferiors, because they could not help being inferior.

Of course, Lord Volpiril had not meant those teachings to apply to Lesser Races. But Sarlin could not help being a Centaur.

“Thank you,” he said, though those were the hardest words he’d ever had to say. His headache was back full force, making it hard to see. He rubbed at his eyes, wishing everything weren’t so bright.

“Come into the kitchen. I’ll get you a bowl of porridge—I’m sure there’s some left over from breakfast. Then I’ll take you to the Healer—Hyandur said we should do that, too. Then you can go to the stables, and Marlen can get you started on your work.”

Cilarnen nodded, barely hearing her words. It hardly mattered what these creatures did to him.

Hyandur had left him here alone. And now he truly knew what that word meant.

AS far as Vestakia could sense, they were no longer even being followed, and that made no sense to Kellen. Why would Shadow Mountain go to so much trouble to kidnap Sandalon and the other children, and then not even try to recapture them? It made no sense at all—and that made Kellen feel as if he was missing something important.

The storm blew over after a day or two, and the weather cleared again, and after that, everyone could see Ancaladar flying overhead.

The dragon was an awe-inspiring sight. Kellen never grew tired of watching him as he dipped and swirled through the open sky. He wondered what it would be like to ride upon Ancaladar’s back, to see the world from that great height.

He also wondered how much a dragon ate. Something that size certainly wouldn’t be satisfied with a goat or two.

Cows, probably. Lots of cows.

ONCE they were within a few hours of the city, Kellen decided it was safe enough to send messengers ahead to let the city know they were coming, and that the children were safe.

And that they’d brought a dragon with them. He hoped Andoreniel and Ashaniel would be willing to have him come and live in Sentarshadeen. They’d welcomed Vestakia, after all.

The caravan was met at the edge of the unicorn meadow by Andoreniel, Ashaniel, and many others, including the parents of the rescued children. The unicorn riders—including Kellen and also Vestakia—waited a little distance away from the main group, watching the joyful reunions of parents and children.

He wanted to share their joy—he truly did—but it was as if there were a veil between him and the glad celebration taking place in front of him. He knew that the presence of the Shadowed Elves was not yet general knowledge, but by now everyone in Sentarshadeen knew that the caravan taking the children to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns had been attacked. Why didn’t they see that the war had already begun—a war of a different kind than any they had ever fought before?

“You’re just tired,” Shalkan told him.

“I don’t have time to be tired,” Kellen answered with a sigh. He dismounted and stood in the snow beside his friend. “We have to make plans—to get ready. And don’t ask me for what, because I don’t know.”

“That does make it harder to plan,” Shalkan agreed, leaning against him.

“Maybe that’s the whole point,” Kellen said glumly.

IN twos and threes, the others departed, but Kellen remained. Idalia was transferred to a small sleigh, and taken off with Vestakia and the two Healers, but Jermayan did not go with her. Instead, he rode over to where Kellen and Shalkan waited, alone now in the snow.

“I have spoken to Andoreniel and Ashaniel,” Jermayan, said without preamble. “They have said that Ancaladar is welcome in Sentarshadeen.” He glanced up at the sky, but at the moment the dragon wasn’t visible. Even when they’d reached Sentarshadeen, Ancaladar hadn’t landed. Kellen got the idea he wouldn’t come down until he was invited.

“Good,” Kellen said. “It would be nice to know how we can tell him.”

“He’s coming,” Shalkan said, looking eastward.

Both Kellen and Jermayan looked in the direction Shalkan had indicated. A tiny black dot was visible on the horizon. It swiftly grew larger, taking on the by now familiar dragon shape.

For the first time, Kellen was actually able to watch Ancaladar land. For something so large, the dragon was surprisingly graceful. When he was directly above them, he simply spread his great wings as wide as they would go and floated to the ground.

Valdien backed up nervously a few steps, but Jermayan patted his neck soothingly, speaking to him in a low voice, and the stallion quieted. Jermayan dismounted, leading the Elven destrier a little farther away from the dragon.

Ancaladar settled neatly to the snow and folded his wings across his back.

“So,” he said.

“So,” Jermayan answered, gazing at the dragon.

And Kellen had the odd sense that something was happening.

IT was the Elf.

Ancaladar stared enraptured into dark eyes and felt the pull of long-dormant instincts rousing. Here was his match. Here was the one who would be the conduit for his magic; his heart’s twin, his Bondmate, to whom his life and his heart would be linked.

Fly away! Fly away now! a small voice inside him screamed. There was still time to refuse the Bond. It could be done. If he left now—

If he never saw Jermayan again—

But he had lived so long already—seen his friends and comrades die in the Great War. And these children said that Shadow Mountain was rising against the Lightfolk again. He’d seen proof of that. He did not think he could bear to hide and cower and save his life while watching others die yet again. He had been a coward and a failure once, and on the journey here he’d had a great deal of time to think about his choices and where they had led him.

And Jermayan was young as the Elvenkind reckoned years. They would have centuries together …

NO! Jermayan wrenched his gaze painfully away from the dragon’s golden eyes. It was—It was—

It was impossible.

He knew what he was feeling. The Elves had long lives, and longer memories. The heart-tie that told them where true love lay was similar enough in kind, so the historians told them, to that Bond between a dragon and his Mage for Jermayan to know what was happening. He was not in love with Ancaladar.

But they could Bond.

An Elf and a dragon.

Impossible.

Elves had no part in the Greater Magic. There had not been an Elven Mage since the time of Great Queen Vielissiar Farcarinon. Dragons Bonded with Mages—human Mages—because only through a Mage could a dragon express its innate magic.

“GO away!” Jermayan shouted desperately, staggering backward.

“Jermayan …” Ancaladar said.

“I am useless to you!” Jermayan said. “How is it that you do not understand that I am an Elven Knight, you who are ancient and wise beyond the dreams of Elves? It would all be for nothing!”

“I am useless without you,” Ancaladar said, very softly. “You can learn. I know you can. In the First War, we fought for you, Jermayan. Your magic—Elven magic—woke us out of the bones of the earth. Do you remember?”

“No!” Jermayan said, sounding desperate.

Strange, so strange, that it would be he who was doing the urging now, and not the Elf-Knight. He, who had been a coward—

But he knew now that had been a choice, rather than what he truly was. As this was a choice. But this choice led away from failure, and toward bravery. He would not run anymore.

“War is coming,” Ancaladar said. “A thousand years ago, while I cowered and hid, my brothers fought and died. I heard them weep as they went with their Bonded to serve the Demons. I felt the others die in the Light as their Bonded died. I cannot watch that again. This time I must fight. But I cannot fight alone.”

KELLEN stood beside Shalkan, watching Ancaladar and Jermayan in amazement. “Do you know what’s going on?” he whispered to the unicorn.

“Ancaladar and Jermayan can Bond,” Shalkan answered in equally low tones. “If Jermayan accepts, he’ll become the first Elven Mage since—oh, before the dawn of human civilization.”

“Oh,” Kellen said. “But he could refuse?”

“There’s always a choice,” Shalkan said. “You had one, when you decided to become a Knight-Mage.”

JERMAYAN hesitated, clutching the hilt of his sword so tightly his gauntlet creaked. With all his heart, he yearned to look up, to meet Ancaladar’s eyes, to let the Bond form.

But to become a Mage, a wielder of the Great Magics …

The golden eyes darkened, and Jermayan felt the sadness, the deep, inexpressible sadness. He had been the one feeling that sorrow not so long ago, when Idalia had refused the gift of his heart. Now it was, apparently, his turn to inflict that torture on another.

“I will go,” Ancaladar said softly. “You will not see me again.” The packed snow beneath his body groaned as he shifted his weight, preparing to take off again.

“No.”

No. He could not do that to another living creature. Especially not this one, and not now.

Jermayan raised his head, and met the dragon’s golden gaze. It was warmth and spring sunlight, it was the wind in the trees at high summer and the deep song of Life that underlay all things.

And he knew that even as he looked into Ancaladar’s soul, Ancaladar was looking into his. Jermayan took a step forward, and then another. Ancaladar stretched out his long neck, and Jermayan laid his hand, very gently, against the side of Ancaladar’s face.

He is mine, and I am his, and we shall be one, and together for the rest of our life.

THE following day, Kellen made his report to the Elven Council.

It was a frustrating experience, since he realized very quickly that nobody wished to hear his assessment of the situation, or what it might mean for the future. They only wished to know where he’d gone, what he’d done, and what he’d seen.

He wished Idalia were here, to help him figure out what to say, but she was still with the Healers, and they weren’t letting anyone in to see her yet. He would have liked Jermayan to be here, too—but Jermayan was with Ancaladar, and would be meeting with the Council later, to explain—as well as the matter could be explained—what his becoming an Elven Mage meant to Sentarshadeen.

Kellen had never felt more like an errand boy in his life, and tried not to show his frustration. He knew the Elves were capable of quick and decisive action when they felt circumstances warranted it. He knew he had friends and allies on the Council. The Elves were not his enemies.

But the Elves did not hurry. Idalia had told him that, over and over. And Kellen was very much afraid that—this time—a lack of hurry was going to cost them in ways he couldn’t yet put a name to.

THE next day, he was finally allowed to see Idalia.

The Healing House was within the House of Leaf and Star, though to enter it, one came and went by a different entrance than the one Kellen was used to using when he visited Sandalon or his parents.

It was the most peaceful place he had ever imagined. If something could be the utter opposite of the Black Cairn, this was it. Just walking into the entry hall made all of his everyday worries seem as if they were simple problems that could be easily dealt with.

An Elf in the simple leaf-green robes of a Healer appeared almost instantly and brought him to Idalia’s room. He saw no one else—though he knew that all of the children were here.

He was not surprised to see that Jermayan was already here, sitting beside Idalia’s bedside.

She was sitting up, propped among a welter of colorful pillows. A table with a half-finished xaqiue game stood at the bedside, and there was a pot with teacups nearby on another low table. Idalia’s cheeks were flushed with color, and she no longer looked exhausted to the point of death.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” Idalia said as soon as she saw him. “Now you can tell them I’m fine and I’m ready to leave.”

Kellen glanced at Jermayan, but the Elf’s face remained studiously blank.

“I’m not arguing with Elves,” Kellen said, sitting down in a chair at the opposite side of her bed from Jermayan. “If you’re feeling well enough to leave, you can argue with them.”

Idalia snorted rudely. “Have you ever tried arguing with the Healers?”

Kellen laughed. “Not with the Healers—but I spent yesterday morning arguing with the Council—at least I think that’s what I was doing—and I didn’t get very far.”

“You did, however, make something of an impression,” Jermayan said, pouring tea and handing a cup to Kellen across the bed. Thanks to the Elven “small magics,” the tea was still hot, and Kellen sipped it gratefully.

“Well, I’d love to know what it was. You’d have thought I was discussing the weather, instead of the fact that Shadow Mountain’s managed to stick a whole race of things smack in the middle of the Elven Lands, where they can pretty much do what they like.”

“They’re aware of that,” Jermayan said broodingly. “And they understand it is a grave threat, especially since the … Shadowed Elves … can grant safe passage into the heart of our realm to creatures who are truly of the Shadow, as we have learned to our cost. Though the land-wards detect such as they once they walk upon the surface of the land, our borders are not secure. We must return to the enclave Vestakia discovered, and destroy it.”

“You can’t assume it’s the only one, either,” Kellen. said. It was the first truth of war that Master Belesharon had taught him: never underestimate an enemy’s strength and resources.

“No,” Jermayan agreed. “With Vestakia’s help, we must search out and destroy them all.”

Time That will take time. Time to find each enclave of the Shadowed Elves, time to fight the battles, time to search the whole of the Elven Lands … and we only have Vestakia to help us do it.

And what will the Demons be doing while we do that?

“And what then?” Kellen asked. “When it’s all done?”

Both Idalia and Jermayan were looking at him as if they didn’t understand, but to Kellen, it was as if a story were unfurling itself in his mind, almost as if he were remembering one of Master Belesharon’s old Teaching Tales. But this wasn’t something old. This was something new, something yet to happen.

“When all the Shadowed Elves are gone,” Kellen repeated patiently. “What then?” He only realized then that he’d asked a question—bad manners here—and rephrased it: “Tell me what will happen next—and what the true Enemy will be doing while we destroy the Shadowed Elves.”

Idalia smiled faintly. “Kellen, it will probably take a very long time to be sure we’ve gotten all of them. Maybe years.”

“But we don’t have years,” Kellen said. He gestured at the xaqiue board. “The Council thinks we do. Shadow Mountain puts up a barrier to starve the Elven Lands of water. We knock it down. We expect them to attack, then—though maybe after a very long time. But they don’t. They show us something we have to attack: the Shadowed Elves. I’m not saying we don’t: they’re a threat, and if we don’t destroy them, they will be used against us. But can’t you see it? We didn’t find out about them by accident. They were shown to us. It’s like a xaqiue game. We’ll commit our forces, we’ll go after them … we’ll probably destroy them. And then there will be something else.”

“Their main attack,” Jermayan said. “But we will have already gathered our army together. We will defeat them once again, just as we did before, though I do not deny that the cost will be high.”

“No,” Kellen said. He wasn’t sure where the sense of certainty came from, but he’d never been surer of anything in his life. “Don’t you get it, Jermayan? They’re never going to attack—not this time. That’s what you expect, because that’s what they did the last time. That’s what Andoreniel and Ashaniel are going to wait for—a big massing of Enemy troops; a formal declaration of war. And it won’t happen.”

For a moment he almost thought he’d convinced Jermayan. More than anyone else in Sentarshadeen, Jermayan knew him as a Knight-Mage, and knew what he was capable of—this instinctive understanding of War and how it worked. The more he trained with Master Belesharon—the more actual fighting he saw—the more Kellen realized just how his particular Wild Magic gifts worked.

But then Jermayan shook his head.

“Kellen … I do not say that you are wrong. But no matter what They plan, we must eliminate the Shadowed Elves first. Even now, Andoreniel sends word—not only to the Nine Cities, but to our allies as well, invoking ancient treaties. As soon as the children are safe—once I have persuaded Ancaladar to take them to the Crowned Horns—we go to muster at Ondoladeshiron. To fight in winter is hard, but he thought it best not to wait for spring.”

Well, at least he’d convinced the Council of that much, Kellen thought. But it wasn’t enough. He knew that, even though he didn’t know—yet—what was enough.

“I’m going with you,” Idalia said, a dangerous note in her voice.

“Such an army cannot be gathered overnight,” Jermayan said reassuringly. “I am certain that the Healers will release you by the time we are ready to depart. And I will be grateful for the counsel of a … fellow Mage.”

Idalia reached out and clasped his hand. “I know that Bonding with Ancaladar wasn’t exactly what you expected,” she said gently.

“Nothing about my life has been as I expected it would be,” Jermayan said fervently. “Yet I would change nothing,” he said, gazing deeply into her eyes.

“I think I’ll see you both later,” Kellen said, getting quickly to his feet. He set his empty cup down on the nearest flat surface, and backed hastily out of the room.

He doubted either of them noticed.

THE first person he ran into on his way out was Vestakia, and to his surprise she was also wearing a green Healer’s robe.

“Apparently there are things I can do besides herd goats,” she said cheerfully, noticing his startled expression. “How’s Idalia?”

“She and Jermayan are fine,” Kellen said, surprised at how disgruntled he sounded.

“And Ancaladar?” Vestakia asked, apparently not noticing Kellen’s mood at all.

“Fine, I suppose. I haven’t seen him at all, since, well … you know.”

“Oh, he’s found a nice place to live up in the meadows back beyond the House of Sword and Shield. Very private, so he isn’t bothered too much by people who just want to stare at him. And much happier, he says, not having to spend all his time hunting his dinner. He says he much prefers the nice fat sheep and cows Jermayan is providing for him. Are you terribly busy right now, by any chance?”

“I ought to be at the House of Sword and Shield myself, catching up on all the lessons I’ve missed,” Kellen said cautiously, “but … no.”

“Then come and see Sandalon,” Vestakia said, as briskly as as any nurse. “All the children would like to see you, come to that—and to hear about Ancaladar.”

The children were gathered together in a bright light-filled room filled with toys and books. Sitting quietly in one corner was an Elven Healer, her hair the silvery-blue of great age.

Even Alkandoran was there. The Elven boy greeted Kellen with a wary smile. He looked hollow-eyed and unhappy, and Kellen felt a deep pang of sympathy. Alkandoran was still a child by Elven standards, but old enough to think of himself as an adult He’d known better than any of the other children the true extent of the horrors they’d faced, but from what Lairamo had said, without his calm steadiness during their captivity, things might have gone much worse.

Kellen smiled back, and reached out and touched him lightly on the shoulder. “You did well,” he said quietly. “You did all there was to do, and you did it well.”

The boy’s troubled expression eased just a little.

“Kellen!” Sandalon launched himself at Kellen. “Did you see the dragon? Is Jermayan—I mean, one hears that—”

“One hears that a dragon—his name is Ancaladar—has come to live in Sentarshadeen, and has Bonded to Jermayan, and so now Jermayan is going to become an Elven Mage, just like Great Queen Vielissiar Farcarinon.”

“Perhaps Father will not mind if he is not King any longer,” Sandalon said with a small frown.

“What … ? Oh. No, Sandalon. Andoreniel will still be King. Jermayan will just be a Mage. I don’t think Jermayan would like to be King.” I don’t think Jermayan wants to be a Mage, either, but he doesn’t have much choice there.

“Oh.” Sandalon’s frown cleared. “That’s all right then.”

“Perhaps you have come to tell us stories,” Vendalton said hopefully, sidling closer. “About Jermayan and the dragon.”

“Of course he has,” Merisashendiel said firmly. “Nobody tells us anything here.” She dragged over a low stool for Kellen to sit on, and the other children all picked up cushions and arranged them so that they were all sitting in a circle at Kellen’s feet. They all regarded him expectantly.

For a moment he had no idea what to say, but then all the teaching stories he had heard so many times at the House of Sword and Shield came back to him.

“I will begin by describing dragons and their natures,” he said, feeling for one odd moment as if he were back at the Mage College of Armethalieh—as a teacher this time, instead of as a student. “And then I will tell you how I met Ancaladar.”

He spent most of the afternoon telling the children tales, letting them guide him in what they wanted to hear. He was surprised to find that what they wanted to hear about most was the story of their rescue—who had come for them, and how they had been tracked, who had actually found them, and what it had been like down in the caverns. Since the Healer in the room did nothing to interfere, though Kellen watched her closely, he answered all their questions as well as he could—though always keeping in mind the ages of his audience.

“But the evil creatures are far away, and can never find this place,” Tredianala said.

“No,” Kellen said firmly. “And soon you are going to the fortress—in a safe way, a way that nothing bad can possibly happen to you.” He had no doubt of Jermayan’s ability to eventually persuade Ancaladar to carry the children to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns—if “stubborn as an Elf” wasn’t a proverb, it ought to be.

“But not by caravan,” Merisashendiel said. She looked up at him with pleading in her gaze, and a hint of a shiver.

“How you will go,” Kellen said firmly, “is a surprise—and a nice one, so I’m not going to spoil it.”

Eventually Vestakia came in, announcing it was time for the children to take their medicine and their naps. Kellen, feeling quite as tired as if he’d spent the last several hours in practice bouts at the House of Sword and Shield, got to his feet and headed for the front door.

The aged Elven Healer followed him out.

“That was well done of you, Knight-Mage,” she said simply.

“Huh? Me?” Kellen said, surprised, turning to look at her.

She smiled faintly.

“There is nothing children fear so much as the unknown. But now there is no longer anything mysterious to them about their ordeal. Now all their terrors can become nothing more than a strange adventure—a frightening one, perhaps, but the fear will fade with time. Fare you well, Kellen Knight-Mage.”

“Um … thanks.”

He’d helped.

It felt very odd. Almost as if he’d done a healing, but … not quite. He’d gone through so much of his life trying not to be noticed—and trying not to notice everything around him. Finding the three Books had forced him to change. It had hurt at first. It had driven him out of the City. But here, it didn’t hurt at all.

In fact, it felt good.

“IT would make things so much easier,” Jermayan said, reasonably. Reason, however, did not seem to make as much impression on a dragon as he might have hoped.

“I am not a horse.”

The land beyond the House of Sword and Shield was a series of pocket canyons, similar to those that made up the city of Sentarshadeen itself, though these had been allowed to remain in their natural state. The horses had adjusted to the intruder in their pasturage easily enough. Ancaladar had agreed not to bother them—his tastes, he assured Jermayan, ran to fat cattle and tasty sheep; even pigs and goats in sufficient quantity. Fortunately, Jermayan was wealthy enough to provide for Ancaladar’s needs—though the dragon did not need to eat every day, he enjoyed doing so when the opportunity was provided, so each morning Jermayan led (or herded) Ancaladar’s breakfast up to his new home.

Ancaladar had found a canyon that suited him—a relatively small one—and—with Jermayan’s help—roofed it over, using those trees from the forest that had not survived the Great Drought. It was a crude shelter, but effective, and the dragon said it was comfortable enough. Come spring—assuming the time and labor were available—a more permanent and pleasing roof could be added to the canyon, and perhaps even a doorway of sorts constructed.

“A new caravan would take a sennight—perhaps two, in this weather—to reach the Fortress of the Crowned Horns. It would be vulnerable to another attack. Idalia is still recovering from her injuries, and tracking the creatures last time took a great toll on Vestakia. She is still not fully recovered. And each time she ventures forth from Sentarshadeen, she is at risk. She is a great prize for Them,” Jermayan said.

“I am still not a horse,” Ancaladar said, stretching his head out so that Jermayan could rub the sensitive places just behind the eye sockets on the massive head. Jermayan had already learned that Ancaladar liked that.

“The children would be frightened,” Jermayan said, after several minutes of silence. “To go again the way they did before, spending days upon the road, wondering each day if they are to be attacked again, to see their friends and companions slain before their eyes by monsters out of nightmare. I am afraid that such a journey would only undo what little healing has been accomplished.” Jermayan thought he knew Ancaladar’s weak point—that he had been slowly deprived of nestmates and companions until he found himself alone. “Those poor children—to know that their friends and their own kin were slain, and they were helpless to prevent it! And then, to wake in the darkness, and discover that they were all alone—”

“You can be truly annoying sometimes,” Ancaladar grumbled. He thought for a while, while Jermayan walked forward a few steps and transferred his attentions to the soft skin just behind the armored plates at the hinge of Ancaladar’s jaw. “If I did not know better, I would say this was an attempt to distract me from your lessons in Magery.”

“I would say that I dislike them nearly as much as you dislike my plan,” Jermayan said with a sigh.

What he learned from Ancaladar didn’t seem to be very much like the Wild Magic as Kellen and Idalia knew it. He knew about the obligations and Mageprices involved there, but in Bonding with a dragon, all prices were paid by the Bond. The dragon surrendered its immortality, and all prices were paid in full, forever.

Nor was it anything like the High Magick practiced in Armethalieh. The Elves knew something of that: There had been hints gathered over the centuries that the Elves had traded with the Golden City, and Jermayan had pieced together a little more from the few disparaging comments he’d heard Kellen make. Elaborate incantations, complicated equipment … no.

To use Ancaladar’s magic, all Jermayan needed was his Will. Each spell had a specific shape and color and taste—there was no better way to describe it. He had to hold the proper one in his mind and let Ancaladar’s power pour through him, like sunlight through a crystal.

Spells for fire, for ice, for darkness, for invisibility, for flight Thousands upon thousands of them, like trays of jewels.

And all he had to do, Jermayan thought wearily, was remember each unnameable colorshape perfectly, and always select the right one. At least Ancaladar was only putting a few of them into his mind at a time, though the dragon insisted he was only helping Jermayan remember them. According to Ancaladar, if Jermayan hadn’t known them already, they never could have Bonded.

It was something Jermayan preferred not to think about. Elves were not Mages. Humans were Mages. Demons—Leaf and Star wither and blast them—were Mages.

Elves were not. Elves had given up their magic long ago, in the childhood of the world. They had done so in order to save the world, and the Light—but that was something that was not spoken of outside of the Sanctuary of the Star. Humans and other races were not to know of this … he was not certain that even a dragon should be told.

Then again, he was not certain that a dragon didn’t already know.

“Then if you will practice, I will take your children to the fortress,” Ancaladar said, sounding both resigned and amused. “But you know I cannot land there. It was built when your kind had … reason to fear dragons.”

“Andoreniel will send a message. We will land at the foot of the causeway. I think the children will be safe there for as long as it takes to get them inside.”

“With what you have learned, certainly,” Andoreniel said. “And now … practice. Make a flower.”

Jermayan stared at the snow doubtfully.

“The canes are there, beneath the snow. They slumber. Wake one,” Ancaladar said.

“It will freeze and die,” Jermayan said, shaking his head.

“Then change them,” Ancaladar said implacably. “Make flowers for the cold.”

As clearly as if a voice had spoken inside his head, Jermayan could see what to do. He reached, and out of the snow beneath his feet, tender green rose-canes began to shoot up out of the snow, growing with unnatural speed.

But that wasn’t enough. Roses were flowers for summer. They would die in the cold. He reached into them again and began to change them, even as they reached out toward the ice-covered walls of the canyon and began to twine and climb.

The pale green faded to the dark green of the mature plant, then faded further, into black. But not the black of death. The black of a different kind of life. The green leaves turned pale silver. They still had the shape of rose leaves, but now were much larger and thicker, sized to take in all the pale winter sunlight they could, and protect their fragile blossoms from the snow and ice.

The roses that had bloomed large and deep red a moment before fell from the twining vines in a shower of silken petals, replaced by tiny perfect white blossoms the size of Jermayan’s thumbnail. They covered the now-dense vines like tiny stars.

Jermayan staggered back, leaning into Ancaladar as the spell ran its course. The jewel shapes faded from his mind, and the rapid growth of the ice roses slowed.

“See?” the dragon said. “Roses in winter. When the weather warms they will die back, but in the cold season they will bloom again. You have shaped a new thing. Proper magic for a dragon and his Bondmate.”

You made me do that, Jermayan felt like saying. But he didn’t. Only the power had come from Ancaladar. He had made the roses.

They were beautiful. They were harmless. There was nothing threatening about them.

He didn’t know why they disturbed him so.

“You’ll have to wear some sort of harness when you carry the children,” he said aloud. “We don’t want them to fall off.”

Ancaladar blew out a long gusty breath.

“Now call fire,” he said, not answering directly. “It’s important, and useful, and you need more practice. A lot more practice.”

Chapter Twelve

To the Crowned Horns of the Moon

IT TOOK A fortnight to make a proper set of harness for Ancaladar. The dragon grumbled quite a bit about it, but seemed, in the end, actually pleased with the results.

Then again, it was Elven workmanship, which was never less than spectacular. He did not look like a “pack mule” as he claimed; as a matter of fact, he looked as if he had been fitted for a splendid costume of black leather and shining, sapphire-enameled metal. And there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the dragon was inordinately pleased with his appearance.

Idalia left the House of Healing after only a few days more, but she went to Jermayan’s house to live, not back to the home she’d shared with Kellen. It was as if Jermayan’s Bond with Ancaladar had eased some unshareable burden she’d been carrying—or perhaps it was only that having come so close to death, she now realized that there were things in life that should not be delayed.

Her departure left Kellen alone in the house they’d shared, but not for long. Within a day of Idalia’s departure, Kellen discovered he had mysteriously acquired an assistant, one Vertai, whose business it seemed to be to keep Kellen’s wardrobe in order, the larder stocked, simple meals available, and everything generally as tidy—or even more so—than when Kellen had shared the place with Idalia. Where this fellow had come from, Kellen had no idea; he was certainly more efficient and a lot more pleasant than any of the Tavadon servants had ever been.

In part, this might have been because Kellen rarely saw Vertai. Once he’d granted the man permission to come and go as he pleased—after consulting Jermayan, who seemed to think it was a good idea—Vertai seemed to do all his work while Kellen was at the House of Sword and Shield. It was like having a completely invisible servant, and one who managed to anticipate everything Kellen could have thought of.

Kellen had thrown himself back into his interrupted training with a vengeance. He knew that all around him important things were happening—Jermayan was learning magic, Idalia was creating weapons for the upcoming campaign against the Shadowed Elves, Andoreniel was calling up his allies and gathering the Elven army for the assault on the first of the enclaves of the Shadowed Elves—but nobody was telling him about them directly, or even asking him what he thought about them. He’d just been shunted aside, as if his opinion wasn’t worth anything.

Was it arrogant of him to think otherwise? Should he really have a place on the Elven Council, setting policy for the Nine Cities? He knew he didn’t want that. Trying to think like the Elves—trying to talk like the Elves—would drive him crazy within a sennight. Maybe less.

But still …

It doesn’t matter, Kellen told himself fiercely, standing alone in the Great Hall of the House of Sword and Shield, practicing what Master Belesharon called the “simple forms” until his muscles ached and his tunic and leggings were plastered to his body with sweat. They won’t listen to you, whether you’re right or not. JERMAYAN wouldn’t listen to you. And the Shadowed Elves DO have to be destroyed. It’s just that … we can’t be concentrating on nothing except that. Shadow Mountain is being a lot smarter now. This is a diversion. It’s an important diversion, but it’s only a diversion.

I have to find a way to make them listen.

And I have to figure out what Shadow Mountain’s REAL plan is.

Without thinking, he broke form and spun around, his sword raised to block. Master Belesharon was standing behind him, his teaching staff raised to deliver an admonitory blow to an inattentive student.

“You seemed lost in thought, young Kellen,” Master Belesharon said mildly.

“I was,” Kellen said, smiling wolfishly. But not so lost in thought that his Master could catch him out as if he were a novice.

Master Belesharon smiled in turn. “Come. Bathe. Take tea.”

When they were both immersed in the deep tub of the bathhouse—Kellen no longer even noticed having to walk through the snow to get to and from it—and a younger student had poured them both cups of dark fragrant tea, Master Belesharon broached his point with the unusual directness that Kellen had come to believe was a privilege of age among the Elvenkind.

“Soon you will hear, young Kellen, that Hyandur the trader has returned to Sentarshadeen. As you know, it was thought appropriate that he approach the City of a Thousand Bells to bring them warning that the Shadow walks the hills once more.”

Kellen considered all the appropriate things he could say, considering what he knew about Armethalieh, and what the High Council thought about Elves. “I am pleased to hear that he has returned safely,” he said at last.

“Doubtless this is because he was never permitted to enter the city, nor to deliver his message,” Master Belesharon said, his voice neutral. “The city of your birth remains unwarned, and has promised death to any of our kind that approaches its walls again.”

“That …” Makes perfect sense. Because they’re idiots. “I thank you for telling me this, Master,” Kellen said. Even though the water of the bathhouse tub was as hot as he could stand—hot enough to soothe away all the aches and bruises of a day’s hard training—he felt his muscles tense beneath the scented water. Any mention of Armethalieh was like poking at a sore tooth.

“Hyandur said further that the City of a Thousand Bells begins to expand its borders once more. They had reclaimed the Delfier Valley as he left. Perhaps they will attempt to reclaim more land. He believes there had been unrest in the city before he came, and it seemed to be of a serious nature. Two were Banished that he knows of. Perhaps more. He warned those villages he passed on his way here of the city’s plans. Word will spread.”

“Wonderful,” Kellen said with a sigh. He wondered what had changed on the Council. The last time Idalia had scryed and gotten a view of the Armethaliehan Council chambers, Lord Volpiril had pulled the City boundaries all the way back to the City walls. “At least it will take them time to reclaim all their old lands. Time and energy. And they hate all the Other Races—I’m sorry, Master—so at least we can be sure there’s no way they’ll ally themselves with Them. And I don’t think one of Them could get into Armethalieh, anyway, even if it made itself look like a human. Armethalieh’s … not a very nice place, but it’s still the City of Mages. There are Wards everywhere. No one who isn’t a citizen can pass them.”

“So if they will not aid us, at least they will not give aid to the Enemy,” Master Belesharon said. “Unfortunate, but not the worst that could happen.”

“I suppose not,” Kellen said. But something in his own words made him feel uneasy. He ducked his head under the surface of the water, dousing himself thoroughly, and came up, sweeping his hair back out of his eyes. “I suppose I’d better go and make sure Idalia knows. Maybe she’ll be able to guess more of their plans.”

THE ice storms were long past, and though the winter snows were heavy, the streets were kept clear enough so that walking—at least in cleated snow boots—wasn’t difficult. Getting off the streets, now—that meant wading through snow that was up to the knees at least, and sometimes waist-deep, but Kellen didn’t have to do that nearly as often as Jermayan did. Ancaladar was rather diffident about coming down into Sentarshadeen, where his appearance still rattled some of the inhabitants.

By now, Kellen had been to Jermayan’s house at the forest edge many times. He admired it, while having no desire to possess anything like it. He’d grown up in one of the most intimidating mansions in the largest city in the world, and even though Jermayan’s cottage could probably have fit comfortably in the suite of rooms Kellen had possessed in House Tavadon, it was still more room than Kellen wanted for himself.

Kellen crossed the arching footbridge—carefully, as the slatted wood was icy and slick—and approached the house. It was still too early for lantern-lighting time, though the lanterns stood ready and waiting, and he noted that the seashells that had hung outside the door the last time he’d been here had been replaced with a set in the shape of golden flames. He wondered why. It might be a reflection of the seasons: the lanterns outside his own house had also been changed while he was gone, and were now pale blue.

He knocked at the door.

After a moment Idalia opened it.

“Home and hearth,” she said cheerfully, the shortened form of the standard Elven greeting. “Come in, Kellen—you look half-frozen. Though if you’ve come to see Jermayan, he’s with Ancaladar. You know, I think he has finally met his match in stubbornness!”

Kellen grinned faintly at the thought; knowing Jermayan as he did, he doubted it.

“No,” Kellen said, stepping inside, and immediately sitting down to remove his outdoor boots and heavy cloak. “I came to see you.”

“Well, here I am. I’ll get you some mulled cider. I’m sure Vertai isn’t feeding you enough.”

“He’s doing fine. I’m doing fine.” He tried to think of a good way to lead into what he wanted to say, gave up, and just launched into it. “Hyandur got back from Armethalieh today,” he said, following Idalia into the kitchen.

“Oh, yes. I’d heard that. Rescued a Banished Mageborn boy and dumped him in the first Centaur village he came to.” She looked over her shoulder at him, briefly, then went on with her work. “Well, I can’t say I’ll weep any tears for him, whoever he is. I’m sure it’ll do him good to live among, ah, ‘Lesser Races.’”

Kellen smiled at the small joke. Trust Idalia to have the gossip as fast as anyone. “Why was he Banished?” Kellen asked. “Did you hear that?”

“I don’t think Hyandur knew. Maybe the boy didn’t know either. You know what the Council’s like, Kellen, especially now.” Her voice took on a flippant tone. “He probably didn’t return his books to the library on time.” She took a jug of cider from the stove where it was warming and poured a mug full, pushing it toward him.

“They’re extending the boundaries of the City lands again, too,” Kellen said, drinking. “Back to the old places. Good news for the Home Farms, anyway. There’s something to be said for getting their old weather protections back.”

“Mmm,” Idalia said. “That probably means a shift in power in the Council. I’ll try scrying tomorrow and see if I get anything, but you know scrying isn’t very reliable. I’ve been hoping to use it to help Vestakia find the enclaves of the Shadowed Elves, but I’m not sure I’ll have much luck there, either.”

“Maybe Jermayan should try,” Kellen suggested, with a half-smile.

“Oh, don’t say that to him!” Idalia begged. “He’s like a bear with a sore tooth on that particular subject. And I thought you were a difficult student!”

“I wasn’t!” Kellen protested, stung.

“You were, brother mine,” Idalia assured him. “Of course, I was trying to teach you all the wrong things in all the wrong ways—neither of our faults—but still.”

“Still,” Kellen admitted, giving in.

“So. Was that what you came to tell me?” Idalia prompted.

“I suppose,” Kellen admitted. “And to see if you knew anything more. I wish Hyandur had brought the boy with him. We could have found out what he knew.”

“And how much did you know about what was really going on in the City on the day you were Banished?” Idalia asked, smiling gently to take the sting from her words. “Besides—our presence to the contrary—the Elves don’t permit just anyone into their realm. He wasn’t a Wildmage, Kellen, if that’s what you’re thinking. Hyandur would have known that, and Wildmages have always had safe passage through the Elven lands. And the Centaurs won’t be unkind to him. They’ll just knock some sense into him.”

“I wish I could be there to see that,” Kellen said with a faint grin, holding out his mug for a refill. “I wonder which of the spoiled brats he was? I probably knew him—or of him. I can’t think of anyone that I’d feel sorry to see having to work for his keep in a Centaur village. Actually, it’s the Centaurs I feel sorry for.”

“Anyway, we’ve tried to warn the City. And it can’t be done,” Idalia said briskly. “And Hyandur carried the message about Them to every place he passed. It’s winter, so the news wouldn’t normally have traveled fast—but now that Andoreniel is calling up his levies, everyone’s going to know. And soon.” She looked off over his shoulder for a moment. “Maybe—if they haven’t closed the City to all outsiders—we can get the Selken Traders to carry them the news once the harbors are open again in the spring. If we can spare a messenger.”

He had wondered about that; and that made him think of something else. “Everyone keeps talking about ‘levies,’” Kellen said. “But just what are they?”

“Well, we leave for Ondoladeshiron in a sennight. You’ll see some of them there, though most of those who can gather that quickly are Elves. But … Centaurs, of course. The unicorns—not just the ones that live among Elves, but the Great Herds. The Wildmages will come—”

“Other Wildmages?” Kellen broke in, surprised.

“Of course,” Idalia said. “Did you think we were the only ones? And—let me see—the Mountain Folk will come early, since they have no crops to tend. The Lost Lands folk will come next, for they must put their herds in order before they can come—but they will come as fast as they can, for as Vestakia has told us, they have been bearing the brunt of the Demon raids. The Wildlanders will come last, for they must get a crop in the ground before they can send troops. We will not see them before late spring. And such Otherfolk as can aid us—they will be with us as well.”

“So many,” Kellen marveled.

“I do not know, since I haven’t seen them yet, but I suspect that all the humans the Elves will be able to call to their banners could be tucked safely behind the walls of Armethalieh—if it were empty, of course—with plenty of room left over.”

Not so very many, then, after all. Kellen didn’t know how many Centaurs there were, and though the Elves were formidable fighters, it had only—only!—been a thousand years since the Great War, and he knew from things Master Belesharon had said that the Elven population had suffered heavily during the Great War and not yet reached its former numbers.

None of the races had. Several of them had been wiped out entirely; the water-sylphs, the bearwards, the minotaurs, the firesprites. The dragons were nearly extinct—Ancaladar thought there might be others, somewhere, who, like him, had hidden and refused to Bond. How many, though, he could not even guess; they had avoided even each other. Only a Bonded dragon was fertile, Kellen had discovered, and unless they could somehow coax a female dragon—if there were any left—out of hiding and into a Bond, the dragons might as well be extinct.

Humankind was reduced to a few thousands scattered over the land in far-flung villages—and the inhabitants of the Golden City, home to tens of thousands, cowering behind their walls and their tyrannical laws. The great Centaur tribes were a shadow of what they once had been. The Allies had spent everything they had to defeat the Shadow in the Great War—had turned thousands of leagues of fertile fields and forest to stony waste where nothing grew, even now—and counted themselves lucky, because they had defeated the Shadow.

Only the Shadow hadn’t been defeated.

“It has to be enough,” Kellen said bleakly.

“It will be,” Idalia said firmly. “After all, we have a dragon.”

As if that were a summons, they heard the outer door open and close.

“Ah,” Idalia said. “The Elven Mage has returned.” Kellen felt a strange tickle of unfamiliar magic—dragon magic made his nose itch—and knew that Jermayan must have been working with Ancaladar again, practicing sorcery. He set down his half-full mug and went with Idalia to greet his friend.

“Ah, Kellen,” Jermayan said, seeing that Idalia was not alone. “It is good to find you here.”

Jermayan looked both cold and exhausted. Perhaps things would be easier in the spring, but now, in the cold of winter, it was hard on him.

“You look frozen,” Kellen said, with sympathy.

“I am assured that—with time—I can construct a suitable hall for our work, once I have mastered the appropriate skills,” Jermayan said wryly, noting their concern. “However, by the time I have mastered them, the need for such a hall will have passed.” He sighed, and sat down on one of the long padded benches that lined the sitting room. “Meanwhile, I call fire to burn upon the ice.” He gazed down at his hands broodingly.

“Fire’s supposed to be easy,” Kellen said tentatively. It was the first spell a Student Apprentice of the High Magick learned back in Armethalieh, the first spell in the Books of the Wild Magic. Light a candle, call flame to tinder …

But Jermayan was talking about kindling a fire on the ice … How was that possible?

Idalia returned from the kitchen and set a cup of tea in his hand. “You do what you have to, Jermayan,” she said.

“And having worked as hard as any apprentice in the House of Sword and Shield,” Jermayan said, smiling faintly, “I have reconciled Ancaladar to necessity. Tomorrow we fly to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns. I would be honored if you would accompany us, Kellen.”

Who, me? Kellen thought wonderingly.

“The children will be reassured by your presence, so Vestakia assures me,” Jermayan explained. “And I thought perhaps you would find profit in seeing our greatest fortress.”

Elves—even Jermayan—rarely did anything directly. Kellen knew that though this was partly meant to reassure him as to the extent of Elven military strength, it was also meant as a subtle rebuke for his criticism of Elven strategy earlier.

Still, he wasn’t going to turn down the chance to ride a dragon. And he did want to see the Crowned Horns.

Because they say it can’t be taken by direct assault. And I’m sure they’re right. And I’m just as sure that whatever Shadow Mountain is planning, it isn’t a direct assault …

“I thank you for this great honor,” Kellen said in his best courtly style. “And I just know that Ancaladar will be thrilled at the thought of having another passenger.”

“Dress warmly,” Jermayan warned him. “Ancaladar says that the skies are colder than snow.”

THE following day, Ancaladar came to the unicorn meadow to take the children to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns. The day was raw and overcast, but the clouds were high, and no storm beckoned.

As Kellen had seen in his vision of the Great War, when dragon fought dragon in the skies above an Endarkened battlefield, there was a saddle at the base of Ancaladar’s neck, where Jermayan would ride. Kellen would ride behind him there. But for the others, different arrangements had needed to be made. Straps affixed a series of baskets to Ancaladar’s massive sides: eight of them, for the five children, Lairamo, and two companions. Sand was added to some of the baskets, so that each one weighed exactly the same, because balance—so Ancaladar had explained—was the most important thing.

The children were all muffled warmly in furs, and then strapped firmly into their baskets, so that even if Ancaladar chose to fly upside-down (which he assured both Kellen and Jermayan he had no intention of doing) there was no possibility of the children falling out. It took ladders to get them into the baskets, but at the other end, Jermayan would simply have to walk down Ancaladar’s back to free them.

If all went well.

And a trip that would take sennights on the ground would be compressed into less than a day.

Though for the children’s—and their parents’—sake, Kellen behaved as though this were the most ordinary thing in the world, he couldn’t help feeling a sinking sense of apprehension as he climbed up Ancaladar’s side and took his place behind Jermayan. There was a belt there, fastened to Ancaladar’s harness, and he saw that Jermayan already wore a similar belt buckled tightly around him. Well, if it was good enough for Jermayan … He strapped himself down, and looked over Ancaladar’s shoulder toward the ground. It was like sitting on the roof of a three-story house … only houses didn’t take flight and soar into the sky.

He knew he’d done far more dangerous things in his life—and more painful ones, too. But not only did this seem to be unnervingly unnatural, it roused the memories of buried ghosts, ghosts hundreds of generations in the past … but also of one particular ghost, who had also borne the name “Kellen,” and who had fought for the Dark, Bonded to a dragon.

Before he could follow those bleak thoughts any further, Ancaladar reared up on his hind legs. Kellen heard the children squeal in pleased excitement.

“Hold on,” Ancaladar said quietly.

He spread his great wings with a snap like sails filling with wind. He sprang into the air, slashed down—hard—with his wings once, then again.

It reminded Kellen—almost—of riding Shalkan when the unicorn was running all-out: that bounding gait that involved moments of weightlessness and jarring landings. Only here there were no landings, only moments of weightless falling before the dragon’s great wings bit into the air again. Kellen closed his eyes tightly.

By the time he could bring himself to open them again, Ancaladar was moving smoothly, and the ground was hundreds of feet below. He looked back over his shoulder, and could barely see the green of the ever-blooming Flower Forest. The individual buildings of Sentarshadeen—well hidden even from the ground—were invisible.

“Comfortable?” Jermayan asked. Kellen realized after a moment that the question was directed to Ancaladar. “Nothing binding you anywhere, I hope?”

“Not bad. But don’t make a habit of this,” the dragon replied. He tilted a wingtip slightly, and they began a long curving upward spiral, taking them even higher into the sky.

Soon they were in the clouds themselves. Wet mist covered Kellen’s face, and he could barely see anything at all. Then they were above the clouds, flying in the sunlight

It was just as cold as Ancaladar had promised. The mistdroplets turned to ice crystals on Kellen’s face—his only exposed skin—and the sheer dry cold took his breath away. The clouds below them—below them!—looked as solid as a snowfield, shining whitely in the sun, and the sunlight itself was bright and harsh. There was no sound save the whistling of the wind over Ancaladar’s body, and the occasional squeals and outcries of delight from the children. Kellen was glad they were so firmly strapped in to their carrying-baskets: it would be far too tempting for the more audacious of them to try to climb out and take a closer look at this wonderland of sun and clouds.

His fear of flying was forgotten. He didn’t even notice the cold. He wished this wonderful experience could last forever. Now—now he envied Jermayan, if this was the sort of thing that the Elven Knight was going to get to experience all the time.

As they continued north and west he could see the peaks of the higher mountains poking up through the clouds. The only thing that would make it better would be if he could see the ground below. He was Mageborn and had lived with magic all of his life, but this was the most magical moment of his life.

Too soon Ancaladar began to descend, flying into snow and buffeting winds as they entered the realm of mountain storms. The ride now was much rougher, as the dragon glided from side to side, riding on the winds and tacking from side to side instead of fighting them directly. Now Kellen could see trees below, and had some way to judge their speed, and it was faster than anything he could have ever imagined. No wonder the Elves had wanted to send the children this way.

“Almost there,” Jermayan said.

“I am tired of snow,” Ancaladar complained, swerving again in response to a particularly prankish gust of wind. “What it does to the wind and thermals is simply disgusting.”

“It’s winter,” Jermayan said soothingly. “And a particularly bad one. By next year, the weather patterns should be back to normal.”

“We’ll hope Andoreniel’s message got through, then, with your weather and all. I have no desire to be shot at,” Ancaladar grumbled, but Kellen could tell his complaining was merely a kind of bantering between the dragon and Jermayan. The Bond between Jermayan and Ancaladar was something he could not even imagine—far closer than his relationship with Shalkan—and words seemed almost unnecessary to it.

Even through the snow, Kellen could see the fortress up ahead. At first, it seemed merely an unusual outcropping, then he recognized the forms of Elven building—and then they seemed to be rushing at it at such a speed that there was no chance they could avoid hitting it.

Then the dragon tilted a wing, and suddenly the fortress was passing under them, in a dizzying, exhilarating panorama.

Ancaladar circled it once, and then landed at the foot of the causeway. A party of defenders was already waiting there for the children. Kellen unbuckled the belt and pushed himself free of the saddle, surprised at how stiff he felt, and immediately slipped off Ancaladar’s back to fall sprawling in the deep densely-packed snow, for Ancaladar’s scales were covered in ice.

Jermayan, naturally, fared much better—no matter how much and how hard Kellen trained, Jermayan was an Elf, with all the Elves’ natural grace. Jermayan walked neatly down Ancaladar’s back, cutting the straps that buckled the children into the baskets—for unbuckling the straps would take time, and everyone knew that here they were vulnerable if the Enemy wished to strike.

But Kellen had a hunch They wouldn’t. At least, not today.

All the Elven children of the Nine Cities were here now—for as he’d heard recently, word of the attack on Sandalon’s caravan had not reached the other Elven cities in time, and the last of the children had been dispatched to the fortress on the original schedule.

And reached their destination safely.

More than ever now, Kellen was sure that the whole point of the attack had been to show them the Shadowed Elves, and nothing else.

Kellen clambered up out of the snow in time to help with the last couple of baskets, and then set to work on the other needful task: cutting away the basket harness from Ancaladar’s body. It had done its work, and was no longer necessary. Now only the saddle on the dragon’s neck would remain, and the riding harness that held it there.

By the time he looked up from that, the children and those who had waited to greet them were gone. Only one warrior remained.

“I See you, Shentorris,” Jermayan said.

“I See you, Jermayan,” Shentorris said, bowing slightly in acknowledgment.

“I See you, Shentorris,” Kellen said in his turn.

“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage. I would be honored to make you welcome at the Fortress of the Crowned Horns.”

“I,” Ancaladar announced, “am going in search of clear air and sunlight. Call me when you need me.”

The dragon took a few bounding leaps through the snow and was airborne. Jermayan and Kellen followed Shentorris up the causeway into the fortress.

EASILY defensible, Kellen noted on his way up. The removal of a few key blocks of stone would take down a substantial part of the causeway, isolating the fortress completely—assuming this was the only way in. Ancaladar had said that dragons couldn’t land on the top of it—but Kellen suspected that the Deathwings that had destroyed the caravan that had originally been supposed to bring Sandalon here could, and they already knew that the Deathwings could carry a person. So … how many of them were there, and who controlled them?

And were there caves beneath the fortress that the Shadowed Elves controlled—or could reach?

He sighed inwardly. There were things he had to say to Shentorris—or whoever was in charge of defense here—that would not make good hearing, as the Elves would say. He hoped that Jermayan would take the lead in that, but if Jermayan wouldn’t, he’d have to.

They reached the top of the causeway. There were massive bronze gates—crusted with winter’s ice. In fact, the ice was so thick upon them that it was obvious they had not been opened in months. Shentorris led them around the edge—a pathway even narrower than the causeway, with a sheer drop to the rocks below—to a smaller door, also bronze. The walls looked as if they were made of a single piece of stone; there was nothing here that would burn or decay. The smaller door was barely large enough to admit one person at a time. It was closed. Shentorris knocked, and after a pause, it was opened. Kellen entered first, then Jermayan, then last of all Shentorris.

Kellen was used to Elven architecture being spacious, airy, and open, bringing the outdoors in so artfully that sometimes it was hard to tell where Nature ended and Elven craft began. This was beautiful, too, as all the work of the Elves was, but it was beauty of an entirely different sort. It was as if he’d suddenly stepped back through time, to meet a wholly different race of Elves—a race of warriors, not artisans.

The corridors were narrow, the ceilings low. Kellen had the sudden sense that this fortress was also a labyrinth, designed to confuse any invaders who got this far. Defenders would hide and attack, knowing the territory well, while their enemies circled about in confusion.

And the children who lived here now would find it a perfect playground, never realizing, as they played, that they were learning the skills that would keep them alive in the ultimate extremity.

Leaf and Star, Gods of the Wild Magic, let that day never come, Kellen thought fervently. If the Enemy broached this citadel, then all hope was truly gone.

There were no windows, of course, though the walls were painted with scenes of cities and forests that had not existed in a thousand years, and depictions of animals that Kellen had no name for. A sort of four-legged eagle, and something that looked more like a two-horned unicorn than it looked like anything else. A horse with wings—now surely that was wholly imaginary? A kind of a Centaur with a cat body instead of a horse body, and wings as well.

Kellen stopped trying to decide what was real—or might have been real—once—and simply followed the others. He wasn’t lost—no Knight-Mage, as he’d discovered down in the caverns, could actually get lost—but unless he spent enough time here to learn the entire layout of the fortress, the only route he’d be able to take back to the door was the one he was following now.

“And here we come to what has—in times past—been the dining hall,” Shentorris said, opening a door.

Kellen quickly understood the reason for Shentorris’s odd phrasing, for it was obvious that the room was no longer a dining hall, and had not been used as one for quite some time.

It was now filled with children. All the children of the Nine Cities—except, Kellen supposed, for the very youngest, like Kalania, who were off in a nursery somewhere, and some of the oldest, like Alkandoran, who were probably continuing their knightly training.

But all the rest were here.

It was the largest room in the fortress. The floor had been marked with the elaborate patterns of children’s games, the walls were lined with large tubs in which green plants grew, scenting the air with the perfume of growing things. High above, hanging from the rafters, were ancient war banners, an incongruous martial note in these surroundings.

There were fewer than fifty children here, yet Kellen knew that these were all the children of all the Elven Lands. But Elves lived for centuries, and children were rare among them.

Kellen watched as they ran and played together. Most of them had already been here for sennights. Long enough to get used to the idea of seeing so many others near their own ages. He wondered what kind of a difference it would make to them later.

The newest arrivals weren’t here yet. Still getting settled in—and warmed up, Kellen thought, with a longing glance toward the enormous fireplace that filled one end of the great hall.

Shentorris caught the direction of his gaze. “But come. We will take tea. You shall meet Tyrvin, who is the Master of the Crowned Horns. He will be eager to hear the news of the outside world.”

Shentorris conducted his two guests to a smaller room. Like every chamber Kellen had seen so far here in the fortress, it was windowless, but it had the look of a place that someone had tried very hard to make resemble home. Cushioned benches lined the walls, and there were low tables carved and inlaid in colored woods set here and there about the room. A tiled stove in the corner radiated a pleasant heat. But the walls were hung with weapons. Not weapons for show, but weapons that could be grabbed at a moment’s notice, and borne in defense of the precious treasure these walls contained.

A kettle in the shape of a fat-bellied faun stood heating on the stove, and from the cabinet beside the stove Shentorris took down a pot and a tea canister. While he was hesitating among the teacups—for Elves took the selection of the proper teacup nearly as seriously as they did the selection of the proper tea—Master Tyrvin entered the room.

He was not nearly as old as Master Belesharon, but Kellen could instantly see why he had been chosen as the guardian of the Fortress of the Crowned Horns. The same aura of absolute mastery of his craft enveloped him like an invisible cloak. He was, very simply, the best Andoreniel had to send.

Kellen faced him and bowed, the deep bow of respect, Student to Master.

Tyrvin looked surprised. “They told me you were a Knight-Mage,” he said.

“I am still learning my craft,” Kellen said honestly. “You have mastered yours.”

“You should, at least, have learned not to flatter Elves in your time among us,” Tyrvin said brusquely, moving to take a seat with his back to the door.

“I am not particularly good at flattery,” Kellen answered simply, “but I have learned that Elves honor truth, and that respect is due to those who have earned it.”

Jermayan and Shentorris both laughed. “The point goes to Kellen, Tyr,” Jermayan said cheerfully. “And flattery is not the only thing he is bad at, I assure you. He cannot speak of the weather save to tell you whether it is wet or dry, and if his man did not dress him, dogs would run howling from the streets whenever he appeared. Nor can he brew tea that I would use for anything but killing parasites in my garden. He does not dance. But the children love him, Master Belesharon thinks well of him, and he fights like a firesprite whose nest has been burned. And he is Shalkan’s rider.”

“Well indeed.” Tyrvin sounded surprised and somewhat mollified at this odd catalogue of Kellen’s abilities—or disabilities. As for Kellen, he thought it was a peculiar sort of endorsement—especially coming from his oldest friend among the Elves.

But it was obvious that these three Elves were old friends, and an old friend among Elves was a very old friend indeed. So he tried not to take any of Jermayan’s comments to heart, since certainly they were true—and probably pretty important from an Elven point of view. But why should his being Shalkan’s rider be important to anyone but him and Shalkan?

Besides, he liked the tea he brewed just fine. He’d just remember not to offer any of it to Jermayan anymore. Or to politely suggest that Jermayan might like to brew his own.

“I suppose then, that if I wish to hear what has been going on in Sentarshadeen these last moonturns, it would be well to cast aside all vestige of dignity and manners,” Tyrvin said, but there was a twinkle in his eye when he said it.

“Indeed,” Jermayan said, taking a seat on one of the benches. “Though I am told that his speeches to Andoreniel’s Council are memorable things.”

Kellen sighed inwardly, sitting down as well and shrugging out of his heavy furs. He was being teased. He recognized that now, and resigned himself to it. It was better—much!—than being disliked. And he found that he very much wanted Master Tyrvin to like him.

“I only told them what they needed to hear. They didn’t like it much,” Kellen said, assuming a counterfeit air of innocence.

That startled another bark of laughter from Master Tyrvin. “The Council never wishes to hear what it needs to hear. And now Jermayan—perhaps, if he annoys me, I shall tell you what a difficult pupil he once was to me—has brought you to me so that you can tell me what I need to hear. And you think I shall like it as little as the Council did.”

Kellen inclined his head, acknowledging that what Master Tyrvin said was the truth. He took a deep breath. He might as well give them the blunt truth they expected from humans, and he didn’t really know any way that would render it palatable.

“I know that your fortress is not impregnable. I know it can be attacked. I know how, and by who. I don’t know when, or if,” Kellen said. “But I know how I would do it, had I the resources of the Enemy.”

That got the full attention of all three Elves.

“Tell me, Knight-Mage,” Tyrvin commanded, all business now.

“I don’t think it will be soon. Perhaps not at all. But let me go back to the beginning, and tell you everything, and then you will know all that I know.”

Carefully, Kellen began at the very beginning: the attack on the caravan that was to have brought Sentarshadeen’s children to the Crowned Horns; with the frost-giants, ice-trolls, and coldwarg—and their allies, the giant Deathwings.

“They can carry a full-grown Elf safely, and they follow orders. I don’t know who ultimately controls them, but I know they’re creatures of Darkness that can, nevertheless, fly by day. I know Ancaladar said he can’t land on top of the fortress, but I don’t know what the top of the fortress looks like, so I can’t say what could land there.”

“You shall see it. Go on,” Tyrvin said.

Kellen told the whole story, from the moment Calmeren had arrived at Sentarshadeen to the moment the rescue party had returned to it. He omitted no detail, whether he suspected Tyrvin knew it already or not. Whatever Tyrvin knew, he did not know the events as Kellen had experienced them.

“The Shadowed Elves weren’t just using the cavern as a temporary camp, either. They had a whole city there, and Ancaladar said they’d been living there for a very long time. Since they … seem … to have Elven blood, the land-wards don’t react to them.”

There was a long silence. Jermayan knew all this, of course, but it was new to Shentorris and Tyrvin, and neither Elf was happy to hear it

“How far do these caves go?” Tyrvin asked at last, with blunt War Manners.

“No one knows—yet. Not even Ancaladar. Andoreniel intends to wipe out the Shadowed Elves. He’s calling up the levies in Ondoladeshiron.” While Kellen had been telling the long tale of the rescue of the children, tea had been brewed and poured, and now he took a long sip of spicy Black Winter Tea to soothe his raw throat.

“The Fortress of the Crowned Horns is built atop a mountain of solid granite,” Shentorris said, speaking at last.

“For the moment,” Jermayan said. He needed to say nothing more.

“We will hear them if they dig. I will post listeners on the lowest level, where the spring that nourishes the fortress is—every hour of every day,” Tyrvin said. “They will assist Ronethil in her work. But you say you do not think They mean to attack us, Kellen Wildmage?”

“I think Their plan was to lure us into a war with the Shadowed Elves—to make us commit all our resources into a battle to destroy them, as we shall. If we attack them in their caverns, we’re at a disadvantage. If they attack us here, in our place of greatest strength, they’re the ones at a disadvantage. I don’t think they’re after the children; I don’t think that the children were ever their real target.” He tried to choose his words with utmost care. “This is why: They didn’t attack us to get them back once we’d rescued them, and until we met up with the second rescue party from Sentarshadeen, we were quite vulnerable. Nor did they attack any of the caravans that followed Sandalon’s. The whole point seems to me to have been to allow us to discover the existence of the Shadowed Elves in a way that would make us determined to wipe them out.” He knew he sounded puzzled, and he was, because he could not imagine what could possibly come next.

“An odd way of running a war,” Tyrvin said. “Still, unless they can find a way of coming at us here in force, I am confident that if they do attack, we can hold them off—though your news is hardly calculated to help me to rest easy at night. But come. I will show you the rest of our defenses.”

THE tour took the next several hours. Tyrvin showed Kellen over what seemed as if it were every inch of the fortress—though he saw no more of the children.

There were rooms filled with weapons: arrows and bows, the most fragile and easily-expended items of their defense; spears, swords, shields. Enough to arm and rearm every defender of the fortress a dozen times over.

There were other rooms filled with food: grain, both fresh and parched, dried fruit, dried meat, herbs and teas, spices. Enough to feed an army for years.

Everyone Kellen met—and there were female knights as well as male among the defenders—was in good spirits. No one here doubted the importance of their task, nor was inclined to grow soft and inattentive simply because one day passed seamlessly into another with no sign of overt threat. The Elves were a patient people.

Tyrvin even took him down to the deepest levels of the fortress, where the spring was. If Kellen had not been so intent upon learning all the citadel’s secrets, it would have been an honor he would gladly have done without, for the way was long, down a winding stair that seemed to go on forever. He had the sense that the lanterns the Elves carried to light the way were mostly a courtesy to him.

“This is the lowest level of the fortress,” Shentorris said, when they stood in the center of a great room hollowed from the living rock. In the center of the floor stood a deep round pool.

The others had stopped upon the stairs, letting Kellen go first, and now he knew why.

A unicorn stood beside the pool. Her coat was the grey of winter storm, and her horn was the clear shining brightness of winter’s ice. As he approached, she bowed her head and touched her horn to the pool, and for a moment, the water shone blue.

“Yes,” she said, “it is a spring, called from the depths of the Earth by magic in ancient times. But nothing of the Dark may try these waters and live—not while I, Ronethil, am here, or those who guard this place with me.”

Without conscious thought, Kellen shifted to spell-sight. He looked down into the pool, saw where it flowed up through a crack in the stone so narrow that nothing of any size could pass through it. Nor could it be poisoned or bespelled, while Ronethil stood guard. Beneath that was rock. Nothing but solid rock.

He reached out, to the roots of the whole fortress, in the way a man might check his horse for soundness before he mounted. But he felt nothing. All was untouched. Nothing had come—yet—to try the citadel’s defenses, at least from this direction.

“Safe,” Kellen said with relief, as his spell-sight faded. Only then did he notice that a sort of conduit led from the spring, along the wall up the stairs. Well, he guessed it beat having to walk down all the stairs he was about to walk up again every time you needed water for tea.

“Your Magegifts have told you this,” Tyrvin said. It was not a question.

“No one can truly say what future fruit the blossom of the moment may bear,” Kellen said. It was one of Morusil’s favorite sayings. Idalia said it was the Elven way of saying “Don’t press your luck.”

“He learns quickly,” Jermayan said, a note of pride in his voice.

“Quicker than you learned to counter that low attack to your left side, when you were in my training,” Tyrvin said.

“Ah, Master, I thought those bruises would never heal,” Jermayan agreed ruefully. “Alas, that I have been unable to give Kellen ones to match them.”

Tyrvin glanced at Kellen, and for a moment there was cold speculation in the Elf’s dark eyes. Then he smiled. “Alas, that we do not have time this day for sport. I will show you the top of the tower, and then I think it will be time for you to depart to your duties. Remember us, on the field of battle.”

“Remember us, among the children,” Jermayan answered, and Kellen had the sense that he’d just witnessed one of those side-slips into an almost sacred formality that he guessed you’d have to live as long as an Elf to understand.

Him, he was just Kellen, a human Knight-Mage who (according to Jermayan) couldn’t brew tea and fought like a firesprite—whatever that was. He wondered if asking Jermayan would get him any answers he could understand.

They stopped back at the room where they’d shared tea to collect their heavy fur cloaks and gloves. Kellen was sweating by the time they’d climbed yet another several sets of stairs to a room so small the four of them could barely squeeze into it. In order to make room for them, the two guards who had occupied it needed to retreat down the stairs to the landing below.

“This door,” Tyrvin said, “opens onto the top of the tower of the Fortress of the Crowned Horns. There are always two sentries posted there, and as you have seen, two inside. In this weather, their watch is short. But the door is barred from this side, and can be barred from the other at desperate need. Should the sentries on watch here lose track of the time, or sleep, or fail of attentiveness, those without will die, for should they cry out, or hammer at the door, it cannot be heard from within.”

Trust. That was the hidden message in Tyrvin’s words. Each Elf—and unicorn—here at the fortress trusted every other to hold their lives as dearly as their own.

That was the Crowned Horns’ true defense. Not sword and stone—the Demons could break through that if they came in strength. But Their greatest weapons were tricks of bribery and persuasion, of tainted promises. Kellen was sure now that any attempt to gain a foothold here by those means would fail.

Tyrvin unbolted the door. It thrust inward fiercely, pushed on an icy blast of wind.

“Hold to the guide-ropes!” he shouted over the howl of the wind, and stepped out onto the tower roof.

The “guide-ropes” were thick cables of twisted metal. Kellen grabbed for one instinctively. Without it, he would be pushed along the roof as if he weighed no more than an autumn leaf.

The rooftop was far too small for a dragon to land upon. Walls half the height of an Elf’s body surrounded it, and at each corner was a strange five-pronged blossom standing twice that height—one prong sticking straight up, two curving outward, two curving in. From a distance, they probably gave the top of the fortress the look of a crown. All were sharp.

The surface of the tower floor was not smooth and open, either. Tall spikes were placed at intervals. The cable Kellen clung to was strung between them, making a virtue of necessity. Here, at the highest exposed point in the Icefang Mountains, the icy wind was punishing. It battered at Kellen like a living thing, making his flesh ache even beneath the heavy furs and his insulating Elven armor.

He saw the two sentries, groping carefully along the ropes, their gaze turned outward, toward the .surrounding mountains and the sky. Tyrvin moved past him, going to each of them in turn and sending them inside.

Kellen groped his way to the parapet, or as near as he could get without letting go of the guide-rope. If he let go, the wind would take him over the side, unless he was quick enough to fling himself flat. This was a dangerous place.

But he was close enough to see the arrow-slits in the walls. They were clotted with ice now, but through them, a kneeling Elven archer could rain down destruction on an enemy. Or even stand to fire, for the range of Elven bows was long.

He caught Tyrvin’s eye and nodded. He’d seen what he needed to see. Though if he wasn’t in danger of freezing solid, he would have been happy to linger. The mountains were spread out below them in a breathtaking vista—in spring, in sunlight, this must be a beautiful place.

The Master of the Fortress of the Crowned Horns led them carefully inside, and waited until the next four sentries—two outside, two inside—had taken their places. Then he brought them all back to what Kellen now realized must be his private rooms.

“The posts that you saw are not only for show. There are charms of unicorn hair attached to the top, renewed every spring. So none of Them will dare to try us,” Tyrvin said with grim satisfaction.

Kellen thought carefully before he spoke. “I am not sure the Deathwings could land there, but they would not need to. They could come low enough to drop whoever they carried in their claws—or to carry someone away. They are small enough, and nimble enough, for that. And when spring comes—what are the winds like then? Are they constant, or do they soften or stop altogether? The Deathwings can fly by day, but they will be better still at night—and in a fog, or in the clouds, would any see them until it was too late?”

Tyrvin sighed. “Yet we must keep watch.”

“Find another way,” Kellen said bluntly. “Every time you open a door—any door—in this fortress, you expose a weakness. Close and bar it. Confronted with this fortress, if I were contemplating an attack, I would never even consider a frontal assault. I would try treachery, I would try stealth, and I would try by ones and twos, not by thousands. One or two can open the door to thousands, if they come at the wrong time and place. You cannot assume the Enemy to be less cunning than I am. Count your people. Count them constantly—”

At least here he could be single-minded. There was only one duty before these Elves. This was their posting and it was all they needed to concentrate on. Whether or not the attack on the children had been part of a ruse was of no moment to them. So Kellen, too, could be single-minded in his advice.

“And pray to Leaf and Star that someday we may open our gates again,” Tyrvin said, agreeing. “It is good counsel, Kellen Wildmage. It is a great pity you were not born one of us, yet had it been so, you would not be what you are, and we have need of that.”

“SOMETIMES you terrify me,” Jermayan said conversationally, as they stood at the foot of the causeway, waiting for Ancaladar to arrive. Jermayan said it would only be a matter of a few moments.

“I only said what had to be said,” Kellen said. He knew he sounded a little sullen, but he couldn’t help it. Even Tyrvin seemed to be waiting for the Endarkened to show up as a massed army with banners—not sneak in at the changing of the guard and start slaughtering people. Which Kellen thought was far more likely, if they meant to attack the fortress at all.

“Someday you will say it to the wrong person,” Jermayan said. “Leaf and Star! To speak so to Master Tyrvin!”

“He wants to keep those children alive. And so do—”

But Ancaladar had suddenly made his appearance, falling through the clouds like a black thunderbolt, fanning his wings wide at the last minute and making a graceful landing in a spray of snow. The dragon’s great weight made him sink deeply into the snow, so that the saddle was only a few feet above Kellen’s head.

“I trust that your visit went as you would have it go,” the dragon said.

“It went as it went,” Jermayan answered dismissively.

Ancaladar didn’t linger a moment longer once Kellen and Jermayan had secured themselves in their seats, but bounded quickly into the air.

He had probably been trying to take things easy back at Sentarshadeen for the sake of his young passengers, and the air there had certainly been quieter. Kellen was glad he’d had that experience to prepare him for this one, because this takeoff was nowhere near as gentle as the one that had preceded it. The mountain winds flipped and spun Ancaladar through the air as if he were one of Sandalon’s toy boats upon Great Twovanesata, with Ancaladar taking expert advantage of every opportunity they granted him to gain height.

At last they broke through into the sunlight and comparative stillness of the upper air, and Ancaladar was able to spread his wings wide and level out.

“Everyone still there, I trust?” the dragon asked.

“It was … fun,” Kellen answered. It actually had been, in a weird way. He’d been sure—fairly sure, anyway—that he wasn’t going to fall off, and if he had, he had no doubt at all that Ancaladar would catch him before he could hit the ground. But all the same, he was just as glad it hadn’t gone on too long.

“You have the oddest notions of fun,” Jermayan said.

“Nevertheless, I do not think we will repeat it,” Ancaladar said, a note of amusement in his soft deep voice. “The air over Sentarshadeen is calm and clear—I can feel it from here.”

“So can I,” Jermayan said, an odd note in his voice.

THE rest of the journey was almost a mirror of the first, though this time the sun was westering, treating Kellen to a spectacular show as it tinted the clouds with a thousand shades of gold. He missed the clouds when they left them behind, and was surprised to see that though here they were still in sunlight, the land below was already touched with twilight shadows.

Ancaladar landed in the unicorn meadow near the House of Leaf and Star, but only long enough for Kellen to dismount. With Jermayan still in the saddle, he launched himself into the sky again, heading for his home canyon.

Kellen stamped and stretched, working the stiffness out of his cramped muscles. It had been a beautiful flight, but still a cold one.

“And did you enjoy your day?” Shalkan asked, materializing out of nowhere. The unicorn was hard to see—Kellen realized it was almost dark; well after lantern-lighting time.

“It was instructive,” Kellen said. “And cold. But the children are safe at the fortress now.”

“And likely to remain so?” Shalkan asked.

Kellen regarded his friend broodingly. “Unless They try something I can’t imagine … yes.” Or until they starve to death waiting for us to defeat Shadow Mountain. Resupplying the fortress would be an easy matter come spring—but each time its doors were opened, all who were within were exposed to danger from an attack by treachery and stealth.

“But you’re still not happy,” Shalkan said, falling into step beside Kellen as the young Knight-Mage began the long walk toward home. “And after you got to ride Ancaladar, and meet Master Tyrvin. Such gratitude.”

Kellen made a rude noise. “‘I am duly grateful for all the mercies and benefits visited upon me,’” he said, quoting one of the sentences of the Litany of the Light that he’d had to recite each Light’s Day back in Armethalieh. “I just think I’m forgetting something.”

“Well, you’ll have plenty of time to try to remember it on the ride to Ondoladeshiron,” Shalkan said cheerfully.

THE journey to Ondoladeshiron took a sennight and a half, for not only did they move through deep winter, but they were restricted to the pace of the supply wagons that they escorted. These wagons held immense quantities of food and weapons, as well as much of the store of Wild Magic-infused articles that Idalia had crafted.

For the first time, Kellen traveled with an Elven army in formal battle array. Although he was certainly battle-seasoned, he had not yet won his spurs in the House of Sword and Shield, and even though he was a Knight-Mage, he was also Shalkan’s rider, so for purposes of Elven battle protocol he rode under the orders of Petariel, Captain of the Unicorn Knights, as a junior knight.

Kellen found it instructive; he kept his eyes and ears open, and began to learn a great deal about the bonds of camaraderie that other Unicorn Knights had with their mounts.

The Unicorn Knights, of necessity, rode apart from the main army. By Elven standards they were all quite young, though they would have been grandmothers and grandfathers among humans. All of them were still mourning the loss of their comrades, both Elven and unicorn, in the Shadowed Elf ambush, for the community of Unicorn Knights was a small, close-knit one. Not every Elven fighter was even remotely interested in bonding with a unicorn.

Oddly, it was a community that Kellen had never really been a part of, until now. He wasn’t a “real” Unicorn Knight—his bond with Shalkan was part of a Mageprice lasting a year and a day. That wasn’t the same thing as choosing a unicorn for a companion—or being chosen by one. And what happened when the Elf fell in love with another Elf? He—or she—would never see their unicorn friend again. Not up close, anyway.

“You’re thinking like a human, again,” Shalkan observed, when Kellen confided some of these thoughts to him.

“I am a human, in case you haven’t figured that out yet,” Kellen said. It felt good to discuss—for a change—something that had nothing in particular to do with Shadow Mountain.

Shalkan snorted eloquently. “As if I could forget. Humans think the whole world revolves around them—but we have lives of our own, too, you know. The partnership of knight and unicorn is a fine thing, but in most cases both of the beings involved realize at the start that it’s only going to be an episode—a relatively short one—in what will be long lives for them both. A year and a day probably seems like a long time to you—well, for most of these knights, their partnership won’t seem to last much longer.”

Uh-huh. That sounded awfully cold-blooded to Kellen. Maybe an Elf—who was going to live several centuries—could manage it Or …

“How long do unicorns live, anyway?” Kellen asked.

“Longer than you’re likely to if you keep asking foolish questions,” Shalkan answered quellingly.

Ah. Evidently there were some things even Kellen wasn’t supposed to know.

KELLEN didn’t spend all his time with the Unicorn Knights. Fortunately, a Knight-Mage could go where he pleased, and Kellen took full advantage of that freedom.

Jermayan was flying with Ancaladar, doing most of the long-range scouting for the little army, but naturally he had brought Valdien with him. Under Deyishene’s tutelage, Kellen’s equestrian skills had improved to the point where—with Jermayan’s permission, and after a proper introduction to Valdien to assure the destrier that it was, indeed, all right—he could take Valdien out of the horse-lines and ride the great storm-colored destrier among the main body of the troops.

He saw things there that greatly disturbed him.

He knew already that Elves were creatures of great respect for tradition. He saw now that the tradition extended to the organization of their army. The equivalent sons and daughters of these same Elven households had probably ridden in exactly these positions a thousand years ago, the last time the Elves had gone to war.

Which meant, Kellen thought with a frown, that when the Elven armies gathered to face Shadow Mountain, the Demon horde would know exactly who and where everyone was. Idalia had told him that the Demons weren’t merely long-lived, like the Elves, but truly immortal. So it wasn’t impossible that there were actual Demon generals out there that had faced the Allied and Elven armies last time.

He might not know everything about the Art of War yet, but he did know that it wasn’t a good idea for the enemy to know what the entire disposition of your troops was going to be in advance. And if the Elves were as much creatures of Tradition as they appeared—which Kellen had no reason to doubt—Shadow Mountain already knew every possible battle formation they would use.

Not good.

Individually, the Elves were unstoppable fighters—and individually they were perfectly capable of improvisation if they put their minds to it And they were smart enough to realize within seconds of an encounter that they were no longer playing by the same rules as they once had been. For some of them, that was fast enough to save them. But the larger the group, the more unwieldy and Tradition-bound it became.

The easier to defeat.

He’d identified another problem, Kellen realized with an inward sigh. It was just too bad he couldn’t come up with a solution to it as easily. The Elven Commanders weren’t going to throw out several thousand years of the “proper” way of doing things just on his say-so. And their tactics had worked the last time.

That’s the root of the problem. It worked twice before. They know it did. So why shouldn’t it work again?

The only bright spot in things—no more than a faint glimmer, really, to be honest—was that Kellen doubted whoever was running the Demon side of this war had any interest at all in engaging in a series of formal battles. As for the battle against the Shadowed Elves, it wouldn’t be a traditional form of warfare at all, so it would rely on the Elves’ strengths, not their weaknesses.

It was almost as if they were certain to win … and their victory didn’t matter to Shadow Mountain’s ultimate strategy. But if they ignored the Shadowed Elves, knowing them for the trap that they were, Shadow Mountain would mercilessly exploit that weakness in the Elven Lands’ defenses.

We’re trapped either way, Kellen thought, in grudging admiration for the unknown Demon general. We have no choice but to do exactly what they want us to do. For now.

Chapter Thirteen

Ondoladeshiron at Last

SENTARSHADEEN WAS A hidden city, a city of forests and canyons. Ondoladeshiron stood in the middle of a vast plain at the foot of a mountain range—Kellen recalled that Idalia had turned from a Silver Eagle back into human form here; if his memory was right, Ondoladeshiron was also where she’d met Jermayan.

The buildings of the Elven city echoed the rise and fall of the surface of the plain, and evoked the towering strength of the mountains behind them as well. Like the Elves themselves, Ondoladeshiron had the ability to hide in plain sight: though it should be easy enough to see a large city in the middle of a plain, especially in winter, Ondoladeshiron eluded the eye, deceiving one into thinking it no more than a natural tumble of stones. The buildings looked nothing like buildings of any kind; it was impossible to see anything that didn’t look as if it had been formed entirely by the chaotic action of weather, wind, water, and time. Yet Kellen knew that whatever the Elves were doing to hide their city, they were doing it entirely without magic, merely the skill honed by centuries—millennia!—of observing the natural world.

One thing that assisted Ondoladeshiron to hide itself was the presence of the Elven army camped at the city’s outskirts on the Gathering Plain. The encampment was as colorful as the city was circumspect, drawing the eye toward itself. At this distance, all Kellen could see was rows of pavilions in colors like the flowers in a spring meadow, and the horse herd beside it. Kellen wondered just how many of them there were: he, Idalia, and Vestakia had ridden here among nearly two hundred knights, all Andoreniel could spare from the patrols around Sentarshadeen.

Of course, like every Elven city, Ondoladeshiron also had its Flower Forest In this season, it was the only spot of natural color in the snow-covered landscape. Though the trees at the outer edges of the forest were covered in snow, all were in leaf, and some were in flower.

“Courage, brother,” Idalia murmured as they neared the encampment.

“What?” Kellen asked. He was riding Valdien today, and the destrier was (for the most part) behaving himself. Unfortunately, Jermayan’s mount knew that Kellen’s horsemanship wasn’t the equal of his master’s, and Valdien had all Jermayan’s dry sense of humor. He liked to pull tricks on Kellen at odd moments, and then pretend he’d done nothing at all. It took all of Kellen’s attentiveness to remain in the saddle sometimes, though it was doing wonders for his riding skills. It occurred to him that the destrier was giving him the equine equivalent of Belesharon’s lessons in swordsmanship.

Idalia gave him a strange look. “You’re the first Knight-Mage born in a thousand years. Don’t you think a few people are going to want to meet you? Including other Wildmages?”

“Oh.” Oh. “But nothing I should worry about, right?” Kellen asked with a crooked smile.

“Right,” Idalia answered, smiling back.

ONCE again, being Shalkan’s rider worked in Kellen’s favor. Though the rest of the knights were grouped by the city of their residence, the Unicorn Knights’ pavilions were all bunched together at the very edge of the camp, so that their mounts could come to them easily. By the time Kellen had turned over Valdien to the Sentarshadeen horse-master and found out where he was supposed to be, Petariel already had the wagons with their gear separated out from the rest, and he and the other Sentarshadeen Unicorn Knights were unloading them, while others that Kellen didn’t recognize—even if all Elves looked fairly similar, even to Kellen, the armor of an Elven Knight was highly distinctive—were marking out the places where the pavilions were to be erected.

Kellen quickly got to work. No student of Belesharon’s was afraid of a little hard work, and besides, he was looking forward to getting his bedroll unpacked and finding who was brewing the tea. Menerchel usually took charge of that—Kellen had tactfully assured the others at the outset that he would happily light any fires they liked, and do extra work putting up the pavilions, but that everyone would be a great deal happier if he did not do any of the cooking.

The other thing at the back of his mind was that surely, if he was hidden away in the midst of the Unicorn Knights, none of the other Wildmages would be able to find him.

It wasn’t that Kellen was afraid to meet another Wildmage. Wildmages were, one and all, a force for Good. And he’d long since gotten over the time when he’d worried about being a not-good-enough Wildmage. That had ended at the moment when he’d discovered he was a Knight-Mage, a different sort of Wildmage entirely.

So, then, why?

Both his Wildmage training and Master Belesharon had taught him that such hidden reluctance was a warning, to be confronted and understood at once, if at all possible. Now that the pavilions were all in place—and firmly staked down against the wind—Kellen went and collected his equipment and Shalkan’s armor. He dropped it in his tent, then procured a large mug of Winter Spice Tea from Menerchel, then returned to his tent to unpack his gear and think the matter over.

He wasn’t afraid of the other Wildmages. He wasn’t ashamed of what he was. And as for not wanting to be the center of attention … well, he was getting plenty of attention right here, since all of the other Unicorn Knights were just as fascinated by a Knight-Mage as any strange Wildmage might be, and if Elves were legendary for their stubbornness, they were equally known for their curiosity.

So that wasn’t it.

“Cozy,” Shalkan said, walking into the tent.

Since the pavilion was—naturally—in Kellen’s “color,” the light shining through it turned Shalkan’s white fur a radiant pale green, which was a rather startling effect, Kellen thought.

“I guess it’s going to be home for a while,” Kellen said. “So I’m just as glad it’s comfortable.”

“Idalia’s looking for you—or so I hear. There are some people she wants you to meet,” Shalkan said, tilting his head to regard Kellen from beneath his long lashes.

“And I don’t want to meet them. And I don’t know why,” Kellen sighed. “I’m trying to figure that out.”

“Child of the City,” Shalkan said, his voice unusually serious, “you are not responsible for the errors of your ancestors. Not even the most immediate ones.”

“Of course not; I know th—Is that it?” Kellen said, catching himself in midsentence.

“Maybe,” Shalkan said inscrutably.

Kellen thought about it. Idalia had been gone from Armethalieh more than half her life, but he hadn’t. It was true that he’d been Banished, and Armethalieh had severed all its ties with him, but maybe, deep in his heart, he was still what Shalkan had called him: Child of the City.

And Armethalieh had not done well by the Wild Magic. It had set the High Magick in its place. It had cast out its Wildmages, denied their existence, killed them wherever it found them.

Now he could identify the peculiar reluctance to meet another Wildmage.

It was guilt.

“But they won’t blame me,” Kellen said aloud, exasperated with himself.

No, they won’t—so stop blaming yourself. You had nothing to do with decisions made in the City centuris before you were born.

Kellen sighed, feeling the knot of tension and reluctance dissolve. “I’m always borrowing trouble, aren’t I?”

“I don’t see why you feel the need to,” Shalkan said, “when the world is always willing to give so much of it away for free. Now, don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Yes,” Kellen said. “And … thanks.”

HE found Petariel and let him know where he was going, then headed off to find Idalia.

Sentarshadeen’s encampment was at the far side of the Gathering Plain, so Kellen had to walk through most of the camp to reach it.

The tents of Ondoladeshiron were nearest the city itself, and Kellen recognized banners from Windalorianan, Deskethomaynel, and Thultafoniseen as he passed, for part of his training in the House of Sword and Shield had been in the heraldry of the Nine Cities. That meant Lerkalpoldara, Valwendigorean, Realthataladon, and Ysterialpoerin were yet to arrive, but they were the most far-flung of the Nine Cities, and it might be another fortnight before they arrived. Andoreniel’s army should be on its way to the cavern before that, Kellen hoped.

He reached the Sentarshadeen pavilions, and saw familiar faces—but not the familiar faces he was looking for. In response to his puzzled expression, Dervasin took pity on him and observed that the Wildmage Idalia was to be found with Evanor, Vestakia, and the others among the tents of the Healers, and pointed him in the right direction.

Once more Kellen set off, discovering that he’d passed that collection of tents on his way across the field. Since the Healers weren’t knights, their tents were a reflection of their personal style rather than knightly colors. Some were … very bright indeed, their surfaces as brilliantly and randomly colored as a field of wildflowers. Others were as plain and deceptively simple as an Elvenware bowl, or—in the way of Elves—carefully painted to look like something they were not. The pavilion Idalia shared with Vestakia, for example, was artfully crafted to look as if it had been stitched together from carefully-tanned deer hides, right down to the tiny stitches and the small imperfections in the leather. Only when you touched it did you realize that it was the same thick and durable silk canvas as all the others.

He wondered whose idea that had been.

He hoped Vestakia hadn’t had any problems. They’d all grown so used to her appearance in Sentarshadeen that it only now occurred to Kellen that the rest of the Nine Cities might see nothing more than her outward appearance.

He dismissed the thought with a shrug. She had many friends and protectors now.

He found Idalia’s tent without difficulty, and stopped outside to ring the bells braided into a length of cord suspended beside the entrance. Without a door to knock on, the ever-punctilious Elves had found another way for someone to announce his presence.

“Come in, Kellen,” Idalia called immediately. She must have been expecting him. Or else by now, she could just tell when it was him.

Kellen pushed through the flap—resisting the urge to duck—and looked around.

Idalia’s pavilion was larger than his—which only made sense as she might have to do healings here. Just now it contained a number of large chests, a standing brazier for warmth, and a low table with several stools that could be folded out of the way for night.

She and Vestakia were both here, and as Kellen’s eyes adjusted to the lower light level after the wintry glare outside, he saw there was a third person present as well.

The man got to his feet as Kellen entered. He was human, tall and slender, his skin burned dark with wind and sun, making his age difficult to judge, though Kellen could tell he was certainly beyond middle years. He bore an odd elusive resemblance to Vestakia, and Kellen could feel the same sense of peace and intense focus—for lack of a better term—radiating from him that Idalia possessed.

“I greet you, Wildmage,” Kellen said, bowing.

“And I you, Knight-Mage Kellen,” the Wildmage said, holding out his hand.

Quickly Kellen pulled off his gauntlet and took the man’s hand. He’d spent so long among the Elves that he’d almost forgotten there were other ways of doing things!

“This is Wildmage Atroist,” Idalia said. “He’s from the Lost Lands.”

“He knew my mother!” Vestakia said excitedly.

“Yes. Virgivet was a dear comrade of mine. I had always wondered what happened to cause her to leave Wind’s Bridge—but now that I know the whole of her story, I see that she had no choice in what she did. And she gave the world a splendid daughter—one to be proud of.”

Vestakia smiled at the praise, her eyes glistening with happy tears.

The four of them sat down around Idalia’s table once again. Kellen removed his helm, his cloak—it was quite warm in Idalia’s pavilion—and his other gauntlet, setting them in a careful bundle at his feet. Idalia set a cup before him and filled it with hot spiced cider, refilling her own cup and the cups of the other two as well.

After an exchange of pleasantries—brief by Elven standards—Atroist got down to business.

“These are hard times for us in the Lost Lands. When the Firstling King’s warning reached us, he told us nothing new. The Dark Folk have always walked openly in the hard western hills. But if they now turn their attentions to the east, we fear their hand will fall harder upon us than ever. And if that should happen, I do not think the Herdsfolk will survive.”

Atroist glanced toward Vestakia, his expression grave.

“Ours is a hard land, with hard ways, as Virgivet knew. But the Dark Folk and their treacheries are a constant threat. They steal unprotected babies from the cradle, lure lone travelers to their doom, attack our flocks in the guise of monsters. Perhaps that is why the Wild Magic runs so strong in the West—we have great need of it there. Without our spells to discover and mark them, wanderers would be lured into the Haunted Places, and not all our Healing Arts could restore sanity to such a one afterward. When a kinsman is Overshadowed, a Wildmage can lift the spell before harm is done to the Light Within, if one is summoned in time. And when the Dark Folk raid in force—though once that was a rare thing—our magic often gives us warning enough to get the people and the flocks to safety, so that there is little loss of life.”

Kellen looked at Idalia. Her face was gravely expressionless. When he’d ridden through the Lost Lands with Jermayan, the Elven Knight had told him that the place was dangerous, but listening to Atroist, Kellen figured they’d both been incredibly lucky. Vestakia had told him she had to spend a lot of time hiding from Demons, but Kellen had thought they were just coming after her personally. Apparently, the Lost Lands were practically a Demon playground.

And nobody had known.

“I see grim looks upon your faces,” Atroist said with a gentle smile, “but this is the only life I, or any of my people, have ever known, so to us it seems very ordinary. The Good Goddess does not send to us a task beyond our strength, and each year enough Wildmages are born to protect the people and to replace those who go home to Her. So we had been content.”

“‘Had been,’” Kellen quoted back to him. “But something’s changed?”

Atroist sighed deeply, his weather-seamed face going grave. “In the last few turns of the seasons, the Dark Folk have grown bolder and more savage. Their raids increase in frequency and number.” He bowed his head for a moment. “It is our custom to go in force to a village when we know the Dark Folk intend to strike at it, and so I was at Goatford that day with seven of my fellow Wildmages, though my home had been in Wind’s Bridge since Virgivet left.

“It was the springtide, as it usually is when the attacks come, for then the flocks are spread upon the hills in search of the new grass, and the ewes and nannies are heavy with young. The flocks are the life of the Herdsfolk, and without them the people will starve; it was as important to get the flocks to safety as to shelter the people. We did not manage it in time.

“There was a great battle. We won—in the sense that the Dark Folk did not take any of our people alive. That is always a great cause for rejoicing among our people.”

“Oh, yes,” Vestakia said feelingly, putting her hand over his. Atroist took her hand, clasping it tightly as if for comfort. “Believe me—I understand. It would be much better for you to kill them yourself than to let them fall into Their hands. Your people would thank you for it, if they could.”

“So the Good Goddess and Her Consort teach us,” Atroist said somberly. “But you are one of us, so you know. And afterward, there were the wounded to heal, and the scattered flocks to retrieve. By the time my duties at Goatford were done and I could return to Wind’s Bridge, three days had passed, but I was easy in my heart, for I had left my people well-protected with spells and charms.”

He paused to take a deep drink from his cup.

“But when I arrived, Wind’s Bridge was not there.”

For a moment, Atroist’s face crumpled with grief, but then he composed himself. “The village was gone. Not one stone stood upon another. The land itself was scoured as if by fire. No tree, no blade of grass, not even the village well remained. The very earth reeked of Taint and blood.

“For days I wandered the hills insensible. I saw no other living thing—not even a remnant of the herds. I realized that every living thing that had belonged to Wind’s Bridge was dead—or alive in the hands of the Dark Folk. And more. I realized that they had somehow concealed the attack upon Wind’s Bridge from the Wild Magic, allowing us to send our strength to Goatford and leave Wind’s Bridge unprotected. For a full turn of the seasons I walked the hills, stopping no more than a few nights in any village as I railed against the Good Goddess, demanding to know how She could let this happen to the innocents under my care.

“At last She took pity on me and opened my heart to the knowledge I had been too wounded to bear that if I, if a dozen Wildmages had been at Wind’s Bridge that day, it would have made no difference. We would only have died along with our people, for such power as was brought to bear against Wind’s Bridge that day was too great for the Wild Magic to stand against alone.”

There was a moment of painful silence after Atroist finished speaking.

“It’s my fault,” Vestakia said at last. “They destroyed Wind’s Bridge because of me.”

“No!” Kellen and Idalia said in chorus.

“And if it is?” Atroist said. “What will you do?”

Vestakia blinked, staring at Atroist as if he’d slapped her. Then she took a deep breath. “I … no! It isn’t my fault! I’m not responsible for what They do! How can I be? I can’t control Their actions! Yes, They probably picked Wind’s Bridge to destroy because Mama came from there, but it was Their choice, not mine.”

“Good girl,” Atroist said with a smile. “I had to learn that lesson as well, and it’s a hard one. Just because you have a connection to a thing, you are not necessarily responsible for its actions.

“But to finish my grim tale quickly, this was nearly five turns of the seasons past. Since then, we have found that the Dark Folk raid more often, and will sometimes attack two or more villages on the same day, or within a day of each other. And so I come not only to bring my aid, but to speak for my people. They, more than any, do not wish to see the Shadow triumph. But if our Wildmages and warriors leave the people and the flocks, who will defend them against the Dark Folk? How can we fight, knowing that all we love will be gone when we return?”

Idalia cast a despairing glance at Kellen.

This was a heavy blow, but neither of them could blame Atroist. If things were as bad in the Lost Lands as he said, then asking the Herdsfolk to give up all their defenses was asking them to commit suicide. But most of the Wildmages left were in the Lost Lands and the High Reaches, and they were going to need them all.

“Would they come here?” Kellen asked. “Men, women, children—and goats?”

“Kellen!” Idalia burst out. “You can’t offer the whole Lost Lands sanctuary in the Elven Lands! You don’t have the power!”

“No,” Kellen agreed. “But I think Andoreniel will agree to offer them safe passage through the Elven Lands, if we ask him to. There’s a lot of unoccupied land between the Elven Border and the Wildwood, and more between the Wildwood and Armethalieh. The, uh, Dark Folk aren’t raiding this far east. Not yet anyway. The noncombatants would be safe—if cold.”

“Cold!” Vestakia scoffed. “This isn’t cold.”

“They would come,” Atroist said with certainty. “To be safe from the Dark Folk—never more to fear the sobbing outside their shutters in the night, nor the sound of wings overhead in the darkness—not to live in terror that any stranger may be one of Them in disguise—Oh, yes, Kellen Knight-Mage, they will come. And gladly.”

ALL that was needed to put Kellen’s plan into operation was to get the request to Andoreniel and receive his permission in return.

Fortunately, he had a fast messenger available, assuming he could talk Jermayan and Ancaladar into it.

The arrival of the dragon at Ondoladeshiron had not caused panic, since Andoreniel had sent messages ahead of time, but Ancaladar’s presence was an occasion of more curiosity than Kellen and Vestakia combined. When Kellen left Idalia’s tent, he realized that Jermayan wasn’t going to be that hard to find.

Jermayan and Ancaladar, making a virtue of the inevitable, had decided to put on a sort of aerial display for the encampment Ancaladar was circling the Gathering Plain, flying low and slow enough for everyone to get a good look at him. Kellen could see the sunlight glint off the dragon’s black scales, and see the blue flash of Jermayan’s armor.

“Idalia—Vestakia—come look! Jermayan’s brought Ancaladar down low enough for everyone to watch!” Kellen called, and the others crowded out of Idalia’s tent to watch.

After a few minutes of circling, dragon and rider soared high into the sky—and there, to Kellen’s astonished delight, Ancaladar performed a series of acrobatics that reminded Kellen of nothing so much as a selkie after a particularly choice fish.

It came to Kellen that what he was watching, however entertaining it looked now, had a grim and entirely serious purpose. These were the battle moves for sky fighting, the forms that Ancaladar would have to use against flying enemies. Jermayan would have to not only remain in the saddle, but be able to cast spells while Ancaladar was performing these maneuvers.

“I hope Jermayan didn’t eat too much breakfast,” Vestakia said, sounding faintly worried as she stared into the sky.

Idalia laughed. “Oh, he wouldn’t make that mistake twice! This is hardly the first time they’ve done this. It’s really quite enjoyable”.

“I don’t think I’d care for it,” Vestakia said firmly.

Kellen glanced at Idalia curiously. She’d ridden Ancaladar? While he and Jermayan were doing something like that?

No, he didn’t want to know. There were some things a man was better off not knowing about his sister. About women in general, probably. Geas or no geas.

“I’m going to go out in the open and see if I can get them to land so I can talk to Jermayan,” Kellen said. “Wish me luck.”

HE suspected that Ancaladar had seen and recognized him, because the dragon landed before Kellen had gotten very far away from the edge of the encampment.

Here there was nothing at all to break the force of the wind, and it cut like a knife of pure ice. Kellen was getting pretty tired of winter already, and Idalia said that there was more to come. Moonturns of it, in fact. No wonder it wasn’t allowed to really penetrate Armethalieh’s defenses against weather!

He bowed to Jermayan as Jermayan vaulted—with the ease of long practice—down from Ancaladar’s back.

“It would be interesting to know when you learned to fly like that,” Kellen said. “The display was most instructive. And I don’t think you’ll get Vestakia anywhere near Ancaladar, after that.”

“I would promise to be good,” the dragon said, sounding faintly hurt.

“I have been practicing,” Jermayan said, obviously pleased. “And it may someday be needful that she ride with us. She is the only one who can tell where the Shadowed Elves lair. If she can do it from the air …”

Then she could cover the ground very fast—faster than on horseback. And a lot more safely.

“You’re the one who’s going to have to convince her, not me,” Kellen said, grinning. “Or maybe you can talk Idalia into helping you. She seems to like flying.”

“Never will she forget that she once had wings of her own,” Jermayan said. “It is a hard loss to bear. I admit I had not thought our display might alarm Vestakia, but Ancaladar thought it best to present himself to everyone at once, so all might know him for what he is immediately. And it is a fine day for flying. The skies are clear, and the winds are relatively calm and steady.”

“And the sky is blue, and the ground is white, and it’s winter, and sooner or later it’s going to snow again,” Kellen agreed. “And as you know perfectly well, I didn’t come out here to talk about the weather, but to tell you how I spent my morning.”

Quickly and concisely, Kellen told Jermayan and Ancaladar about Wildmage Atroist, and the increasing frequency of the Demon raids in the Lost Lands.

“We knew they never stopped raiding there, but lately it’s been getting worse. Atroist says that if they send us any help, they risk stripping themselves of all protection. But we need all the help they can give us.”

“You have a plan,” Jermayan said, studying Kellen’s face. “Leaf and Star deliver us.”

Kellen shrugged. It had seemed like a simple plan when he’d come up with it back in Idalia’s tent, and frankly, he couldn’t see any other way of getting the Lost Lands Wildmages on their side. He took a deep breath.

“Atroist says that he can get them all to come—all the Herdsfolk, with their flocks and herds. If Andoreniel will grant them safe passage through the Elven Lands, they can settle on the other side—in human lands—where They don’t come. Then their Wildmages and fighters will be willing to leave them, knowing they’ll be safe.”

Jermayan took a deep breath, his whole body rigid with something beyond astonishment.

Ancaladar began to laugh.

Jermayan whirled and glared at his friend—Kellen could tell that much from his body language—but Ancaladar simply wouldn’t—or couldn’t—stop laughing. He shook his enormous head from side to side, scraping his chin in the snow, eyes tightly closed in mirth.

At last Jermayan’s shoulders relaxed. He walked over to the twitching dragon and kicked it—gently—in the ankle.

“Very well, my friend. I stand rebuked,” he said to Ancaladar. “Who am I, an Elven Mage, to bridle at the thought of humans within our lands when there are Shadowed Elves beneath them? If it will gain us help in an evil hour, it is foolish to cling to outmoded thoughts and old ways.”

He turned back to Kellen.

“You did not simply come to tell me this, of course,” he said.

“I need someone to go back to Sentarshadeen and ask Andoreniel for the safe conduct,” Kellen said. “You and Ancaladar would be fastest, and I think Andoreniel will listen to you. So I thought I’d come and see if you were willing to go.”

Ancaladar gave a last faint wail of mirth and raised his head from the snow. “Oh, yes. I am willing to go. I want to hear what he says.”

“I see it is settled, then,” Jermayan said. He sighed. “Kellen … I agree that we need their Wildmages. And no one could expect them to abandon their own people to Them. And it is equally true that the most direct route from the Lost Lands into human realms lies through Elven Lands. But I do wish you had found another way.”

With that Jermayan turned back to Ancaladar, stepped up into the saddle, and took off into the sky.

Kellen shook his head. There was something else he was missing here. Probably another ancient Elven tradition that he hadn’t had time to learn.

But Jermayan was right They couldn’t cling to those now. They had to change.

Or die.

JERMAYAN did not return that day, nor was he back by the following morning, when the full army was mustered together on the Gathering Plain, and Kellen saw General Redhelwar, and Rochinuviel, Viceroy of Ondoladeshiron, for the first time. Petariel had told him over morning tea that Redhelwar would be wanting to see both him and Idalia in his tent afterward, as the only ones who had actually seen the enemy up close, in order to plan the actual tactics of the campaign. But this was a purely ceremonial occasion.

Kellen had to admit that the army was an impressive sight. But the Elven destriers—and probably even the unicorns— would be of no use in the caves, and against a Demon attack in force, even this much of an army wouldn’t survive more than minutes. It would take more than physical might to defeat the Demons. And Kellen was coming to think—after what Atroist had told him—that it would take more than magic, too.

Some combination of both that he hadn’t figured out yet, he supposed. Or maybe it was just as simple—and as difficult—as keeping the Demons from getting their hands on whatever objective it was that they thought would guarantee them victory.

Whatever that might be.

REDHELWAR was a grave and imposing figure in scarlet armor, mounted on a destrier whose coat was nearly the same color. Kellen saw him only from a distance, of course, since he stood with the Unicorn Knights. Kellen tried not to think about the fact that Redhelwar’s experience with real war was as theoretical as his own: the Elves had been at peace since the end of the Great War, and certainly for all of Redhelwar’s lifetime. But despite their heritage of peace, Kellen was coming to realize that the Elves were a warrior race, and he already knew they were master strategists. If they could only be weaned from so much love of Tradition!

But if Redhelwar did not approach the Unicorn Knights closely, to Kellen’s great surprise, Rochinuviel did.

The Viceroy of Ondoladeshiron did not wear armor, having instead chosen to don the elaborate jeweled robes of state that Kellen had seen worn in the Council chambers in the House of Leaf and Star. The Viceroy rode a palfrey of dazzling whiteness—not as white as a unicorn, of course, but nearly. When he spoke—a short speech welcoming them to Ondoladeshiron in Andoreniel’s and Ashaniel’s names—Kellen realized that though he’d been automatically thinking of the Viceroy as “he,” Rochinuviel was actually “she,” not “he.” It had been harder than usual to tell, between courtly jewels, winter furs, and the fact that Rochinuviel was not young and—so Kellen was beginning to find—Elves tended to become more androgynous with age.

The Vicereign finished her speech of welcome. Petariel’s mount, a white unicorn named Gesade (white seemed to be the most common color among unicorns), thanked her for her kindness to them. Rochinuviel rode away.

It was all very sedate, and very little like what Kellen had imagined it would be, from the hints he’d gathered around the edges of Master Belesharon’s tales at the House of Sword and Shield. Not that he expected everyone to be enjoying themselves, no, but this was the Mustering of the Army. He’d expected things to be noisier.

“I’ve heard you’re in trouble,” Shalkan said when Rochinuviel was out of earshot.

“I am?” Kellen said, startled. His partner had picked a fine time to mention it.

“You are,” Petariel said, without turning from his position ahead of Kellen. “One hopes you will return from your audience with Redhelwar alive, as your presence is entertaining. One hears, however, that the absence of Jermayan and Ancaladar is because they have gone to Sentarshadeen to negotiate a safe passage through the Elven Lands for the Herdsfolk—all of the Herdsfolk, and their beasts—at your urging.”

“That’s true,” Kellen said. He saw no reason to deny it.

“One observes,” Petariel said, and there was a note of amusement in his voice now, “that no word of this reached your Captain—or the General of the Armies—before the event. Now I forgive a Knight-Mage all,” he went on, holding up a hand, “knowing as I do that you are not truly one of us, Kellen, nor precisely under my command. But one wishes to observe that Redhelwar is from Windalorianan, and has not lately been a part of the great events in Sentarshadeen. He will not yet have had the opportunity to become used to the ways of Knight-Mages.”

Great. In trouble again because I haven’t gone through proper channels.

“Can we watch?” Gesade asked archly.

“No, rude one, we may not watch,” Petariel told his mount firmly. “Kellen will explain his reasoning, and his feeling that speed was of vital necessity in making this information known to Andoreniel. He and Jermayan both acted properly, as Wildmages. It is merely that we are not yet reaccustomed to the ways of Wildmages.”

“I told you that you were in trouble,” Shalkan said.

“Maybe,” Kellen said. He supposed he was in trouble if Redhelwar wanted to make it trouble, and not if not. And Petariel, in the indirect fashion of Elves, had given him all the clues he needed to smooth matters over, assuming he needed them.

BUT when he reached Redhelwar’s tent almost an hour later, after the parade was dismissed and he’d unharnessed Shalkan and located where he was supposed to go, he found that Idalia was there before him, and seemed to have taken care of any feather-smoothing that needed doing.

“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage.”

“I See you, Redhelwar, Army’s General.” Titles were rarely used among the Elves, and in the most formal usage, they were placed last. Shalkan had coached him.

“Be welcome at my hearth. Now come, and tell me everything you know of the enemy we face.”

Kellen stepped into the tent. It was the same shade of red. as Redhelwar’s armor and surcoat—which would have been unsettling without the bright golden light of the lanterns hung throughout—and large enough to hold a great many people. At the center of the tent was a large table, and pinned to it was a detailed map of the Elven Lands and much of the territory beyond. There was the Eastern Ocean. There was Armethalieh, the Wildwoods, the High Reaches …

Kellen looked down at it in delight. He’d learned to read maps at the House of Sword and Shield, but this was the largest and most complete map he’d yet seen. This was the world.

Or at least, if not the world, then a great deal more of it than he had ever seen before.

There was a small red dot in one place on the map.

“This is the location of the one enclave of the Shadowed Elves that we know of,” Redhelwar said. “I have asked Idalia to draw as complete a map of the caverns as she can recall, and I will ask the same of you, so that we know all we can of the terrain before we attack. But she tells me you have actually faced the creatures in battle”.

“Yes,” Kellen said. He concentrated, thinking back. “I got the impression that they were physically not as hardy as we are; but if they have Goblin blood, their fangs or claws might carry poison …”

For the next two hours, Redhelwar questioned Kellen and Idalia closely about their experiences in the caves. Then the noonday meal arrived, and with it Vestakia, escorted by members of Redhelwar’s personal staff.

Kellen still had trouble reading the expressions of Elves when they didn’t want them read. But he thought these two looked … confused.

“Ah,” Redhelwar said, getting to his feet—the three of them had been sitting around the map table—and going over to Vestakia. “Here is the savior of the children of Sentarshadeen, the woman who helped Kellen Wildmage destroy the Barrier that had plunged the Elven Lands into drought. Be welcome, Vestakia, at my hearth.” He took her arm and ushered her into the tent.

Kellen glanced at Idalia. Idalia smirked. It was pretty obvious that that little show hadn’t been for Vestakia’s benefit, but for her escort’s, and it would be all over the camp within minutes, to good effect. If Vestakia had been having any trouble up until now, it had just been thoroughly and effectively quashed. Out here, you couldn’t get patronage with more clout than that of the Commander of the Army.

Vestakia’s escort left, and the service staff set out lunch—bread, soup, and roast fowl—on a second table.

“Thank you,” Vestakia said, looking up at him shyly. “I hope my presence hasn’t caused any—trouble.”

“I will not have trouble in my army,” Redhelwar said firmly. “And you are our greatest asset in this war. Besides,” he added with a faint smile, “no one could doubt one for whom the unicorns have vouched. I was once a Unicorn Knight myself. They would not thank me for doubting them now, and their tongues are as sharp as their horns when they are annoyed. Now come. Eat. I have many questions for you.”

Redhelwar said questions, and he meant exactly that, for this was an army in the field. After the meal was cleared away, he questioned Vestakia until he knew as well as she did the extent and range of her abilities and how they worked.

“It is a pity there is only one of you,” he said when he was satisfied, “for we could surely use more. Idalia does not think her magics will be of use in detecting the lairs of the Shadowed Elves.”

“I can try, of course,” Idalia said. “I’ll ask Atroist to try, too. His powers may have more of an affinity for this sort of work, since the Lostlanders defend against Dark Magic all the time.”

“It will take four days to prepare the army to march. See what you can do in that time,” Redhelwar said. “Meanwhile, take my thanks for all the help you have given me; it is invaluable, for foreknowledge of the enemy is as important as any weapon.”

It was a dismissal, and they took it as such.

OUTSIDE, Kellen began walking Idalia and Vestakia back to their pavilion.

“Shalkan told me I might be in trouble,” he said to Idalia, “but I didn’t see any sign of it. I guess I’ve got you to thank for that?”

“You certainly do,” Idalia said roundly. “If Redhelwar weren’t reasonable—and you weren’t a Knight-Mage—you would have been in real deep trouble.” She shook her head with chagrin. “It’s as much my fault as yours. I was so concerned about the safety of the Herdingfolk that I didn’t even think of that at the time.”

“Military chain of command. You and I were both thinking like civilians. Petariel says that Wildmages are outside it, technically, which means Jermayan won’t be in for any trouble either”—he sighed—“but he and I both have to fight as part of the army, so we’ve got to figure out a way to fit in, and I guess that starts with not stepping on any more toes than necessary. Which means I should have told Redhelwar what I was going to do.”

“If not exactly asked him for permission,” Idalia agreed. “Just so you know, while he’s not thrilled with the Herdingfolk coming through Elven Lands, he agrees that if that’s the only way to gain the help of the Lost Lands Wildmages, it’s the best of our available choices.”

BUT when Jermayan and Ancaladar finally returned, a little before dusk, it was apparent that not everyone shared Redhelwar’s pragmatic outlook on matters.

“The Council … debates,” Jermayan said wearily.

The four friends were seated around the table in Idalia’s pavilion, sharing tea and the contents of a hamper of delicacies that Jermayan had brought from Sentarshadeen. Idalia had already set aside some of the sweet cakes for Kellen to share with Shalkan later.

Kellen took a deep breath. Jermayan raised a minatory hand.

“This time they will not be hurried. You have pushed them a great deal in recent sennights, and preparing for war has taxed their sensibilities to the utmost. This newest matter is the gust of wind that lays bare the tree, and if there is to be any hope of matters going as you would wish it, they must go slowly.”

“But Andoreniel—” Kellen said.

“Sees the wisdom in your plan,” Jermayan said soothingly. “As does Ashaniel. As does Morusil, and even Belesharon, and believe me, his word carries great weight these and others speak as your advocates. But the matter must be thoroughly discussed to be sure that all aspects of the situation are seen.”

Which means that there will probably be Demons walking the streets of Armethalieh before they come to a decision! Kellen thought uncharitably.

“I am sure that Atroist is anxious for word,” Idalia suggested.

“I do not expect it will take more than a moonturn for the Council to provide Andoreniel with the fruits of its deliberations in full, and to provide its own solutions for the problems that it raises. Morusil has made the argument that in leaving the Lostlanders available for Them to prey upon, we are allowing the Enemy a source of strength and provision which it would be well to deny to Them. I believe that line of reasoning will influence the Council in the end. Meanwhile, we have battles of our own to fight.”

FOUR days later, the Elven army marched on the cavern of the Shadowed Elves.

Idalia had done her best to try to detect other encampments of the creatures using the Wild Magic, but had had no more luck than on previous occasions, and Vestakia’s power did not work at any great distance.

Atroist had made the attempt as well, both using the scrying bowl, and using an instrument new to Kellen and Idalia, something he called a hanging-crystal. When not in use, he wore it on a cord about his neck: it looked to Kellen like a clear, teardrop-shaped keystone, the narrow end wrapped with silver wire to make a loop for the cord to pass through.

But apparently it could be used to find things.

Atroist demonstrated in Idalia’s pavilion. It found, in succession, a set of her hair combs, Kellen’s dagger, and a pair of Vestakia’s gloves, all hidden in various places about the tent as a test. When the crystal was working, it would point directly toward the object, even if it had to hover horizontally at the end of its cord to do so.

Then they turned to the map. Without difficulty, and with perfect accuracy, the hanging crystal located Ondoladeshiron, Sentarshadeen, Armethalieh, and the Wildwood.

But it was completely unable to locate any of the Shadowed Elf enclaves, even the one they already knew about.

“Well,” Idalia said with a sigh, “we tried. I guess it’s up to you, Vestakia.”

Vestakia nodded grimly. None of them were happy about this, but none of them were surprised, either.

Just once, Kellen thought, as he made his way back to his tent, just once it would be so nice to be pleasantly surprised about something in this war.

THE Elven Knights of five cities marched in force, though not all of them would make the descent into the caverns. Once the caverns themselves had been cleansed, Kellen knew, Redhelwar intended to reclaim the bodies of their fallen comrades and fellow Elves lost in the attack upon the caravan from Sentarshadeen.

The Unicorn Knights rode nearly a mile ahead of the main army, functioning as its scouts and trailblazers, following a trail Kellen had last ridden less than two moonturns before.

At the end of six days of traveling, the Unicorn Knights reached the battlefield. They’d seen no sign of coldwarg, ice-trolls, or frost-giants, and Ancaladar had reported that the skies were clear of Deathwings. From here it was only two days to the Shadowed Elf caverns, at the speed the army traveled.

To the unaided eye, everything was pure and pristine, the bodies buried beneath several feet of new snow, but no one thought of it that way. This was a haunted place, drenched in blood and sorrow, and would remain so forever in the memories of the Elves.

Ancaladar and Jermayan circled low over the field, the wind from the dragon’s wings stirring the loose surface-snow into dancing veils. A second circle, and Ancaladar headed westward again.

“It looks as if they’ll find us a place to lay our heads tonight,” Gesade said, stretching out her long elegant neck and shaking it. “Useful things, dragons.”

“I have never said dragons weren’t useful,” Petariel said to his mount. “And if you could fly, Gesade, there’s a faint possibility you might someday be of some use as well.”

The unicorn snorted and did not reply.

THE campsite Jermayan and Ancaladar had found was, Kellen judged—perhaps three hours’ ride from the caverns, in a sheltered valley surrounded by towering pines. It was a large enough open space to hold their entire force, and far enough away from the cavern that their arrival should not alert the Shadowed Elves.

Once the army and the supply train arrived, and the camp was in place, Redhelwar called his commanders—and Vestakia and the Wildmages—to the command tent to make his final dispositions for the attack, and to make certain that all the commanders had the opportunity to review the maps that Kellen and Idalia had prepared.

Vestakia would be going into the caverns with them. Kellen was worried about that. While Tandarion had made her a fine suit of Elven armor to protect her—with goldwashed vermilion enameling the precise shade of her skin— she did not have either fighting skills or Wildmagery to protect her further.

But she was the only one who could sense the presence of the Shadowed Elves.

Being able to see in the caverns was the major problem. Idalia and Atroist had bespelled all the tarnkappa so that they granted darksight, but they had only a couple of dozen of them; such things were major Workings, and even with so many willing to share the Mageprice, there had been a limited amount of time to make them. And the problem with tarnkappa was that they concealed you from friend as well as foe.

Lanterns and torches were a possibility. But they could be easily extinguished by the enemy.

“Magelight,” Idalia said. “It’s a simple spell, and not very costly. And nobody will have to worry about carrying lanterns, either.”

“Magelight?” Atroist asked, looking puzzled.

“This,” Jermayan said. He cupped his hands, holding them a little apart. The space between them grew misty, then began to glow, and in seconds he was holding a small blue ball of light. He spread his hands, and it floated up over his head.

“Ah,” Atroist said. “In the Lost Lands, we call that Coldfire. Yes, Idalia, an elegant solution.”

“It would be well to know that enough can be made in time,” Redhelwar said.

“It can be done,” Jermayan said. “I will do it, so that there is no cost. There will be prices enough to pay for all by the time we are done.”

ANCALADAR had told them that the Shadowed Elves moved by night, so Redhelwar made plans for a midmorning attack, hoping to take them by surprise. Ancaladar said there were only two ways into the caverns—the way he and Kellen had taken to rescue Idalia, and the way she had taken to bring out the children. Based on the descriptions of both, Redhelwar elected to send the army in through the latter. Jermayan and Ancaladar would go around by the “back way,” meeting up with the main force as quickly as they could.

Redhelwar elected to divide his force into four groups: one, the main force that would enter the caverns and mount the attack. Two, a small force that would wait just outside the cavern mouth to secure it Three, a mobile force situated halfway between the caverns and the camp to secure the line of retreat, and which could be called up quickly at need. And four, a sufficient force left behind to guard the camp in case the Enemy was only waiting for them to leave to attack it.

Considering the information they had available—which was very little—Kellen could find no fault with Redhelwar’s dispositions. He thought it would be more tactful to keep quiet about that fact, though.

THEY left the camp an hour after sunrise, heading for the caverns. Each of them had a ball of Coldfire hovering over his or her head like a peculiar nimbus, the radiance only a faint shimmer in the winter sunlight It would remain until Jennayan—or another Wildmage—dispersed it again.

Kellen was grateful that Shalkan didn’t ask him if he was nervous. He hardly knew whether he was or not. His mind was filled with everything that could go wrong and a dull frustration that he hadn’t thought of suggesting that someone—him—do a thorough scouting expedition of the caverns before they went in with their entire force.

But pulling back now would do more harm than good; what information they might gain would be offset by the damage to the morale of the army. And deep down, Kellen wasn’t entirely certain that Redhelwar would have taken his suggestion.

That was the real problem. The Elves honored him. They respected him. But Kellen didn’t set policy for the Nine Cities. He didn’t plan strategy for the army. And he didn’t have a real voice in the tactics it would use.

Yet.

Yet?

The sudden thought—no, realization—startled him so much that he tensed all over. Shalkan craned his head around to gaze curiously at him, but Kellen shook his head wordlessly, and Shalkan went back to gazing at the path ahead.

Yes, yet. There would come a time—there needed to come a time—when the army did what Kellen said, not what Redhelwar said. But—he remembered the lesson of the Crowned Horns—you couldn’t command that sort of trust. You needed to earn it.

He needed to earn it.

And fast.

Then Andoreniel would give him the army. Redhelwar would step aside without anger. The army would follow him.

If he was good enough. If he could prove he could lead an army, and keep it alive, and win. If he could prove that being a Knight-Mage made him understand strategy as instinctively as he understood fighting one-on-one.

One single moment of blind panic touched him. I don’t know how to do that!

But he did. Gan had taught him. Xaqiue had taught him. Master Belesharon’s story songs had taught him. Win a battle. Command a troop—and win. Command a larger detachment—and win.

Win, always. Plan—and show them his plans were better than theirs. And make the Elves see him as a Knight-Mage first, and a young human second. Better yet, get to the point where they looked at him and saw only the Knight-Mage, and the young human not at all.

And the first thing he needed to do to accomplish all that was to get through today.

“Here we are,” Shalkan said.

The Unicorn Knights who had been chosen for the assault had ridden a little ahead of the main body of fighters. Now they dismounted to allow their mounts to get clear of the main army.

The cavern mouth was empty, and there were no footprints on the snow that lay before it. Kellen shifted to battle-sight for a moment, but saw no sign of a trap.

That didn’t make a lot of sense. The Shadowed Elves must know their lair had been discovered. Any sensible. creature would have posted guards, or blocked the entrance somehow.

But they hadn’t.

“Is everything well?” Petariel asked.

“Much too well,” Kellen answered grimly. “It’s as if they can’t imagine we could possibly ever come back.”

“Maybe they left,” Petariel suggested. “Vestakia will tell us soon enough.”

Adaerion was at the head of the force that arrived a few moments later. Redhelwar was waiting with the mobile force—the General of the army was too valuable to lose. Vestakia rode beside him, and Kellen could tell with just one look at her posture—uncomfortably hunched over—that the Shadowed Elves had not left.

“They’re still there,” he said.

“Ah,” Petariel said, following the direction of Kellen’s gaze. “Well, I should hate to have ridden all this way for nothing.”

THEY formed up in the way they had planned at the War Council the night before. Kellen and an Elf called Celegaer, Adaerion’s lieutenant, would go first, with Vestakia and Idalia directly behind them. Vestakia would give warning the moment she sensed the presence of the Shadowed Elves.

“Leaf and Star be with you all,” Adaerion said gravely.

Kellen nodded, forcing himself to wait until Celegaer took the first step toward the cavern before following. He kept himself from looking toward Vestakia and Idalia—or any of his comrades from the House of Sword and Shield. Barring a miracle, this was the last time some of them would see the light of day. This was a war. Fighters died in war.

Get used to it.

Kellen walked into the dark.

The Magelight seemed to glow brighter the further they went along the passage, until it was the only illumination. The Elves moved silently, but he could hear the faint rustle of Idalia’s clothing, and every sound that Vestakia’s armor made.

Suddenly Vestakia gave a gagging whimper. “They’re here—ahead—” she choked out.

“The passage widens just ahead,” Kellen said quickly to Celegaer. “Hurry—we can’t let them trap us here!”

Without waiting to hear Celegaer’s reply, he ran forward.

At the end of the passageway, wider corridors opened out to the left and right, just as Idalia had described. They were crowded with the Shadowed Elves—too many to easily count—and this time the creatures were armed, not to capture a dragon, but to fight.

The Shadowed Elves wore bits and pieces of looted armor lashed to their bodies with strips of leather. But ragged and mismatched as their armor was, their weaponry was in gleaming earnest. Swords and shields—spears—

And bows.

Kellen dropped into battle-mind. Without thought, he raised his shield, and the first of the small deadly arrows fired out of the dark glanced off it.

The Shadowed Elves swarmed—there was no other word to describe their movement—forward. They obviously didn’t like the light, but they weren’t blinded by it as some of the Elves had hoped. Kellen cut down the creatures before him and pressed forward, he and Celegaer trying to clear the way for the Elves that were moving up behind them.

But he quickly realized that their tactics weren’t working.

Individually the Shadowed Elves were comparatively frail. But they were attacking in enormous numbers, taking advantage of the cramped tunnels—and what was worse, they weren’t limited to the floor of the caverns.

They climbed along the walls and ceiling, dropping into the middle of their foes to bear the Elves down by sheer weight of numbers. By ones and twos it was nothing to kill them, but they weren’t attacking by ones and twos.

Kellen fought on, moving deeper into the right-hand cavern at the spearhead of a group of Knights. Up ahead, the Shadowed Elf archers were firing with deadly accuracy. He could see the arrows glowing dull green in his battle-sight, and knew from that that the arrows were poisoned. He would have shouted a warning, but it would have gone unheard. The cavern was filled with the screams of the injured; the clash of weapons; and the hoarse howls and barking of the Shadowed Elves. Kellen shut out the noise and concentrated on his task.

Cut, step, turn, and cut again. Block, attack, dodge. Celegaer was on his left, another Knight was at his back. One of the Shadowed Elves dropped down on him from above. Kellen grunted, bending forward with the impact, turning the move into a forward throw to dislodge the creature.

He felt the wind of an arrow pass his cheek. There was a muffled grunt behind him. Kellen heard—and felt—the Elven Knight fall to the floor of the cavern and die.

He killed the creature on the ground and moved forward.

At last the Elves’ superior battle skills and heavier, more effective armor turned the tide. The battlefield opened up, and it soon became a matter of keeping the Shadowed Elves from escaping, and then it came to executing the enemy wounded and checking the dead.

And that was when Kellen found himself just standing there, sword hanging from his limp grip, staring at an empty tunnel.

“Kellen.” Celegaer laid a gentle hand upon his shoulder. “Go back and rest for a moment. Then ask Idalia if Vestakia is well enough to come forward.”

Kellen blinked, feeling almost as if he were rousing from a deep sleep. He nodded, and turned away.

He had to move carefully through the piles of corpses, and the stone was slick with blood. It soaked the bodies lying in it, staining them all, Elf and Shadowed Elf alike, the same terrible scarlet color. The blue globes of Coldfire—so many, in such a confined space—made the scene shadowless and stark.

Grief and shame hovered over the battlefield like carrion birds. Kellen had expected the grief—there were too many Elven dead, and he knew that soon he would be mourning the loss of friends—but shame? He did not understand. They’d fought well. They’d won. There was no cause for shame.

Was there?

At the end of the corridor he found Petariel. The Captain of the Unicorn Knights had been wounded: a spear had taken him just behind the knee, at one of the weak points of the Elven armor. He leaned against the wall, a makeshift bandage over his wound, his helmet beneath his arm.

And to Kellen’s astonishment, he was weeping.

“Oh, Kellen, our poor cousins. Leaf and Star, that we should be driven to this—!” Petariel said.

Kellen had no idea what he meant, but there would be time later to figure it out. “Come on,” he said, getting an arm under Petariel’s shoulders. “Let’s get you out of here. Gesade and Shalkan both would have my head if I let anything happen to you.”

Petariel laughed raggedly, but it ended on a strangled sob. “The worst has already happened,” he said softly.

Kellen half-carried Petariel back up the passageway. He felt a deep pang of relief to see Idalia and Vestakia both there, unhurt—and quickly focused all of his attention on Petariel, lest his worry for Vestakia’s safety turn into something he must not feel right now.

“Ah, another one,” Idalia said lightly. “The stretcherbearers will be back in just a moment.”

“I can walk,” Petariel said grimly.

“No you can’t,” Idalia said firmly. “Not if you want to be riding again soon.”

Kellen helped Petariel to lie down among the other wounded. There were several Healers working in the narrow space, and a constant stream of the walking wounded were moving out toward the open air.

Everything was moving so slowly! But that was why the Shadowed Elves didn’t bother with guards, Kellen now realized. They were sure no one could attack them in force.

Once he was sure his emotions were under control, he risked a glance at Vestakia.

Vomit stained the front of her surcoat, and she knelt beside Idalia, obviously dazed and exhausted by the presence of so much Taint. Kellen sighed reluctantly.

“Celegaer needs Vestakia,” he said to Idalia.

“Now?” Idalia asked.

“I’m ready,” Vestakia said valiantly, raising her head. There were deep shadows beneath her eyes, and she looked haggard.

“Not yet. Soon. He told me to rest,” Kellen added, trying to make a joke of it.

“As if you would,” Idalia said, handing him a waterskin. “Are you hurt?”

Kellen shook his head, and drank. The water was warm, but it was unicorn-pure. He felt better afterward.

“I think they threw most of what they had at us. Some of them got away, though. We’ll have to find them,” Kellen said.

“That will be my job,” Vestakia said bravely.

“Come on, then,” Kellen said gruffly, sounding far more brusque than he wanted to. But he couldn’t help it. He felt as if he had no energy to spare for anything.

Idalia and Vestakia followed him back into the cavern.

Celegaer and several of the others were waiting for them just past the end of the bodies. All of them had the faintly stunned air of grief about them that Kellen had noticed before.

“Vestakia,” Celegaer said, seeing her. “Are you well?”

“Well enough to do what you ask of me,” Vestakia answered steadily.

“Then find our foe,” Celegaer said.

Without hesitation, Vestakia pointed—not along the corridor, but at the corridor wall.

“The corridor curves,” Idalia said. “That’s the direction of the cavern village. There will be females and young there,” she warned.

“We can leave none alive,” Celegaer said wearily.

“I know,” Idalia said gently.

“Celegaer,” Kellen said. “If I can suggest … now we know where the village is, and Vestakia is too valuable to risk. Send her outside to wait with Adaerion until we think we have cleared the cavern, then bring her in to check to see if we have missed anyone.”

“No!” Vestakia protested.

“Yes,” Celegaer said. “An excellent suggestion, Kellen. Padredor, escort Mistress Vestakia back to Adaerion, and order the rest of the knights to come forward. Idalia Wildmage, will you also withdraw?”

“No,” Idalia said, taking a moment to consider. “I think I can be useful here.”

Chapter Fourteen

Blood and Sorrow

SOON THEY WERE moving forward again. Only about half their original force remained. There were not many dead, considering the savagery of the battle, but there were many wounded, and though some of the wounds were minor, Celegaer had not wanted to take wounded Elves into battle.

We’re too spread out, and there’s no way to avoid it in these tunnels. All the advantage is theirs, Kellen thought. We’re going to have to figure out how to fight this kind of battle—fast—in order to win it.

At last the tunnel widened out into the great cavern that Idalia had described, with the narrow pathway leading around the rim, and the stairs going down to the village below. The cavern was so vast that the Coldfire coronas of the assembled army did nothing more than light their immediate surroundings. All they could see of what was below was the faint glow of the central firepit.

With a flick of her hand, Idalia sent her ball of Coldfire out to hover over the cavern. The light was faint, but enough to show that the crude stone village below was silent and still.

“Ambush,” Kellen said with utter certainty.

“You can sense them?” Celegaer asked with surprise.

“No,” Kellen said. “But I know they’re waiting for us all the same. Or waiting for us to go away”.

“Either course would gain them a victory, of a sort,” Celegaer answered. “So we go down. But not unwarily. Archers—to the rim.”

Once the archers were in place, the Elven Knights began descending the stair. It would have been the perfect place for an ambush, but the Shadowed Elves did not take advantage of it. When the first group of Elves was at the bottom of the staircase, their combined Coldfire illuminated the cavern, giving Kellen a good look at it for the first time.

It was as large as Merryvale—the entire village could have been dropped down neatly inside it, walls and all. There were scattered small huts, and along the cavern wall, Kellen could see holes—they reminded him uncomfortably of very large rat-holes—in the rock.

The Elves stood, silent, motionless.

What are they waiting for? Kellen wondered. He wasn’t looking forward to this any more than they were, but it wouldn’t get any easier—or any better—if they waited.

And where were Jermayan and Ancaladar?

He looked toward Celegaer.

Celegaer met his gaze, and there was despair in the black eyes. After a moment, Celegaer spoke.

“Search every structure, every hole. Find them all, down to the smallest infant. Kill them all. No survivors. No prisoners.” The Elven commander’s voice was harsh.

He turned away, striding toward the nearest hut.

The Elves fanned out, spreading across the cavern floor.

For a moment there was silence.

Then Celegaer screamed, and the cavern exploded in a harsh babble of barks and whines.

Kellen ran in the direction of the scream. He was too late. Celegaer was dead, his face and the front of his armor eaten away by a liquid thrown at him by a Shadowed Elf female who had just come out of the stone hut. The archers on the rim had filled her body with arrows, but they had been too late to save their commander.

Celegaer’s troops were staring down at him in shock and horror.

“Search the hut!” Kellen ordered. “Keep your shields forward—we know they use poison as a weapon—now we know they use acid, too.”

He moved on quickly, heading for the next hut. The doorway was low; he had to duck to get inside.

It was one room, windowless, and it stank. It contained a pile of furs and three small children.

I can’t do this, Kellen thought in sick horror. He knew they weren’t children—they were Shadowed Elves—but they were young things. Very young. They hissed at him, cringing back from the light.

Then suddenly all three of them shrieked and sprang at him. There was no fear in their bulging pale eyes, only the berserker madness of cornered rats. They swarmed up his body, scrabbling for every purchase, clawing and biting at everything they could reach.

Reflexively, Kellen knocked them away, but they kept coming back. He could see their glistening, needlelike teeth, smell their rank, poison-tainted breath. No matter how many times he flung them away from him, they sprang up and lunged for him again.

Then one of them pulled Kellen’s dagger free of its sheath.

It was an Elven dagger, made of deadly Elvensteel and designed to pierce any opening or weakness in the Elven armor’s defenses. Seeing the length of gleaming steel in the young thing’s hands made all of his battle-honed instincts rouse at once. They weren’t children anymore—they were the enemy.

With a gasping cry, he struck the Shadowed Elf child as hard as he could, then grabbed the other two and flung them against the walls of the hut, stunning them.

Then he took his sword and killed them all.

Bile rose in his throat as he retrieved his dagger, and Kellen breathed deeply, trying to center himself again. But the self-forgiveness he sought would not come. He had killed children. How could he accept that?

I will have to find a way. Or not. And whether I can or not, finding out if I can will have to wait. Because my comrades are dying now.

Gritting his teeth, Kellen left the hut.

All around him, the battle was going badly. There weren’t as many of the enemy this time, but the Elves were taking terrible losses. They simply couldn’t bring themselves to attack and kill what they saw—despite everything—as women and children.

And it was costing them dearly.

Suddenly the cavern was ablaze with light—as bright as the noonday sun at midsummer. Kellen looked up, and saw that the entire roof of the cavern was glowing with bright blue Coldfire.

Jermayan and Ancaladar had arrived.

“Pull back. I’m going to burn the huts.” Jermayan’s voice spoke quietly, as if in his ear, and Kellen could tell by the startled expressions on the faces of the Elves that everyone else had heard it too. They began to retreat.

But it was easier asked than done, especially when they had to protect their wounded and recover their dead, and it was several minutes of hard and bloody fighting before that could be accomplished.

The Shadowed Elves fought viciously, as much like animals—or insects—as like thinking beings. They did not seem to care if they sacrificed any of their own—down to the smallest infant—if it brought them a greater chance of killing one of the Elves. In cold disbelief, Kellen saw the Shadowed Elf archers using their own young as shields, saw children younger than the ones he’d killed springing upon Elven warriors, armed with jars of acid like the one that had killed Celegaer. He dragged one of the Elves out of the way just in time, striking his young attacker dead. The spilled liquid fumed and bubbled over the corpse, smoking and stinking.

The Elves were barely clear of the huts, fighting their way toward the staircase, when suddenly every stone structure within the cavern save for the staircase burst into flame.

That isn’t possible, thought Kellen in awe. Any Wildmage or High Mage could summon Fire—but only to burn what would burn naturally. But this … ? The stone itself was burning as if it were seasoned wood drenched in lamp oil. In seconds, a roaring wall of heat separated the combatants from their prey.

Shadowed Elves—bodies aflame—ran from some of the huts, only to be cut down by the archers, in mercy.

The Shadowed Elves who had not been in the huts were trapped by the walls of flame. Their response to the sudden wave of magic was one of utter terror. The archers who had been holding living shields threw them down and tried to flee, but there was nowhere to go, save into the Elven army.

It was no longer a battle, but a massacre. Some of the Shadowed Elves ran toward the flames. Kellen saw females grab struggling children and throw them into burning huts, the structures already collapsing into ash. The archers shot all they could before the flames took them.

It was over quickly. The huts were gone, the stone burned away to ash. A wall of icy air filled the cavern, wiping away the furnace heat. The stone floor creaked and groaned, forced to cool as quickly as it had been heated.

Ancaladar launched himself from the rim of the cavern, landing in the now-empty space.

Kellen glanced around quickly, feeling a deep pang of relief to see that Idalia was still on her feet, though her garments were tattered and blood-soaked and her face was grim.

All of the Elves looked stunned. They’d won the battle, but at a terrible cost, both physical and spiritual.

Which is what Shadow Mountain wants, Kellen realized with a flash of insight. THAT’S what this war is about. It’s just another kind of drought. The last one starved the land. This one starves the spirit.

Realizing that, he felt his own soul-sickness ease. He’d hated what he’d done here today with all his being. But it had been necessary. The Shadowed Elves were Demonic in nature. They were creatures of the Endarkened, created as a trap for the creatures of the Light. To show them mercy would be to doom the Light.

I pity them, because I think they have no choice to be other than what they are. And I forgive them, because they have no choice. But I have a choice to fight for what I think is right, and I also forgive myself for making it.

But the Elves—oh, it was different for them. Not only had they been killing women and children, they had been killing kin. Blood of their blood. Tainted, but still their own.

I have to figure out how to take that guilt away from them …

Kellen took a few steps toward Jermayan and Ancaladar.

“It took you long enough,” Kellen said. He could sense the tension of the Elves—normal Wildmagery was one thing, but what they’d just seen went far beyond that.

“We were hunting Shadowed Elves,” Ancaladar said in his deep soft voice. “And a way here that I could pass through was hard to find.”

Jermayan was looking past Kellen, searching the armored figures for familiar forms. He came over to Kellen.

“Celegaer?” he asked in a low voice.

“Dead,” Kellen said. “Vestakia is waiting outside with Adaerion and the reserves. We didn’t want to risk her.”

“Better she not see … this,” Jermayan said grimly.

“Kellen,” Idalia said, coming up. Her voice echoed in the empty space. “I hate to say this, but … Celegaer is dead, Padredor is badly wounded, and so is Tinbendon. They can’t find Perchalas. And you’re a Knight-Mage.”

Kellen looked from Jermayan to Idalia, not understanding.

“You are the ranking officer able to command,” Jermayan said quietly. “What do we do?”

He’d wanted the job. He just hadn’t expected to get it now.

“Can you widen the steps to the surface? We need to transport the dead and wounded,” he said.

“He doesn’t ask much, does he?” Ancaladar commented.

“Yes,” Jermayan said, answering Kellen.

Jermayan stretched out his hand. And the steps … blurred.

For a moment Kellen thought there must be something wrong with his vision. But when it steadied again, he could see that the steps were wider than before, as broad and easy as any grand staircase in a High Mage’s house.

Kellen stared at Jermayan and Ancaladar, his emotions in turmoil. Awe, yes, and not a little fear. Not of his friends, but … this was power but of legend, out of wondertales.

“It comes at a price,” Jermayan said quietly.

“Yes,” Kellen said. If no other price than the price of being set apart from everything normal and familiar by living in a world you could reshape with a thought.

“Cover our retreat,” he said to Jermayan and Ancaladar. “Then get out yourselves. I think we got them all, but we won’t know until Vestakia tells us.”

He turned and went back to the others.

“Gather up the dead. Prepare the wounded for transport. We’re leaving.”

Kellen had learned by watching that a good commander gave an order and left the details to his subordinates. He did nothing to interfere with the arrangements for departure. He was busy enough helping to bandage the wounded. Neither he nor Idalia dared to risk any healings—though everyone there would have been willing to share the price, they had been fighting all day, and it would have been cruel to ask it, nor did either Wildmage dare to risk deeper exhaustion and incurring Magedebt themselves.

But Jermayan was not so bound. He moved among the injured, Healing the worst of the injuries until Kellen saw him stagger with weariness as he rose from beside a supine body.

A dragon’s power might be inexhaustible. But a Mage was not

“Stop it,” Kellen said quietly, going over and putting a hand under Jermayan’s arm. “We need you to be able to fight if you have to. That’s more important.”

“More important than their lives?” Jermayan demanded in an anguished whisper.

“They’ll be with the Healers soon,” Kellen said. “And if you cannot fight when we need you, we may all die.”

He did not know where the words were coming from. They were harsh and brutal, but they seemed to be the right thing to say, for Jermayan nodded slowly and walked back to where Ancaladar waited.

The Elves began moving up the newly-broadened staircase, carrying those too injured to walk—and the dead—in makeshift slings formed of cloaks and surcoats.

They carried the Shadowed Elf dead with them as well, all that they had been able to recover. Kellen was surprised at that, but had said nothing. He would never, he realized, truly understand the Elves, even if he lived among them for the rest of his life.

Kellen was the last up the stairs. At the top he stopped and looked back. The cavern was utterly empty save for Jermayan and Ancaladar, and a fine coating of grey ash upon the floor.

IT was twilight by the time Kellen stepped into the open air again. The corridors through which he had passed had been utterly empty. The Elves and the Shadowed Elves were gone, and only spilled blood remained.

The army had moved more slowly as the corridor narrowed, and the slower Kellen moved, the more it seemed he could feel exhaustion dragging at his limbs. When they reached the narrow corridor to the outside, he simply stopped, leaning against the wall and resting until Idalia came back for him.

“We thought you might have gotten lost,” she said, handing him a wooden cup.

Kellen shook his head wordlessly. The cup held hot cider. He drained it in a few quick gulps.

“Vestakia?” he asked.

“She doesn’t sense any Taint from where she is, which is good. Redhelwar wants her to go down to be sure, but that can wait until tomorrow, if you agree.”

If I agree? When had Redhelwar started consulting him?

“She doesn’t sense anything? How close is she?” Kellen asked.

“Right outside,” Idalia said. “She said she could feel it when …” Idalia stopped.

“When we’d killed all of them down in the cavern,” Kellen said gently. “Maybe she should go up to the other entrance now and check there, just to be sure. But I don’t think any of them ran.”

“Come on, then. You’ll need to make your report.”

THE reserve force had been brought up, and transport wagons were being used to carry away the wounded. The dead, to whom time no longer mattered, lay in neat rows in the snow, waiting to be carried away in their turn. Kellen looked away—there would be time enough later to find out who had died today.

Globes of Coldfire, interspersed with more conventional lanterns, flickered over the landscape, lending the twilight an ethereal, insubstantial quality, as if he were in a waking dream—or a nightmare.

Idalia led him toward Redhelwar. The general was seated on his bay destrier, Vestakia at his side on a cream palfrey. Her eyes widened in horror at the sight of him.

“I will not ask you for a detailed report now, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Redhelwar said, “but I will need a preliminary one.”

“We entered the cavern village,” Kellen said. “It was occupied by females and young, as well as by the survivors of the first attack—mostly archers, I think. They hid until we entered the village and started going into the huts. They attacked us with acid and poison weapons. Jermayan and Ancaladar arrived and set fire to the village, and we … did what we’d set out to do. Celegaer is dead, two of his lieutenants were badly injured, and the third is missing. So we left.”

Redhelwar nodded. “Do you believe that more of the creatures may be in hiding elsewhere in the caverns?” he asked.

“No,” Kellen said, shaking his head. “You didn’t see how they came after us. I’m sorry, but … I don’t think any of them wanted to get away from the fight, except at the very end, and then they couldn’t. But I’d like Vestakia to go up to the other entrance—the one that Ancaladar uses—and see what she can sense there, just to be sure.”

“Yes. Best to be as sure as we can without going back inside tonight. Arambor, find horses for the Wildmages, and gather a party.”

While the horses were being brought, Kellen took the opportunity to clean the worst of the blood from his sword. It felt good to be able to sheathe it again. He wished Shalkan could be with him, but that simply wasn’t possible.

The horses were led forward—Idalia had her own palfrey, but the mare brought for Kellen—a dapple grey with a white mane and tail—was a stranger to him. He took a moment to stroke her neck reassuringly before swinging into the saddle, blessing all those hours of lessons with Deyishene.

“Her name is Mindaerel,” Redhelwar said. “She has lost a friend this day.” He paused, and added heavily, “As have we all. Celegaer was her rider.”

Kellen nodded. He’d seen the closeness of the bond between Jermayan and Valdien, more like that between dog and master than between horse and rider. What would happen to all the Elven warhorses bereft of their closest companions by the battle today?

He urged Mindaerel forward. To his relief, she obeyed without hesitation. If she was in some form of equine mourning, she didn’t show it. Unbidden, the thought came to him. She is a warrior too …

He dropped into battle-mind easily, scanning the terrain ahead for any sign of ambush, and saw nothing. When they were still half a mile from the cave opening, he saw Ancaladar push himself out through it, springing upward into the sky. Kellen waved, hailing the pair, and Ancaladar dipped a wing in reply.

The small party reached the cliff face. High above, there was a dragon-sized opening in the sheer, ice-covered expanse of rock.

“Anything?” Kellen asked.

Vestakia concentrated. She looked as if she were listening very hard, although listening was not precisely what she was doing.

“Nothing,” Vestakia said after a long pause. She burst into tears, and Idalia moved to comfort her.

IT was nearly midnight by the time Kellen was able to settle into his tent at last. He wasn’t alone; Shalkan had joined him, as much for emotional support as because it was freezing outside. Kellen was happy to have him there for both reasons; the unicorn’s body helped raise the temperature in the tent appreciably.

Kellen had discussed the day’s events with his friend already, settling them in his mind so that he could work through them when there was leisure to (if there ever was), but a few things still puzzled him.

“Shalkan, what did the Elves do with all those bodies—the Shadowed Elf ones, I mean? They went to so much trouble to get them—they brought all of them out of the caverns and back here; I saw them. But later, they’d disappeared.”

The unicorn snorted gently, and snuggled closer to Kellen. “They did with them just what they did with their own dead. They took them into the forest and suspended them in the trees. You can go and see tomorrow if you like.”

Kellen twitched. “No, thanks. But why?”

“You have to think like an Elf. If they buried them, it would shut the spirit away from the wind and the sun. If they burned them … well, that would be rather hard on the trees that were felled to make the pyres. And if they floated them down rivers, it would take their dead far away from home and hearth.

“As for why they’re treating the Shadowed Elves the same way they’re treating their own dead … well, you saw how they acted today.”

“Yes. It was”—Kellen groped for words—“strange. I didn’t understand it. Surely they realize that the Shadowed Elves aren’t really Elves!”

Shalkan made a “hrumphing” noise. “What if Idalia did something really horrible?”

“But she wouldn’t!” Kellen protested automatically.

“But imagine if she did. How would you feel?”

Kellen thought about it. First he had to imagine Idalia being somebody else entirety—but feeling just the same way about her. Then he imagined her doing something awful.

“I guess I’d feel … but I still don’t …” he faltered.

“To you, the Shadowed Elves are creatures of the Dark. To the Elves, they are Elves—debased, Tainted, and twisted, but Elves nonetheless. Nothing you or I or anyone else can say or do will change that feeling. And so they feel responsible.”

“Which is just what They want,” Kellen said, feeling sick.

“I know,” Shalkan answered.

THE following day, Kellen and a party of Elves entered the caverns once more, Vestakia in the lead. This time Redhelwar accompanied them—it was necessary, the Elven general said, to see firsthand the terrain over which he would be sending armies to fight in the future.

Once more Jermayan and Ancaladar entered the caverns from the other direction. The two groups met at the site of the village cavern.

The Coldfired ceiling still burned brightly over the cavern where the village had been. Eventually it would go out by itself if Jermayan did not extinguish it, but Coldfire—or Magelight—was such a simple spell that such castings were often left to run out by themselves. Redhelwar looked down into the cavern in silence.

Vestakia shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, sounding relieved.

By the end of the day they had explored a great deal of the cave system. They found several more areas that the Shadowed Elves had used for various purposes—storerooms, larders, middens—but no further sign of the creatures themselves. And, thankfully, no prisoners. Kellen didn’t think that anything could be held prisoner here for long and still be sane. At last everyone agreed that this cavern system was empty of Shadowed Elves.

“And now,” Redhelwar said, “we must find their next lair.”

“A message has come from Andoreniel in Sentarshadeen,” Grander said. “Marlen, Sarlin, Erlock, Jarel, you must go to the other households today, and tell them there will be a Council at the Meeting House tonight.”

“A message?” Cilarnen asked. “How could a message come now?” Not only had it been snowing for some time—and Centaurs, as he already knew, did not think winter a suitable time for traveling—but a messenger would have come first to Grander’s house, and Grander would have insisted on feeding him, and Cilarnen saw no stranger faces gathered around the table for the noonday meal.

“What bird flies in winter?” Sarlin answered gaily, and the others laughed.

If Elves never asked questions—and Cilarnen realized, thinking back, that Hyandur had never asked him a single question on the entire journey to Stonehearth—the beastfolk seemed to more than make up for it, and worse, think a question was as good as an answer.

It was only one of their many annoying qualities.

Cilarnen knew he’d been very lucky to be taken in at Stonehearth. Winter without weather-spells to tame it was a terrifying thing. Without Grander’s kindness—yes, kindness, and charity, too—he would be dead by now.

But while he could manage to be polite, he could not manage to feel gratitude.

What made it worse was that he knew that the beastfolk were treating him far better than the Armethaliehans would have treated one of them if the situation were reversed. He was honest enough to admit that, even if he refused to say it aloud. Grander had even helped him barter his few personal possessions—his signet ring, his gold-and-sapphire chain, his pencase and penknife, and the handful of silver and copper coins in his pockets—to buy himself suitable garments in the days after his arrival, so that he would not start his time in Stonehearth too deeply in debt to Grander’s house. He’d had to pay a harness-maker—who had used his City boots as a template—to make him suitable footwear, but Sarlin had made his new clothes without charging him for her labor.

“AND enough gold left over to buy cloth for summer clothes,” she’d said proudly, when she presented his new outfit to him a sennight after his arrival. “Unless you’ll be wanting to buy something else?”

“Keep it,” Cilarnen had said ungraciously, staring at the bizarre garments. “What is there here that anyone could want to buy?”

She’d looked hurt, and his conscience had pricked him.

“I’m sure you know what I need better than I do,” he’d said. He’d struggled to find something to praise, grateful in that moment that no one he’d ever known would see him wearing them. “The workmanship is very fine.”

“Ah,” Sarlin had said, perking up. “Spun and wove it myself, from our own sheep. You won’t find better. And I only charged you what I’d charge family—not what I could get for it at Spring Fair, either!”

“That’s … very kind,” he’d said, as it seemed to be expected.

“Do you need help with them? You not being used to our wild ways, and all? Or—Is your head paining you again?”

“No. I—I will manage. Excuse me.”

With the bundle of cloth in his arms, Cilarnen had fled to his room and quickly closed the door.

His new quarters were much smaller than the chamber he had shared with Hyandur. There were hooks on the walls to hold his few garments, and a pallet on the floor for sleeping. There was a chair—a welcome-gift from Marlen—and a small chest, which held a washbasin and a chamberstick. There was no stove, as the room backed on the great hearth’s chimney, and so was usually warm enough.

Cilarnen had flung the armful of clothing down on his pallet and pulled out one of the drawers of the chest. Inside was a small glass phial, half-full of a brown liquid so dark it was almost black. He’d regarded it longingly for a moment, then put it back in the drawer and closed it again.

The first day, when Sarlin had taken him to the Centaur Healer, only the hope that the concoction would poison him on the spot had induced Cilarnen to try her remedy. The syrup she compounded was bitter, dark, and thick as honey.

But it had stopped the headaches. Completely.

“A spoonful—no more—night and morning—will stop the pain. Do not take more, young human, for it has dream-honey in it, and it will make you thick-witted and scatterbrained.”

He’d ignored her prohibition. Once. He’d never been tempted to repeat the experiment, no matter how much he craved oblivion, for whatever “dream-honey” might be, the dreams it brought with it when he took too much weren’t nice ones.

He’d sighed and looked at the clothes. There was no point in putting it off. He might as well look as if he belonged here.

THAT had been a moonturn ago. One morning he had awakened at dawn in a full-blown panic, and only after several minutes of thought had he realized that this must be his day to go to the Temple of the Light and change out his City Talisman. Only he didn’t have his Talisman, and they weren’t likely to let him back into the City, now, were they?

After that, things got easier. His days settled into a routine of chores—once Marlen saw that Cilarnen was steady and trustworthy, he left more and more of the work of the stables to him. A stables built to accommodate the needs of Centaurs was an odd-looking thing, and of course the horses were draft horses, not riding horses—what would Centaurs need with riding horses?—but the animals were of good quality, and Cilarnen got on with them well enough.

“But what does King Andoreniel say, Father?” Sarlin demanded, bringing Cilarnen back to the present.

“You will find out soon enough,” Grander said firmly.

ON Sarlin’s way out the door, Cilarnen stopped her. Grander had been very mysterious about this message, and Cilarnen no longer had any taste for mystery. “Is Andoreniel your King?” he asked.

Sarlin stared at him for a moment, her broad face blank with surprise. “Oh,” she said at last. “But how could you know? You are from the human city, after all. No. Andoreniel is the King of the Elves.”

And before Cilarnen could think of another question to ask, she was gone on her errand.

HE was not permitted to attend the Council, of course. He found out soon enough what it was about, as Centaurs weren’t a terribly secretive lot—the Elven King was calling for the Centaurs to honor an ancient treaty, and send troops to his aid—but what no one would ever quite explain was why. They all said things like “Andoreniel wouldn’t ask without good reason,” or “we must honor our treaty,” or “he would come if we asked,” until Cilarnen wasn’t sure whether the Centaurs knew why they were going or not.

Or whether they just didn’t trust him enough to tell him.

What he did know was that it was some kind of emergency that couldn’t wait until spring and better weather for traveling, and that one of the units would be mustering here at Stonehearth before traveling on. The whole village threw itself into preparations—packs must be sewn, storm cloaks reoiled, armor looked to, ice-boots fitted, provisions sorted out.

And Marlen seemed determined to spend every moment he wasn’t training to go with them, cramming every possible detail of what to do for the horses in any conceivable emergency into Cilarnen’s head.

Because Cilarnen wasn’t going.

It wasn’t that he wanted to go. It was just that he hated being dismissed as if he were useless. And … not that a bunch of talking animals were his friends of course, but he’d gotten used to Marlen and Grander. And to all of the others who were leaving. After they were gone, things would be different And all of the changes Cilarnen had experienced recently had not been good ones.

There was almost enough work to keep him from thinking of things like that, though, until the day when Stonehearth’s gates were thrown open to the visitors.

A messenger—a Centaur this time—had arrived the day before to bring word of their arrival, and so by the time the troop cantered up, the great feast was nearly ready. Every house had been cooking and baking since the night before, and the entire village smelled like a cookshop. This afternoon there would be a great feast in the village square—he’d heard the hammering all morning as the trestle tables were knocked together—and tonight every home would hold visitors, for Stonehearth would be hosting fifty guests.

And tomorrow they would all be gone.

Maybe I’ll just stay here until it’s all over, Cilarnen thought, leaning his head against the flank of a grey mare. She’d been out in the paddock all morning, and her thick winter coat was clotted with ice. It needed careful brushing—but he had been at Stonehearth nearly two moonturns now, and in that time he had become an excellent ostler.

He still wondered why the Centaurs didn’t just hitch themselves to the plows. Maybe they did. Maybe they used the horses for something else. He’d undoubtedly get the chance to find out, if this Light-blasted snow ever melted.

He hadn’t thought it was possible to be so cold. And even if his Gift hadn’t been excised, there wouldn’t be much he could do about the weather. He’d been an Entered Apprentice. You had to be a Master Undermage to do something about the weather.

He finished with the mare and looked about for something else to do, shaking his head at the Centaurs’ foolishness. An outdoor banquet, in winter, without Mages to work the weather.

They’d all freeze.

“Cilarnen!” Sarlin came trotting into the stable, her cheeks flushed pink with the cold. “Come and see! The troop has arrived—and it’s nearly noon! You’ll want to have a wash before the banquet. And I made you a new tunic. A gift.”

He was unreasonably touched. He knew that Sarlin saved much of the money she earned from the sale of her cloth and finished clothing—she owned, Cilarnen had been surprised to discover, her own flock of sheep—to go toward her bridemoney, which she would use to help set up her own household when she married.

“Well, I’d better not wear it then,” he said gruffly, to hide his feelings. “It will only be ruined by the snow that will undoubtedly fall today. Whoever heard of eating outdoors in winter?”

But Sarlin only laughed merrily. “Oh, don’t be foolish, City-man! They have brought a Wildmages with them, and he has done magic so that the weather will be fine!”

“A … Wildmage?” She might have said, “A Demon of the Dark” and Cilarnen would not have been less stunned. Except he didn’t believe in Demons, and he did believe in Wildmages. He’d heard rumors that Farmer Kellen’s disappearance had had something to do with Wildmagery. He hadn’t believed them at the time, but … what if they were true? And what if Kellen had escaped the City, just as he had?

If Kellen was here, he was definitely the last person Cilarnen wanted to see. And he certainly didn’t want to see a Wildmage, whether it was Kellen or not.

But Sarlin had him by the arm, and was tugging him determinedly toward the house, so it was follow gracefully or be stepped on by great lumping Centaur hooves. And they had to pass through the village square on the way to Grander’s house.

Despite himself, he looked for the Wildmage. And saw him, too. He was easy to spot—the only human in the great jostling press of Centaurs. To Cilarnen’s relief, it wasn’t Kellen, but a muscular fellow with a great black beard, wearing a large broad-brimmed hat and a fur cloak, looking more barbaric than the talking beasts surrounding him.

“Do you want to meet him?” Sarlin asked eagerly, slowing down. “His name is Wirance. He comes from High Reaches, in the mountains. We trade with the High Reaches at Midsummer Fair—they’re all humans there. Do you think you’d like to live in the High Hills? I hear it snows all the time there—”

“Come on!” Cilarnen demanded, and this time it was he who dragged Sarlin away.

THE new tunic was very fine. Cilarnen regarded it with a dull anger that he had not felt since he had first come to Stonehearth. It was of the softest, thickest lambswool, tightly woven and dyed a deep russet red, a cloth that would have fetched a premium price even in Armethalieh.

Sarlin had said that the Centaurs traded with the Mountain Folk. Armethalieh traded with the Mountain Folk as well. He wondered how many times before in his life he’d worn cloth woven by Centaurs and not known it.

The front and sleeves were covered with delicate, painstaking embroidery: Sarlin’s finest work. This, he knew, would never have been permitted in the City—the colors were too exotic, the pattern of fruits and flowers and birds like nothing he’d ever seen before.

It was beautiful.

He hated …

He didn’t know what he hated, but right now Cilarnen desperately wanted to hate something. There just didn’t seem to be any suitable candidates. He thought he could manage to hate the Elves, if he worked at it for a while, since Hyandur was an Elf, and it was Hyandur’s fault he was here. And now King Andoreniel—another Elf—was taking away most of the male Centaurs from the village, and it was Andoreniel’s fault a Wildmage was here as well.

But Hyandur had saved Cilarnen’s life, risking not only his, but Roiry’s and Pearl’s lives as well. And you couldn’t expect Elves to know that the Wild Magic was, well, wrong.

Or is it just wrong in the City? a small voice inside him asked. Cilarnen shook his head. Wasn’t wrong in one place wrong everywhere?

He wished there was someone he could ask.

He stripped down and washed quickly, then put on his new tunic. Sarlin would want to know how he liked it.

It is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned.

Why did the truth seem like a betrayal of something to which he no longer felt any loyalty?

TO Cilarnen’s great relief, he was placed far away from Wirance at the banquet, among younger sons and apprentices, where he suffered—in silence—much good-hearted teasing about his new tunic. His head was starting to ache—as it hadn’t in longer than he could remember—and he took great advantage of the pitchers of mulled ale that were kept constantly filled. He still hated the taste, but he’d come to like its effect.

He had no idea whether Stonehearth was large for a Centaur village or not. It was tiny by the standards of Armethalieh, and maybe even by the standards of the Delfier Valley fanning villages, and so the Square was completely filled with the banquet tables. The village gates had even been left open to make more room—which was just as well, or else the apprentices would have been crammed against the walls. As it was, Cilarnen was in a certain amount of danger of being kicked and jostled by his fellows, but Centaurs were much smaller than the draft horses he tended daily, and he could hardly remember when he’d stopped worrying about it.

He was intent upon his food—and wondering if he could slip away to the stables without anyone noticing—when a stranger appeared at the gates.

Even for one of the talking beasts, his appearance was outlandish.

He wore armor, but not the simple steel that the other Centaurs wore. Over a heavy woolen tunic, he wore a shirt that seemed to be made of disks of metal sewn together. It dangled down almost to his knees in front, and spread across his withers behind. He wore a sword as well, hung parallel along his body, in the way that Cilarnen had seen other Centaurs carry swords. About his hips he wore a wide belt to which was affixed a number of small pouches, as well as a host of other ornaments that flashed and jingled. Around his neck, over the armor, was a necklace containing more such ornaments, and still more were braided into his waist-length hair. His hair was black, with a broad white streak in it, and despite the weather, he wore no cloak against the cold, though Cilarnen could see One—along with a small pack—lashed upon his back. Three of his feet were white, and one was black. He carried a long staff in one hand, although Cilarnen couldn’t imagine why a Centaur would need one.

Seeing that Cilarnen was staring in the direction of the snow-covered fields, one of the other apprentices looked up.

“It is Kardus Wildmage!” he said. “Kardus Wildmage has come to join us!”

There was a great bustle as two of the apprentices—Tolin and Barcis—trotted forward to greet Kardus. Cilarnen hunched down in his seat, hoping they would escort the new arrival to the High Table where the esteemed guests were being feted. If he was a Wildmage—impossible as that seemed—undoubtedly they would want to honor him.

But to Cilarnen’s dismay, Kardus seemed to wish to sit with the apprentices. And worse, next to the only human among them.

Him.

In Armethalieh, Mages were treated with dignity and proper respect. Apparently no one here had ever heard of that notion. Before Kardus had even removed his winter gauntlets and had a place laid for him—or gotten a mug of ale—the apprentices were pelting him with questions like the rowdy colts and fillies that they were. Where had he come from? Who had he seen? What was the news? Was he going to the Elven Lands with Captain Kindrius and Master Grander?

“How can you be a Wildmage? I thought Centaurs couldn’t do magic,” Cilarnen said, goaded out of his silence.

“And so I cannot, young human,” Kardus said good-naturedly. “But I study the Three Books, and the Great Herdsman has given me the ability to know things unseen, and so I go where I am needed and do what I am given to set my hand to. And just as with my greater brethren, with each Knowing comes a Task.”

“And do you have an, er, Knowing and a Task now?” Cilarnen asked. The others all stared at him, as if shocked by his presumption. But it was what they all wanted to know, wasn’t it?

“Perhaps it would be best not to pluck that fruit before it ripens,” Kardus answered calmly, reaching for the platter of roast meat in front of him. “And now. The news from Merryvale. The village flourishes, and Jenna has accepted Alfrin, so you may look for a great festival at Midsummer Fair. A new dozen of skeps have been put up, and Miele has split her swarm, so there will be more honey soon for you greedy ones, if you have sugar to trade—”

AS he spoke of the news from Menyvale—where he had meant to winter—Kardus saw the City-human slip away from the feast, thinking himself unobserved. He spoke on, though his mind was far from the gossip of the villages.

Since his Books had come to him as a young colt, he had followed the pattern of Tasks and Knowings set out for him by the Wild Magic. Though his race did not have the power to cast spells, the Great Herdsman taught that each had its place in the Great Cycle. And so his Knowings came to him, and he went where he was needed, doing what he could to set things into harmony with the Great Cycle. He had wide knowledge of the world, gained through years of travel, and if he did not have spellcraft to aid him, his knowledge of herbcraft—and the charms and potions given him by other Wildmages—were his to use.

And—just as his greater brethren did—he paid the price of each Knowing with a Task.

He had received his Knowing in Merryvale: to come to Stonehearth and be here to aid the human boy that he would find here. Perhaps the Knowing would unfold itself further once he had spent more time here. That the boy was unhappy it did not take a Wildmage to ken, but how a human boy had come to be so far from his own folk—and what Kardus’s part in taking the Herdsman’s Path might be—that he could not yet see.

But one did not herd ducks by chasing them, that much Kardus did know.

IT was no use. He was surrounded by them—Centaurs, Wildmages, and now something that managed to be an unholy combination of both. Excusing himself from the table as politely as he could—he no longer really had any appetite—Cilarnen left the feast.

Everyone in Stonehearth—down to the foals born that spring—was in the square, so Cilarnen had the rest of the village to himself. All he really wanted was the chance to be by himself for a while, but it seemed he was to be denied even that, because he hadn’t wandered for very long before he saw someone else.

It was another human, a silver-haired man, dressed all in white. His garments were fine, and if they were not familiar in style to Cilarnen’s eye, they were certainly more well cut and stylish than anything he’d seen on either the Centaurs or the human Wildmage. He must have come in with the Centaurs and found he had as little taste for the rustic feast as Cilarnen did.

The stranger smiled mockingly, seeing Cilarnen. “So, Arch-Mage’s son Kellen, what a surprise to see you here. Have you tired of the Children of Leaf and Star and think to make your way back to the Golden City? You have nothing to return to now. Your father claims another as his son. He has given him the seat on the High Council that was to have been yours. And daily our foothold in the City grows stronger …”

Cilarnen stared at the man in shock. The stranger thought he was Farmer Kellen. As if he looked anything like the Mad Farmboy!

His shock—and denial—must have showed plainly on his face, for suddenly the stranger’s face contorted in a snarl of furious realization.

And kept on twisting—

It—abruptly Cilarnen could no longer think of the stranger as “he”—began to grow, its white clothes vanishing like smoke. Its skin turned as red as if blood had blossomed from every pore, and great curving horns sprouted from its forehead at the same time enormous bat-wings shot out from its back. It growled and lunged at him, as fast as a cat might pounce upon a mouse.

If Cilarnen had not been Mageborn, he might have died in that instant. But if he did not have his Gift, he was at least used to seeing the impossible. He did not stand staring in disbelieving amazement. He turned and ran.

He felt a stabbing pain behind his eyes—worse than any pain that had ever preceded it. It made him reel blindly into a wall—the second thing that saved him—but before he could catch his breath, the pain was gone, taking even the memory of pain with it.

Fool! That thing isn’t done with you yet!

He sensed the next attack seconds before it arrived, and in panic he acted without thinking, summoning up Mageshield to protect him.

And it was there.

Cilarnen and the Demon both stared at the dull violet shimmer that hung in the air between them in equal amazement. Then the monster smiled, showing Cilarnen a mouth full of long sharp white fangs.

“Oh, Mage-man, I do so enjoy a challenge. Prepare your best spells. I’ll be back for you.”

Spreading its hideous scarlet wings, it leaped into the air and vanished.

Cilarnen slumped against the wall, panting as though he’d run at least a league. His Gift was back! He could feel it. And—maybe—the monster was gone. He could tell Grander—ask him what to do, what it had been …

No. He knew what it had been.

But that was impossible.

Demons did not exist.

His nurse had used to frighten him with tales of Demons. The walls of Armethalieh kept them out, but children—very bad children—called them in. And then they took bad children away into the Dark … and ate them. Demons had claws, and fangs, and long sharp teeth, and the horns and tails of beasts, and great bat-wings to fly over the walls with, and they were red with the blood of all the bad children they’d eaten.

Cilarnen slumped against the wall in despair. He hadn’t thought about Demons in years. They weren’t mentioned in the Cosmology of the Light, though it mentioned the Lesser Races. They hadn’t been mentioned in his magickal studies, though those studies had covered the Elementals, the Lesser Races, the Embodiments of Magick, and the Illusory Creatures.

Demons are a nursery tale, he told himself desperately. A Myth of Error.

Then he heard the first screams. And over them, the Demon’s shrieks of laughter.

“I wonder why he’s come?” Grander mused, looking down the table to where Kardus sat at the center of a group of rowdy apprentices. It was a great honor to host two Wildmages—and one of them the only Centaur Wildmage anyone had ever heard of, besides!—but he did wonder.

“Perhaps because all of you are going,” Wirance suggested. “I shall be sure to see what I can do for him before we leave tomorrow.”

“I admit he’s a useful fellow. Good to have on your side in a fight, too. Or when you don’t want to fight. I remember a time when—” Kindrius began.

With an unearthly shriek, the Demon landed in the center of the table. The table collapsed beneath its weight, sending cups and platters flying everywhere.

For a moment, there was absolute silence. Some of the Centaurs at the farther tables began slowly to edge away, trying not to be noticed, but the ones closest to the Demon were frozen in terror.

“Mages everywhere,” it purred, staring at Wirance with hot yellow eyes. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

Then it reached out, grabbing the nearest Centaur and yanking her toward it. It bit through her throat in one quick motion. She reeled back, choking and flailing as blood fountained from her ruined throat.

Someone screamed, and suddenly everyone was screaming and shouting. The Demon sprang away, licking its chops, to land on the back of another Centaur, wrenching the Centaur’s head nearly off its shoulders before bounding away again.

“To arms!” Kindrius bellowed to his men.

“Get to your homes!” Grander shouted, equally loudly.

What had been a happy celebration moments before was now a panicked herd of Centaurs that the Demon attacked at will. Though they had worn their armor, the Centaur warriors had not brought their weapons or shields to the feast. Some ran to fetch their arms; other armed themselves with what they could grab from the table and attacked the Demon.

It was useless. The Demon turned on its attackers, its claws shearing through steel armor and leather padding as though it were the lightest linen. It seemed to delight in wounding and crippling rather than killing, and soon the screams of the injured were added to those of the merely terrified.

And when it seemed that matters could get no worse, the Demon added magic to its attacks.

It rose into the air and hovered, wings spread wide. It pointed, and everywhere it pointed, something exploded or burst into flame. Soon most of the houses around the square were in flaming ruins. It pointed at the well, and the housing dissolved in a spray of lethal stone shards. A great jet of water fountained into the sky, then water began flowing slowly over the stones of the village square.

They could not reach it with swords—not that swords had been able to cut its scarlet hide—but the Centaur warriors were armed now with spear and bow, and the archers began to fire from what cover they could find.

None of the missiles found their mark. The Demon batted them all aside, laughing madly as if this were all great fun. Even Kardus’s arrows, which carried charms upon them, did not find their mark.

WE will all die here, thought Wirance in despair. He crouched inside the doorway of one of the few houses that had so far escaped the Demon’s attention and watched with increasing fury as it slaughtered the Centaurs as easily as a wolf might destroy a nest of field mice.

None of his spells were strong enough to defeat the Demon—he thought he might be able to hold it for a moment or two, if he could Cast successfully, but the Demon had marked him for its most dangerous enemy and broke each of his Castings before it was fully formed.

There must be something! By the First Frost, I must think of something!

CILARNEN could hear the sounds of the carnage even three streets away. The taste of his terror was sour in his throat. He had never been this frightened in his life. Not in the cell. Not looking at the Outlaw Hunt.

He could get away. He had his Gift back. That would be useful somewhere else. He could get away. Not out the Main Gate—that would be blocked—but there was another gate. Maybe the Demon wouldn’t look for him. Maybe it would think it had already killed him. Maybe the Centaurs would kill it.

Cilarnen got to his feet and started walking slowly toward the Little Gate.

And stopped.

No.

These were his friends. They didn’t care who Cilarnen Volpiril was—they didn’t know a thing about House Volpiril, or the High Mages, or Armethalieh. They didn’t want anything from him. They were just his friends. They had helped him even though they didn’t have to.

Maybe he couldn’t help them now. He didn’t know much about Demons—he hadn’t believed in Demons until a few minutes ago—and even if he did have his Gift, most of his spells were useless without the equipment to do a proper Working. He didn’t even have a wand, for Light’s sake!

But there was one spell he didn’t need a Wand for, and he bet even Demons feared it.

He hoped they did.

He turned toward the Square and began to run.

HE reached the edge of the square and stopped. He’d never seen—never imagined—a sight like the one which greeted him. Bodies were everywhere. The cobblestones were slick with fresh blood. The houses that bordered the square were in ruins, burning. The well had been smashed, and water was sluicing over the stones, making the footing treacherous.

Cilarnen could see that the Wildmage kept trying to cast some kind of spell—he could actually see the energy—but the Demon kept breaking the spell before it could form. It could not strike the Wildmage, but others weren’t so lucky. Cilarnen saw flesh crisped to ash—and worse. Even while he gaped at the fight in shock and horror, he saw the Demon’s magic strike a young Centaur’s hindquarters, and watched the flesh turn black and fall away from the bone like hot fat.

It should have made him sick. But somehow seeing what the Demon could do didn’t make him more afraid. It made him hard and still inside; more determined—and more angry —than he had ever felt before. He stepped away from the wall he’d been hiding against and out into the Square.

Cilarnen raised his hand, summoning the power of the High Magick.

And the Demon burst into flame.

Burn! Cilarnen commanded, putting all his will into the demand, all his anger, all his fear. When he felt himself falter, he merely had to allow himself to see the dead and the dying scattered about the Square, and his fury welled up in him again. Never mind that a Mage was supposed to conduct all spell-casting in sublime detachment from everything and everyone; this rage gave him power he didn’t even know he had.

He did not stop—a candle could not will itself to extinguish, but the Demon could—but willed Fire again and again—

—until, suddenly, unfamiliar weakness drove him to his knees.

And the Demon, its body charred and blackened, dropped from the sky.

WIRANCE felt the tingle of unfamiliar magic, and suddenly the Demon burst into flames.

For a moment he thought it was a trick, a trap, but then the Demon roared with pain, flailing wildly in the air as it sought to extinguish the flames that raced over its body.

Wirance glanced toward the edge of the square, following the line of magic stretched across the sky, and saw a slender human youth pointing his hand at the Demon, his whole body rigid with concentration and fury.

I don’t know what you’re doing, boy, but keep it up!

Kardus hurried to Wirance’s side, forcing his way through the press of warriors. In his hands he held a thin length of shining white cord.

“I think—” the Centaur Wildmage began.

“Pray,” Wirance said grimly, and readied his spell.

The Demon had stopped fighting now, and hung in the sky, a burning ember, its wings skeletal, its body ash and bones. But the moment the strange burning spell was lifted, it would begin to heal, and in moments it would be whole—and more savage than before.

Wirance waited for the instant the light of the burning spell flickered out, then struck with his own. This time it held: the Demon’s body fell to the ground, surrounded by a white glow of Restraint.

“Quickly!” Wirance shouted, his voice harsh. “I cannot hold this spell for long!”

Kardus lunged forward, the rope of unicorn hair in his hands. He fell to his knees, looping it about the Demon’s neck, and jerked it tight. The seared Demonflesh crackled as the unicorn hair burned through it, shearing through the neck and windpipe, and with a crack the head rolled free.

A moment later, the whole body dissolved into ash, and began to swirl away in the water.

Silence.

A terrible, heavy silence.

“Is it dead?” someone asked hoarsely.

“Yes,” Kardus said, lunging awkwardly to his feet. “The Demon is dead.”

Then the moaning, the weeping, the agonized cries for help began.

Wirance looked around. The village square resembled nothing so much as a slaughtering pen. In the cold, steam rose from the shattered bodies of the living and the cooling bodies of the dead, and the air was filled with smoke. He looked at Kardus. “We both have much work to do here. But we had best go find the boy first.”

“His name is Cilarnen,” Kardus said. “He is my Task.”

Chapter Fifteen

At the Siege of Stonehearth

CILARNEN HAD NOT gone far. He was too weak to stand, but he had crawled back around the corner of the building and was curled up against it, trying to shut out the sobbing and groans of the wounded. His eyes streamed tears. But he was not weeping. No, not he. Surely.

“Cilarnen,” Wirance said, squatting down beside him, “are you hurt?”

“It thought I was Kellen, you see,” Cilarnen explained—reasonably, he thought “And then it realized I wasn’t So it killed everybody. It tried to kill me first, but I still had my Gift. Lord Anigrel was supposed to take it, but he didn’t. That was wrong of him, wasn’t it? They’re supposed to take your Gift when they Banish you.”

“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kardus said gently. “We know who Kellen Wildmage is. Kellen came from Armethalieh. Did you come from Armethalieh too?”

“Yes,” Cilarnen said, sitting back and looking up at the two Wildmages. “I’m a Mage of Armethalieh. I was, anyway. An Entered Apprentice.”

“And you used your Armethaliehan magic on the Demon?” Wirance asked.

“I used Fire,” Cilarnen said, his voice thick with exhaustion, and with what was certainly not weeping. It was hard to form words. But now—now his vision was clearing at last, and—he was tired. So tired. He couldn’t even think, he was so tired. All he wanted to do was sleep. “Even an Apprentice can do that.”

“I know nothing of Armethaliehan magic. How do you pay for your spells?” Wirance asked.

Cilarnen stared at him in utterly exhausted irritation. There must be a thousand things that needed doing right now. Why was this man sitting here with him asking how the High Magick worked?

“Pay? You don’t ‘pay’ for spells in the High Magick.” Something occurred to him in the back of his mind, something about the Talismans, but the thought flew away and escaped him.

“All magic has a price, young Apprentice, and woe to your teachers that they did not teach you this. You have paid dearly for the spell you cast today, and now you must rest,” Wirance said.

He put an arm under Cilarnen’s shoulders, and lifted him to his feet. Cilarnen staggered, the world reeling greyly around him. Despite himself, he clutched at Wirance for support.

“It is as I said,” Wirance said implacably.

Suddenly arguing with Wirance didn’t seem worthwhile any longer.

“I will take him to a place where he may rest, then return to aid you,” Kardus said, putting his arm around Cilarnen. Cilarnen leaned against the Centaur gratefully.

To his relief, they did not return to the square, but went back along the same back street he’d gone down not so long before. Kardus seemed to know Stonehearth as well as Cilarnen did.

When they reached the place where Cilarnen had encountered the Demon, he flinched, as if it somehow might still be here.

“It was here,” Cilarnen said shakily. “It looked human.”

“They can appear in any guise they choose,” Kardus said.

Suddenly the Demon’s words came back to him, as if he were hearing them at that very moment Not the part about Kellen. That was Kellen’s problem—and if Kellen really was a Wildmage, he wouldn’t care if Lycaelon had supplanted him or not. But the rest:

And daily our foothold in the City grows stronger …

Were there Demons in the City?

“Wait—wait!” Cilarnen gasped. “It told me—it said—when it thought I was Kellen—that the Demons have a foothold in the City—in Armethalieh. I’ve got to tell …”

Who? Who could he tell? He couldn’t return to the City. He probably couldn’t even cross the Border and live.

“I’ve got to tell someone,” Cilarnen said desperately.

“Indeed you must,” Kardus agreed. “You must tell Kellen Wildmage, for he makes war against the Demons, and if there are Demons in Armethalieh, he will make war against them as well. It is my Task to bring you to him, but we will speak further of that when you are rested.”

KARDUS took him to the stables, not to Grander’s house, but Cilarnen was so exhausted he didn’t think to question it. He took a horse blanket and curled up in an unused stall, and was asleep before Kardus had left the stables.

When he woke again it was dark, and the stillness in the air told him it was snowing. There was no light in the stable, but he knew his way around it by touch after so long, and groped his way to the lantern and tinderbox.

He was reaching for the flint and steel when he realized he would never need them again. He concentrated, and the lantern bloomed into light.

He felt dizzy for a moment, and shrugged it off, closing the lantern door and watching the small flame steady to brightness. His momentary weakness didn’t matter. What mattered was why he should be able to do this at all—or should have been able to cast the Mageshield that had saved his life when the Demon had first attacked him. His Gift should be gone, burned from his brain.

But it hadn’t been. It had merely been … sleeping. And this made no sense at all. He was grateful, no, more than grateful, he was elated—but it made no sense at all.

No Mage would have let him leave the City with his Gift intact, even if they expected him to be dead within bells. And it could not be an accident.

It must have been deliberate.

Undermage Anigrel had done this deliberately. But why? Had he hoped that the young Apprentice, if he left the Gift intact, could somehow use the High Magick to get himself beyond the reach of the Hunt? But that couldn’t be right, because his magick hadn’t worked when he’d first tried it.

Cilarnen shook his head. Whatever Undermage Anigrel’s motives, he had more pressing concerns now. He picked up the lantern and left the stable.

It was snowing, and the snow had swept the smell of smoke from the air. It should have been peaceful; it wasn’t. It was early evening, but the streets were oddly dark and quiet. Without cloak or hood, Cilarnen shivered in the cold night air. He felt unnerved and unsettled, and the silence filled him with an edgy energy.

He’d meant to go directly to Grander’s house—as he shook off the last veils of sleep, he became more worried about what had happened to his friends—but as he walked up the street, he neared the tavern next to the smithy and finally started to hear voices. He hurried toward them.

As he approached, a strange Centaur male hailed him.

“You! Grander’s boy! Come and help!”

Cilarnen came at a run.

The Centaur who had hailed him was one of the warriors who had arrived earlier that day. He was still bloody from the fight, and one arm was splinted and in a sling, but he looked vigorous enough. Looking past him, Cilarnen could see that both the forge and tavern had been converted to a makeshift hospital, and were filled with Centaur wounded.

“Someone said you were a Mage. Have you Healing skills?” the Centaur demanded.

Cilarnen shook his head, his spirits falling. “None,” he said. “Wirance—or Kardus—”

“Both occupied with worse cases than these. They will come when they can.” The Centaur looked weary. “I had hoped …”

“If there is anything I can do, I will do it,” Cilarnen said quickly. “I work in the stables. I know you are not horses, but—”

“An able body and a willing pair of hands counts for much, if you are not afraid of blood,” the Centaur said.

“After today, I do not think I will ever be afraid of it again,” Cilarnen said bleakly.

FOR the next several hours, Cilarnen worked at the direction of others, stitching wounds, changing poultices over burns, and helping to draw limbs straight so they could be splinted.

Because those who had been lucky enough to escape injury were needed elsewhere—to search through the rubble of smashed buildings for trapped survivors, to build firebreaks, and to lend their strength (whatever that meant: Cilarnen wasn’t sure) to Wirance’s Wildmage spells—the injured had been left to tend to each other. Cilarnen learned, in scraps of conversations during the work, that the snow was Wirance’s doing, so that the fires the Demon had set could be contained and extinguished, since the well had been destroyed. Half the homes of Stonehearth had been either damaged or destroyed outright in its attack, though this part of the village, the farthest from the square, was untouched.

It seemed to Cilarnen that there was no end to the wounded and burned …

And then, suddenly, there was. He found himself with bandages in his hands, and no one to put them on. “Here,” said Comild, taking them from him gently and putting them with the rest of the scavenged supplies. “Go and wash yourself—there’s water over there.” He pointed with his chin, and Cilarnen saw a bucket, and at the same time, realized that his hands were sticky with blood and unguents.

Holding down a surge of nausea, he hastened to cleanse himself as well as he could.

“It will not be too difficult to rebuild the well, though it may be best to call for a unicorn to purify it,” Comild said.

“I suppose,” Cilarnen said vaguely, not understanding what a unicorn could have to do with a well. He looked up at the Centaur. “What are you going to do now? You’re not going home, are you?”

Comild shook his head. “Kindrius is dead, but it remains to be seen if any of the other sub-Captains still live. If they do, we will choose a new leader from among our number. If I am the only survivor, the honor is mine. And we go on, wounded or not. We will recover, and our allies need us.”

“You’re going to be a Captain?” Cilarnen asked.

“Not the way I would choose it,” Comild said broodingly. “I hope your friends are well. Best go and see. There’s little more you can do for my men.”

Tired once more—but in a different way now—Cilarnen stepped out into the street again. It was dawn now. He’d worked through the night. This time the cold air felt good.

He looked down at his tunic. He’d rolled up the sleeves when he’d set to work, but the front was as bloody and soiled as if he’d been working in a butcher’s shop. He blinked back tears. Sarlin’s rich gift, ruined.

He was glad—suddenly desperately glad—that he’d been able to find the words to thank her for it when she’d given it to him. He hadn’t meant them properly at the time. He hadn’t understood why he’d said it. He hadn’t understood himself.

He hadn’t understood a lot of things.

He’d find her now. He’d explain. He’d thank her properly—tell them all how much they meant to him.

He began to run.

THE street that Grander’s house was on was one of the lucky ones; its houses were untouched, though the roofs of the houses on the opposite side showed some fire-gaps through the snow. The street was awake; every house was filled with refugees. Centaurs in full armor patrolled the streets, and Cilarnen realized with a sudden flare of alarm that where there was one Demon, there might be more. The village could be attacked again.

He heard his name called a couple of times, but did not stop. He had to get home.

He pushed open the door of Grander’s house. The common room was filled with Centaurs. All were villagers familiar to him, but he saw no one that belonged to the household.

“Blessed Herdsman—it’s Cilarnen!” Corela gasped. The kindly middle-aged Centauress started forward, her face a mask of shock. “We thought you must be dead—now, don’t move. Where are you hurt?”

“I’m not hurt,” Cilarnen said. “It’s not my blood. I’m all right. Are you—Is—Where is—?” He looked around, still hoping to see familiar faces, and saw none.

“Come into the kitchen,” Corela said, coming forward and putting an arm around his shoulders.

There was soup, tea, and hot ale in the kitchen. Corela dismissed the Centaurs working there with a glance, and closed the door behind them with one well-placed nudge of her hind hoof.

“There is bad news,” she said. “It is best given quickly.”

Cilarnen nodded, unable to ask.

“Grander and Marlen are gone to the Herd. They are truly dead. I’ve seen their bodies. Not pretty, but quick. Jarel has lost an eye, but he will live, they think, with scars to brag on. Erlock’s leg will heal, but it is likely he will be lame. Minor injuries only to the others of this house—so minor that they were all able to share price with Wirance, and so they are sleeping now. Sarlin, too.”

“They can’t be dead,” Cilarnen said blankly. I never told them how land they were to me. I never thanked them.

“They have gone to the Herd,” Corela repeated gently. “And they will be reborn as good spring grass to feed our flocks. Now wash and eat. There are many tasks that need doing.”

“The horses,” Cilarnen said, with a pang of guilty realization. It didn’t matter what else had happened in the world. The horses still needed to be looked after—fed and watered and turned out for exercise. “I have to go to the stables. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Wash first,” Corela told him firmly. “And eat.”

IT was good advice, so Cilarnen took it He didn’t think that the horses would appreciate it if he came to them reeking of blood.

Once he’d finished his morning stable chores, it occurred to him that nobody probably had time for any of Stonehearth’s livestock that morning.

Well, he did. He didn’t need to sleep yet. He wasn’t sure he could. There was something inside him, something that made his chest and throat feel tight whenever he thought of Grander, something that wanted to burst out. It was worse than when he’d been caught and told he was going to be Banished.

Much worse.

He didn’t want to be alone with it.

The sheep and goat-pens were outside the walls, guarded by shaggy herding-dogs in their kennels. The great beasts came rushing forward when Cilarnen appeared, barking savagely when they caught his scent, then sniffing and nudging at him hopefully.

No one has been here to feed them either, Cilarnen realized. The sheep and goats could eat hay, but that wouldn’t do for the dogs. He’d have to go find something to feed them after he unpenned the animals.

The barking had roused the pens’ inhabitants, and a great bleating and baa-ing issued from within. Cilarnen opened each door in turn, jumping out of the way quickly to avoid being trampled by the outrush of hairy and woolly bodies.

The herd dogs, abandoning immediate hope of food, rounded up their charges and began herding them down to the river for their long-delayed morning drink. While they were gone, Cilarnen went to the storage barn, unbolted the door, and began dragging shocks of fodder out, dumping them in the snow. Centaurs might be able to carry them, but he wasn’t nearly as strong as a Centaur.

He had no idea how many were enough, or what to do with them, but at least the animals wouldn’t starve.

“That’s enough.”

Cilarnen looked up, to find Kardus standing in the snow behind him. The Centaur Wildmage had a large canvas bag slung over one shoulder, and a knife in one hand.

“Bolt the door, or the goats will get in among the fodder and gorge until they burst.” As he spoke, he began cutting the braided lengths of straw that bound the fodder-shocks together. “Then help me spread this over the snow, or the strong will keep the weak away from the food.”

By the time the dogs brought the herds back, Kardus and Cilarnen had covered the snow with hay, and both sheep and goats settled to browsing contentedly. Kardus reached into his bag and pulled out several large brown loaves. He tossed one to each of the waiting dogs, who were standing by expectantly. As they gulped them down, Cilarnen saw that the loaves were meat and bread mixed together, obviously what the dogs were used to receiving.

“I told Toria I would see to the flocks today,” Kardus said. “But I see you got here first.”

“I’d done the stables,” Cilarnen said. “I didn’t think anyone would have thought about the other animals yet.”

“They have thought,” Kardus said. “But there are many dead and injured, and not enough hands to do the work.”

My friends are dead, Cilarnen thought bleakly, feeling his throat tighten and eyes sting again. And everyone in Stonehearth had lost friends. It was a small village. Everyone knew everyone else.

“Kardus—why did the … Demon … come here? Do you know? Tell me!”

But the Centaur Wildmage only shook his head wordlessly.

“CAN anyone tell me,” Savilla asked with spurious mildness, “just why there was an open attack on that grubby Centaur village?”

Her highest-ranking nobles were gathered before her in the formal Audience Chamber, where she had summoned them as soon as the word of Yethlenga’s attack upon Stonehearth had reached the World Without Sun. She did not know why he had attacked—and she could not ask him before she killed him, for the Lightborn had managed, not merely to defeat him, but to destroy him.

To destroy one of the eternal, beautiful children of He Who Is.

For that they would pay in the last full measure of pain and despair, but Savilla would not hurry either her pleasures or her vengeance.

Her own spies ranged freely and far, wherever magic and ancient land-wards did not constrain them. She had agents—both Endarkened and otherwise—in the Wild Lands—but Yethlenga had not been one of them. Her creatures knew better than to risk her displeasure by showing themselves openly, no matter what the personal cost.

“I will know what I will know,” Savilla said dangerously.

She sat upon the Shadow Throne, dressed in scarlet as red as her skin and white as pure as shattered, aged bleached bone. There was utter silence. No one dared to speak, even though their Queen had asked a question.

“Highness.” Prince Zyperis broke the silence at last, crawling forward and bending low before her, wings tightly furled in submission. “Yethlenga’s action goes so strangely against your wise counsel that perhaps it was only … childish foolishness.”

“And so you would excuse it?” Savilla hissed. She reached out with one foot and placed it on his shoulder, digging in with her talons until the blood flowed.

Zyperis raised his head to meet her gaze, though the movement opened deeper gouges in his back. “Never. Only beg that you question those who will give you proper answers, my Queen,” he said softly. “Ask those who have been his companions and servants. If they knew his plans, and did not tell you, that is treason, and must be properly punished.”

Savilla straightened, and pushed Zyperis away from her with a kick that sent him sprawling, bending his wings painfully beneath him. She waved him to his feet with a languid gesture.

“Rise, all of you. Chamberlain, bring Yethlenga’s household here to me. Now.”

Soon an odd assortment of beings were ushered into the Audience Chamber—several Lesser Endarkened, the squat misshapen cousins of their greater brethren; a collection of humans, and a blind Centaur. All knelt immediately.

“Your master, Yethlenga, is dead,” Savilla said without preamble. “Your lives and fortunes depend on what you can tell me now. I will reward truth, and punish lies.”

“Great Queen, we will tell you everything,” one of the Lesser Endarkened said. “And so will the vermin.”

The slaves knew very little, but the questioning of the servants produced the names of two of Yethlenga’s companions: Anilpon and Iroth.

And when the slaves were sent to the Pits to await new masters, and Anilpon and Iroth were sent for, they could not be found.

“Where are they?” she demanded of her chamberlain.

“We are searching for them, Queen Savilla,” Vixiren, underbutler to her household, said.

The tension in the Audience Chamber eased, just a fraction, now that Savilla’s wrath had found a new target.

“It is nearly as good as a confession,” Zyperis suggested.

Savilla glanced sharply at her son. He had been brave today, speaking out and risking her wrath. But had it merely been an attempt to divert attention from himself? Had Yethlenga been one of Zyperis’s spies? Was this a conspiracy, and Anilpon and Iroth its other members?

Perhaps.

And perhaps not.

She did not think Zyperis was ready to challenge her just yet. And the attack upon Stonehearth had been—as he’d pointed out—strange. There was nothing to gain from killing a few Centaurs and terrorizing an isolated collection of mud huts. Zyperis would never make such a foolish mistake.

But was it so foolish?

Something at Stonehearth had been capable of killing one of the Endarkened.

And now she might never know what it had been.

“YOU have to know,” Cilarnen pleaded.

“I do not lie to you when I tell you I do not,” Kardus said. “I have traveled far—even into the Lost Lands, where the Dark Folk—as they call them there—raid among the folk as foxes among hares. But never have they come this far south since the end of the Great War. It is true that Andoreniel calls us to fight in honor of the ancient Treaties, but the Elves have seen only Their work, and Their creatures in the Elven Lands, not They Themselves.”

“But one was here. And it said that They have agents in Armethalieh,” Cilarnen repeated stubbornly, holding on to what he knew. So much of what Kardus was telling him simply didn’t make sense to him, and he was really afraid to ask for an explanation.

What was the Great War? When had it been? Did it have anything to do with Armethalieh? Did that mean the Elves and Demons had fought before? What did that have to do with humans?

“Perhaps that is why the humans there would not heed the Elves, when they tried to warn them,” Kardus said. “I do not know. Perhaps Kellen Wildmage will know. We will ask him when we see him.”

Would Kellen even care what happened to Armethalieh? Somehow Cilarnen doubted it.

Still, he had to try.

He turned and followed Kardus back toward the gate.

AT the end of three more days, the small party left Stonehearth, heading for the Elven lands.

They left a badly damaged village behind them—and far too many dead—but in the days before they left, Wirance sent messages to the nearest villages, and help—in the form of food, supplies, and hands to help with the rebuilding—would soon arrive.

If it had been at all possible, Comild, Wirance, and the others would have waited until the others arrived. Nearly a third of the surviving Centaur soldiers were too badly injured to travel with them. But Kardus thought that Cilarnen’s news must be brought before the Elves without delay, and Cilarnen reluctantly agreed, little though he wanted to meet the Elves.

And everyone agreed it was too dangerous for the two of them to travel alone.

Sarlin had given him a horse to ride. It was one of the draft horses—there was nothing else available in the Centaur village—but it was better than walking. She’d insisted he take it.

“YOU’VE already done so much for me,” Cilarnen had said when she offered him the horse. She was the Lady of Stonehearth now, and the responsibility weighed heavily on her young shoulders, but there was no one else to take it up. She had put aside her grief to take charge of the preparations for their leaving, gathering together supplies from the remains of the village’s stores, finding clothing and armor for those whose possessions had been destroyed, making sure Cilarnen had proper clothing for the journey. Wirance had his own mount, of course—a sure-footed mule, the preferred form of transportation in the High Hills, especially in winter—but Cilarnen needed something other than his own two feet, or they’d not arrive at their goal until spring.

“You took me in, you and—and Grander, and Marlen—” His throat closed, and he swallowed hard. “I never told them … I never told you …”

Sarlin hugged him hard. “Oh, hush now, City-man! We knew. Hyandur told us how they’d hurt you there—how they’d killed all your friends, and worked their evil spells on you, and chased you off with their horrible stone dogs, and still you wouldn’t say a thing against them because they were kin. That would put anybody off! And you worked hard for us, and never complained, and then … you saved our lives. You did. Wirance told us. The Herdsman gave you your magic back, and you saved us. The least we can do is give you a proper four legs to get on with.”

“Oh, Sarlin!” Cilarnen said, caught halfway between laughter and tears. “I promise I’ll come back—and I’ll take good care of Tinsin, I will. I wish—”

“I wish Papa had been here to see this day,” Sarlin said softly. “He always knew you’d amount to something, City-man. But go on with you. You’ve plenty to do to get ready. And don’t worry about us. You won’t know, being City-folk the way you are, but farming folk are tough. We’ll get through this. We’ll get a crop in the ground come spring—and come you back by Harvest, you’ll see us doing well.”

“I believe that, Sarlin. And we’ll make sure you can,” Cilarnen vowed.

He wasn’t sure who “we” was—though it felt right to say it. Not the High Mages. They didn’t care what happened to the folk of the Wild Lands—and they twice didn’t care if those folk didn’t happen to be human. And he wasn’t sure—yet—whether the Elves cared either. But even if it was only he and Kardus—for Cilarnen knew by now that the Centaur Wildmage cared about all his people—Cilarnen would do his very best to see that Sarlin and her people were left to live their lives in peace.

“Be sure you do,” Sarlin said, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Now go your ways.”

THEY departed laden with small gifts: a packet of pastries, a skin of last year’s mead, a well-wrapped honeycomb.

One thing that Cilarnen did not take with him was his phial of headache syrup. It had been nearly empty the day of the banquet, and Stonehearth’s Healer had been one of those killed in the Demon’s attack.

Even if she had not been, Cilarnen had the strong suspicion that his headaches had been linked to whatever had been blocking his Gift, for since it had returned, the one time he’d automatically taken a dose of the cordial, it had made him as sick as if he’d taken an overdose of it, and he’d given the rest of it to Sarlin for the use of the wounded.

Perhaps the headaches were gone for good.

THE entire village—or so it seemed—turned out the morning they left to see them off. Cilarnen was kissed and hugged and back-slapped by nearly everyone in the village—all of whom seemed to know some version of his role in the destruction of the Demon—until Cilarnen was grateful to clamber up on Tinsin’s back and put himself beyond their reach. He wasn’t sure how to gracefully ask them to stop thanking him when he felt deep down inside that they should be yelling at him for not helping sooner.

The big grey mare was not the ideal mount. She was a draft horse, not used to having a rider. Cilarnen had practiced with her a few times in the past two days, and she’d come to accept the idea of having someone on her back, but not to like it. A set of tack had quickly been cobbled together—really just a riding pad and stirrups—but though he’d be in no danger of falling off, Cilarnen could already tell he was going to be sore at the end of the day’s ride.

It would still be better than walking.

Comild gave the signal, and the troop trotted out through the gates of Stonehearth.

THEY stopped several hours later to eat and rest, at least partly for the benefit of the two humans, who were grateful for the chance to dismount and stretch their own legs for a change. Not that Cilarnen’s legs hadn’t been stretched already—quite too much, as a matter of fact, straddling the draft horse’s wide barrel.

As he’d been riding, Cilarnen had been thinking about the future for a change. All the long sennights he’d been in Stonehearth, he now realized, he’d thought no further than his tasks for the day.

But the Demon’s attack had changed everything. It wasn’t just that he had his Gift back—though that was part of it—or finding out that the City he still loved, despite all it had done to him, was in terrible danger. It was that somehow the world had become much larger than he’d ever imagined it could be, and he needed to find where he belonged in it, and what he could offer it.

There were his Magegifts, of course, and as much training as he possessed. More than his tutors had suspected, of course, but how much use was it here, outside the City?

His Gift was fairly useless without the appropriate apparatus. Much of that he could make, with the proper resources, but it was unlikely he’d have access to them anytime soon. High Magick was so very complicated …

But there was one item he might be able to make right here, and it was absolutely essential, the first of all tools.

At their rest stop, he waited until everyone was finished eating, and then sought out Kardus. He found Kardus less intimidating than Wirance—he and the Centaur Wildmage seemed to be bound together, somehow, though Cilarnen still didn’t understand Kardus’s talk of Knowings and Tasks, any more than he’d understood when Wirance told him that magick had to be paid for. Commons paid for magick, not Mages.

“Kardus,” he said, walking over to the Centaur. “Is there an ash tree around here anywhere?”

The Centaur Wildmage regarded him curiously. They were stopped in a forest of young trees, their branches winter-bare.

Cilarnen shrugged when Kardus said nothing. “I wouldn’t know one tree from another. Is any of these an ash tree? Or a willow?”

“Willow trees grow best near water,” Kardus said with a gentle smile. “But there is an ash here. I will take you.”

He led Cilarnen away from the others, stopping before a slender tree with smooth grey bark, which looked pretty much like every other tree in the woods to Cilarnen. “And now?” the Centaur asked.

“I need a straight length of wood about as long as my arm and as thick as my thumb,” Cilarnen said, gazing up at the tree. There seemed to be some suitable branches, but they were fairly high up. “Living wood.”

And I have now merited Banishment all over again, speaking of the secrets of the Art with a non-Mage. Oh, well. They’ll have to catch me before they can Banish me, Cilarnen thought with bleak humor.

Kardus reached out and put his palm against the trunk of the tree. “Dryad, if you sleep here, know that we do not ask this lightly. We will take only what we need, and use it well. I promise you this.” He turned to Cilarnen. “Climb and cut. Take only what you need.”

One of the gifts that the folk of Stonehearth had pressed upon Cilarnen at his leavetaking was a good heavy knife, more than capable of cutting through a tree branch if he was careful. But getting up the tree looked like more of a problem. At last, Cilarnen managed to reach the branch he was after by standing on Kardus’s shoulders and clinging to the slender trunk of the ash for dear life.

That left him only one free hand. It would have been easier to just saw away a big cluster of branches near the trunk, and then take what he needed after it had fallen to the ground. He started to do that, but then he remembered Kardus’s words.

He’d spoken to the tree. As if there might be something alive inside.

As if dryads were real.

Demons were real. Maybe dryads were more than Illusory Creatures.

Cilarnen hesitated, then adjusted the placement of his knife, reaching far out along the branch and feeling the strain in his shoulder as he stretched. At last the length of wood he wanted eased free.

And Cilarnen, caught off-balance, fell sprawling into the snow.

He landed flat on his back, winded but unhurt—the snow was thick, and he hadn’t fallen all that far.

He staggered to his feet, brushing snow from his clothes. He’d dropped both the branch and the knife, of course, but the knife had made a deep hole in the snow crust where it had fallen, and the branch was sticking up out of the snow like an arrow. He picked them up.

“Now you must thank the tree, for giving so graciously of herself,” Kardus said.

“Is there really a dryad in there?” Cilarnen asked cautiously, turning toward the tree.

“I do not know. I do not have the magic to see her if she is there,” Kardus said, a little wistfully. “And this would be her season to sleep, in any event. But it is always proper to give thanks for the bounty of forest and field—and to the Otherfolk, even if you cannot see them.”

Cilarnen nodded. “Thank you, dryad,” he said to the tree. “I really need this.” He felt strange talking to a tree—but then, he’d felt equally strange talking to Centaurs not so very long ago.

“Good,” Kardus said approvingly.

Cilarnen looked down at the length of wood in his hands. It looked nothing like the polished, elegant tool he had used back in the City. “I need to trim this,” he muttered under his breath.

He found an outcropping of rock and used it to steady the branch while he trimmed the ends flat. He carefully cut away all the tiny twiglets sticking out from it, measured it against his arm, and trimmed again.

Not elegant. But a wand of living ashwood. If it wasn’t polished smooth with virgin beeswax and bound in fine silver, those things shouldn’t matter.

“Eleph. Vath. Kushon. Deeril. Ashan.”

The sigils every first-year student committed to memory. The building blocks of the High Magick. Cilarnen traced them in the winter air, whispering their names under his breath.

They hung before him, perfect shapes of colored fire.

Cilarnen let out his pent-up breath in a sigh of relief.

THE difficulty with finding the next lair of the Shadow Elves was that it might, literally, be anywhere. Or nowhere. This might have been the only enclave of the creatures—or the Elven Lands might be riddled with them. No one knew—and they dared make no assumptions.

And Vestakia was the only one who could find them.

If the Elves knew that, then Shadow Mountain must know it as well. Her life was in constant danger, for without Vestakia, their only alternative was to seek out every cave in the Elven Lands—and even the Elves weren’t quite sure where they all were—and search them all blindly. And such a task could take an Elven lifetime to complete.

And that was time they did not have.

Not knowing where the next enclave of the Shadowed Elves might be, Redhelwar made the decision to regroup at Ondoladeshiron. The rest of the Elven Knights would have arrived by now, and the wounded could be better cared for there.

The army moved more slowly on its retreat, handicapped both by its burden of wounded and by the bitter winter weather. The only mercy was that none of the horses or unicorns had been hurt in the battle—Kellen didn’t think he could have borne that.

Idalia, Jermayan, and Atroist worked tirelessly among the injured—the sword cuts were bad enough, but these were things that the Elven Healers were used to dealing with, and they were masters of the healing arts. But the wounds caused by acid and poison were resistant to everything the Healers could do, and there the skills of the Wildmages made all the difference.

Here Kellen faced a great dilemma. It was not that he was unwilling to help his friends and companions in every way he could, though no Knight-Mage would ever be as good a Healer as a true Wildmage—but the Wild Magic exacted a price for every spell, in the form of a task the Wildmage must complete in payment. What if one of those tasks somehow ran counter to doing what needed to be done here?

“Don’t worry about it,” Idalia told him, when he brought the question to her. “I don’t know of course, but I’m pretty sure the Gods of the Wild Magic want Shadow Mountain out of the way as much as we do. They aren’t likely to set you a Mageprice that will interfere with that. And you need the practice. Someday you might be the only Healer around, and what then?”

So at the end of each day, Kellen joined the others in the Healers’ tents, doing what he could. Some of the prices he incurred were small and relatively easy to discharge, like going to comfort one of the unicorns whose rider had been slain. Some of them he could not discharge for years to come, if ever—like the order to visit the homeland of the Selken Traders.

And some were simply odd, like being told to forgive one whom he thought of as an enemy.

That was puzzling. Kellen didn’t have any personal enemies. Armethalieh had banished him, but even he had to admit there was nothing personal about it. He was trying to exterminate the Shadowed Elves, but again, it was because they were Tainted, not because he hated them personally. He didn’t get along with every single Elf in the army, or in Sentarshadeen, but as far as he knew, he didn’t have any enemies in either place.

Still, if a personal enemy showed up, Kellen supposed he’d keep his Mageprice in mind and do his best to forgive whoever it was. Of course, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t kill that person, but he’d forgive them as well.

Between the long days of riding, and working half the night as a Healer, he was nearly always tired, and the icy conditions didn’t help. It was hard to get to sleep at night, shivering in his blankets, and harder to wake up sooner than he wanted. He learned to get by on less sleep than he would ever have imagined possible, to both eat and sleep in Shalkan’s saddle, and—somehow—stay alert for danger through it all.

WHEN they reached the Gathering Plain, Kellen saw that the encampment had grown, even without the presence of most of the knights from Ondoladeshiron, Sentarshadeen, Windalorianan, Deskethomaynel, and Thultafoniseen. He recognized the banners of Lerkalpoldara, Valwendigorean, Realthataladon, and Ysterialpoerin: the four northernmost of the Nine Cities had arrived.

And there were other tents—non-Elven tents—besides.

“Mountain Traders,” Petariel said cheerfully. Though his leg was still stiff, the combination of Healer skill and Wildmagery had him back in the saddle once more. “I’m glad they’re here. We can use more Wildmages. Oh, not that you’re not very efficient, Kellen,” he added teasingly.

“I think you said at the time that you’d rather be healed by a snow-bear than let me anywhere near you,” Kellen reminded him with a grin. “And if Gesade hadn’t threatened to stand on you and hold you down, I might have gone and found a snow-bear.”

“I should have let you,” the unicorn said consideringly. “It would have been fun to watch. And we could have skinned it afterward, and the stubbornest Elf in the Flower Forest would have had a lovely new cloak.”

“Only if I could have left the bear in it to share it with him,” Kellen said.

Petariel’s injury—a spear through the knee—had looked bad enough at first, but it was only a day or two later that the Healers had realized how serious the Shadowed Elf poison could be. Nothing they’d been able to do had stopped the spread of the infection that ate the flesh from within. Not even the touch of Gesade’s horn had been able to purify it. Only a Healing Spell had been able to lift the Taint from the wound so that the Healer’s drugs could take effect. By the time Kellen had been called to Petariel’s side, the Unicorn Knight had been delirious with pain and poison … and a very bad patient.

KELLEN unharnessed Shalkan before seeing to anything else, but by the time the wagons carrying the rest of their gear got to the Unicorn Knights’ encampment, a messenger had arrived as well. It was Dionan, a junior member of the General’s staff.

“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Dionan said, bowing.

“I See you, Dionan,” Kellen said. He returned the bow as best he could with his arms full of Shalkan’s armor.

“You’re wanted in Redhelwar’s pavilion in two hours,” Dionan said. “He’s gathering all the commanders, and everyone with special experience in fighting the Shadowed Ones.”

That would be me, Kellen thought with an inward pang. “Thank you. I’ll be there.”

Two hours would barely give him enough time to change into the cleanest clothes he had—and maybe, if he was lucky—get some tea. His stomach growled. Food, unfortunately, was going to have to wait.

He set Shalkan’s armor in a convenient location and went looking for his packs.

IDALIA left her palfrey with the horse-tines—someone else would untack Cella and turn her out with the herd, then clean her tack and bring it to Idalia’s tent. There was little deference to rank among the Elves—at least not in the same way there was among humans—but the work of the Healers was hard and often dangerous, and that brought them a few privileges.

With Cella seen to, Idalia went off toward the Mountain Traders’ camp to see if she could find some old friends and catch up on the gossip.

The wind here on the Gathering Plain was sharp and piercing—Idalia, having spent a winter in Ondoladeshiron several years earlier, had dressed for the weather, but even in fur-lined garments, with a heavy fur cloak over everything, she shivered in the wind. The Mountainfolk probably thought this was no more than a brisk spring day, though—it snowed early in the High Reaches, and spring thaw came late. Because of this, the Mountainfolk did very little farming, hunting and trading for most of their needs. They worshiped the Greater Powers in the form of the Huntsman and the Forest Wife, and were careful to do nothing to offend Them, lest They should withdraw the game and the fruits of the forest.

The tents of the Mountainfolk were designed to withstand the heaviest of snows, being low domes constructed of waxed canvas with thin rods sewn into the fabric to stiffen it. Once unfolded and staked into place, no amount of snow could collapse them, nor wind overset them. In fact—Idalia could see as she approached their encampment—all of the dun-colored tents had been edged around with high-packed snow for added warmth and stability, so that only the very tops protruded from the mounds of glistening white.

“Hail, stranger.” A man anonymous in winter furs greeted her as she approached. “Are you lost?”

“Looking for old friends,” Idalia answered, pushing back the hood of her cloak so he could see her face.

“By the First Frost—Idalia! Come to give me my mule back, have you?”

To Idalia’s surprise and delight it was Kearn, one of her closest friends among the Mountain Traders.

“No more than you’re here to give me my tarnkappa back, Kearn,” she responded with a grin. “I’m fond of that mule, and I traded for her fair and square. Besides, she’s back in Sentarshadeen, and I’m not going all the way there just to fetch her to you.”

“Well met nevertheless,” Kearn said. “I’m glad you made it away from the Wildwood safely. There’s many that didn’t, so I hear.”

“What have you heard?” Idalia asked, more sharply than she’d intended. If not for the discovery of the presence of the Shadowed Elves, she’d intended to head south into the Wild Lands this winter, to try to discover more about the aftereffects of Armethalieh’s ill-advised expansion of its Borders.

“Come along, and I’ll tell you, then. It’s not so very cold out here, but the wind on the flat makes my bones ache. Resel, come and keep watch. The Elves are good folk, to be sure,” he said in an aside to Idalia, “but I think we understand them as little as they understand us, and a man can grow old waiting for them to come to the point when they want something. So it’s best to have someone waiting at the entrance of the camp for when they show up, so we can try to find out what they want and give it to them as quickly as possible.”

He led Idalia deeper into the camp, back to his tent. Idalia negotiated the low entryway with ease. The space inside was roomy enough, though of course it wasn’t possible to stand upright, and dimly, though adequately, lit by a candle in a glass lantern. The sides of the lantern were thick, double-paned, and filled with water to magnify the flame—and for added safety, should the lantern break.

Idalia sat cross-legged in a corner while Kearn lit a small spirit-stove and quickly boiled tea.

It was nothing any Elf would have been willing to drink: black as kaffeyah, twice-boiled, and served with a generous dollop of frozen goat’s butter for seasoning. But the extra calories were welcome in the cold mountain environment that was the Traderfolk’s natural home, and the bitter salty taste was oddly refreshing. Idalia wrapped her hands around the wooden mug to warm them.

Kearn squatted down on his heels, holding his own cup, and gazed down at the pot as if seeking inspiration for his tale. At last, when Idalia was almost afraid she’d have to prompt him, he began.

“Last autumn, when you gave me the warning of what the City planned, I went home as swiftly as my girls would go, passing the word of Armethalieh’s encroachment everywhere I stopped. We expected that we would see Lowlander folk coming into our mountains from the Wild Lands—aye, and Otherfolk too. I cannot say that we were happy at the thought, but neither would any of us choose to turn them away, and leave them to the mercies of the City-folk. So we did what we could to prepare, and hoped that the winter would be kind.

“At first they came in numbers. No one knew how far the City’s thievery would go, so there was much confusion. We made all welcome who came—Centaurs whose homes lay closest to the old border, it was at first, and Lowlander humans who had no taste for City rule. Fauns came too—I did not see them myself, but they spoke to those who serve the Wife, and they said that all the Lowland Otherfolk were coming to us, creatures of air and earth, of river and lake and tree.”

Kearn stopped, staring broodingly into his cup.

“But something went wrong,” Idalia prompted at last.

“Oh, aye,” Kearn said. “It did that. Many that we expected—that the Centaurs expected, that the humans expected, that the fauns told the Children of the Wife to expect … they never came.

“We did look for them, Idalia. We went down the trails—even into the new so-called City lands, for we have free passage as far as Nerendale, you know, for the trade caravans, and the City magistrates would not trouble us overmuch if they encountered us upon the road. We found a few Wildlanders still heading for the Reaches, and heard that some had decided to stay where they were and fight, though in the end the City pulled its borders back before it had even knocked upon the gates of half the villages in the Wild Lands. But the rest … ? I know no more than that. When word reached us that the City had tucked its tail between its legs and run craven, the farmers that had come to us returned home for the most part, since the children of the plow do not find our mountains hospitable. The rest are with us here, come to fight since they cannot farm. As for the Shining Ones, who can say? I think they would wish to return to their own lands if they could, and perhaps they have.”

Idalia nodded. Kearn’s story made little more sense to her than it did to Kearn, but what was certain was that it wasn’t good news. There was no way to tell now how many folk—human, Centaurs, and Otherfolk—had simply vanished, but she could make a pretty good guess at how they had vanished.

Demons.

Demons needed blood and pain and death to fuel their magic, and while the raids they conducted on Atroist’s people could have provided enough victims to do something like build the Black Cairn, they would have needed to replenish their store of power afterward. Armethalieh’s attempt to annex the Wild Lands had provided the Demons with a perfect opportunity to conduct secret raids among the refugees, harvesting hundreds—perhaps—of victims, all unnoticed. In all of the confusion and chaos, who would have thought to look for Demon raids?

“You’ve thought of something,” Kearn observed.

“Nothing encouraging,” Idalia said, taking a swallow of her bitter black tea. “And it’s not even a theory, really. Just a supposition.”

Just then Resel poked his head into the tent’s opening. “The Elves,” he announced in long-suffering tones, “are looking for the sister of the Knight-Mage. I promised I’d look, else they’d have set the place on its horns. Do we have such an item as a sister anywhere about the camp, Kearn?”

“That,” Idalia announced, setting down her mug, “would be me. I’d better go find out what they want. I thank you for your news, Kearn—though I’m not sure thanks is really the right word.”

“It so rarely is these days. So much of the news is bad,” Kearn agreed somberly. “Fare you well, then, Idalia.”

He escorted her to the edge of the Mountainfolk camp, and Idalia, tucking her cloak tightly around her against the eternal winter wind, went off to find out who wanted to see her.

SHE caught up with Dionan fairly quickly. He had Vestakia with him, and they were searching among the Healers’ tents, obviously looking for her.

“Idalia!” Vestakia cried, sounding breathless with relief. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“So I discover,” Idalia said dryly. “Here I am. I See you, Dionan.”

“I See you, Idalia Wildmage,” Dionan answered, bowing respectfully. “Redhelwar asks, if you would find it convenient, if perhaps it would please you to join him in his tent.”

No wonder the Elves drive the Mountainfolk crazy, Idalia thought wryly. From her long experience with the Elves, she had no difficulty understanding that she had been bidden to come to the Elven General at once—whether it “pleased” her or not. But few humans without equivalent experience of the Elves would find Dionan’s words as easy to decode.

“Of course,” Idalia said. “It would please me greatly,” she added for good measure.

Dionan led her—and Vestakia as well—through the milling and confusion of the camp. Redhelwar’s scarlet pavilion was an oasis of serenity in the midst of all the apparent disorder—though nothing in an Elven camp was ever really disorganized.

When they reached the tent, Dionan bowed them in ahead of him. Idalia entered first, and found that the pavilion was filled with people.

Kellen was there, and Jermayan, as well as a number of the high-ranking Elven war leaders. More surprising—for this seemed to be a strategy meeting—Rochinuviel, the Vicereign of Ondoladeshiron, was there, and Atroist as well.

Naturally, tea must be served and drunk before the business of the meeting could be discussed, though things went swiftly by Elven standards. When the delicate Elvenware cups had been collected and set aside, Redhelwar spoke.

“We have been blooded by the foe, and he will be a difficult enemy to master,” Redhelwar said. “Yet by the grace of Leaf and Star, and with Vestakia’s aid and that of our Wildmages, we shall find the dark places in which he bides and scour his presence from the land, so that They have no foothold here, and the poor tortured spirits of our cousins can find rest at last.”

There was a profound moment of silence, and Idalia remembered what Kellen had told her: even while they devoted every fiber of their being to killing the Shadowed Elves, their Elves never stopped thinking of them as Elves, and hating the necessity that drove them to slaughter what they considered to be their own kind.

“Yet this is a fight that cannot be won with sword and spear alone,” Redhelwar said, continuing. “We must once more take up our alliance with those who wield the Wild Magic, as it was in the time of the Great War. To that end, Rochinuviel brings word from Andoreniel.”

Rochinuviel bowed, stepping forward. The Vicereign was gowned as elaborately as she had been on the day that she had greeted the Unicorn Knights on the Gathering Plain. Diamonds and moonstones glowed and glittered in her long black hair, and she wore a cloak of thick white fur over a gown of white velvet banded in ermine and satin as bright as ice. But despite the fact that she was dressed for Court in a pavilion full of men and women wearing armor and coarser furs, she did not look out of place. She was simply Rochinuviel, as inviolate as the snowcapped peaks.

“Your words honor me, Redhelwar. The words of Andoreniel will bring change to the Elven Lands. It is, as I am sure you expect, a hard counsel, but wise, and in time of danger, new ideas must not be set aside merely because they are new. Andoreniel’s words are these: the Lostlanders must come south, every man, woman, and child of them, every goat and sheep, every household chattel. No living thing which they value is to be left behind. They will be granted safe passage through the Elven Lands, escorted by our own people, all the way to the lands of Men. Then shall their Wildmages fight among us against the Shadowed Elves, and those of their young men who are willing as well. All of the Lostlanders who take up arms in honor of the ancient treaties shall be our valued allies, and all the rest shall be safe in the Lands of Men, and all who aid them there shall have the gratitude of the Elves. So says Andoreniel, Lord of the Nine Cities.”

Atroist let out a deep sigh of relief, bowing his head.

“I shall tell them this at once, Lady. You are more than generous.”

“It is not I who am generous,” Rochinuviel said, rebuking him gently, “but Andoreniel, who speaks through me. I have given his words, and now I will go, and leave you to see to the matters of war. You will tell Andoreniel when he may expect your people to arrive.”

She drew her white cloak more firmly around her and walked from the tent. Her escort—another Elf, dressed almost identically, but in shades of palest grey—followed silently.

“To know this thing will make good hearing,” Redhelwar observed, in the silence that followed.

“I can speak to Drothi today,” Atroist said. “With help it will be easier, but—”

“Of course we’ll help,” Idalia said firmly, glancing at Jermayan and Kellen. “Just tell us what you need.”

“Ah.” Atroist smiled. “Then when Drothi tells me how soon the folk can be ready to move, I can tell you, Lord.”

“Useful,” Redhelwar observed, to no one in particular. “Now. We will discuss the Battle of the Cavern, and what we may learn from it in order to be able to fight more efficiently in future battles.”

FOR the next several hours there was a brisk discussion—both among those who had been at the battle at the cavern in the Mystral Mountains and those who had just arrived on the Gathering Plain—about the sort of fight the Shadowed Elves had put up, and whether they could expect the same sort of battle the next time. Kellen found himself having to tell the story of what he had done and what he had faced over and over again. There were things he wished Vestakia didn’t have to hear, but there was no help for it. It was no consolation to hear the others who had also been in the caves echo his story from their own perspectives. The memories were still hard and painful ones.

What was clear to Kellen was that they dared not risk another such battle as the one they had just fought. Though their losses had been comparatively small, they’d been far too high when one remembered that this was only the start of the campaign against the Shadowed Elves—and that they had the Endarkened still to fight.

“Perhaps that was the only enclave of the creatures,” an Elven Knight named Belepheriel suggested, when the battle had been gone over from every possible aspect.

“It is true that we do not yet know the location of other enclaves—or, indeed, if they exist at all,” Redhelwar agreed reluctantly. “Therefore, we must wait until Vestakia has discovered another nest of the creatures to see what we must do. But it is best to be prepared, for I do not think that They would lead us so easily to the only infestation of our enemy. They are not in the habit of bestowing such rich gifts upon Their foes.”

And with that grim assessment, everyone present had to agree.

REDHELWAR dismissed his commanders soon thereafter: the meeting had been for the purpose of providing everyone there with information; soon, he told them, he would want to hear strategies for dealing with the special problems of invading the Shadowed Elves’ underground lairs.

The four Wildmages and Vestakia left together, intent upon their more immediate concerns.

“What is it that we have to do to help you send your message to Drothi?” Idalia asked.

“There must be a Speaking Circle,” Atroist answered. “We use them to pass messages over long distances in the Lost Lands. Drothi will be awaiting a Sending from me, though she knows not when one may come. It is a thing best done with”—he glanced around at the bustle of the camp—“perhaps some privacy.”

“Well, if Jermayan’s going to help, it needs to be someplace where Ancaladar can be close by anyway,” Idalia said in practical tones. “There’s an old orchard out behind the Flower Forest—you remember the place, Jermayan. We can meet there.”

“Sounds cold,” Kellen muttered. It was hard to remember at the moment the last time he’d been really warm.

“It won’t be when I’m done with it,” Jermayan said with a smile. “Perhaps you will tell me, Atroist, what you require for this Speaking Circle.”

“A place to build a fire—a small one—where we can gather around,” Atroist said simply. “I have brought all else I need with me.”

“Then let us meet there at dusk. Ancaladar and I can go now to prepare the place, and Idalia can bring the two of you, if that is amenable to all of you.”

“I thank you for your aid, Wildmage,” Atroist said, bowing.

Jermayan nodded and walked away, leaving the others behind.

“I’d better go check back with Petariel to see what else needs to be done at the Unicorn Camp,” Kellen said. He glanced at the sky. The day was overcast, but it was still possible to mark the position of the sun through the clouds. “We have a few hours yet.”

“And Vestakia and I will have a few things to do among the Healers,” Idalia agreed. “Meet us at the Healers’ tents an hour before sunset. It’s a bit of a walk to the orchard.”

Chapter Sixteen

Ghosts upon the Wind

JUST AT DUSK they arrived at the old orchard. The trees were bare and black with winter, but Kellen barely noticed them.

Jermayan had indeed been busy.

A pavilion of ice stood at the spot where they would need to do their work. It was all of a piece, as seamless as Magecrafted stone and as transparent as glass. The light of lanterns gleamed from within, making the whole structure glow softly in the fading twilight.

A human Mage would probably have made a simple square building and let it go at that, but Jermayan was an Elven Mage. He had created a replica of Redhelwar’s pavilion—the available interior space, of course, would be much smaller, because the ice walls needed to be thicker for the pavilion to stand—but the exterior was exact in every detail, down to the fringe and tassels along the upper edges of the walls, the folds in the “fabric” of the tent, the stakes and peg-ropes, even the pennons hanging from the centerpole and from each of the four corners. Even the door-flaps that stood pinned back from the entrance—they would not close, of course, being made of ice, but they were so detailed that they looked as if they could.

“Oh, my,” Idalia said, mirth bubbling in her voice.

“Do you like it?” Ancaladar asked, appearing out of the Flower Forest to their right and moving quickly through the winter orchard toward them. He cocked his head, inspecting the ice-pavilion. “The boy shows promise.”

“It’s … not something you see every day,” Kellen said weakly.

Here, as in the Shadowed Elf village, being confronted with the sheer scope of the magical power his friend could command gave him a moment’s pang. It was not that he coveted it for himself—Gods of the Wild Magic forbid. it!—or that he did not trust Jermayan utterly. It was just that there seemed something almost unnatural about it.

It was true that to a non-Mage, there would seem to be very little difference between what he and Idalia could do, and what Jermayan could do. But Kellen saw a very great difference. What he did, at least, was just—almost—an intensification of what an ordinary man might do, or what the natural world did on its own. He could make the healing process go faster, but he could not call back the dead. He could see things invisible to others, but that was because his Gift gave him the power to understand tiny clues that they could not see, and showed him the results in visions. He could call fire, but he could not burn things that a natural flame would not burn. He could not reshape stone with a thought.

But he had seen Jermayan burn stone as if it were oil-soaked kindling, and shape granite as if it were clay on the potter’s wheel. And now this—calling ice out of thin air to make a place for them to work in.

Was the only difference between what Kellen could do and what Jermayan could do that Jermayan had Ancaladar’s power to draw upon? Was it that Jermayan was an Elven Mage and Kellen was human?

“Is this what your Wildmages do in the south?” Atroist asked, sounding stunned.

“I’d have to say that Jermayan isn’t exactly a typical Wildmage,” Idalia said comfortingly.

“Come,” Jermayan said, stepping out of the ice-tent’s entrance. “Be welcome.”

The three of them crunched through the heavy snow and in through the entrance of the “tent.”

It was warm inside, even though the structure was made of ice. The walls were smooth and featureless, save for brackets of bronze in the shapes of wyverns that were set into the walls. The lanterns illuminating the space hung from their jaws. The floor of the tent was hard-packed snow, providing cold—if certain—footing. Jermayan’s pack was tucked into a corner, and the inevitable brazier was already brewing water for tea.

“It looks very much as if you’ve done this before,” Idalia commented, looking around as she shed her pack. Kellen and Atroist quickly followed suit.

“As Ancaladar does not wish to be treated as a pack animal—yes, I had to find a way of making shelter on my journeys, since I could not carry it,” Jermayan agreed.

“Pack animals walk,” Ancaladar said simply, poking his nose into the doorway of the tent. “I fly.”

“That you do,” Idalia agreed, squatting down in front of the dragon and reaching out to rub his nose, gradually working her way up to gently scratch the brow-ridges above his eyes. The huge black dragon closed his eyes with pleasure.

Atroist was busily working through the three packs—all of which contained his supplies—and laying them out in the center of the tent. He made a circle of what Kellen recognized as keystones, though very large ones—so that was why the pack he’d carried had been so heavy!—two rings of them, with a third set balanced upon the first two, and, at the center of the ring, a carefully woven pyre of sticks and small logs, all black and tarry with resin.

“So long as the fire burns, I. can Speak with Drothi,” Atroist said. “This is the wood of the ghostwood tree. I will call the fire away when we are finished, in case I need to speak again—I have not seen ghostwood here in the south.”

“You have not been to the Flower Forest,” Jermayan said. “We call these trees namanarii. We use the sap in medicine; it sends healing dreams. I did not know that they grew any longer in the lands of Men. If you need more of it for your spells, send to Andoreniel for permission to take what you need, and you may have it from any of the Flower Forests in the Elven Lands.”

As he had been speaking, Jermayan had been brewing tea. He paused now to pour it out and to hand the filled cups to each of them.

This was a set of cups Kellen had never seen before. They were tiny, holding no more than a sip or two—the sort of cups the Elves used for “polite” occasions. They were Elvenware, delicate as moonlight, and of a color Kellen had never seen before: black.

But their surface shone with a red fire, like flames, and somehow it seemed as if he could see a black dragon dancing through those flames. Kellen thought he’d gotten used to the beauty the Elves could create, but this was truly the most exquisite piece he had ever handled.

“They are for drinking out of, not looking at,” Jermayan reminded him gently.

Kellen grinned, and sipped the tea.

It was bitingly hot. He tasted woodsmoke and fruit—the tea was some kind he’d never had before, and a stronger flavor than most of the Elven blends. It was odd, but he liked it.

“Oh, Jermayan, I didn’t think you had any of this left,” Idalia said, her eyes going wide as she tasted it.

“Very little,” Jermayan admitted. “But it is a good tea for this time and place.”

“Take pity on a poor round-ear who can’t be trusted to boil water,” Kellen pleaded.

“The tea is called Auspicious Venture,” Idalia said. “It’s made with the fruit of the vilya, among other things. It’s very rare, because the vilya is always in flower, but it fruits only once a century. So you see.”

“Maybe,” Kellen said cautiously. He sipped the tea slowly, trying to make it last, but trying to finish it before it cooled. The flavor seemed to change with every sip. He guessed he’d better not get to like it too much, if it was as rare as Idalia said.

Jermayan finished first, and to Kellen’s horror, dropped his exquisite teacup to the snow and ground it to shards underfoot.

“Things of beauty are not meant to be guarded at the expense of more important things,” he said. “We cling to them at our peril. Only when we release them are they truly ours—and are we truly free.”

Idalia finished her tea, dropped her cup, and did as Jermayan had done.

Kellen looked down at the empty cup in his hands. Destroy such a beautiful thing? When would he ever see something like it again?

“We cling to them at our peril …”

He dropped the cup to the snow and crushed it beneath his boot. The sound it made as he broke it seemed to resonate through his entire body.

Atroist broke his cup in turn, grinding the fragments into the snow.

“Come,” he said, seating himself close to the ring of keystones.

The other three seated themselves around the ring of stones as well.

“Who will share the cost of this Working with me?” Atroist asked formally.

“I,” said Jermayan.

“And I,” Ancaladar said from the doorway.

“I will,” Idalia said.

“Me, too,” Kellen finished.

“Then let it begin,” Atroist said, stretching his hand out toward the wood. “Walk with me.”

The wood burst into flame, and Kellen felt the familiar sense of Presence as the shield that marked the beginning of a spell of the Wild Magic appeared.

But nothing else was the same.

Suddenly he was not in the ice-pavilion at all.

He got to his feet—moving without his own volition—and as he moved, he saw he was in a small cottage. The light was dim—the illumination coming mostly from a fire that smoldered on the hearth—but his body moved with certainty, as if it knew this place.

“Drothi.”

It was Atroist who spoke, not Kellen, and when he did, Kellen realized that he was not truly present at all, merely hearing and seeing all that Atroist did. The illusion of presence was so real that it was strange not to be able to move at his own will, and only now did Kellen realize that although he could see the fire that smoldered on the hearth, he could smell nothing at all, not even the smoke of the burning ghostwood.

The woman sitting at the hearth looked up. She was dressed much as Vestakia had been when Kellen had first seen her, in a long tunic of coarse homespun with wide calf-length trousers, and heavy boots of rough leather. Over that she wore a large shawl, woven in a complicated pattern of crossed stripes that would probably have been very colorful if there had been more light to see by. She was not a young woman; her face was seamed with the lines of age, and her eyes looked almost white in the firelight. As she gazed in his direction in an unfocused fashion, Kellen realized she could not see Atroist at all.

“What news do you bring, kinsman?” Drothi asked. Aged she might have been, but her voice was young and vibrant with power.

“The Firstlings beg our aid, as we knew, yet they would not deny us help as well,” Atroist said. “I have told them how it is with us, and of our struggles with the Dark Folk, and so they bid us travel to find sanctuary in the lands where the Dark Folk do not come. The Firstling King offers us safe passage through his lands for flock and herd, and for every man, woman, and child of the Folk. The Wildmages here speak of a land beyond the Firstling borders where we may settle; an empty land that we may take for our own. And the Firstling King gives his word that all who aid our people beyond the Firstling borders shall dwell in his grace, and here his word is no light thing, even in the lands of Men.”

“Welladay,” Drothi said coolly, “so the walls of the Great Border fall at last, even for kern and chicken. It will not take so very much to persuade the people to come, I think—aye, and swiftly.”

“What is the news?” Atroist asked, and now Kellen heard a note of fear in the Wildmage’s voice.

“The raids, as you expected, have continued,” Drothi said simply. As she spoke, she picked up a spindle from the basket beside her and began pulling carded wool into thread with deft sure motions. “And to make matters worse, the winter has been harder than any we have seen in a long-hand of years. Had Torchen not warned us it would be so when the rains began, there would be starvation now. But that is no matter, since it has not happened. There are things that are worse.

“The Great Wolves have come again. When the snows began to fall, the folk heard them singing at Icebridge and at Songhythe, which lie nearest to the Stone Wastes, as you know. The folk there had left their cattle to winter in the near fields, and one day they woke to find them slaughtered, every bull and cow, with nothing left behind but blood and polished bones. They knew the marauders for Great Wolves by the tracks, and did the only thing they could: they turned their flocks out as a sacrifice and fled south. This is what the survivors say. There were not many, for the Great Wolves harried them as they went, pulling them down in ones and twos, running them like the deer until the weakest dropped from exhaustion and the strongest must leave them behind or die as well. It was a cruel jest the Dark Folk played upon us that day, to leave any alive when they could have taken all so easily.”

Atroist sucked in a trembling breath, but Drothi went on with her spinning implacably. This was old news to her, Kellen realized.

“Yet the Great Wolves can be killed. We have fought their kind before, but now creatures have come into the land that have not been seen since before the Settling, if then. We have seen creatures in the sky like giant bats—they do not come near, but they bring fear to all who see them. In the Haunted Places there are tracks upon the ground as if of giant serpents—you remember the songs I taught you as a child, Atroist, of the icedrake whose body is colder than the coldest ice, and whose breath is poison? I think it must have come again among us, though I was certain it was only a legend from the Oldest Days.

“Other folk speak of black things that look like bears but are as tall as two men, beasts with glowing red eyes and the power of human speech. Of things like horses, but with cloven hooves, the teeth of wolves, and the tails of serpents.

“No man dares leave his village to hunt, no woman to draw water from the river. The Lost Lands have become an abode not only of the Dark Folk, but of monsters, and our people suffer terribly.

“I shall pass the word at once that we are to leave. We will come as swiftly as we may. Pray to the Good Goddess that we survive the journey.”

“I shall,” Atroist said. “And I will come to you myself and render what aid I can.”

“Let it be so,” Drothi said. “Now leave me. I have much work to do before I sleep.”

THERE was a moment of disorientation, and suddenly Kellen was back in the ice-pavilion, blinking in confusion at his fellow Wildmages over the now-cold fire. He breathed in deeply and coughed, suddenly aware of the lingering spicy scent of woodsmoke.

“This does not sound good,” Idalia said mildly.

“Coldwarg, and icedrake, and shadewalkers, and serpent-marae, to judge by Drothi’s description,” Jermayan said grimly. “And the Deathwings that we know to be the creatures of the Shadowed Elves as well. The Deathwings we had never seen before, and all but the coldwarg we had thought to be gone—destroyed in the Great War.”

“I guess they’re back,” Kellen said. He yawned—he couldn’t help it; now that the spell had run its course, the energy he’d lent to its working left him feeling drained.

“I must go,” Atroist said, getting to his feet and beginning to pack the keystones and the half-burned ghostwood into the packs again. “I will leave at first light. I cannot leave my people to face such a journey alone, when I might be able to protect them on their way.”

“Of course you can’t,” Idalia agreed. “Return as soon as you can, and make your journey safely.”

“May the Good Goddess will it so,” Atroist said.

“What about this?” Kellen said to Jermayan, indicating the ice-pavilion.

“Oh,” Jermayan said, a faint overelaborate note of casualness in his voice, “I thought I’d just leave it. It won’t melt, you know.”

“Not until spring,” Ancaladar agreed, from his position in the doorway.

“And I might have a use for it later,” Jermayan continued, far too innocently.

“Whatever,” Kellen muttered. He wondered if there was any chance of getting a bowl of hot soup back at the Unicorn Knights’ camp, or whether he’d have to make do with cold trail-rations. At least there’d be tea. In an Elven camp, there was always tea.

“Don’t tease him, Jermayan,” Idalia said sharply.

“What?” Kellen said blankly.

“I do apologize, Kellen,” Jermayan said, sounding truly contrite.

Kellen was puzzled. Something had just happened, and he had no idea what it was, but Idalia was mad, and Jermayan was upset.

“Look,” he said with a sigh. “I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I’m cold. All I want is to help Atroist get his stuff back to his tent so I can go get some dinner, okay?”

Idalia smiled, and reached out to ruffle his hair. “I do love you, Kellen,” she said with a smile.

“Sure,” Kellen said. Sometimes sisters were just as baffling as Elves.

Since a good portion of the ghostwood had been burned in the Speaking Spell, the remains and the keystones fitted neatly into two backpacks. Kellen took one, and Atroist took the other, and they headed back in the direction of the Gathering Plain. It was only after they’d passed the edge of the Flower Forest that Kellen realized that Idalia and Jermayan had stayed behind. He shrugged. Probably quoting poetry at each other. He hoped Jermayan had brought more teacups.

“The Firstlings are … not as I imagined they would be,” Atroist said after a while.

“The Elves? I guess they take some getting used to,” Kellen agreed. “I didn’t even know they existed—not really—before I left the City, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Good thing too.” Not that he’d had a lot of choice about coming to Sentarshadeen. But he’d have worried—and it would have turned out to be for no good reason.

“The Golden City of Mages—your City—is a place we only know of in legends,” Atroist said. “Someday, perhaps, we will speak of it further.”

“Um, well, Armethalieh probably isn’t very much like your legends either,” Kellen said tactfully. He supposed the Lostlanders thought of Armethalieh as a sort of paradise, the way the wondertales wrote about the Mage College.

“In our legends, it is a place that shines with painful brightness to mask the darkness of its Mages’ hearts; a place where there is no night or day, no winter or summer; a place where the citizens have no souls, for they have been stolen to fuel the magic of the Mages. Music fills the air eternally to mask the cries of despair rising from the captive populace,” Atroist said simply. “I apologize if my words offend you. They are only legends.”

Oh.

“They’re close enough to the truth,” Kellen said sadly. “Except that nobody’s in despair. Everybody’s perfectly happy with the life they have—or most of them are, anyway. They’re”—he thought long and hard for a good analogy—“sheep, and the Mages are the shepherds, except that these shepherds not only keep them shorn of every scrap of wool they grow, but would probably throw them to the wolves if wolves showed up. But they don’t know that, and so they’re completely content.”

“You weren’t,” Atroist pointed out.

“No,” Kellen agreed. “Idalia wasn’t either. But most people are. The High Mages make sure of it.” He supposed he ought to hate Armethalieh and the High Council for what it had done to him. Certainly they’d acted out of pettiness and spite, and tried to kill him, but since he’d been Banished, he was happier than he’d ever been before in his life.

And to his surprise, he was worried about them. They were blind, self-centered, bigoted idiots, true, but nobody deserved to be the Demons’ victims.

Kellen and Atroist had reached the edge of the camp by now, and a few minutes more brought them to Atroist’s tent. The two men stepped inside, and Kellen set down his pack with a sigh of relief.

“I’d better be going. Shalkan will want to know what happened,” Kellen said. “I hope your friends get here safely.”

“As do I,” Atroist said. “Fare you well, Kellen Knight-Mage.”

“You, too, Atroist Wildmage,” Kellen said.

WHEN he returned to the Unicorn Camp, Kellen was grateful to find not only tea, but soup and fresh bread waiting.

“The advantages of being chosen for night patrol,” Petariel told him cheerfully, handing him a steaming bowl. “Not you, Wildmage. I order you to report to your bedroll at once. You look exhausted.”

“I’ll make sure he gets there,” Shalkah said, walking around the corner of one of the tents and staring pointedly at the jar of crystallized honey until Petariel laughed and offered him a disk of it.

“Huh,” Kellen said inelegantly, squatting near the large brazier and filling himself with bread and soup with brisk efficiency. “Thanks.” And that was all he said for long enough to fill himself up to the brim with hot food and drink. After half a loaf of bread, three bowls of soup, and two mugs of tea with a great deal of honey, he felt a lot better—well. enough, in fact, to realize how tired he was. He stumbled off to his tent, one arm over Shalkan’s shoulder, glad he was awake enough to remember where it was.

“So,” Shalkan said, once they were inside.

“Atroist spoke to Drothi. The Lost Lands are being used as a breeding ground for monsters,” Kellen said, struggling out of his armor. When he heard his own words he stopped, blinking in surprise. But it was true, wasn’t it? The Demons had to put them somewhere while they were rebuilding their numbers. “I have to tell Redhelwar.”

“The news will keep. And you’ll present it so much more elegantly if you’re awake when you do it,” Shalkan said cuttingly. “Now finish taking off your armor and go to bed.”

KELLEN awoke when the sun was high, feeling as if he ought to have had restless dreams, but unable to remember any of them. Shalkan was already gone, on business of his own. Kellen dressed—not armor, but camp clothes—and made his way from the tent. He’d check with the Watch Commander for orders, then go to the tents that served as the common dispensary for food in the settled camp to see about breakfast, then bathe if his schedule allowed it. A fixed camp allowed for a number of luxuries—though he wouldn’t have thought of them as luxuries a few months ago. Hot food he didn’t have to cook himself, hot water for bathing, and more fur blankets on his bed than he could carry in a pack or on a packhorse that he shared with three others.

Riasen was the captain of the Morning Watch—since Petariel had been on patrol last night.

“Nothing for you to do while we’re in camp, Kellen,” Riasen said cheerfully. “Except stop wearing yourself to the bone working as a Knight and a Healer both. If that’s what being a Wildmage is like, I thank Leaf and Star I was born Elven.”

“I did all right,” Kellen said, stung. He hadn’t thought he’d looked that tired.

“We were all taking bets on when you’d fall over,” Riasen said frankly. “But you saved Petariel’s leg, and so … if there’s ever anything you need: ask.”

“I hope I won’t have to,” Kellen said. “But I will, if …”

“And Leaf and Star defend us from the day,” Riasen agreed. “Now, I have heard that Rochinuviel has sent bullocks from her own herds, and cheese from her own cellars. You won’t want to miss that.”

“Probably not,” Kellen agreed. And if he was going to go give bad news to Redhelwar, he wanted to do it on a full stomach.

THE dining tents were enormous; the largest single structures in the camp, designed to seat and feed hundreds at a time, and to serve as a place where a large percentage of the troops could be gathered in one place in foul weather—or as a hospital, in case of true disaster.

The tables and benches were delicate yet strong, designed to be folded and stowed for easy transport, in the event that the entire army should need to move somewhere. Despite having been constructed for function and efficiency, the space maintained the ethereal beauty common to all the work of the Elves, and Kellen was reminded, suddenly, of the teacup he had broken last night.

Were the Elves themselves like that teacup? Must the Elves themselves pass away for Shadow Mountain to be destroyed this time? Was the attempt to save the Elves the attempt to preserve Beauty that would doom them all?

Did Jermayan know?

If the Elven Knight-turned-Mage did know, then one thing was sure: he wouldn’t tell Kellen. Maybe knowing for sure would be the one thing that would tip the balance toward disaster. Maybe working without knowing for sure was the only chance they had.

Kellen shook his head. It sounded like something out of The Book of Stars.

Even at this hour—late for breakfast—the tent was half-filled with Elves. Kellen walked the length of the tent, toward the far end where it opened into the cooking area.

The army that had traveled into the mountains had contained only fighters and Healers, but an army, Kellen was discovering, needed much more than that to function properly. Not only fighters, but everything from blacksmiths to wagon drivers to armorers to launderers to cooks—an army was essentially a small mobile city.

The kitchen staff, seeing him, took instant action without a word from Kellen, presenting him with a heavily laden tray burdened with roast meat, cheese, fruit buns, and even—amazingly—a few apples. They were a little withered from winter storage, but fresh fruit at this season was nothing short of a miracle.

Kellen took his food to the nearest table and worked his way slowly through it, trying to at least pretend he had table manners. He wrapped one of the fruit buns in his napkin and tucked it into his tunic, knowing Shalkan would relish the treat later. Sometimes he wondered how the unicorn had indulged his sweet tooth before he’d had Kellen to cadge treats from.

Breakfast over—and feeling comfortably stuffed—Kellen went off to look for Dionan. He knew better than to think he could just barge in on Redhelwar, Knight-Mage or no.

DIONAN’S tent was near Redhelwar’s. Kellen waited outside while Dionan dealt with another matter—from the armor, Kellen recognized Belepheriel, the Elf of the previous evening who had suggested that there might not be any more Shadowed Elves. When Belepheriel had left, Kellen walked up to the tent and courteously shook the bells attached to the tent flap.

“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage. Enter and be welcome,” Dionan said.

“I See you, Dionan,” Kellen answered in return. He entered the tent.

Dionan’s tent was set up as an office, with a table and chairs. A smaller table held a teapot and cups—it would have been startling if it did not. Kellen took a deep mental breath and resigned himself to attempting the Elven dance of politeness once again.

“One observes,” he began, “that the Working last night went well, and that because of that, the Wildmage Atroist journeys back to the Wildlands.”

“So very direct,” Dionan sighed. “I will pour tea.”

“Thank you,” Kellen said meekly. He’d thought he was doing pretty good. He hadn’t come to talk about Atroist, after all.

“I have recently tasted a most exceptional tea,” he said, trying again.

“It would please me greatly to know the name of this tea,” Dionan said, setting a tall pottery cup before Kellen. Kellen lifted it and sipped, tasting the familiar flavor of Winter Spice Tea.

“The name told to me was Auspicious Venture,” Kellen said. “I am told it is a very rare tea. I am pleased to have had the opportunity to have tasted it.”

“A rare tea indeed,” Dionan said. “One may go half a lifetime without tasting it.”

“It had a strong flavor,” Kellen said. “And it seemed to me that the flavor changed constantly. I am sure I did not appreciate it sufficiently. I am gratified by the variety of teas available for me to taste.”

“Indeed,” Dionan said. “You will find the teas of springtime to be strong and complex, when they come into season. I look forward to aiding you in your education, should it be possible. Many humans are not interested.”

“I discover that I do not brew tea well,” Kellen said. “I do not see that this should be a drawback to appreciating its taste.”

“The two go together,” Dionan said, a note of faint reproach in his voice. “Still, if you will begin by appreciating the taste, you will come to understand the making, for they are both part of the same thing.”

The odd thing was, Kellen believed him. Tea and the making of tea had to go together, like—like swordplay and the proper stance. If you had one, you’d have the other.

“You enlighten me,” he said, bowing where he sat.

Dionan smiled. “Come to me to understand the spring teas, and I will teach you the making with the summer teas, for they are the most subtle, and in the summer teas, the making is all. Any fool may brew a winter tea.” He made an elegant motion—not a shrug, but an indication the subject was about to change. “But perhaps you did not come to speak of tea.”

“Perhaps I did not know that I needed to come to speak of tea,” Kellen said, “but wisdom is not summoned, only discovered.” Another of Master Belesharon’s favorite sayings. “What was in my mind when I awoke this morning that Redhelwar would wish to know what I had done and learned since I left him.”

“Perhaps it is so,” Dionan agreed. “If you come to his pavilion at the second hour after noon, you may speak to him of the Wildmage Atroist and other matters touching on the current campaign. I shall see to it that you have the opportunity to sample Ice Mountain Wind as well. You should find it interesting.”

“I look forward to that opportunity,” Kellen said, rising to his feet and bowing. And I hope we’re both alive in the spring, so you can teach me more about tea.

KELLEN spent the time waiting for the next move in this “game” of war on the hundred homely tasks that had been neglected while he’d been in the field—laundry, a proper bath, a thorough cleaning of his sword and armor—and Shalkan’s armor—now that he had light and time to do them. He discovered that his helmet-crest needed refletching—the feathers had gotten thoroughly battered and bloodsoaked—and dropped it off with the armorer on his way to Redhelwar’s tent.

Part of him chafed at this constant focus on inessentials—what did it matter whether he had feathers on his helmet or not, or what they looked like?—while another part of him was resigned to it. He could not change the way the Elves did things overnight. In fact, he probably could not change much—permanently—in his lifetime. When—if—they all got through this and beat the Demons back, the Elves would probably go right back to their old ways the next day. And until they found the next enclave of the Shadowed Elves, there was nothing more vital to be doing.

As he crossed the camp, he could see mounted parties out on the plain, drilling on horseback with the long Elven lance. It was beautiful to watch … but it would be next to useless fighting underground.

He reached Redhelwar’s pavilion and waited. After a moment, Dionan summoned him inside.

“Dionan observes that you have recently had the good fortune to taste Auspicious Venture,” Redhelwar said, once Kellen was seated. “Perhaps you would favor me with your opinion of it. It would be gratifying to perceive this tea through a human’s senses.”

Kellen’s heart sank. This was high formality indeed, something he was terrible at. And despite his growing interest in Elven teas, they were very different from the teas brewed in Armethalieh, and he’d never really been much of a connoisseur. Tea had always been something you drank when you were thirsty, and that was about it. And of all time to start comparing the finer points of leaves—

Still, if that was what Redhelwar wanted to talk about, he guessed he’d better do his best. He needed to understand the Elves if he wanted to be able to persuade them that he was right about Shadow Mountain. But oh, it was very hard to be patient at a moment like this!

But he put on a serious expression. “You honor me with your interest. I know very little about tea, and my tastes are uneducated as yet, but I shall explain as best I can. I am told that it is flavored with the fruit of the vilya. To me it tasted of fruit and smoke, and the taste seemed constantly to change. I found it a strong-flavored tea, and to me that was very agreeable. It was unlike any tea I have ever had, and yet it seemed to remind me of something, in a way I cannot define.”

“It is a good description, for one unversed in tea,” Redhelwar said. “One observes that it is odd for a knight to escape Master Belesharon’s tutelage without learning the ways of tea.”

“I have much more to learn in the House of Sword and Shield,” Kellen said simply. “And many of the … more subtle arts had been set aside to concentrate upon those which Master Belesharon considered more needful to my position and his limited time.”

If that wasn’t enough of a hint—

Apparently it wasn’t. “We shall do what we may to continue your education here,” Redhelwar said. “Now come. Try this tea.”

Cups were set before Kellen and Redhelwar, and Dionan seated himself with his own cup. Kellen raised his cup, inhaling the fragrant steam.

It was hot, yet somehow it managed to smell of the cold purity of ice. The paradox was so odd, that it actually distracted him from his ever-present anxieties. Kellen sipped cautiously.

It wasn’t a tea for drinking carelessly, like Winter Spice. This was a tea that had to be paid attention to, almost like listening to music. It was herbal, like most of the Elven teas, and there were flavors of grass and metal in it—it sounded unpleasant, but it wasn’t, not really. And over all, the sense of winter combined with the heat of the tea seemed to offer a promise that no matter how cold the day or how deep the snow, spring would always come.

“It is a riddle,” Kellen said, setting down his cup after several sips. “It’s hot—but there’s ice in it, somehow. Snow—and green things.”

Dionan exchanged a pleased look with Redhelwar. “I did suggest that perhaps the brewing would not be wasted on him, Master.”

“I admit I had my doubts, but you have convinced me,” Redhelwar said. “Yes. Winter Mountain Ice is one of Tea-master Thenandelet’s most subtle creations, the recipe for its creation passed down in my family for many generations. When you have finished, we will pour something that requires less attention, and speak of necessary things.”

Kellen finished his cup slowly, still trying to figure out how something so hot could make him think of cold. He didn’t quite manage to solve the riddle before the cup was empty.

Dionan removed the cups, and replaced them with larger ones. Kellen caught the familiar comforting scent of Winter Spice Tea. Good. At least it wouldn’t distract him from what he had to say.

“Dionan mentioned that you wished to speak of matters touching upon the Wild Magic, and of the Wildmage Atroist,” Redhelwar said, when the new tea had been tasted.

“As you know already, he left this morning for the Lost Lands,” Kellen said. “Last night, he spoke with Drothi, another Wildmage there. She said she will bring everyone south as quickly as possible, and that because of the great trouble in the Lost Lands, it will not be difficult to convince them to come.”

“Go on,” Redhelwar said.

“Drothi told Atroist—it was as if I were actually in her presence, and could see her and hear everything she said—that Their raids on the Lostlanders have continued through the winter, and in addition, monsters have begun appearing in the Lost Lands. I did not recognize all of them from her descriptions, but Jermayan did. He said that there are coldwarg, icedrake, shadewalkers, and serpentmarae in the Lost Lands, and the Lostlanders have seen the Deathwings that attacked the caravan near the Crowned Horns as well. The coldwarg have destroyed two villages in the Lost Lands, but she was not clear about where the others were, only that they are close enough to the villages to be a constant, and urgent, threat.”

And please, please, someone make the Elves understand that urgent means urgent!

Redhelwar sat and thought for several minutes after Kellen had finished speaking.

“This is fell news, but good to have,” he said at last. “I shall send troops west to support the rangers Andoreniel has sent to conduct the Wildlanders to the eastern border. If these creatures follow the Wildlanders toward the Elven Lands, it may be that our ancient land-wards will not stop them all, nor do I wish to witness a slaughter just outside our protection. But perhaps you will favor me now with your views on why these creatures should have so suddenly appeared in the Wild Lands, where they were not before.”

This is a test. Kellen knew it, with a sudden cold shock of intuition. A test, as—in its way—Kellen’s opinion of the tea had been. Redhelwar was testing him. But for what? After the Battle of the Cavern, Redhelwar already knew how well he fought.

He chose his next words with great care.

“Drothi hasn’t given us much information to go on, but it seems clear to me, from what she said last night and from what Atroist has said before, that They have long considered the Wild Lands their special private hunting preserve. I think that now They’re using it as a place to breed up and collect these creatures in great numbers. Jermayan said most of them hadn’t been seen since the Great War, and that he’d thought most of them were extinct. Drothi said the Wildlanders only knew them from ancient story-songs.

“It seems to me, from the tactics we’ve seen Them using so far, that They are not anxious to meet us on a battlefield. They did that in the Great War, and They lost. If They intend to try it again at all, I think They want to make sure we’re very weak before They do. So They’re using tactics of attrition. First They struck at your water supply, and that failed, but if They can strike at crops and flocks—and game, in the case of the Mountainfolk of the High Reaches—They don’t need to meet us on the battlefield. They can starve us to death.”

There was a long pause after Kellen had finished. Both Redhelwar’s and Dionan’s faces were expressionless, in the way that Elven faces often were. At last Redhelwar spoke.

“And all of these are creatures of cold. If they are stopped by the land-ward barriers, they will simply follow the mountains until they come to a place where they may pass, and enter into human lands,” the Elven general said grimly. “The coldwarg and the icedrake must stay in the realms of cold unless they are spell-guarded, but the serpentmarae and the shadewalker may roam where they will.”

“Unless those who have created them are keeping them back to use later,” Kellen said. “We won’t know until it happens.”

“As with all things in war,” Redhelwar agreed. “A reasonable analysis, given the scant information that we have … and I admit, I have found Their continued reluctance to take the field against us somewhat puzzling. Nevertheless. There is another matter that it is in my mind to speak to you of today.

“As a Knight-Mage, you fight for the Elves, and your valor is unquestioned, but you are not truly of my command. I would change that, were you willing. It is in my mind that you might be one of my alakomentaiia. You would lead a troop under my orders, and work as one with the other alakomentaiia.

“Of course, you would need to take a destrier as your mount, and for this I am truly sorry. If Shalkan consents, it is also in my mind that Mindaerel is without a rider, and grieves at her loss. You might take her, did you find favor in one another’s eyes.”

Kellen sipped his tea without answering, glad that the rules of Elven formality allowed him time to gather his thoughts before he answered. The alakomentaiia were sub-commanders. The Elves didn’t use a lot of ranks; there were generals, commanders, and sub-commanders, and everything else was just “understood” by people who had known each other and worked and trained together for centuries. As far as he could figure out, he’d have equivalent rank to Petariel, but below Adaerion.

And the root word komen—which was Old Elven—didn’t really mean “commander” or anything like it. It meant—as close as you could come to it in non-Elvish—“brotherhood.” Try to translate the whole thing, and what you got—besides a headache—was “the servant of the brotherhood.” What Redhelwar was proposing was as much an adoption as it was a military promotion.

But … give up Shalkan? Kellen wasn’t stupid or dense enough to think this was nothing more than a polite suggestion on Redhelwar’s part that he could lightly decline. He wouldn’t be with the Unicorn Knights anymore, and he wouldn’t have the protections against the Demons that riding Shalkan undoubtedly gave him. But it would give him a visible and acknowledged place—not only in the army, but in the War Councils as well.

“Nothing would please me more than to accept your generous offer,” Kellen said, thinking hard. “And I believe it would be for the good of all. But as you know, Shalkan and I are bound together by an unfulfilled Mageprice. It would not be wise or appropriate for me to answer without consulting him.”

“A proper answer. Do so,” Redhelwar said, rising to his feet to indicate that the interview was finished. “Then make matters known to Dionan. And Leaf and Star guide and counsel you.”

Kellen rose to his feet and bowed.

ELSEWHERE in the vast camp—it was as large as the larger Elven cities, by now—Jermayan sought out Vestakia on an errand that would, he knew, require all his arts of tact and persuasion.

If they were to find the rest of the enclaves of the Shadowed Elves quickly—or determine with reasonable certainty that there weren’t any, something Jermayan doubted was likely—the only efficient method was for Vestakia to search for them from dragonback. It would certainly be the safest method as well, for in that way he and Ancaladar would be able to protect her from nearly anything that might seek to harm her.

All he had to do was manage to obtain Vestakia’s agreement to the plan—and he knew the child was terrified of flying.

There were only a limited number of places she might be; having tried the more obvious places to no avail, Jermayan tracked her down at last in the Flower Forest. Vestakia would have been shy of crowds even without the added handicap of her Demonic appearance; having spent the first seventeen years of her life with little more company than a herd of goats, she sought solitude whenever she could.

Before the First War, the Flower Forests had covered all the world, and before the Great War they had still been thick upon all of the Elven Lands and much of that terrain that was now bleak and sterile wasteland. Now all that remained of the great Elven forests and their vast diversity of species existed only in the lesser woodlands that adorned the Elven cities. It was said that one day, when the Endarkened were utterly defeated, the Flower Forests would begin to spread once more, but Jermayan wondered if perhaps that day was not meant to come.

It was winter, but at every season the Flower Forest was lush. Jermayan followed the faint tracks in scattered snow and blown leaves deeper into the forest until he found Vestakia moving carefully through the wood. Her gathering basket was already half-filled—Idalia or one of the other Healers must have sent her here for supplies and some much-needed solitude.

She stooped to gather a handful of winter mushrooms from the base of a tree, then rose to her feet, turning to face him.

“Jermayan,” she said. She sighed, and her shoulders slumped. “I know why you have come,” she said forlornly.

“I suppose you must,” Jermayan said. “Yet I would not even ask, were the need not so grave. And I shall do no more than that.”

“But the others—they would think I was such a dreadful coward, if—if I did not do it!” Vestakia burst out. “And it’s true, of course—if I were just to fly over the Elven Lands, and see if I could sense the Shadowed Elves, everything would be much faster. It might be the only way! But it is so very high—and I could fall, and—”

She was speaking very fast, and her voice had gone thin and high with fear. Jermayan stepped over to her, took the basket from her arm and set it on the ground, and gripped her shoulders gently.

“Vestakia. It is very high. But you will not fall. Neither Ancaladar nor I will permit it. Nor is it the only way. Ancaladar and I believe it to be the safest, but that matters not if it will not work. You must be calm and easy in your mind to be able to sense the Shadowed Elves, and I do not believe that will be so if you are in fear of falling from my Bonded’s back.”

Vestakia managed a weak giggle. “No. I guess not. But …” She hesitated for a long moment. “Maybe we should just go look at him?”

“Indeed,” Jermayan agreed, picking up her basket. “We shall go and look at Ancaladar.”

THE dragon was waiting beside the ice-pavilion that Jermayan had created two nights before, his great body dwarfing the structure completely. For a few moments Vestakia’s attention was distracted by the glittering structure of ice, but she knew why she was here, and her attention quickly returned to Ancaladar.

She’d seen him before, of course, but that was before she’d actually considered getting on his back.

“He’s very tall,” she said faintly.

“I am not so tall when I am airborne,” Ancaladar assured her gravely. “And once I am in the sky, my flight is as steady and level as you might wish, my lady, though I cannot control the winds. Jermayan will be sure to pick only the calmest days for flying, though, I am sure.”

“That I should,” Jermayan said. “And Ancaladar can sense the weather and how it will run from a great distance, you know. There is very little possibility that we might fly into a storm unexpectedly. And there are all manner of ways in which we can secure you to his back.”

“Would we have to fly … very high?” Vestakia asked in a very small voice.

“The higher the flight, the more serene the winds,” Ancaladar replied. “But we would fly at your direction, Lady Vestakia. No one else’s.”

“I don’t know from how far away …” Vestakia whispered, almost to herself. She looked pleadingly at Jermayan.

He shook his head.

“I cannot tell you that you must do this thing. And I cannot tell you that you may not. Perhaps you would be comforted to take tea in the pavilion and consider matters further. It will also give you the opportunity to inspect Ancaladar’s saddle.”

“Hmph,” the dragon snorted. “It is your saddle, Jermayan. I have no need of a saddle.”

“But your Bonded is a weak and feeble thing,” Jermayan responded with a fond smile, “who requires many such aids. And it is a work of art, very fair to look upon.”

“Thank you,” Vestakia said. “I would very much like a cup of tea.”

TO her surprise, it was quite warm inside the tent of ice. There were carpets upon the floor—just like in the pavilion she shared with Idalia—and lanterns hung from the walls, for despite the fact that the day was bright and the ice was very clear, its thickness made the interior of the ice-pavilion a bit dim.

One corner of the room was taken up with what must be Ancaladar’s saddle, and just as Jermayan had promised, it was a work of art—though Vestakia hadn’t yet seen anything made by the Elves that wasn’t, and privately she thought they wasted a good bit of time on making things beautiful that only had to be serviceable. She inspected it more closely while Jermayan brewed tea.

She knew by now that every Elven Knight chose—or had chosen for them—a particular color of their own. Jermayan’s was dark blue, so she was not surprised to see that the saddle and everything about it was in that color. The leather was stamped with a pattern of tiny stars, some subtly burnished with gold and silver leaf, some merely indentations in the leather. It was heavily lined with thick fleece, both where the rider sat and where it would rest upon Ancaladar’s neck. Several sets of wide padded straps went around the dragon’s neck, and there were footbraces for a rider—very much like the horse stirrups she was already familiar with—set into two sets of the straps.

The saddle itself was similar to a destrier’s saddle, except that it was higher in the back and in the front, and a second seat behind—which explained the second set of stirrups. This must be how Kellen had ridden to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns. And when there was no passenger, Jermayan could carry things there.

Continuing to inspect the saddle, she encountered a set of very wide straps, one set for each seat. She picked one set up, wonderingly. They were too short to be part of the girth-straps, but she couldn’t quite figure out what they were for.

“That is so I do not fall off,” Jermayan said, not turning from his tea preparations. He’d heard the faint clinking, of course; Elven hearing was sharp. “It would be foolish not to take every precaution—though I am certain Ancaladar could catch me if I did fall.”

“I could,” Ancaladar said, poking the end of his nose through the opening of the pavilion. “I would always catch you, Jermayan. And you, Lady Vestakia. But the straps are strong. And more could always be added, as many more as you thought might make you feel secure”

“And the tea is ready,” Jermayan said, gesturing to Vestakia to come and sit beside him.

“What will—I mean, do you know—” She stopped, frustrated by her inability to phrase her remark as anything other than a question. Kellen made it sound so easy!

Jermayan smiled, and handed her a cup of tea.

“For the next sennight—at the least—Redhelwar will consult with his commanders—of whom I am not one, thank Leaf and Star—to decide what tactics will serve us best when we next engage our foe. Perhaps new weapons will be needed, and those must be made, and we must train in their use, as well as in the best way of confronting the enemy. All these things will take time. And we do not know what those who oppose us may do. Should they do anything at all, our plans will change.”

Vestakia sipped her tea. And it is all up to me. I must tell them where to go—where the enemy is. Or … not.

She knew she was the only one who could find the Shadowed Elves. The Wildmages had all tried—even Jermayan, whose power worked so differently from that of the other Wildmages—and none of them could sense where the enclaves of the Shadowed Elves lay. Only Vestakia had the power to sense Demon-taint and find the Shadowed Elves.

I must try. She had led Kellen to the Black Cairn, though that had been the most terrifying thing she had ever done in her life. She had gone down into the cavern of the Shadowed Elves, and that had been worse. And there had been true danger both times; the threat of immediate death from an enemy who was trying to kill her.

But neither venture had made her sick with fear the way the thought of climbing onto Ancaladar’s back and soaring into the sky did.

Once, when she was a child, before Mama had died, she had gone with her, accompanied by Aunt Patanene, to the Icewild River to fish. The river had been in full spring flood, and she had been far too young to be of much help, so while Mama and Aunt Nene worked the nets, she had wandered away and walked out onto the slippery river stones.

And fallen in.

Her heavy cloak had soaked through at once, pulling her toward the bottom, as the swift river current swept her along below the surface. Fortunately she had been upstream of the nets, so Mama and Aunt Nene had been able to rescue her before she drowned, but ever afterward she had remembered the cold of the river and the airless choking darkness.

The thought of going up in the sky brought the memories back sharply. Flying made her think of drowning, and her heart beat faster with fear.

If she did not agree to fly upon Ancaladar’s back, she knew, Jermayan would not rebuke her. But if she did not agree to fly, they would have to search for the caverns on foot. It would take moontums instead of sennights.

“Do what you can do. You can do no more than that.”

Suddenly it seemed as if Mama was beside her, speaking in her ear. Mama had always said that—and after she had died, Aunt Nene had said it for her.

It was as if Mama had given her the right words to say now.

“If I am … too afraid, up in the sky,” Vestakia said slowly, “then I will not be able to do what you need. But maybe … we don’t need to do it all at once? If we could just practice a little? To see if I could get used to flying?” Her voice trembled, and she stared hard down into her teacup, hoping that Jermayan could not see how terribly afraid she was to say even that much.

“Yes, of course,” said Jermayan calmly, as if this were the simplest thing in the world. “Today you will watch me put the harness upon Ancaladar, and sit upon his back. He and I will help you get in to and out of the saddle as many times as it may take to make you feel comfortable with doing so. Then, tomorrow, as the weather will hold fine, we will take a short flight, if you like.”

FINDING a white unicorn in a snowfield might be a difficult task, but not when you had a sticky fruit-bun left over from breakfast tucked into your tunic.

“Is that for me?” Shalkan asked, coming up silently behind Kellen.

“Of course it is,” Kellen said, unwrapping the treat and holding it out for his friend.

“Um,” Shalkan said, finishing the bun in three bites. “Next time get one of the marzipan-stuffed ones. I think they’re serving them at dinner tonight.”

“Uh-huh.” Kellen had no idea what Shalkan’s sources of information were, but they were always accurate, especially when it came to sweets. “I need to talk to you.”

“You’re even less happy than usual—and that’s saying a lot,” Shalkan observed, falling into step beside Kellen.

“Redhelwar offered to make me an alakomentai,” Kellen said bluntly. There was no reason to mince words, not with Shalkan. Thank heavens. At least there were a few beings in this army he didn’t have to do verbal dances with for hours before he could get to the point!

“And you accepted? Or … not?” the unicorn asked.

“I’d have to ride a horse! Unless—?” Kellen said hopefully.

“No. There are limits,” Shalkan said firmly. “Which horse?”

“He offered me Mindaerel.”

“She’s a good choice,” Shalkan said. “Gentle and well trained. She’ll give you a lot less trouble than Valdien does. And you know how to ride. Not very well, but you probably won’t fall off.”

“But—”

Shalkan stopped and nuzzled him gently. “We’re not forever, Kellen. Or even for as long as a pair like Petariel and Gesade, you know. I will always be your friend, but—I will give you full honesty, here—a year and a day bonded to you will be quite enough for both of us. And we both know that if you want those stiff-necked Elves to listen to you, they’ve got to see what you’re made of. Redhelwar is offering you a good place to start. Just don’t think he’s offering you an easy one.”

“I don’t,” Kellen said. He’d expected Shalkan to object—he realized now that part of him had been hoping that Shalkan would object. But Shalkan thought it was a good ideas as well. And that, Kellen knew, meant he was going to do it.

. He’d ordered Jermayan around, on the way to the Black Cairn. He’d led the rescue party on the first expedition to the caverns. He knew he could do it … in the abstract. But this was all real and immediate and a little daunting. And much more formal than anything he’d ever done before. He wasn’t good at being formal: discussing tea and talking about the weather, the way the Elves seemed to expect their military leaders to do even when there was a war on. Give him something to hit with a sword, sure, he was fine, better than fine, but the rest of it …

He’d have to learn. That was all there was to it.

“All right. Then—since you think I should—I will,” Kellen said, taking a deep breath.

“And don’t think you’re going to be leaving me behind if you happen to get sent off on any interesting missions, either, because that isn’t going to happen,” Shalkan said firmly. “You’d only get into trouble if I let you go off by yourself.”

“Right,” Kellen said, feeling a bit better. So he wouldn’t be riding Shalkan, but the unicorn wasn’t going to let him go off into danger alone. “No interesting missions.”

Shalkan snorted eloquently, switching his tail. “Just be sure to tell the armorers, so they can change Mindaerel’s colors. Oh, you’ll be quite the dazzling sight. I can’t wait.”

“Do you want a faceful of snow?” Kellen demanded.

“Do you think you can manage it?” Shalkan drawled archly. Before Kellen could react, the unicorn bounded forward and kicked back, sending a thick shower of snow into Kellen’s face.

Kellen fell backward, coughing and sputtering—and quickly assembling several snowballs to hurl, with deadly accuracy, at his friend.

“Hah!” he cried gleefully as his missiles found their mark.

For the moment, troubles were forgotten.

“IF they’re going to fight the way the first ones did, there’s no point in risking Vestakia in the first assault wave,” Kellen said.

“We do not know that they will. Nevertheless, point taken,” Adaerion responded. “We should risk Vestakia as little as possible. We dare not lose her.”

There were days that Kellen almost felt as if he were back in the House of Sword and Shield. Mornings were spent in battlefield drill with his new command, afternoons at what seemed a never-ending series of convoluted strategy meetings that made Andoreniel’s Council look straightforward. Every time he tried to drop a hint that the Enemy wasn’t acting the way They had in the last war, the session turned into an excruciating analysis of what had and had not happened, not what the Elves were going to have to do in order to deal with it. It was enough to drive him mad.

At least they might have something real to fight soon. Jermayan had actually persuaded Vestakia to fly with him, and they spent their days covering an expanding ring of territory centered on Ondoladeshiron. The area that they’d “cleared” was marked on a large map suspended in a frame in Redhelwar’s tent, and each day a new segment was marked off—a tiny segment, in comparison to the vastness of the Elves Lands, but far better than nothing.

And much faster than if they’d had to do it on foot.

After almost a sennight of meetings, Kellen knew both the komentaiia and the alakomentaiia rather well, though Redhelwar still remained an enigma to him. Of the senior commanders, Padredor, who had gone down into the caverns and faced the Shadowed Elves sword to sword, tended to favor Kellen’s suggestions, and thankfully did understand that something had to be done to ready the fighters for an entirely new sort of warfare. Adaerion was conservative, but hated to lose troops or assets for any reason, and favored cautious plans that forced the enemy to commit its resources without forcing him to commit his own. Arambor preferred to draw the enemy out with a display of supposed weakness—Kellen suspected his tactics might work fine in theory, but in practice an enemy might take a pretended weakness and turn it into a real one.

And Belepheriel still preferred to believe that there might not be any more Shadowed Elves at all—and if there were, they could certainly be dealt with by the tactics that had served his ancestors in battle for the last several thousand years. His resistance was quiet, but firm.

Of his new fellows-in-rank—all of whom were old enough to be his grandfather, at the very least—several had been newly raised in rank following the Battle of the Caverns, and tended to be quieter than the others. Petariel—Captain of the Unicorn Knights—and Rulorwen—Master of the Engineers—tended to be the most outspoken of the rest.

“Vestakia is not the only one who needs protection,” Keirasti said. “Our shields serve us well against sword and mace, but not against a bucket of acid.” She winced faintly; Kellen knew Keirasti had lost many of her command in the battle at the underground village, and also knew that her long sleeves hid acid-scars and still-healing burns from that encounter.

“I will hear suggestions for a defense,” Redhelwar said formally.

No one spoke.

Why didn’t they say anything? Kellen wondered, They all knew what the answer was—everyone in this room had been trained by Master Belesharon, and he would certainly have told them, just as he’d told Kellen. “If you cannot be where the blow is not, you must arrange matters so that the blow strikes something other than yourself.”

Maybe it was some kind of weird Elven etiquette having to do with doing things the way that things had always been done. Maybe they just didn’t want to acknowledge the truth. But Kellen remembered what Rochinuviel had said: “In time of danger, new ideas must not be set aside merely because they are new.”

“A larger shield,” Kellen said, when it became obvious nobody else was going to say anything. “They’re no use on horseback, but you’re fighting on foot in the caverns. Something large enough to hide behind.”

“Hide! The Children of Leaf and Star do not hide,” Belepheriel objected.

“If acid would improve your complexion, it would not improve mine,” Arambor said tartly. “Yet the crafting of such shields would be the work of moonturns.”

“If Kellen can show me what he is thinking of, I believe my armorers can have at least a few ready within a sennight,” Artenel said. “We have seen that good Elvensteel is no defense against the vile liquids that such a shield as this must repel. If they need not be metal, then the work should go quickly.”

“Let such shields be made,” Redhelwar said. “Bring the first one to me here as soon as it is completed.”

The discussion moved onward. Kellen let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. Keirasti shot him a grateful look.

Petariel edged over.

“You’re just lucky there probably won’t be a Flower War this spring,” he whispered. “I’d hate to face Belepheriel in the field, and you’d probably lose your lance, your garlands, and your colors besides, Knight-Mage or no.”

Kellen nodded politely. He had absolutely no idea what Petariel was talking about.

Chapter Seventeen

On the Wings of Dragons

IT’S BEAUTIFUL!” VESTAKIA shouted over the rush of the wind. Jermayan nodded, and Ancaladar laughed aloud, his deep voice booming through the sky.

Today was the sixth day they’d flown, and every day she grew to love it more. She couldn’t imagine now why she’d feared it so. Even riding behind Jermayan, there was a freedom and a solitude here, and she hadn’t realized how much she’d longed for it. She’d been alone for so much of her life that she’d not only grown used to it, that solitude had become a part of her fundamental nature. Living in the densely-populated city of Sentarshadeen—and then in the even-more-crowded war camp—she’d yearned for something like this far more than she’d realized.

In the beginning she’d been constantly afraid that she’d fall off. Her first flights were only minutes long, and had left her shaking and sweat-drenched, but stubbornly determined to master her fear. And suddenly the moment had come when she was not afraid; when she could look around her and see the wonder of the world below as only birds—and dragons—saw it.

And then their true work had begun.

Each morning Vestakia dressed in her warmest furs—by now she had special clothing just for flying—and rode her palfrey to the orchard where Jermayan and Ancaladar waited. They flew throughout the day, landing once or twice to eat and brew tea, for it was cold up in the high sky.

As they flew, Vestakia concentrated on the ground below, willing herself to be aware of any hint of Demon-taint. But as one day followed the next and she felt nothing, Vestakia began to wonder if—though none of them thought it possible—her Gift really wouldn’t work from the air.

Then, suddenly, today, she felt it. A thick queasiness at the pit of her stomach. She drew a deep breath, grateful as she had never been before to feel the onset of the misery that signaled that Demon-taint was near. And she was even more grateful to realize by the way she felt that it was not just that she was high above that attenuated the sensation. She tapped Jermayan’s shoulder and pointed. North.

He nodded, and Ancaladar veered off in that direction.

Because they were moving so fast, the nausea swiftly worsened, and soon Vestakia was gasping and shuddering, clutching with mittened hands at the raised cantle before her.

“Down there—” she gasped, knowing that either Jermayan or Ancaladar would be able to mark the spot close enough for the army to find it. “Ah!” The yelp was torn from her as they passed directly over the site.

She expected the pain to begin to fade immediately as they flew away from the spot, but to her dismay, it didn’t. “Keep going!” she choked out.

Ancaladar had begun to swerve back toward Ondoladeshiron. There was a slight bobble as he returned to his original course, and Vestakia whimpered as the pain began to increase again.

“There …” she whispered. It was the last thing she remembered.

Some time later she realized she was no longer in the sky. She was sitting on a blanket, leaning back against Ancaladar’s side. No matter how cold it was, the dragon’s body was always warm, like summer-warmed rocks. It was as if he radiated sunlight.

She took a deep breath. Her chest hurt.

The light brightened as Ancaladar folded his wing back.

“She’s awake,” Ancaladar said softly.

“I know I’m awake,” Vestakia said, feeling slightly cross. “And at least we know it works.”

“We do indeed,” Jermayan said, folding her hands around a cup of hot sweet tea and helping her raise it to her lips. “And while I am grateful for the news, it is perhaps somewhat distressing to learn that we have not one, but two enclaves within a short day’s ride of one another to deal with … and both of them very close to Ysterialpoerin, most ancient of the Elven cities.”

“That isn’t good, is it?” Vestakia said, after a pause.

“No,” Ancaladar assured her. “There really isn’t any way to make news like that sound good. But we’re very glad to have it, all the same.”

SINCE Idalia worked with strong and sometimes toxic chemicals in her salves and potions, Kellen had brought her into the discussion with Artenel. The Elven armorer already knew the shape of the shield Kellen wanted—long and square, but curved for strength.

But what to make it out of was another question.

“Metal’s right out,” Idalia had said frankly. “Acid will eat right through it. Glass is best to stop acid.”

“If it’s thick enough to stop a sword blade—and it will have to stop one or two—it’s too heavy to lift,” Kellen protested. “And it’s fragile besides.”

“Nay, that is a myth,” Artenel protested. “Indeed, glass does become fragile with time. But new glass is supple, and when thick, is very strong. Yet a mace will crack it if it is not reinforced, nor have I the resources here to make shields of glass.”

“What about wood?” Kellen asked. “The acid will eat through it, but not fast, if it’s thick.”

“And wax,” Idalia said. “It’s not as good as glass, but it’s lighter and a lot more flexible. If you layer wood with sheets of wax—or even just cover a wooden shield with wax—it should be even more resistant to acid. They don’t have to last forever; just for one battle. It’ll burn like a torch, though.”

“But I will cover it in the finest leather,” Artenel said, brightening. “And the leather may be water-soaked before battle, then wax laid atop the leather as well. I think we may have discovered the very thing that will serve to confound the foe. It would even serve to hold a thin pane of glass, should some be found in time.”

Just then Ancaladar returned to camp. The dragon swept low over the camp once, signaling that there was news, before disappearing into the distance.

“He’s found them,” Kellen said, staring after the dragon.

“It would be more accurate,” Idalia said tartly, “to say that Vestakia’s found them. I’m going to go see if she’s all right. You stay here.”

THE news had spread throughout the camp by the time Kellen returned to his tent: Shadowed Elves had been found near Ysterialpoerin. Messengers had already been dispatched to Andoreniel and to the Viceroy of Ysterialpoerin to give warning, and the army was making ready to deploy in all its strength, since not one, but two enclaves had been found.

Shalkan said Vestakia was fine, though very tired. Kellen very carefully kept from going to see for himself.

Not seeing Vestakia left him plenty of time to worry about other things, though. All he knew about Ysterialpoerin was that it was the oldest and northernmost of the Nine Cities—which meant it would be even colder there than here, if possible.

He’d barely begun going over a list of things to do—and orders to give—when the bells at his doorway jingled. “Be welcome,” Kellen said, turning.

It was Kharren, who was to Adaerion as Dionan was to Redhelwar, though she also commanded a force of her own. Adaerion was Kellen’s direct superior in the military hierarchy, which it had relieved Kellen to learn when he’d eventually discovered it. Better Adaerion, steady and fair, than someone he could never hope to impress—like Belepheriel.

Kharren stepped inside and stood in the doorway of his tent, regarding him politely.

“I See you, Kharren,” Kellen said, remembering his manners.

Kharren bowed slightly. “I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage. Adaerion wonders if it would be convenient for you to attend him.”

Kellen bowed in return. “It is always a pleasure to receive Adaerion’s wisdom.”

AFTER the formalities in Adaerion’s tent had been observed, and tea had been poured, Kharren departed, leaving Kellen alone with Adaerion.

“One observes that you distinguish yourself well,” Adaerion said, sipping his tea, “and that your discourse is always refreshing.”

Kellen tried not to frown. What was that supposed to mean? Adaerion’s expression was impenetrable. Kellen wasn’t sure whether he’d just been insulted or not.

“I thank you for your notice of me,” he finally said.

Adaerion smiled. “Impatience is a poor General, yet decisiveness wins many an engagement. This evening Redhelwar dines with his senior commanders, to discuss how best. to approach the coming problem. Were you there, perhaps you would contribute some remarks to the conversation.”

But I won’t be there, because Belepheriel, at the very least, would pitch a fit, Kellen supplied mentally. Even if it would be logical for a Knight-Mage to be present this evening, Senior Commander or not.

Suddenly he realized what this little tea party was really about. Adaerion was giving him the chance to tell him what he wanted them to know, so that Adaerion could present Kellen’s ideas.

Kellen hesitated, trying to figure out how to phrase his remarks in the indirect fashion that Elven protocol demanded.

“Oh, come, Kellen,” Adaerion said gently, and for the first time, allowed a commiserating smile to curve his lips. “Do you think I have never spoken with a human before? I shall not shatter, I promise you. Nor think less of you for being what you are, for if you are human, then you are also a Knight-Mage, and Shalkan’s rider. You are impatient, and this is a good thing, for some among us have far more patience than is needful. Speak as you would to one of your own kind. No one else is here to hear.”

Kellen relaxed. “Thank you,” he said with real warmth. “I think—now that we have found them—it’s important to know the layout of the inside of the Shadowed Elf caves before we enter in force. We still don’t want to risk Vestakia for that, though we might need her to find the entrances. But we still have Idalia’s tarnkappa, and they worked before to conceal our presence from the Shadowed Elves. What I think is that before the attack, scouts wearing tarnkappa should be sent into the caverns to map them. If they’re lucky, they might even discover a route to the villages inside. Then we’ll have some idea of what we’re facing.”

“So you would scout ahead,” Adaerion said, nodding. He paused, as if to gather his resources. “Who would you choose?”

Kellen looked surprised, more at the content of the question than that Adaerion had asked it; he was becoming used to the Elves dropping into War Manners now and then when it was the only convenient way to speed a conversation along. “The best scouts. And—anyone with experience in caves, or rock-climbing. Some of the cave paths are pretty narrow, and the tarnkappa won’t protect someone from being discovered if they’re bumped into. So they might have to climb to get out of the way.”

“How many would you send?”

Kellen shrugged, forgetting for the moment that this was a human gesture Adaerion might not understand. “It won’t matter too much—once they’re wearing the tarnkappa, they won’t be able to see or hear each other. Two or three, perhaps, so that at least one returns. No more.”

“Would you go yourself?” Adaerion asked.

The question seemed somehow different from those that had come before it, but Kellen answered it just as honestly. “I would go if I was asked to. I do not think that I would be the best one to send. If I used the Wild Magic, it might make them aware I was there—and during an important scouting mission is not the time to find out. In some ways, I am the best suited to the task, and in some the worst. I do know that while I would volunteer, I am not the person best suited to make the decision.”

“These are good answers. Very … simple.” Adaerion seemed to be relieved to be finished with his questions, and Kellen was reminded once more that Elves found questions not only rude, but sometimes very difficult to ask as well—perhaps even more difficult than he found their mode of speech.

“I find some things simple, other things hard,” Kellen said. “I think perhaps everyone does.”

“‘beware he who finds all things simple, for that one will make all things difficult,’” Adaerion quoted. “Yes. Perhaps you are right to think so. Now. There is much to do before we set out upon the war-road again. I think you will find this journey very different than the first.”

“Different,” Kellen was to find, was the greatest understatement he’d heard yet from any of the Elves.

THE High Mage Anigrel Tavadon—Lycaelon had said his elevation in rank was only a matter of time, and so it had been: a very short time—was a very busy—and very contented—man. His days were full, and his master—and more important, his Mistress—were both more than pleased with him.

As the head of both the Magewardens and the Commons Wardens, he now knew everything that took place in Armethalieh, from the sullen grumblings in the lowest dockside tavern to the rash speculations of the Entered Apprentices who drank at the Golden Bells. Finding Commons who would inform upon their fellows—from nobles in need of ready money to pay gambling debts, to merchants hoping their warehouse fees. could be eased, to laborers who would tell what they knew for a bottle of brandy and a bag of coppers—had been child’s play, and Anigrel’s spells ensured that all of his informants were entirely trustworthy.

Finding Mageborn who would act “for the good of the City” had also been easier than he’d expected. Fear had done his recruiting for him—some had come to him anxious to prove that they were not involved in his imaginary conspiracy. Others were equally anxious to align themselves—after the Banishings and resignations—with the new power in the City.

All were useful.

For Anigrel not only collected information, he dispensed it. Rumors were the weapons in his arsenal, and he deployed them with the skill of a master strategist.

Now the Mageborn remembered—no one was quite sure who first spoke of it—that the Lady Alance, Lord Lycaelon’s wife, had been Mountainborn. And that the two children—yes, two—that she’d borne to the Arch-Mage had both been Banished for practicing the Wild Magic. Everyone knew that the Mountainfolk were overrun with Wildmages—undoubtedly Alance had insinuated herself into the City in an early attempt to destroy it through Wildmagery, and had passed the heretical taint down to her children. Praise the Light the Arch-Mage had been spared.

But it only proved how deep the plots against the City ran.

And that even humans would ally themselves with the treacherous Otherfolk—and worse. The inhabitants of the Golden City could trust no one but themselves.

And did not the Elves consort with Wildmages as well?

Had not, in fact, the recently arrested sons of the deposed Council members been attempting to learn Wild Magic, possibly with Elven help?

Elves had been seen in the Delfier Valley near the time of the arrests. Undoubtedly coming to the aid of their confederates. Praise the Light they had been stopped.

Soon this tissue of lies and half-truths was common “knowledge” among the Mageborn. They accepted it without question. Why should they not? It fed their pride—and their deepest fears.

Among the Commons, the rumors were simpler.

The Wildmages had caused all the recent trouble in the City, because Wildmages hated cities, and destroyed them wherever they could.

They meant to destroy Armethalieh.

They could hide undetected among ordinary folk, but would always reveal themselves because they did not follow the precepts of the Light, and so did not believe in the wisdom and goodness of the High Mages.

Everyone knew that to become a Wildmage, a blood sacrifice was needed. Since Wildmages were corrupted young, they usually murdered their parents. The Archmage had discovered the horrible truth about his son when Kellen Tavadon had gone mad and tried to kill him. Only the glory and wisdom of the Light had protected the Arch-Mage, and allowed him to survive to destroy the monster in human form that his son had become.

Slowly, the City became a place of fear. In the Low City, brawls and riots increased as the fearful Commons turned on one another. The riots were, of course, the work of the Wildmages.

To protect against them, spells and protective Talismans were needed—and now the costs of such things were higher than ever before.

Each sennight Anigrel came to the Council, bringing reports of the rumors he had gathered—rumors he himself had started, now distorted out of all recognition. And the Council acted upon his reports.

The Watch was increased in numbers, patrolling the streets constantly. New and tighter curfews were introduced for the commons—now everyone in the City must be able to present a Talisman glyphed with their residence and their occupation upon demand. The City was divided into districts, and a permit was required from the newly appointed District Magistrates—all of whom reported to Anigrel—to travel outside of one’s home district. And in their fear, the Commons and Mageborn alike not only tolerated these changes, but welcomed them and clamored for more, all in the name of “safety” and “protection.”

Anigrel found it all immensely gratifying. The City was growing more and more terrified and disaffected, and blamed one cause: the Wildmages.

The Commons had never heard of the Endarkened—the Mageborn had made certain of that. And the true history of the City—of the banishing of the Wildmages, of the creation of a magick wholly under human control—was a secret shared by only the highest ranks of the Mageborn.

Soon Anigrel would be ready to proceed with the next step of his plan. All he must do now was tighten his grip upon the Mageborn even further—persuade them that their enemy was not the Endarkened, had never been the Endarkened.

That it was—had always been—the Wildmages.

And that only the Endarkened could save them.

ONCE more the moon waned to darkness. Once more Anigrel retreated to his private rooms within the Mage Courts, bearing with him a small black bag, such as Mages used to transport the smaller Tools of their Art. By now he had rooms in a dozen quarters in the City, where he was known by a score of names, but for his Communion with his Dark Lady, only this place would do.

Here, Anigrel met with some of his Magewardens, and kept an ever-growing collection of documents and information on his brethren.

There was High Mage Corellius, with his low taste for beer—and his Tradesman father. Over the years, Corellius had developed a number of interesting appetites that would prove quite embarrassing to him were they exposed to public scrutiny. Possibly even fatal, in the current climate of opinion.

And Mage Nadar Arbathil, whose son Perulan had needed to be dealt with so thoroughly. In his youth Perulan had engaged in quite a correspondence with folk across the sea. Who was to say that Lord Arbathil had not assisted him in doing so? Such a man might easily deal with Wildmages as well.

There were more—many more. Some in positions of power, some the sons of powerful men. All … malleable.

And two who were not.

With Anigrel’s appointment, the Mage Council’s number remained at eleven. There were two seats vacant, and so far Lycaelon had blocked every attempt to fill them.

Anigrel intended to winnow the Council further.

Vilmos would be easy to remove. The man was halfsenile and tottering toward reunion with the Eternal Light. A little gentle pressure from Lycaelon would gain his resignation—for health reasons, of course.

And if Vilmos would not see reason, it would be a simple matter some night, when he and Anigrel stood together in the Circle, to see that some Great Working went just wrong enough to cripple the old dodderer, or perhaps even kill him. Vilmos had been excused from the Circle lately on account of his age, but it would be easy enough to goad him into returning.

Perhaps that would even be for the best. There had been too many resignations from the Council recently. A death in service would be more fitting—and uplifting to the Commons.

Arance and Perizel were another matter. Both men were in their prime—both stood in the way of Anigrel’s plans—and neither was susceptible to pressure—on themselves, or their sons.

A man who had begun his rise to power by murdering his own father—as Anigrel had—certainly did not blink at a little more blood on his hands. But the High Mages were well guarded—and difficult to kill.

But at the moment, a more pleasant task awaited him.

From its small casket, Anigrel removed the iron bowl, and set it on the desk that now occupied the center of what had once been his sitting room. Now that there were visitors to his rooms, the casket shimmered with Spells of Warding, and would open only to his touch. But that in itself attracted no attention—the High Mage Anigrel Tavadon was known to have many secrets, all of which he kept for the good of the City.

From the pencase at his belt he took the knife he would use, and set it beside the bowl.

Now he opened the bag and lifted out a large grey cat.

No doubt it had been some Mageborn miss’s pampered pet, but Anigrel had seen it walking along the top of a garden wall, and the opportunity had been too good to pass up. It had been the work of an instant to enchant the creature into Sleep and tuck it into his bag. No one had seen him.

Now, before the animal could rouse fully into wakefulness again, he lifted the cat over the iron bowl and slit its throat with a quick deft motion. Blood spurted into the bowl with a ringing sound, filling it to the brim—cats held so much more blood than the pigeons he had been forced to employ for so many years.

And a child … a child would be even better. But he must be careful. His dominion over the City was not yet complete.

A mist of power formed over the steaming surface of the blood. Anigrel leaned forward, dropping the lifeless body of the cat carelessly and opening his mind to his Dark Lady, as he had each Dark Moon for almost his entire life.

“What do you have to tell me, my slave, my love?”

Her darkness filled his mind and his soul, completing him in a way that nothing else ever had and ever could. From the moment he had first seen her reflection in a mirror in his father’s house when he had been a child of eight, he had been hers utterly. She had been his first and best teacher. He would do anything to be with her always.

Quickly he told her everything.

“And soon they will be yours entirely, Mistress,” Anigrel said humbly.

“Yet something troubles you, my pet. I sense it.”

“Two inconvenient Mages. They must be removed.”

He felt the rich glow of his Dark Lady’s amusement.

“Umbrastone is what you need, my jewel, my slave. It will poison a Mage-man and send him to his bed Mixed with another poison, it will render that poison undetectable by magic.”

Anigrel felt a thrill of delight. Two members of the High Council poisoned in their beds! With only a little care, he could make it look as if their own families were responsible …

“Now that I have done something for you, you must do something for me. It is so hard for me to come to you, sweet Anigrel. You must change the Wards that bind the City. You have the power now …”

“Yesss …” Only let him remove three more members of the Council, and it would be a simple enough matter to suggest that the Mage Council was now stretched too thin for its members to stand in the Circle for every Great Working. To suggest that maintaining the City-Wards be turned over to a specific trusted body of Mages who performed no other task.

Anigrel would select them. Anigrel would lead them.

And Anigrel would corrupt them thoroughly.

“It can be done. I will need a little time. But it can be done. I swear it shall be done.”

He felt his Dark Lady’s delight flood through him, filling his body with black heat. Anigrel’s body shuddered in ecstasy, the intolerable pleasure building until he collapsed to the floor, insensible.

IT was just as well, Savilla reflected, once the connection was broken, to occasionally reward one’s slaves. It made the eventual betrayal so much sweeter.

And she looked forward with longing to the day when she could bring her sweet Anigrel here, to the World Without Sun, and teach him what it truly meant to love the Queen of the Endarkened.

It was nearly a quarter of a century—as the Lightworlders counted time—since she had made her first move in the war. She had acted in secret, for she knew the work would cost her dearly, and in her weakened state, any of her nobles might have challenged her.

She had withdrawn to a secret place, deep within the World Without Sun, and there she had worked tirelessly, destroying hundreds of captives gathered in secret—and all of her own folk who knew of her plan.

And then she had struck at Armethalieh.

Even with all her gathered power, she had barely been able to slip through the wards the City wrapped about itself. But her effort had borne fruit.

She had touched a child’s mind.

Receptive, eager, willing to learn all she had to teach … Chired Anigrel—now Anigrel Tavadon—had provided the crack in the City’s defenses that would soon bring them utter dominion over their loathed enemy. He had become hers utterly, growing in Darkness and strength through the years, moving ever closer to the City’s heart of power.

It was not a true breech of the City’s wards. As yet, it was only a way for her to communicate unnoticed with her most devoted slave, willing to work toward any task she set.

And now …

Victory was near.

She could taste it.

Just as she would taste the blood and flesh of her sweet slave, when he was no longer useful to her.

THE Centaur party continued to travel toward the Elven Lands. After the first few days, Cilarnen’s aches and pains subsided, though riding a draft mare was just as uncomfortable as he’d thought it would be.

In every spare moment, he practiced with his new wand. The need to practice burned in him; he had his Gift back, and being able to use it again felt better than anything he could have imagined. It was as if he’d had a hand cut off, learned to live imperfectly without it, and then suddenly hand it regrow before his eyes. He was only an Entered Apprentice, but he had been studying so hard to try to impress his father that he already knew many of the more complex spells that kept the City running—spells to purify water, spells to bind and unbind, spells to banish vermin, spells to calm animals and send a non-Mage to sleep, dozens more.

But though he built the glyphs that summoned his spells until his eyes ached and his body trembled with weariness, he was careful to leave them incomplete. There was no need for them here, after all, and he really wasn’t sure what would happen if he completed them. For some of the spells, he lacked some of the needed components. For others … well, the more powerful the spell, the more necessary he had been taught that it was to work it within a warded Circle. All his teachers had said that over and over from the first day he’d entered the gates of the Mage-College. Cilarnen wasn’t really sure what would happen if he did them out here. Summoning Fire was one thing—and Mageshield could be done anywhere. But the others …

He didn’t know. And there was no one to ask.

Seeing his difficulties with the High Magick, Wirance and Kardus had offered to try to teach him their heretical sorcery. Cilarnen had accepted with very little reluctance. He was cast out by the Light already, so it didn’t really matter to him one way or the other, and Kardus was the closest thing to a friend Cilarnen had among the Centaurs, though he felt an odd aversion to Wirance … not a dislike, precisely, but more as if Wirance simply wasn’t someone he should be around.

“THESE are the Books of the Wild Magic,” Kardus said, placing three worn volumes into Cilarnen’s hands one night as they gathered around the fire. “All the wisdom of the Herdsman’s path is written in their pages. Perhaps you will learn what you seek herein.”

Cilarnen accepted them gingerly. There was a certain illicit thrill in handling them.

Cilarnen opened the first of the three books. The leather was stiff and slippery in his hands, the covers oddly hard to open.

“There’s nothing here,” he said in surprise.

“Say you so?” Kardus said, frowning. “Look deeper.”

“At what?” Cilarnen demanded irritably. “There’s nothing to see. The pages are blank.” He handed the three books quickly back to Kardus, who looked down at the first book thoughtfully, shaking his head in puzzlement.

“Try mine.” Wirance, who had been standing a few feet away, stepped closer, holding out a single slim volume.

Cilarnen took it reluctantly. It was one thing to tell himself he was willing to investigate other kinds of magic. It was another to have his nose rubbed in the reality of it. Kardus could obviously read what was written on the pages of his three Books perfectly well, but to Cilarnen, those same pages were blank.

Unlike the Books of the Centaur Wildmage, Wirance’s Book seemed to burn in Cilarnen’s hands, writhing under his fingers as if it wished to escape. It gave him the same feeling he had around Wirance, only magnified a hundredfold.

He gritted his teeth and pried the book open.

It was blank.

He let the covers snap shut with a sigh of relief. When he relaxed his grip, it was as if the book flew from his hands and back to Wirance’s.

“Nothing,” Cilarnen said. “It was blank, too.”

“Well, we know that whatever you are, you’re not a Wildmage—nor meant to be one, it seems,” Wirance said thoughtfully.

“I am a Mage of Armethalieh,” Cilarnen said. He’d never been so sure of anything in his life. Half-trained—maybe never better-trained than this—and lacking most of his tools, but still a Mage of the Golden City.

And he would save her if he could.

“A great pity we do not know more about what that means,” Wirance said, slipping his Book back into his pack. “Perhaps the Elves will be able to help.”

Cilarnen nodded politely, but privately he doubted it. Hyandur had been kind, but as much as he stretched his imagination, Cilarnen could not imagine the Elf tutoring him in magick.

“WE should be near the border of the Elven Lands soon,” Comild said. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the wind wailing through the trees—as Wirance had predicted before they’d left Stonehearth, the fair weather had only held for so long, and for the last several days they had been traveling through increasingly heavy snow. More and more, Cilarnen found himself longing for the comforts of the City—it never snowed in winter there, and there was always hot water whenever you wanted it. Hot water, hot food, hot baths …

“Declare yourselves.”

The voice came out of nowhere. A figure had appeared in their path where none had been before—hooded and cloaked in white furs that made him almost impossible to see through the snow. He held a short bow pointed at them, an arrow nocked and ready.

“Wirance, Wildmage of the High Hills, brings Comild of the Centaurkin and his warriors to answer Andoreniel’s call,” Wirance answered.

“Yet do I see one among you who is neither Centaur nor Wildmage,” the Elf observed, his weapon unwavering.

Cilarnen had been riding at the front, with Kardus, Comild, and Wirance. Now he wished he’d stayed toward the back. Maybe they just wouldn’t have noticed him then—though that was unlikely. On Tinsin’s back, he towered over the rest of the troop.

“I am Kardus Wildmage. It is my Task to bring the human Cilarnen to Kellen Wildmage,” Kardus said, stepping forward.

There was a long pause. Cilarnen blinked, unable to believe his eyes. Suddenly there was a second Elf standing beside the first. The two of them were identical in every way, except that the second Elf held a long staff instead of a bow.

“You will accompany me,” the second Elf said.

He turned and walked off through the winter forest, without waiting to see if they followed.

As they rode through the trees, Cilarnen realized they must be in Elven Lands now. He looked back, but the first Elf had vanished again.

They rode now in silence broken only by the whistle of the wind and the crunch of the snow beneath their hooves. Where before the quiet had seemed companionable, now it was awkward, as if all of them felt that someone might be listening and judging all that they might have to say to one another. For the first time it occurred to Cilarnen that he could have been stopped and turned back at the border. What would have happened then—to him and to Kardus, since Kardus would have been unable to complete his Task? Would it have been like the magickal backlash to a spell of the High Magick gone wrong? Or would Kardus simply have camped on the border until his patience wore them away?

Their guide walked steadily onward, never looking back. At last, as the short winter day drew toward a close, they reached a clearing that had obviously been prepared for them.

Windbreaks had been strung between the trees in a half-circle around the clearing to block the brunt of the winter wind. The ground had been swept clear of snow and leaves very recently, and Cilarnen could see that it was as smooth and level as the floor of a house. The sense of this place being a sort of outdoor house was heightened by the fact that in the center of the clearing was a tall cylinder. Its exterior was covered with the most beautiful tilework Cilarnen had ever seen, and through the openings in the side, he could see the gleam of embers.

A stove? Who would put a stove out in the middle of a forest?

Elves, he supposed.

“All you need is here. Others will come for you. Remain until they do,” the Elf said.

With that their guide vanished, as if he’d possessed no more substance than the snow itself.

“Elves,” Comild said with a sigh of relief as their guide departed. “Elder brothers, and all, but still …” He trotted into the clearing, the other Centaurs following him.

Cilarnen hung back. It wasn’t that this place made him uneasy—not even as much as Wirance did, and down deep inside, he trusted Wirance—but ever since they’d ridden across the Elven border, he’d had the peculiar sense of being inside a dream he couldn’t wake up from, and this place just made it worse.

Kardus looked up at him inquiringly.

“Kardus … back at the border … if they hadn’t let the two of us through, what would you have done?” Cilarnen asked.

“We would have waited until they did,” Kardus replied simply. “It is my Task to bring you to Kellen Wildmage, and yours to go.”

“But how long would we have waited?” Cilarnen asked, pressing for information.

“Until they did,” Kardus said. “I have been in Elven lands before. The Elves are not like humans, nor like Centaurs. They are cautious, but they are not unjust, nor would they deny a Wildmage who needed to complete a Task. Sentarshadeen, the King’s city, lies near the border. If we did not leave, they would send to Andoreniel, and he would tell them to let us pass.”

So his guess had been right. Kardus had been perfectly prepared to wait the Elves out. Cilarnen felt—relieved. Kardus wasn’t going to abandon him.

“Are we going to Sentarshadeen?” Cilarnen wondered what a whole city full of Elves would look like.

“I do not know. But come. It is cold here, and Elven stoves give good heat.”

The Elves had left them more than a well-prepared campsite and a stove with a good fire. At the edge of the campsite were more provisions: casks of cider and mead, bread, cheese, and the carcass of a deer, skinned and dressed for roasting.

After weeks on the trail with nothing but dried food and trail-rations to sustain them, the Centaurs fell upon the fresh food with shouts of delight, and soon the savory scent of roasting meat filled the clearing, and the smoke of bubbling fat spiraled up toward the trees. As they waited for the chunks of meat to cook, they shared out the bread and cheese, and filled their tankards with cider and mead.

After trying the mead, Cilarnen stuck strictly to the cider—he’d had a thorough education in alcohol by now, and the mead in those barrels packed a kick like a Centaur’s hoof. Maybe if things were different, he might welcome the release that came with surrendering to the light-headedness that a bit of intoxication would bring. But here, now—no. The last time he had relaxed, a Demon had come. When it happened again, he would not be unready.

Wrapped in his blankets, belly full, some of Cilarnen’s sense of unreality faded, leaving him time to worry about what was to come.

What was he going to say to Kellen Outlaw when they found him? Cilarnen wasn’t quite sure. The Demon’s words were etched in his memory—he’d never forget those—but their meaning seemed constantly slippery. There was only one thing he could be really sure of.

He had his Gift.

And he shouldn’t.

CILARNEN woke—as had become his habit long before they’d set out on this journey—just before dawn. In Stonehearth, Grander’s house would already be awake and stirring; he would wash and dress, grab a quick breakfast of porridge and hot watered ale with the other apprentices, and go off to his morning chores at the stable. On the trail, his first duty in the morning was to see to the fire.

He’d learned to sleep with his boots inside his bedroll. He pulled them on without letting too much cold air in and got to his feet, his blankets wrapped tightly around him. There was a moment of shocking cold as he dropped the blankets and pulled his hooded cloak around himself, then Cilarnen was ready to face the day. The Centaurs were just beginning to stir.

Last night Kardus had showed him how the Elven stove worked. The Elves had left a good supply of the charcoal disks they used for fuel. Cilarnen opened one of the bottom gates of the stove. Good. There was still a good bed of embers left. He picked up several of the disks and set them on the embers, then went to see to Tinsin. There was a water trough nearby, but they’d emptied it last night. He supposed he could fill it with snow and melt the snow to give her and Wirance’s mule a morning drink.

But when he reached the place where the animals were tied, there was an Elf there.

Automatically, Cilarnen glanced down at the snow. There were no footprints.

“This is not a riding animal,” the Elf observed, regarding Cilarnen unblinkingly. He looked enough like Hyandur to be his twin. Did all Elves look alike?

“Centaurs don’t have saddle horses. I had to ride something,” Cilarnen said. “Are you—”

But the Elf had vanished again.

Cilarnen shrugged, and went to find a bucket and his wand.

The same spell that warmed his bathwater at home turned a trough full of heaped snow into a trough full of water without much trouble. He led Tinsin and the mule down to it for their morning drink.

He brought them back up and secured them again. Out of habit, the Centaurs made quick work of breakfast, and by the time it was done, Cilarnen could see a cart coming toward them through the trees.

It was on runners because of the snow, and was drawn by four of the most beautiful horses Cilarnen had ever seen. Draft horses, yes; there was no doubt they had been bred to pull heavy loads; but beyond that, they resembled his Tinsin as little as a swan resembles a duck.

Their heavy winter coats shimmered like the finest velvet, and all four of them were so closely matched in color that there was not a hair’s worth of difference among them. They were a pale bronze color, and their manes and tails were the color of heavy cream. Their harness was only a few shades darker than their coats, and the cart they pulled of wood a few shades darker still; it was as if the whole was some fabulous carving in amber: a rich man’s toy.

Riding beside it were two Elves on horseback.

Cilarnen had thought that Roiry was the most beautiful animal he’d ever seen, but the two stallions utterly eclipsed the Elven mare. Both were greys—one nearly white, the other a dark dapple grey—and they moved with an elegance and grace that made him think of dancing.

The cart pulled to a stop. One of the Elves dismounted and walked forward. He approached Comild.

“The others precede you by many days. The army marches to Ysterialpoerin. It is a great distance. Here are supplies for the journey, and a guide. I make known to you Nemermet, who will accompany you.”

Kardus stepped forward and bowed. “I See you, Nemermet. May Leaf and Star grant us all a safe journey, by the Herdsman’s grace.”

The Elf on the back of the pale stallion bowed slightly. “I See you, Kardus Wildmage. May the Herdsman watch over your people, by the grace of Leaf and Star. Take what you need from what is here. More will be provided along the way.”

“Get to work,” Comild ordered his men.

With a wrench, Cilarnen forced himself to stop staring at the Elves and the Elven horses. He quickly saddled Tinsin and packed his gear upon her back, then went to aid the others in emptying the cart under the watchful eyes of the Elves.

Soon the entire contents of the cart—food, blankets, even a couple of braziers and a store of charcoal—had been transferred to the Centaurs’ packs. There was even grain for the horse and the mule. Cilarnen hoped that Nemermet was telling the truth about there being places to restock along the way, because there certainly didn’t seem to be any grazing to be had—or any hunting either. It would be hard enough finding running water, though he could always melt snow.

“It is good that Luermai made known to us Nemermet’s name,” Kardus said to Cilarnen, as he helped him fill Tinsin’s packs. One of the few advantages of riding a draft horse was that she could carry a great deal in addition to her rider.

“Luermai? You know him?” Cilarnen asked.

“We have met before,” Kardus said. “But if he wished to be known to all, he would have given his name. To give us Nemermet’s name is kindness enough, as the Elves reckon things.”

Cilarnen puzzled that out for a moment “But aren’t we doing them a favor?” he said at last.

Kardus looked at him. “If the Dark Folk strike first in the Elven Lands, is it a favor to the Elves to fight them there? Or is it better to wait until they come back to Stonehearth?”

Cilarnen blushed. “I guess you’re right. But it just seems as if they ought to be more … welcoming.”

“No one save Wildmages has crossed the Elven Borders in a thousand years. That there is need for anyone to do so now”—Kardus switched his tail—“upsets them.”

When Kardus put it that way, it made more sense to Cilarnen. He supposed it was just like, well, Elves and Centaurs in Armethalieh.

Only not quite.

Because the Elves were letting them in, even though they apparently didn’t like it all that much. And the High Council hadn’t let Hyandur in at all.

When everything was ready, Nemermet turned his stallion’s head and began to ride off through the trees. The Centaurs, Wirance, and Cilarnen followed.

ADAERION had been right about this journey being different from the last. For one thing, there was someplace Kellen was supposed to be every single minute of the day, from before dawn until well after dark. For another, this time he didn’t ride among the Unicorn Knights, and he found he missed their free-and-easy companionship more than he’d expected to.

And he missed Shalkan most of all, for now that he was riding Mindaerel in the middle of the army, he only saw Shalkan for a few hours each day, when he could steal time from his other duties—and there were many of them.

Now that the army was on the move, watches and patrols were added to the drills and planning meetings—not that there was much time for drilling, since they were heading toward Ysterialpoerin as fast as the full army could travel.

The weather worsened the more they traveled north. Almost every day now brought snow, and in the deep night Kellen could sometimes hear the howling of wolves. He didn’t envy Jermayan and Ancaladar their post, flying above the army—and back and forth through the clouds—all day, keeping an eye on the territory ahead.

They were a sennight out of Ondoladeshiron when the first attack came.

That day began like any other. Up in the greyness of false dawn. Into his armor, pack his gear, and off to the cook-fire assigned to his group for a quick breakfast of tea and pastries—the cooking tents weren’t unpacked at every stop—then to the horse-lines to collect and saddle Mindaerel and gather his troop and find their place in line. By then it was dawn, and the army had begun to move.

As they rode, Kellen realized that he felt unsettled—just as he had the day that Calmeren had come back to Sentarshadeen bearing news of the ambush at the Crowned Horns.

Leaving his troop in Ciltesse’s charge, he rode back through the line until he found Adaerion. Collecting his commander’s attention, the two of them rode a little aside from the line and stopped.

“Something’s going to happen,” he said bluntly, though keeping his voice pitched as low as possible. “I don’t know what. But soon. I felt like this the day we learned that the children had been taken.”

Adaerion glanced back toward the line, to where Vestakia was riding beside Idalia. She seemed completely untroubled. Whatever Kellen sensed, it owed nothing to Demon-taint.

Not all of the creatures that served the Demons bore Demon-taint.

“Ride up and warn Petariel to be on the alert. Then pull your force out of the line and ride to flank.” Adaerion rode back toward the line, but Kellen could hear his next words clearly. “Kharren, allow Keirasti, Shunendar, Duarmel, Churashil, and Thenalakti to know that it would please me greatly if they would ride to flank this morning and be alert for any inconvenience.”

Kellen urged Mindaerel up toward the head of the army. The mare seemed grateful for the opportunity to stretch her legs, and soon overtook the unicorn riders, who were, as was the custom, riding far ahead.

“A vision! A vision of spring!” Petariel cried, sighting him. Gesade wheeled around and came trotting back toward Mindaerel, seeming to run across the top of the snow rather than through it.

Kellen reined Mindaerel to a stop and waited for Petariel and Gesade to reach him. “You’re to be especially alert today.” He hesitated. “I have a feeling.”

“What kind of a feeling?” Shalkan asked, trotting up. Now that he was no longer Kellen’s mount, Shalkan continued to stay with the Unicorn Knights most of the time—to keep an eye on things, he’d told Kellen.

“Like … the day Calmeren came. That something bad is going to happen,” Kellen said. “But Vestakia doesn’t feel anything.”

“Not Them then,” Gesade said, switching her tail. “Anything else?”

“I’m not even sure about that,” Kellen said. He wouldn’t have confessed it to anyone else, but the Unicorn Knights, Petariel especially, were the closest thing to family he had here, outside of Idalia, Jermayan, and Vestakia. “But …”

“We’re glad of the warning, all the same,” Petariel said, nodding. “And even if nothing comes of it, don’t hesitate to give it again. I’d rather a thousand warnings that came to nothing than to miss one we needed.”

“Me, too,” Kellen said fervently. He turned Mindaerel’s head about and headed back toward the line to find Ciltesse.

THEY’D been riding in flank for nearly an hour when he heard Ancaladar’s shriek of fury.

Kellen looked up, just as a flash, like lightning out of season, lit the sky. It silhouetted the dragon against the clouds, surrounded by a flock of winged wheeling shapes like an eagle harried by crows.

Deathwings!

“Ware!” Thenalakti suddenly shouted from across the column.

Horns blew, taking up the warning call. With the precision of a dance, the Elven army stopped and deployed for battle.

Suddenly Kellen could see all of it, spread out before him like the markings on a map. The Deathwings above, and the coldwarg packs heading for the army, preparing to strike the column at several places at once under cover of the growing storm. Thenalakti, Duarmel, and Shunendar were on the far side. He couldn’t reach them. But he, Keirasti, and Churashil were here, and the flanking units became skirmishing units when the call to battle was given.

“Coldwarg,” he said to Ciltesse. “They’ll go for the unicorns first.” He stood in his stirrups and drew his sword, making himself as visible as he could. “Skirmishers! To me!”

THIRTY mounted Knights pounded up the line. They were ninety by the time they reached the head of the line, and Kellen saw his first coldwarg in the flesh.

The creatures were nearly the size of a unicorn. Their remote ancestors might have been wolves, but wolf was only a small part of their nature now. They carried their heads low, their thick necks and heavy shoulder-hump of muscle giving killing power to the enormous jaws that could crush a limb—or a neck—with one bite. Their silvery fur was faintly dappled, giving them perfect winter camouflage, and their thick wide paws were perfectly adapted for running over snow. They were the ultimate predator, and the pack sweeping toward Petariel and the others outnumbered the Unicorn Knights three to one.

Kellen swore softly to himself, seeing the perfection of the trap. The unicorns could not retreat to the safety of the army, and they could not outrun the pack.

People will die here.

It was Kellen’s last private thought.

“Archers!” he shouted. “Keirasti! Churashil! Split them up!”

Suddenly the air was filled with arrows. He’d seen Jermayan drop an ice-tiger in seconds with the deadly Elven bow, but though every arrow found its mark in a coldwarg body, the arrows barely seemed to inconvenience the monsters.

They did, however, make the coldwarg aware that Kellen’s force had arrived. Half the pack split off from attacking Petariel’s knights and came for Kellen’s, flowing over the snow toward them like a ripple of wind.

The skirmishers could expect no assistance from the main body of the army. Kellen could sense that it had problems of its own. Ancaladar and Jermayan weren’t able to stop all the Deathwings. Some of them were getting through. And not all the coldwarg were going after the unicorns.

Chursashil and Keirasti had split off. Keirasti drove past him, heading for the coldwarg that had nearly reached Petariel’s force.

Kellen and Churashil drove into the other pack side by side. The Elvensteel-shod hooves of their destriers plowed the shattered bodies of the coldwarg that hadn’t moved fast enough to escape into red ruin beneath them.

But it wasn’t enough.

The horses grunted as they wheeled, presenting tight walls of hooves and armor to the pack. It was the traditional defense against coldwarg, but defense would not serve the Elves this day. The moment the Knights had taken their position and braced for attack, the coldwarg facing them turned away and took off to resume the assault upon the unicorns once more.

Follow, and they were vulnerable. Yet there was no choice. Kellen spurred Mindaerel to the attack once more.

As soon as they left the safety of close formation, the coldwarg turned back and attacked.

It became a deadly dance over the snow. Through his battle-sight, Kellen was aware that Thenalakti, Duarmel, and Shunendar had joined him, but the other commanders were as handicapped as he was by the coldwarg’s tactics. The beasts would not stand and fight the skirmishers, and when the cavalry gave chase, they were easy prey. All around him he could hear the shouts of Elves and the screams of horses.

Despite their best efforts, the Elves were too spread out. Every time they tried to regroup, the coldwarg went after the unicorns again. The Unicorn Knights were clustered together, but the rest of the skirmishers, Kellen included, were scattered by now in a wide ring around them. He could see it as clearly as if he sat upon Ancaladar’s back. And the coldwarg were taking every advantage of that, scattering them further.

He had to make them come to him.

“Shalkan!” Oh, please don’t let Shalkan be dead; I don’t think I could stand it—

“Kellen.” The unicorn appeared out of nowhere. He was red with blood; he looked as if he’d been bathing in it. But he was alive. Why hadn’t Kellen made him wear his armor? He’d make him wear it every day from now on; he swore it.

“I’m going to form square around the unicorns. Make them stand when I do.”

“They won’t—” Shalkan began.

“Make them.”

Shalkan sprang away. A coldwarg leaped out of concealment in the snow and bounded after Shalkan. Without a thought Kellen sent Mindaerel after it, sword poised to strike. A single downward blow severed the creature’s spine.

For a moment he had a breathing space. He looked around, unable to see anyone he recognized. Where was Keirasti? Where was Thenalakti?

“Square!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, unable to tell if anyone could hear him. “Square around the unicorns! Skirmishers!”

On the fields of Ondoladeshiron he’d seen the Elven Knights practicing their maneuvers and thought of those maneuvers as only a pretty dance, useless in the war they were about to fight.

Today Kellen learned differently.

All about him on the battlefield, a ripple seemed to move through the Elven Knights as the order was passed. They moved as the fingers of one hand, fighting through their separate retreats to execute the order Kellen had given. He urged Mindaerel down into the fray, closing up with the Knights to either side.

Slowly, bloodily, the square formed. The Knights fought for every inch of ground. The pack seemed to sense what was happening, and tried to drive through the gaps in the forming lines, but at last the monsters were fighting on the Elves’ terms. They met a wall of steel and sword and hoof, and at last the impenetrable square closed around the Unicorn Knights.

“Is everyone—” Kellen began.

“Oh, Leaf and Star.” Beside him, Duarmel’s voice was flat with despair.

Kellen looked. His heart sank.

Across the battlefield, he saw Keirasti riding toward them, her mare running flat-out. Petariel was behind her in the saddle. Limping along beside the mare on three legs, her top speed now only that of the mare’s, was Gesade.

There was no hope. Gesade must have been wounded, Keirasti had stopped to cover her retreat. And now the three of them were going to die in sight of sanctuary, because if Kellen broke the square to send out a rescue party, the coldwarg would take more of them, not just his friends.

The coldwarg circling the square saw them in the same instant.

“Archers, fire,” Kellen said, his voice rough. “Everyone, hold steady.”

He had no spells that would stop a coldwarg pack. Jermayan did, he was sure, but Jermayan wasn’t here.

But he was a Knight-Mage.

“Duarmel, take command. Hold them.” He gathered up Mindaerel’s reins.

“Take me. I’m faster.” Shalkan was suddenly at his side.

Kellen didn’t question how Shalkan knew what he was going to do, or what it cost the unicorn to stand so calmly among the knights. He flung himself from Mindaerel’s back to Shalkan’s, and with a bound, they were away.

Shalkan flew over the snow like a blast of wind. Kellen barely noticed that he had no trouble keeping his balance on Shalkan’s bare back. The Elven arrows flew all around them, but despite the wind and the snow, Kellen knew that none of the shafts would strike Shalkan.

The coldwarg were not hurrying as they loped toward their prey. The death of their victims was certain, and they would savor the fear before the kill. Though some fell to arrows, the others did not slacken. It would only take one or two to accomplish the kill.

Kellen saw Petariel push himself from Keirasti’s saddle and fall to the snow beside Gesade. He saw the Unicorn Knight rise gracefully to his feet and draw his sword.

Closer now.

There weren’t many of the pack left alive; seven, perhaps eight. Of those that had begun the attack, many had fled, many had died. Kellen and Shalkan were within reach of the stragglers now. He could attack them, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to defend Petariel, Gesade, and Keirasti.

Keirasti had turned back when she felt Petariel’s weight leave her saddle. He could hear her shouting. Gesade was shouting too. Kellen didn’t bother to listen to the words. He was focused on what he must do.

The coldwarg could have attacked him and Shalkan as they passed, but they didn’t. Kellen hadn’t thought they would. The creatures would find it far more entertaining to let them reach the others and kill them all together.

He was counting on it.

“Help me,” he said to Shalkan, almost conversationally.

“Yes,” the unicorn answered simply.

They reached the other three. Shalkan was running flat-out, bounding over the snow. Kellen thrust himself off backward, landed standing in the snow, whirled, and drew his sword.

The coldwarg, sensing at last that something was not right with their prey, abandoned their lazy lope and began to run. They closed the distance between them and Kellen in seconds.

The world became nothing more than a series of targets. Kellen had no time to think, only to be. Afterward—long afterward—he would realize it ought to have reminded him of fighting the Outlaw Hunt, but it didn’t, and it never would, because the Kellen who faced the coldwarg in the Elven snow was a very different man than the frightened boy who had faced the pack of stone dogs sent by Armethalieh. That boy had been unsure of himself, uncertain of what to do.

Kellen knew exactly what to do.

He cut through the neck of the first beast that leaped at him. The second didn’t die, but it ran, badly wounded. He stopped counting after that. Each blow merged into the next. It was as if they moved to meet his blade. He knew where they were; knew where they would be. It was snowing harder now, masking the world in an impenetrable veil of whiteness, and it didn’t matter. Kellen saw the world in patterns of blue and green and red: his attacks, their attacks; defense, retreat.

He did not plan to retreat. He would not be where their blows landed; they would be where his blade could find them. It did not matter if he killed, or merely wounded, all that mattered was that he became the center of their attention, the foe that could not be ignored, that he dominated their thoughts until there was room for no other prey in their minds.

Except, of course, that he was not the prey.

They were. They just hadn’t realized it yet.

Here was the dancing circle, as it had been drawn for him by all his teachers—Jermayan, Master Belesharon, those who had taught them, back to the beginning of the World. Within it was what he had sworn to protect. Attack came from every side; he crossed the circle again and again, his sword spraying blood across the snow like dark stars.

At last there were no more targets.

The patterns faded around him and vanished into whiteness. And his sword suddenly felt too heavy to lift.

Warily Kellen gazed around. With his own eyes, he could see nothing but blowing snow, but the battle-sight told him the coldwarg were gone.

Or dead.

He looked around. Where were the others? There was no one in sight.

They had to be here.

“Shalkan?” he said hoarsely. “Keirasti? Petariel? Gesade?” Now that it was over, he could feel the ache in his muscles, the weariness of long exertion in the cold.

Before he could panic, a mound of snow a few feet away thrashed. Shalkan got to his feet and shook vigorously, then Petariel and Keirasti climbed out of the hollow where they had been shielding Shalkan. The two of them gently lifted Gesade to her feet, then at last Keirasti allowed her mare to rise from where she had been lying. The animal shook herself exuberantly, and snorted as if in disapproval of the entire matter.

“I believe I now know what a carpet feels like,” Petariel observed, his voice absolutely emotionless.

“You—I—Wait. I stepped on you?” Kellen said, confused.

“Several times,” Shalkan said. “I thought it best if we stayed out of your way.”

“I put Orata down to use as a shield, and Gesade next to her. Shalkan told us all to curl up as tight as we could,” Keirasti said.

He’d said he’d help, Kellen remembered with a sudden flash of gratitude. If he’d had to concentrate on protecting the others—if they’d been visible targets for the coldwarg … well, things might not have worked out so neatly.

“I’m sorry,” Kellen said contritely, his voice thick with the exhaustion that poured over him like winter honey. “I didn’t mean to step on you.”

Petariel stared at him as if he’d gone mad. Kellen could read the expression very clearly, even through Petariel’s helmet. “You saved our lives. You saved Gesade’s life. And now you’re apologizing for it. It’s true what they say. Wildmages are all mad.”

“Let’s go,” Kellen said. He shook his head to clear the snow that was falling into his face through his helmet slits, and found enough energy to lift his sword and sheathe it. “Those things won’t be back today, but I’m tired, cold, and we need to get back and report. If you can walk that far, Gesade?”

“I can run, if I have to,” the unicorn said proudly, lifting her head.

“Let me go on ahead,” Keirasti said. “I’ll let them know that Leaf and Star have favored us this day.” She vaulted into Orata’s saddle and cantered off in the direction of the army.

Kellen looked up at the sky. He could see nothing. Now that he had the luxury of worrying, he hoped the rest of his friends were all right.

He knew as clearly as if the coldwarg had the power of human speech what their intent had been. Attack the army, kill as many of the Unicorn Knights as they could. They could not hope to destroy the entire army, but every warrior they could kill was a small victory for those they served. And if the Deathwings had managed to kill Ancaladar … or capture Vestakia …

“You killed a coldwarg pack,” Petariel said in tones of awe, breaking into his thoughts. “I wish I’d been able to watch.”

“There weren’t a lot of them,” Kellen said, realizing the moment he spoke that the words sounded like the worst sort of false modesty. He tried again. “Petariel, I’m a Knight-Mage. That kind of fighting is just one of the things I’m good at, because of the Wild Magic. Like Idalia can heal. It’s not like—like something I trained all my life to have. I mean, it’s just something I am, not something I had to earn. It doesn’t mean …” He wasn’t sure what he meant to say, so he stopped.

“But you came for us. You and Shalkan,” Petariel said.

That reminded Kellen of something. He rounded on his friend, fury giving him a burst of energy he wouldn’t have believed he had left only a moment before.

“And what did you mean by that? Coming out here with me like that? You didn’t have a scrap of armor on! You could have been killed!”

“I wanted to see the fun,” Shalkan said innocently. “Besides, I knew you’d protect me.” Shalkan stretched out his neck, batted his lashes, and managed to assume an infuriatingly sappy expression of hero-worship, despite the fact that he was still covered in drying coldwarg blood.

“I really ought to beat you senseless,” Kellen said fervently.

Gesade snorted. “Oh, don’t make me laugh!” she begged. “It hurts.”

The four of them began to walk slowly back toward the others through the thickening snow.

Chapter Eighteen

The Price of Power

CLEANING UP AFTER the battle took all of that day and the next. Vestakia was unhurt, and Idalia said that according to Jermayan, the greatest injury he had sustained in the battle was having to listen to Ancaladar complain about how the Deathwings tasted.

“There would be more dead had you not given warning,” Jermayan said later that night.

Kellen had helped Idalia heal Gesade—a coldwarg had bitten through her foreleg, crushing the bone—and then visited with his wounded in the hospital, and then made his second—and more complete—report of the day to Adaerion. He should, by rights, be so completely exhausted he couldn’t stand, but he found that he was too keyed-up to sleep. He’d gone to the horse-lines to check on Mindaerel, and found Jermayan there with Valdien. Jermayan, sensing Kellen’s mood better than Kellen did, had brought him back to Jermayan’s tent.

“But there are dead. It isn’t enough,” Kellen muttered, staring down into a mug of mulled cider.

“You would save all the world, if you could,” Jermayan said.

“Yes,” Kellen said simply.

It was that, but it was more than that. Today the responsibility for saving the lives of others had been real—not an abstract, not a distant thing. The lives he had to save were right there in front of him, and people lived or died by how fast he could think, and how many right decisions he could make in a very short time. It had been his first taste of the responsibility he had chosen, the responsibility that would only become greater the longer he pursued this path. The weight of that responsibility felt like iron chains.

And every day would not always end in victory, as this had. Someday he might have to stand and watch friends die because that was the only way to attain a greater victory. He knew that, and wasn’t sure that he could bear it.

“Kellen.” There was a note of urgency in Jermayan’s voice that startled him. He looked up.

Jermayan was studying him as if he were a problem to be solved. “In the Great War … the Wildmages who fell to the Dark … they had fought first for the Light. They saw friends, brothers, sisters, loved ones, all die. Perhaps they wanted to save the world as well.”

“I … oh.” Kellen blinked as Jermayan’s words sank in. “But I can’t stop caring that they die.”

“No,” Jermayan agreed. “But don’t let your caring heart do the Enemy’s work for him. Now go to bed.”

AFTER that first assault, flank patrols became the order of the day during the march. Every unit of the army took a turn at riding them.

Though the coldwarg and the Deathwings never again attacked the army in the same numbers they had the first time, Jermayan reported that both creatures trailed the army at a distance constantly. Everyone knew this before very long, and everyone was on edge, waiting, wondering what was going to happen next. Though Jermayan and Ancaladar could easily have flown back and destroyed the packs, to do so would have meant leaving the marching column vulnerable to aerial attack—and Redhelwar was certain that this was precisely what their enemy was hoping for.

Kellen agreed, and had said as much. Since the coldwarg attack, his position in the army had undergone a subtle change. He had proven himself—shown that he could think quickly and well in battle, and act efficiently to save lives and form strategies that would kill the enemy. The senior commanders gave greater weight to his advice.

As for the sub-commanders, and the field knights, Kellen was welcomed at every fire and in every pavilion. He spent as much time with them as he could, knowing, deep in his heart, that the day would come when he would have to command them. He wondered if Redhelwar suspected it as well.

The progress he was making toward his goal should have made him happy—it was what he needed, it was what he was working for—but all Kellen could see was the pressure of needing to be both right and lucky the next time he went into battle as well. Each time the stakes were higher, and to gain his ultimate goal, he could not afford a single misstep.

But at least they listened. The creatures—Deathwings and coldwarg both—were obviously acting under orders, and Kellen wasn’t the only one to suspect that Vestakia was their ultimate target. The Elves knew that the Deathwings could snatch a rider from the saddle—they’d seen it done one day, when one of the white-furred monsters had slipped past Ancaladar and Jermayan’s defenses, though the archers had forced the creature to drop its prize unharmed—so now Vestakia rode in one of the wagons. It was stuffy and far less comfortable than riding on horseback, but at least she was safe from being snatched out of the saddle.

But others would not be, and so Ancaladar flew over the army, and let the coldwarg follow it.

THE land around Ysterialpoerin was heavily forested. Dense pine woods made it utterly impossible to keep to anything resembling a formal line of march, and slowed the army’s progress as alternate routes had to be found, time and again, for the supply wagons. Once they entered the forest, the Deathwings had stopped shadowing them, but the coldwarg did not. The trees provided far too much cover for the coldwarg; everyone knew they were there, but Jermayan and Ancaladar could not always see them. The Elves hunted them when they could, but no matter how many they killed, it never seemed to discourage the rest.

Kellen waited. He knew something was going to happen, and it would be when they let their defenses down.

And it did. When the army was two days away from Ysterialpoerin, the coldwarg attacked again, this time by night when half the camp was asleep.

Kellen was roused out of unquiet dreams by shouts and horns, and was halfway into his armor before he was even awake. Grabbing his sword, he ran toward the horse-lines. They were heavily guarded—next to the unicorns, the horses were the most attractive target for the coldwarg, since without their mounts and draft animals, the army would be crippled.

The battle this time was brief. They lost a few of the horses, and less than a dozen Knights, but once Ancaladar was able to find a place to land and take Jermayan onto his back, the victory was not in doubt.

THE third attack came days later, this time at dawn, just when they were all encumbered with packing and harnessing up.

One moment, Kellen was tightening the saddle girth—the next, only a glimpse of something moving at the edge of his vision warned him.

Then the coldwarg were on them.

They came on as if driven, and this time there was something desperate in the way they flung themselves at the Elves. There was no thought and no science in this attack; they attacked as the Shadowed Elves had, with hysterical ferocity, as if they were not only trying to overwhelm the Elves with mere numbers, but as if the unseen hand directing them had decided to sacrifice them entirely.

Kellen made a target out of himself. And in a moment, he was surrounded by the coldwarg, which was exactly how he wanted it.

And he began his deadly dance.

Perhaps it had seemed clever to the enemy, to attack now—but it was the worst of all times for them to try, when the warriors were fresh, well rested, bodies still warmed and not stiff and cold with long riding.

The red and blue shadows of battle-sight dodged around him, circling, driving in, dashing out—

Be where they aren’t—

Making feints, snapping enormous jaws—

Be where they aren’t expecting—

It was what Jermayan would call “a challenge.”

Be the target they can’t ignore.

With a new challenge involved—the Elves had come to understand that his battle-sight allowed him to see every danger, including friendly fire, and were taking advantage of that. So while he made an irresistible attraction of himself, they surrounded him and sent arrow after arrow into the ring of coldwarg around him. Now his own dodging had to include the arrows that missed their targets.

And even a Knight-Mage grew tired—

Kellen drove his sword through the body of a coldwarg. He was beginning to tire, and as a consequence, the strike was clumsy—he’d missed vital organs—and the monster dragged itself along his blade, jaws snapping as it strained to reach his throat.

He flung himself onto his back, pulling his dagger, and jammed it with all his force into the beast’s eye. He felt the tip of the blade grate against the inside of the back of its skull as the blow drove home.

As it thrashed, he got his feet into the coldwarg’s chest, and shoved with all his might, flinging the dying creature away from him. He rolled to his feet, and looked around for fresh targets, but his battle-sight was strangely clouded. A blue haze filled it, though to his normal vision, the scene was clear.

And with normal sight, he could see the coldwarg walking—slowly, stiffly—away from their prey. Their heads and tails were down, and their hackles stood up stiffly.

Something is happening.

“Let them go,” Kellen said quietly to the Elves around him.

The coldwarg staggered away from the horses, into the trees, moving in an eerie silence. Kellen could see their sides heaving; the beasts were panting as if they were running. When they were a bowshot’s distance away from the horse-lines, they stopped.

And burst into flames.

They burned as the stone houses in the Shadowed Elf caverns had burned, with a hot and furious flame that touched nothing around them. The fires burned so quickly that none of the beasts had time to utter so much as a yelp, and in seconds nothing remained but pools of snowmelt where the coldwarg had stood.

The Enemy had discarded its weapon.

THE day they reached Ysterialpoerin, Redhelwar and Adaerion rode down into the city, with Kellen’s troop along as escort, as the army continued onward toward the place where it would settle itself semipermanently.

Ysterialpoerin was the closest in form—Jermayan had told Kellen—to how the Elves had lived in the days before the Great War.

As they rode, Kellen kept waiting to see a sign that they had reached the city, and finally realized that there wasn’t going to be one. They were already in it. He looked around, as much as he could without changing position. It was nearly impossible to tell where the trees stopped and the buildings began, so artfully did they blend together. Kellen had to look very closely as he rode, but yes—there was a house, built somehow between two of the largest trees, several dozen feet over their heads. And there was another, on the ground this time, its stone surface nearly indistinguishable from the stone outcropping thrusting into the forest beside it. Only it wasn’t stone, he realized a few moments later, but tile made to look like stone.

And some of the trees weren’t trees at all, he realized with a shock—unless trees had doors in them, and windows.

He’d thought that Sentarshadeen was beautiful, and that its dwellings blended into the landscape, but riding into Ysterialpoerin was like riding into a dream while you were still awake. Even the snow seemed to have fallen here with the intent to fall beautifully.

At last—Kellen suspected they’d ridden all the way through the center of the city to reach their destination, but he hadn’t seen a single Elf, and very few things he recognized as a house—they came to what would be, in human lands, the Viceroy’s Palace.

The forest opened out into a clearing. At the far side of it stood a house, the first one Kellen had seen here that was easily recognizable. Like the House of Leaf and Star back in Sentarshadeen, it was a house, not a palace, though it was quite large. Unlike the House of Leaf and Star, it was made entirely of wood—ancient wood, weathered to grey by the passing of untold seasons. Like the House of Leaf and Star, it glittered with winter’s ice, but everywhere that Kellen could see, the wood was carved; delicate intricate carvings of vine and flower, leaf and bud. It was as if the house itself might burst into flower at any moment and take root in the earth beneath.

Standing upon the portico of the House were two Elves wearing elaborate jeweled and feathered cloaks of white, pale grey, and ice-blue.

The riders stopped. Redhelwar dismounted and walked forward. He bowed deeply.

“I See you, Kindolhinadetil, Voice of Andoreniel in Ysterialpoerin. I See you, Neishandellazel, Lady of Ysterialpoerin.”

“We See you, Redhelwar, General of Andoreniel’s armies. Be welcome in the House of Bough and Wind, Branch of Leaf and Star, you and those who ride with you.”

“We come on the wing to speak our word,” Redhelwar said, not moving from where he stood.

“Yet be welcome, as the wind that shakes the bough is welcome,” Kindolhinadetil said.

At this second invitation, Redhelwar moved forward. Adaerion dismounted, and gestured for Kellen to follow. The three Knights followed the Elven Viceroy and his Lady into The House of Bough and Wind.

Kellen resolved not to say a single word while he was here, no matter what. The Knights of Ysterialpoerin had seemed just like the rest of the Elves Kellen had met, but on reflection, he realized that must be because they’d left Ysterialpoerin and traveled extensively through the Elven Lands—and spent a number of years at the House of Sword and Shield besides. Kindolhinadetil and his Lady were another pot of tea entirely. He suspected they wouldn’t have any particular patience with round-ear informality, Knight-Mage or no.

He knew the Elves were an ancient race—far older than humans—but walking into the House of Bough and Wind was the first time he truly felt that age. Walking through the doorway was like walking into a summer forest. It looked nothing at all like a human house. He smelled the green scent of new growth, heard the twittering of birds, and saw the flash of butterflies among the trees. The fantasy was perfect. Yet there was no magic in it, only Elven artifice and the love of illusion.

Passing between two trees, they found themselves in a “clearing.” There were other Elves present—not dressed in winter’s white, but in the soft bright colors of summer. They stood so very still that only Kellen’s Knight-Mage senses made him certain they were there at all, and not merely some vividly lifelike artwork created to serve the same function as statuary.

Kindolhinadetil and Neishanellazel removed their long cloaks. Beneath them, they, too, were dressed in summer colors; Kindolhinadetil in shades of green and blue, Neishanellazel in copper and gold.

Servants—somehow Kellen had no doubt there were servants in Ysterialpoerin—came forward to take the Knights’ heavy winter cloaks. As they did, Kindolhinadetil and his lady seated themselves on elaborately carved chairs and turned their whole attention to Redhelwar.

“It would please us to hear all that you may tell,” Neishandellazel said, speaking for the first time.

Concisely—at least for Elves—Redhelwar explained about the Shadowed Elves; how Vestakia had discovered evidence of their lairs nearby, and how he and his army had come north to exterminate them.

There was a silence after Redhelwar had finished speaking. In a human conclave, it would have been filled with questions, but on consideration, Kellen supposed they were all pretty irrelevant. The Elves of Ysterialpoerin would know that Redhelwar would do the job as fast as possible, and the best way possible, and protect Ysterialpoerin as well as he could. So what else was there to ask?

“What Ysterialpoerin can do to aid you will be done, in Andoreniel’s name,” Kindolhinadetil said at last. “Send your injured to us that they may find peace and rest, and know that our forests stand ready to succor those who are heartsick for the forests of home. Know also that we will provide the Last Gift to all who require it.”

“The gifts of the Voice of Andoreniel are great, and his counsel makes good hearing,” Redhelwar said, bowing very low once more. “And now I must return to my army, so that all may be done as Andoreniel wishes.”

“Let it be so,” Kindolhinadetil agreed, rising to his feet.

IT took Kellen some time to figure out what the Viceroy had meant, but he had nothing but time as they rode to catch up with the army. The Last Gift must be burial—only the Elves didn’t bury their dead, they hung them in trees. And Kindolhinadetil had been saying—must have been saying—that it would be appropriate to put the Shadowed Elves there, too. He couldn’t fathom it—how they could still feel kinship with those creatures—but it wasn’t up to him, after all. Perhaps it would make them feel a little less guilty.

As for the rest, Kellen hoped there wasn’t going to be any need of it. But pragmatically thinking, with two enclaves to clean out, he knew there’d be losses. And the Herdingfolk Wildmages hadn’t arrived yet, though the army had added several more Wildmages from the Mountainfolk.

When they caught up to the army, Dionan told Redhelwar that Jermayan and Ancaladar had scouted ahead and found a place suitable to make an extended camp. Padredor and Belepheriel had taken several units ahead to secure and prepare it for the arrival of the main force and the baggage wagons, while Jermayan and Vestakia made an overflight to determine the exact location of the caves.

“All is as I would have it,” Redhelwar said with satisfaction.

BY a few hours before dusk, most of the camp was in place, though it would be another full day before all the larger pavilions were unshipped. An hour earlier, six Elven Scouts carrying tarnkappa had ridden out to the locations now marked on Redhelwar’s map—just as Vestakia had sensed in her first overflight, the two enclaves were only a short distance apart. Ancaladar had been able to spot separate entrances, but that was no guarantee that the two sets of caves did not connect beneath the ground. Perhaps the scouts would be able to tell them whether they did or not when they returned.

For now, Vestakia was resting in the Healer’s tent. The strain of coming so close to such a large concentration of Demon-taint and then doing such delicate work of detection had exhausted her, but fortunately the camp was located far enough away that she was not constantly affected by the nearness of the Shadowed Elves. And there was nothing Kellen could do to help her.

Once again Kellen forced himself to stay away from her bedside, trying to give Vestakia as little thought as he’d give a sword, or one of Artenel’s new shields. Idalia or Jermayan would tell him if there were anything truly wrong. Meanwhile, he forced himself to focus on other things—the strange and somehow deeply-unsettling beauty of Ysterialpoerin; the fact that there was to be a strategy meeting after supper. The proximity to Ysterialpoerin and the fact that they could finally unship the ovens from the carts meant that the food would be better. Though Elven food was never really bad, Kellen was getting tired of an endless diet of tea, soup, stew, and porridge—though it did occur to him that he ought to be grateful to have the luxury of being tired of food of any sort. The Mountainfolk had been existing on much less, and the time might be coming when he would look back on soup, stew, and porridge with longing.

“You’re restless tonight,” Ciltesse said, coming up to him with a cup of tea.

Kellen took it gratefully, warming his gloved hands. He knew now why fighting in winter was something a sane man avoided at all cost. The weather was another enemy to fight; one that never got tired, and never retreated, and had the terrible weapons of cold and storm forever in its arsenal.

“I suppose I wish it were over with,” Kellen answered. “Or at least, that we knew more than we do.”

Ciltesse smiled faintly. “As do we all—the caverns cleansed and we home at our firesides. And better yet, that there were no need to have cleansed them at all. Yet all things come at a price.”

Is the fighting now the price of the centuries of peace in Elven Lands in the past? Kellen wondered. Or was it the price to pay for centuries of peace in the future—if they won?

He didn’t know. He only knew that he felt terribly uneasy. About what was to come? Or …

There was a scream from the Healers’ Tents, and all Kellen’s sense of unease coalesced into a sudden terrible sense of warning.

He flung away the cup, with no idea where it went, and gave poor Ciltesse a shove in the direction of the Unicorn Knights. “We’re going to be attacked—go! Warn as many as you can!”

Kellen whirled and ran headlong through the camp, toward Redhelwar’s tent, giving the alarm to all he passed. It had been Vestakia who had screamed—she could sense Demon-taint at a great distance. Kellen’s own abilities relied more on hunches—the more he faced a particular enemy, the more accurately he could predict how that enemy would behave in battle. And sometimes the Wild Magic gave him advance warning of danger to come.

But not enough to do any real good, Kellen thought in bitter, frantic frustration.

He reached Redhelwar’s tent and barged inside, not stopping for courtesies. Redhelwar was disarming himself, as Dionan stood by. In the distance, Kellen could hear a few of the Elven warhoms blowing, sounding the watch-and-ward.

“the Enemy is attacking!” Kellen blurted out. “Vestakia sensed it too!”

Suddenly the calls of some of the horns changed. An enemy had been sighted.

“Yes, so it seems,” Redhelwar said with remarkable calmness, reaching again for the pieces of his discarded armor. “See to your command.”

Kellen sketched a salute and pelted off again, as fast as his feet could take him.

THANKS to Vestakia and Kellen, the Elves had gotten some advance warning, but the camp was large, and there hadn’t been time to spread warning throughout the entire camp before the first attackers appeared.

Coldwarg attacked the sentries, appearing out of the snow like ghosts.

This time they were accompanied by Shadowed Elves.

Showing no concern for their own survival, the Shadowed Elves ran directly toward the center of the camp, side by side with their four-footed allies.

Not all of them reached the camp. Those already beneath the trees Jermayan could not reach, but those still on open ground were easy prey for his magic.

But those who did get into the camp caused damage enough. They were armed with bows, not swords—the terrible poisoned arrows that the Elves had learned to fear in their last battle—and with worse than that; sacks of small fragile spheres filled with acid. They threw them with deadly accuracy, and as the spheres shattered, the thick syrupy liquid inside burned through anything it touched.

But because they were fragile, the spheres were vulnerable targets as well. The Elven archers quickly learned to aim, not at the Shadowed Elves, but at the sacks that they carried, shattering the contents with a volley of arrows and leaving the acid-soaked carrier screaming in agony upon the ground for a few brief minutes until a merciful sword stroke ended his life.

There was no order of battle, no organization. Kellen had not even managed to reach his troop again before he found himself facing a slavering coldwarg over the body of a dead Knight The monster’s jaws dripped blood and saliva. It gazed at Kellen with glowing yellow eyes for a timeless moment, growled, and sprang.

Kellen stepped forward, into its leap, bringing up his sword like a boar-spear. The weight of the coldwarg knocked him flat, but the beast was dead before they both hit the ground, impaled through the chest. He rolled out from under it, wrenching his blade free as he did, and went looking for fresh targets.

He smelled smoke. Some of the tents were burning, and the reek sent a wave of panic through him.

Then discipline took hold of him. Stop. Think.

Kellen took a deep breath and stood where he was. There was nothing to gain by running around like a chicken trying to avoid the barnyard axe. He must use his gifts.

The Shadowed Elves weren’t stupid. Alien to everything the Elves knew, but not stupid. Even with the coldwarg to help them, they were outnumbered here, and had thrown over their main advantages of absolute darkness and confined spaces to make this attack. The Elves would kill them all and they must know it. Yet they had attacked anyway.

Why?

They are creatures of the Shadow. The Shadow fights a war of the spirit. What is the greatest blow it could strike against the Elves this night?

Suddenly he knew.

This is a feint. The Shadowed Elves mean to distract us from discovering their true target until it is too late.

And he knew—with a sudden awful certainty—what it was.

He ran toward his tent.

There were Shadowed Elves and coldwarg along the way that he could have killed. He did not stop.

He found Isinwen near his tent. The rest of his troop was scattered, attacking the attackers, but he sensed them nearby.

“Ciltesse?” Kellen demanded.

Isinwen shook his head.

Kellen had ordered Ciltesse to spread the alarm. He might be anywhere. There was no time to wait for him.

“Gather the troop. Get to the horses. We ride at once. Stop for nothing.”

“Alakomentai!” Isinwen said. He turned away, running toward the others to pass the word.

Kellen moved through the chaos of the camp, giving the same order over and over.

He blessed the Gods of the Wild Magic, blessed Leaf and Star, blessed all the trust he’d earned in the sennights passed—his men abandoned the camp and the battle and followed him. By the time he reached the horse-lines, Isinwen and the others who had gotten there first had retrieved their mounts and saddled them.

Kellen vaulted onto Mindaerel’s back and set her off as fast as he dared, away from the camp and back into the forest. Through deep snow, at night, in the woods … there were a thousand ways for a horse, even an Elven destrier, to break a leg on uncertain footing.

But some of them must get through. And that meant they all needed to know why.

“This attack is a trap to occupy us,” Kellen called back over his shoulder. “They strike at Ysterialpoerin! I think they mean to burn it.”

Unconsciously, he shifted Mindaerel’s path to the left, and realized he’d sensed an obstacle beneath the snow. “Behind me, and follow like my shadow!” he ordered, and shifted to battle-sight. By this time, he had learned to rely upon it as he did his muscles; it was less like shifting to a different way of seeing, and more like focusing on something you wanted to see clearly.

There. The path to take—the clear path, the safe path—burned a bright clear blue against the snow, often narrow, always twisting. He set Mindaerel upon it, urging the mare to her fastest speed. He felt the body beneath him gather, and her speed redouble.

An ordinary horse would not have run so for her rider. A horse’s night-sight was not good, and where a horse could not see, it would not go. But Mindaerel was an Elven destrier. She would answer her rider’s commands until her heart broke. She ran through what to her must be utter darkness, trusting absolutely to Kellen’s touch to guide her. Behind him, the Elven Knights in his command followed in a single file, all riding at breakneck speed in Mindaerel’s hoofprints.

Back in Armethalieh, Kellen had never believed in the Light. Idalia had called it “bloodless,” and it was—even more unconnected to the reality of daily life than the study of the High Magick. Jermayan and the other Elves swore by Leaf and Star—and Kellen had fallen into the same habit—but he wasn’t at all sure what that meant.

As for the Gods of the Wild Magic … well, Kellen believed in the Wild Magic, because he worked with it daily. He had no doubt that it had a purpose outside itself. Maybe that was what the Gods of the Wild Magic were, but they didn’t seem to be anything you could talk to directly.

Right now he wished they were. He’d ask anyone—the Gods of Leaf and Star, of the Wild Magic, the Great Herdsman of the Centaurs, the Huntsman of the Mountainfolk, Vestakia’s Good Goddess—for help in reaching the Shadowed Elves before they did whatever they intended to do. He was certain now that they’d left for Ysterialpoerin before the second group had struck at the camp, and if Sentarshadeen was the head and the crown of the Elven cities, Ysterialpoerin was surely its heart. To attack it, to burn it as the whole might of Andoreniel’s army stood by, oblivious …

Would be precisely the sort of thing Shadow Mountain would love best. It’s why they never did it before, They were waiting for an audience. They want us to see how helpless we are, and despair. They want to break our hearts and our spirits.

He strained his senses as Mindaerel raced over the snow. He had gone now beyond hope, beyond prayer. He willed their victory, because they dared not fail.

He could sense Ysterialpoerin ahead. Its boundaries were as clear to his Knight-Mage senses as if they were lines upon a map. He could see its Elven sentries, and knew that they saw nothing—not the Shadowed Elves, not the Elves racing toward them.

But he could sense the Shadowed Elves.

He urged Mindaerel onward. In the darkness, he dared not take his hands from the reins to unlimber his bow, for his hands were her eyes. He was by far the poorest shot in the entire camp—except perhaps for Vestakia—but a bow had more range than a sword, and even if he didn’t hit any of the Shadowed Elves, he could at least get their attention.

Once they were in range.

At last his battle-sight told him that they were.

And the shining azure path—the path of safety for a running horse—widened out, ringing the city with a band of manicured protection. In that moment Kellen blessed the Elves’ attention to perfection, for now the path was smooth enough that not one destrier would put a foot wrong between here and the city.

“Go!” Kellen said, motioning the others up as he reached for his bow.

He knew if he looked with his eyes he would see only darkness. He knew the Elves’ night-sight was better than his, but he wasn’t sure how much even they could see, here under the overshadowing trees.

Balancing on Mindaerel’s back, he strung his bow and nocked an arrow. Without thought, he drew and fired.

Without waiting to see whether he’d hit the target he fired again; neither as fast nor as sure as the Elves, but by his arrows the enemy knew it had been discovered.

All around him now, the Elven bows were singing. Kellen flung his own aside and drew his sword.

The Shadowed Elves could have run—or tried to. But as always, the sight of true Elves seemed to wake some madness in them. They turned and the eight warriors among them began launching arrows of their own. Kellen could see the green fire of the poison upon their arrowheads.

Their bows did not have the range of the Elven war-bows, but the Elves were easily within range of their arrows now. Their only defense was to ride the Shadowed Elves down before they could launch too many of their deadly poisoned shafts, hoping none of the darts struck true, and everyone riding with Kellen knew it. The Shadowed Elves’ only defense was to cut them down at a distance; they knew that, too.

They were twenty against eight, and the Shadowed Elves wore no armor. Speed and momentum won; when they closed the distance, it wasn’t even a battle.

In seconds the Shadowed Elf males were no more than heaps of rags upon the snow, struck down by Elven arrows, trampled by the horses’ hooves. Several of the Knights dismounted and ran forward, swords drawn, to make sure they were truly dead.

“Kellen!” Isinwen cried, pointing.

Kellen saw the four survivors—all females—running toward Ysterialpoerin. They ran in pairs, each pair carrying a large jug between them. Without hesitation, he urged Mindaerel after them.

Once he would have hesitated to attack them. It seemed like an eternity ago now. He took Mindaerel to the right as Isinwen swung left. His sword flashed out, and the nearest female’s head went flying. He spun Mindaerel, facing the other, and struck again. Beside him, as if he were Kellen’s reflection in a mirror, Isinwen did the same.

It was over. Kellen breathed a sigh of relief.

And then, slowly, Mindaerel sank to her knees in the snow. Kellen sprang from the saddle as the mare rolled to her side, her ribs heaving as she gasped for breath.

“Mindaerel!” he cried. She raised her head.

“Mindaerel. Lady—” Kellen choked, sinking to his knees beside her. Now that he looked, he could see the baleful green of poison, the Shadowed Elf arrows sunk into the muscle high upon her foreleg, just below the protection of her armor.

Yet during the fight, she had given no sign of her wounds. She had run on, fleet as the clouds before the Moon, had done everything he asked of her—

“Mindaerel—” he whimpered. Hearing her name, Mindaerel lay her head down in the snow again, stretching her neck out toward him. Kellen reached out to touch her muzzle. But before he could complete the gesture, she gave a great sigh.

And stopped.

She was gone.

A moan escaped him as his throat closed.

“We hail the bravery of a great warrior,” Isinwen said quietly, dismounting to stand behind Kellen. “May she run forever through the Fields of Vardirvoshan.”

Kellen bowed his head, feeling his eyes fill with tears. He’d lost … a comrade, a friend … one who hadn’t, perhaps, truly understood the battle or the need to fight it, but who had given up everything she had to it. Out of love. He stroked her muzzle, but it was a pointless gesture; the flesh was already cooling beneath his fingers, for Mindaerel was truly gone. Perhaps her spirit was running free through the Fields of Vardirvoshan where she had been foaled. He hoped so.

He took a deep breath, and got to his feet. The task was not yet complete. He knew what the Shadowed Elves intended, but not how they were going to do it.

“Let’s see what was in those jugs.”

When they broke the wax seal and pried off the lids, they found that both jugs were filled with oil and dozens of rings of a strange whitish material. Four of the male Shadowed Elf dead were carrying a second set of bows—larger and heavier than their usual ones—and quivers of iron arrows with oddly shaped tips. Kellen used one of these to hook one of the white-metal rings out of one of the pots of oil—cautiously, as he trusted nothing to do with the Shadowed Elves.

He held it up, puzzled, as the Elves gathered warily around. As the oil dripped from the ring, it began to smoke, then to burn, glowing brightly, and the shaft of the arrow began to glow red-hot.

Startled, Kellen dropped the arrow into the snow, but to his dismay, the snow did not quench the ring’s fire. If anything, it burned more brightly, melting down through the snow and the ice beneath, and curls of smoke began to rise from the buried leaves. Kellen scrabbled through the snow until he found the arrow shafts—it was hot even through his gauntlets—and plunged the ring swiftly back into the oil. The ring sizzled and smoked, the oil simmering with its heat, and he shook the arrow gently, wincing at the heat, until the ring dropped off. He quickly tossed the arrow aside, and to his relief, it cooled in the snow like ordinary metal.

“The metal burns like one of Jermayan’s fire-spells,” Sihemand said, sounding troubled.

“There’s no magic to it. Not that I can sense, anyway,” Kellen said, puzzled. But it would have burned as well as a fire spell Oh, yes. Those metal rings, launched into the trees and houses of Ysterialpoerin, would have burned the forest and anything else they touched, no matter how much water the Elves had thrown on the blaze.

“Declare yourselves,” came a voice out of the darkness.

A little late, are’t you? Kellen thought uncharitably.

“Kellen Knight-Mage,” he said, turning in the direction of the voice. He racked his brain. He knew there were proper forms for this sort of thing, but he didn’t know them!

“Alakomentai to Adaerion, komentai to Redhelwar, Army’s General, hand of Andoreniel, by the grace of Leaf and Star ruler over the Nine Cities,” Isinwen supplied smoothly, not missing a beat. “We come in a good hour, for as you see by the blood on our swords, there are those who wish ill to Ysterialpoerin, heart of the land, and to Kindolhinadetil, Voice of Andoreniel, and Neishandellazel, his Lady.” Isinwen’s voice took on the force and melodious tone of one making a speech. “These who would harm the forest came in the night, bringing fire to the trees out of season, and in a way not willed by the great balance that governs all things. Yet we came before them, as the wind comes before the storm, and so the forest stands strong by the will of Leaf and Star, and all who would harm her lie dead by the will of Kellen Knight-Mage and the ways of the Wild Magic.”

That should shut him up, Kellen thought, impressed.

Unfortunately, there was very little that could truly silence an Elf.

“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage,” the sentry said, bowing, a great deal less impressed than Kellen was.

“I See you, Ysterialpoerin’s guardian,” Kellen said, bowing in return. Damn it all, this was no time for Elven formality!

But it appeared that the sentry was bound and determined to hold to convention. Kellen felt like a wild thing lunging against a tether; he desperately wanted to get back to the camp and bring these strange new Shadowed Elf weapons with them. But despite his feeling of urgency, he knew that offending the Elves of Ysterialpoerin would only make trouble for him later. He had to hold on to their respect. He took a deep breath and restrained his impatience.

“Perhaps you will allow me to carry your word to Kindolhinadetil,” said the sentry, “that he may know what aid and honor will best sustain you in the completion of your task.”

Now what was he to say?

Once more Isinwen saved him. “Compared to Kindolhinadetil’s burdens, Ysterialpoerin’s guardian, our own are light indeed, and we would be greatly honored not to add to them by more than the word of what has transpired here this night. And we are but come upon the wing. Our duty to Redhelwar, Army’s General, calls to us like hind to hart in spring, and our hearts leap to obey.”

“Let it be so, then.” The sentry bowed again, deeply, and seemed to vanish without moving, but by now Kellen was practically used to that.

“We need to take the strange weapons,” Kellen said. “Handle the jugs carefully. They can’t be allowed to spill. Leave everything else. I’ll tell Adaerion what happened here.”

And let someone else worry about it for a change.

Before they left, however, the Elves arranged the Shadowed Elf dead neatly in the snow. It was not only a mark of respect, but would make handling the bodies easier later, since they’d certainly freeze solid in the night. Kellen took the opportunity to look around for other traps, but saw none, and sensed no further danger to the city.

At least not tonight.

He walked back and collected his bow from where he’d thrown it, slinging it over his shoulder, and as he did he saw the faint trail of blood in the snow from Mindaerel’s wounds.

If he’d known Mindaerel had been hit, would he have stopped, tried to heal her? Could he have saved her life if he had? Even as he asked himself the questions, Kellen knew the answer was “no.” No, he wouldn’t have stopped, couldn’t have stopped, not until the Shadowed Elves were all dead.

And by then it would have been too late.

“It would honor me did you choose to ride with me,” Isinwen said, trotting up beside Kellen on Cheska.

“Thanks,” Kellen said. He took Isinwen’s hand, and pulled himself into the saddle behind him.

They rode back toward the camp—more slowly now, following their own hoofprints in the snow. The horses were tired, and Kellen sensed no need for haste. The fight back at the camp was certainly over by now. And if they’d stayed to fight it, Ysterialpoerin would already be burning.

He didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts just now. They kept returning to Mindaerel. He knew that a good general had to use the people and materials available to him to win—use them up as often as not. He wondered if Redhelwar regretted every death of those under his command.

Suddenly Kellen found himself hoping so—fiercely. So far he’d been lucky. His people had been wounded, some gravely, but no one had died. But when they attacked this new set of caverns, some surely would die. He would not only send them to death, he would lead them to it, just as he had led Mindaerel. And afterward he would mourn them, just as he mourned her now, but he would know—he knew now—that it was something he did open-eyed, and would do again the next time there was need.

What was he becoming?

A leader A commander. Someone who can face Shadow Mountain—stand against the Demons—and nor flinch.

Nobody said it was going to be fun.

He wondered if this was how a sword felt while it was being forged.

But right now he needed something to take him outside his thoughts, if only for a little while.

“You’re good at that,” Kellen said to Isinwen as they rode. “Talking to the sentry. They’re very … formal … here.”

“Yes. I was born here,” Isinwen said blandly. Kellen stiffened in surprise. If it had been Jermayan, Kellen would be sure he was being set up for one of the elaborate and obscure Elven jokes, but he didn’t know Isinwen well enough to be sure.

Isinwen chuckled. “One does not forget the ways of Ysterialpoerin easily.”

Kellen was only glad he was riding behind Isinwen, so the Elf could not see his expression, but apparently it wasn’t hard for Isinwen to guess by the way Kellen twitched. He hoped desperately that he hadn’t offended Isinwen, though he was pretty sure by now that Isinwen was amused—by something, at any rate.

“I did leave,” the Elf added. Perhaps it was supposed to mean something to Kellen, but he wasn’t sure what to say. After a moment, Isinwen spoke again.

“One hears that the human city is punctilious in its ways, and everything must be done just so,” Isinwen said in his most neutral “discussing the weather” tones. “And some cannot bear it, and leave. Perhaps, then, you would understand that when I went to the House of Sword and Shield to train as a Knight, I knew I could never bear to return to Ysterialpoerin. In Sentarshadeen, in Ondoladeshiron, in the eastern cities, life is … different.”

Different? That was something that stretched Kellen’s imagination. He’d gotten used to thinking of all of the Elves as being as alike as they looked. So the Elves had the equivalent of Armethalieh? And this was it? That was something he’d never thought of. Except that their “Armethalieh” didn’t have High Mages, of course—and they could leave any time they wanted to, and go somewhere they liked better. Or go to Ysterialpoerin, if that was what they wanted. It occurred to him that for every Elf like Isinwen, who couldn’t stand the place, there probably was one who found that it was their heart’s desire.

So … everybody who was in Ysterialpoerin wanted to be there.

What if Armethalieh could be like that? What if people could not only choose, but actually know what they were choosing?

“You give me much to consider,” Kellen said.

“A proper Elven answer,” Isinwen said, “yet brief, as they are on the Borders.”

“And consider me as grateful as whatever you like that you were there to speak for me,” Kellen said, “since I don’t think it would serve Redhelwar’s purposes if I insulted everyone in the city with what was taken for unpardonable rudeness. And … if it’s anything like Armethalieh”—he hesitated, not wanting to insult anyone, even in absentia—“it would suit some very well, and perhaps not others.”

“We will not be here long, by the grace of Leaf and Star,” Isinwen said, “nor should you have need to go among the folk of Ysterialpoerin, called the great city of the forest’s heart, as they would say, again. Yet should there be need, I will teach you some simple forms that should serve you. I memorized them all, in the days of my youth, for I am no poet, and that, Kellen, is among the greatest of the reasons why I left!”

By now they approached the camp, and as they passed the sentries, they met groups of Elves bringing bodies into the forest in wagons. In the distance, Kellen could see the lights of the camp.

Rulorwen was with the groups carrying off the dead, and Kellen hailed him.

“I See you, Rulorwen. It would please me to know what you may tell,” Kellen said automatically. The awkward circumlocution seemed almost second-nature by now. Even if it was “brief, as they are on the Borders.”

“I See you, Kellen. It is good to know that you live,” Rulorwen answered, with the same intonation as if they had met in a garden. “The day was ours, by the grace of Leaf and Star. Vestakia and Idalia Wildmage are well: I have seen them. Adaerion lives, and will wish to know that you live also.”

That was the equivalent of being told report at once. “I go in haste,” Kellen said.

“Take Cheska,” Isinwen said, swinging down from the saddle. “There’s work here:”

Kellen slid forward and gathered up the reins while Isinwen had a quiet word with his mount. He looked over his shoulder.

“Sihemand, Rhuifai, come with me. The rest of you, look to Rulorwen.”

He rode down into the camp. Sihemand and Rhuifai—who were carrying the jugs of metalfire and the Shadowed Elf weapons—followed.

The camp was still disorderly in the aftermath of the battle, but there were no bodies to be seen. The fires had been put out, though the smell of burning and the rank stench of poison still hung in the air, making Cheska shake his head and snort. Soon, though, Kellen knew, it would be as if the attack had never occurred.

Kellen reached Adaerion’s pavilion, but before he could dismount, Kharren stepped outside.

“He is with Redhelwar,” she said without preamble. “Go there”

Kellen turned Cheska’s head toward the great scarlet pavilion at the center of camp. When he got closer, he saw that it had not escaped the night’s battle unscathed. The front was nearly charred away, and a network of ropes—obviously new and hastily added—held the structure upright.

Kellen dismounted, motioning for the others to do so as well, and stopped before the wide-open front of Redhelwar’s tent, where Dionan stood guard. Adaerion, Redhelwar, and several others were inside.

“Bring the jars, and the weapons. Then go. Find Ciltesse, and tell him what has happened. Take his orders. If you cannot find him”—If he is dead—“return to Isinwen”

Sihemand and Rhuifai bowed, a brief acknowledgment.

“Be welcome,” Dionan said gravely.

Kellen and the two Elves entered. His men set down the heavy stone jugs, the bows, and the quivers of iron arrows just inside where the doorway would have been, bowed again, and departed. They mounted their horses, and led Cheska away with them.

Kellen waited, and as he did so, the last of his energy seemed to drain away. Redhelwar was behind the others, speaking with someone he couldn’t see. At last the general finished and came over to Kellen.

Kellen bowed very low, since he knew in his bones that this was the only thing in the way of proper Elven formality that he’d be able to manage tonight. Reaction was setting in. Only the knowledge that they had saved Ysterialpoerin from burning was keeping him going now.

“I See you, Redhelwar, Army’s General,” he said wearily.

“I See you, Kellen, alakomentai, Knight-Mage. One observes that you do not ride Mindaerel this night,” Redhelwar said.

“She’s dead,” Kellen said. He took a deep breath, and held back another sudden burst of sorrow. “The Shadowed Elves killed her.”

“May her spirit run free in the Fields of Vardirvoshan,” Redhelwar said sympathetically. “I have had grave news this night, and I would have your counsel.”

“With all respect, I do not think what I have to say can wait. And for my brevity I beg pardon,” Kellen said. “The attack on the army was a feint. The Shadowed Elves went to burn Ysterialpoerin. They had new weapons. I think it would have worked.”

“But it did not work,” Redhelwar said, his manner suddenly intent.

“We killed them all and brought the weapons back with us,” Kellen said. “The city is unharmed.”

“Yet it would be good to know how the Knight-Mage knew to ride after these Shadowed Elves,” Belepheriel said, coming forward. “Or how it is that he so often gives warning—and never soon enough to prevent losses. I would be interested to know what we will find in the caverns ahead if we continue to rely upon his warnings.”

The note of contempt in Belepheriel’s voice was impossible to mistake, and Kellen felt rage fill him, as if he faced an enemy on a battlefield. He had thought he had come to the end of his energy; he had been wrong. This new challenge filled him with a strength he had not known he still possessed. He swung toward Belepheriel, the fury in his face so plain that even Belepheriel stepped back. Redhelwar placed a hand on his shoulder, but Kellen stepped out from under it, taking a step toward the Elven commander.

“I am a Knight-Mage, Belepheriel,” he said, very softly. “My Magery is the Art of War. Tonight the Wild Magic showed me that the attack upon the army was a cloak for an attack upon Ysterialpoerin, and so I stopped it. Would you see the Heart of the Forest burned to ash for your foolish pride in the Ancient Ways? Or shall I withhold the warnings I can give so that you may rejoice in a slaughter unrestrained by the Wild Magic? You are free to ask me for that, Belepheriel. Or will you call me a liar and face me across the Circle?”

There was utter silence in the pavilion.

“You cannot …” Belepheriel began, aghast. “It is unseemly! We are in the field!”

“I will permit it,” Redhelwar said. “This once.”

Abruptly his fury left Kellen, though the cold anger still burned deep. Belepheriel had been a dead weight in their councils ever since Kellen had been admitted to them—and undoubtedly long before—and they could no longer afford that.

And now he remembered what the Circle was—though a moment before the words had come without thought.

When two Knights could not resolve a difference—great or small—any other way, they fought within a Circle. The one to push the other out—or kill him, though that was so rare as to be the stuff of legend—was the winner, and the matter was considered settled for all time.

Duels were strictly banned for armies in the field. Yet the commander of all the armies was suspending that ban. He knew Belepheriel for the dead weight that he was.

And now Belepheriel must know that he had been measured, and found wanting.

“I would hear your word to Kellen, Belepheriel. You waste my time,” Redhelwar said implacably.

“Honor to the Knight-Mage,” Belepheriel said at last, his voice utterly without color. “By the grace of Leaf and Star, good fortune to him and long life, and to his endeavors on behalf of the army as well, which come in a good hour. If there are no further matters that require my attention here, I would see to my command, Redhelwar.”

“Go,” the Elven General said. It was the most abrupt dismissal that Kellen had ever heard from Elven lips—and as such, very nearly an insult.

Belepheriel walked stiffly from the tent.

“Dionan, bring tea,” Redhelwar commanded. “Kellen, show me these weapons.”

Still feeling a little dazed—he thought he might have just cast a spell, but this was certainly the first time he’d done it without knowing about it in advance, or without any of the tools of the Wild Magic!—Kellen walked over to the jugs, knelt, and lifted the lid of one of them. Picking up one of the arrows, he explained what he’d seen and done with the strange weapon as well as he could.

While he was talking, Dionan appeared at his shoulder and offered him tea—not just a cup, but a large wooden tankard. Kellen took it gratefully and drained it in a few gulps, even though it was steamingly hot. It was very sweet, and he tasted allheal in the brew. He handed it back with a nod of thanks, still talking.

“—the white rings burn when they are no longer in the oil. I think they’ll even burn through the iron eventually. Nothing makes them stop burning—not water, anyway, and I think they’d keep burning no matter how much earth you shoveled over them. I don’t know what they are, but they’re not magic.”

“Perhaps Artenel will know. We shall give these to him and tell him to be careful,” Redhelwar said.

Dionan brought another tankard of tea. Kellen sipped this one more slowly, getting to his feet. The combination of all-heal and honey was bringing him back to himself.

“I accept that the Wild Magic told you of the second attack,” Redhelwar said. “But it would make good hearing to know more, if there were more to tell.”

Kellen frowned, thinking hard. Redhelwar certainly had a right to know, but it was hard to put into words.

“It seemed to me,” he began hesitantly, “that there was no reason for their attack upon the camp. They were giving up their only advantage—their caves—to attack us in the open. So there had to be a reason that seemed good to them. It came to me—there’s really no other way to explain it, I’m sorry—that the attack must only be to focus our attention upon the camp, and there had to be a reason why they wished us to do that. The only possible reason could be that they had a second target, and there is only one other target nearby worth taking.”

“Ysterialpoerin,” said Redhelwar gravely.

Kellen nodded. “Those that the Shadowed Elves serve want to break our hearts. There’s no better way than by destroying what we’re sworn to protect while it’s directly beneath our hand. So I rode after the Shadowed Elves that were heading toward Ysterialpoerin. I didn’t know what they planned, and I wasn’t sure it was Shadowed Elves. I just knew there’d be a strike at Ysterialpoerin, because … because there had to be. I knew it.” He held his hands out, palm upward, and shrugged. “The rest you know.”

“Magic,” Adaerion said, a note of despairing humor in his voice. “We must become accustomed to it, Redhelwar.”

“Yes,” Redhelwar said. He studied Kellen for a long moment. “Now come and give counsel in time of peril, Knight-Mage, as it was in the days of my great-grandfather.”

Redhelwar led him over to the table. The others stood aside, and now Kellen could see there was someone sitting there. He was bloody and battered, though he had obviously already been in the hands of the Healers—one arm was lashed tightly to his body with a sling and a network of bandages, and his head was bandaged as well.

With an effort, Kellen dredged his name up out of memory. Gairith.

One of the scouts they’d sent out earlier tonight.

“The others are all dead,” Gairith said wearily, meeting Kellen’s gaze. “The enemy came upon us as we rode toward the caves. We were not wearing the tarnkappa then. We fled, hoping to give warning, but they cut us down. My lady, Emerna … died.”

“May her spirit run free in the Fields of Vardirvoshan,” Kellen said softly, finding the proper words. “My own also died this night at their hands.”

“Yet she saved my life in her death,” Gairith said proudly, “for I lay beneath her, and they did not stop to see if I lived or died. I claimed the tarnkappa of the others, lest they should fall into evil hands, then donned my own and ran back to the camp as fast as I could. Yet I was too late … too late to warn …” His head drooped with exhaustion and pain.

Kellen glanced at Redhelwar. The Elven General made a small gesture, as if to say he left the matter in Kellen’s hands.

“I would question you, if you can bear it,” Kellen said gently.

“Let it be so,” Gairith said wearily, raising his head.

“Where were you, when you were attacked?”

“At the stream that runs below the caverns, a mile from the opening of the nearer. It is the last cover of any kind before the caverns, and there is not much, as Ancaladar has said. There we would go our ways, Kolindearil, Alanoresen, and Morwentheas to ride north, I and my comrades to leave our mounts and go ahead. But we did not get the chance.”

“Was it wholly dark by that time?” Kellen asked, trying to judge the timing of the attack.

“The sun was behind the mountains, and the light had left the sky, but we could see well enough. We saw them. They saw us. And then the coldwarg came at us from upwind, where the horses could not smell them.”

“One last question—and I know you may not have an answer for me,” Kellen said after a moment of thought. “Did you see females among them, or pairs of Shadowed Elves carrying large jugs, very heavy?”

“I saw no jugs as you describe,” Gairith said, his voice a whisper of exhaustion. “For the rest, I do not know. They had bows, and swords, and … clubs. That I saw.”

“Thank you,” Kellen said. “You have helped me greatly. I honor you.”

“Dionan, take Gairith back to the Healers,” Redhelwar said.

Dionan came forward, lifted Gairith from the chair, and half-carried him from the tent.

“It would please me to know he will be all right,” Kellen said, when the two Elves were gone.

“He lost a brother tonight—one of the other scouts. As was one of Belepheriel’s sons,” Redhelwar said in expressionless tones.

Kellen winced inwardly. It did much to explain Belepheriel’s behavior.

But it didn’t excuse it.

They had no time for excuses.

He was laboring under an unpaid price of the Wild Magic: to forgive an enemy. He wondered if—just now—he’d failed to pay it, and searched his heart.

But no. Belepheriel was not an enemy, no matter how harshly they had treated one another. He was only an obstacle. Kellen was truly sorry that Belepheriel’s grief had caused him to force the issue that lay between them, and not to leave it for some other time. He would make amends for that, if it were possible. Jermayan would know.

“Your counsel, Knight-Mage,” Redhelwar said, interrupting his thoughts.

“You see what I have seen, Redhelwar,” Kellen said. “The scouts did not see the second party, the one that went to burn Ysterialpoerin. It may have left earlier, perhaps to lie in wait until the attack on the camp began. Perhaps not We know they can move through the day if they must.”

Be right. No matter what, you always have to be right. Especially now.

“The plan to destroy Ysterialpoerin is good in their eyes,” he went on. “The plan to map the caverns before invading is good in ours. They know we’re here. They know what we mean to do, I think.”

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes, trying to call up the intuitive understanding of the enemy that he needed.

“Sit,” Redhelwar said. “I ask too much of you.”

Kellen sank into the chair that Gairith had so recently vacated, feeling as if his bones were suddenly made of Artenel’s most fragile glass. “You ask what must be asked,” he replied, knowing, if he knew nothing else, that this was the right thing to say. “And I must give what must be given.” There was an answer here, somewhere, just beyond his reach.

“If we cannot send scouts in to map the caverns,” Adaerion said reluctantly, into the silence, “we must go in with Vestakia to lead us. And that means we can only attack one enclave at a time. And we do not know how many entrances or exits they may have.”

“Ancaladar saw only two,” Padredor said. “His eyes are sharp.”

“So we will guard the one, so that nothing may pass it, and attack the other. Kellen is right: the Enemy would love nothing better than to destroy Ysterialpoerin in the face of our gathered strength, so we must guard it as well. We shall send a third of the army to do that—and all the unicorns, for their senses may discover what ours do not. A third again to the farther cavern, and the Mountainfolk with them, as they are expert in matters of snow and ice, so that no matter what seeks to escape the cavern or through the mountains, nothing shall—and if there are other exits elsewhere in the mountains, there will be sufficient forces to dispatch against what may issue from them. Ancaladar will tell us what he sees, for I think there is no way this time for us to gain his strength beneath the ground.”

“No!” Kellen burst out, feeling a jolt of warning course through him.

Everyone stopped and looked at him.

“Will you speak, Knight-Mage?” Redhelwar said courteously. But this time Kellen sensed impatience and reluctance as well. This time, Redhelwar did not wish to hear him.

Redhelwar meant to split the army into thirds, and send Vestakia into the nearer cavern with the attack force. It wasn’t the splitting of the army that disturbed Kellen, because they couldn’t get the full force of the army into the caverns anyway. Having to do without Jermayan and Ancaladar was a blow, but the dragon would be useful outside, and it wasn’t impossible that they’d manage to find him a back door once they were inside.

Intuition had struck with the force of a blow. It still wasn’t clear to Kellen what they should do, but suddenly what they must not do was completely clear to him.

If Redhelwar sent his forces down into that cavern without scouting ahead, there would be a disaster.

“Redhelwar, hear me. You asked my counsel, and now I give it. Wait. Guard the city, guard the entrance to the other cavern, yes. But send Idalia and me into the nearer cavern before you send the army in. She can map it. I can protect her. If we can find the village at the cavern’s heart, we won’t need Vestakia when we invade. She can come in afterward to check that the cavern is clear, and we will protect our most valuable asset.”

“What speaks to me, Knight-Mage,” Redhelwar asked, his voice cool and expressionless. “Your head … or your heart?”

“Neither,” Kellen answered, honestly confused. He was sure that by now he’d offended everyone here, and he only hoped that truth could make up for that. “The Wild Magic speaks, Redhelwar, and only the Wild Magic. Send me alone if you wish—I am not as good at maps as Idalia, but—”

Adaerion leaned over to speak into Redhelwar’s ear, saying something too low for Kellen to hear.

“You say this now, Knight-Mage, yet you did not say it when I asked for your counsel,” Redhelwar said, his voice still neutral.

Kellen struggled to put what was only a feeling into words, knowing that he must convince Redhelwar, Adaerion—everyone here. How had the Knight-Mage of the past ever managed it?

“I was listening, Army’s General,” he said. “To … what comes.” He looked past Redhelwar, and his eye fell on a xaqiue board, set up and ready for play. Ready for play—but as yet, no moves had been made on the board.

He got to his feet and walked over to the board.

“Redhelwar,” he said, “tell me how this game will play out.”

The Elven general looked at the board. “No one can say, Kellen. None of the pieces has yet been moved, nor do I know who the players are.”

“Yet if I were to move a piece, you could begin to say,” Kellen said.

“Yes,” Redhelwar said. “And were you to be my opponent, I could also say who would win.”

“At xaqiue, this is indeed true.” Kellen agreed. “I am a poor player. But the game is a fine teacher. Tell me you wish to guard Ysterialpoerin, to seal the far cavern with troops … I see no opening for Their victory. Tell me you mean to send your troops down into unmapped, unscouted caverns … and the Wild Magic shows me an opening They can exploit.”

“But no more,” Redhelwar said.

“Not yet,” Kellen said, wishing to shout at them, But it shows me that. And you have to listen!But he did not dare; did not dare offend them, not when they had only just begun to take him seriously.

“Discussion,” Redhelwar said to his commanders.

“While we wait for Kellen and Idalia to return—or not—from the caverns, the Shadowed Elves could launch a second attack at Ysterialpoerin. The first force evaded our scouts and our sentries. Perhaps a second one would as well. Then Ysterialpoerin would burn because we had not attacked the Shadowed Elves immediately,” Ninolion said.

“If the caverns can be mapped, so that we can attack without risking Vestakia in the forefront of an attack, it is the more prudent course,” Adaerion said.

“But perhaps it is a feint within a feint; perhaps they wish us to commit our strength to the cavern and leave Vestakia at the camp. Then while we are engaged in the caverns, they will attack the camp and take her there,” Arambor suggested.

“Having somehow moved sufficient strength to do so out of either of the caverns directly beneath our regard,” Adaerion noted dryly.

Redhelwar raised a hand, stopping what promised to become a long, drawn-out byplay.

“Whether Vestakia goes or not,” Padredor said slowly, “whether the Shadowed Elves attack us or not, it would be good to know how the caverns lie before we are in them. It seems to me that they worked very hard to turn us from reaching them—and now that we are here, it seems that they wish to distract us from entering them. To discover the reason for that would be a thing worth knowing, I believe.”

Around the pavilion it went, with each of the commanders giving his opinion—let Kellen go, attack at once, find another plan entirely.

“Dionan, you have not shared your thoughts,” Redhelwar said, when everyone else had spoken.

“We cannot attack the caverns tomorrow, not if all the armies of Great Queen Vielissiar Farcarinon, their dragons, and their flying horses, were here to aid us,” Dionan said simply. “We must place three armies into position—one of them around Ysteriatpoerin—and establish them against the weather, which grows no more clement. The day after tomorrow, if Leaf and Star favor us, is the earliest we can descend against the Shadowed Elves. Therefore, my counsel is this: let Kellen move his piece in the game. When he returns, and can tell us more of the enemy’s mind and disposition, we shall be ready as well.”

There was a silence after everyone had spoken. Kellen could almost feel Redhelwar weighing the possibilities—the opinions of his commanders, the condition of his army, the situation at Ysterialpoerin …

And more.

Sending Kellen to scout the caverns would change the balance of power in the Elven army. Kellen couldn’t quite grasp it��not in a way he could put into words—but he could feel it, the way he’d learned to feel changes in the weather.

And Redhelwar knew it, and was deciding whether that was worth the risk, as well as all the rest.

At last he spoke, turning to look directly into Kellen’s eyes.

“I have heard the counsel of my komentaiia, Kellen Knight-Mage, now here is my word to you,” Redhelwar said. “I will not risk your life and that of Idalia Wildmage for so little gain. But neither will I risk Vestakia’s, when experience has shown us that our Tainted cousins will attack in force the moment we advance into their lairs. She will remain here, safe, while they expend their strength against us. Now go to your rest. There is much to do on the morrow to prepare for our assault.”

Kellen stood for a moment, stunned, as Redhelwar’s words sank in. He’d told Redhelwar that a simple assault on the cavern without advance scouting would be a complete disaster.

And Redhelwar hadn’t listened.

At last he managed to bow. “I thank the General for his wisdom. I go,” Kellen said.

He made his way through the camp by instinct alone, still feeling as if he’d been struck. Redhelwar hadn’t listened.

This was his fault. When Belepheriel had provoked him, he should have ignored it. But no. His Knight-Mage instincts told him he had been right to do what he had done; to remind them all of what he was. Belepheriel’s would have been the loudest voice in favor of a direct assault; he was certain of that.

But Belepheriel hadn’t been there. And the plan was going forward anyway.

I saved Ysterialpoerin for them tonight. They know that. And this is how they reward me? Kellen thought bitterly.

But that wasn’t the right way to think either. He’d saved Ysterialpoerin, yes. But not in order to be paid for it, as if—as if he were a High Mage of Armethalieh!

Kellen took a deep breath, willing anger and hurt pride away. What mattered was the problem at hand, and he needed time to consider how best to deal with it. There would be answers in his Books, of that he was certain.

His steps had taken him back to his home tents. It was still early enough that several of his people were gathered around the communal brazier. With a pang of relief, he saw that Ciltesse was there, and Isinwen had returned from the forest. They got to their feet as he approached.

“I share your sorrow at Mindaerel’s death,” Ciltesse said, bowing. “Many destriers in the horse-lines go without riders now. By your leave and Adaerion’s, I shall select another to share your life”

“That … makes good hearing,” Kellen said slowly, forcing himself to concentrate on more homely and immediate problems. “You will know what I need better than I do myself, Ciltesse. Mindaerel … I don’t … .”

“We will handle matters at first light, alakomentai,” Isinwen said. “There is a way such things are done in Ysterialpoerin.” He smiled slightly, at the small jest they both shared.

For a moment Kellen had a wild vision of the Elves hoisting Mindaerel into a tree, and shook his head sharply, banishing the freakish fancy. However they handled things in Ysterialpoerin, he was sure it wasn’t that. He nodded.

“That makes good hearing. She died a warrior. And I would know now, Ciltesse, if it pleases you to say, how fare those who did not ride with me tonight.” Blunt words, and a flat-out demand by Elven terms, but he hoped Ciltesse would forgive him.

“All live, by the grace of Leaf and Star,” Ciltesse said, looking pleased. “And there were only the most minor of injuries, and none from the Blight-cursed arrows of the Shadowed Elves. All have been seen by the Healers, and are at their rest.”

“And so I will go to mine, and encourage you to go to yours. Tomorrow Redhelwar disposes the army for the attack upon the nearer cavern, and there will be much to do.”

Chapter Nineteen

The Wisdom of Betrayal

KELLEN ENTERED HIS tent, buttoned the flap closed, and called fire into the brazier and the lantern. He opened the small pack he kept always with him—it was the same pack he’d been given in Armethalieh on the day of his Banishing—and drew out his three Books. Perhaps they would grant him wisdom.

He still wasn’t quite sure why Redhelwar had refused to allow the second scouting expedition—surely he knew that Kellen’s life wasn’t at risk, and he could have agreed to let Kellen go without Idalia if he were really worried about her safety. Perhaps it was because it just “wasn’t the way things have always been done,” or perhaps Redhelwar saw the consequences of the cusp-point that Kellen had only sensed, and feared them.

He didn’t know. And it didn’t matter now.

He ran his hands over the worn leather covers. Which one would serve him best tonight? Without hesitation, he opened The Book of Stars at random and began to read.

“A Wildmage’s honor is not what honor may seem in the eyes of the world. The honor of a Wildmage lies in always paying the price of the Wild Magic, no matter what that price may be, and no matter what path the price may unfold. The world’s honor takes many paths and many forms, but to the Wildmage, there is only one path and one form, and so it must ever be.”

Kellen closed The Book of Stars and stared unseeingly into the lantern’s flame. He couldn’t remember seeing that passage there before, but in a way he’d suspected its existence ever since he’d begun to be a Knight-Mage.

He knew Redhelwar’s plan of attack. Redhelwar wasn’t going to Change it. If Redhelwar followed it, there would be disaster.

Kellen knew it. The Wild Magic had told him so.

Do what Redhelwar had ordered him to do? Or do what was right?

They won’t be ready to attack for at least a day and a half. Dionan said so. A full day at least to make ready, and Redhelwar will want to go at midday, when he judges the Shadowed Elves to be weakest, so he might even hold off another full day rather than attack late in the day.

Time enough for me to reach the nearer cavern and see what’s there—and get back again. Even if I have to go on foot.

The realization of what he was contemplating shook Kellen. He was a member of the Elven army now—an alakomentai. If he disobeyed orders—if he just left—it would be a serious thing. He had no idea how serious—he suspected he’d lose his command at the very least. He would have betrayed everyone who’d trusted him—Adaerion, Ciltesse, Isinwen … he could sit here until dawn naming names and not be done with the list. And everything he’d done toward convincing everyone that they should listen to him as a Knight-Mage and not just tolerate him as Idalia’s younger brother who happened to be good with a sword would be gone.

It isn’t worth it, Kellen thought wildly. I can’t throw all that away! If he lost his position in the army, if the Elves went on doing things as they always had—fighting the last war and expecting their enemy to do the same—they’d lose. Shadow Mountain would win. Wouldn’t the greater good—the long-term good—be just to sit here and let Redhelwar do as he pleased, no matter what consequences Kellen foresaw?

But suddenly Belepheriel’s words came back to him.

“Yet it would be good to know how the Knight-Mage knew to ride after these Shadowed Elves. Or how it is that he so often gives warning—and never soon enough to prevent losses.”

This time Kellen had a warning that had come in plenty of time to prevent all losses. How could he even think of disregarding it for what—when you came right down to it—would be personal gain?

“A Wildmage’s honor is not what honor may seem in the eyes of the world …”

Always pay the price. Because to refuse to pay it, as he’d learned when Jermayan had begun to teach him about the Great War, would ultimately lead a Wildmage into the service of the Demons.

He’d been given a gift by the Wild Magic: a warning that would save hundreds—thousands—of lives. The price of that gift was personal disgrace.

He would pay it.

Kellen bowed his head over The Book of Stars, trembling as he thought of how close he’d just come to doing something horrible. Better his friends should be alive to hate him than that they should be dead still thinking well of him. He would know he’d done the right thing, no matter what they thought.

For the first time tonight he felt light and free. He saw his path clearly. Get to the caverns. See what the Wild Magic wanted him to see. Get back and tell someone—Shalkan, Ancaladar, and Jermayan., if no one else would listen to him. Then let Redhelwar do with him as he chose.

All that remained was “how”—a simple enough problem for a Knight-Mage trained by Master Belesharon.

Kellen packed his Books away, quenched his lantern, and lay down, feigning sleep.

IN the darkest part of the night, when the camp was as quiet as it ever got, Kellen slipped out of his tent.

Within the camp itself, he simply had to not be seen, for it would be best for all when Redhelwar asked after him if no one could say they had seen him go. That was a comparatively easy matter, with his battle-sight to guide him. But eventually he reached the point where he needed to pass the sentry-ring and leave the camp entirely.

If he’d had a tarnkappa, evading the mounted sentries riding post would have been as simple as covering his tracks in the snow, but he hadn’t dared risk lingering in camp long enough to steal one. Without one, it took him over an hour to work his way past the rings of guards, and it was the most agonizing hour of Kellen’s life.

He used his battle-sight to spot the sentries, and their movements to mask the sounds of his own. He carried a blanket with him, and dragged it behind him to blur his tracks in the powdery snow. It was snowing again, and the wind was a constant wail through the trees, and that helped to mask the sound of his movements as well. The greatest danger of discovery would come when he had to strike off away from camp. They might well see him then.

But the outer ring of sentries rode to a fixed pattern, and by now Kellen had timed it out exactly. When they were on the opposite sides of the camp, he would run. When they were in a position to see him, he would throw himself down in the snow and wait until they’d passed. After half a league of that, he should be out of sight.

They were in position. Kellen grabbed up his blanket and began to run. At the end of ten minutes, he flung himself facedown in the snow to wait.

“I do hope you weren’t planning to go anywhere without me,” a familiar voice said from above his head.

“Yes,” Gesade added. “Where were you going?”

Kellen choked on a mouthful of snow, barely managing not to yelp. Knight-Mage Gifts were one thing, but unicorns were sneaky.

He thought about ignoring them. He thought about telling them to go away. He might as well have wished for a tarnkappa—or wings.

He rolled over on his back, looking up at the two unicorns. Both of them were gazing down at him with identical expressions of polite interest, their bodies white blurs against the snow.

“I’m deserting,” Kellen said, after a long pause.

Shalkan cleared his throat in the manner of a unicorn that was trying very hard not to laugh and wanted to make sure everyone knew it.

“In that case,” he said mildly, “I’m going to need my armor and my saddle.”

“Come and have tea,” Gesade said. “You look half-frozen. Humans don’t like snow-baths. Come to that, Elves don’t like snow-baths either. Petariel will get Shalkan’s things.”

I wonder if you can strangle a unicorn? Make that two unicorns.

“Look,” Kellen said, gritting his teeth. “I’m telling the truth. I really am deserting. Redhelwar told me not to leave the camp, and I’m leaving. So no one can know. Do you understand?” The snow had now had ample time to melt, and he’d have to wait at least another ten minutes—probably more—before he could move again, even if he could talk the unicorns into leaving. His cloak felt damp, and his armor … well, his armor felt like cold metal. Which it was.

“All right,” Gesade answered reassuringly, as if to a small child. “We won’t tell anyone. Come and have tea. Because if you don’t, you’re going to find out how loud I can scream,” she added, her voice taking on a warning edge.

“Oh, do get up, Kellen,” Shalkan said, sounding bored. “You can’t desert if you’ve got the coughing sickness. Everyone will hear you for leagues. And I understand that Idalia’s remedy for that tastes really awful.”

“One …” Gesade said, laying her ears back and switching her tail meaningfully.

Kellen scrambled to his feet.

“THIS is important,” Kellen said to Shalkan, as the two of them followed Gesade back to the camp of the Unicorn Knights.

“It’s all right,” Shalkan said, rubbing his head against Kellen’s arm.

For a moment Kellen almost felt an urge to hit Shalkan, then draped an arm over the unicorn’s neck instead. “People are going to die,” he said, and heard his voice tremble.

“No,” Shalkan said firmly. “I told you not to try to go off somewhere interesting without me, didn’t I? You should have remembered.”

THE camp of the Unicorn Knights was silent and dark—no need of Elven sentries here, with the unicorns to keep watch. Gesade walked into Petariel’s pavilion—opening the flap neatly with her horn—and a few moments later, Petariel came out.

The Captain of the Unicorn Knights had obviously been roused from sleep. His long hair was loosely braided, and he was still pulling a heavy fur cloak around him. But his expression was alert as he saw Kellen.

“Leaf and Star—you’re soaking wet. Gesade, Riasen and Menerchel, if you please.” He went to the banked brazier and began adding charcoal, then went back into his pavilion, coming out with another cloak.

“Here. Take this. Not your color, but at least it’s dry.”

Kellen dropped his wet cloak to the ground and took the dry one gratefully. Gesade had roused Menerchel and Riasen now, and Kellen wondered with a sinking heart just how much worse things could possibly get.

“Kellen’s deserting,” Gesade said brightly. “So we need Shalkan’s saddle and armor.”

“Tea first,” Petariel said. “Kellen, you’re as blue as ice.”

“I have to get out of here,” Kellen said desperately.

“You need to tell us what else you need,” Riasen said as Menerchel began to prepare tea.

“I’m deserting,” Kellen said, wondering if they’d all gone deaf.

“Yes,” Petariel said. “We all heard you. Tell us how to help.”

Kellen stared at them. He’d been expecting … he didn’t know what he’d been expecting. But not this. For a moment, he felt as if the earth had opened under him—except that he also felt as if the moment it had, he’d discovered how to fly.

“I think he should sit down,” Shalkan said. “Over here, next to the brazier. I’ll tell you what I know while his wits unthaw. Sit down, Kellen.”

Kellen sat. If he’d learned nothing else in the past several moonturns, he’d learned that arguing with Shalkan was worse than useless.

Quickly Shalkan summarized the evening’s events, including most of what had gone on in Redhelwar’s pavilion. “So now Redhelwar has changed his battle plans, and I imagine Kellen hasn’t been able to talk him out of them, don’t you?”

“Huh,” Gesade said, stamping her forehoof. “They must be really bad plans.”

“No,” Kellen said, stung to Redhelwar’s defense. “They aren’t. Not really. It’s just … he doesn’t …”

“Better tell,” Shalkan said.

Kellen sighed, giving up.

“He isn’t going to risk trying to scout the caverns again. Without maps, we can’t attack them both at once, and he’s concerned about leaving Ysterialpoerin undefended. He’s going to divide the army into thirds and guard Ysterialpoerin and the further cavern. There’s nothing wrong with either of those ideas,” Kellen said, knowing it sounded bad, but he was tired of mincing words! “But he means to send the third force into the nearer cavern using the troops to draw the Shadowed Elves to attack.”

“And that’s bad?” Gesade asked.

“It must be,” Shalkan said. “Because Kellen’s deserting. To scout the nearer cavern before Redhelwar can get the army into position, I suppose. All by yourself?”

“I’d wanted to take Idalia,” Kellen said unwarily. “But I can’t ask her now.”

“We’ll ask her,” Riasen said. “That way the army will have decent maps, at least. She has a fine hand at mapmaking.”

“And you’ll have someone along to keep you out of trouble,” Shalkan said with satisfaction. “Though I’d hate to be the one to wake her up.”

“Fortunes of war,” Riasen said. “We’ll draw lots for it.”

“I—Hey—Wait—” Kellen said desperately. How had things gotten so completely out of his control?

“Tea,” Menerchel said, passing Kellen a cup.

Kellen took it. “You can’t do this,” he said, trying to make them understand. “It’s one thing for me to disobey orders. I’ll be in trouble—I don’t know how much, but probably a lot—but if you help me, you’ll all be in trouble, too. I can’t let you—”

“Kellen,” Shalkan said, interrupting him, “tell them what will happen if Redhelwar proceeds as he plans, and no one scouts the nearer cavern before he sends the army in.”

Kellen focused on what he’d felt in Redhelwar’s tent, trying to bring it into words. There was nothing but dread—a terrible sense of death and loss. “I—” he began.

“No,” Riasen interrupted somberly. “Your face tells us too much. Once I said you might call upon the Unicorn Knights at need. Now the day has come.” He glanced at the others. Petariel and Menerchel both nodded. “Drink your tea before it cools.”

Kellen drank the tea.

This was mutiny. A whole troop of the Elven army—the Unicorn Knights, the elite scouts—were disobeying Redhelwar’s orders to follow his. Or at least to help him, because try as he might, he didn’t seem to be able to order them not to help him.

“I give up,” he muttered.

“Good,” Shalkan said, nuzzling his ear. “I’d almost thought you were going to be as stubborn as an Elf.”

On the other side of the brazier, the three Elves were playing an elaborate—and quick—guessing game: Wind, Water, Tree. Kellen had never been able to master it—the Elves learned it as children, and played it all their lives, and though Kellen had mastered the simple gestures easily enough, he’d never understood it well enough to play. Petariel lost the round, and shook his head with a sigh.

“I will go to waken Idalia and tell her what she must know. But you, Menerchel, will bring Shalkan’s armor here.”

Menerchel bowed elaborately, a courtly reverence filled with mockery. He straightened, fading into the darkness beyond the edge of the lantern light.

“There will be time for a meal before you go, if we are quick,” Riasen said. He went into his tent.

“I don’t understand Elves,” Kellen said to Shalkan.

“The beginning of wisdom,” Shalkan said.

Kellen opened the jar of honey-disks and fed several to Shalkan. “Won’t they get into trouble? Someone’s sure to look for me in the morning.”

“And displease us?” Shalkan asked haughtily, switching his tail. “But you’re asking the wrong question. The question is, will they say they’ve helped you? And will Redhelwar ask them?”

Kellen thought about that for a few moments as he finished his tea.

“I really don’t understand Elves,” he finally said.

Riasen came out of the tent with a large bundle of cloth and a flask. He spread out the bundle near the brazier. It held half a chicken, a meat-pie, and some tarts.

“The cordial will be warm, but the rest must be cold,” Riasen said. “It’s the best we can do.”

“You honor me,” Kellen said, pulling off his gauntlets and reaching for the chicken.

By the time he’d finished eating, Menerchel was back with Shalkan’s armor, and the cordial was warmed. Like most of the decoctions of Elven brewing, it contained very little alcohol. This one tasted strongly of sweet cherries, and banished the last of Kellen’s chill. When he’d drunk it, he got to his feet and began armoring and saddling Shalkan, first rubbing him dry with his discarded cloak. It wasn’t much of a chore—the downy unicorn fur seemed to shed snow as if it were bespelled; and maybe it was.

“You’d better dry that if you’re going to wear it,” Shalkan pointed out, so Kellen stood over the brazier, holding his cloak to the heat. Soon Petariel would return—without Idalia, he was sure—and they could be on their way.

But not long after that, Petariel returned—with Idalia.

She was leading Cella, saddled and ready for a journey. The palfrey even had full saddlebags and a bedroll lashed to her saddle.

“Well?” Idalia said, swinging into the saddle. “Are you ready?” Quite as if they were going off for a snow-picnic.

Kellen nodded, taking off Petariel’s cloak and exchanging it for his own now-dry one. He swung into Shalkan’s saddle.

“Don’t worry about the pickets,” Gesade said. She’d backed away when Idalia entered the camp, but her voice was quite audible. “We’ll take care of them.”

“Thank you,” Kellen said meekly.

“Fare well and safe journey,” Petariel said. “And return to us in a good hour.”

“I’ll make sure of it,” Idalia said.

Shalkan took off at a brisk trot, and Cella followed.

FOR a long time they rode in silence, wary of their voices carrying back to the camp. The trees were few and far apart, not thick enough to blunt the force of the wind, and it was so cold that the snow was more like powdered ice. Finally the wind shifted, and then dropped altogether. Kellen could tell that the clouds would probably start to break up soon. That meant it would get colder. There were two kinds of weather in winter, he’d learned—bad and worse.

“You didn’t have to come,” he said, now that the wind had slacked enough to make conversation easy. They were riding side by side—though far enough apart to be comfortable for Shalkan.

“You’re welcome,” Idalia said. “You may be deserting your command, but I am a Wildmage, and if I want to go wandering off into the Shadowed Elf caverns on a whim, that’s my business.”

“Oh.” Well, at least there was one person who wasn’t risking Redhelwar’s displeasure tonight.

“Kellen, what did you See?” Idalia asked.

“Nothing. I don’t know.” He shook his head, wishing desperately that he had something more concrete to tell her. “I really … I couldn’t tell Redhelwar either. But we—I have to go look.”

She gave him a long look, her face hidden in the shadows of her hood. “Petariel said you told Redhelwar you wanted me along.”

“You’re better at maps than I am,” he told her honestly. “But he said he couldn’t risk us.”

She coughed politely. “That’s not all that got said in Redhelwar’s tent tonight, from what I hear.” Her voice softened. “I’m sorry about Mindaerel, by the way.”

“Belepheriel’s son was one of the scouts who died out here tonight And then, later, in Redhelwar’s pavilion, I called him a fool,” Kellen said, half answering.

Kellen could feel Idalia’s gaze even though he wasn’t looking at her. “They said he challenged you to a Circle, and you refused, but I’m sure that’s wrong. Redhelwar wouldn’t permit it.”

“Redhelwar would permit it,” Kellen said wearily. “And I challenged him. He called me … well, he said the warnings I gave were conveniently useless.”

“Let’s go back,” Idalia said after a pause, and now her voice had an edge to it that could cut the wind. “I’ll challenge him myself.”

“No,” Kellen said, feeling tired of it all. “It’s all right. Well, it isn’t. I’ll have to make it right later. But he apologized.”

“Storytelling is obviously not a Knight-Magely gift,” Shalkan said. “I heard that after he apologized to Kellen, and wished him all honor and long life, Belepheriel left Redhelwar’s pavilion, and so did not take part in further discussion of the planning and strategy.”

“Did he?” said Idalia in an odd voice. “What did you say to him after he’d apologized, Kellen?”

Kellen thought back. “He didn’t give me a chance to say anything. I challenged him, nobody said anything, Redhelwar demanded his answer, he gave it and asked to be excused, Redhelwar said ‘go,’ and everybody started acting as if he’d never been there.”

“Elves,” Idalia sighed. “Well, what else?”

Once more Kellen summarized what he’d told Petariel, and the others about Redhelwar’s change of plan.

“And it’s all … reasonable, I suppose,” he concluded. “We didn’t know before tonight that they’d try something like attacking Ysterialpoerin. So it makes sense to defend it. And blockading the farther cavern and taking the two enclaves one at a time … the Mountainfolk will be put to good use guarding the farther cavern. But attacking the nearer cavern without scouting ahead, even without Vestakia there …” Kellen shook his head.

“A Finding Spell might locate the village. We haven’t tried that yet,” Idalia suggested. “Let’s see if we can find it on our own, first. I brought the tarnkappa, but I have lanterns, too. You can decide which we’ll use.”

“Thanks,” he replied, touched beyond words that she was delegating the decision to him.

“Knight-Mage’s privilege,” Idalia told him. “And I brought food, tea, and a brazier—all items that I’m sure you forgot. Nothing I like better than spending a night in a cozy snowdrift, followed by a day sneaking around a cave filled with murderous monsters.” She made her voice sound light, though Kellen was very certain she felt nothing humorous in the situation. “And it’s actually a relief to get away from the camp for a while. All those people! When this is over with, I’m going to find myself a nice high mountaintop and sit on it—alone!—for about ten years, I think.”

“You and Vestakia,” Kellen said, grinning to himself. Idalia’s matter-of-fact confidence in his judgment and abilities lightened his spirits. They could do this. And they would.

They were over halfway to the nearer cavern now, and Kellen was automatically sensing rather than seeing to find his way through the dark. He looked up, suddenly startled, as six pale ghosts rode past.

Oh.

The Elven scouts, who’d ridden this way earlier in the day. Kellen watched them, fascinated.

But why was he seeing them? He’d “read” the site of a past battle before, but he’d done it deliberately.

Ah, but sometimes the Wild Magic showed him things of its own accord, when there was need. Was this one of those times?

“Idalia—” he said softly, “I’m seeing our scouts.”

She knew exactly what he meant. “Tell me. Show me.”

He kept looking.

And saw, moving through the scattered trees, the Shadowed Elves as they moved toward the camp. And beyond them, off in the distance, a second, smaller party.

“Ah,” he said. “There.” He pointed off to the right. “That’s where the party going toward Ysterialpoerin went. I was right. They circled wide around the army, but they were on the move at the same time as the party the scouts ran into. I think they might have come from the upper cavern. No wonder the scouts didn’t see them.”

“That’s another reason you wanted me to come along, isn’t it?”. Idalia said, quietly. “In case there were still more of them.”

“If there was a third force in hiding, waiting to attack the army just when things started to quiet down, someone would have to ride back and warn them,” Kellen agreed. “And that would have been you. But I don’t see one. And Vestakia and Ancaladar can warn them of most things now as well as I can.”

No matter how untrue it was, Belepheriel’s accusation still rankled. Couldn’t Belepheriel see that Kellen wanted desperately to be able to give better warning than he did—that every time someone died because of something he didn’t see, he felt as if it were his fault?

“I somehow think the Elven army in full array, with a dragon, an Elven Mage, and a woman who can sense Demon-taint to help them, can muddle along without us for a few hours,” Idalia said. “Plus—oh, yes—a full score of High Reaches Wildmages to lend their poor powers to the fight.”

“No,” Shalkan drawled, “Kellen’s right. They absolutely can’t get along without him. We’d better turn back now.”

“Thanks a lot, both of you,” Kellen grumbled, without rancor. He took a deep breath, feeling more of the tension ease. They were both right. He couldn’t do everything himself. And trying to was a sort of trap. No one was indispensable. Even if they lost Vestakia, they’d find another way—somehow—to discover which of the caverns held Shadowed Elves.

Even if he died in the caverns, somewhere there was another Knight-Mage. He was sure of it. And now the Wildmages knew to look for the signs of Knight-Magery in those called to the Wild Magic. They would find him—or her, Kellen realized with a pang of realization—and send them to Master Belesharon for training. And the fight would go on. The Wild Magic itself would see to it that he was replaced, just as the Wild Magic had seen to it that he had come into his power.

They’d nearly reached the stream, but he didn’t want to spend the few remaining hours of the night among the Elven dead, and he doubted Idalia did either.

“Let’s—” he began.

“We’d better check for survivors,” Idalia interrupted. “Gairith said they were all dead, I know, and he stopped to take their tarnkappa—but he was wounded himself, and if they were only badly hurt, he might have missed vital signs.”

So they rode on.

They found the bodies of the horses—six of them. Kellen dismounted, drawing his sword and motioning to Idalia to stay in the saddle. Something was not right here.

No bodies.

The Elves had not come to carry away their dead—not this soon. And the coldwarg had not eaten them, for they would not have stopped with the Elven bodies, and save for attack-bites, the horses had not been touched.

He paced around, moving back and forth across the area. He found Emerna, her throat and belly torn open. There was still a hollow in the snow beneath her where Gairith had lain. He scratched at the fresh snow with the tip of his sword, uncovering Gairith’s frozen blood.

At last he opened himself, reluctantly, to See the battle.

He watched the shadows of the Elven scouts ride silently down through the falling snow in two files. Saw them stop, and see the Shadowed Elves advance. He turned and watched the Shadowed Elves come toward them over the snow, the forward ranks of the horde breaking into a run.

Saw the Elves rein in and turn to run, only to be met by the fury of the waiting coldwarg. Three of the horses went down in that first instant, and by then it was too late. The Shadowed Elves overwhelmed the scouts, leaping onto the horses’ backs, clawing at the riders’ armor. It was like watching something eaten alive by maggots, if that were possible. Kellen watched as one of the Shadowed Elves stabbed one of the scouts to death with his own dagger, slamming the narrow deadly blade home over and over again. Saw others, their armor stripped from them, bludgeoned to death with clubs.

It was over in a handful of minutes.

The Shadowed Elves moved on, like the horde of plague rats they so much resembled. A few moments passed, and he saw Gairith work his way painfully from beneath Emerna’s body. One arm hung useless at his side, and his face was covered with blood. The Elven scout staggered, regained his balance, and after checking the others, moved off into the forest, following the Shadowed Elves.

KELLEN waited, but nothing changed. The bodies were still there. He blinked, shook his head. Let me See what happened to them! he demanded silently.

He had the sense that time passed—hours. And then, moving over the snow, came a band of now-familiar cloaked figures. Shadowed Elves. Not warriors, but a hunting party; one had a brace of hares hanging from his belt, another carried the body of some animal Kellen couldn’t identify.

When they saw the Elven dead, they grew excited, gesturing to one another. Then they quickly gathered up the bodies—and all the weapons and pieces of armor—stowing them in the curious slings that Lairamo had described from her captivity in their hands.

And they were gone.

Kellen blinked, banishing the vision. He shuddered. There was no doubt what the Shadowed Elves meant to do with the bodies.

“They’re all dead,” he said. “And Shadowed Elves came and took away the bodies.”

“Why?” Idalia said, dumbfounded.

“To eat,” Kellen said. There was no doubt in his mind.

“Kellen … are you sure … ?”

“I saw them die,” Kellen said gently. “None of them were alive by the time the Shadowed Elves came. They died … very quickly.”

“Good,” Idalia said resolutely. “And we can tell Redhelwar and the others what happened to their bodies. They’ll want to know. Now let’s find a safe place to camp and wait for dawn.”

THEY found shelter behind a granite outcropping a few hundred yards uphill from the stream, spread a blanket on the snow, and huddled in their cloaks while Idalia unpacked the tea-things from Cella’s saddlebags, lit the brazier, and prepared to brew tea. The quiet night, and the simple, everyday preparations helped to still Idalia’s mind, and keep her from thinking too much about what might lie ahead of them.

Now and then, over the years since she’d left Armethalieh, Idalia had wondered about what had happened to the brother she’d left behind. She hadn’t thought about him very often, for thinking about the life she’d left behind held pain, and her scrying-visions had never shown him to her. She’d always imagined him safe and happy—Lycaelon had wanted a son as much as he’d been indifferent to a daughter—probably growing up to be the next Arch-Mage of Armethalieh, if Lycaelon had his way, and never wondering what lay beyond the walls of the City. Never in her wildest dreams had she ever imagined she would see him again, much less that their lives would intertwine so intimately.

When Shalkan had staggered into her clearing in the Wild Lands half a year ago, she’d realized the Wild Magic had possessed other plans for Kellen all along—even before she’d found the three Books in his pack. She’d been happy to be able to train him—and more frustrated than she’d ever let him suspect when the Wild Magic didn’t come as easily to him as it had to her.

But all had been explained once Jermayan discovered that Kellen wasn’t a Wildmage, but a Knight-Mage. Since Kellen had come into his true power, he’d grown up frighteningly fast. She didn’t think the Elves could see it—everything that humans did was fast, to them—but she could. He was nothing like the boy who’d been pitched out of the gates of the City so short a time ago. That boy would have never, ever have been able to face down an Elven general.

She knew much more of the story of what had happened in Redhelwar’s pavilion than she’d let on when she’d been questioning Kellen. She’d been the Healer to treat Gairith after he left there, and Gairith had been a silent witness to the entire confrontation between Belepheriel and Kellen. And as a scout, no matter what his condition, his memory was sharp, and near-perfect as to details.

She did not doubt that the Wild Magic had been involved in what had happened. She had told Kellen many times that healing was such a simple matter for her because so often all she needed to do was “step aside” and let the Wild Magic do as it wished. Apparently there was something similar that operated to assist a Knight-Mage, and Kellen had done it—or been possessed by it—when he’d shamed Belepheriel. And now that they were heading for the caverns in such haste, it was obvious to Idalia that the Wild Magic wasn’t done with Kellen yet.

But it was equally true that Kellen didn’t understand what he’d done, nor did Redhelwar wish him to understand it. Though it had not, in fact, come to a Circle, Belepheriel had lost his Challenge, and all that was once Belepheriel’s was now Kellen’s, by Elven custom.

Including his rank.

It was an ancient custom, and there were many good reasons to ignore it in this instance. Belepheriel was one of the most semor commanders. Kellen was a very junior sub-commander.

But Kellen was also a Knight-Mage, honored and well liked, and there had been far too many witnesses to what had happened for the truth to remain hidden for very long.

The Elves liked ritual, custom, order, and tradition—as she knew to her cost. They had long since given up their share in the Greater Magics, but had always welcomed the Wildmages among them, since the Wild Magic was a magic of, when all was said and done, “setting things right.” It worked in small quiet ways, and the Elves liked that, and found it … suitable.

But Kellen’s form of Wild Magic … didn’t operate in small ways, nor in quiet ways. He was a Knight-Mage. As he’d told Belepheriel, his Magery was the Art of War, and that was hardly small and quiet at the best of times. At times like these, when the need was so great, he was a weapon that the Wild Magic would use in ways that were not what the Elves were used to.

And he won’t stop pushing. He can’t. Even if it were in his nature—which it isn’t—I don’t think the Wild Magic will let him. Not until Shadow Mountain is destroyed.

“Ah … I think the water’s boiling,” Kellen said. “Unless you want me to make the tea?”

“Gods forbid,” Idalia said with an absent smile. “I’ve been told your tea is poisonous.”

“So they say,” Kellen said, holding out the pot.

Is that why Redhelwar forbid him to go to the caverns? Because he knew Kellen well enough to know he’d go anyway? And that would give Redhelwar some sort of pretext to leave Belepheriel in command? All he had to do was explain it, and Kellen would have done whatever was needed. Or Redhelwar could have forbidden the Challenge in the first place. But to dismiss a Knight-Mage’s warning …

Idalia poured the water into the pot, swirling it between her hands to mix the water and the leaves. She could not read Redhelwar’s mind, or know what had been in his thoughts. Perhaps it had truly been as simple as him not wishing to risk Kellen’s life. Perhaps tomorrow—if Kellen had stayed—he would have been invested as a commander, supplanting Belepheriel. Perhaps Redhelwar would have had second thoughts.

They’d never know now. The Wild Magic wanted Kellen to act, and act he would, and they would deal with what came of it.

Idalia poured the tea, and they drank it quickly before it cooled—or froze solid.

“Dawn’s coming,” Shalkan said.

Idalia looked at the sky. The clouds were starting to break up, and the stars she could see were faint.

“We might as well go,” Kellen said, rising to his feet. “Let’s wear the tarnkappa, but take lanterns, too. Either the tarnkappa will shield us or they won’t. And there doesn’t seem to be anything out here.” He furrowed his brows. “And you know, now that I think about it, that’s just … strange. They know we’re here. But there aren’t even sentries at the cave entrance.”

“You can ask them about that when we see them,” Idalia said, trying to sound as if this was the sort of thing she and he did every day.

She replaced the tea-things in Cella’s packs, emptied the brazier into the snow, cooled it, and packed it as well, then took out the two tarnkappa she’d brought. She handed one to Kellen, along with a piece of blue chalk.

“We won’t be able to see or hear each other while we have these on. But I’ll be able to see the marks you make on the cave walls, and follow those,” she said. “And I’ll leave my own—in yellow—so if we get separated for some reason, you can use them to find me.”

“Try not to do that,” Kellen urged. “I really don’t want to have to try to explain how and why I lost you to Jermayan.”

“Come to that, I don’t want to have to explain the reverse,” Idalia said. “Well, go ahead. I can follow your footprints in the snow as far as the entrance.”

“Enjoy yourselves,” Shalkan said, with a shake of his head. “We’ll be right here.”

KELLEN put on his helmet, then shook out the tarnkappa and flung it around himself. As soon as the hood dropped over his helm, the darkness became eerily bright. Making sure he could reach his sword and dagger easily, Kellen started off.

The tarnkappa muted the sound his footsteps made in the snow, but it could not erase his tracks. He walked in a weaving pattern toward the cavern’s entrance—a straight line would draw the eye of any watcher, as there were few straight lines in Nature. He reached the entrance and peered inside, but there was nothing to be discerned by either the tarnkappa’s darksight or his own Knight-Mage-enhanced senses.

He stepped inside, chalked a small blue arrow just inside the entrance, and went on, moving slowly and carefully.

The entrance passage was low and narrow—the Shadowed Elves might have been able to walk upright in it, but Kellen found himself crouching reflexively.

Up ahead he could see the corridor broaden. He was about to quicken his pace when a thread of green fire at his feet stopped him. He froze, looking down.

A few inches above the floor, stretching across the whole width of the corridor, was a shining strand of greyish material. It glistened to his battle-sight with baleful intent.

He flung off his cloak and spread his arms wide, feeling something bump into one of them. “Stop,” he whispered hoarsely. The cavern was pitch-black to his vision now, all but the thread of green fire.

“What?” Idalia whispered after a moment, having removed her own tarnkappa.

“There’s a trip-wire here. Low to the ground. Do you see it?”

There was a long pause, while Idalia put on her tarnkappa and then took it off again so she could talk. “Yes.”

“I need to see what it does. I hope I won’t trigger it. Step back.”

Kellen pulled his cloak back down. Once more the cavern was bright. He knelt down in front of the trip-wire and studied it carefully, willing himself to See it deeply, to Know it.

Suddenly, in his mind, he could See the trip-wire breaking, and as it did, the section of floor on which he and Idalia were standing pivoted and fell away, leaving a deep pit where the floor had been. How deep, he wasn’t sure; but the fall would kill all who were standing in this length of corridor when the wire was broken.

Kellen got to his feet and backed away. He pulled off the cloak again.

“If we’d broken that wire, the floor would have fallen away, and we’d both have been killed,” he whispered into the darkness.

There was a moment of silence.

“Kellen, if we’re attacked by a horde of poison-flinging Shadowed Elves, you can protect me, right?” Idalia said, a strangled note in her voice.

“Yes,” Kellen said with certainty.

“Then let’s use lanterns. Because I really don’t want to miss you warning me about the next trap because I can’t hear you. And they’re easier to put out quickly than Coldfire.”

They lit their lanterns and went on, stepping carefully over the trip-wire after marking its position with chalkmarks on the floor to either side of it.

The corridor opened out into a small chamber. Long thin poles were stuck into the rock at intervals, jutting out into the room. The only way through them was a narrow corridor down the middle.

Disturbing one of those would bring a jar of acid pouring down.

“Don’t touch any of those unless you want a faceful of something bad,” Kellen said grimly.

They went on.

Each of those traps—the pit-trap and the acid-trap, would have caused losses. But they could have built a bridge across the pit—or even jumped it—and once the acid jars were empty, that trap would be harmless, too.

Neither was bad enough to make the army turn back. And from there on, they’d be alert for more traps.

But if the Shadowed Elves were attacking at the same time, they wouldn’t have the chance to spot them. They’d be forced into them.

The next trap was a patch of corridor that looked like stone to the unaided eye, but when Kellen threw a coin into it, it sank beneath the surface instantly. He chalked a mark at the near edge, Saw where the far side was, and jumped it. Idalia did the same, chalking a mark to indicate the far boundary.

“It must have taken them a long time to make all of these traps,” Idalia said consideringly, looking back at the pool of artfully-disguised quicksand. “Moonturns, maybe.”

“There weren’t any of these in the first cavern. Did they build these just for us? And if they did, how did they know we were coming?” Kellen wondered aloud. He was glad of the breathing space. The need to be constantly alert—and the knowledge of the penalty if he wasn’t—was draining.

“And where are they?” Idalia asked, putting into words what Kellen had been wondering since they’d begun to descend into the cavern.

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Kellen said grimly. “These traps—bad as they are—aren’t enough to stop the army—only to make it pay dearly for every foot of tunnel it takes. Let’s keep going. We need to find the village.”

It seemed they could not go more than a few steps without encountering another trap. Some were as simple as poisoned spikes jutting out of the walls, or a rain of stones set to fall from the ceiling when a trip-wire was broken. Some were as complicated as the jet of air rushing between two low holes in the walls—they crawled beneath that one, and didn’t stop to find out what would have happened if they’d interrupted the flow of air. Some trip-wires seemed to have no purpose at all that Kellen could see—that probably meant they triggered more distant traps, perhaps to seal the whole army into the cave system, so it could be dealt with at leisure.

And no matter how far they went, they saw no sign of the cavern’s inhabitants.

Several side caverns had been hastily filled-in with rubble, as if the Shadowed Elves did not wish the invaders to get lost—or to find shelter.

“They’re leading us right to them,” Idalia said. “Or to the village, at least.”

Kellen had no doubt of that. And the army, having gotten this far, having sustained horrific losses, would be thinking of nothing but closing with its enemy.

The corridor they were following made a sharp left turn, and suddenly they were there.

The last village had been at the bottom of an enormous cavern. This time, the corridor opened directly onto the village floor. Though their lanterns cast very little light, Kellen had a sense of vast open space stretching off in all directions—all directions but overhead, because the ceiling was still only a few inches above his head.

The lanterns did give them enough light to see the same cluster of stone huts as before, and in the distance, the banked embers of the communal firepit glowed redly.

But to Kellen’s battle-sight, the whole of the low ceiling glowed with the evil green of a Shadowed Elf trap.

He swallowed hard, realizing what he was seeing. Here—somewhere—was the trigger that would bring the whole ceiling down, crushing everyone beneath it as a man might crush an insect between his two palms.

“Idalia—” he said, turning.

And stopped.

Idalia wasn’t there.

OH, good, now we can go home, was Idalia’s first exhausted thought when they reached the edge of the Shadowed Elf village and she saw the cluster of stone huts. Following Kellen into this chamber of horrors had been nerve-wracking; at times only the thought of the lives they would save had given her the energy to push herself on. She knew she hadn’t seen all the traps that Kellen had; it had been bad enough seeing the ones he’d pointed out. For a while tonight she’d begun to think that the time had come to pay her Mageprice, the one she had offered up to save Sentarshadeen.

But dying down here would serve no greater good, and she had the faint suspicion—no more than that—that when the time came to pay her Price, the Gods would see to it that her death counted for something.

At least so she hoped. Accidents—if anything in war could be called an accident—were still possible. But when she died, she hoped it would be in the light and air, and not buried beneath tons of rock …

Someone was calling her.

Idalia heard it clearly. A voice, off to her right, a voice that claimed every bit of her attention, and made her weariness vanish as if it had never been. Without thought, she set her lantern aside and moved toward it. She didn’t need light to see where she was going.

KELLEN looked down. Idalia’s lantern rested on an outcropping of rock at his shoulder.

“Idalia!” he shouted.

The echoes almost masked the scrabble of claws against stone.

Kellen whirled back, tossing the lantern he held at the first of the creatures emerging from the rock and the darkness. It broke against the creature’s skin, engulfing it in flame.

He recognized them from Jermayan’s description. Goblins.

They were less than half the size of the Shadowed Elves, but bore a horrible resemblance to them. Their frog-wide mouths gaped as they sprang toward Kellen, exposing multiple rows of glistening, needle-sharp teeth, and their skins were bruise-dark. They squinted their bulging pale eyes against the light of the remaining lantern as they bounded toward him, running on hands and feet both. They seemed to rise up out of the stone itself, as if it were like water to them.

And they could spit poison. A unicorn could heal it, but Shalkan wasn’t here.

And this was not the time to think of any of that.

Kellen let all thoughts and questions drop from his mind, slipping into battle-trance now without even realizing he had done so. The goblins ceased to be goblins, and became targets for his sword.

In the back of his mind, where some part of him made cold calculations and plans, was the knowledge that he dared not move very far from where he stood, for to enter the village might be to bring the entire roof down. No matter how his attackers came at him he spun and pivoted, backing and turning only in his own footsteps—he knew that was safe—and hacked away at the goblins.

For every one he killed, three more took its place. There seemed to be an unending supply of the creatures, but for all their vaguely manlike shape, they didn’t seem to be even as intelligent as the coldwarg, and they kept interrupting their attack to devour their own dead and fight with each other.

But no matter how many were diverted, there were always more than enough to take their place.

In his brief breathing spells, Kellen grudged every moment he had to spend on them, but he dared not leave any of them alive. They were creatures of the Dark, and if he broke off the attack, they might have been given orders to trigger the collapse of the cavern roof.

He dared not stand too close to the cavern walls, either. As far as he was able to tell in the midst of fighting them back, they could move through rock, hiding themselves within stone as easily as Elves could hide within a forest. Time and again Kellen felt hands reach up out of the stone on which he stood to clutch at his ankles, trying to pull him down so that the goblin horde could devour him. He could feel their teeth grate against his armor, searching for any way through its defense, even as he cut and kicked at them.

There were spells he could use to make the fight end sooner. Fire was easy to summon, and he’d already seen how well they burned. But he didn’t dare. Every moment of the fight, a part of his mind was focused on the cavern roof, so precariously balanced. He did not know what would bring it down—perhaps even a Wildmage’s spell—but he knew that if it collapsed, neither he nor Idalia—wherever she was—would survive.

And so he fought on, grimly, killing the goblins by ones and twos. He had no choice.

And then, at last, he cut the last three down—and no more came. Kellen lowered his sword. The goblin bodies were already starting to dissolve, and the acrid stench of their decay made Kellen’s eyes water. He stepped hastily away from them, along the edge of the cavern, toward cleaner air, and came out of his battle-trance.

And the first thing that leaped into his mind was Idalia.

Where was Idalia?

Suddenly he became aware of an odd desire to go deeper into the caverns. He was sure he’d find …

What?

Kellen stopped, realizing he’d taken several steps into the darkness without noticing.

And that something deep inside him had jerked him to a halt with a thrill of alarm.

He probed his own feelings, the way he would probe a wound. The yearning sensation was still there, but suddenly Kellen felt no desire at all to yield to it. It was like the revulsion he’d experienced at the Black Cairn turned inside-out, but he had no doubt its source was just as Tainted.

It’s what would lure the army deep into the caves, Kellen realized in horror. If it worked on Elves—and he had no reason to think it didn’t—the Knights would have followed it to their doom.

As Idalia had followed it.

But why wasn’t he affected? Certainly he felt the call, and could follow it, but he could resist it, too.

He remembered what Jermayan had said, when the Elven Knight had first discovered what Kellen was.

“A Knight-Mage’s gifts turn inward, refining himself, so he cannot be turned away from his path once he has chosen it. A Knight-Mage can withstand forces that would destroy a Wildmage, for his power lies in endurance and the alliance of his knightly skills with his Wildmagery.”

In other words, he was stubborn. Well, everyone had always said so. Kellen bared his teeth wolfishly. Whatever was calling was going to find out it had called up more than it could handle.

He looked at the lantern, still burning undisturbed on the outcropping of rock. Should he take it?

No. Idalia had gone into the dark without it, and he would follow her the same way.

He fumbled in his belt for the tarnkappa and pulled it on. At once the cavern was sharply lit. He could see the vast sweep of it—far more than the lantern light had shown him—an enormous area, stretching at least a mile.

And all of it carefully arranged to collapse, as soon as the proper trigger was tripped.

He turned in the direction of the Call.

THE way was long, but her steps were made smooth. Idalia hurried forward impatiently, anxious to reach her destination.

Which was … what?

She stopped, frowning. Where was she going? Where was Kellen? And why was it so dark?

She fumbled at her belt for her tarnkappa, but before she could complete the gesture, the call reached out to her again, washing over her in a warm wave. Her hands dropped to her sides and she continued walking.

THOUGH there were no traps that Kellen Saw past the village cavern, once he reached the edge of the village there were several tunnels. For a moment he wasn’t sure which of them Idalia had taken, but then the Call lured him toward the centermost one.

It was smooth as glass and perfectly round, as if made by the passage of some rock-eating worm. At the far end, it opened out into what Kellen had come to think of as a more “traditional” underground cave—a high vaulted cavern filled with tall spikes and pillars of rock. Here he could hear the breath of the mountain, and realized that sound had been absent from the labyrinth of tunnels he and Idalia had just passed through.

He had the sense that this part of the cave system was one that the Shadowed Elves rarely used. But there was something here—these caverns were filled with life. He could sense it—and what he sensed was mixed. Some was Tainted, but some was not. He moved forward slowly, sword ready.

And then he saw Idalia.

She was walking forward, as easily as if she could see, directly toward a monster such as Kellen had never seen before.

It squatted on its haunches, its arms clasped across its stomach, crouched upon a hummock of stone. Its body was squat and wide, and it did not seem to be very large, perhaps the size of a Shadowed Elf, but much wider. Its skin seemed to be a dull black. It was covered, not with fur or feathers or scales, but with little fleshy polyps of skin that gave it a nauseatingly shaggy appearance. If it had any eyes at all, they were so tiny as to be lost in the nest of facial polyps, and it seemed to have neither nose nor ears. Its mouth was slightly open, forked tongue lolling over curved fangs as it radiated the Call that had lured Idalia to it. And by the time Kellen saw her, she was nearly within arm’s reach of it.

Fast as he was, Kellen couldn’t reach Idalia in time.

He drew his dagger. He could put it through her leg, even at this distance. The wound would stop her without killing her.

But then, he realized with a sudden feeling of horror, the creature would know someone was here. And it could spring up and rip her throat out before Kellen could reach it. He could stab the creature, but he didn’t know if that would kill it—or what stabbing it would do to Idalia’s mind.

With a strangled cry of desperation Kellen began to run. He had to try to reach her. No matter what, he had to try!

And oblivious to it all, Idalia continued to walk forward, caught in a spell she could not break—

Suddenly half-a-dozen furry white, softly-glowing spiders dropped from above, directly onto the black squatting creature. It closed its mouth with a startled snap, and the calling Kellen had been following stopped abruptly.

The spiders were the size of young lambs, and swarmed nimbly and quickly over the creature’s body as it writhed and batted uselessly at them. Silently it battled the swarming arachnids, frantically attempting to catch them, but they flowed away over the cavern floor as quickly as they’d arrived.

It was no more than a momentary distraction, but it gave Kellen the time he needed. Idalia had stopped moving forward, and began groping for her tarnkappa, shaking her head as if she’d been roused from sleep. As Kellen passed her, he shoved her hard, knocking her sprawling, his mind already full of what he must do.

He reached the creature and struck unhesitatingly, taking its head from its shoulders in one clean blow. It was not like cutting into a man or a coldwarg—or even a goblin. Beneath the skin, the creature’s flesh seemed almost jellylike, and Kellen’s blow did not meet the resistance of bone. He leaped back, and just in time. Its flesh began to melt away as soon as its head rolled free of its body, dissolving like wax plunged into a furnace, filling the cavern with the sick-sweet scent of decay and something worse.

Kellen looked down at his sword, wondering if it would ever be clean again, and saw to his horror that the metal was black and flaking where it had entered the monster’s body. With a sinking feeling, he set the tip of the blade against the stone floor and pressed gently. The sword bent, then snapped like rotting wood.

Kellen winced. Not the worst thing that could happen, but high on the list. He wasn’t helpless with only a dagger and half a sword, but he wasn’t happy about the situation.

He turned back to where he’d left Idalia. Time for them to get out of here.

Her body was covered in spiders.

Their bodies weren’t just glowing whitely now, they were pulsing in pale colors: green, purple, yellow, pink. And Idalia wasn’t moving.

SUDDENLY it was dark—the blinding darkness of the caves—and Idalia knew something was terribly wrong. The last thing she remembered clearly was the cavern, the deserted Shadowed Elf village, and then … it was almost as if she’d been asleep.

She groped for her tarnkappa, but before she could pull it free, a savage blow from out of nowhere knocked her sprawling. She hit the stone floor of the cave hard, and in the utter silence could hear nothing but the faint sound of the cave’s “breath” and the pounding of her own heart in her ears.

Then she felt fingers plucking at her clothes.

No.

Not fingers.

Legs.

: Do not fear us. We are friends.:

A voice spoke in her head. More than a voice. Pictures—images—memories. She pulled off a glove and reached out hesitantly. She touched stiff silky bristles.

: Good. Easier.:

Who are you? Idalia thought back.

She could see them—and herself—a strange disjointed picture, relayed by multiple eyes. Spiders. But like no spiders ever seen in the outside world. And with that picture came something she had not expected. Peace—warmth. Welcome, the welcome of one ally recognizing another, one creature of the Light (though these spiders spent their lives in the darkness of the caves) acknowledging one of like spirit. Strange as it seemed, and as repugnant as most humans found spiders to be, these were friends. She relaxed, and opened her mind a little further.

: We are Crystal,: came the reply. :This is our home, and it has been ravaged by the Black Minds. Those you call Shadowed Elves come, and take our webs, our eggs, our children.:

She felt their anger at the pillaging. The Shadowed Elves ate the Crystal Spiders, and used the silk from their webs and cocoons for their own purposes. Idalia felt a flash of alarm, purely her own this time. If the Shadowed Elves were here in the caverns, and triggered any of their traps—

: They are not here now. For—long—they have made the traps. And brought the others to lure you in. Then they left.:

“Idalia?” A voice, with an edge of panic to it. “Idalia, can you hear me?”

Kellen. Alarmed. Sounding not-quite-certain the Crystal Spiders were a threat, but ready to believe they were.

“It’s all right. I’m all right, truly, there’s nothing to worry about. They’re friends, allies, a People of the Light. They’re talking to me,” Idalia said, trying to concentrate on the spiders and Kellen at the same time. “That’s why they’re sitting on me, I think it’s the only way they can speak to my mind.” She turned her thoughts back to these new allies. Go on. Tell me more. None of the Shadowed Elves are here?

: Gone. All gone to their other place. It is not far. We are there too, and we know. Other Black Minds, like the one who Called you, are there as well. Beware, for the Black Minds do not need eyes to see. That which is invisible is visible to them.:

The Crystal Spider sent a blurred picture into Idalia’s mind, and she shuddered. A duergar. They were cousins to the ice-trolls but could not bear even as much light as their cousins. They lived in the deepest caves, and lured prey to them with their mental powers.

And they were utterly blind, so a tarnkappa would not conceal its wearer from them.

“What are they saying?” Kellen demanded, still sounding unconvinced. Well, she couldn’t blame him—here she was, covered in spiders, after being lured down here by a duergar!

“They live here. It really is all right, Kellen,” she replied, making her voice sound reassuring. “They’re friendly, honestly—didn’t you see how they distracted the duergar so it lost control of me for a moment?” She had seen that in their minds as well. “They don’t like the Shadowed Elves, and they see us as their allies. They told me that the Shadowed Elves set up the traps in these caves—and called in some other Black Minds, they say, then left.”

“Yeah,” Kellen said with a sigh. “I’ve already met some of the other ‘Black Minds’—a pack of goblins. But what was that thing that was after you?”

“Duergar,” Idalia said briefly. “They lure prey with their minds. Tarnkappa don’t work against them, because they can’t see.”

“Oh.” Kellen sounded slightly chastened. There was a pause. “We need to set off all those other traps. And I think if we do, this whole cave might collapse. The roof of the village cavern is set to come down, but I couldn’t see the trip-wire for it, or any other way of triggering it.”

Do you understand? Idalia thought to the spiders. I don’t want any of you to be hurt. But this place is too dangerous to leave as it is.

: We understand,: the Crystal Spiders “said”—they seemed to speak as one, or perhaps all of them together made up one mind. : Wait … : There was a long pause, and Idalia sensed that the spiders were consulting among themselves and picking through her surface thoughts, trying to find a concept they would all understand. : Wait a day before you make the caverns safe, and we will not be harmed. And when next you hunt the Shadowed Elves, we will give you what help we can.:

“I promise we will wait,” Idalia said aloud. “And I thank you for your help.”

There was a wave of movement, and the shining carpet of enormous spiders that had covered her scuttled away. Idalia sat up, watching as the balls of glowing pastel light disappeared into the darkness, actually seeing them for the first time.

“Why—they’re beautiful,” she said aloud, in surprise. “Poor things—never harming anything but insects, suddenly finding themselves hunted by Shadowed Elves—”

“I guess we’re not the only ones the Shadowed Elves are hurting,” Kellen said quietly.

“They’re hurting everything that lives,” Idalia said grimly. “That’s what they were designed to do. Hurt things.”

“Why?” Kellen asked plaintively, and suddenly he sounded very young and fragile. “Why would they want to do that? It doesn’t sound like any kind of life. What possible kind of existence is that for anything?”

“Kellen,” Idalia said, her voice suddenly sharp with fear. “You said you were attacked by goblins. Did any of them bite you?”

“Of course not,” Kellen said indignantly, but there was a dreamy undertone to his voice that Idalia didn’t like. “Some of them chewed on my armor a lot, though. I couldn’t help that.”

“No, of course you couldn’t. Come here and let me see.”

She cupped her hands and concentrated. A faint mist began to coalesce between her palms, growing denser and brighter until it burned chill and blue. She gestures, and the ball of Coldfire rose to hover above her head.

In its light she could see Kellen standing a few feet away. His tarnkappa was hanging from one hand, his sword—half his sword—was hanging from the other. She got to her feet, retrieving her discarded glove in the process, and walked over to him.

She leaned over and sniffed. His armor reeked of goblin venom, but it seemed to be in one piece. If any of them had spit in his face, he wouldn’t be standing here debating the nature of Evil, Knight-Mage or no. He’d be goblin dinner.

But if any of it had gotten through the joins in the armor and soaked into the padding, and through the padding … .

“I think I might have been poisoned after all, Idalia,” Kellen said somberly, and with a slight slurring in his voice. “I don’t feel—quite right.”

“I think so, too,” Idalia said. “But not badly. You’ll just be a little … drunk. And Shalkan can fix that once we’re out of here.” She hoped. A unicorn could cleanse a poisoned wound, but how could Shalkan reach the poison that had soaked into Kellen’s skin?

Kellen laughed bitterly. “Can you get out of here without me?” He began removing his armor. “Without triggering any of the traps we passed on the way in? Can I keep from triggering them?” He set the last of his armor aside. The damp blotches of poison were visible now on the legs and thighs of his leather underpadding. Kellen began to remove it as well. “Because if not, you’ve got to heal me now, or we’ve got to figure out something else that will work. And if we can’t, we’ve failed. And the army is going to die.”

Where the goblin poison had reached his skin through the underpadding, there were raised red welts. Kellen rubbed at them absently, shivering in the cold of the cave. He was wearing nothing but a hip-wrap now, but at least it was untouched by goblin poison.

He was right, Idalia realized.

She had no idea where she was in the caves now. She was sure Kellen could lead her back to the village cavern, even in this condition, but even though they’d marked them carefully on the way in, Idalia wasn’t completely certain of her ability to navigate past all the traps on the way out without a Knight-Mage’s battle-sight to point them out. And Kellen might not be able to do it at all if the poison fogged his mind any more deeply.

And if she did leave him and make the try, and succeeded, then she’d have to come back in and try to get him out later, when he was in even worse shape from the slow working of the poison he’d absorbed—because Shalkan couldn’t get in here at all. Though he might possibly manage to throw off the effects of the poison by himself eventually, it was a gamble she didn’t want to take, and they couldn’t afford to wait.

And leaving him here, alone, sick, without sword or armor—well, she doubted she’d have a brother to come back to, considering what else the Crystal Spiders said was prowling around down here.

But if she did heal him, there was no one here to take any of the physical price, even if her Mageprices seemed to have all been paid in advance. The effort would leave her exhausted. And navigating the labyrinth of traps took a huge amount of physical stamina. She wouldn’t be able to do it after doing a healing. And Kellen wouldn’t be able to do it carrying her.

But there was one thing she could try.

Idalia began to rummage through her possibles bag.

“Here are the choices as I know them,” she said. “If I leave you and go for help and to warn Redhelwar, I might be able to get out by myself, but I don’t guarantee it. Meanwhile you get sicker, and I—or someone—still have to come back in and get you out. Or I can heal you here, after which you’ll probably have to carry me out, and I don’t think that will work either.”

Kellen laughed giddily, caught himself, and shook his head.

“Or you can drink this,” she said, having found the phial she’d been looking for. “It’s not a healing. It’s not really a medicine. It’s a cheat. It convinces your body it’s well—for a little while—no matter how badly you’ve been hurt—or poisoned. But when it wears off, what it’s done to you has to be paid for with a true healing, or a lot of rest, or both.”

“Why would you make a bad thing like that?” Kellen asked, sounding less than half his age. He rubbed at his head, as if it hurt, dropping the tarnkappa to the cavern floor.

“Sometimes a man needs to be able to walk off a battlefield with two broken legs,” Idalia said. “This will let him do it. But he pays for it afterward.”

Her brother suddenly shook himself, all over, like a dog shaking himself dry. “Gods of Leaf and Star!” Kellen swore, sounding like himself for just a moment, “if you told me it would kill me in a day, I’d still take it. Give it to me, before I get too stupid to know how to drink.”

Idalia placed the thumb-sized glass phial in his hand, blessing the impulse that had caused her to bring it with her when she’d packed for the journey.

Kellen broke the seal and quickly tossed it back, shuddering and gagging at the taste.

Chapter Twenty

The Order of Battle

WHY DID ALL of Idalia’s herbal medicines seem to be made of the bitterest herbs she could find? The taste made his eyes water and his teeth ache, and Kellen swallowed hard, resisting the impulse to retch.

But the disconnected floating feeling that he’d been fighting off ever since he’d killed the duergar was gone. He was himself again. He took several deep breaths.

“I feel better,” he said.

“You won’t in half a day,” Idalia warned.

In half a day the Elven army would have been warned about this trap. At the moment, that was all that mattered.

Kellen inspected the pile of discarded armor and garments. The sheen of goblin poison glowed sickly green to his battle-sight in far too many places. He picked up his heavy fur cloak, inspecting it carefully—it was clean—and put it on, then looked at his armor regretfully.

“There’s no way to carry it safely, and half of it’s covered with goblin spit. I’ll miss it.” He picked up his dagger and his broken sword. “Come on.”

“First let’s do something about your feet,” Idalia said, taking out her dagger and beginning to cut her tarnkappa into strips. “It won’t be much, but it’s better than having you try to walk out of here barefoot.”

THE return trip seemed to go far more swiftly than the trip in. Idalia’s Potion of False Healing filled him with energy, so that Kellen had to be careful to adjust his pace to hers. He felt as if he could run all the way.

But making their way back through the traps was still a painstaking process, one that required the most exacting concentration. Kellen breathed a sigh of relief when he and Idalia stepped over the last of the trip wires.

Idalia hugged him tightly.

“I never, never, never want to go down there again,” she said fervently.

“Neither do I,” Kellen said. Now that it was over, he could acknowledge the fear—and more, the disgust—he’d felt every moment he’d been down in the Shadowed Elf caverns. There was something horribly unclean about those traps. Compared to them, the goblins and even the duergar had been wholesome.

“I’ll cut up the blanket I left with Cella to make you a pair of leggings,” Idalia said, “but I’m afraid you’re going to have a cold ride back.”

“At least it should be day when we get out,” Kellen said. “I just hope it isn’t snowing too hard.”

They reached the entrance of the cave.

It was dusk. They’d been underground a full day. But sunset wasn’t the only thing that greeted them.

Spread out across the valley, starting a bowshot’s-lenght from the cavern and running all the way to the stream and beyond, was a third of the Elven army.

They sat on their destriers like statues, as if they had been waiting there for centuries, and were prepared to wait for centuries more. A light snow was falling, and from the way it had collected on their cloaks and armor, they had indeed been waiting here for some time. The only movement was the flutter of the war banners on the wind, and the occasional shake of a destrier’s head.

Facing the army was Shalkan, standing firm right in the mouth of the cavern. His horn glowed deep scarlet, and every inch of fur not covered by his armor was fluffed straight out.

“It looks like they got here early,” Idalia said noncommittally.

Kellen looked out over the assembled host. With a sinking heart, he saw not only Adaerion’s banner, but Belepheriel’s and Redhelwar’s as well.

Ninolion had been wrong. The general had been able to make his dispositions in less than a day. Or else, finding Kellen gone, he’d put everything else aside to bring a force to the nearer cavern.

And now Shalkan was holding them off.

“GOOD to see you,” Shalkan said, not moving, as Kellen and Idalia walked slowly up to stand with him.

“I was right,” Kellen said. “The whole cavern’s been turned into one enormous death trap.”

“You might want to let Redhelwar know,” Shalkan replied, as outwardly calm as if Kellen had just remarked on the depth of the snow. “Ah, here he comes now.”

The general rode into the first rank of the assembled Knights, but came no closer. Considering the way Shalkan looked, he probably didn’t dare.

“You’d better go out to him,” Shalkan said. “I believe he was unaware until now of how protective a unicorn can be:”

Wincing inwardly at the thought, Kellen stepped out of the cavern mouth into the snow, wrapping his cloak around him as tightly as he could. The snow was knee-deep, and soaked through the rags of the tarnkappa wrapped around his feet instantly. As he had been taught at the House of Sword and Shield, he shut the pain and the cold away in a small part of his mind, and concentrated on the task ahead.

He reached Redhelwar’s stirrup and bowed, as formal a bow as he could manage under the circumstances.

“I See you, Redhelwar, Army’s General,” he said.

But Redhelwar did not greet him in return. Instead, he bent his head only enough to look stonily down at Kellen through the slits in his helmet.

“What do you have to say to me, Kellen Knight-Mage?”

Kellen suspected that this was not War Manners, but the attitude of a commander who is about to issue a great deal more than a simple reprimand. Either way, it did not matter.

He took a deep breath. No matter what was done to him after this, at least he would have prevented a disaster with his disobedience. “I say that the cavern is a death trap, Redhelwar. There are no Shadowed Elves here. It is filled with a series of traps, cleverly concealed, to destroy the army if it enters. And if the army actually reached the village cavern, the entire roof would collapse upon them.” The commander’s eyes widened, but Kellen wasn’t done yet. “Further, the Shadowed Elves brought allies to ensure that the army would advance into the caverns at any cost: within the caverns are both goblins and duergar. I have seen and slain both, but more remain.” He closed his eyes for a moment, and picked his words with the utmost precision. “Whoever entered that cavern mouth would never come out again; neither living, nor dead. This was not only meant as a trap, it was meant to destroy one-third of our army.”

Elves were ageless and beautiful. Even the tales told of them in Armethalieh said so. And though Kellen had seen that they did age, the marks of age came slowly and at the end of a very long life, and even in age they were still beautiful.

But in that moment Redhelwar’s Elven beauty drained away like water poured into drought-parched earth. For a moment, Kellen saw the Elven general not only surprised, but terrified.

He lowered his eyes quickly, not wishing to see more.

“If I had done what I wished to do, followed the plans I had made …” Redhelwar said. His voice sounded hollow, as if he bore a burden of unendurable pain.

“I would ask a boon, Army’s General,” Kellen sid, keeping his teeth from chattering with an effort. The wind seemed to find every gap in his cloak, and the snow burned against his skin. He couldn’t feel his feet at all.

“Name your boon, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Redhelwar said. His voice was stronger now, and Kellen dared to look up again. Redhelwar’s face was still haggard, but it no longer looked quite so … naked.

“We escaped the cavern alive through the help of allies. The caverns are far too dangerous to leave with their traps intact, but we have promised our allies time to escape before we destroy the traps. They ask for a day.”

“All shall be as you wish,” Redhelwar said hollowly.

He raised his hand and gestured. Dionan rode forward.

“Sound the retreat,” Redhelwar said, his voice steady now, but without expression. “We return to camp.”

Dionan raised his horn to his lips and blew a complicated series of notes. Instantly the army was in notion, its elements turning in place and beginning to move away from the cavern.

“Bring Ninolion to me, and fetch Idalia’s mount. My compliments to Belepheriel, and let him know it would please me greatly if he and his people would continue to watch over this cavern for untoward events. Under no circumstances are they to enter it.”

“And could someone find something for Kellen to wear?” Idalia demanded irritably, forging through the snow to stand at Kellen’s side. “He hasn’t got a thing on under that cloak.”

“The, uh, Goblins poisoned my armor. I had to take it off,” Kellen explained, blushing furiously. He thought he’d actually rather freeze than have Idalia explain things.

“See to it,” Redhelwar ordered, still in that terrible, flat voice. Dionan rode off.

“Shalkan will assist you,” Redhelwar said to Kellen. “Go to him. Dionan will see what may be done. And … my thanks to you. You have saved me from a great error.”

Kellen bowed. He couldn’t think of anything to say. Idalia grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back toward Shalkan.

Shalkan’s horn was back to its normal pearly-white color now. “Get on,” he said, seeing Kellen.

It took Kellen several tries to mount—by now he couldn’t feel either his hands or his feet—but once he was on Shalkan’s back, he felt better. Even through the armor, the unicorn was radiating heat like a furnace, and soon Kellen’s teeth stopped wanting to chatter, and he stopped shivering.

Was everything going to be all right now? Or as all right as things got these days? At least Redhelwar had believed him.

It hadn’t occurred to him until just now that the Elven general might not have. What could he possibly have done then?

“Where am I going to get another set of armor?” he said aloud, turning his mind with relief to things that didn’t matter quite so much. “And another sword?” He was beginning to feel a bit of that muzziness return; he wasn’t quite sure where the broken one had gotten to—or his dagger. He thought he’d left them both back inside the cavern just after the last trip-wire.

The majority of the Elven army had withdrawn to beyond the river now. Only Redhelwar and his adjutants remained, and Belepheriel and his command.

“Both of those things are Artenel’s problem, and I’m sure he’ll rise to the challenge,” Idalia said. “How are you planning to trigger the traps in the cave?”

“That’s Jermayan’s problem,” Kellen said, with a certain amount of relief. “I’m sure he and Ancaladar will rise to the challenge. Tomorrow.”

“I take it Redhelwar didn’t have a problem with that?” Idalia said.

“I think he’d have given me the whole damned army if I’d asked for it just now,” Kellen said.

“Ah,” Idalia said. “There’s Cella.”

Ninolion had led the palfrey up to Redhelwar’s side. Idalia went out to the mare and led her back to Kellen and Shalkan. She was carrying something else in her other hand, but by now it was too dark—and, once again, snowing too hard—for Kellen to see it clearly.

“Here,” she said. “Put these on.”

Kellen reluctantly untucked his hands from his cloak to take what Idalia was holding out to him. It was a pair of the long heavy sheepskin boots that were worn over armor as a further protection against the cold. They were an Elven pair, of course, so even without armor, Kellen could barely cram his feet into them.

Idalia rooted around in her packs and came up with several blocks of journey-food. She gave one to Shalkan, handed one to Kellen, and unwrapped the third for herself. Kellen wolfed it down as quickly as be could, then wrapped himself tightly in his cloak again.

“Let’s go,” she said, mounting Cella. “I want to get you back to camp and into the hands of the Healers before you fall over.”

“You go ahead,” Kellen said. “Shalkan and I will follow as closely as we can. I promise.”

Idalia nodded, and trotted after the retreating army.

Kellen glanced once more at Redhelwar and the others. Without Shalkan, he might have been tempted to join them—or at least think it was his duty—but with Shalkan, it was impossible. Shalkan made an exception for Idalia—at need—but for a whole troop of Elves?

Impossible.

Fortunately. No doubt now; he was beginning to feel unpleasantly drunk.

“Let’s go home.”

“YOU’LL have to make your own way from here,” Shalkan said, trotting into the circle of pavilions that made up the camp of the Unicorn Knights. “I’d suggest stealing some clothes, but nothing will fit.”

“Where is everyone?” Kellen asked, looking around. None of the lanterns in front of the pavilions were lit, and even the communal brazier was cold and dark.

“Probably off at Ysterialpoerin,” Shalkan said. “Where I’m going, to get this armor off and get a good meal, as well as to catch up on the gossip, so don’t worry about me. Now, go—straight to the Healers, if you please. I can smell that potion Idalia gave you, that and the goblin poison both. You need to get them both taken care of. Now.”

“I’m going,” Kellen said meekly.

He’d forgotten what a long cold walk it could be from the Unicorn Camp back to the main camp—of course, he’d never done it wearing nothing more than a cloak and a pair of too-tight boots before. At least there was a string of lanterns to mark his way, though the snow—the everlasting snow—had drifted so high that they seemed to rest directly on its surface, and some of them had melted small craters in it, so their light gleamed against walls of ice.

And he had the awful feeling that Idalia’s potion was wearing off very quickly now, because he didn’t seem to be able to keep the cloak closed. It seemed to take too much effort, somehow, and he had the strongest desire just to lie down right here in the snow and sleep.

“Halt and declare yourself.” A sentry’s voice came out of the darkness.

Stopping was the best idea Kellen had heard in hours. He opened his mouth to explain who he was.

And that was the last thing he remembered.

“—BE all right now. The poison is gone, and I’ve healed him of the potion’s effects. All he needs now is rest and food.”

A stranger’s voice, one that Kellen didn’t recognize.

“Thank you, Arozen. I’ll see to it that he gets both.”

Idalia.

“You should rest as well, Idalia,” Arozen said.

“Hey,” Kellen said weakly. He pried his eyes open, though that seemed to take a great effort.

Idalia was glaring down at him as if he were a personal enemy. A man stood next to her, dressed in High Reaches furs: Arozen, presumably.

Vestakia was there, too, and Ciltesse, Isinwen … all his command. He struggled to sit up.

“Don’t—you—dare—move,” Idalia said, strong-arming him flat with one expertly-placed blow.

“I’m not moving,” Kellen said hastily, now entirely bewildered. Why was Idalia so angry with him?

“It was … a difficult healing,” Arozen said, explaining. “The potion Idalia gave you is, in its way, a kind of poison as well, and you were already poisoned. And you were also paying Mageprice, so … you were closer to death than you realized. And it is cold out there in the night.”

“Well, I’m not dead now,” Kellen said. “Honest.” Paying Mageprice? He couldn’t think of any spells he’d cast.

Unless … back in Redhelwar’s pavilion … what he’d done to Belepheriel had been a spell after all? If the price had been to go off to the Shadowed Elf cavern in the middle of the night, taking complete disgrace on himself, then he guessed he’d paid the price in full.

“Idalia—Vestakia—Ciltesse—I’m fine,” he said. “Tired, but—fine.” He knew Arozen wouldn’t have let Idalia share the Mageprice of his healing, as tired as she’d been, but he suspected that the reason the others were here was because they had.

Including Vestakia.

“That makes good hearing, alakomentai,” Ciltesse said.

“Now go and rest,” Kellen demanded. “All of you. Please. Idalia, if you don’t think I’ll be smart enough on my own to stay here, you can find … you can find …”

He didn’t manage to finish his sentence before he was asleep.

HUNGER and the smell of food woke him. Daylight was shining through the walls of the Healer’s tent, and Isinwen was there with a large covered tray that smelled wonderful.

Kellen scrambled into a sitting position and reached for it. Isinwen set it carefully on Kellen’s knees and removed the cover.

“I See you, Isinwen,” Kellen said. “Tell me what I need to know, of your courtesy.” The tray was piled high with enough food to feed three people, and Kellen was so ravenous he was sure he could eat all of it. Thinking back, he wasn’t sure when the last time was he’d had a full meal. One day? Two? He thought it might have been the journey-meal on the march the day they’d reached Ysterialpoerin, but he wasn’t quite sure. He reached for the tall mug of tea first.

“You have slept only through the night, which should please you. The farther cavern is quiet, as is the nearer. You will need to see Artenel today for a first fitting for your new armor, and to choose a new sword. Ciltesse has selected three destriers for you to choose from, but thinks you will pick Anganil. There have been wagers placed, of course.”

Kellen found himself grinning around a mouthful of bread and cheese. He’d discovered that Elves would place bets on the most unlikely of things, and at the most unlikely of times. Even in the middle of war. Probably in the middle of battle.

“Redhelwar wishes to see you when you are fully recovered. And … Belepheriel begs the favor of an audience as well.”

Kellen nearly choked on a mouthful of roast chicken. Belepheriel wanted to see him?

He took a deep breath, and prepared to eat crow along with his chicken. “Isinwen, I fear I have offended Belepheriel greatly by my rash and ill-considered words. It would please me if you, who are wise in the ways of the Elves, can help me to understand what seems strange to me.”

Isinwen smiled. “Your manners improve. Kellen, the whole camp knows what happened in Redhelwar’s pavilion that night, though certainly no one would say so. Belepheriel’s words are just as I have said them to you. He spoke so to Ciltesse in my hearing. He comes as a petitioner. It is for you to say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”

“That’s not a lot of help,” Kellen muttered, swallowing chicken and reaching for a meat-pastry.

“You would wish to know his reasons for asking,” Isinwen said. “I do not know them. I do know that he will not offer you insult, should you come as a guest to his pavilion. If you would seem gracious, accept. If you wish a … distance … to grow between you, say nothing. If you wish to truly sever all connection, then refuse to see him. But that course could lead to … awkwardness.”

“Awkwardness,” Kellen suspected, was a mild understatement of what would actually happen. And whatever his—or Belepheriel’s—feelings, the army could not afford a feud.

“I’ll see him,” Kellen said quickly. “I did not know that his son was one of the scouts who died. I wish I had.”

“We searched for their bodies and did not find them,” Isinwen said sadly.

“You won’t,” Kellen said. Abruptly he lost all appetite. He pushed the tray away. “The Wild Magic showed me their deaths. They died quickly and well. But then—after Gairith had left them—the Shadowed Elves came and took their bodies.” Kellen hesitated for a long time. “It was a hunting party, searching for food.”

Isinwen made a quick gesture over his heart, and bowed his head for a moment. “Tell Belepheriel so. It is better to know, no matter how black the news.”

“I will tell him. I wish … it seems there are very many people I must see this day.” His mood of good humor was quite gone now. He would have liked to enjoy it just a little longer.

Isinwen nodded. “Were I to have the choices set before you, I would go first to Belepheriel, then to Dionan to discover Redhelwar’s pleasure. The rest of what you must do can be set about those things. And now, clothing was prepared for you while you slept. I have had it brought.”

When Isinwen said that clothing had been “prepared,” he meant precisely that. The garments he presented for Kellen’s inspection were nothing Kellen remembered ever seeing before, though it was all in his colors.

The skintight pants that the Elves favored had been made in his size, woven of soft heavy wool, with a twining pattern of leaf and vine worked into the weave. Thigh-high boots of smooth leather, lined in sheepskin, with a tapered heel so that Kellen could ride in them at need were also a perfect fit. A sleeveless quilted undertunic was a superior replacement for the one he had lost. He wasn’t sure what it was made of, but its surface was as soft as down. A heavy, long-sleeved tunic—also wool—that came nearly to his boot tops, again, a perfect fit, better than the old one, for he suspected he had been putting on some muscle in the chest. A pattern matching the subtle weave in his leggings was worked into it in silver thread. Gauntlets of the same leather as the boots, their cuffs lined with vair, which would be welcome against the cold. A baldric and belt—but no scabbard—its entire surface stamped with a twining pattern of vines in Elvensilver, was again superior to what he had left behind. The buckle was of green enamel, and through its glassy surface, Kellen saw, not more leaves, but stars.

“And last of all, lest you freeze again, your cloak,” Isinwen said.

On the outside it was the thickest, softest green velvet Kellen had ever seen. The lining was white fur, faintly dappled. The fur looked oddly familiar.

“Coldwarg fur,” Isinwen said proudly. “It will not freeze, no matter the temperature, even if it gets wet. Petariel said that if anyone deserved a cloak made from those wretched hellbeasts, you did.”

Kellen took the cloak and swirled it around his shoulders. It felt oddly heavy in his hands, but once he had it on—like his armor—he didn’t notice the weight.

Where had all this stuff come from? He didn’t think even Tengitir could have produced this quantity of clothing overnight. And then there were the boots. Boots took time to make … .

He wasn’t going to ask. He thought, all things considered, he was probably better off not knowing. At least he wouldn’t have to face Belepheriel looking like a street urchin. Assuming the Elves, who valued children beyond all treasure, had any such thing.

“You’ll have to show me where Belepheriel’s pavilion is,” Kellen said to Isinwen. He didn’t feel at all ready, but then, he doubted that he ever would.

BELEPHERIEL’S knightly color was a pale blue-violet, and so was the pavilion that Isinwen conducted him to before bowing and leaving Kellen to face the unknown alone.

I don’t want to do this. For all of Isinwen’s assurance that Belepheriel had “petitioned” to see him, and would not insult Kellen while he was Belepheriel’s guest, Kellen was doubtful about what was to come, and his ability to deal with it appropriately. He’d been right to do what he’d done, and once he would have thought that was all that mattered, but he’d grown up a lot since those days. Now he knew that being right wasn’t enough—at least not among the Elves. You had to be right in the right way.

Or so it seemed.

And the Elves had a lot of ways of insulting people. Well, he would just have to be man enough to take it.

He stepped up to the doorway, took the rope of bells in his hand, and shook it gently. At least the first part of what he needed to do was accomplished. Everyone in camp had seen that he had come when Belepheriel had asked.

“Enter and be welcome.”

Kellen stepped through the flap of the pavilion.

The pale violet light shining through the silk gave everything an unearthly pallor. Belepheriel stood to face him. The Elven commander was alone.

“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage.”

“I See you, Belepheriel komentai.”

The Elven commander’s tent was similar to Adaerion’s and Dionan’s, containing several tables, chairs, a brazier, lanterns, and a number of large chests. All the furniture could be folded away for night, but Belepheriel’s pavilion was large enough that this wasn’t really necessary, though Kellen saw no sign of a bed.

“It would please me greatly if you would take tea with me,” Belepheriel said.

“I would be honored,” Kellen replied instantly. Well, at least he wasn’t going to be slapped across the face with a gauntlet.

At Belepheriel’s gesture, Kellen seated himself at the table. He’d never wished so hard in his life that he’d managed to get all the way through Master Belesharon’s training before all this happened. He was sure this exact situation would have been covered somewhere. The only thing he did know was that he mustn’t rush matters. There was certain to be a good half hour of talk about the tea and the weather before they even began to discuss whatever Belepheriel wanted to discuss.

Belepheriel did not disappoint him. They began with the weather—the winter was far more severe this year than in previous years. Ancaladar promised them a break in the weather, but not for at least a sennight. A winter this severe ensured a wet spring, which would certainly mean deep mud and hard travel. The rice crops would undoubtedly flourish, though the wheat would probably not do as well as in previous years, and it might well be a waste of time to plant rye at all.

By then the tea was ready. Kellen sipped it cautiously, and looked at Belepheriel in surprise.

It was Armethaliehan Black—his own favorite.

“You do me great honor, Belepheriel,” he said, setting down his cup.

“One should not stop learning,” Belepheriel said. “My master and yours said that, in the House of Sword and Shield. I fear I set aside that lesson.”

“We are all finding out things we did not wish to know,” Kellen replied, slowly, and only after a moment of thought.

“Yet we must learn them!” Belepheriel responded, with emphasis, as if it were he who must convince Kellen of this. “If I had not set my face against the Wild Magic …”

“All would have gone just as it did,” Kellen said quickly. “Your voice was not the only voice in Redhelwar’s tent. His was the decision, for he is the leader of us all.”

There was silence for a while.

“I do not know how to say this,” Kellen began hesitantly. “You know I am … uncivilized.” Before he’d come to live among the Elves, he’d certainly never thought of himself that way, and he still didn’t—not really. But considering the news he’d come to bring, he thought it best to give Belepheriel all the warning he could.

“You are not Elven, nor can you ever be,” Belepheriel said simply. “You do as much as a young human may to honor our ways. And you are more than that. You are a Knight-Mage, sent to us by Leaf and Star. Speak, if you would.”

“There is something I would tell you. It is a thing of ill hearing, and it will bring you grief.” Kellen sighed heavily. “There is no good, no civilized way to impart it.”

“I am warned,” Belepheriel said. “Wait.” He refilled both their cups.

“I did not know, that night in Redhelwar’s tent, that Imerteniel was one of the scouts. First, I am sorry for your loss. But there is more of this matter that I must speak on. After I had left the camp, when I rode out over the battlefield, I saw the bodies of the horses, but the bodies of the scouts were gone.” He licked lips gone dry, and clutched his cup so that his hands ached. “The Wild Magic lets me see how a battle has happened, and so I saw what had taken place. Imerteniel and the others died very quickly, fighting to the last. Afterward”—Kellen took a deep breath, told his muscles to relax, and went on—“a Shadowed Elf hunting party came to the spot where the bodies lay and took them away. They were looking for—food.”

Belepheriel got to his feet and turned away. “I thank you for bringing this news to me,” he said quietly.

Kellen sat silently. He didn’t think even Master Belesharon could have told him the proper thing to say to someone when you’d just told them their son’s body had been eaten by Shadowed Elves.

Belepheriel spoke without turning. “Once I mocked the warnings you brought to us. I wish you to understand: our land has been at peace since the city in which you were born was no more than grass and sand. My grandfather would go to the place where it now stands to swim and fish. The sea-folk found those waters a pleasant place as well. In those days, my family had a summer-season home on one of what you now call the Out Isles. The flowers there were very beautiful, and in the orchards there grew a kind of salt-plum that I do not think grows anywhere now since the great storms that came to scour the coast. The sea-folk prize fruit and flowers greatly. They would come to the shore and trade shells and pearls for fruit and flowers. We always traded fairly with them.” There was a sad smile on his lips that did not reach his eyes.

“Now that house is gone. My father and my grandfather are gone. My sons … Imerteniel was the last. I have no wife, and no daughters. I shall have no more children.” The ghost of a smile was gone. “There is no one left to carry on my line, no one left who will remember that pleasant summer home, or the scent of the wind in the sea-grass, or how the storm-light fell upon the sands.”

Kellen looked up at him mutely, unable to think of any way to respond.

“I thought the threat that we faced to be a small and simple thing, easily dealt with.” Belepheriel shook his head slowly. “Even when I saw proof that it was not, I refused to see. I wished things to be as they had always been. But the world does not go according to our desire, but after the patterning of Leaf and Star. And it is the Wildmages who help it to do so.”

Kellen was far out of his depth, and he knew it.

“It is not the Wildmages, Belepheriel,” he said, “but the Wild Magic that works through us. We are nothing but the hands, or the sword that those hands wield. I pay my Mageprices. I try to do what it asks of me. That’s all. Sometimes it moves through me in ways I do not understand, having me do things I do not yet know the meaning of. That night—in Redhelwar’s pavilion—”

Belepheriel turned and looked at him, studying Kellen’s face intently. “The Wild Magic spoke through you. I see. And you do not fully understand what you did.”

“I insulted you,” Kellen said. “I know that now, though I did not then. I challenged you to a Circle. I understand what a Circle is now as well.”

“Then you also understand that you won,” Belepheriel said.

No! But … Belepheriel seemed to think he had.

What if he had? Frantically, Kellen cast his mind back over everything he’d learned about the Challenge Circle at the House of Sword and Shield, but all that he could remember was that it settled all arguments. He shook his head.

“I do not understand what winning means,” he said carefully. “But it would please me greatly if the whole matter could be forgotten as if it had never been. We have an enemy that will take all our strength to defeat. We do not have to make enemies of one another, nor weaken ourselves by … misunderstandings.” He’d seen enough of the squabbles between Mageborn families back in Armethalieh. The last thing he wanted was to start something similar here.

Belepheriel continued to study him. Kellen kept his face still, but he knew that the Elven commander could read it as easily as Kellen could read a book of wondertales. He only hoped he wasn’t making matters worse, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do. Redhelwar needed all his commanders, able and ready to fight.

“Your words go against all custom. Yet we must all learn new things, if we are to survive in these dark times,” Belepheriel said. “Let it be so, then. I would give you a gift, if you would accept it. And let it be known, if any should wonder, that the gift would have been given no matter what words you said here to me today.”

“I will remember,” Kellen said. “And I will let it be known. I am honored to receive a gift from your hands”. He really had to find Jermayan and find out what he’d just done, but whatever it was, it seemed to have smoothed things over with Belepheriel, and that was all that mattered right now.

Belepheriel went over to one of the chests, and drew forth two silk-wrapped bundles, one small, one very long. He placed them upon the table.

“You have earned, these,” he said, opening the smaller bundle. “And I have the right to give them.”

Spurs.

There were three degrees of Elven Knighthood. The first was the sword—Kellen had gotten that by default, since he’d taken a sword with him on the quest for the Black Cairn, before anyone had realized he was a Knight-Mage. The second was the shield. Jermayan had given him that—a shield looted from the body of one of the bandits he and Kellen had slain along the way, but it had still counted as a formal shield of Knighthood.

The third was the spurs.

Kellen had spurs, of course—they were necessary to give commands to an Elven destrier. But they weren’t the formal ritual badge of completed Knighthood.

These were.

They were made of Elvensilver, the instep-plate covered with a mosaic of tiny gems in a dozen colors. They glittered as brightly as sunlight on ice, but Kellen could not make out the pattern, if there was one. Maybe human eyes couldn’t.

“I have not completed my training in the House of Sword and Shield,” Kellen said quietly.

“Only Leaf and Star may say whether any of us will see its walls again,” Belepheriel said. “And I say that whatever graces Master Belesharon has yet to teach you, you are now a Knight in all the fullness of the rank, and so you shall be honored. Stand.”

He took the spurs in his hands. Kellen got to his feet.

Belepheriel knelt before him and buckled the spurs into place over Kellen’s boots. When he had finished, he rose to his feet.

“And now, the other.” He went to the table and laid back the wrappings.

It was a sword. Kellen had already guessed that from the shape.

The scabbard was black, smooth, and utterly plain. Some sort of leather. But looking closer, Kellen could see that it seemed to shimmer, casting back not only the color of the pavilion’s silk, but shimmering with other colors as well, like … like Ancaladar’s scales.

The sword itself was as ornate as the scabbard was plain. The quillons were designed to resemble rolling waves; the metal looked blue, but it was difficult to judge colors here in Belepheriel’s pavilion. For a moment Kellen thought that the hilt was encrusted with pearls, but then he realized that it was mother-of-pearl made to look like pearls.

But it was the pommel-weight that drew the eye.

The Elves rarely used faceted stones, preferring the play of light and color to be found in the smooth cabochon cut. But the pommel-weight of this sword was a faceted transparent sphere the size of a large apricot. It glittered brightly, casting rainbows across the walls of the pavilion.

“Her name is The Light at the Heart of the Mountain,” Belepheriel said. “She has always been victorious. It is said that she fought at Vel-al-Amion, but as to that, no one can say in truth. She is a thousand-year sword, forged when we knew to craft weapons of war, forged to teach the Enemy the taste of defeat and dissolution.”

Kellen regarded the sword uncertainly. He knew perfectly well that Belepheriel was doing him an incredible honor, and that many of the other Elven Knights had swords just as elaborate, but he couldn’t imagine riding into battle carrying a piece of … jewelry. The grip looked slippery, just to begin with.

“Try her,” Belepheriel said.

He had no choice. Kellen stepped forward, and took the scabbard in his hand, lifting the sword from the table. He gripped the hilt.

It wasn’t slippery at all.

He pulled. Light at the Heart of the Mountain slipped free of the scabbard with a hiss.

He felt himself automatically settle into guard position, as if the sword were alive. His last weapon had been a good one—nothing that came from the Elven forges was flawed—but this was better than that. A great weapon. Ancient. Perfect. She answered to him exactly as if he and she were one being; he knew precisely where every atom of her was, even with his eyes closed.

After a long moment, he realized he was just staring at the play of light along the surface of the blade, and reluctantly sheathed it again.

How can you bear to part with this? he thought.

Gently, Belepheriel took the scabbard from Kellen’s hands, and hooked it to his belt. “Use her well,” he said. “And know that you will always be honored in my house and at my hearth.”

“And you. In mine,” Kellen said. “I, uh, don’t actually know if I have a house or a hearth, Belepheriel …”

“But I shall take the desire for the deed, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Belepheriel said, bowing. “And now, I believe you will need to surprise Redhelwar.”

IT didn’t take long for Kellen to discover what Belepheriel had meant.

He presented himself at Dionan’s pavilion as soon as he left Belepheriel. As usual, Redhelwar’s adjutant was busy, even with two-thirds of the army elsewhere—if an Elven army didn’t run on paperwork, then endless meetings and consultations seemed to take their place. If Kellen didn’t receive any looks of open curiosity, he was at least thoroughly inspected by everyone he passed, and by everyone who found a reason to pass by Dionan’s tent while he waited. He had no doubt that the information about the spurs and the sword would be all over the camp by the time he was finished here.

At last he was able to enter.

“As we await Adaerion,” Dionan said, pouring tea, “it would please me to hear anything you wished to tell.”

This was briskness indeed from the Elves! Well, he could certainly match it. “You will have seen that I bear gifts given by Belepheriel’s hand,” Kellen said. “He wished it known that the gifts would have been given no matter what I said to him today.”

Dionan looked … puzzled. “We will drink tea,” he said, after a long pause.

Adaerion arrived a few moments later.

“Belepheriel has given Kellen gifts,” Dionan said, without preamble, as brusquely as any human. “He has given him The Light at the Heart of the Mountain. He has given him the spurs of Knighthood.”

“Leaf and Star!” Adaerion said. He inspected Kellen closely. “It would please me to hear how Belepheriel fares, if you would care to oblige me in the telling.”

Elves. I will never understand Elves, Kellen thought. Do they think I’ve killed him?

“He looked well when I saw him, and when I left him,” Kellen began cautiously. Well, if they were going to be as straightforward as any human, then he would take the rare opportunity to do likewise! “Isinwen told me when I awoke that Belepheriel wished to see me. I went to see him. I apologized for being rude to him. I told him how Imerteniel had died, and what happened to his body. It and those of the other scouts were taken by Shadowed Elves. About the Challenge … he told me I had won it. I don’t understand that, because we didn’t fight. I asked him to just forget it had ever happened, because we don’t need to fight among ourselves. He gave me the sword, and the spurs, and said he wished it known that he would have given them to me no matter what happened between us. I apologize if my brevity offends,” Kellen added, for good measure.

There was a very long pause. Adaerion and Dionan looked at each other, then back at him. Both of the Elves were watching him as if he might faint, or explode … or turn into a dragon right before their eyes.

“Kellen,” Adaerion said, speaking slowly and carefully, “do you understand that by winning the Challenge, you had the right to take Belepheriel’s place in rank? And that you gave it up to him by your words to him?”

Oh. Oh. No wonder everyone had been acting so oddly. And no wonder Adaerion had felt it necessary to speak so bluntly now. Kellen knew enough by now about how Elven gossip ran to know that everyone in camp must have a pretty clear idea of what had happened between him and Bellepheriel in Redhelwar’s pavilion that night. And it looked like running off the way he had hadn’t changed his position particularly—at least, it seemed his so-called rights under the “Challenge” would still have been honored. Everyone must have been expecting him to take over Belepheriel’s command the moment he was on his feet again.

Kellen shook his head.

“Adaerion, Dionan … you both know that I want Redhelwar to … listen to my counsel, when I have something to say that is given to me by the Wild Magic. To say that I don’t want what Belepheriel has would be a lie. But I wish to earn it—not to take it away from someone else. Not by—” He was about to say “playing children’s games” and stopped. “Not this way,” he finally said. “Earning it would be right. Having it because we have lost a commander, and I was needed would be right. Taking it would be wrong.”

“You would renounce being a commander of hundreds because it did not suit you?” Adaerion asked.

“No! No, nothing like that. I renounce being a commander of hundreds because I do not yet have those skills,” Kellen said frankly. It was true; he could command a smaller force in the field easily now, and certainly he could advise Redhelwar about what he thought the army should do, but as for being able himself to think of and give the orders on such a scale—those skills he still lacked.

“I must learn all that you, and Dionan, and Redhelwar—yes, and Belepheriel—can teach me about the use of an army. And quickly.” He let out a breath he had been holding in without realizing it. “And I honor Belepheriel. It would be wrong for all of us for me to claim what I cannot properly govern. It would be as if I had been foolish enough to claim the Light at the Heart of the Mountain when I did not even know the use of a dagger.”

And I have to figure out what Shadow Mountain is really after. All of this with the Shadowed Elves, bloody and dangerous as it is, is just delaying tactics. There has to be something Shadow Mountain wants—and doesn’t have yet. When it has it, the real war will start. And if we can’t fight it properly, we’ll lose.

He already knew that. The Elves might be able to bring more fighters into the field, but to do so would be to utterly strip their cities of protection. Shadow Mountain was waiting for that, he was sure. The Demons themselves might not be able to enter the Elven Lands, but many of their creatures could. Even when the Elves destroyed the last of the Shadowed Elves, they wouldn’t be safe from the other creatures of the Endarkened.

The Centaurs, the Mountainfolk. the Herdingfolk Wildmages, the Wildlander farmers—all of them would add to the army’s numbers, perhaps even double its size, but that wasn’t enough to gain them victory. Not without an enemy who would stand and fight. And against the Demons …

It would still be suicide.

“Then your decision is made,” Dionan said.

Kellen nodded. He wasn’t sure if he’d made a terrible mistake and insulted everybody, or done exactly the right thing. It felt right to him, that was all he knew.

“Then perhaps you will wish to see what Artenel can do to replace what you have lost,” Dionan said. “At the third hour past noon, it would please Redhelwar to drink tea, and hear your thoughts on tomorrow’s attack upon the farther cavern.”

“Yes,” Kellen said, getting to his feet. “Of course. It would please me greatly to drink tea with Redhelwar.”

He exited Dionan’s tent with a feeling of intense relief.

FORTUNATELY, it was nearly impossible to get lost in an Elven war camp once you’d learned the disposition of the tents. Kellen found the tents of the armorers without difficulty.

The first thing that caught his eye were several of the new shields, racked outside the cooper’s tent for transport to the farther cavern. He picked one up and hefted it experimentally.

Heavy, yes, but not as heavy as he’d expected. It was half as long as he was tall, and would provide good protection in the caverns. Leather over wax over wood, just as he, Idalia, and Artenel had decided. Water-soaked, it would be heavier, but he’d still be able to lift it, he judged, and the Elves were much stronger than he was.

“Kellen! This is no time for idleness. We have much to do,” Artenel said, walking out of the main armorer’s tent and regarding him sternly.

Meekly, Kellen followed the Master Armorer into the tent.

“One wishes, of course, that you had not had the misfortune to lose every piece of your armor all at once,” Artenel said, sounding mournful. “But it is not without precedent. And fortunately, knowing that you would be … difficult to fit, I began my preparations sennights ago.”

He gestured at the long table at the center of the tent, and drew back a protective cloth with a flourish. All the components of a full set of Elven battle armor in Kellen’s size lay there, waiting.

The armor Kellen had just lost had been covered with a subtle pattern like wood-grain. The armorers said the patterns added strength to the metal, and the pattern chosen to ornament the metal of the armor was apparently another matter of great importance to Elves. Jermayan’s had a pattern of tiny stars over its entire surface, and, knowing the Elves as well as he now did, Kellen had no doubt that it was an accurate representation of the night sky at some season. Master Belesharon had called Kellen’s armor plain and dull, because it had been made in such haste that there had been no time to add the coat of glistening enamel that was the final touch on normal Elven battle armor. Kellen had liked that just fine.

But apparently Artenel had had a lot of free time to spend on making a new set of armor, just on the chance that Kellen might need it, because the armor he unveiled for Kellen’s inspection was as green as Shalkan’s eyes. Each piece glittered like glass.

And instead of wood-grain, the metal beneath the enamel was covered with a tiny intricate pattern of twining vines similar to the pattern worked into his clothes. Here and there, Kellen could see an occasional star glisten palely among the leaves.

Leaves and stars. Leaf and Star? He felt a sudden cold chill. Who do these people think I am?

The Elves swore by Leaf and Star, just as the Herdingfolk did by the Good Goddess, and the Centaurs by the Herdsman. When Kellen thought about it at all—which was rarely—he thought they were all probably different ways of seeing the same thing he and Idalia—and every other Wildmage—touched when they invoked the Wild Magic: the Power that set Mageprices and kept the world in balance.

Certainly one of the first things that Idalia had taught him about the Wild Magic was that paying whatever Mageprices the Wild Magic set was a way of keeping the world running properly, even if he didn’t understand at the time how the prices he paid—some of them quite small and personal—could really help. How had rescuing a servant girl’s kitten back in Armethalieh, for example, helped the wider world?

But knowing that you were a tool of Greater Powers, and accepting that fact, Kellen realized, was far different than knowing that everyone else knew it too.

He’d been able to handle the thought of being scorned, outcast, relieved of his command, a lot better than he was handling this, Kellen realized. Because he was used to being the goat, the misfit, the butt of a thousand jokes. He’d been that all his life. When he’d become a Knight-Mage, well, the Elves were tactful, and he’d gone almost immediately into training in the House of Sword and Shield, where Master Belesharon had treated him like the humblest apprentice, so while life had been much more pleasant, his status hadn’t seemed appreciably different from what it had been before.

Now things were changing, and rapidly.

You wanted to command the Elven army, and you didn’t think things would change along the way? What would Shalkan say if he knew you thought that?

“It is very beautiful,” Kellen said gravely. “I am honored.”

“It is unworthy work, filled with flaws,” Artenel said dismissively. “Done in haste under the worst possible conditions. Had I dared to present such a piece to my Masters as evidence of my craft, I would still be feeding the forge fires in the guild-house. But it is sound and strong, and will turn a blow, I promise you that. And in a few moonturns, better will come from Sentarshadeen.”

Better than this? Despite Artenal’s protests, Kellen could see no flaw in the armor—and if Artenel said it would protect him, he could be certain that it would.

But though the pieces were complete, the armor was far from finished, for now it had to be assembled on the body of the man for whom it had been prepared, and a thousand modifications made.

“NEARLY done,” Artenel pronounced with satisfaction a few hours later, “though you will undoubtedly wish to make the last adjustments yourself.”

“As you say,” Kellen said, hastily scrambling from the undertunic and leggings he’d worn for the armor-fitting back into his clothes. “But at just this moment, I am called elsewhere.”

KELLEN ran all the way to Redhelwar’s pavilion, and suspected that he was late anyway, but if that was the case, the Elven general gave no sign of it.

To his surprise, Redhelwar was alone. Kellen had somehow expected this to be a less private occasion. He wondered if he was going to get the scolding he still felt he might deserve—or at least that protocol ought to demand. He had disobeyed orders—no matter how strong the need, and no matter how right he’d been to do so, there was still that.

But as always, they began with a—mercifully brief— discussion of the tea and the weather. Soon, however, Redhelwar changed the subject.

“You come before me as if your spirit lies heavy, Kellen. Yet already today I have had Adaerion’s good counsel, and Dionan’s and Belepheriel’s as well. And I have been privileged to hear all that Idalia Wildmage could tell me of the nearer cavern.” Redhelwar leaned forward a little. “So. I would know what lies unsaid between us, that you look upon me as one who expects ill tidings.”

Well, if that wasn’t an opening to come straight out with what was bothering him, he had never heard one. “When you made me alakomentai, you gave me a place in your army,” Kellen said, thinking his words through slowly. “Army officers follow orders. You gave me an order. And I didn’t follow it.”

“Yet you are also a Knight-Mage, a voice of the Wild Magic. And if I would command the Wild Magic, then perhaps I shall step outside and command the wind and the weather to answer my will as well,” the General said dismissively. “It would be as efficient a use of my time. You risked both life and honor to save the army. Let that be an end to this matter.”

It was an order, and Kellen took it as such. Seeing Kellen’s assent and relief in his expression, Redhelwar smiled, every so faintly, and turned to more practical matters.

“The first of the Centaurs will arrive at Ysterialpoerin within a sennight, so Jermayan tells us. Not so many as we will see come spring, but a goodly number for the season—and the weather, which remains difficult. Unfortunately, the Wildmages tell us that to bring truly calm weather here would take all their power, and worsen the weather elsewhere, so they do not advise it. Perhaps it is just as well that our battles this season take place below the earth. A number of High Reaches Wildmages travel with the Centaurs, of course. It will be good to add their numbers to those already with us.”

But it still wouldn’t change the weather. Kellen remembered that Idalia had never wanted to meddle with the weather without a very good reason, and right now the weather patterns were still trying to settle back to normal after the long unnatural drought. That was one of the reasons this winter was as bad as it was—and a good reason why it was a good idea to leave the weather strictly alone, no matter how bad it got. But …

“If the Shadowed Elves are changing the way they attack …” Kellen began.

“That thought has been much in my mind,” Redhelwar said somberly. “Idalia has spoken to me of the traps she saw in the first cavern, but says that you saw more. Yet from what she described, such traps as were there would be the work of moonturns to create.”

“Yes,” Kellen agreed. “They knew we would be coming. And they knew it—perhaps—before we were led to their first lair. All that we do here to fight them is planned for us by others. But we have no choice.”

“No,” Redhelwar said quietly. “And tomorrow we discover what further entertainment they have planned for us.”

“Goblins and duergar,” Kellen said instantly. “The Crystal Spiders said there were more of them in the farther cavern. And all the Shadowed Elves will be there—the ones from both caverns. So we’ll be facing more of them than we expected.” He felt a surge of gratitude to the Crystal Spiders, odd creatures though they were. If they hadn’t come to Idalia’s rescue, if they hadn’t made the effort of talking to her—

“Yet if we face more of our foe than we expect, the reverse is also true, for we have evaded their trap, by the grace of Leaf and Star and the intercession of the Wild Magic.” The commander tapped the table with one finger, betraying his own tension in a manner that Elves seldom indulged in. “Light will keep duergar at bay, and we shall have that in good measure—but it will not stop one from luring prey within reach of another foe,” Redhelwar added, consideringly. “Wildmage Athan has suggested that he might work a spell of Calling to cause the Shadowed Elves to come out to us. They are easier to kill outside their caves, and we would be beyond reach of their allies.”

“A good plan, if it works,” Kellen agreed. “Idalia said that the tarnkappa don’t work against duergar, but they might work against goblins. They move through stone, though.”

Redhelwar dismissed goblins with a shrug. “We have hunted goblins many times in the past. They are foolish and easily lured, when they are hungry enough. With the Shadowed Elves dead and unable to control them, they will be simple enough to kill. The duergar will present a more difficult problem. Only a Knight-Mage, it seems, can withstand their call.”

“There might be a spell that would help. I’ll ask Jermayan and Ancaladar. And the Crystal Spiders don’t like the duergar any better than we do. They’ll give us all the help they can,” he added.

“Then we are well begun by honoring our promises to them. And now, perhaps, once you have settled a matter of no small interest to the army, we shall ride out to the nearer cavern and see that promise completed,” Redhelwar said, rising to his feet.

KELLEN was never precisely certain exactly how the Elven destriers were organized. He did know that taking care of several thousand horses—even several thousand horses who knew their names and invariably came when called—was a large job for someone. Several hundred someones, probably, even though the Knights did much of their own horse-work.

The animals that were going to be immediately needed waited in the horse-lines, standing quietly in orderly ranks. Those that would not be needed as quickly seemed to wander at will, though Kellen was sure that was only an illusion.

He saw Idalia’s Cella and Redhelwar’s blood-red bay waiting patiently; Dionan’s stone-grey mare and the thirty mounts of his own troop standing by as well, all under saddle and ready to ride out.

Ciltesse had been loitering nearby—there was really no other word, Kellen thought ruefully, to describe his second-in-command’s behavior.

“I See you, Ciltesse,” Redhelwar said, greeting him. “It would be pleasant to discover the nature of Kellen’s new mount.”

“That is yet to be known,” Ciltesse said gravely. “I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage,” he said formally.

“I See you, Ciltesse. It would please me greatly to be presented with the fruits of your wisdom,” Kellen said, bowing.

Ciltesse led him to the end of the line of horses. Three destriers, without saddle or bridle, stood waiting.

“Here are those which I judge could best meet your needs, gathered from those which are available,” Ciltesse said. “It is for you to choose, of course.”

“Nor will you tell me their names, for the whole camp is betting on which one I will choose,” Kellen said, smiling. He wondered if his choice would match Ciltesse’s.

He turned and regarded the horses.

Two were stallions, one was a mare. They all regarded him with wary curiosity, ears flicking back and forth.

As he had when he had chosen Deyishene, he cleared his mind and regarded them through spell-sight.

The young stallion he rejected immediately. The black was a beautiful animal; young and filled with fire and spirit, but Kellen neither needed nor wanted that much eagerness in a mount.

He considered the mare next, and shook his head. She was a dark dapple grey, and had the grace and quiet spirit he wanted and needed, but she had loved her rider too deeply to be quite ready for a new master yet. He paused to stroke her neck gently. Would he have to reject them all? Maybe Jermayan would loan him Valdien for the day. Or he could take the mare—but not as a permanent battle-mount.

He turned his attention to the last of the three. The buckskin stallion was by far the oldest of the animals Ciltesse had collected, and though his coat was well-kept and without flaw, Kellen’s battle-sight showed him the ghosts of old wounds, well-healed. To his surprise, Kellen could feel that he was being judged as much as he was judging. He could tell that if the destrier found his rider lacking, it had an arsenal of tricks that would put anything Valdien had ever imagined to shame. But he could also tell that the stallion was calm, steady, and smart. It would stand unafraid in the face of a pack of coldwarg—if it trusted its rider to know his business.

Now you, old warrior, I think might be what I need. Your experience just might make up for my lack of it. And I hope I’m your match in courage. Shall we show them all? Kellen wondered, looking up into the stallion’s eyes. I won’t be the best rider you’ve ever had. But I’ll let you teach me everything you know.

Animal speech was one of the gifts of the Wild Magic, but like so many of the powers of a true Wildmage, it was one that Kellen lacked. Yet the stallion seemed to understand something when Kellen looked into his eyes, because he lowered his head and butted Kellen—hard—in the chest.

“This one,” Kellen said, staggering back a step. Did I choose you? Or did you just choose me?

“It is as I said,” Isinwen said to Ciltesse, sounding smug.

“He would choose Firareth over Anganil.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Blood on the Moon

ANGANIL, KELLEN DISCOVERED, was the name of the young stallion. The mare's name was Grayn. Firareth had apparently rejected several potential riders already—though always with great courtesy, Isinwen assured Kellen.

“I thank you for bringing me to his attention,” Kellen said. He wasn’t sure quite yet whether he meant it or not. He offered Firareth a piece of dried apple—Ciltesse had brought them—and the stallion accepted the treat with grave politeness.

“A commander must do more than look to his mount,” Isinwen said. “Ciltesse was born in Windalorianan, among the Fields of Vardirvoshan, where, it is said, one learns to ride before one learns to walk. It is indeed true that Anganil is the finest of the available destriers, young and in his prime, while in a very few years Firareth will return to Vardirvoshan to live out his days, if Leaf and Star are with him. But he is wise, and can keep a rider safe even when such a one may be … occupied by other matters.”

And what seemed like “a very few years” to the Elves might seem like a considerably longer time to a human, Kellen reflected. And—listening to what Isinwen did not say—he got the impression that Ciltesse’s opinion of Kellen’s horse-manship might be just a bit better than Kellen’s actual skills.

“I am pleased with my choice. Leaf and Star grant that my choice is pleased with me.” And that I can keep him alive.

It was a prayer that Kellen seemed to be making more and more often these days. He didn’t think he could bear the heartbreak of losing another destrier so soon.

SOON they were riding out toward the nearer cavern. Kellen took the opportunity to get to know his new mount, and suspected that Firareth was taking his measure as well. Fortunately, between them Deyishene and Mindaerel had managed to teach him enough horsemanship for him to reassure his new mount that he did know what he was doing, and after a while he felt Firareth relax a bit.

Idalia had contented herself with saying that she was glad to see he was looking so well. Apparently nobody was going to scold him today.

On the other hand, he hadn’t seen Shalkan yet, though he suspected the unicorn was following them at a comfortable—for Shalkan—distance.

When they reached the cavern, Jermayan and Ancaladar were already waiting.

“Better go tell him what you’d like,” Idalia suggested.

Kellen rode forward to where the enormous black dragon crouched in the snow. He was pleased to see that Firareth approached Ancaladar calmly.

“Farneyirel would be pleased to know that Firareth has found a master who will honor him as he deserves,” Jermayan said. “He has waited long to return to the field.”

“I think we’ll do well together,” Kellen said. “Idalia said I should instruct you on how to trigger the traps.”

Ancaladar snorted gustily. Firareth flicked an ear, but was otherwise unimpressed. “Say, rather, you should tell us what you have seen of them. Jermayan will do the rest,” the dragon said.

“I am so instructed,” Kellen said ironically, bowing where he sat. “Most of the ones I saw involved a trip-wire. I saw a lot of trip-wires that didn’t seem to activate any traps I could see. In some places, there was quicksand disguised as stone—that needed no trip-wire at all. In other places, there were rods sticking out of the cave walls, and if you brushed against them, jets of—something—would spurt out of the rock, or jars of acid or poison would be broken or tilted on you. In one place, there was a jet of air flowing continuously across the passage: I don’t know what would have happened if that had been interrupted. And the entire roof of the cavern village is set to collapse—it’s a huge place; I don’t know how they managed it. The trigger for that must be somewhere in the village, I think, but I didn’t go into the village to look for it.”

“A prudent child,” Ancaladar commented. “So, Jermayan, let us snap the wires and smash the sticks, and see what comes of that.” The dragon looked up, studying the snow-covered slope of the mountain. “And I would suggest that everyone stand well back, just to be safe.”

Kellen rode back to the others.

“Ancaladar suggests we move back,” he told them. “And on the whole, I think we ought to be even more cautious than he suggests.”

They retreated to the edge of the little stream. By the time they turned back, Ancaladar had moved back as well, far enough from the cavern mouth so that he’d have plenty of room to launch himself into the air quickly.

Jermayan gestured. A spark of blue fire flew from his hand and vanished into the cavern mouth.

For a very long time, nothing seemed to happen at all. Then the ground beneath the horses’ feet began to tremble and shake, a long low shuddering rumble that went on and on. The Elven destriers shied madly, backing into a streambed that suddenly held ice but no water, as their riders fought to steady them. Kellen could see a plume of—smoke?—dust?—steam? issuing from the cavern’s mouth, as he did his best to reassure Firareth. The destrier might be tranquil and mild-mannered, but this was something wholly unexpected. But the shaking subsided fairly quickly, and the animals steadied, though they were still restless and unhappy.

The traps—there must have been a lot more of them than I saw, Kellen realized. And whatever spell Jermayan had used, it had set off every single one. The cavern mouth … well, it wasn’t there anymore. The ice that had covered the rock face had fallen away in large sheets, and there were deep raw cracks in the exposed granite of the cliff face as the mountain seemed to have … settled.

I hope for their sake all the Crystal Spiders got out all right.

“Look!” Ciltesse said, pointing.

High above where the opening of the cavern had been, the snow on the mountain began to shift. It meant nothing to Kellen, who had never seen either snow or mountains before this winter. But others knew better.

“Snow-spill!” Isinwen shouted. “Ride!”

The horses needed little encouragement to run. Kellen looked back and saw Ancaladar bound into the air. The snow was halfway down the mountain face by now, spreading like a fan.

A large fan.

He could hear it now. A roaring, like a waterfall, but faint and far-off—for the moment.

How much snow was on that mountain?

Was it all coming down?

If the entire army had not come this way the day before, breaking a deep trail in the snow that even another night’s snowfall had been unable to fill, they would not have been able to try to outrun it.

But “try” was all they were able to do.

The roaring now was as loud as the fury of a battle, and the wave of snow pushed wind before it. Kellen felt the rush of air at his back and braced himself even though he knew that it was the most futile of gestures—

Then he felt the spell as it was being cast, and saw two waves of snow as high as Ancaladar’s shoulder pass them by on either side, racing along beside them as fast as a running horse. A few hundred yards further on, the force of the snow-spill was spent, but without Jermayan’s spell it would certainly have been enough to bury them all.

The troop reined in—Kellen had been bringing up the rear—and stopped. Kellen looked back.

There was a deep sheltering “V” in the snow along their track. Beyond that, and to either side, the snow lay white and smooth—and deep. There was no sign of the cavern mouth—or even of the cliff face.

Ancaladar landed a few yards ahead. The dragon kicked up a great plume of snow with his landing, then settled deeply into the snow. Jermayan dismounted, and walked through the snow to Redhelwar. Kellen urged Firareth forward.

Jermayan bowed.

“It seems the cave was more extensively mined than anyone properly understood,” Redhelwar said.

“Ancaladar expected a … small snow-spill,” Jermayan admitted. “He has seen them before, when the snows have been heavy. And we thought—when I sent the wind to scour the caverns—that when the roof of the village cavern collapsed there would be some disturbance, but …”

Jermayan looked a bit shaken, and more than a little drained. Kellen was reminded, once again, that if Ancaladar’s storehouse of power was infinite, Jermayan’s energy was not. He wondered just how much energy it had taken to turn aside that wall of snow.

“But we are all still alive thanks to you, and the caverns are gone, and so are the traps, which is what matters,” Kellen said. “And I do not think, from the way Idalia is looking at us, that either you or I will have to worry about tomorrow’s battle if you do not go and rest now.”

“So I have said,” Ancaladar said, speaking up now. “But I am a mere dragon, so of course my Bonded would not listen to me. No. We must land, and he must assure himself twice-over that what he could see with his own eyes was indeed so, and stand here in the snow when a warm fire and a hot meal is what he truly needs.”

It was amazing, really, how much Ancaladar could sound like Shalkan when he tried, though Kellen had the impression Ancaladar was reserving the worst of his lecture for when he and Jermayan were alone.

“Then let him go to them at once,” Redhelwar said, speaking directly to Ancaladar.

Jermayan bowed once again, and walked back through the snow to Ancaladar.

“Men,” Idalia said in disgust, coming up beside Kellen.

“Wildmages,” Kellen corrected absently. “Or maybe Elven Knights. Keirasti isn’t any more sensible, and she’s a girl.”

“‘Girl’—she’s old enough to be your grandmother,” Idalia said with a snort.

“Great-grandmother, probably,” Kellen said agreeably. “And I suppose the Healers all take care of themselves very sensibly? Or do they work themselves until they drop, going without food and sleep when there are wounded to care for?”

Idalia laughed, looking surprised. “You’re getting far too good at arguing, little brother. And the worst of it is, you’re right—as you know perfectly well, since you’ve worked in the Healers’ tents.”

They ducked their heads, covering their faces as Ancaladar took off, raising a shower of snow. When the black dragon was well airborne, Dionan gave the signal, and they began to ride back toward the camp.

“You’re sure you’re all right?” Idalia asked.

“Fit to fight tomorrow,” Kellen told her, allowing himself just the briefest moment of preening, thinking about his new glory of armor and weaponry. “I’ll be a stunning sight, too. You just wait and see.”

THAT night, Kellen attended the meeting of the senior commanders to plan the placement of the troops. No one had remarked about his presence at all, either for or against it. Kellen kept his mouth shut and his ears open. If he wanted to learn how to handle an army—not just set policy for it, or to react to an emergency facing it—here was the place to begin.

Kellen had expected they would attack the farther cavern sometime during the next day, but Athan Wildmage had said that his Calling Spell needed to be timed to the moon’s appearance in the sky above the cavern mouth. The Shadowed Elves were more likely to come out at night, too, and for once they wanted them to come out.

So the army would have one last day of grace to finish its preparations for attack. One more day to rest, to heal, to mend armor and weapons and make new ones, to plan. The trouble was, without knowing what, exactly, they were going to face, it was difficult to plan.

Redhelwar’s decision was to divide the army into very small, very mobile, sections. It was more likely the Shadowed Elves would attack if they thought the odds looked to be in their favor. The third of the army that was to have been used to attack the nearer cavern would be kept well back and hidden until the enemy was thoroughly committed, and those who were already there had been ordered to spend the day appearing to scatter their forces, on the pretext of building a more permanent set of camps and organizing several hunting parties.

Their strategy was founded on the hope that the Shadowed Elves were just as uncoordinated and barbaric as they had been at the first cavern. There was every possibility for the plan to turn to a disaster if the Shadowed Elves showed any organization and generalship at all. And everyone gathered in Redhelwar’s tent that night knew that every battle they’d had with the enemy thus far might be all part of one long feint: the Shadowed Elves might not actually be the feral half-animal rabble that they seemed. If that was the case, the Elven losses would be heavy tomorrow.

But there was no way to know. Kellen’s Knight-Mage gifts couldn’t truly show the future. At best they seemed to give him a wider view of the present—he’d “seen” the attack on Ysterialpoerin because it was already in motion, and the nearer caverns had already been mined when he’d given his warning that they were too dangerous to invade. And he already knew his battle-sight could be blocked by Demonic magic.

When it came to the outcome of tomorrow’s battle, he knew as little as Redhelwar did. The sole advantage they had was that they had not lost a third of the army to the trapped caverns. Kellen only hoped the enemy did not know that, but there was no way to be sure.

THE following morning, he went out to say good-bye to Shalkan before taking his troop out into position. The morning meal had been lavish—the cooks had truly outdone themselves, since it was the last proper meal the fighters would probably see for a whole day at least—and Kellen was certain he was not the only one who did his best to try not to think of it as a farewell feast.

When he buckled on his new armor for the first time—it had been waiting in his tent when he returned from the meeting the previous night—he had to admit that despite his reservations about what he could not help thinking of as its gaudiness, Artenel had done a magnificent job. As long as he didn’t look at it, it felt just like his old armor, nearly as comfortable as an ordinary suit of clothing. At that, the showy armor actually made him relax a little—it was very difficult to picture himself going out in something that looked like a fancy-dress costume to actually fight. Never mind what his head knew, his insides took one look and didn’t believe. His sword, of course … well, he’d never mistake Light at the Heart of the Mountain for his old sword, but that was not a disadvantage. The sword moved like an extension of his hand—no, his thought. And if he had to kill any more duergar, well, he’d use a spear.

Tucking some delicacies saved from breakfast into his new surcoat, he went up to the Unicorn Knights’ camp. Even if he didn’t have much of an appetite this morning, that never seemed to hinder Shalkan.

Though the Unicorns were posted at Ysterialpoerin now, there was a great deal of traffic back and forth between the city and their camp. Once Kellen and the others were in position, Redhelwar intended to move the units that had been guarding the cavern back to the main camp for a few hours as well. If the Shadowed Elves were watching, the more confusion about who was where, the better.

“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage,” a familiar voice greeted him from the edge of the Unicorn Knights’ encampment.

“I See you, Riasen,” Kellen said. “I’ve come looking for Shalkan. I ride out to the farther cavern in a few hours, and I hoped to see him.”

“And I back to the city.” Riasen shook his head ruefully. “I should have brought an edifying scroll or two—you cannot imagine how very dull it is there! But that’s all to the good, when one is hoping not to be attacked, of course.” He glanced out toward where the unicorns were drifting toward the camp. “One imagines Shalkan will be along in a few moments, if only to admire the fact that you have something near to proper armor at last.”

“Urm. Yes,” Kellen replied, blinking owlishly at him.

Riasen chuckled, and motioned to him to follow toward the center of the Unicorn Knights’ encampment. “Only think what Artenel could have done with enough time and the proper equipment—but still, no one will think badly of you. It is wartime armor, after all, and you will soon have better. And no one, indeed, could find any fault at all with your spurs and sword. Quite fitting, since you come from the sea-city.” He picked up a cup from a table inside the door of his own pavilion, and filled it from a pot steeping on the brazier there before offering it to Kellen. “Tea?”

“I suppose it must be fitting, since the one who gifted me with them is long in years and wisdom,” Kellen said, accepting the inevitable cup of tea with real gratitude. He’d never thought of Armethalieh as a “sea-city” before. He could see the wave pattern in his sword’s quillons, but he still couldn’t make out the pattern on his spurs, even in the strongest sunlight. The stones glowed brilliantly, and he could tell there was supposed to be a pattern, but that was all.

And Riasen, perfectly casually, seemed to find as much fault with his armor as Artenel had.

“Utterly stunning,” Shalkan drawled, mincing into the center of the circle of pavilions. He struck a pose, and somehow managed to remind Kellen of some of his most dandified classmates back in Armethalieh, the ones who spent every moment they weren’t studying the High Magick arguing about clothes. “I can see I shall have to have a new saddle and armor—immediately.”

“Barely worth putting on, I assure you,” Kellen said, doing his best to match Shalkan’s tone. “Still, Artenel does wonders with the poor resources at his command.”

Shalkan snorted rudely. “As if you could tell the difference.”

“Well, I can’t,” Kellen admitted, dropping the pose. “He says it’s sound where it counts, and that’s all I really care about.”

Shalkan shook himself all over in silent laughter. “If you did live a thousand years, I still don’t think they could manage to make an Elf out of you.”

“Probably not,” Kellen agreed.

He finished his tea—it was cold before he was done with it, but the arid winter weather left him constantly thirsty—bowed courteously to Riasen, and followed Shalkan off beyond the circle of pavilions.

“I see you’ve won your spurs—and gained a fine sword,” Shalkan said when they were private. Or as private as things got in a war-camp, anyway.

“Belepheriel wanted me to have them,” Kellen told him, still a bit bemused by it all—and still worried that he might have done something wrong by Elven standards. “I hope I did the right thing by accepting them.”

“If he hadn’t wanted you to have them, he wouldn’t have given them to you,” Shalkan said inarguably. “The way the Elves see things, you honored him by taking them. And if I do say so, you managed your way out of the whole mess fairly gracefully, all things considered.”

“I’m still … well, no. I do know how I got into that mess. And I think I know ‘why,’ too.” He started to rub his eyebrow with his gauntleted hand, then realized what he was doing, and shrugged instead. “The Wild Magic needed to change Belepheriel’s mind about the way he was seeing things before he made some bad decisions. But it wasn’t very comfortable.”

“Magic often isn’t,” Shalkan said shrewdly. “At least today you’ll be dealing with simple straightforward actions with no worry about Elven manners: riding places and killing things.”

“That isn’t exactly straightforward either,” Kellen muttered. Oh, the battles themselves were. But they were brief, compared to the time spent preparing for them and recovering from them. That was filled with complications.

“I brought you some honey-cakes. And I have a question.”

“Honey-cakes first,” Shalkan said firmly. Even though the cold had made them rock-hard, the unicorn enjoyed them thoroughly. “And the question?” he asked, when he’d finished the last crumb.

“Is there supposed to be a pattern on my spurs?” Kellen asked.

From the look on Shalkan’s face, this wasn’t the question he’d been expecting. “Lift your foot,” the unicorn finally said.

A reasonable request; both Kellen’s boots were buried in snow up to the calves. Kellen lifted his foot and brushed the instep-plate and rowel of the spur clear of snow. Shalkan inspected both closely.

“It’s seashells in ocean foam,” he finally reported, in the kindly tones of someone describing a sunset to a blind man.

“Oh.” Kellen put his foot down again. “He told me his grandfather used to go to Armethalieh, that they had a home on one of the Out Islands.”

“If you can call ‘going to Armethalieh’ visiting a place before it exists, then … yes,” Shalkan agreed blandly. “The Elves once ruled the seas as well as the forests. But that was a long time ago, even as Elves think of time.”

Kellen took a deep breath, and regretted it immediately as the cold air seared his throat and lungs. “Are you going to be—” he began.

Shalkan interrupted him. “I’m fine. I will be fine. Now stop worrying about me. As Riasen says, those of us at Ysterialpoerin should probably have brought xaqiue and gan to keep from getting bored. You’re the ones who will be facing moments of unusual interest tonight.”

“That’s one way to think of it,” Kellen said.

But when he had trudged back to his own pavilion again, Kellen somehow felt a little better, though he could not have said why.

IN fact, he and his thirty spent much of the afternoon being as cold and bored as any of Ysterialpoerin’s nearer defenders. Despite knowing Redhelwar’s plan, Kellen felt very much like a xaqiue piece himself—over and over, it seemed they’d no more than settle into one position than the order would come to shift to another. At least the constant shifts in position kept the horses from freezing solid—if the Shadowed Elves did come out as Athan hoped, there’d be a good deal of mounted combat tonight, and none of them could afford to be stiff.

The farther cavern was in a more elevated area than the nearer one. The only entrance the scouting parties had been able to locate was at the end of a twisting path halfway up the mountainside. Kellen knew that there were troops actually on the mountain—the men of the High Reaches, and most of the Knights of Ysterialpoerin, who were most familiar with the local terrain. Kellen certainly didn’t envy them their posts. If it was cold down here—and it was—he could only imagine how much colder it must be farther up the mountain.

One thing a day spent emulating a xaqiue-piece did was give everyone a good idea of the ground they’d be fighting over later. Jermayan had set Coldfire spells over all of them that would trigger with a single word of command, but until that moment, Redhelwar had given orders that there was to be no light at all.

THEY moved through the dark to their final position. It was almost half a league away from the mouth of the cavern, but Kellen knew why his command was here and not in the front lines. Redhelwar was taking every possible precaution against a repeat of the feint against the camp and the attack upon Ysterialpoerin.

He could feel the army around him, waiting. Above the clouds, Jermayan and Ancaladar circled. A light snow was falling; the Wildmages had been willing at dire need to shift the heaviest of the weather a league or so westward, but warned that the lull would only be a day at most, followed by a brutal storm.

Kellen knew, without actually seeing it, the moment that the moon rose above the mountain and Athan began his spell.

Imagination and spell-sight showed him what his own eyes could not: Athan kneeling at his small brazier, his Great Grey Owl perched upon his shoulder; Athan casting the dried herbs upon the coals and calling upon the Wild Magic. Kellen knew from what Idalia had told him beforehand that Athan had asked for no aid to his spell: whatever price the Gods of the Wild Magic asked, Athan would bear the whole cost of the spell and the Casting alone.

Now the price had been asked and agreed to, and Athan’s Calling began, though only the Wildmages gathered here could sense it. Still there was nothing but silence and darkness and the faint moaning of the wind.

Kellen felt, rather than heard, a flicker of movement, and looked up. Athan’s owl glided by in utter silence overhead, a keystone clutched in its talons. The keystone was brilliant with power to Kellen’s spell-sight.

It must be the focus of the Calling spell. Wherever it is, that’s where the Shadowed Elves will try to get to.

Athan still had not moved. The Wildmage stood alone, armored and ready, just below where the path leading up to the cavern opening began.

With a sinking sense of dread, Kellen suspected he knew what the price of Athan’s spell had been: not suicide—for the Gods of the Wild Magic did not ask for things like that—but to offer his life by being the first to meet the Shadowed Elves’ attack. He was a Wildmage, and, standing in the open, he would be an irresistible target for any Tainted creature. For those who fought the Calling spell, his mere presence could serve to draw them out.

He might well survive. There was a chance. And there was no rule that said Athan could not defend himself. But the Mageprice Athan had accepted—had probably accepted, Kellen reminded himself, for he did not know for sure—carried with it a terrible peril.

Still there was silence and an eerie tranquility. Despite the fact that two-thirds of the Elven army shared these woods with him, Kellen could hear nothing, nor did he see anything beyond the men and mounts of his own troop. The moon was the faintest shine in the clouds overhead, casting no light on the snow below.

He felt his stomach knotting again, and his hands were clenched inside his gauntlets. Let Athan’s spell have worked. Let it have worked. If it hasn’t, we’ll have to go in, and if we fight on their ground, they’ll have all the advantages.

Suddenly the false peace of the night shattered. He heard distant shouts—the ring of steel on steel—and a moment later, the entire forest was full-moon bright, as balls of Coldfire appeared over the heads of every Elven Knight.

But he felt Athan die in that same moment, a shining beacon that existed only in his mind, extinguished between one breath and the next.

“There’s more than one exit from the cavern. Be ready.” Jermayan’s voice spoke as if in his ear.

“They’re out,” Kellen said to his troop, grimly. “There are multiple exits from the cavern. Let’s go.”

He could “see” the battlefield nearly as well as Jermayan and Ancaladar could. As Redhelwar had hoped, the sight of their Elven enemy drove the Shadowed Elves to attack recklessly. They swarmed from their cavern like hornets from a nest—and not just from the exit the Elves and Vestakia had first identified. They were burrowing up out of holes concealed by ice high on the mountain as well, attacking the defenders there.

But Redhelwar did not want to contain them or push them back. He wanted as many of them to come out as would come. So the Elves offered little resistance to the attack of their foes, falling back before them.

In Redhelwar’s tent, it had seemed a simple plan, with little that could complicate it.

Kellen’s first hint that things were about to go badly was the arrival of the Deathwings. They’d never flown at night before but suddenly an enormous flock of them appeared.

Half of them went after Ancaladar. The other half swept in low over the army, through the areas of heaviest fighting, but in a few moments it became clear that to attack the Elves was not their purpose.

Again and again they swooped down, snatching up the Shadowed Elves by ones and twos and bearing them over the Elven lines and away. Ancaladar could do nothing to stop them; he and Jermayan had their own battle to fight. Any archer not actively engaged in combat shot at the ghostly targets—aiming for the Shadowed Elves, rather than the Deathwings, as the Shadowed Elves were easier to kill—but it didn’t seem to help. If they managed to kill or wound one of the Shadowed Elves, the Deathwing simply dropped its burden and went back for another. And the Deathwings themselves were nearly impossible to kill with simple arrows.

They have a cache of armor and weapons hidden somewhere else for just this emergency. Kellen knew that with a sudden sinking feeling, without knowing either how he knew it or—worse—knowing how to find it. He only hoped that whatever else the cache contained, it did not contain any of the white rings of metalfire.

Follow them?

No.

It was tempting, but if he pulled his unit out of the outer ring to follow them, he would break the wall of Redhelwar’s defense. And he’d received no clear warning from the Wild Magic that there was a crucial need. It would be the height of folly to go charging off without a direction—leaving a hole in the lines that the others were counting on to be filled.

And without Jermayan in the sky to tell Redhelwar how the battle was progressing on the ground, Kellen was needed here more than ever. He felt Jermayan and Ancaladar being driven further and further away, leaving Redhelwar essentially blind so far as the battle was concerned.

Suddenly he knew what he had to do.

“Ciltesse, take command here. Don’t let them break through, whatever you do.” He touched his spurs lightly to Firareth’s sides, and rode to find Redhelwar.

He’d gone less than a quarter mile when he encountered Shadowed Elves that had broken through the ring. Their tactics against mounted Knights were savage but effective: they struck first against the destrier, if they could, shattering its legs with heavy clubs, and then springing on the downed Knight, using poison, or acid, or thin-bladed knives to destroy the armor’s defenses and kill the Elf within. Every Knight they killed gained them new Elvensteel weapons as well as eliminating an enemy.

The Shadowed Elves swarmed toward Kellen and Firareth. Kellen had an instant’s warning as he felt the stallion gather himself. He took in a sharp breath, and a shiver of energy ran through him; not quite fear, but a close relative—

And then Firareth plunged into the midst of the Shadowed Elves, spinning and striking with hooves and heels and teeth. Kellen struck as well, reaching with his sword what the destrier could not.

Once—it seemed a long time ago now—Jermayan and Valdien had showed him what an Elven destrier was capable of on the field of battle. Kellen had been sure then that he’d never master the intricate cues that would tell his mount what to do, and in fact, he didn’t know them yet. But Firareth obviously knew exactly what the situation called for, and after Master Belesharon’s training—and Shalkan’s—Kellen could stay in the saddle no matter what his mount chose to do.

And Elven-made equestrian armor was just as flexible as anything the Elves made for themselves. So he let battle-sight and Firareth tell him what to do.

It was a dance, a dance in which two moved as one. A deadly dance of hoof and steel, and one that the Shadowed Elves were not prepared for. Firareth might have had some form of battle-sight himself, the way he anticipated what the enemy was going to do next, and met the threat before it could even evolve.

It was over before the Shadowed Elves realized that they were outclassed and outmaneuvered; not one of them escaped.

“Good fellow,” Kellen said a few moments later, patting the side of his mount’s neck—armor against armor, but it would have to do. Firareth turned to look at him—with, Kellen imagined, an air of equal approval. Then he snorted, and looked about, head high. The stallion was excited, obviously looking for more targets.

The Shadowed Elves were trying to break through the line, drawn by the Calling Spell and by the nearness of their enemy. With the arrival of the Deathwings, there was no more question of luring them out—it had become a matter of killing them before they escaped, and everywhere Kellen looked, the fighting was heavy. The skirmishers weren’t armed with the Elven lance, but the line units were, and for all its unwieldiness, it proved their most effective weapon against the Deathwings.

Kellen saw one Elven Knight stand in his stirrups, heft his lance, and fling it skyward like a javelin. It transfixed the body of one of the Deathwings and brought it crashing to the ground. The others with him rode quickly forward, their mounts trampling the creature until they were sure it was dead.

The fighting was frenzied now, but Kellen did his best to detour around it. His goal was to reach Redhelwar.

He found the Elven general on an outcropping of rock overlooking the cavern mouth. Redhelwar was surrounded by his personal guard, and by mounted messengers, whose purpose it was to take orders to the various units engaged in battle.

“Sir!” he called, to catch the commander’s attention.

He caught it, all right. The Elven commander turned in his saddle to stare. “Why are you here?” Redhelwar demanded.

“Jermayan can’t see the battlefield for you,” Kellen said, as his battle-sense and Wildmagery told him just how far they actually were. At the moment Jermayan and Ancaladar were far to the west of Ysterialpoerin. Kellen could locate them as easily as his own right hand. “The Deathwings have driven Ancaladar off. But I can tell you what is happening. The Shadowed Elves are breaking through our lines. And they have weapons and—something—cached somewhere between here and Ysterialpoerin. I don’t know where.”

“If you can see the battlefield, then tell me what you see,” Redhelwar ordered sharply.

Automatically, Kellen closed his eyes, responding to the command as if he’d been bespelled himself. For a moment the world seemed to spin, then everything steadied, dreamlike and impossibly tiny, a pattern in his mind, in colors that only Elves could see. As if it were nothing to do with him, as if it did not matter, he heard himself reciting the places where the line was weak, where units had been decoyed out of position—or slain entirely.

THEY had assumed the numbers of the Shadowed Elves would be similar to what they had encountered in the first cavern—doubled, of course, since they were facing the warriors of two caverns here, but of the same order.

They’d been wrong.

There were far more of them here. The Shadowed Elves thrived on darkness and cold. And they’d been preparing for this battle for a very long time. If Redhelwar had fallen into their trap, and lost a third of his force in the nearer cavern, tonight wouldn’t be a battle at all. It would be a slaughter.

Redhelwar was giving orders to his messengers now, and they sped off like arrows from an Elven bow, but Kellen didn’t listen. The important thing was to see the picture and report it. Would a time ever come when he could see and fight?

“They’re behind the line,” Kellen heard himself say. “They’ve really broken through now; they’ve driven a gap in the lines.”

“Where?”

“East and north.” Not just the few dozen that the Death-wings had managed to carry over their line, but a number that could pose a serious threat to Ysterialpoerin. “A hundred, perhaps more.” He could see how they’d done it—the long perilous climb over the glacier, the bitter clash with the High Reaches warriors, then down the side of the mountain and into the night.

“Go. Find them. There’s little more you can do here,” Redhelwar said.

Kellen opened his eyes, drawing in a deep breath of icy night air, and for a moment the battle spun crazily around him before everything settled again. The world seen only through his human senses seemed oddly flat and simple.

But now urgency tightened his gut, and he had orders to follow. With a quick salute, he turned Firareth about and rode back to his men.

The fighting was heavier now, and several times Kellen was delayed, though he went as quickly as he could. By now the skirmishing units had been drawn into the fighting, called up to replace fallen comrades and to draw the ring of Elvensteel tighter around the enemy.

Kellen located Isinwen—he did not see Ciltesse—at the head of the troop. They had obviously just withdrawn from a clash with the enemy, and were looking about for fresh foes. Isinwen was not riding Cheska, but a strange destrier whose caparison and barding was drenched in blood.

“Ciltesse?” He did not want to know, yet he must ask.

“We were separated,” Isinwen replied, voice cracking and hoarse from shouting. “I have not seen him since.”

There was no time to worry about a single member of the troop. He would either be alive, or dead, and they had a job to do. “Disengage! We have orders! Come with me!”

Isinwen raised the warhorn to his lips and blew a short call. A few moments later a few more members of Kellen’s troop came riding up, their swords black with blood even in the blue light of the Coldfire. Ciltesse was not among them.

“Follow!” Kellen called. “They’ve broken through the lines! We’ve orders to stop them!”

Kellen set a hard pace, and the others followed him in the direction of where the Shadowed Elves had broken through the lines in his battle-vision. Kellen wasn’t sure what their plan was. Escape? To attack Ysterialpoerin? It didn’t matter—whatever they planned, he had to stop it. If he could do no more than warn the defenders of Ysterialpoerin, that would be enough. If this was not completely familiar land, it was familiar enough now, with the Coldfire to help, that he dared take them at a hard canter. They pounded through the soft snow, a growing urgency in him, though no direction as yet.

By now he’d lost all track of time. Athan had not cast his spell until the moon had risen above the mountains, so the battle had begun several hours after sunset. At a guess, it must be after midnight now, but the clouds were denser than ever. The only illumination was the crowns of blue fire each of them carried with him, casting blurred and changing shadows over the snow and against the trees. Only the nearer trees and undergrowth had any definition at all; a few yards away, everything blurred into an insubstantial misty grey.

He carried the map of the terrain in his head—half memory of the maps in Redhelwar’s pavilion, half memory of what his battle-sight had shown him. Their path and the path of the fleeing Shadowed Elves should intersect somewhere ahead.

The forest made pursuit more difficult. Kellen never thought there’d come a time when he’d be wishing for the open icy plains that led up to the nearer cavern, but he did now. He would have been able to see for leagues there, and they could have let the destriers run all-out.

At last Kellen could sense open space ahead. He raised his hand, slowing the horses to a walk.

With the Coldfire, they didn’t have the advantage of surprise, but whatever was there, he wanted to see it before they rushed to engage. And the animals could use a breathing space, even if only for a few minutes.

They reached the edge of the trees.

Ahead of them stretched a long shallow valley. All was black, without even the shadows of trees to give it shape. In the distance, his battle-sight showed him piles of dirt-covered snow, where the Shadowed Elves had dug all the way down into the frozen ground. Two sets of ropes were attached to something beneath the surface of the snow, and the Shadowed Elves—the ones that the Deathwings had lifted over the lines earlier, he thought—were pulling with all their strength. Axes and shovels, and unused coils of rope, were scattered over the surface, discarded when they were no longer needed.

Not a weapons cache. Or if that, then more. A tools cache. But why?

What was buried here that was so important to them that they would dig down through ice and snow and frozen earth to get to it in the middle of a battle? And why now? Why not earlier?

There was something beneath the ground as well. Kellen couldn’t quite make it out, and knew he didn’t have the time to spend trying. The Shadowed Elves were trying to get to it, which meant it would be very bad for the Elves.

“I don’t know what they’re doing, but it doesn’t matter. They want what’s there. We must stop them from getting it,” Kellen said to Isinwen—and, with his heart leaping into his throat, gave the signal to charge.

THEY rode down the valley toward the work party of Shadowed Elves. The second group of Shadowed Elves caught sight of them and began shouting in their strange barking language, running toward them.

“Isinwen, who has the fastest horse?” Kellen shouted, over the sound of their snow-muffled hoofbeats.

“Nironoshan’s Cerlocke is fastest,” Isinwen answered without hesitation.

“Nironoshan—ride to Ysterialpoerin—now—and tell them the Shadowed Elves have broken through our lines. They may expect company!” Kellen ordered at the top of his lungs. His party was outnumbered six to one—at least—and at those odds, it was a more than equal fight. And he dared not assume this was the only group of Shadowed Elves that had broken through Redhelwar’s careful defenses.

“I go!” Nironoshan spurred Cerlocke off at an angle from the main charge, the pale destrier he rode quickly drawing ahead of the others.

Kellen expected the Shadowed Elves to go for weapons as his troop bore down on them, but they only increased their desperate hauling on the ropes. Soon he was close enough to see them by Coldfire instead of battle-sight.

And then to slaughter them.

It was almost too easy. The only difficult thing for him and his troop was reaching them to attack, as the piles of earth and snow on either side formed a natural bulwark that made them difficult to get to. But even while they were being cut down, the Shadowed Elves would not relinquish the ropes leading down into the pit, not even to defend themselves.

And a few seconds after the last of them fell dead, the second wave of Shadowed Elves reached the pit’s edge.

Unlike the others, these were well armed: in the light of the Coldfire, Kellen could see the gleam of looted swords and daggers in their hands.

“On foot!” Kellen shouted, vaulting from Firareth’s saddle and giving the destrier the command to leave the field. Mounted, the Elves were vulnerable to attacks against their horses—the Shadowed Elves had proven that to them time and again this night.

On foot, a chance against these greater numbers. Perhaps.

Once more, his world narrowed to a series of feints and targets, as Kellen’s mind forced his aching cold-stiffened muscles to obey. Each foe he killed was one less for his war brothers to face, and no matter what they did here, Ysterialpoerin was warned.

In a distant part of his mind—the part that must assess things, even now—he knew the battle was going against them. Time and again he felt his comrades die, and fed his fury at their deaths into the fight. Though it cost him dearly in his exhaustion, he summoned Fire, and set a dozen of the enemy burning like torches.

But fire was easy to put out in the midst of a snowfield, and in the moment he was distracted by setting the spell, two Shadowed Elves got past his guard, swarming him like starving rats. It was his cloak that saved him as much as his armor—the coldwarg fur was heavy and thick; it tangled their blades, buying him the vital moment he needed to throw them off.

The ground began to shake.

Kellen hadn’t thought there was anything that would make a Shadowed Elf break off an attack once one of the creatures had begun. But the two that were attacking him actually cowered back, and in their moment of inattention, Kellen killed them both.

Suddenly the pit behind him exploded upward and outward as if it were a stopped-up fountain, spewing ice, stone, and earth high into the air.

And something was rising with it.

Kellen’s first confused impression was “snake”—and he hated snakes—but this was only as much like a snake as the Deathwings were like true bats.

It was the white of dirty snow. It had a head vaguely similar to Ancaladar’s, but there all resemblance ended. The eyes were dead black and malignant, the body that of a serpent’s—if a serpent were large enough to swallow bulls without choking. It radiated cold like a palpable force—the temperature dropped quickly enough to make Kellen’s face hurt, and the pooling blood on the bodies of the Shadowed Elves he’d just killed froze solid with an audible crack.

“Ice-drake!” Sihemand shouted.

One of the creatures Shadow Mountain had bred in the Lost Lands. They radiated cold and exhaled poison.

“Get to the horses!” Kellen ordered. Suddenly it was difficult to talk.

He looked around. The rest of the Shadowed Elves were gone, faded into the darkness. They’d run the moment the ice-drake had burst free.

And the temperature was still dropping. He’d thought he’d been cold before. Now he knew he’d never known the meaning of the word. The ice-drake radiated a cold as intense and deadly as a forging-furnace’s fire. He backed unsteadily away from the pit. His blood-drenched surcoat was frozen to his armor; it tore like paper when he moved.

The ice-drake towered over him, rising as high as the tallest trees in the forest of Ysterialpoerin before arching its neck and beginning to lower itself slowly toward the snow.

Kellen switched to battle-sight, but instead of the familiar overlay in glowing blue and red—showing him the creature’s attack-pattern, and where he might attack in turn—he saw nothing but the same queer fog that had surrounded the coldwarg when they’d been Demon-bespelled.

“Kellen!” Isinwen shouted, rousing him from his daze. “Run!”

He tried, but by now he was so cold that even to move was agony. He managed a few steps and fell, and knew that he couldn’t get up again.

“You will learn to do that which you think you cannot do.” He could hear Master Belesharon’s words in his head. He tasted snow and blood from cold-cracked lips through the facepiece of his armor. He couldn’t run, but he could move. Clutching at his sword, he used it to lever himself to his feet again.

Cold. Even the ice-drake’s presence was lethal. If he stayed here any longer, he would freeze to death.

The ice-drake appeared in front of him, its chin landing in the snow with a soft thump. It opened its jaws. They were large enough, Kellen realized with a distant sense of astonishment, that he could just walk down its throat. But that obviously wasn’t what it had in mind.

And there was no way he could get out of its way.

Fire. I’ll summon fire, he thought desperately.

But there was nothing here that would burn.

Suddenly the ice-drake burst into flames. Its jaws snapped shut and it reared up, looking affronted. A ragged cheer went up from the Elves.

Kellen stared, bewildered. Though every inch of its body was covered in flames—the snow all around it was melting—the fire seemed to have no effect on the monster itself at all.

And then Jermayan and Ancaladar struck from above with all their might.

The great black dragon stooped down out of the sky and seized the ice-drake just behind the head, as an eagle might seize a snake. With great pounding wingbeats, the dragon carried its far-from-helpless prey into the sky.

Kellen almost fell, the relief of rescue was so intense; instead he forced himself to his feet and began to stagger through the slush. Isinwen met him halfway, and dragged him the rest of the way to the horses, boosting him into Firareth’s saddle.

“Can you see it? Can you see Ancaladar? Kellen, tell us!” he demanded.

Kellen shook his head to clear it, looking skyward.

THEY’D barely arrived in time.

Jermayan and Ancaladar had fought the Deathwings before, but never in such numbers, and this time their intent was clear—if they could not harm Ancaladar they would kill his Bonded, for the death of one meant the death of the other.

And they could harm Ancaladar, for the dragon, though large, and fast, and possessed of a tough armored hide, was still flesh and bone and blood.

Their fight carried them far from the mountains, far past Ysterialpoerin. For every one of the white-furred horrors slain by Ancaladar’s teeth and claws—or Jermayan’s sword and spells—two more seemed to take its place. When the creatures could find no other way to attack, they simply threw their bodies at the dragon and his rider, attempting to batter them from the sky by sheer force.

But at last the sky was clear.

“Where now?” Ancaladar asked. Jermayan could feel his Bonded’s weariness. It matched his own. But there was still work to be done; the fight was by no means over, not for them, and not for the army below and behind them.

“Back toward the battlefield. Fly below the clouds. I want to be able to let Redhelwar know how the land lies between Ysterialpoerin and the cavern.”

“Of course,” Ancaladar agreed, curving a wingtip in a gentle arcing descent.

Ysterialpoerin was quiet, as was the camp. But then, running through the snow below, Ancaladar spotted a lone horseman riding at top speed through the snow in the direction of the city.

“That’s Nironoshan. One of Kellen’s troop,” the dragon said.

“Follow his tracks,” Jermayan ordered tersely. Kellen had sent his fastest rider as a messenger to Ysterialpoerin—but why?

A few wingbeats later, he knew.

The ice-drake reared up out of the earth, spraying rock and ice about it with the force of its exit, and then lowered itself to the snow, seeking food. The creatures would eat carrion, or the frozen victims of their radiated cold, but they preferred to stun their prey with their breath and swallow their paralyzed quarry before it died.

Jermayan could see the remains of a battle on the snow below, and a handful of Elven Knights still alive.

And Kellen, directly in the ice-drake’s path.

Jermayan summoned Fire, enfolding the creature in flames. But to his dismay, it was not consumed. The flames coated it like a cloak. They annoyed it. But they did not harm it.

The ice-drake reared back, lifting half its length from the snow and looking for its tormentor.

And Ancaladar stooped upon it, seizing it behind the head, and dragged it into the sky, his mighty wings straining. The ice-drake hissed and thrashed, spewing clouds of poison vapor that were blown harmlessly away by the winds of the upper air before they reached Jermayan.

As the white worm flailed, Jermayan tried spell after spell, before realizing that all of them were useless. No spell that he knew had the slightest effect on the creature. All he could do was use his spells to constantly heal the damage it was doing to both him and Ancaladar with its radiant cold, for as long as his strength held out. Beyond that, this was Ancaladar’s fight alone.

The dragon raked the ice-drake’s body with his formidable hind talons. The ice-drake used its body like a whip, attempting to wrap itself around the dragon’s neck and break it, or strike his wings hard enough to break them.

And no matter what, Ancaladar dared not let go of his grip on the ice-drake’s head.

“THEY’RE fighting,” Kellen said, in response to Isinwen’s question. His battle-sight showed him the combatants, locked in struggle above the clouds. “Ancaladar will win,” he added, with a certainty he did not feel, “and then he and Jermayan can give you all the details.” He shook his head to clear it; there was still work to do. “Come on. Half the Shadowed Elves ran off when that thing came out of the ground. We need to find out where.”

The others were as tired and nearly as battered by the cold as he was, and of the twenty who had ridden away from the main battle with him, five would never ride again.

“The snow is fresh. Let me try,” Reyezeyt said.

EXHAUSTION tugged at Jermayan, but he knew he dared not fail. A moment’s inattention to his spells, and both he and his Bonded would freeze to death. It would not matter which died first, for the other’s death would follow in a heartbeat.

Ancaladar roared with pain and fury as the ice-drake slammed its muscular coils once more into his ribs. This time he was quick enough, darting his head down and to the side. His jaws sank into the ice-drake’s body with a sound like ice breaking on a frozen pond.

For just an instant, the creature went still in agony. Jermayan could taste the foulness of its blood in his own mouth as well as the acid pain of burning cold. But in that instant, Ancaladar claimed the victory.

He curled his hind talons upward, sinking them deep into the ice-drake’s body in an unbreakable grip. It was impossible for him to fly in such a contorted position, but he had flown very high during their battle; now he folded his wings back and simply fell, pulling at the struggling body in his grasp with claws and teeth.

At last, the ice-drake … tore. Jermayan felt it die, felt the ancient and inimical energies fade, and felt Ancaladar’s surge of triumph at the same moment. Ancaladar’s jaws snapped shut—he quickly opened them again, spitting out fragments of flesh—and he straightened his body with a snap, letting the wind pull his wings open.

The ground had been very close.

Relief gave Jermayan new energy, and Ancaladar’s magic was a boundless well for him to draw from. He healed the damage—the last of the damage, for with the ice-drake dead, there would be no more—and sent up a silent prayer of gratitude to Leaf and Star that they had won. He let his own joy and relief spill out to Ancaladar, and felt the dragon share his own.

Ancaladar circled low over the pit from which the ice-drake had emerged, and fastidiously dropped the pieces of the dead creature beside it. There was no blood—that had been spattered to the winds above—and the corpse was already softening in the quick dissolution of creatures of the Dark.

Ancaladar landed, and walked over to the pit, peering down into it curiously.

“I wonder where it leads?” he asked.

“Nowhere we want to go,” Jermayan said grimly. “Nor do I think our enemies should have the use of it.”

The Spell of Unmaking was one of the most complicated spells he knew—and one of the most dangerous, for it returned things to their original condition, and so must be used with great care. But Ancaladar had insisted that he practice it, over and over and over again, and now Jermayan had good reason to be grateful for his teacher’s stern determination.

He cast it now, focusing upon the pit.

Stone and earth and ice shivered; snow leaped up into the air; all caught in the dance of magic. A moment later, the pit was gone, sealed once more.

“Now we return to the fight,” Jermayan said.

“Yessss,” Ancaladar agreed, and Jermayan smiled, just a little, to feel the dragon’s strength return as they launched back into the sky.

THE tracks of the Shadowed Elves led quickly into the trees and scattered, and then vanished altogether. Try as he might, Kellen could summon no vision of What-Had-Been to tell him where they’d gone, nor could Reyezeyt find any trace of them—not even the piles of ash that Shadow Mountain tended to leave of servants it was displeased with.

But it shouldn’t be displeased with these servants, should it? They and the others had done exactly what they’d meant to—unleashed another Shadow-born monster to ravage the Elven lands. If Jermayan and Ancaladar couldn’t kill it …

After at least an hour spent searching for a trail that didn’t exist, even Kellen was willing to give up.

“Come on,” he said wearily. “We’d better report to Redhelwar. But I want to take a last look at the pit, first.” He paused a moment to try and find Jermayan and the dragon with his battle-sense, but even that was weakening as exhaustion claimed him.

When they got there, Kellen received one of the few pleasant surprises of the night. The pit had been filled in—as if it had never been—and lying in the snow atop it were the two halves of the ice-drake.

Like the Deathwings, it seemed to be decomposing with supernatural swiftness, and the destriers, well-trained though they were, flatly refused to approach the stinking remains.

“At least we know who won,” Kellen said. I hope they’re both all right.

They turned their horses back toward the cavern, bearing their dead and leading the now-masterless destriers.

BY the time Kellen and the remains of his troop returned to the lines, the tide of battle had shifted firmly in the Elves’ favor. Belepheriel met them as they were coming in. The Elven Commander rode at the head of a full hundred; for all their numbers, still only a fraction of the troops under his command.

“To see you gladdens my heart, Kellen Knight-Mage,” he said, as serenely as if there was not still fighting going on all around them.

“And mine to see you, Belepheriel,” Kellen said, “though the news I bring makes ill-hearing.”

“Jermayan and Ancaladar have returned, and told us of the ice-drake’s destruction,” the commander replied. “The battle goes well for us—there are only scattered knots of resistance from the enemy now, and our line holds firm. Jermayan has sealed the main entrance with ice, so they may not retreat, and by dawn the field will be ours.”

“And I have failed,” Kellen said bitterly. “I lost the Shadowed Elves I was sent to find—they escaped, and I could find no trace of them. I sent Nironoshan to warn the city, but …”

“And if you had not, Jermayan and Ancaladar would not have known to seek out the ice-drake, and we would have lost far more this night than the location of a few Shadowed Elves,” Belepheriel said reprovingly. “One warrior does not win the war, as Master Belesharon will surely have told you. Come. You have done your part, and now that I have found you, I have done mine. With the line secure, Redhelwar has ordered the Healers’ wagons brought up. You and your men need healing, rest, warmth, and tea. I will make your report to Redhelwar.”

Kellen wanted to argue the point, but he was too tired, and far too cold—and he certainly owed his command and their mounts a rest. So he followed Belepheriel to the Healers’ encampment, a circle of wagons set up half a mile away from the lines.

He was unsurprised to find Idalia there as well. She came out of the Healers’ Tent to view the new arrivals, took one look at him and ordered him into the Healers’ Tent.

“But I’m not—” Kellen began.

“Now.”

Kellen sighed and obeyed “Go warm up,” he said to the others.

It was bright inside the Healers’ Tent, and after so long outside, it seemed swelteringly hot. Frost formed on the exposed surface of Kellen’s armor and melted immediately.

“Jermayan told me about the ice-drake. You know what they can do. Didn’t it occur to you that it was going to kill you? Take off your armor,” Idalia commanded.

He blinked at her in confusion. “Well, yes, but, I—now?”

“No, after the flesh has fallen from your bones with frost-burn,” Idalia said acidly.

Kellen unhooked his cloak and dropped it to the floor of the tent, then pulled off his helmet. Idalia studied his face critically.

“Not too bad,” she pronounced. “Come on—boots and gauntlets.”

His hands and feet had been numb with cold before; the warmth of the tent made them ache now. Clumsily, he managed to get his gauntlets off, and barely remembered to keep his leather gloves on to remove his frost-cold sabatons and greaves—sitting down first on a wooden stool that Idalia impatiently indicated. At last his bare hands and feet were exposed.

The skin was white with cold, but whatever horrible affliction Idalia was looking for, she didn’t find it. Nevertheless, she pulled a pot of salve from her apron pocket, knelt before him, and rubbed it into his feet briskly.

It hurt.

Kellen kept his mouth shut, though. She might think of something worse.

When she was done with his feet, she did his hands—and that hurt even more. Then she wiped her hands clean, took a pot of something else entirely, and daubed it liberally over his face. That, at least, was pleasant—the thick salve smelled of honey and lanolin.

“All right. You can armor up again. You were damned lucky,” Idalia said grudgingly. “I know you were warned about frost-burn.”

“Well, yes,” Kellen admitted. Too long in the cold, and the flesh died on the bone, and then rotted if not seen to. The Healers had been very graphic about it. “But it’s not as if we had time to stop and build a fire.”

Idalia grunted, reluctantly and wordlessly conceding his point.

Kellen gratefully put his armor back on, and picked up his cloak. There were deep slashes in it from Shadowed Elf blades, but perhaps someone would be able to repair it later. He got to his feet.

“Idalia, I lost track of Ciltesse and several of my other people earlier,” he said hesitantly. “Have you seen … ?”

Idalia shook her head, compassion in her expression now. “I haven’t seen them. But I’m not the only Healer here. Someone else may have. Or they may not have been wounded at all. Check with the others.”

Checking with the Healers might be a good idea, but as Kellen left the tent, two more Elves were brought in, one bleeding from a deep sword-cut, the other shaking from poison. Right now the Healers had enough to do.

He left the tent and passed behind the ring of wagons. The horse-lines were set up there, with lanterns illuminating large braziers heating the ever-present kettles of soup and tea. He quickly found the others.

There’s bad news. He could tell that from Isinwen’s posture alone, as the Elven Knight stood huddled against the brazier’s heat, his helmet beneath his arm.

“Tell me quickly,” Kellen said, coming up.

“Ciltesse is dead,” Isinwen said. “I saw Jolia in the horse-lines, and I asked. Others—Valhile, Penerniel, Aldere—”

“Gone to Leaf and Star,” Reyezeyt said softly.

Kellen took a deep breath. He’d seen Ayihletevizi fall earlier tonight in the fighting: Lirgrinteko, Rirnas, Airiren … and those the Shadowed Elves had killed at the pit as well.

He’d lost more than half his command tonight. Elves he’d ridden with, trained with, lived with. Trusted his life to.

And sworn to keep safe.

He bowed his head, feeling his throat swell with unsheddable tears.

“Alakomentai,” Isinwen said gently, “it is not easy. But it happens, in war. You were not generous with our lives. You were our mayn against the enemy, first in every battle.”

Mayn meant “shield” in the Old Tongue of the Elves. Kellen was not comforted. He took a deep breath.

“If our losses were so heavy …” he began.

“Ah. No. Do not fear that,” Reyezeyt said, sounding almost relieved at what he thought was the cause of Kellen’s distress. “The skirmishing units took the brunt of the enemy’s attack. We and the Mountainfolk took the heaviest losses, I hear. The army is still strong.”

It was cold cheer, but it would have to do.

“Come,” Kaldet urged. “Take tea. It is crude and simple stuff, but it will warm you.”

Chapter Twenty-two

Smoke and Storm

AT DAWN THE warhorns blew the victory. Hours before, carts of wounded had begun moving back toward the camp, well guarded by line units that could now be spared from what was by now little more than a series of executions. Kellen and his people remained, having no orders otherwise, and slowly a few last stragglers from Kellen’s troop found them: Rhuifai. Janshil. Krinyen.

Kellen knew that Isinwen was right. Loss was the price of war. No one blamed him for the deaths.

Except himself.

You’ve got to stop this, or you’ll go mad, he told himself. If Belepheriel can forgive you for Imerteniel’s death, then you have to forgive yourself now, because the deaths of those who died tonight are no more your fault than Imerteniel’s was. If you can’t forgive yourself, you’ll be useless in this fight. And the stakes are too high for that.

They knew what they were doing, and they did it willingly and gladly. They were Elven Knights, trained for war. Don’t dishonor their deaths by letting them make you less than what you are.

“We will always remember them,” Kellen said, heavily.

He’d been silent a very long time. Isinwen looked up in surprise when he finally spoke.

“Yes,” he said simply. “Their names will be entered in the Great Book in the House of Sword and Shield. The House will remember them, and so will our children. And Leaf and Star will remember also, as long as the forests bloom and the stars burn.”

And it’s our job to make sure that the forests bloom forever, Kellen thought grimly. I’ll make sure they do. I swear it.

A few hours after dawn, Adaerion rode down with the order for Kellen and his troop to retreat back to camp.

“And make sure you eat and sleep when you get there. You’re going into the cavern tomorrow,” Adaerion said when they were mounted and ready to ride.

Wearily, Kellen turned Firareth’s head toward camp.

KELLEN missed the next battle, which took place that very night. Redhelwar brought the Unicorn Knights up from Ysterialpoerin to the farther cavern, backed them with a handpicked selection of volunteer cavalry that could work in close proximity to unicorns, and arranged for Jermayan and Ancaladar to slaughter a small herd of deer directly below the cavern mouth.

He didn’t ask Jermayan to unseal the ice barriers over the cavern openings. There was no need.

The ever-voracious Goblins, lured out into the darkness by the scent of fresh meat, swarmed toward the mound of venison through the ice and rock. And once they began to feed, the Unicorn Knights attacked. One thrust of their mounts’ horns would kill a Goblin, and though the creatures spat poison, the touch of a unicorn’s horn could quickly heal the hurt.

Though the Elves slew them in great numbers, the lure of food—dead deer, the bodies of slain Goblins, and the prospect of living prey—kept the creatures coming. They must have been more than usually ravenous; perhaps the Shadowed Elves had kept them short of prey. Many of them stopped to eat instead of attacking, and Elven lancers, riding in and out of the fray, quickly added the new arrivals to the swiftly growing mound of dead at little risk to themselves. Goblins would rather eat than kill and would break off an attack in order to feed. Only in the absence of food were they truly dangerous to an enemy. So long as there was something to eat, they could be killed with relative impunity.

And at last, no more Goblins emerged into the upper air.

As Redhelwar had told Kellen, the Elves had hunted Goblins many times in the past.

THAT was the tale Kellen heard when he was roused at dawn of the next day. He might have slept even longer, save for the fact that someone was shaking the bells at the door of his tent—and had been for some time, by the sound of things.

He staggered over to the doorway, still wearing his armor’s underpadding. Idalia was standing there, a roll of cloth under one arm and a covered mug in the other.

“Oh, good,” she said. “You’re still alive. You certainly slept like the dead.” She dumped the bundle on the floor of his tent and held out the mug. “Amethaliehan Black. I figured you’d need something stronger than Winter Spice this morning.”

“How long … ?” Kellen croaked, snatching for the mug and flipping back the lid. The fragrant smell of—very strong—tea filled the pavilion. He drank eagerly.

“Let’s see,” Idalia said, pretending to think about it. “It’s dawn, so the battle at the cavern ended yesterday morning. Last night the Unicorn Knights—with a little help from qualifying cavalry—lured out and killed what’s probably all of the Goblins from the caverns. Now Redhelwar wants to see you as soon as you’ve eaten. So you should probably get dressed and go see him.” She dropped the tent flap and walked off while Kellen was still coining to terms with being awake.

Kellen finished his tea and put on his armor—apparently he’d cleaned both before passing out yesterday, though he didn’t remember doing it—and put on a fresh surcoat. The bundle Idalia had dropped was his coldwarg-fur cloak, mended.

I have to remember to thank her for that—if she won’t take my head off for it.

PETARIEL was in the dining tent, and Kellen got a more detailed version of the slaughter of the Goblins from him as he worked his way through a platterful of food.

“I wish I’d been there,” he said, surprised to find it was true.

“Well, we can’t let you have all the fun,” Petariel said reprovingly. “It made a nice change from riding picket around the Heart of the Forest, I assure you. We return Nironoshan to you, incidentally—while we thank you for the warning, if you’ve lost any Shadowed Elves, I assure you, we haven’t found them.”

“They’ve probably run off to some other rat-hole,” Kellen said darkly. “Just … in case they haven’t …”

“We’ll continue to look for them,” Petariel assured him. “But I don’t think I can promise to return them to you in the condition you last saw them.”

Kellen shook his head, smiling painfully. He knew Petariel’s lightly-mocking words were a mask for the grief that all the Elves shared at being forced to execute those they thought of as their own kind.

He understood it better than he would have once. Petariel had offered Kellen neither sympathy nor acknowledgment for the members of his troop he had lost in the battle, though he was sure Petariel knew about them, and for that, Kellen was profoundly grateful. If Petariel had, Kellen wasn’t sure he’d have been able to stand it.

“I wouldn’t dream of asking you to return them at all,” he said, striving to match his friend’s tone. “One does not ask for the return of a gift.”

“Since you have given me such a rich gift, I shall have to ask Gesade what I may gift you with in suitable recompense,” Petariel said. “But you must go now, else you will be late for the day’s interesting events.”

WHEN Kellen arrived in Redhelwar’s pavilion, the senior commanders, Idalia, Vestakia—in her scarlet armor—and Jermayan were already there. Once he would have fretted about being late. Now Kellen simply assumed that if Redhelwar had wanted him earlier, he would have sent someone to fetch him.

“Kellen Knigh/*t-Mage,” Redhelwar greeted him. “It is now time to finish what we have begun. Vestakia must lead us to the Shadowed Elf village.”

Kellen thought about it for a moment. “Will it work?” he asked bluntly. “I know you can sense Taint, Vestakia, but the Shadowed Elves aren’t the only Tainted things still in there—even without Goblins.”

Vestakia nodded. “I know I can’t tell one kind of Tainted creature from another, but from what Jermayan says about the duergar, if we go in lit with Coldfire, they’ll sense it and get as far away from us as possible—and the Shadowed Elves won’t.”

We hope, Kellen thought grimly.

“We’ve killed all—or nearly all—the Goblins, and most of the fighting males,” Redhelwar said. “What you should face today should be only females and young, though in greater numbers than you have faced before.”

Kellen nodded. “Then Vestakia will be able to lead us to the village. And once she’s found it, she’ll return to the surface immediately.”

“I won’t object,” Vestakia said with a rueful smile.

JERMAYAN and Ancaladar were waiting for them at the cavern mouth. The day was dark, and even cold as it was, the air felt heavy instead of crisp. Kellen remembered what the other Wildmages had said about the weather. Because of that—and because clearing the caverns of all their Tainted inhabitants would probably not be the work of a single day, Redhelwar would be making a second, temporary, camp here, once the battlefield had been cleared. The Elves were still working to remove the bodies of the slain Shadowed Elves as the fighting force rode through, and everywhere Kellen looked the snow was churned and stained. He found himself looking forward to the snow to come.

Before they’d arrived, Jermayan had improved the path to the cavern mouth—now it was a long gentle slope instead of the steep twisting path the Shadowed Elves had carved. As those who would enter the cavern began to dismount, he banished the shield of ice that had barred the entrance.

“First ranks, take your shields,” Adaerion ordered.

The supply wagon with Artenel’s experimental shields stood ready and waiting. Kellen collected his and hefted it. Artenel had made some improvements, including a shoulder-piece that would allow the shield’s weight to be more evenly-distributed. There weren’t enough shields for everyone, but at least those in front would have greater protection than before from the Shadowed Elves’ preferred weapons.

They ascended into the cavern. Kellen and Isinwen led, with Idalia and Vestakia directly behind him. As before, the passageway was straight at first, and narrow enough that only two Elven Knights could walk side-by-side. Kellen walked carefully, alert for trip-wires. Just because they didn’t expect this lair to be catch-trapped didn’t mean it might not be. And a quickly prepared trap could be just as lethal as one that had been moonturns in the making.

But he saw nothing at all—not trip-wire, goblin, nor Shadowed Elf—and soon they came to the first point in the cavern where a decision as to their direction must be made. By now, the only light came from the Coldfire that crowned them all.

Behind him, he heard Vestakia’s breathing grow ragged, though she tried hard to control it.

“Which way?” Kellen asked.

“Left—far left,” she corrected, as the tunnel branched in all directions here.

UNLIKE the last two Shadowed Elf caverns Kellen had been in, this one was a honeycomb of tunnels and chambers, and after the second turn, he sent someone back to mark their path, for without clear signs, they might never find their way out again. Still they saw no sign of the enemy, and Kellen began to believe that, once again, the rest of the Shadowed Elves meant to make a stand at the village.

Surely they know that’s useless? Kellen thought. There was something disturbing about the idea that this part of the battle would repeat the previous one. Everything they’d seen so far told them that the Shadowed Elves had learned from the first battle. They would know that hiding wouldn’t save them.

“There’s something wrong here,” he said to Isinwen.

“Tell me,” Isinwen said instantly.

“Nothing clear.” Of course. “It just doesn’t feel as if things are quite as they should be here. I can’t tell more than that.”

Behind him, Vestakia choked out a laugh, then gagged and began to cough.

“Let me make this known to Redhelwar. Any information is better than none,” Isinwen said.

“Yes.” Kellen stopped while Isinwen moved back through the line to find a runner to carry the message. “Vestakia, are you all right?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Vestakia said, sounding breathless and a bit irritated. “I don’t know what you mean about things being not quite right here. They certainly feel normal to me—all wrong!”

Isinwen returned, and they continued.

Vestakia grew weaker the deeper they went into the mountain, until Kellen wondered if she would actually be able to lead them the entire way to the village. Her breathing now was punctuated by strangled whimpers of pain, and Idalia was all-but-carrying her.

But she never faltered, giving them their directions in a clear—though shaking—whisper each time the path became confused. Her courage was as true as a sword blade. If there was a single Elf in the entire army who still doubted her—after today, that doubt would be gone.

“There,” she said at last, in a voice so faint Kellen had to strain to hear it. “Look … ahead … to the left …”

“Wait here,” Kellen said to Isinwen.

They stood at the entrance to a huge cavern. By now Kellen had lost all sense of time; without Vestakia’s guidance, he would have been certain they’d been wandering in circles. He left the others and crossed the cavern, senses alert, looking for any exit to the left.

He nearly missed it. The opening was small and narrow, as Shadowed Elf passageways tended to be, but when he looked cautiously through it he could see—at the bottom of a short series of shallow terraces—the glowing firepit that marked a Shadowed Elf village. And though it was too dark to see clearly, in the cavern beyond, he sensed Life in abundance.

And the sense of wrongness he’d felt before came back again, stronger.

But still no clearer.

He saw no traps.

For a moment Kellen considered retreating. Adaerion was in charge of the assault, but he was certain Adaerion would listen to him if he said they should leave.

But no. There was something down there. Even if it didn’t turn out to be Shadowed Elves, they needed to either kill it, rescue it, or talk to it. Their job was to find out which—just as soon as Vestakia was safe.

He returned quickly to the others.

“That’s it. Get her out of here,” he said to Idalia. “Go with her. Tell Redhelwar … something’s not the way it’s supposed to be. I can’t figure out anything more.”

“I’ll tell Jermayan, too,” Idalia said. “Maybe he can help.”

THE cavern outside the entrance was large enough for them to gather a good portion of their assault force there as they waited for the others to get back to the surface. Kellen tried to bring his sense of foreboding into sharper focus, but could not. Something was not right. That was all he knew.

“Kellen, you must go first,” Adaerion said. “If it is an ambush, you will be able to tell us at once. After you, all those with Artenel’s shields. We shall surround the village if we can, and … do what we must.”

Kellen and the others nodded. None of them liked the necessity that lay before them but it had to be done.

And what other terrible things will have to be done, before the power of Shadow Mountain is broken? Kellen wondered uneasily.

AT last it was time. Kellen hefted his shield and stepped through the doorway.

He quickly slipped to one side, keeping the rock at his back. His battle-sight showed no threat. There was utter silence in the cavern, save for the faint sound of water dripping steadily somewhere far away.

The Elves followed him quickly, each crowned with Coldfire. The more that came through, the brighter the cavern became. They spread out along the terraces—five shallow broad steps, Kellen now saw, something the cave itself had created, smoothed and evened by the passing of countless generations of Shadowed Elf footsteps.

The cavern itself was a beautiful thing. The stone ceiling dripped with eternal icicles of stone, some of which, at the edges of the cavern, had grown long enough to touch the floor. The cavern had obviously once been filled with them, and—just as obviously—those in the center had been cut away and used to build the village huts, giving many of them an odd resemblance to the log house Kellen had shared with Idalia in the Wildwood.

This village was larger than the last one they’d seen, the structures more elaborate, indicating longer habitation. But all the life Kellen sensed here was concealed within those huts—though this cavern had many exits, Kellen could not perceive a single Shadowed Elf lurking in ambush.

Soon the attack force had moved into position. And still there was no sound, no movement, from the Shadowed Elves everyone knew were there.

Adaerion indicated the nearest hut, and pointed to Keirasti, communicating solely by gesture. She pointed to five of her command, and moved toward it.

Then everything began to happen at once.

They can’t possibly all fit into these huts! Kellen realized belatedly. A dozen yelping children swarmed from the hut just as Keirasti and her troops reached it.

As if their screams had been a signal—or perhaps because they could not bear to lie concealed a moment longer—the door of every hut burst open, and barking, yelping Shadowed Elf young burst forth, running at the Elves. They were every size from those barely able to walk on their own to those half-grown, and they attacked the Elves in the manner of starving rats.

There was not one full-grown Shadowed Elf among them.

“Children,” Kellen whispered in horror. “Nothing but children.”

He ran into the first hut, the one Keirasti had approached. Lying on the floor, pushed into a corner, he saw half-a-dozen Shadowed Elf infants. A couple were still moving feebly. The others were already dead.

They starved to death. There was no one here to care for them, and they starved to death.

Because their mothers were elsewhere …

He ran back outside and grabbed the nearest Elf he could pull from the fighting. “Go—run—tell Redhelwar. All the adult females are somewhere else. They aren’t in the caverns.”

He saw the Elven Knight turn away to carry his message, and raised his sword, covering the warrior’s retreat.

THE Winged Gods had warned them centuries ago that this day would come, and so, against the Time of Testing, they had prepared, digging their long tunnels deep into the rock, preparing weapons, making all ready.

When the day came that the Hated Ones summoned the Brothers into the night to die, the Sisters were ready. They gave their last orders to their young. They went to the tunnels. And there they waited, knowing they must not dig their own way to the surface until they knew all was lost.

But all was not lost.

The last of the Brothers came for them, just as the Winged Gods had promised that they would. They brought them into the terrible cold bright world of the upper air, promising them blood and meat enough to atone for the death of every cub. With weapons in hand and death in their hearts, the Sisters and the Brothers hurried toward the place where the Hated Ones made their home.

THE Unicorn Knights were working a wide circle through the heart-forest, carefully searching for anything out of place, while the regular cavalry patrolled the city just outside its boundaries. Despite the fact that there had been no attack—nor was likely to be one—neither group was less than alert. Elves were a patient people.

“Centaurs coming,” Gesade said, sniffing the wind. “A day or two, I think.”

“It will be good to have the reinforcements,” Petariel said. “And good of them to travel so far from their farms in winter. We must make them welcome.”

Gesade sniffed again. “The wind’s wrong, but … Something. Let’s go look.”

Unicorn and rider trotted off along their assigned path through the snowy forest.

VANDELT and Merchan had been partners rather longer than the usual pairing among the Unicorn Knights; a little over a century now. Vandelt had never found the Elf to whom his soul could bond, and Merchan simply said that Vandelt was incapable of managing without him. Vandelt might have been Captain of the Unicorns if he’d chosen—he’d certainly been a Unicorn Knight longer than anyone else currently serving among them—but he was far more interested in his garden, and he was quite willing to admit that he had no interest in command. Let Petariel have that honor, with Vandelt’s great goodwill.

But he had seen his fragile and delicate garden at Deskethomaynel turn to dust in the Great Drought, and he was as willing as anyone to strike out at the servants of those who had killed his beloved plants. And he was by no means stupid, merely unambitious.

So when Merchan warned that someone was approaching from the direction they had been set to watch, Vandelt blew a warning immediately, even before he rode out to investigate further.

It did not save them.

The arrow took Merchan squarely in the chest. It did not penetrate his armor, but it clung, and it burned. Vandelt could smell the stench of burning fur, see the shimmer of heat, and see wisps of smoke as the padding beneath Merchan’s collet began to kindle.

But of their attackers, he saw nothing.

“Run, Merchan!”

The unicorn turned, heading back toward their own lines. Vandelt raised his horn to blow a second, more urgent warning, but it was too late. Merchan had only gone a few yards before a net fell over them from above, tangling them in its meshes and sending Merchan crashing to the forest floor.

Before Vandelt could cut them free, the Shadowed Elves dropped from the trees, long knives flashing in the weak sunlight. Merchan and his rider died within seconds of each other.

The Shadowed Elves cut the ring of burning metal carefully from the unicorn’s body, handling it with tongs, and spiked it to the nearest tree.

Then they moved on.

“KELLEN says that something’s wrong.”

Idalia passed Vestakia into the hands of the waiting Healers, who would take her back to the temporary camp a mile away as quickly as possible—distance was truly the best remedy for what ailed her, that, and a great deal of rest—and turned back to the Elven general.

“He will have given you all the information he had, of course,” Redhelwar said imperturbably.

“Well, his precise words were ‘tell Redhelwar something’s not the way it’s supposed to be,’ if that helps. He couldn’t tell me more than that. He did try.”

“I know Kellen. He will have—” Redhelwar broke off, looking past her. He’d looked grim a moment before. Now he looked appalled.

Idalia followed the direction of his gaze. A single Elven Knight was running toward them from the cavern mouth, running as if more than his life depended upon it.

He slid to his knees at the feet of Redhelwar’s bay destrier.

“A feint,” he gasped. “The females are not there. Kellen said—the females are not in the caverns.”

“But the children were,” Idalia said with sudden bleak understanding. “They left them behind, so Vestakia would have something to follow.”

Redhelwar barely moved. His voice did not waver.

“Dionan, tell Jermayan what Tildaril has said. Request him, if it is possible, to find where the females have gone.”

Dionan rode away immediately to where Jermayan and Ancaladar waited on the cliff above the cavern entrance.

“Padredor, I leave this secondary camp in your keeping. Guard it—and Vestakia—well. When the others return from the caverns, tell them we proceed as planned,” Redhelwar continued.

“Yes, Redhelwar,” Padredor said. Whatever might be happening elsewhere, the caverns must still be scoured.

“Tildaril, Idalia, I thank you both for your warnings. When you see Kellen next, tell him he did all that anyone could ask of him. I must return to camp. If the females are gone, we must look to the location of the next attack.”

He turned and rode away.

Yes, Kellen has done all that anyone could ask of him—not that he’ll believe that, Idalia thought with a resigned sigh. She went to fetch Cella for the ride back to the nearer camp. Her tools were there, including her favorite scrying bowl. Perhaps she could see something useful.

VANDELT’S warning had not been in vain, for it was heard and relayed across the forest by a dozen horns even before he was struck down. But it had been a warning only: the Unicorn Knights were still not sure what they faced as they rode toward Vandelt’s patrol area.

“I smell blood—and smoke,” Gesade said, alarmed.

Suddenly she leaped forward. A net fell to the snow in the place where she’d been.

“Above!” Petariel cried.

Unicorn Knights fired into the trees as their mounts dodged madly, evading nets, spears, and deadly fragile bottles of acid. A few bodies fell, but not enough—and from their concealment in the trees, Shadowed Elf archers were returning fire, with the terrible poisoned arrows that the Elves had learned to fear.

In the rear of the vanguard, Menerchel blew the Call to Battle, loudly enough to wake the forest itself.

Leaf and Star, guard and guide us this day! Petariel thought. Their ambush having failed, the enemy revealed themselves plainly now: not the two-score refugees from the battle that Kellen had warned them of—hundreds of Shadowed Elves swarmed through the trees and over the forest floor. They attacked where the army was weakest: Ysterialpoerin.

And Gesade had been right. Now he smelled it too.

The forest was burning.

ALMOST before Dionan had finished speaking, Ancaladar took to the air. The oncoming storm made the air currents turbulent and hard to predict; higher altitude would have made flight easier, but to seek greater height was the one thing they could not do. He and Jermayan must find the vanished Shadowed Elf females that Kellen had warned them of, and to do that they must fly low enough to see the ground.

Ancaladar saw nothing moving below, save for Redhelwar and his troops making their way back toward the main camp. He swept past the camp, in a long curve—east, then north. The ground was harder to see here—there were fewer patches of open land, and more forest—but Ancaladar had hunted his own food for over a millennium. He was an expert tracker, and his eyes were sharp. He studied the ground closely, searching for signs of their prey.

“Ancaladar—look.”

His Bonded’s voice was tight with fear.

Ancaladar raised his eyes to the horizon.

In the distance, near the Elven city—smoke.

Fire.

THERE was no thought of containment, no possibility of a careful battle plan. Even being near these creatures was utterly painful to the unicorns—a disastrous miscalculation that their enemy was quick to capitalize upon.

The Unicorn Knights fought on foot at Petariel’s command. They’d ordered their mounts to run, but the unicorns couldn’t—or wouldn’t—leave their partners.

The cavalry units fought on foot as well, for they had all learned quickly that a mounted warrior was at a disadvantage against this foe. Even Kindolhinadetil’s Guard had come at the sound of the warhorns to lend its strength to the fight.

The Shadowed Elves died—but taking far too many of the Elves with them.

And the forest was burning.

NOW Jermayan saw tracks where no tracks should be—looking down through the trees, he could see places where the snow had been trampled by the passing of hundreds of feet.

And ahead, curls of smoke rising from Ysterialpoerin’s forest in a score of places. Smoldering still, but about to burst into true flame. And when they did …

The fire would take The Heart of the Forest with it.

Once before, Kellen had stopped the Shadowed Elves from bringing disks of ever-burning metal to the trees. This time they must have succeeded. He could call those pieces of metal forth from their hiding places, but it would take time—time to find them, time to bespell them—and meanwhile the forest would catch, and kindle …

And his comrades would die, while he spent himself on this, instead of coming to their aid.

“You know how to stop this,” Ancaladar said quietly. “The snow is near. Bring it now.”

Yes. Jermayan took a deep breath as Ancaladar made a wide sweep around the heart-forest. He forced himself to set aside his fury and uncertainty to become an untroubled vessel of magic. The snow would keep the fires from spreading, buy him time to come to the aid of the army.

He could feel the patterns of the weather through Ancaladar’s senses. Now he reached out with his magic to the coming storm, bringing what would have been here by tomorrow’s dawn immediately.

The sky darkened. Wind lashed the trees below, forced into the valley by storm clouds wrenched from their proper places. The air currents boiled like an icy broth, and Ancaladar battled to stay skyborne.

The blizzard came, as inexorable and deadly as a breaking wave. An updraft sucked dragon and rider suddenly high into the clouds; instantly Jermayan was blinded by wet icy mist; deafened by the crash of air colliding with air as solidly and loudly as boulders in a flood-tossed streambed. Jermayan felt his skin begin to prickle, and barely threw a shield around both of them in time. Lightning chained across the sky, striking against his shields again and again, as if the weather itself were angry about its mishandling.

It was needed, Jermayan thought, as he and Ancaladar were hurled across the clouds. Forgive me.

Ancaladar fought for altitude, his wings straining in their sockets, and after a desperate battle they were above the storm, soaring through calm winds and sunlight as sheets of ice crackled and fell from the dragon’s great wings. Jermayan looked down at the roiling cauldron of black snowheavy clouds that filled the Ysterialpoerin valley. It was snowing now, a blizzard that would not spend itself easily or quickly. And though snow would not quench the Shadowed Elves’ burning metal, nothing else would burn. The damage to the forest would not spread.

“Not an elegant execution,” Ancaladar said at last, sounding both amused and breathless. “But effective. Are you well, Bonded?”

“I shall be better when the enemy is vanquished,” Jermayan said. “Though I wish it did not have to be. Are you ready to return?”

“I shall be quick,” Ancaladar said. The great black dragon folded his wings and dove through the storm, falling to earth as swiftly as if he were a thunderbolt himself.

AT last the bitter work beneath the ground was done. Not without casualties—for even the Shadowed Elf young fought with desperate intensity—but it was done. All were dead, even the infants—and that, the Elves could tell themselves, was an act of mercy, for the youngest had obviously gone untended by their siblings.

They settled the bodies neatly, but left them behind to recover later, for Adaerion was uneasy about what might be happening above.

Kellen had led the host going in. This time he was last out, for the caverns were not yet safe, even if no Shadowed Elves or goblins remained here. There were still the duergar to hunt down; Adaerion could be certain Kellen could resist their lure, and could protect the others from giving in to it.

Figuring out how to hunt them down—so the caverns could be finally cleared—was a problem for another day.

And even when we clear this place out, who knows how many more lairs remain? Kellen thought wearily. And this isn’t even the war. This is just another of Shadow Mountain’s strategies to weaken us BEFORE the war.

He had never felt so close to despair.

BY the time he reached the surface, Kellen already knew—from talk passed back up the line—that the promised blizzard had come early—magically early. No one knew why, but everyone was agreed that the Wildmages would not have called it.

Fresher information came the closer Kellen got to the surface, but it was frustratingly incomplete. A battle at Ysterialpoerin. Their own orders remained the same: stay here and clear the caverns.

At last he reached the end-tunnel, and almost wished he hadn’t.

Snow was blown along half its length. He could see nothing beyond the entrance but dim whiteness. Each pair of Knights who walked out through the entrance was visible for only a few seconds before vanishing into the dense all-concealing snow. Their heavy cloaks whipped around them as if they were made of thin silk.

Kellen hurried forward, all but shoving Isinwen ahead of him. They must have won at Ysterialpoerin. Redhelwar would surely have been able to get the reserves from the camp to the city in time to support them.

He was grateful that Jermayan had taken the time to reshape the ramp out of the caves. The wind was fierce, and the snow that covered it had been packed down to ice by the feet of those before him. If it had been any steeper, it would have been a slide, not a pathway.

He looked for Adaerion, but it was Jermayan who came toward him out of the snow.

“Shalkan is asking for you. Come quickly.”

“Shalkan?” Shalkan was at Ysterialpoerin!

“He is unhurt. But … hurry.”

JERMAYAN had brought the storm. Kellen gathered that much from the Elven Knight’s half-distracted explanation on the flight to Ysterialpoerin. That, and that the Elves had won the battle.

“I thought for the forest, and the city. It did not matter to the Shadowed Elves or to their masters if they all died, so long as they accomplished their task of destruction, and so I looked first to the trees. Snow would slow the burning, and its cause could be looked to later. So that is a great victory.” Jermayan’s voice was bitter, carried back to Kellen as they flew through the clear air and sunlight above the storm. “When poets unborn sing of this day in centuries to come, surely they will say that we won.”

“Jermayan—” Kellen began. If he couldn’t get some straight answers out of Jermayan soon, he was fairly sure he was going to start shouting.

“Not now,” Ancaladar said.

The dragon tilted his wings, diving back into the storm, and speech became impossible in the maelstrom of their descent.

Kellen was working the saddle-straps before Ancaladar had quite settled. The dragon had landed in a clearing barely big enough to accommodate him—a neat piece of flying with the winds as strong as they were. Kellen slid down the dragon’s ice-covered ribs into a drift of snow.

“Shalkan!” he shouted.

“That way.” Ancaladar extended his neck in the direction Kellen needed to go. “Hurry.”

Kellen ran.

HE came upon it all at once, a scene so hideous that at first his mind refused to admit what it saw, and then when he realized what he was seeing, Kellen staggered back against a tree, bile rising in his throat.

Dead unicorns.

There were … too many to count. They had been laid in the snow in rows, neatly, as the Elves set their own dead, fresh-removed from the battlefield. Their bodies were rapidly being covered by the falling snow, covering the hideous wounds, the shattered horns.

Dead, they looked so small …

“Kellen. Come.”

Shalkan appeared in front of him, blocking his view of the dead and rousing him from his horrified daze. The unicorn was glowing, just as he had on the night Kellen had first seen him.

Kellen reached out his gauntlet blindly and closed it over Shalkan’s mane, letting the unicorn lead him away.

“Shadowed Elves did this,” Kellen said a few moments later. It wasn’t a question.

“The females from the caverns attacked, led by the males that escaped Athan’s call. The females had all borne young. It made things difficult. Now.” Shalkan stopped and looked at Kellen.

“Many of us are hurt. I am taking you to where the Healers are caring for us—but as you know, only a particular sort of Healer can be of use to us.”

“A virgin,” Kellen said. “A chaste virgin.”

“Fortunately there are a few of those around,” Shalkan said, with a ghost of his usual dry humor. “So you will see blood and wounds in plenty, but nothing the Healers cannot handle. And the Knights may go to the Wildmages, of course—as soon as the rest of them manage to here. I don’t say the blizzard wasn’t necessary. But it causes problems.”

The Knights can go to the Wildmages. But the unicorns can’t. Because—

“I can’t be—” Kellen began, embarrassed and outraged.

“You are,” Shalkan said inexorably. “The only Wildmage who can touch us. You have seen a unicorn healed. If you can heal Gesade, she will live.”

Gesade!

“Idalia—Jermayan—” Kellen said desperately.

“Cannot approach her. It would kill her,” Shalkan said. “She is very badly hurt. You are her only hope.”

I can’t do this! “I need tools,” Kellen said, shutting away his fear. “And someone to share the price.”

“Both are waiting,” Shalkan said. He hesitated for a moment. “There’s something else you probably need to know. Petariel is dead.”

Kellen took a deep breath. He’d shared his morning meal with Petariel. They’d joked together about Petariel going off to a dull day of guarding something nobody was going to attack. And now he would never speak to Petariel again. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that eventually he would weep. Now, though, all he could feel was a terrible emptiness.

Though it was not as terrible as the emptiness that would move within Gesade.

Shalkan began to move forward once more, as quickly as the deep snow would allow.

“Does she know?” Kellen asked.

“We aren’t sure,” Shalkan said.

A few moments later they arrived at the clearing where the wounded unicorns were being tended. It had been hastily enclosed with awnings of heavy silk canvas hung between the trees and overhead, and the ground was covered with sleeping mats, cloaks, and even carpets. Several heavy braziers heated the air.

Kellen and Shalkan stepped inside. Here the air was moist, and filled with smells, some familiar to Kellen, some not. The cinnamon scent of unicorns. The oddly-sweet scent of Elven blood. The rank scent of Shadowed Elf blood, and—faintly—the acrid scent of the poison they used on their weapons. The cloying smell of burn ointment, and the flowery scent of Night’s Daughter, the herb that Jermayan had used so liberally on Kellen’s burns to numb the pain. He could never smell it without remembering that long torturous journey back from the Black Cairn, and ever since then, the scent recalled unpleasant memories.

He knew everyone here, but he didn’t dare stop, didn’t dare let himself see any of them. Not now. He had to think of only one thing right now.

Gesade.

She was at the far end of the tent, lying on her side. The overpowering reek of Night’s Daughter nearly made him gag; she smelled as if they’d bathed her in it. Her fore and hind legs were tied together. Trigwenior and Ansansoniel knelt before her, holding them gently, and Menerchel sat on her shoulders. Even though she had been heavily dosed with a sleeping cordial—Kellen could smell it from where he stood—she was thrashing weakly, trying to get to her feet. The three of them spoke to her soothingly, trying to calm her, but she was beyond hearing.

Her entire head and most of her neck were completely swathed in salve-soaked cloths. There was an airhole at the end through which he could hear her whistling gasps for breath, her agonized whimperings, but they sounded … wrong.

Menerchel looked up as Kellen approached. His face was streaked with tears. He said nothing. There was nothing to say.

Kellen moved behind him, kneeling at Gesade’s back, as close to her as he could get. He pulled off his helmet and gloves. What he needed was already laid out.

“Hush, Gesade, hush,” he said, speaking to her as if she were Deyishene, or Lily. “It’s Kellen. I’ve come to help. Just lie quietly, if you can. I’ll help you, I promise.”

He didn’t know if she heard.

He cut a few strands of his hair, and a few from the base of Gesade’s mane, below the ointment-soaked cloths. Then he reached for the bandage at her neck. Already others—Elven Knights, unicorns, even one or two of the Healers—were gathering around to share the price, just as Shalkan had promised.

But Shalkan was nowhere in sight.

“No—don’t,” Menerchel begged, seeing what Kellen was doing.

“I need her blood for the spell,” Kellen said gently. “And I need to know how she’s hurt.”

“Acid,” Menerchel said starkly. “They threw acid in her face.”

Kellen closed his eyes for an instant, fighting back the images Menerchel’s words evoked. Acid was a favored weapon of the Shadowed Elves. He’d seen the wounds they caused. Armor was no defense—acid ate metal, slipped through every crack.

And the unicorns went into battle only lightly armored.

Kellen peeled back the edge of the bandage, exposing raw burned flesh slick with numbing ointment. Gritting his teeth, he wiped a small patch of skin clear. Blood beaded to the surface. He soaked the hairs—his and hers together—then quickly replaced the bandages.

He picked up the knife—a small Healer’s knife, wickedly sharp—to cut himself, then realized he’d almost forgotten to ask the vital question. No Wildmage could ever assume that help would be offered. It must always be asked for.

“Who will share the price of this healing with me?”

“We will—all of us,” Menerchel said.

Kellen looked up at those waiting, making sure that all agreed. Then he cut his hand, mingling his blood with Gesade’s.

Quickly now, he summoned the brazier alight, and added the proper leaves: willow, ash, yew. A thin coil of blue smoke began to spiral upward.

Leaf and Star, let this work!

He motioned for Menerchel and the others to move back—Gesade’s struggles were weaker now—and gently dropped the knot of bloody hairs onto the coals. Then he laid his hands on Gesade’s exposed neck and shoulder.

She quieted at last beneath his touch, and for a terrible instant Kellen thought she was dead, until he saw the slow steady rise of her ribs. The peace that filled her gave him a moment of calm as well; when he saw the shimmering dome of protection form around them all, he felt a spark of hope. The Gods of the Wild Magic had heard.

“Forgive. Forgive and forget.”

The words filled his mind, and Kellen knew that this was the price They set upon Gesade’s healing—and that it was twice now that the Wild Magic had commanded him to forgive. His previous Mageprice was still unpaid, but that wouldn’t matter. Idalia had told him that prices could run unpaid for years; all that mattered was that you paid them willingly when the time came. He did know that you knew when the time had come to pay a Mageprice, although figuring out how to pay it was left up to the individual. But none of that was important now. He would have accepted the price if it had been far higher. I will, he promised.

The sense of listening departed. All that was left was the work of healing.

It was the hardest yet, as if he tried to lift the weight of the earth itself from beneath his feet. Again and again he struggled to become a conduit for the Healing Magic, feeling as if he tried to touch something just out of reach.

And every moment he struggled, he felt Gesade growing weaker.

“Don’t try. Be.”

Master Belesharon said that in the practice circle. Only when you could step aside from your thoughts of what you should be doing, and do the thing itself, was the thing accomplished.

He stopped trying.

He thought of Gesade, whole.

He remembered her looking down at him in the snow, the night he’d tried to escape from camp to scout the nearer cavern.

He remembered her—yes, and Petariel—running at the head of the Unicorn Knights on a day that was bright and clear. Powdery snow had sprayed up from beneath her hooves as she ran, and the sunlight had sparkled off their armor …

He realized he was lying curled around her body, his face pressed against her stomach, breathing in her warm scent. It was an awkward position, and Kellen straightened with a stifled groan. He didn’t remember moving, or closing his eyes.

He blinked. He felt as if he’d been asleep, though he was sure he hadn’t. The protective shield was gone, so whatever was going to happen, had happened. He felt hollow and light-headed, but that was normal after a healing, for Healer and Healed alike.

“You … glowed,” Menerchel said.

That was encouraging, Kellen decided, but he was still reluctant to lift the bandages and see what lay beneath. At least Gesade was sleeping now, not writhing in heavily-drugged agony.

He lifted the lower edge of the bandage again.

White fur. Thickly soaked in ointment, but there was no trace of burn or scar. Eagerly now, Kellen lifted away the rest of the cloths—they had not truly bandaged her, only wrapped soft cloths loosely over the terrible burns. The flesh beneath was perfect. Whole.

Then he reached her head.

It took him a few seconds to understand why what he was seeing looked so wrong. Her horn was unblemished. Her soft muzzle was whole.

But her eyelid was sunken into its socket. Frantically, Kellen lifted her head. The other side matched exactly, the eyelid sunken over an empty socket.

She had no eyes.

SHALKAN found him several hundred yards from the unicorn’s clearing. He was kneeling beside a tree, gagging up what felt like every meal he’d ever eaten in his life.

“Kellen—”

“Go away!” He couldn’t bear to see anyone right now. Especially Shalkan. Not after what he’d done.

“Kellen—”

“I hurt her! I blinded her!”

How could a healing have gone so wrong? Was it because he’d come here straight from the caverns? What had he done to her? It was all his fault—

“I saw her before the Healers got to her.” Shalkan’s voice came to him, harsh and rasping, as if the unicorn had been weeping until his throat was raw. “You didn’t. She was already blind. Shall I tell you what a bucket of acid in the face does to a person—or a unicorn? I could describe it in great detail, if you’d like.” Shalkan’s words were cruel, but they penetrated Kellen’s own grief and horror.

“Stop it,” Kellen said wearily. “I already know. I’ve seen it too.” He sat back, scrubbing his face with snow. “But … I healed her. Or I could have. If I’d been good enough.” And that was what was so horrible. He hadn’t been good enough, not nearly good enough, and he had been her only hope.

“No.” An Elven Healer Kellen didn’t know came and knelt in the snow beside him. “I am no Wildmage, but I have aided them in their healings, and I have heard them speak among themselves. The power of the Wild Magic to heal is indeed great, but it cannot create that which is not there. That which will—or might—grow with time will grow at a Wildmage’s touch. But that which is lost is lost forever.” The Healer took his shoulder in one hand and shook it. “Look at me, Kellen Knight-Mage. See the truth in me!”

Kellen studied the Healer’s face. She regarded him with grave compassion and faint puzzlement, as if she had never seen anything like him before. Kellen knew without having to ask that she was from Ysterialpoerin.

She’s right. The storm of rage and grief—and guilt—that had filled him a moment before was gone, leaving only aching numbness.

It isn’t fair! he thought wearily. Would Gesade want to live without sight?

But that’s her decision to make, isn’t it? Today you’ve given her the power to make her own choices again.

“Now, if you’ll accept the Lady Arquelle’s word that you did all you could do, perhaps you’ll be sensible, come inside, and rest,” Shalkan said crossly, his voice still sounding hoarse. “Or perhaps you’d like to give the Healers even more to do?”

“No,” Kellen said, getting stiffly to his feet. His bare hands were numb and aching with cold. “I’m coming.”

He felt battered, both physically and emotionally, and he wasn’t quite sure whether Shalkan was really angry with him, or simply knew that the last thing Kellen could take right now was his sympathy.

“No one rejoices to see the Star-begotten in pain,” Arquelle said softly as Kellen walked back through the snow. “It has overset stronger hearts than yours, Kellen Knight-Mage.”

And that, perhaps, was the truest thing he had heard in a day of terrible truths.

CILARNEN, Wirance, and the small party of Centaurs traveled west and north. As Luermai had promised, each time their supplies began to dwindle, Nemermet led them to a fresh cache—tea, salt, charcoal, grain, honey, spices, and the blocks of compressed rations that Nemermet simply called journey-food.

It never seemed to stop snowing.

He ought to be used to it by now, Cilarnen told himself. He’d never seen snow actually falling before this winter—the little snow allowed to alight within the City walls came at night, and certainly wasn’t allowed to fall where it would inconvenience anyone—but this journey seemed determined to repair the lack of every day of those eighteen winters.

Snow, in addition to being cold, painful, inconvenient, and sometimes actively dangerous, Cilarnen decided, was boring. But there was nothing else to look at. There was Snow With Trees, and Snow Without Trees. There were cloudy days when it snowed, and (fewer) cloudy days when it didn’t snow, and (very infrequently) clear days when you had a dazzling vista of … snow.

Kardus, who was the only one of them who had traveled in Elven Lands before, said that the snow was unusually heavy this year. Nemermet had no comment to make on this—but then, as Cilarnen had quickly discovered, their guide apparently had no desire to engage in conversation with them at all. His only interest seemed to be to hurry them along as quickly as possible, pushing them to the limits of their endurance every day.

After the first sennight, it became obvious that Tinsin was slowing the party’s pace. The draft mare obeyed Cilarnen’s orders willingly, but no amount of willingness could make her as fast as a mule or a Centaur—let alone as fast as Nemermet’s ice-grey stallion. She was meant for plowing fields and pulling wagons, not gallivanting cross-country.

The next time they stopped at one of the trail huts for supplies, there was a mule waiting there.

The mule was obviously of Elven breeding; it looked very much like the one Hyandur had loaned him. It was a russet color, with a cream mane, belly, and tail-tuft, and quite elegant … for a mule.

“In the morning, you will take Oakleaf,” Nemermet said as he unsaddled his mount, speaking directly to Cilarnen for the first time. “Leave Tinsin here.”

“No,” Cilarnen said, surprising himself. “I’m responsible for her. I won’t abandon her. What will she eat?” A hundred dangers ran through his mind. “What if there are wolves? Or bears? Or—something?” he ended, lamely.

Nemermet regarded him expressionlessly. “She will be cared for.” His task finished, he began to turn away.

“That isn’t good enough,” Cilarnen said. All his anger and frustration at days of following orders he didn’t quite understand came boiling to the surface, but he did his best to keep his voice low and even. “Sarlin of Stonehearth gave Tinsin to me. I promised I’d bring her back safe. Everyone says we’re not supposed to ask you questions. If you don’t want me to ask you questions, then give me answers.”

For a moment, he didn’t think Nemermet would answer him. Then the Elf seemed to reach a decision.

“Tomorrow, when we are gone, a rider will come. He will take her to winter with our own stock, cared for as if she were our own. In the spring, we will see her to Stonehearth if you cannot.”

Nemermet turned away, indicating the conversation was finished.

“I will say this for you, boy—you’ve got more courage than sense,” Comild said, coming up to him.

Cilarnen leaned his head against Tinsin’s shoulder. “I just don’t like being pushed around.” Elves, or—or High Mages. I don’t like being pushed around.

Had he really hated life in Armethalieh that much?

No. He’d loved living there, and the thought that he could never go back hurt so much that he didn’t dare think about it.

But …

Mageborn keeping secrets—saying things were “for the good of the City” when that was a lie—plotting against the City and moving other Mageborn around as if they had no more worth than pieces on a shamat board … no, Cilarnen didn’t like that at all.

If they will do that to their fellow Mageborn, they will do that to anyone. Citizens. The Delfier Valley farmers. The Mountain Traders. The Selkens. The Wildlanders—like Sarlin and Comild and Kardus.

And he wasn’t sure anyone could stop them. Not if what the Demon had told him at Stonehearth was true.

He sighed, and began the awkward business of removing Tinsin’s saddle and bridle.

ONCE Cilarnen had been remounted, their journey went faster, and in another sennight they began to see faint signs that another—much larger—party was traveling in the same direction. Now Nemermet’s insistent haste began to make sense: Luermai had said that “others preceded them,” and Nemermet was obviously trying to catch up with the other party.

By now they were well into the mountains—Kardus said that beyond this lay high plains, but further than that into the Elven Lands he had not been. Though Cilarnen missed Tinsin—and despite Kardus’s assurances, wasn’t entirely certain he trusted Nemermet’s word that she’d be cared for and returned to Stonehearth—he had to admit that Oakleaf was much easier and more comfortable to ride. And the Elven-bred mule was certainly better-suited to the terrain they had to cross.

In the middle of their third sennight of travel, they finally caught sight of the other Centaurs. They’d crossed the last of the mountain passes and were starting down into the valley.

“Look!” Comild said, pointing.

Cilarnen peered through the falling snow. Dimly, he could make out a blot of darkness in the distance, moving slowly over the plain below.

“There are your fellows,” Nemermet said. “You will join them tomorrow, if we hurry now.”

THEY lost sight of the Centaur army when they reached the plain—the rest of the levies would have crossed the Elven border together, Cilarnen realized; Comild’s people had been delayed by the Demon attack upon Stonehearth—but they were only half a day behind them now, and the wide deep track the others had made with their passage made travel for Comild’s party both easy and fast. They pressed on that day until well beyond their usual stopping time, until Wirance finally called a halt.

“It’s as dark as the inside of a goat’s stomach now,” the Wildmage said bluntly, “and I’m not minded to spend tomorrow healing the fool that lames himself on the ice tonight. We’ll stop here. You may be able to see in the dark, my Elven friend, but we can’t and neither can these poor mules.”

Reluctantly, the others agreed.

There were no sheltering trees on the High Plains, but by now all of them carried pieces of heavy canvas designed to be joined together by collapsible hollow tubes—a gift of the Elves, left for them at one of the trail huts many days ago. Each piece alone could serve as a windbreak. When they were all joined together, they formed a shelter large enough for humans and Centaurs both to take refuge together from the worst of the storms.

Assembling it was a tricky matter, however, and something they’d never done in the dark.

Cilarnen hadn’t worked any High Magick since Nemermet had joined them—even so simple a thing as lighting a fire. He wasn’t sure why; he didn’t think Nemermet would try to throw him out of the Elven Lands just for being a High Mage. But there was no longer any point in wondering. They needed light. And Mage-light was a simple spell, one that every Student-Apprentice knew.

He concentrated. The ball of blue light grew between his hands. When it was as large as he wanted, he spread his hands. It hovered above them, a small full moon.

“You’re full of tricks,” Wirance said approvingly. He swung down from his mule’s back and began to unpack his piece of the shelter. Cilarnen dismounted as well. The sooner the shelter was assembled, the sooner they could begin to get warm. He thought longingly of tea—though the hot water Nemermet called “tea” was a poor substitute for the real thing.

“You did not name yourself a Wildmage when you stood upon the Border.” If Nemermet’s voice held any expression at all, Cilarnen would have said it sounded faintly accusing. But of course it didn’t. He wasn’t entirely sure Elves had emotions.

“I’m not a Wildmage,” Cilarnen said, struggling to match Nemermet’s even tone. “I’m a Mage of Armethalieh.”

“Armethalieh!” Now there was emotion in Nemermet’s voice.

Surprise … and contempt.

Kardus stepped forward, placing his body between Cilarnen and Nemermet.

“He was Banished, as was Kellen Wildmage,” the Centaur said, and there was warning in his tone. “He has lived for a season among the Centaurs of Stonehearth, and fought valiantly in their defense. And it is my Task to bring him to Kellen Wildmage.”

“Then do so,” Nemermet said briefly, his tone gone flat, and turned to help the others erect the shelter.

In the glow of the Mage-light, Cilarnen stared at Kardus in shock.

Hyandur had known he was from Armethalieh, and had helped him escape. The Centaurs had known where he came from—and they’d pitied him for it, he now realized ruefully.

He hadn’t expected this reaction.

“Armethalieh, too, had a treaty with the Elves,” Kardus said quietly. “But they have not honored it.”

“To help the Elves?” Cilarnen wasn’t quite certain he’d heard the Centaur Wildmage correctly. “Like the Centaurs? To send … troops?” Even after all that had happened to him in the last few moonturns, Cilarnen found that an impossible concept to quite imagine. High Mages—and citizens—leave the City?

“Yes. But they would not even allow Andoreniel’s envoy to warn them.”

A dozen disparate pieces of information came together in his mind, all in a rush. “Hyandur. He was the one who came to warn the High Council, wasn’t he? They didn’t let him in.” He paused, and added, wonderingly, “He saved my life.”

When the City denied him—he still saved my life!

“And so you see that the Elves can be kind. Remember that.”

There were times when Kardus sounded just like his old tutor Master Tocsel, Cilarnen thought ruefully, though certainly Master Tocsel would never have had a good word to say about the Elvenkind.

He turned to help assemble the shelter.

Chapter Twenty-three

Journey’s End

MUCH LATER, CROWDED in among the Centaurs—cramped but warm—Cilarnen found himself lying awake. His mind was filled with questions, but of them all, only one was really important.

If Elves were like humans, or Centaurs, with individual likes and dislikes, well and good. But if Armethalieh actually had somehow had a treaty with the Elven King, and had broken it, how likely was it that the Elves would help Armethalieh now?

And if Kellen Tavadon was living among the Elves, which side would he take? Human—or Elven?

AS Nemermet had promised, they caught up to the main body of the Centaurs the next day.

A few hours after they broke camp that morning, another Elf—this one on a bay mare wearing beautifully fitted armor enameled in a rosy hue several shades lighter than her coat—came galloping back to them.

“I See you, Nemermet,” the mare’s rider said.

He was wearing armor as well, though it hardly looked to Cilarnen as if it would be of any use in a battle. It matched the mare’s exactly, and like the mare’s looked more like jewelry than armor.

“I See you, Linyesin,” Nemermet said, bowing slightly. “Here are the stragglers from Stonehearth: Comild and his levy, and the Wildmage Wirance who accompanies them. I also present to you the Centaur Wildmage Kardus, whose Mageprice is to bring the Banished High Mage Cilarnen before Kellen Knight-Mage.”

Linyesin lifted a horn from his saddle and blew a few notes. After a moment, Cilarnen heard an answering echo of that horn-call in the distance.

“Andoreniel thanks you for your care of them, and asks that you aid the others in helping the Herdingfolk across our eastern border safely,” Linyesin said.

“I go with pleasure,” Nemermet said. Without a word to the others, he turned his stallion around and headed back the way he’d come.

“Come,” Linyesin said to them. “Your comrades await you. We are grateful for your strength, and are eager to hear your news.”

“Not much to tell,” Comild said gruffly, as they followed Linyesin toward the other Centaurs. “One of Them came down on us at Stonehearth. Our losses were heavy—ours and the villagers both. But the Wildmages killed it—them and Cilarnen.”

There was a pause, but though Cilarnen was expecting a sudden barrage of questions from Linyesin, it didn’t come.

“That is welcome and interesting information,” the armored Elf said at last. “It nearly outweighs the discouraging news that one of Them has been seen east of the Elven Lands. That is puzzling news indeed. But perhaps you will have told Luermai or Nemermet more of your tale than you have told me.”

“No,” Wirance said simply. “As for why it came, we are not sure.”

Cilarnen hesitated. He didn’t want to deliver the whole of the message he had for Kellen to this stranger—only Kardus and Wirance knew that the Demon had spoken to him, or what it had said—especially considering how the Elves seemed to feel about Armethalieh. But it couldn’t hurt to fill in a few of the details.

“It saw me,” he put in, hoping he didn’t sound as ineffectual as he felt. “I don’t know why it was there, either, but at first it thought I was Kellen Tavadon. It looked like a human, and it spoke to me, telling me I couldn’t go back to—to Armethalieh. When it realized I wasn’t him, it attacked me. I fended it off, and it decided to destroy the village first before coming back to kill me.”

He stopped, wondering if he’d said the wrong thing. Linyesin was staring at him intently.

“It would be good to know—and it would please me greatly,” the Elf said, “if you would say further how you fended off the attack of one of Them and survived.”

“It was Mageshield,” Cilarnen said. Thinking back, he wasn’t sure his shield had been all that effective. It was more as if the Demon, seeing he was a Mage, had simply decided to kill him last.

“It must have meant to take you captive when it discovered that you were a Mage,” Linyesin said, echoing Cilarnen’s thoughts. “Or to take a very long time over your death. Fortunate indeed that matters occurred otherwise.”

Cilarnen shivered. From all he’d seen at Stonehearth, “fortunate” was an understatement.

By now they were within sight of the Centaurs. There were a couple of hundred of them, and with them were more Mountainfolk and several more Elves, all in armor. Each suit of armor was a different color; they looked like a handful of spring flowers somehow transported to the midst of winter.

And there were supply carts, like the one Cilarnen had seen just inside the Elven border, but these were much larger, drawn by six draft mules instead of by a pair of horses. He wondered how they’d gotten them over the passes.

Comild gave a grunt of satisfaction at the sight of the carts. “Decent meals at last.”

Linyesin laughed. Cilarnen would hardly have been less surprised if the Elf had dismounted from his mare and turned cartwheels in the snow. “Oh, yes, Comild, ‘proper food.’ Nemermet brought you to join us as fast as he could, and the food the scouts travel on can be less-than-satisfying, but we don’t mean to starve you before we reach Ysterialpoerin.”

HE would hardly have called it “luxury” a moonturn before, but fresh meat, pancakes, hot cider, and a warm place to steep—even if it was a tent he shared with three of the Mountainfolk—made Cilarnen feel more confident than he had since he’d left Stonehearth. The Centaurs had been eager to exchange news as they marched, and apparently their new guides—Elven Knights—were freer with information than any of the Elves Comild’s party had dealt with up till now. In the few hours Cilarnen had ridden with the army, he and Kardus had learned more about what was going on than they had in all their time riding with Nemermet.

All Nemermet had told them was that their eventual destination was a place called Ysterialpoerin. Now they knew that, weather permitting, they would reach it in two sennights. Three at the most—assuming nothing attacked them along the way.

And attack was possible at any moment, though so far they’d been lucky—another reason Nemermet had hurried them along so swiftly. The Elven Lands were already under assault. Not by the Demons directly—apparently they couldn’t come here—but it seemed that they had found a way to slip their creatures past the land-wards. The Centaurs had been warned to be on the watch for a kind of wolf the size of a pony, bats as large as small ships, and (apparently worst of all) things called “Shadowed Elves,” which had to be destroyed at all costs. Though nobody said anything directly, Cilarnen got the impression that the Demons meant to destroy the Elves and the Elven Lands first.

These Demons—nobody called them anything but Them—were nothing like the Armethaliehan nursery-tales he’d been terrified by as a child. He managed to figure that out, though nobody wanted to talk about them much. Cilarnen doubted that the Centaurs he’d talked to knew much more than they’d said; and he wasn’t quite ready to try questioning any of the Elves.

He suspected that Kardus knew more, but the Centaur Wildmage would not answer any of his questions. “This is neither the time nor the place,” was all Kardus would say. “Wait for better.”

Remembering the sight of the Demon at Stonehearth, Cilarnen reluctantly decided to take his advice.

THEY were two days away from Ysterialpoerin when the blizzard struck.

The Wildmages traveling with the army had been warning of truly bad weather to come—in a day, perhaps two. Cilarnen knew that Linyesin was hoping that they would at least reach the edge of the forest before it began, so that they would have some shelter and protection from the storm. The Centaurs had rejoiced when the Wildmages told them that weather magic had been done by the Wildmages with the Elven army, pushing back the storm and giving them an extra day’s grace.

But then the storm struck without warning, and far too early.

It was an hour or two past noon. Cilarnen was riding beside Kardus near the supply carts when suddenly he heard the horns begin to blow.

“What is it? Are we being attacked?” he demanded in alarm.

“No,” Kardus said, puzzled. “It’s the signal to make camp.”

Suddenly the temperature dropped sharply, and the sky turned black.

Cilarnen looked up, alarmed.

The sky was … boiling.

There was no other way to describe it. He heard a rumble, and a sudden crash of thunder, and saw lightning flash across the sky.

A wall of wind—fierce enough to make Kardus stagger—came howling down out of the north. Oakleaf began to sidle and balk as thunder boomed again and heavy wet flakes of snow began to sheet down out of the now-black sky.

Belatedly, Cilarnen realized what the horns had meant. The promised blizzard had come now. And if they all didn’t get under cover they were going to freeze.

He swung down off Oakleaf’s back. The mule fussed and balked, but Cilarnen managed to lead him over to the wagon and tie him fast.

THEY formed the supply carts into a windbreak, and fought to get the shelters up, for without shelter they would freeze, and quickly. But it was useless. The wind was too strong.

It was the Mountainfolk who realized what must be done to save them. They emptied the supply carts, flinging the contents haphazardly into the snow as the Elves struggled to unhitch the mules so that they could be brought to shelter. So great was the force of the wind that the wagons’ contents blew everywhere. Already snow was mounded against the windward side of the wagons, and no one could see more than a few feet in any direction.

Every coil of rope they found, the Mountainfolk passed to the Centaurs, who used it to link themselves together, so that none would be lost in the blinding snow.

Cilarnen found himself unceremoniously lifted—he didn’t see by whom—and tossed into one of the now-empty carts. He landed hard, and immediately tried to scramble back out again.

“Stop that, boy. Do you want to freeze? I’ve never seen a storm come up this fast—not even a Called one,” an unfamiliar voice said out of the darkness. It was one of the Mountainfolk. Others crowded in quickly, and then pulled the tarp closed over the end of the wagon.

“But, Kardus—” Cilarnen said. The wagon shuddered with the force of the wind.

“Your Centaur-friend is warm and safe in the middle of the herd,” the stranger said. “Which is more than you or I would be out there just now; they’re hardy folk. Have patience. The worst of this should blow itself out in a day or two and we can be on our way. And then, I admit, I’d like to have a word or two with whoever Called this blizzard.”

“Called?” Cilarnen said blankly.

“Of course,” the stranger said calmly. “You don’t think this came naturally, do you? This weather was supposed to come tomorrow, or the day after—and not a storm this hard, either. A Wildmage called this up, and I’d like to know why.”

As the wind howled around them, and Cilarnen buried his head under the shelter of his cold arms, he decided that he wanted to know why, too.

Very badly indeed …

“I need to get back,” Kellen mumbled aloud. He was exhausted from the healing but he thought he might as well rest back at the cavern as here. Where he was supposed to be right now anyway.

“You’re exhausted,” Shalkan told him, not unkindly, as Kellen sat at the front of the unicorn’s tent, wrapped in blankets and drinking a cup of soup someone had brought him. “You’re not thinking clearly. If you insist on going tonight, wait for Ancaladar to get back. A horse won’t be able to make it even as far as the main camp in this weather—and don’t make eyes at me. Even if I were willing to take you—and I’m needed here—you’d freeze by the time I could get you there.”

He knew Shalkan was right—the snow was coming down even heavier than before, if that was possible, and in full darkness, even a unicorn might get lost. And getting back to the cavern camp wasn’t really an emergency.

“Why is it snowing?” Kellen finally thought to ask. “The weather wasn’t supposed to turn so soon.”

“The Shadowed Elves tried to burn the forest. Jermayan is pretty sure they used the ever-burning metal you stopped them from using before. He had to bring the storm to stop the fires from spreading. Kindolhinadetil’s foresters are out looking for the pieces now. Perhaps they will be able to save the individual trees that were set afire. But whether they can or not, the forest itself is safe.”

“I should go and help,” Kellen said groggily, trying to get to his feet.

“You should stay where you are, and drink your soup,” Shalkan said firmly, lowering his horn meaningfully. “I will wake you when Ancaladar returns.”

Kellen had no intention of falling asleep—especially here. Not when there was so much to do. But Shalkan was right. He needed a little more strength, and he could get that from the soup. It wouldn’t hurt anything or anyone just to sit there until he finished it.

SHALKAN woke him a few hours later. “Come on,” he said, prodding Kellen with his horn; it was the prod of the horn, rather than Shalkan’s voice, that stirred him out of an unrestful sleep.

Kellen was glad to be awakened. He was as groggy as if he hadn’t slept at all. His dreams had been unsettled, filled with shadowy menace and battles. He’d woken with the same feeling he had all-too-frequently these days: that time was running out; that while they spent their energy on inessentials, Shadow Mountain was winning the larger war.

He got unsteadily to his feet and staggered after Shalkan into the thigh-high snow, pulling his heavy cloak tightly about him. The snow was still falling heavily and steadily; there was a narrow trench where others had walked, but even that was filling quickly, and the snow showed no sign at all of stopping. If the wind kept up like this, they’d have snow dunes up to a dragon’s eye before long.

Ancaladar and Jermayan were waiting for Kellen in the same clearing as before. Balls of Coldfire hung in the trees, illuminating the blowing snow and very little else.

“The forest is secure,” Jermayan said, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of the wind. “The foresters have found every ring of the Shadowed Elf metal.”

“Good,” Shalkan said, shaking to rid himself of the snow that clung to his fur. “And Kellen has done what he came here to do. So you may take him back to the caverns—as he insists.”

The cold had woken him thoroughly at last, which was a mixed blessing. Kellen clambered up onto Ancaladar’s back, slipping on the dragon’s ice-covered side. He wondered if Ancaladar even noticed the cold. He wished he didn’t.

Jermayan seated himself in the forward saddle with a great deal more grace, and pulled the riding straps tight. But they didn’t take off at once. Instead, Ancaladar trotted quickly through the trees, to Kellen’s initial puzzlement. At last he figured out the reason.

Of course. He can’t just jump into the air. He may be able to land straight down, but in this wind, he needs more room than there is here to get into the sky. Kellen made sure his own riding straps were tight. Having experienced several of Ancaladar’s takeoffs, he had no desire to fall off, especially in this weather and at night.

Soon they reached an area where there were fewer trees, and Ancaladar spread his wings, springing into the wind. The force of the storm spun him like a kite, and he used its power to pull him into the sky, rising in a tight swooping spiral. It seemed to snow harder the higher they went, until suddenly the snow was gone, and darkness was replaced by light: the brilliance of the moon and the stars. Beneath them, the clouds looked like the snow-covered landscape.

“We have paid a heavy price for victory this day,” Jermayan said quietly, as Ancaladar leveled off.

Petariel. Gesade. So many of those Kellen had ridden with, fought beside, dead or terribly wounded in these last battles. And how long until Idalia, Vestakia, Jermayan and Ancaladar, were added to the list? Everyone he knew, everyone he loved …

“Yes,” Kellen said, tightly. The last thing Jermayan needed was a display of emotion when he himself must be feeling worse than Kellen. He must have known his friends and fellow Knights for—a century, at least! These were Elves who should have been spending the next several centuries contemplating their gardens, practicing their arts, making beautiful things, and perfecting themselves. And now—now they were gone.

“We must take what comfort we can in having won,” Jermayan said somberly. “For the consequences of defeat are too great to bear.”

But are we winning, Jermayan? Kellen looked at his friend’s back, heard the weariness and near-despair in his voice, and did not ask his question aloud.

THE following day, Kellen, Vestakia, and Keirasti met with Adaerion to discuss the best way of ridding the caverns of duergar. By now both their units had been brought up to full strength again, as Redhelwar reconfigured the hard-hit skirmishing units, and formed new ones.

The blizzard still hammered the land. The pavilions of the cavern camp were all half-buried in snow, and ropes had been strung between them to allow people to find their way between them. Without that, there was every chance of becoming lost, even in the few feet that separated one pavilion and the next.

“Kindolhinadetil has opened the archives at Ysterialpoerin to Redhelwar, so we now know something more than we did of the habits of duergar. They are not accustomed to luring many victims at one time, so if you approach them in force, at least some of you should be safe from their call, and able to attack them while the others are held in thrall.” Adaerion said.

“But our light will drive them into hiding, as it did the last time we entered the caverns,” Keirasti said.

“You will not have light,” Adaerion said. “The Wildmages have worked upon this problem since we understood we would have to hunt duergar. They have crafted Darksight hoods—enough for both your troops. They will not render you invisible as tarnkappa would, for we now know that would be useless, but you will be able to see your prey and approach him in darkness. And Artenel’s artificers have made you spears and nets, which will be of more use against these creatures than your swords.”

“So we can hunt them,” Keirasti said with grim satisfaction. “But it would be pleasant indeed to hear how we will find them.”

“The Crystal Spiders will tell us,” Kellen said. “They’re as eager as we are to free their home of what they call Dark Ones. They said they would give us aid. If we go into the caverns—past the village cavern—I think they’ll come out and speak with us.”

“All that remains is getting there,” Keirasti said. She glanced at the doorway of Adaerion’s pavilion and winced faintly as the wind shook the fabric vigorously.

“We might as well move into the caverns until we’ve cleared them,” Kellen said reluctantly, although the last thing he wanted to do was to move underground. “The big chamber near the entrance would do for a base camp. If we light up enough of the caverns—I can cast Coldfire on the walls, or Jermayan or one of the other Wildmages can—we’ll be safe from the duergar. And we won’t have to keep coming back and forth through the snow.” The camp was a mile away from the cavern mouth—close enough in ordinary winter weather, but not something he wanted to ride through twice a day in a storm. And it would be warmer underground as well; so much of their energy was being wasted in keeping warm that everyone was exhausted.

“A reasonable suggestion,” Adaerion said, with equal reluctance.

“Will the Crystal Spiders be able to tell you when the caverns are … empty?” Vestakia asked, speaking up for the first time.

“I’m not sure,” Kellen admitted. “They’re not very much like anything we’ve ever seen before, though they’re not Tainted. So when they say the caverns are empty, that’s when I’d like you to check and see what you feel.”

“Nothing, I hope,” Vestakia said. “But … you did say they could talk to each other, didn’t you? That the one lot in the trapped caverns talked to the ones here?”

Kellen nodded, frowning faintly in puzzlement, wondering what she was thinking.

“Well,” Vestakia said, “once the cavern is clear, maybe someone should find out just how far away they can talk to each other. Because the weather’s getting so bad now—if these storms keep up—that Jermayan and Ancaladar and I won’t be able to fly to search for the next Shadowed Elf cave, but if there are Crystal Spiders living in all the caves in the Elven Lands, and they know everything that goes on in their caves, and they all talk to each other, maybe they can tell you where the next cave you need to go to is.”

Everyone stared at her. It was such a simple, practical, obvious solution that none of them had thought of it. And it would save them an enormous amount of time—and danger to Vestakia.

If it worked.

“That is an excellent notion, Lady Vestakia,” Adaerion said with grave enthusiasm. “It is certainly something we must try, once the caverns are safe to enter.”

Kellen felt a sense of relief. Not so much at the thought that Vestakia wouldn’t be in constant danger—though that thought was never far from his mind—but at the thought that, if her plan worked, she would no longer be completely irreplaceable.

“Well,” Kellen said, “once we’ve gotten rid of the duergar and you tell us the caves are clear, I’ll introduce you to a bunch of giant glowing spiders and you can ask them yourself. How would you like that?”

Vestakia grinned at him. “Better than flying around for sennights freezing my … feet off, to tell the truth! And spiders certainly won’t care a bit what I look like, so we won’t have to persuade them that I’m not Tainted!”

KELLEN and Keirasti moved their troops into the caverns. When the blizzard blew itself out, they barely noticed—their days had settled into a wearying, hideous routine as they searched the caverns, hunting duergars. With the darksight hoods the Wildmages had made for them, they could approach their prey in darkness and still see and hear one another, and the Crystal Spiders kept their promise, letting them know where to hunt.

The creatures had approached them eagerly as soon as they had ventured past the now-empty Shadowed Elf village. Remembering what Idalia had done, as soon as he saw them approach, Kellen pulled off his gauntlet and held out his bare hand

The enormous spiders had climbed over him eagerly, until he was covered in them. Though they looked as insubstantial as thistledown, the whole swarm of them was surprisingly heavy. One of them walked out on his arm, and settled its body in his palm.

:You return.: He heard the voice in his mind. It tickled faintly. :Now we can help. You hunt the Black Minds. We know where they are.:

Show me, Kellen thought.

Pictures appeared in his mind—parts of the cave system he hadn’t seen yet. They were blurred, impossible to decipher.

The Crystal Spiders must have sensed his bewilderment, for the pictures ceased. :We will take you—near. And then you will know.:

Know? How? Kellen thought in bewilderment.

: You will know,: the voice in his head repeated.

The carpet of spiders ebbed from his body, and the Crystal Spiders began to scuttle away with surprising speed.

“We follow them,” Kellen said to the others.

Soon enough he understood what the Crystal Spiders had meant. After they had followed the Spiders for a while—being careful to mark their trail at intervals in order to find their way back—two of their party simply dropped their weapons and began walking forward.

“Rhufai!” Reyezeyt said sharply. “Janshil!”

“Let them go,” Kellen said quietly. “They’ll lead us right to where we need to go.”

The first kill was easy: though the duergar held ten of them spellbound at the end, it didn’t seem to understand that it was still vulnerable. The others rushed forward, confusing it, and Kellen and Keirasti spitted the duergar on their long wooden spears. In death it dissolved instantly, filling the cavern with the same gagging sweet-sick stench Kellen remembered from his first duergar kill.

It was the last time their hunts were to be this easy. The duergar seemed somehow to be able to silently communicate with one another. Once Kellen and the Elven Knights had killed the first one, the others seemed to understand there was a need to hide.

And if they could not hide, attack.

“WATCH him! Watch him!” Kellen shouted. His voice echoed eerily in the vastness of the cavern.

A dozen of the Elves stood like sleepwalkers. The duergar was backed into a small alcove just off a larger chamber deep within the mountain. It crouched and snarled, revealing a mouth filled with formidable teeth.

Then it sprang at the entranced Elves.

Keirasti barely blocked its rush toward the helpless ones, sweeping it back toward the alcove with the shaft of her heavy spear. Then she, too, dropped the spear, sinking to her knees in a daze. The weapon clattered to the ground as she fell beneath the duergar’s spell. Some of the first victims were rousing now, as the creature turned its powers on other prey: Kellen, rushing forward to attack, found his way blocked by Seheimith and Nironoshan. He thrust them aside, but by then the duergar had released them and claimed others.

Seeing its way blocked only by those who were powerless to hinder it, the duergar bounded forward, away from Kellen and toward the freedom of the deep caves.

Kellen hefted his spear and threw.

It did not go in as deeply as he hoped, but it broke the monster’s concentration. The Elves carrying the net rushed forward, flinging the net over the creature and trapping it. Seconds later, it was dead.

“Not as bad as it could have been,” Kellen said, relieved.

“At least this time no one died,” Keirasti said tightly. When one of the creatures had bitten Tildaril—one of her command—there had been no time for Kellen to even try to Heal him. Tildaril had died in seconds, screaming in agony as armor and flesh had boiled away from the bite like smoke.

They left the net and spears where they were. They were useless now that they’d come into contact with duergar blood.

“Let’s find the next one,” Kellen said.

As he’d expected, the Crystal Spiders appeared almost immediately. Once the duergar had begun to hide, the Crystal Spiders had needed to lead Kellen and the Elven Knights closer each time.

Kellen knelt down and removed his gauntlets. As they had each time before, the Crystal Spiders swarmed over him, nestling into his outstretched hands. The long furlike bristles that covered their bodies tickled his hands, as if they were as much cats as spiders.

Each time they touched his mind, the contact became easier, though Kellen always had the impression that he baffled them as much as they confused him. If Vestakia went ahead with her plan, and tried to get complicated, detailed information from the Crystal Spiders, she wasn’t going to have an easy time of it.

:Dead. Webs, eggs, babies. All safe now,: came the voice in his mind.

You need to show us where the next one is, Kellen thought back, forming the silent words carefully.

:All safe now. All safe.:

Kellen sighed mentally and tried again. The Crystal Spiders weren’t stupid. They were just … alien. Where is the next Black Mind that we need to kill?

There was a pause. He felt a riffling through his mind, as he did whenever the creatures were trying especially hard to make him understand something.

:There are no more. Not here.:

“Not here,” Kellen said aloud. If the Spiders made a distinction between “here” and “not here,” maybe that meant they were able to sense the other caverns, and the “Black Minds” there.

There are no more Black Minds in these caverns? We have killed them all? he thought back.

:All dead. All. Webs, eggs, babies, all safe,: came the reply once more.

Good, Kellen thought back. That’s good. I want to bring a friend of mine to talk to you—about other Black Minds, in other caverns. Will you talk to her?

He sensed confusion and uncertainty, then a long pause, as though the Spiders were conferring among themselves. Or perhaps they were simply thinking—in all the times he’d talked with them, Kellen had never decided whether they were one group-mind, or separate creatures.

:She will kill Black Minds?: the Spiders finally asked.

She helps us kill Black Minds, Kellen answered. Yes.

:Then we will speak with her,: the Spiders answered.

Thank you, Kellen thought at them, as the mass of Spiders flowed off his body and scurried away into the dark.

He got stiffly to his feet—it was cold in the deep caves, a constant damp chill that made his bones ache—and looked at the others.

“They say that one was the last,” he said.

“Good. I am tired of sleeping in a cave,” Keirasti said simply. “And I am tired of wearing a bag over my head. Now we can go back.”

They gathered their remaining weapons and headed for the surface.

DESPITE the warmth of the bodies packed around him, Cilarnen was cold, though he knew he was lucky not to be freezing. He was thirsty, and as the bells passed—he still reckoned time by the standards of the City, even if no one around him did—he began to be hungry as well. How long were they going to be trapped here?

Tarik had told him—the man had eventually introduced himself—that the Elves they’d been riding to meet would probably come looking for them soon. Cilarnen hoped so. It would be a cruel jest on the part of the Light if the people coming to aid the Elves were slain, not by the enemy, but by a storm Called by one of their own people.

In addition to everything else, being packed in so closely with a bunch of Wildmages was uncomfortable in a way Cilarnen couldn’t quite define, like being forced to listen to an annoying sound, or a ringing in your ears that went on and on and wouldn’t stop. But there was nothing to be done about those things, and so he resigned himself to being miserable. And he hoped—if it came to the unthinkable worst—that at least Kardus would survive, and take his message to Kellen.

AS it happened, Tarik was quite right. Late the next day, Cilarnen was roused from an uncomfortable half-doze by shouts and the violent shaking of the wagon. The tarpaulin at the back was hauled away, and light, snow, and fresh arctic air streamed into the cramped confines of the wagon.

“Ah,” Tarik said with satisfaction. “Rescue.”

The others clambered out of the wagon, and through the snow-tunnel at the foot. Cilarnen simply sprawled where he was, luxuriating in the absence of the Wildmages. It was as if someone had finally stopped banging on a sore tooth. At the moment he didn’t care if he stayed here and froze.

“Cilarnen? Come.” Kardus was leaning into the wagon, looking worried. “A rescue party has found us. They will take us to their camp. It will be a long cold journey, and we must travel through the night, but better that than to remain here.”

For a moment Cilarnen thought of telling Kardus to go on without him, that he was fine where he was, but he realized that that was ridiculous. He’d freeze here, and his message would go undelivered. He had to go on, for Armethalieh’s sake, if nothing else.

Everything hurt as he crawled across the floor of the wagon toward Kardus. The Centaur lifted him down and carried him through the snow as if he were a child, and Cilarnen was too weak to protest.

It was still snowing heavily, and the wagons were nearly buried. The Centaurs had dug down a large ring of firm ground for themselves and the mules and horses, but outside it the snow was Centaur-shoulder height.

The snow was still blowing down—not as heavily as when the blizzard had first struck, but it was impossible to see more than a few yards. He could barely make out the forms of their rescuers, blurred by the snow.

“Can you ride?” Kardus asked.

“Yes.” He had no idea whether he could stay on Oakleaf’s back or not, but Cilarnen knew he was going to try.

THEY left the wagons behind, and the heaviest of their gear. Linyesin said that they could come back for it when the weather cleared. Cilarnen wondered when that would be. Spring?

From the others, he learned that their rescuers were more of the so-called Elven Knights, and a few more men of the High Reaches. The Centaurs were already organizing themselves into marching order, moving slowly along the path the rescue party had broken through the snowdrifts.

Kardus handed him a wineskin. “Drink this—all of it. It will warm you and strengthen you for the journey.”

Cilarnen took the wineskin gratefully. To his surprise, it actually contained wine—not the mead the Centaurs preferred—and it was hot wine besides. He gulped it down quickly, for once not caring about the taste, and without wondering how it had been heated. When he had finished, Kardus took the wineskin back.

“Stay with me. This will be no pleasant journey—but far better than remaining here in the open.”

SEVERAL bells later, Cilarnen decided that Kardus had a great gift for understatement. The sun set, but they did not stop. All through the night they traveled, at a plodding pace little better than a walk. He had thought the journey thus far had been near-unendurable. It had been a mild spring jaunt compared to this.

Cilarnen hated to think of how long Oakleaf had gone without proper care. At least he understood why this was happening; the poor mule didn’t.

At dawn they stopped, but only long enough to give the animals a little water and some broken cakes of journey-food. It was simple enough to melt a hole in the snow; the edges turned instantly to ice and formed a natural watering trough—as long as you could keep the water from freezing. Once Cilarnen saw what the Wildmages were doing, he did it as well, and allowed Oakleaf and the mules that were being led along behind him to drink. Though he could usually summon Fire without difficulty, this time the effort left him giddy and breathless, as though he’d run for a long time without stopping. He did his best to conceal his difficulty from Kardus, but he suspected the Centaur Wildmage noticed, all the same.

But the rest was all-too-brief, and soon they were on their way again.

They traveled faster with light to see by. Soon they were among the trees, where the snow was not as deep, and the wind did not cut so sharply. The only drawback to that was that at intervals the overburdened boughs would bend and dump a load of thick wet snow on whoever was unfortunate enough to be beneath them at the time.

He supposed it would be a breathtaking sight, assuming he could actually see it through the veils of snow. He’d read Perulan’s pastoral tales—along with everyone else in the City—with their detailed descriptions of woodland groves and shady glens. But Perulan had been describing the tame forests of the Delfier Valley, not something this … wild. The trees were taller than the masts of the Selken ships, larger than the pillars that lined the Great Temple of the Light. And those were just the ones he could see.

But even the forest could not distract him from his cold and exhaustion for long. He had never been so tired, and all he really wanted was to lie down in the snow to sleep forever. But of course, even he knew that was the last thing he could possibly do.

THE sound of horns roused him, and Cilarnen realized he’d been asleep in the saddle—or near to it. He jerked upright, every frozen muscle protesting, and looked around wildly, certain they were being attacked. The light was the dark blue of twilight, and they had moved out of the shelter of the great trees.

“We’re within sight of the camp,” Kardus told him. “It’s nearly over.”

Cilarnen didn’t remember the rest of the ride at all. All he knew was that eventually someone lifted him down from Oakleaf’s saddle and carried him into a place filled with light and warmth. He roused enough to drink when a cup was held to his lips.

“Oakleaf—” he said.

And that was the last he knew for quite some time.

IT was day when Kellen and the others reached the surface again—and snowing only lightly, which was a pleasant change. The air was drier and colder here than down in the caverns, but fresh, and Kellen breathed deeply as he walked down the ramp.

Kharren and a half-dozen Knights were standing guard outside the cavern. Kellen greeted her with a careless wave.

“I See you, Kharren. The Crystal Spiders tell us the caverns are now free of duergar,” he said.

“That makes good hearing, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Kharren responded. “I will send Elatar for your horses. Adaerion has news for you, but he will wish to give it himself.”

SOON Kellen was following Kharren into Adaerion’s pavilion. He wondered what the news was, but if it had been anything truly urgent—and bad—Kharren would surely have delivered it herself.

“I See you, Kellen,” Adaerion said, motioning for Kellen to sit.

“I See you, Adaerion,” Kellen said, bowing respectfully before he sat.

Pircano poured tea for all three of them. Kellen sipped it gratefully; tea had never seemed to get hot down in the caverns.

“Perhaps you will indulge me by letting me know how your work fared below,” Adaerion said.

Bad news first. “As you know, we lost Tildaril,” Kellen said quietly. Now the good news. “But other than that, we were lucky, and sustained no real injuries. The Crystal Spiders tell us that we have killed all the duergar. Now Vestakia can go down and see if the caverns are indeed free of Taint. And the Spiders have agreed to talk with her as well, so that she can see whether they are truly able to communicate with others of their kind in other caves. It might take her a while to find out anything useful, though,” he added.

“That work may have to wait,” Adaerion said. “Four days ago, the Centaurs who came at Andoreniel’s summons reached our camp. Traveling with them was a High Mage of Armethalieh.”

Kellen stared at Adaerion in disbelief. A High Mage? Here?

“It would be interesting to know how it was that a High Mage was permitted to cross the border into the Elven Lands,” he said, after a long pause.

“We did not know, then, that this is what he was. He came in company with a Wildmage, whose price it was to bring him to you.”

“To me?” Kellen echoed blankly.

“He—and the Wildmage—were both quite certain of it,” Adaerion said kindly. “There is more. Linyesin—who has heard some of the boy’s story, but not, he thinks, all—says that he was living at Stonehearth, a Centaur village, when it was attacked by one of Them. Fortunately, there were Wildmages there as well, because some of the levy was mustering there, and they managed to kill the creature, with the High Mage’s help. The boy says that It mistook him for you, and when It realized Its mistake, set out to destroy the village.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Kellen said, puzzled. “High Mages don’t leave the City. They just don’t. And the only business any High Mage has with me is to finish what the Council started.” He shook his head, baffled. But … he killed a Demon? I’d certainly like to ask him how he managed that.

“Nevertheless, Kardus has his price to pay,” Adaerion said.

And only Kellen could help him pay it. But … a High Mage consorting with a Wildmage? Voluntarily?

“I will see him,” Kellen said reluctantly. Maybe he isn’t a High Mage, he thought hopefully. Maybe he’s lying.

He’d thought he was done with Armethalieh forever, and the thought of having to confront it—or one of its emissaries at least—unsettled him in a way that no battle could.

“But I want to make sure the caverns are clear first,” Kellen added, only partly from a desire to put off the confrontation with this ghost from his past for as long as possible. “If he’s waited this long, certainly he can wait a while longer.”

“Indeed,” Adaerion said, his voice conveying nothing of his thoughts. “And while you complete that task, we shall begin dismantling this camp, for its purpose is finished.”

KELLEN collected Isinwen, and told him to ready Idalia’s and Vestakia’s horses. His troop would accompany him back into the cavern to guard Vestakia, while a second troop waited outside to guard the entrance.

Then he went looking for Idalia and Vestakia.

He found them in Idalia’s tent, playing xaqiue—or rather, Idalia was playing xaqiue against herself while Vestakia watched with interest, moving the green pieces at Idalia’s direction.

“Ah,” Idalia said, when Kellen poked his head into the pavilion. “You’re back. And Adaerion’s told you about our wandering Mageborn. Oh, come now, brother dear—what else could make you look like a faun dragged through a bramble bush backwards?”

“I want to know who he is and what he wants,” Kellen said, between gritted teeth. The anger in his voice surprised him.

“Well, his name is Cilarnen, and he wants you,” Idalia said matter-of-factly. “Leaf and Star know why. I don’t suppose you know him?”

“Cilarnen … Volpiril?” Kellen asked, stunned. No two living Mageborn bore the same given name, by the custom of the City, and Kellen knew of only one Cilarnen.

“Well, no one knows his family name; he didn’t give one,” Idalia said.

“You do know him!” Vestakia said. “I thought you might! Why else would he be asking for you?”

“I was at school with him.” Hazy memories surfaced, of a time so long ago that the events that occurred then might have happened to someone else. Cilarnen had always been everything Kellen wasn’t—the golden young Mageborn who’d excelled in all his studies and been the Masters’ petted darling. Except for one day, a few sennights before Kellen was Banished, when, for some reason, Master Hendassar had chosen to humiliate Cilarnen in front of the entire History of the City class. “He’s no more a High Mage than—than I am!” Kellen said indignantly.

“But if he is Cilarnen Volpiril, his father’s a member of the High Council, which makes it even odder that he’s here,” Idalia said, her eyes narrowing.

“And traveling with a Wildmage, don’t forget.” Kellen laughed bitterly. “I’d certainly like to know how that came about, considering what the High Mages think of the Wild Magic! But the pampered little Mageborn can certainly wait until we’re sure the caverns are clean. The Shadowed Elves have surprised us enough times already. I want to be sure our backtrail is safe this time.”

And he wasn’t at all averse to having Cilarnen cool his heels. It would do him good to discover he wasn’t the most important creature in this universe.

KELLEN and Pihrandet rode back to the caverns with their troops. Though no one expected trouble—the caverns were supposed to be empty—both Idalia and Vestakia wore armor, Vestakia, her full suit of scarlet Elven armor, and Idalia, her heavy shirt of Elven chain.

Kellen found himself wishing that Shalkan were here to talk to. The news that Cilarnen had come to Ysterialpoerin—and was claiming to be a High Mage of Armethalieh—had unsettled him more than he’d thought possible. Why in the name of the Gods of the Wild Magic had he come?

Banished? Lord Volpiril would never let that happen.

But then why—?

Resolutely, Kellen forced all questions and speculations from his mind. He had to concentrate on the task ahead.

“Are you all right?” he asked Vestakia as they reached the cavern mouth.

“I don’t feel anything,” she said, her voice light with relief. She swung down off her palfrey—Pihrandet moved to assist her, but her riding skills had improved greatly since the start of the campaign and she dismounted without help—and began to walk toward the cavern mouth.

“Wait,” Kellen said, dismounting from Firareth’s back. He paused to give the stallion a companionable pat, then drew his sword and moved forward. “Don’t get yourself killed for overconfidence.”

The others moved up, and, with Vestakia and Idalia in their midst, moved back into the caverns once more.

They had lanterns with them, of course, but for the first part of the journey, they didn’t need them. Kellen had cast Coldfire on the rocks and walls of the cavern—it had been the surest way to keep the duergar from creeping up on them as they slept—and the walls glowed a faint pale blue. The spell would wear off eventually, but he saw no reason to dismiss it.

They went all the way down to the village cavern, and Vestakia felt nothing.

She looked at Kellen and shook her head. “No. If there were anything here—anything at all, I’d feel it. I’m sure of it.”

Kellen hesitated, but Vestakia and the Crystal Spiders both agreed that the caverns were empty of Tainted creatures, and he had to admit that his hesitation stemmed from the fact that once they went back, he’d have to confront Cilarnen.

But that was his problem, and not a reason to keep everyone else standing around in the cold.

“Let’s go back, then,” he said with a sigh, then smiled. Smiled broadly, in fact. “Good work, Vestakia.”

She ducked her head, but it seemed to him that she was so happy she was glowing.

THEY reached the main camp just before dusk. Kellen sent the others on ahead. There was a stop he wanted to make first. It wasn’t just that he wanted to avoid the meeting with Cilarnen. It was that there were other obligations he felt he had to discharge that were just as pressing, and almost as uncomfortable to deal with.

In the sennight that he’d been underground, the Unicorn Knights had returned to their old camp. Many familiar pavilions had been struck—the encampment was barely half the size it had once been—but Kellen wanted to pay his respects. He’d fled like a coward the night he’d healed Gesade. The least he could do was ask after her. Perhaps someone here would know.

He rode into the center of the encampment and dismounted.

Riasen’s pavilion was now in the place where Petariel’s had been. He came out at the sound of Kellen’s arrival.

“Kellen! You come in a good hour,” he said. “We had begun to think you loved the caves so well you intended to spend the rest of your life underground.”

“It began to seem as if I was,” Kellen replied, with a shake of his head. “But Vestakia says that the caverns are now free of Taint.”

“And so I suppose we shall be moving on, once she finds the next one.” Riasen shrugged. By now the other Unicorn Knights had appeared as well. Kellen saw many familiar faces—but as many more were missing, gone forever. Petariel. Vandelt. Melchia.

Too many to count. He swallowed hard.

But Riasen was still speaking.

“—and once you have dealt with this High Mage who has come all the way from Armethalieh to speak with you, of course. Kardus says he was Banished—if this goes on, there will be no one left there at all, and we might as well live there ourselves.”

Kellen had forgotten how fast gossip traveled among the Elves. Riasen undoubtedly knew everything there was to know about Cilarnen. But before he had to reply to that, a welcome interruption spared him the need.

“I See you, Kellen,” Menerchel said with pleasure, poking his head out of his own pavilion. “I do not doubt that you have come for a proper cup of tea.”

“Tea would be welcome,” Kellen said gladly. “We could not make it properly in the caverns—at least it never tasted right.”

“It is a wonder you all did not die of thirst,” Menerchel said, in tones of mock concern. “I would not myself care to engage in such hazardous duty. No proper tea! It is not to be thought of. I shall see to it at once.” He disappeared back into his pavilion to bring out the tea-things.

“It would please me greatly to hear what you have heard of this Arme-thaliehan,” Kellen said, “but I came first of all to see if you were … well. And to ask after Gesade.”

“Why not ask me yourself?” a familiar voice came from behind him. “I’m only blind, you know. Not deaf.”

Kellen turned around quickly. Gesade and Shalkan were standing behind him, shoulder to shoulder.

“He looks stricken,” Shalkan said to her. “You know the look.”

“Indeed I do,” Gesade replied, sounding as if nothing much had ever happened to her. “Very much as if he’s done something wrong and is waiting to be scolded for it. Well, Kellen? Have you done something wrong?”

She looked completely restored to health—except for the closed sunken lids and the hollow eye sockets.

Kellen couldn’t speak.

Gesade walked carefully forward, with Shalkan at her side to guide her. She reached Kellen, and he automatically raised his hand to stroke her neck.

“Well, boy?” she said tartly. “Would you rather I was dead?”

“No!” Kellen said instantly—and honestly. “But—”

“—you’d rather I could see,” Gesade finished for him. “Well, so would I, of course. We’d all rather a great many things that we don’t get. But this is not the end of the world, or my life, so kindly don’t carry on as if it is, if you please.”

“But … what are you going to do now?” Kellen asked.

Gesade leaned into his hand, stepping back a pace so he could rub the particularly soft spot just behind her ear.

“I’m going to stay in the heart-forest until spring, then I’m going to go home to the Great Herd and run with them,” Gesade said. “Someone will come to be my eyes for that. And I’ll live my life—which I could not have done without your help. And that is that, boy. It’s charming of you to wallow in self-pity over me … when I know very well that you’d happily have strangled me more than once!”

“Yes, but—” Kellen sputtered.

“That was before I was a helpless cripple?” Gesade said sweetly.

Shalkan snickered.

“I pity the person who thinks you’re a helpless cripple,” Kellen said feelingly.

“Good,” Gesade said, giving him an encouraging nudge. “Thank you for healing me. I am very pleased to be alive, and I intend to extract every moment of pleasure from life that I can. Now drink your tea, and then go find out what that other silly human child wants here—and then be sure to come back and tell us all about it.”

“First,” Kellen said, accepting a mug of tea from Menerchel gratefully, “tell me what you know.”

“Not much,” Shalkan said, flicking his ears back and forth. “Andoreniel sent Hyandur to Armethalieh to warn the City about Them, as you know. The City wouldn’t let him in to give his warning—as you knew. As he was leaving, the gates opened and they threw Cilarnen out, wrapped in a Felon’s Cloak. Hyandur had already seen the remains of another body, torn to pieces by a Scouring Hunt, so he knew what was coming. He took Cilarnen with him over the Border—fortunately, it wasn’t very far, and they reached it before dawn.

“He went on to Stonehearth to warn them, and left Cilarnen there. And that would have been the end of the matter, except for the fact that some moonturns later, a Centaur Wildmage named Kardus received a Task—”

“A Centaur Wildmage?” Kellen asked. “But Centaurs can’t do magic.”

“Who’s telling this story?” Shalkan demanded “Kardus’s Task—a Mageprice to anyone else—was to go to Stonehearth and help the human boy he found there. He arrived at the same time that a part of the Centaur levy was mustering there, preparing to head over the Border. Well, one of Them showed up, mistook Cilarnen for you—so Cilarnen says—and tried to destroy the village to cover up Its mistake. Kardus, Cilarnen, and Wirance—a High Reaches Wildmage—working together, managed to kill It, but the levy took heavy losses and so did the village. Cilarnen decided he had to come and talk to you, and since Kardus’s Task was to help Cilarnen, along they came with what was left of the Centaur levy. Which is all anybody knows. Except that he’s definitely not a Wildmage, and he does have magic.”

Once again Kellen was impressed at how much Shalkan managed to find out—though the unicorn certainly couldn’t be sneaking around the main camp picking up gossip. He couldn’t imagine how Shalkan did it. Or did everyone come to him to tell him the news?

All it did was add to the mystery.

“Why me?” Kellen asked.

“Do come back and tell us,” Shalkan said archly. “And now, I suspect everyone—including Redhelwar—would like an answer to that question.”

Reminded of his other responsibilities, Kellen quickly finished his tea and bid farewell to the Unicorn Knights, mounted Firareth again, and rode down into the main camp.

Seeing Gesade again had made him feel better. He hadn’t thought it would—he’d thought being reminded of his failure would make him feel terrible—but somehow it didn’t. Her refusal to wallow in self-pity, even after her maiming, reminded him that no matter how terrible the loss, there was always something left with which to begin anew.

WHEN he reached the horse-lines there was a message waiting for him to report to Redhelwar “at his convenience.” Kellen grinned to himself and turned Firareth over to one of the ostlers for untacking, brushing down, and turning out He’d dawdled long enough.

He presented himself at Redhelwar’s pavilion, relieved to see only familiar faces there: Redhelwar, Adaerion, and Idalia. He bowed.

Redhelwar regarded him with a lifted brow. “Idalia has told me of your sortie into the caverns, and what you found—or, rather, did not find—there, and Adaerion has acquainted me with your suggestion that the Lady Vestakia attempt to communicate with the Crystal Spiders. Perhaps there is something that you will wish to add to that which they have told.”

“I am sure they have told you everything that I would have said,” Kellen said. “All I have to tell that they do not know is that I have seen Gesade, and that she is well and in good spirits. I ask that you forgive my tardiness, but … I wished to know how she was,” he added awkwardly.

It could have been viewed as manipulation of the most blatant sort to offer up that excuse for his lateness, but Redhelwar had once been a Unicorn Knight himself, and Kellen knew he would understand. Besides, it was no more than the truth.

Redhelwar’s expression softened. “You did all you could for her, Kellen.”

Kellen grinned. “And so she told me—very firmly. And since the unicorns know all the gossip, I think I know as much as anyone does about our … guest.”

“Guest.” The word tasted sour, tarnishing his good humor.

“And what we know of him certainly doesn’t add up to a logical whole,” Idalia said. “He’s used magic—everyone agrees about that. But when a Mage is Banished, they Burn the Gift from his mind before they cast him out, so he’ll have no chance at all against the Scouring Hunt. They must have done that to you, Kellen,” she finished, her voice puzzled.

“No,” Kellen said. “But then, I wasn’t even a Student Apprentice. I was the worst student in the entire history of the Mage-College; I could barely light a fire—or so everyone assumed. I did know a couple of First Level spells—I wasn’t supposed to—but as far as anyone knew, I hardly had the Gift at all. I think I’ve forgotten them now.” He thought hard. “I suppose Lycaelon was supposed to do it when he came to see me anyway, just in case—but I made him so furious I guess he just forgot.”

Dredging up those old memories required an act of will, and Kellen was surprised at how much they hurt.

“Lycaelon was a great one for forgetting things,” Idalia said caustically. “And when you were Banished, the Boundaries were so vast that there shouldn’t have been any way for you to get across them before the Hunt caught up to you even if you’d had an intact Gift—in fact, even with Shalkan’s help, you didn’t manage it. If you hadn’t been a Knight-Mage-to-be, you’d be dead.”

“But Cilarnen was a good student,” Kellen said resentfully. “He’d already been a Student Apprentice forever, and that was last spring. They’d certainly have Burned him.”

“But they didn’t,” Idalia said. “He’s cast Fire, Mage-light, and Mageshield, from what the Centaurs say. The first two are also spells of the Wild Magic—don’t look so surprised, Kellen; an awful lot of magic comes from the same root, and the High Magick has to have come from the Wild Magic originally—but I can’t cast anything like Mageshield.”

“Well, neither can I,” Kellen said sulkily, well and truly irritated now. It was a simple spell, too, a First Level spell, one that a Student Apprentice had to master for his own safety before moving on to more elaborate and dangerous work. Most of the First Level spells didn’t even require wand and sigil work, just visualizations and cantrips …

But he’d never managed to learn them.

He shook his head, disgusted with himself. It was sickening how quickly all that dead-numbing rote memorization came flooding back into his mind. As if he’d never left the City at all. As if he were still trapped within its walls, buried alive.

And he’d had a chance to think about this—an Armethaliehan Mage, arriving here at this time, this place—and he didn’t like the conclusions he had come to.

IDALIA watched her brother with carefully-concealed dismay. It was as if the past half-year had suddenly been stripped away. This was the “old” Kellen; the boy she’d first met—unhappy, uncertain, angry.

If Kellen had a weak point, it was Armethalieh. He hated and loved it at the same time—she was positive even he wasn’t sure which. The same way he—still—hated and loved Lycaelon, though—and she was quite positive of this—he’d convinced himself he didn’t care about his father at all. And since Lycaelon was Arch-Mage of Armethalieh, Father and City were very nearly the same thing. Certainly Lycaelon had always thought so.

She knew nothing about Cilarnen Volpiril, except that his father was Lycaelon’s rival on the High Council, but from what Kellen said about him, it was obvious that Kellen saw Cilarnen as everything he had never succeeded in being: excellent student, beloved son.

And now Cilarnen was here, reminding him of every failure, every fault.

And Kellen wasn’t thinking clearly at all.

“Well, as a Knight-Mage, you have precious little use for Mageshield, now, do you?” Idalia said, trying to draw him back to the present and make him focus on what he did have.

Kellen looked at her, startled. “I … suppose not,” he said, slowly.

“It would be good to know just why he was Banished from the City,” Idalia continued ruthlessly.

“That is something he has told no one,” Adaerion said. “And we do not know enough of the ways of the human city to know for what cause it casts out its folk.”

Kellen looked at Idalia. She was relieved to see that he seemed to have come back to himself a bit.

“You and I were Banished for studying the Wild Magic,” he said hesitantly. “But … they would have let me stay if I’d apologized and given it up.”

“Well, we can rule out studying the Wild Magic,” Idalia said. “Because we know he hasn’t done that.” She frowned. “There’s hardly anything else the Mages Banish someone for. For any other crime, you either do penance, pay a fine, get your memories excised, or all three.”

“Idalia,” Kellen said after a moment’s silence, an odd note in his voice, “what is studying the Wild Magic? If you’re a High Mage? If someone has studied the Wild Magic, what actual crime—the name of the crime, I mean—are they committing against the City?”

Idalia thought hard. It had been almost half her lifetime since she’d discovered her three Books in the Records Room of the Council Hall, and from the moment they’d come into her hands, she’d known she was committing …

“Treason,” she said. “To study the Wild Magic is to commit treason and heresy against the Light.”

“Ah,” said Redhelwar with satisfaction. “We progress.”

“No,” said Kellen. “We don’t. We could talk until the sun came up and get nowhere,” he added harshly. “What we need to do is ask Cilarnen questions, not each other. So I’ll see him. I’ll question him. And if I don’t like his answers, I’ll kill him.”

“Kellen!” Idalia gasped, stunned.

“That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?” Kellen said bleakly, and now Idalia could see the pain in his eyes—the pain of a man carrying a burden far too heavy for him to bear. “To kill things? We can discuss why he’s here and how he got here for as long as we like. But in the end, it comes down to one thing: a Wildmage brought Cilarnen to me, because that’s his Mageprice. I don’t think there was anything in that price about me letting him live.”

Idalia would have liked to deny the truth in that—but in all honesty, she couldn’t.

“I don’t know why an Armethaliehan Mage—whatever his rank, Banished for treason or not—is here. It doesn’t seem really likely that they’d let him go with his Gift intact, or when they knew an Elf was lurking around outside the City ready to help him escape the Scouring Hunt. It sounds like a trap to me. I’ll see,” Kellen finished simply.

“And certainly there will be time enough for that on the morrow,” Redhelwar said, as smoothly as if Kellen had not just proposed to murder a guest under Elven protection. “Tonight, I believe he still recovers from his ordeal in the blizzard—I know not where. For yourself, Kellen, I am certain a warm bath, a hot meal, and a good night’s sleep will be welcome before you are called upon to try this stranger’s motives. The tea that can be brewed in the caverns, so I am assured by Adaerion, is foul, and you will wish for better. Belepheriel has made you a gift of some of the Armethaliehan Black that you favor; I shall send Dionan to your pavilion to brew it for you after you have bathed, and see you to your rest.”

For a moment Idalia thought Kellen would object, but he caught himself in time. He bowed, deeply.

“You do me too much honor, Redhelwar. It is cold in the caverns, and colder without. It will be good to spend the night in reflection, and I will welcome the tea.”

He bowed again—to Redhelwar, to Adaerion, to Idalia, and left quietly.

There was silence in Redhelwar’s pavilion for a time.

Someone please tell me that Kellen didn’t just suggest killing Cilarnen, Idalia thought.

“If the Mageborn boy is indeed a threat …” Adaerion began.

“Then Kellen will deal appropriately with him in the morning,” Redhelwar said. “I trust him to do as the Wild Magic wills.”

But not, I notice, enough that you were willing to let him know where Cilarnen is now, Idalia thought.

Bowing, she took her own leave.

HE was sure Redhelwar was right. He thought he was sure.

Actually, he wasn’t sure of anything other than that he was cold, hungry, and tired.

But a hot bath and fresh clothes—he’d spent the last sennight living in his armor, and it was certainly time for a change—did much to make Kellen feel better, as did a hot fresh meal that hadn’t started life as blocks of journey-food. After that he returned to his tent—where Dionan was waiting to brew the promised tea—and drank the entire pot, while giving his armor and sword a thorough cleaning.

It made him feel better—as long as he didn’t think about Cilarnen.

The uppermost emotion in Kellen’s mind—he was honest enough to admit—was outrage. How dare Cilarnen come here? This was Kellen’s place, Kellen’s life—he’d worked hard to make a place for himself here, and now Cilarnen was coming to—

Take it all away? Is that what you really think?

Kellen snorted, surprised, disgusted, and amused—all at the same time—by the direction of his own thoughts. Even if Cilarnen were a fully invested High Mage with an army at his back—which he wasn’t—he couldn’t do that. But what if he ISN’T Cilarnen at all? What if he’s a Demon who’s figured out some way to pass the bounds of the Elven Lands?

And conceal himself from Vestakia? Unlikely, but possible.

What was slightly more possible was that he was some other kind of enemy. Something Vestakia couldn’t sense, something that could pass the bounds of the Elven Lands, but an enemy nonetheless.

If he’s an enemy, I’ll deal with him.

But you have to deal with yourself first, a small inner voice said.

Kellen sighed, and set his sword and armor aside—both gleamed with oil and polish—and sat down cross-legged on his sleeping mat. He sat quietly, not emptying his mind but letting it fill with whatever it chose.

His losses came first. Ciltesse. Petariel. The dead friends he had not yet had time to mourn in the need to cleanse the caverns of duergar. The lost members of his thirty, replaced already by near-strangers who had not yet had time to become friends. He was afraid to get to know them well, afraid to lose them too.

Elves were supposed to live for centuries. There were Elves in Sentarshadeen as old as Armethalieh! They were supposed to be living in peace in their beautiful cities, studying, crafting, making life itself into an art. They weren’t supposed to die—drowning in their own blood, spilling their guts out on the snow, vomiting and convulsing as they died of Shadowed Elf poison …

Screaming as they were eaten by acid.

They weren’t supposed to die.

But they do die, Kellen told himself. They die so their children will live. They die so the Centaurs will live. They die so the trees will live.

He remembered the barren wasteland he and Jermayan had ridden through on their way to the Black Cairn—the land that, so Jermayan, had told him, had been a lush and fruitful forest before the last time Shadow Mountain had gone to war.

Yes, they fight because of that.

If there had to be war, that was a good reason to fight. Because to see the whole world turned into that—and worse—was unthinkable. Anything his friends had to do to stop it was worth it.

Even die.

But Gods of the Wild Magic, he would miss them—!

He let his grief wash over him, and through him, and when its first violence was past, he looked deeper.

Hatred. Anger. Fear. They came racing into his consciousness like coldwarg over the snow, all centered on the image of a young man he remembered only dimly.

Envy. Spite. Malice. He hoped that Cilarnen had suffered every step of his journey here, had loathed falling into the hands of the “Lesser Races,” had been terrified of the Elves.

Grief. Despair. He hoped, when Cilarnen had heard the gate slam shut behind him—he’d realized his high-and-mighty father had betrayed and abandoned him—he’d realized that the High Mages cared for nothing but power, for nothing but themselves. That everything he’d done every day of his life to excel, to please, had come to nothing in the end.

Kellen realized he was crying silently, tears streaming down his face.

Is that it? he thought wonderingly, even as his heart ached with loss and despair. But I don’t care—

Apparently he did.

“I don’t,” he whispered aloud, wiping at his eyes. He had everything here—friends, a life, work that mattered, a gift to cherish and train.

But the thought of Cilarnen coming here … frightened him.

Because Cilarnen was—or had been, at least—everything that Kellen had once desperately wanted to be. And it was as if …

As if I’m afraid that if when I see him again, everything will go back to being that way. I’ll be Kellen-the-failure again, and he’ll still be … perfect.

It was a ridiculous thing to fear. In Armethalieh, Cilarnen had belonged, and Kellen had been out-of-place. Here, Kellen fit in.

Only he didn’t. Not really. He was a Knight-Mage. Knight-Mages didn’t “fit in.”

There.

That was the root of his anger and fear.

He didn’t fit in here either. He was just as alone here as he had been in the City.

Kellen bit back a heartfelt sob.

Oh, it was a completely different situation, of course. In Armethalieh, conformity was the highest goal. Here, everyone valued him for being different. His Knight-Mage gifts were esteemed and honored.

But he was still different. Set apart. In a way that even Idalia wasn’t.

And now, if Cilarnen came and fit in …

You’ll be jealous. You’ll still be jealous. Of him.

Kellen managed a shaky laugh and wiped his face dry once more.

But he thought he’d worked his way to the heart of the problem. It had been as painful as lancing an infected boil, but he felt better now. And he thought that tomorrow, when he faced Cilarnen, he could judge him fairly—for whatever he was.

I won’t like it. I won’t like HIM. But I can do it.

Thoroughly exhausted now, Kellen rolled into his bedclothes and doused the lanterns with a gesture.

Chapter Twenty-four

Shadows of the Past

COLD AIR AND a hint of movement woke him. Kellen rolled out of his bedclothes and grabbed his sword in one fluid movement. Someone was moving toward him. He reached out and grabbed the front of the intruder’s tunic, flinging him to the bedroll he’d just vacated, the edge of his sword at the shadowy figure’s throat.

“Hey!” the intruder yelped. He must have felt the cold of the steel at his throat then, because he went absolutely still.

With a gesture, Kellen lit the lanterns.

And stared down at someone who could only be Cilarnen Volpiril.

He’d seen that face, Kellen realized with a shock—and since his Banishing. It was the same face that had appeared in Idalia’s scrying bowl the day he’d gone to Ashaniel to ask her to warn Armethalieh: russet hair, pale blue eyes, narrow aristocratic Mageborn features. He was freshly shaved, and his hair was still cut short in the manner of the City, but no proper Mageborn son would have a complexion so roughened by wind and weather.

“Cilarnen Volpiril,” Kellen said in disgust, getting to his feet. “Close the flap,” he said without turning around, “it’s cold in here.”

When he turned to pick up his sword sheath, he got a good look at his second “guest.”

The Centaur had waist-length hair—black, with a broad white streak—and, uncommon for male Centaurs, was clean-shaven. His tail had a white streak in it as well, and he had three white feet. Charms were braided into both his hair and his tail, and around his neck, over his tunic, he wore a necklace from which were strung many more. Kellen’s mind caught up with his body, and he knew then what this was all about.

“You must be Kardus,” Kellen said, sheathing his sword. How a Centaur could still be a Wildmage without having magic was a question for another time. He reached for his tunic and pulled it on. “I’m Kellen. Is your Task fulfilled?”

“Yes,” Kardus said. “My Task was to bring Cilarnen to you. But I have grown fond of him on our journey. I would stay to help him, if I may.”

For a moment Kellen thought of ordering him out, then shrugged. “It’ll be cramped, but sure. Tea?” He was glad, now, that Dionan had left the tea-things behind. It occurred to him that maybe he’d better apologize for nearly decapitating Cilarnen. “Ah, sorry about the welcome. We sleep lightly around here; it wouldn’t be the first time that the Enemy has tried to infiltrate the camp.”

He rummaged around until he found his camp boots and slipped them on, and began setting up the tea brazier.

“DON’T you want to know why I’m here?” Cilarnen demanded.

When he’d awoken in the Healer’s tent several days ago—unutterably relieved to discover that Kardus had kept the Wildmage Healers away from him—he’d wanted to see Kellen immediately.

Only Kellen, it seemed, wasn’t here.

Nobody was willing to tell him when—or even if—Kellen would be back, either, and so for nearly a sennight Cilarnen had waited in the Centaur camp, hoping for word.

Tonight he’d finally heard that Kellen had returned—from a Wildmage Healer who had been with Kellen at someplace called the further cavern—but still the invitation Cilarnen impatiently expected didn’t come. Finally he’d taken matters into his own hands. He’d demanded that Kardus show him the way to Kellen’s tent, or he’d go by himself, and a little to his surprise, the Centaur Wildmage had agreed without argument.

He hadn’t expected the tent to be green silk.

He certainly hadn’t expected to be attacked when he opened the flap and stepped inside.

“I said—” he repeated.

“Probably to annoy me,” Kellen answered coolly, and went on with his tea preparations as if Cilarnen wasn’t there.

Cilarnen regarded Kellen with a mixture of fear and despair. He had to listen to what Cilarnen had to say!

But this was not the same Kellen he and his cronies had taunted back at the Mage-College. Oh, they’d called him “Kellen Farmboy” even then because of his hulking size, but now …

He was muscled like a dock-laborer and surely even taller than he’d been then. There was nothing of the Mageborn about him. He looked nothing like Lycaelon Tavadon—he looked like one of the High Reaches folk—and his hair was long enough to braid.

And then there was that sword. As large and heavy as a Ritual Tool, but Kellen handled it as if it weighed no more than a practice rapier. And his speed—

Cilarnen had never seen anyone move that fast in his life—not even the Centaur warriors. He’d barely taken two steps into Kellen’s tent before he’d been seized and flung to the floor, feeling something cold and sharp at his throat, and when Kellen had lit the lanterns—by magic, Wild Magic—he’d seen that Kellen was holding that monstrous blade to his throat, glaring down at him with a face like Death Itself.

And now he was making tea.

“My news is urgent,” Cilarnen said. “It concerns the good of the City.”

“It can wait until the tea is ready,” Kellen said maddeningly. “Or, of course, it can wait until the morning. I really don’t like being woken up in the middle of the night.”

“You’re still thinking only of yourself,” Cilarnen said bitterly. “But then, you always did.”

“Have you always been an idiot,” Kellen asked pleasantly, “or did frost-burn addle your brains? You don’t know anything about me, you’ve come halfway across the world to ask for my help, and now you’re insulting me. What would your father say?”

“He’s dead,” Cilarnen said bleakly. “I killed him.”

“WHAT?” Oh, good going, Kellen, you’ve really put your foot in it this time. What was it about Cilarnen that sent him back three seasons in his manners? As if the Elves hadn’t taught him better by now. Leaf and Star—if he’d thought about it, the most annoying thing he could have done was to have been completely polite, and if he hadn’t, then he wouldn’t have put himself in the wrong. “Cilarnen, I—”

“You don’t care.” Cilarnen’s voice was flat. “Why should you? Your father and mine were enemies.”

“My father condemned me to death, actually,” Kellen replied slowly. “He wanted me dead so badly he sent three packs of the Scouring Hunt after me. When he found out I was still alive, living outside City Lands, he expanded the Boundaries so he could try to hunt me down again. Whatever our fathers are—were—to each other, we are not enemies. Or at least, we shouldn’t be.”

As he said it, he felt a sense of Presence.

A price to pay.

Forgive an enemy.

Yes, Cilarnen had been his enemy. Perhaps not for what he had done—though Kellen had certainly suffered enough from his youthful tormenting—but simply for what he was—the symbol of what Kellen could have been, as much so as the Other Kellen he had confronted at the Black Cairn.

Cilarnen had been—and still was—his enemy.

Forgive an enemy.

Forgive—forget—it was time to pay the price of Gesade’s healing.

Kellen swallowed hard. He’d thought then it was a small price, a light price.

I forgive you, Cilarnen. I think it will be the hardest price I have ever paid, but … I forgive you. I think you were as much a victim of the City as I was.

He got up to reach out to Cilarnen.

“No,” Kardus said quietly. “The touch of a Wildmage is … uncomfortable to him.”

Kellen settled back and concentrated on preparing tea, saying nothing. This was no simple price, over and done with in hours or days. He would be paying this price for moonturns to come. Perhaps for the rest of his life.

I can try, he thought desperately. I can only try my best.

“Was that why Lycaelon wanted to expand the City Bounds?” Cilarnen asked in horrified wonder.

Kellen took a deep breath, and forced himself to sound calm. He could act as if Cilarnen weren’t his enemy. That was a beginning.

The sense of Presence—of listening—withdrew.

So he nodded, and made his expression serious, but open and pleasant. “Yes. We’re fairly sure, anyway. When we found out, my sister and I escaped into the Elven Lands, because we knew that no matter what, the Council wouldn’t dare push the Bounds past the Elven border.”

“And then everything went wrong, and the Council drew back the Bounds to the walls,” Cilarnen said, taking up the story as if it were his to tell as well. Well, maybe it was—he knew what Kellen did not, what had gone on inside the City. “The farmers stopped sending food—they said with so much rain in the fall they would need all their food for themselves. There were no weather spells to protect them anymore, you see. I was an Entered Apprentice then. I saw all the storehouses.” There was a hint of desperation in his voice. “They were half-empty, and every day it was worse. The price of grain kept rising. The Council agreed to buy grain from the Selkens, but of course nobody knew if they would send it. And it made us look so weak!”

The tea was ready. Kellen poured, and held out a cup to Cilarnen, dropping several honey-disks into it for good measure. In the cold, honey was energy. The boy—Kellen couldn’t help thinking of Cilarnen as a boy, though he knew Cilarnen was a year older than he was—took it automatically.

Heavy rains. When the Black Cairn had burst, it had affected the weather everywhere. Normally that wouldn’t have included the Delfier Valley, granary of Armethalieh, but when the Mages had restricted the Bounds, they had removed the weather-spells from the valley, exposing it to the full force of the freak storms. Anything still in the fields would have been beaten down and drowned; rotted. He hadn’t known. Of course, if he had, it still wouldn’t have changed anything, but—

“You couldn’t let that go on,” Kellen said quietly.

“We had to stop them!” Cilarnen said passionately. “The High Council wouldn’t listen—my father wouldn’t listen. It was his plan to reduce the Bounds to the walls, to shame Arch-Mage Lycaelon, and he would not reverse his position. The Arch-Mage would have listened. I know that now. I know it! But I thought he wouldn’t because of who my father was, and I couldn’t see the City starving before my eyes!”

Odd as it was to imagine, Kellen thought Lycaelon would have listened. Leaving the City without any way to feed itself was suicidal. But if the rest of the Council had backed Volpiril, and not Lycaelon …

“And I couldn’t see the City starving before my eyes.” At that moment, Kellen felt something he hadn’t expected for Cilarnen: respect. As Mageborn, Cilarnen would have been one of the last to suffer, in fact, the hardships of the City would scarcely have touched his life at all. Yet he had taken on the responsibility his elders were too enwrapped in political wrangling to claim.

“What did you do?” he asked gently.

“We made umbrastone,” Cilarnen said miserably. “Light deliver me, I don’t even know why now! There were six of us, and Master Raellan: Jorade Isas, Geont Pentres, Kermis Lalkmair, Tiedor Rolfort, Margon Ogregance, and me. Margon’s father was on the Merchant’s and Provender’s Council, so he knew exactly how bad things were. Kermis was the one who had the recipe for umbrastone. It eats magic—I think we thought that if we made enough of it, we could get into the High Council chambers and make them listen to us.”

“Leaf and Star,” Kellen said softly. Treason, they’d guessed back in Redhelwar’s tent, and here it was: conspiracy to overthrow the High Council and meddling with forbidden magic. He’d read about umbrastone in the Ars Perfidorum, the Book of Forbidden Acts. It was one of the products of the Art Khemitic, and as such, as much anathema to the High Mages as the Wild Magic was.

“We were arrested before we even made the first batch,” Cilarnen said, sounding baffled and grief-stricken. “I don’t know how they found out. But we had all the ingredients, so that was good enough for the High Council. I don’t know what happened to any of my friends—I think at least one of them was Banished before me, and died. Hyandur said there was someone in a Felon’s Cloak, and the Hunt … I didn’t believe him then. Or maybe … Undermage Anigrel said my father was dead, when he came to Burn away my Gift. He said the conspiracy was Lord Volpiril’s idea.”

“He lied,” Kellen said instantly, though the mention of Anigrel’s name made him want to twitch. It wasn’t only kindness that motivated his words, but common sense. Why would Lord Volpiril instigate a conspiracy whose sole purpose was to overthrow him and support Lycaelon’s position? Anigrel must have been lying.

Cilarnen held up a hand. “That doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice rough with grief. “This does: Undermage Anigrel came to Burn away my Gift. I still have it.”

Kellen started, but didn’t interrupt.

“For a long time I didn’t.” Maybe Cilarnen interpreted Kellen’s expression of startlement as skepticism, because he nodded vigorously. “Truly. Even you have to believe I’d know whether it was there or not. I spent two moonturns at Stonehearth, and I didn’t have it—just the worst headaches you can imagine. Then—the day that Thing came—it came back.”

“And it’s all there?” Kellen wasn’t sure quite what he was asking, or what good the information would do him. He knew how the High Mages fueled their spells—by power stolen from the citizens of Armethalieh through their City Talismans. Even if Cilarnen hadn’t had his Gift Burned out of him, he had nothing now beyond his personal power to draw on to fuel his spells.

“Yes,” Cilarnen said, smiling bitterly for a moment. “For what good it does me. I was nearly ready to test for Journeyman when I was Banished—but here, without tools, without spellbooks, what good am I? Unless, of course, you need someone to take care of horses. I can light fires and boil water. But just touching those cursed books you Wildmages are so proud of makes me feel sick. And there’s something missing when I try to cast a spell. But I don’t know what it is.”

I do, Kellen thought. And bless Leaf and Star that Anigrel was so willing to parade his superior knowledge before me that day. I can explain to you how the High Magick REALLY works, and why your spells don’t.

But whether that was something he should do would require more thought. And he wasn’t sure that even if he did explain, it would help. Cilarnen would still need a power source—quite a lot of them, in fact—and they would have to donate their power freely and willingly.

“I’m glad that you told me all this,” Kellen said, “and I really am sorry about your father—not because I liked him, or any of the High Mages, but because I think he was unjustly killed. And I know that you and your friends were unjustly punished. It should have been the first thought of every High Mage on the Council to take care of the City, not to spend their time in wrangling over who was to blame. But this isn’t why you came, is it?”

“No,” Cilarnen said. “I came because of what the De—Thing told me at Stonehearth.” He closed his eyes, obviously concentrating, and when he spoke again, eyes still closed, Kellen sensed he was reciting something he had carefully committed to memory.

“‘So, Arch-Mage’s son Kellen, what a surprise to see you here. Have you tired of the Children of Leaf and Star and think to make your way back to the Golden City? You have nothing to return to now. Your father claims another as his son. He has given him the seat on the High Council that was to have been yours. And daily our foothold in the City grows stronger …’”

Kellen rocked back on his heels, the words striking him like separate blows.

The Demons were in Armethalieh.

Or … wait. He was fairly sure the Demons couldn’t enter Armethalieh, any more than they could enter the Elven Lands. If he could trust a single word Lycaelon had said to him that night in his cell, the High Mages did remember the Demons, and were still terrified of them. So they’d have spells to keep them out of the City.

But … a foothold. That was bad enough.

It would have to be a foothold of a different sort than they had here in the Elven Lands with the Shadowed Elves. Something that could pass the City-wards and flourish unnoticed.

But what?

“Well?” Cilarnen demanded. “Aren’t you going to do something?”

“Yes,” Kellen said. “I’m going to have another cup of tea. And I’m going to think.”

“Think!” Cilarnen cried. “What good is thinking going to do? You’ve got to stop them!”

“Really?” Kellen replied, his tone dry. “One would be interested, of course, to hear how this was to be accomplished at all, much less this instant. I can’t go back to Armethalieh and neither can you. And even if we could fight our way in, do you think the High Council would listen to us? Would the Arch-Mage listen to me?” And Lycaelon rules the Council now. He must, now that Volpiril’s dead. I have to talk to Idalia about this. She kept watch on the High Council for years. She’ll have a better idea of how the power would have shifted with Volpiril gone. And … Lycaelon has adopted someone, and given him Volpiril’s Council seat. Who?

“So you’re going to leave them to die,” Cilarnen said bitterly. “I knew you would.” He started to get to his feet.

“Sit down,” Kellen said firmly. “Drink your tea. And think, Cilarnen. By Leaf and Star, you were the best student at the Mage-College—you must have some brain in that pretty head of yours. I wouldn’t give my worst enemy over to Them—I’m certainly not giving Them a whole city of innocent people to play with. Their sorcery is fueled by torture and death—and the more powerful the Gift in their victim, the more power They gain from destroying him. If they take Armethalieh … if they can take Armethalieh …”

Then They win. They’ll be unstoppable.

“It’s cold,” Cilarnen muttered sulkily, sitting back down.

Kellen lifted the pot. Cilarnen held out his cup. Kellen refilled it. Cilarnen sipped. “Now it’s bitter,” he said, a faint whining note in his voice.

Kellen sighed inwardly. He wondered if he’d ever been anything like Cilarnen. Probably. He refilled his own cup. “I don’t make very good tea. Ask anyone,” he said mildly. He passed Cilarnen the jar of honey-disks and sipped his own tea. It tasted fine to him—strong, but that was just as well. He hadn’t gotten much sleep.

“You say you’re going to help. But you don’t say what you’re going to do. And the only reason you’re going to help is because if those Things destroy Armethalieh, it’ll be bad for the Elves, who are the only ones you really care about,” Cilarnen retorted belligerently a few moments later.

If Kellen hadn’t had something really important to worry about now, if he hadn’t had the paying of his Mageprice fixed firmly in his mind, he might actually have gotten angry. As it was, he simply stared at Cilarnen in bemusement. Why in the name of anything you cared to call upon was the boy trying to pick a fight with him?

Because Cilarnen was afraid.

The intuition came to him suddenly. He glanced up at Kardus, and saw acknowledgment in the Centaur Wildmage’s dark-eyed gaze. Cilarnen was terrified.

For Armethalieh.

Kellen had been afraid when he’d been Banished, but only of the unknown. From the moment Armethalieh’s gates closed behind him, he’d been looking forward, not back.

But Cilarnen …

Cilarnen missed Armethalieh. The way Idalia would miss Jermayan, he imagined vaguely, or he would miss Shalkan. Cilarnen felt about Armethalieh the way Jermayan and Ancaladar felt about each other.

But a city is wood and stone. It can’t love you back.

He supposed that didn’t matter. The Elves loved Ysterialpoerin, and had fought desperately to save it. He had fought desperately to save it.

Compassion warmed his next words.

“Yes, many of the Elves are my friends. But I’d help anyway, even if Armethalieh’s destruction weren’t a danger to them. If They destroy Armethalieh, Their victory will be bad for more than just the Elves. It will give Them the power to destroy every creature of the Light, every tree, every blade of grass, until there’s nothing left in the world but Them and Their slaves. They tried twice before. The first time was before there were humans, and the Elves fought them alone. The last time was around the time Armethalieh was built. Everyone—Elves, humans, Centaurs, unicorns, dragons, and Otherfolk who don’t exist anymore—all joined together to defeat Them. They thought they’d won forever.

“They were wrong.”

Cilarnen just shook his head. Plainly it was more information than he could handle.

“Kellen will aid Armethalieh, Cilarnen, and so will the Elves, for all the races of the Light depend on one another, like a spider’s web. Cut one strand, then another, and soon there is no web at all. Do you see?” Kardus said, as simply as if he were talking to a small child.

“But the Elves went to ask the City for help,” Cilarnen said, shaking his head. “And we wouldn’t give it. Why should they help now?”

Kardus glanced at Kellen questioningly.

“Well, the Elves weren’t actually asking for help. Andoreniel already knew that the High Mages wouldn’t fight for the Elves—or for anyone outside the City,” Kellen said, trying to keep his explanation simple. “He was only trying to warn the City so they could protect themselves.”

“But they wouldn’t let Hyandur in!” Cilarnen said angrily. “They wouldn’t let him warn them—and he still saved my life! Roiry and Pearl could have been killed outrunning the Scouring Hunt, but he still helped me.”

Kellen wasn’t sure, but from the context, “Roiry” and “Pearl” seemed to be Hyandur’s riding animals. Odd that one of the Mageborn should care about anything like that; young Mages-in-training didn’t have pets or favorite mounts any more than they had girlfriends. They were supposed to focus their entire being on the High Magick to the exclusion of everything else.

“If what the creature you met at Stonehearth told you is true,” Kellen said, still thinking his way slowly through everything Cilarnen had told him, “Hyandur’s being barred from the City may have saved not only your life, but his. He probably wouldn’t have been left alive to deliver his message—depending on the nature of this ‘foothold.’”

Cilarnen looked surprised, as if the thought had never occurred to him.

“So … it worked out for the best?” he said tentatively.

“It went as the Wild Magic wills,” Kellen said automatically.

Cilarnen recoiled in disgust, wincing faintly.

Kellen sighed ruefully. Cilarnen was more difficult to talk to than the Elves of Ysterialpoerin! “You can’t have that much objection to the Wild Magic. You came here with a Wildmage,” he said, with just a touch of chiding in his voice.

It was an hour before dawn now; he wasn’t going to get any more sleep tonight. He might as well get dressed and take Cilarnen to be fed. At a slightly more civilized hour he could present him to Redhelwar—hoping Cilarnen did not insult the Army’s General too thoroughly—and they could begin to plan what to do.

“Kardus is different. He doesn’t make my skin crawl,” Cilarnen said with a shattering lack of tact. “And anyway—I’m already Banished. What difference can it make who I associate with? But Wild Magic … it doesn’t make any sense.”

Kellen looked at Kardus, puzzled.

“As you know, I have no magic. Yet when the Books came to me, I did my best to live by their teachings, and to follow the Great Herdsman’s Path. There are times when I Know what others do not, and in payment for these Knowings, I am always set a Task. I Knew in Merryvale that I must go to Stonehearth, and help the human child I would find there. When I reached Stonehearth, my Knowing unfolded further, and I realized, after the attack, that my Task was to bring him to you, in order to give him the help he truly needed.

“Both Wirance and I found that his magic was of a kind neither of us knew. We tested him with the Wild Magic, and found that Wirance’s Books caused him true distress where mine did not, though he could read neither Wirance’s set nor mine. Yet their spells worked together well enough at Stonehearth.”

“Huh,” Kellen said. One more mystery. Well, given time and enough information, this one could probably be unraveled too.

He pulled off the tunic he’d grabbed at random and opened his clothes chest.

“What are you doing?” Cilarnen asked nervously.

“Getting dressed.” For some reason Kellen was starting to feel like Cilarnen’s much older brother. “It’s almost dawn. Then the three of us—by your courtesy, Kardus Wildmage—are going to go and eat, because I didn’t get much sleep and I’m hungry, and as the Mountainfolk say, ‘Sleep is food, and food is sleep.’ By then the day-watch of the camp should be on duty, so I’ll go to Dionan or Ninolion and see when we can see Redhelwar—the General of the Elven Army, Cilarnen, and he’s the most important person here, so try to be extremely polite. The Elves set a great store by politeness. Then, when we do see him, you can tell him what you’ve told me, and we’ll figure out what to do about it.”

As he spoke, he finished dressing, and buckled on sword, dagger, and spurs. It was a little cramped with Kardus in the tent, but he managed. Quickly running a comb through his hair, he braided it into a tight club at the base of his neck, tied it with a ribbon, swung his cloak around himself, and picked up his gloves.

Cilarnen was staring at him, jaw hanging.

“You look like an Elf,” he blurted, scrambling to his feet.

Kellen bit his lip. Hard. “Cilarnen, have you actually seen any Elves? I look about as much like one of them as a draft horse looks like a unicorn. Come on.” He doused the lanterns and worked his way around Kardus to the door of the pavilion.

CILARNEN followed the other two out of the now-dark green tent, gasping a little as the sharp bite of the cold air. It was still black as night, for all Kellen Tavadon’s talk of it being nearly dawn, and snowing—of course. At least Tavadon had listened, though Cilarnen wasn’t really sure how much he understood. He had kept talking about things that had happened a thousand years ago, not about what had happened back in the village. And about Elves.

Always Elves.

Cilarnen seethed with resentment. Like any properlyraised Mageborn, Cilarnen knew about Elves. They were deceitful, they were one of the Lesser Races—

Of course—he felt a wash of confusion—Centaurs were a Lesser Race, too. And Sarlin and Kardus were Centaurs.

But they were different. They didn’t make him feel quite so … unfinished.

Elves bothered him. They were so haughty, so terribly aloof.

And the Chronicles of the Light specifically said that Elvenkind had been created by the Light as a rebuke to humankind. That Elves never told the truth.

But Hyandur had been coming to tell the truth about the Demons, hadn’t he?

Cilarnen felt his head begin to hurt. This was not how things were supposed to be going.

THE dining tent was bright and warm. The night watch was there, lingering over their meals before retiring to their beds. With the caverns cleared, the army, by the grace of Leaf and Star, would be granted a breathing space to heal itself before it must fight again.

Kellen caught Cilarnen gazing around himself curiously, as if he’d never been here before.

“You’ve been staying with the Centaurs?” he asked. That would make sense, if he’d been in Kardus’s care. The Centaurs had a separate section of the camp, with everything—including their eating place—arranged to accommodate their physical requirements.

Cilarnen nodded dumbly.

“We can move one of the benches for you, Kardus,” Kellen said. “But I’m afraid the table will be low.”

“It is of no matter,” the Centaur said kindly. “The food here is excellent.” He switched his tail in anticipation.

They went and collected trays of food. Kellen noticed there were few items on Cilarnen’s tray, and added more.

“Will you stop doing that?” Cilarnen demanded irritably, after Kellen put on the third dish. “I’m not that hungry.”

“It’s cold out there. You need to eat,” Kellen said, spying a platter of honey-cakes fresh from the oven and taking several. Warm, they were delicious. Cold, both Shalkan and Firareth liked them—and he knew he’d have to make time today to get up to the Unicorn Camp to tell them the news.

Bad as it was.

“I don’t need to eat,” Cilarnen said pettishly. “And if I did, you couldn’t make me.”

“I could tie you in a knot and feed you your own feet,” Kellen said, making his tone pleasant just to keep the boy off balance. He had the feeling that the more he kept Cilarnen bewildered, the better chance there would be for new ideas to sink into that too-pretty skull. “At least drink if you won’t eat.”

“Not if it’s more boiled grass,” Cilarnen said peevishly. At least he kept his voice down—not that it mattered, as the Elves could hear him perfectly well.

Kellen added a tankard of hot cider to Cilarnen’s tray.

“Boiled grass.” He’ll drink tea in Redhelwar’s pavilion if I have to strangle him.

Kellen and Kardus worked their way steadily through hearty breakfasts—Kellen, as was his usual habit, wrapping several of the honey-cakes on his plate in a cloth and tucking them away for later—while Kellen took the opportunity to catch up on news from the Wild Lands, since Kardus had come from Merryvale.

Haneida was well—Kellen was grateful to hear that, as the elderly beekeeper had refused to leave the village when the Scouring Hunt had come—

“And Master Eliron as well,” Kardus said, smiling. “Still in his place, still swearing he is too old and too busy to serve as a Councilor. Most of the villagers returned to their places in the Wild Lands as soon as the new Bounds collapsed.”

“And Merana? And Cormo?” Kellen asked eagerly.

Kardus bowed his head, suddenly grave. “Cormo is here. Merana … was lost upon the road, as many were.”

Kellen swallowed around the sudden lump in his own throat. Lost, if Idalia had guessed right, to Demon raids. “I’m sorry.” I hope she died quickly.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Cilarnen was only picking at his food. In fact, he didn’t look well at all.

But he’d seemed fine back in Kellen’s pavilion. And he hadn’t eaten or drunk anything Kellen hadn’t. As Kellen watched, he set down his eating knife and rubbed fretfully at his eyes.

He’d mentioned having headaches back in Stonehearth.

“Look, why don’t we go over to the Healers’ tents and find you something for your headache?” Kellen suggested. “You’ll probably feel more like eating then. And you need a clear head when you talk to Redhelwar.”

Cilarnen stared at him in a combination of misery and shock.

“You look awful,” Kellen said, in explanation. “Didn’t they give you something for your headaches in Stonehearth?”

“Yes,” Cilarnen finally—reluctantly—said. “I don’t know what. It was brown. It had dream-honey in it. I took it twice a day. But I haven’t had any headaches since …” His voice trailed off.

Kellen managed to keep his face still, but it took all the practice he’d had living among the Elves. What little he knew about healing-cordials he’d learned listening to Idalia, but he knew that dream-honey was powerful stuff, not used lightly.

“Well, the Healers will be able to come up with something. And this is probably just because of a weather change.”

“But what if I’m losing my Gift again?” Now Cilarnen had an edge of panic in his voice. Kellen thought he knew why, and for just a moment, he felt a little sympathy. Magic, after all, was all that Cilarnen had left of his old life. And the thought that he might lose even that must make him mad with fear.

“Cilarnen,” Kellen said firmly, getting to his feet. “You know much more about the High Magick than I do. You know you can’t just ‘lose’ a Gift. The High Mages either Burn it out of your mind, or they don’t. So since they didn’t, no matter what happens, or what you feel, you still have it.”

Cilarnen stared up at him, the same dumb fear in his eyes as a cornered hare. Kellen shook his head. This should have been the moment when he felt superior, at long last, to the too-perfect boy who was everything Kellen Tavadon should have been and wasn’t. But he didn’t. Oddly, all he felt was irritation. “Now come to the Healers’ tent,” he said gruffly, “—or be carried. It’s all one to me.”

BY the time they reached the Healers’ tent, Cilarnen was staggering along between Kellen and Kardus mechanically and very nearly was carried there. They brought him inside the tent designated for minor injuries—a mere headache, no matter how bad, could not compare with the severity of the injuries the Healers usually treated. Cilarnen sank down on a waiting bench and leaned forward, his forehead nearly touching his knees.

Even a sennight after the battle at Ysterialpoerin, the Healers’ tents were still filled with recuperating wounded, for the Wildmages could only cure so many, and the rest must be left to heal by more conventional means.

A Healer approached as soon as they entered.

“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage.”

“I See you, Healer Yatimumil,” Kellen said, bowing to the Elven Healer. “Here is Cilarnen, a human High Mage. He suffers from headaches that Centaur Healers in Stonehearth were treating with a potion containing dream-honey. We thought the cause of those headaches was past, and this headache may not be of the same sort. It came on very suddenly.”

Yatimumil bowed again, looking at Cilarnen critically. “Idalia is here. I will send for her. I think perhaps that a human should look into this.”

A few moments later, Idalia and Vestakia entered the tent.

“So you found him,” Idalia said neutrally.

“Say rather that he found me,” Kellen said, grimacing.

Idalia moved toward Cilarnen.

“No,” Kellen said quickly. “Don’t. Kardus says that Wildmages make him uncomfortable.” He shrugged. “I don’t know why.”

“Well, I’m not a Wildmage.”

Vestakia moved forward and knelt in front of him. “Cilarnen, please look up. I need to see your eyes.”

Cilarnen looked up.

Recoiled.

Tensed.

Oh, NO.

Kellen had long since stopped noticing what Vestakia looked like. She was just … Vestakia. His comrade in arms, sometimes his weapon in battle. And by now everyone in the Elven army thought of her the same way.

But when Cilarnen had looked up, he hadn’t seen Vestakia. He’d seen a Demon.

He scrabbled for the knife on his belt, his face white with terror.

If he kills her—or so much as hurts her—the Elves will kill HIM.

If I don’t kill him first!

Kellen dove between them, knocking Cilarnen and the bench over backward before anyone else had a chance to move. He measured himself full-length atop Cilarnen, one hand clasped over the wrist of the hand that held the knife—a Centaur-made blade, heavy and sharp—the other firmly clasped over Cilarnen’s mouth, lest he say words that could not be unsaid.

“I’m sorry,” he said into Cilarnen’s ear. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you. I didn’t think she’d be here. I didn’t think. Her name’s Vestakia. She’s a friend. Her father was one of Them, but her mother was a great Wildmage, and she worked a powerful spell, so that Vestakia would be human, and good—inside, where it counts.”

Cilarnen struggled violently, but he was no match for Kellen’s strength. Kellen supposed he was hurting him—one way or another—but right now he had no choice.

“I promise you that she’s never hurt anyone in her life”—it was stretching the truth a bit, but certainly Vestakia had never hurt anyone Good—“and she isn’t one of Them. Think Would Kardus be standing here quietly if she were?”

Finally Cilarnen lay still, and Kellen dared to take his hand from over his mouth.

“I—But—She—But—Women can’t do magick,” Cilarnen sputtered irrelevantly.

Behind them both, Idalia made a noise like an exasperated cat.

Kellen plucked the knife from Cilarnen’s hand and tossed it into the middle of the room, then hauled him unceremoniously to his feet, stepping back warily.

“You’ll find that women can do a great number of things. Probably even High Magick, if the High Mages weren’t so unreasonable about it,” Kellen told him, though not as sternly as he might have. “You have a good mind, Cilarnen Volpiril. See with your own eyes, hear with your own ears, and use what you find to draw logical conclusions.”

He glanced around cautiously.

Vetakia was cowering back against Idalia, looking stricken. Kellen looked away quickly.

Kardus picked up the discarded knife and moved to stand beside Vestakia and Idalia.

“It is true,” he said. “She is a daughter of the Light. I will prove it to you now.”

From one of the pouches at his belt he removed a short coil of shining white rope. Kellen recognized what it was instantly. Unicorn hair, braided into a thin rope.

“Child I beg you, of your courtesy. He has seen friends die at Their hands,” Kardus said to Vestakia.

Tears welled up in Vestakia’s eyes. She held out her arm, pushing the cuff of her tunic back to expose the skin.

Slowly and deliberately, Kardus wound the length of rope around her arm.

Kellen turned away. He could not watch. How many times did Vestakia have to prove herself? Instead, he watched Cilarnen.

Cilarnen was staring at Kardus and Vestakia intently. At last he moved forward slowly, stepping over the fallen bench.

Kellen forced himself to turn to keep Cilarnen in sight, but he still would not look at Vestakia.

“Citizen Vestakia,” Cilarnen said, bowing before her. He stopped, obviously searching for words. “I beg that you will accept my … very humble … apologies. I have been … unjust. It must be a terrible thing to be seen as … as what you seem … instead of as what you are.”

“Citizen.” Not sure of her rank, Cilarnen had chosen to address her by the honorific that properly belonged to any inhabitant of the City, from High Mage to dock-laborer. From someone who still thought of himself as an Armethaliehan, it was an incredible honor. Kellen hoped Idalia would explain it to Vestakia later.

Vestakia held out her hand. Cilarnen took it without hesitation.

“We shall both blame Kellen for this, and not each other,” she said decisively. “For he should certainly have warned you.”

She shook her head, as over a careless child, and Kellen felt himself flushing. “Sometimes,” she said, with a sidelong glance at Kellen, “he is not very practical. Now come and sit. We must still discover the cause of your headache.”

“Oh, it doesn’t hurt now,” Cilarnen said hastily.

“Then it will not hurt you to be examined,” Vestakia said implacably, leading him over to another bench. “I am a Healer, and you must allow me to do my duty.” Kardus followed.

Kellen picked up the fallen bench. When he straightened, he found Idalia looking at him.

“Still want to kill him?” she asked.

Kellen shook his head in exasperation. “If you happen to see a Selken Trader though, I wouldn’t mind stuffing him in a sack and selling him to them. Still, I suppose, if I’d gotten dropped in things as thoroughly as he has, I wouldn’t have handled things much better.” He took her arm and led her to the far side of the tent, and continued in a lower voice. “He told me his news. It’s bad. very bad.” He shook his head at her unspoken query. “Not here.”

“Where?” she said.

“Whenever Redhelwar can see us. But he wouldn’t eat this morning, so I brought him here. That was after he sneaked into my tent last night and I nearly killed him.”

“Poor Kellen,” Idalia said with fulsome sympathy. “Bearded by the terrible High Mage in his bedroll.”

“Entered Apprentice,” Kellen corrected absently. “And ready to test for Journeyman, which means he knows the spells—if he could figure out a way to use them.”

Vestakia came over to them then.

“He has no head injury, and it is not any kind of cold sickness I know, nor poison—and Kardus says that if a spell had been cast upon him, he would probably have been a great deal sicker than he was. Kellen, did you see what happened to him?”

Kellen thought about it. “Nothing happened. We were in my pavilion, drinking tea—Armethaliehan Black. I drank it, and so did Kardus. He was fine then. We went to eat. He was sick by the time we got there, I think.”

Idalia shrugged. Vestakia looked baffled. “Well, he swears his head does not hurt now,” she said.

“We can’t just knock him over and have a passing Knight-Mage sit on him every time he develops a headache,” Idalia retorted. “It wouldn’t be convenient—and you might start to like it, Kellen.” She tapped her lips with one finger, thinking. “I’ll make up a cordial for him to take if his head starts hurting again. If it doesn’t work, bring him back. Oh—and you might want to see about getting him something warmer to wear. What he’s got is good enough for Stonehearth, or for camp, but if we have to go any further north, he’s going to freeze, and he must be cold already.”

Kellen sighed—he seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. But when had he been appointed Cilarnen’s nurse? Still, proper Mageborn like Cilarnen were small and slender. They might even be able to fit him from the clothing the dead had left behind.

It was a gruesome thought, one he wouldn’t have had a moonturn ago, but it came to him now with simple matter-of-fact practicality.

“I’ll see to it,” he said. In fact, he’d tell Isinwen to see to it. That way, Cilarnen’s clothes would not only be warm, but suitable.

Idalia went to see to the making of the cordial, taking Vestakia with her. Kellen went over to Cilarnen.

He really did look better. Whether it was the sudden shock, or just because the headache had run its course, he seemed to be fully recovered.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings,” Cilarnen said quietly. “I didn’t think …”

No, Kellen thought. They didn’t teach any of us to think in the City, did they? But you started thinking there—or trying to—and that’s what started all your problems.

Just the way it started mine.

“The fault was mine,” he said. “I didn’t think, either, and as a result, I gave you a terrible shock, and she was upset. Let it be forgotten.”

“If I will not be needed here,” Kardus said, “there are matters elsewhere that require my attention. Follow the Herdsman’s Path, Cilarnen. Kellen will be your friend.”

“I have kept you too long already,” Cilarnen said, with automatic courtesy. “Go with the Light.”

The Centaur trotted quickly from the tent, leaving Kellen and Cilarnen to share an awkward silence. A few moments later Idalia came back with a bottle of amber liquid and a horn spoon.

“Here you go,” she said to Cilarnen. “It’s not the same thing you were taking in Stonehearth, from what Yatimumil says, but if your head starts hurting again, take two spoonsful of it. If that doesn’t work, come back here.”

“Yes,” Cilarnen said. “Thank you.” He was regarding Idalia curiously, as if there were questions he longed to ask her, but didn’t quite dare.

Kellen felt—strongly—that those questions had better go unasked just now. Cilarnen might have been able to repair his lapse with Vestakia, but Vestakia had an essentially forgiving nature. He wasn’t quite sure how Idalia would react to any questions along the lines of how she—a mere female—had managed to learn magic.

“Come on,” he said, giving Cilarnen a quick gentle shove toward the opening of the tent.

“NOW,” he said, once they were outside. “We are going to see Redhelwar’s adjutant, whoever is on duty. He may offer us tea. Drink it; believe me, it is an honor to be offered tea. Do not tell him it tastes like boiled grass. Do not even think that it tastes like boiled grass. Elves have very sharp hearing. And—”

“Don’t ask them any questions?” Cilarnen suggested.

“Right,” Kellen said, relieved that Cilarnen had figured out that much. “They may ask you questions. Don’t be surprised. It’s called War Manners, and this is an army in the field, so in an emergency, the forms of etiquette are relaxed. But generally questions are considered incredibly rude. Like—” He groped for the proper comparison. “Like barging into someone else’s house and making yourself at home, I guess.”

“You lecture like Master Tocsel,” Cilarnen grumbled, shivering. “How long did it take you to figure all this out?”

“I didn’t figure any of it out,” Kellen told him honestly. “Fortunately Idalia—my sister—had lived with the Elves before, and she told me so I wouldn’t make, well, too many mistakes.”

“Sister?” Cilarnen said, blankly. He might not have noticed the last time Kellen had mentioned having a sister, but he did now.

Just too late Kellen remembered that Cilarnen would have known perfectly well—along with everyone else in the City—that Kellen Tavadon was Arch-Mage Lycaelon’s only child. For a brief moment, he wondered how Lycaelon had managed that. Cilarnen was Kellen’s age, or near it; certainly he wouldn’t have known about Idalia any more than Kellen knew about Cilarnen’s family. But there was Volpiril—or Cilarnen’s mother, who might actually have known Idalia … Kellen wondered for a moment how many other nasty little secrets the Mageborn families shared.

“She’s my older sister. Lycaelon’s firstborn. Banished for practicing the Wild Magic ten years before I was,” Kellen said.

“You never mentioned her.”

In all the intimate conversations we had at the Mage-College?

“Lycaelon made sure I didn’t remember her,” Kellen said briefly.

“I don’t think that’s right,” Cilarnen said, a new, hard note in his voice. Then a few moments later, he spoke again. “Kellen?”

“Yes, Cilarnen?” Trying very hard not to sigh.

“If she was Banished ten years before you were, you would have been seven, and I would have been eight. Was it a full legal Banishing?” His voice was full of a sharp urgency. “Did she appear before the High Council? Did she wear the Cloak? Did they send the Hunt?”

“Yes, and yes, and yes, and yes, and why does it matter?” Kellen said, beginning to get irritated despite his best intentions.

Cilarnen swallowed audibly. “It matters because of a course at the Mage-College you never took: Jurisprudence of the City. They taught that there hadn’t been any Banishings for over a century, that it was an ancient custom from the Dark Times, fallen into disuse now.” And now there was yet another note in his voice—one that said the bottom had fallen out of his world. “They lied Kellen!”

Kellen stopped and turned around. “Yes, Cilarnen, they lied,” he said patiently. “About the Banishings, about Wild Magic being evil, about the so-called Lesser Races, about—too many things to go into right now. The entire City is built on lies. We’re going to save it anyway.”

I hope.

DIONAN was not there when Kellen and Redhelwar arrived, only Dionan’s assistant, who was tidying the tent and setting out the tea service. After a moment, Kellen dredged up his name. Alenwe.

“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Alenwe said, bowing courteously.

“I See you, Alenwe,” Kellen said. “I make known to you Mage Cilarnen of Armethalieh.”

“I See you, Mage Cilarnen,” Alenwe said, bowing again.

“I See you, Alenwe,” Cilarnen said, following Kellen’s lead.

“Perhaps, if you are not called elsewhere, it would please you to enter and take tea, for I know you have been welcome in Dionan’s tent many times before,” Alenwe said.

“To be welcomed into Dionan’s tent is always an honor, each time as much as the first,” Kellen said.

There was no need for Alenwe to send anyone in search of Dionan; even if Dionan weren’t planning to return immediately from whatever errand had called him away, the Elven gossip-chains that ran faster than a bolt of summer lightning would ensure that he knew Kellen was here.

And in fact, before the tea-water had boiled, Dionan came walking into the tent, as unhurriedly as if he’d been out for a morning stroll.

“I do thank you for your patience with me, Alenwe, and your hospitality to my guests. Let us find something new for Kellen to try, and to honor the visitor from Armethalieh. I think perhaps Golden Pearl would be suitable. It is an excellent warming tea.”

As the tea was prepared, they discussed the weather, which, according to Dionan, would continue hard and cold, but without any more blizzards like the one they had just weathered, or so the Wildmages said.

At least Kellen and Dionan discussed the weather. Cilarnen remained resolutely silent, though Kellen could sense his growing frustration and bewilderment as if it were itself a gathering storm.

The tea was poured. Kellen sipped.

Most Elven teas were herbal. Some were heavily-spiced as well. This was one of the heavily-spiced ones. It tasted … not like fresh-baked bread, but like the idea of fresh-baked bread: warm with more than heat. It reminded him of honey, though it was unsweetened, yet it had a subtle biting undertaste he couldn’t quite identify.

“Perhaps we shall allow our guest to give his opinion first,” Dionan said. “Cilarnen High Mage, perhaps you would wish to favor us with your opinion of this brew, of your kindness.”

Oh, please, don’t let him say it tastes like boiled grass! Kellen thought in near-desperation.

Cilarnen considered the matter for a moment, taking a second sip of the tea. “It lacks the body of a cured-leaf tea, of course, though perhaps that is not a flaw, as it allows the subtle interplay of flavors to bloom more fully upon the tongue. I taste saffron and ginger—a very slight hint of chamomile—and, I think, rendis. The illusion of sweetness, along with the complex hot finish, makes this, as you say, an excellent warming tea. But I do not believe it would keep well, or repay oversteeping. Of course,” he finished modestly, “I am no expert. My own tastes, as I have said, run to the cured-leaf teas.”

Kellen stared at Cilarnen, nonplussed. Cilarnen shot him a triumphant look.

“An excellent description indeed,” Dionan said, with approval. His gaze shifted to Kellen expectantly.

“I must thank Cilarnen for giving me the words to say what I am yet too untutored in the Way of Tea to yet express,” Kellen said, firmly suppressing a flash of jealousy. “I could only have said that it made me think of homely things, like bread, without knowing why it did. And I would give much to know how a thing can seem sweet, and yet not be so.”

“Ah, you would be instructed in all the arts of Tea,” Dionan said, with the faintest of smiles. “If Leaf and Star permit, someday you will not only brew properly, but blend. What a joyous day that will be for us all. But I have indulged myself sufficiently. Perhaps you would wish to share with me your purpose in coming to drink tea before the day has fairly begun, for I know you came weary from your labors at the caverns yesterday.”

“I had hoped, if it was not inconvenient, that it might be possible to make Cilarnen known to Redhelwar, were Redhelwar not occupied with more important matters. It would please me greatly if Idalia might also be present to hear what might be said then, and whoever Redhelwar thought prudent, that Cilarnen might be made known to all at once. Though he has journeyed for many sennights through the Elven Lands, he has seen little of Elven ways, and what he would speak of is a grave matter indeed.”

“Indeed, and grave matters must be conducted with unseemly haste,” Dionan agreed. “Present yourselves at Redhelwar’s pavilion in three hours, and all shall be as you desire.”

“I thank you for your courtesy and your quickness,” Kellen answered. He stood and bowed.

“A bell and a half is unseemly haste?” Cilarnen demanded, once they were a few yards away.

“Unless someone is actually attacking—yes,” Kellen said. “Elves live a thousand years, and they do not hurry.” He shrugged. “Well, think about it. If you lived for a thousand years, what would a few bells seem like to you? And we have plenty to do between now and then. And for somebody who thinks Elven tea tastes like boiled grass, you certainly seem to be able to say a great deal about it.”

“Awful, wasn’t it?” Cilarnen said, grimacing. “Give me a good pot of Phastan Silvertip any day. Still, you don’t spend hours in the Golden Bells without being able to talk about tea, no matter what it tastes like. And you said to be polite.”

THEIR first stop was Isinwen’s tent. Kellen’s Second was still asleep, but Kellen showed no pity. He shook the bells until Isinwen unpegged the flap and stood in the doorway.

His long black hair was still loosely braided for sleep, and he had hastily thrown his cloak on over a tunic and leggings, but he regarded Kellen alertly.

“Alakomentai,” he said.

“I make known to you Cilarnen of Armethalieh,” Kellen said. “Idalia assures me he will surely freeze if we do not find him something warmer to wear. And we are to go before Redhelwar in three hours.”

“So it would be as well if we could present him to advantage,” Isinwen said, stepping out of his tent to regard Cilarnen critically. “Armor will be impossible. Not in three hours.”

“He is no knight,” Kellen said. “But he’ll need something soon. Not today, though. Clothing, however, he is in great need of.”

“Artenel will rejoice to hear it,” Isinwen said blandly. “I go upon the wings of the wind, though Leaf and Star alone know what I shall find. I shall leave my poor scavengings in your pavilion.”

“I thank you for your help and courtesy,” Kellen said. “And I am sorry to have interrupted your rest.”

“At that,” Isinwen said, slanting a glance at Cilarnen, “I think I must have gotten more than you did. But we were all sure you could handle two intruders by yourself.”

Thanks a lot. Once more, Kellen was reminded of the utter lack of privacy in the camp, but if Isinwen had heard anything of what Cilarnen had said to Kellen early this morning, he would be far too polite to say so. To Kellen, at least.

“As always, you instruct me,” Kellen said, bowing with overelaborate courtesy. Isinwen retreated into his tent to dress, and Kellen took Cilarnen off again.

“If you haven’t figured it out, everyone here heard you come to my pavilion last night,” he told Cilarnen.

“They didn’t stop me,” Cilarnen said, doubt warring with accusation in his tone.

“They knew they didn’t need to,” Kellen said. Let Cilarnen figure out the rest. Right now, he was trying to decide what to do with Cilarnen for the next couple of hours. He wasn’t sure that taking him up to the Unicorn Camp was a good idea. For one thing, he wasn’t sure the unicorns would tolerate him—he didn’t know that much about Cilarnen, after all, and celibate—as the young Mageborn were—didn’t necessarily mean chaste. For another, it would only be appropriate to give Redhelwar the bad news first.

But he didn’t really want to be alone with him either. Paying his price was one thing. Refraining from throttling Cilarnen for new annoyances was another.

“Have you seen much of the camp?” he finally said.

Cilarnen shook his head. “After I thawed out, I stayed with the Centaurs. Comild—he became the leader of the levy that gathered at Stonehearth after Kindrius died—said it was best to stay out of the way of the Elder Brothers as much as possible.”

“Good advice as far as it goes, only you aren’t going to be able to do that anymore. You’ll never be an Elf, but they’ll make allowances for that. Your manners are good, when you bother to use them. So pay attention and learn how to fit in.”

“The Elves don’t seem very … useful,” Cilarnen said tentatively. “All they seem to do is talk about tea and the weather … and half the time I can’t figure out what they’re saying! And their armor—your clothes—it’s all so … pretty.” From Cilarnen’s tone, “pretty” was not a compliment.

“Elven ways are not human ways. Sometimes they don’t make sense at first. Sometimes they never make sense to humans at all.” Kellen tried to sum up everything he had learned in a few simple sentences. “They love beauty, so much that they try to make everything into an art. That means fighting and weapons too. Let me tell you, that pretty armor is strong, and tough, and flexible. It’s saved my life more than once.”

As they spoke, Kellen found that he was walking in the direction of the horse-lines. A good destination. There’d be time to give Firareth a little exercise—and to test Cilarnen’s riding skills as well.

By the time they got there, though, he was weary with more than a night’s lost sleep. Every answer he gave Cilarnen seemed to breed more questions. So he had armor? Was he a Knight? If he was a Knight, where had he learned to fight? How could magic teach someone to fight?

Though Kellen knew that half Cilarnen’s questions were an honest attempt to gain the information that would allow him to fit in to his strange new world and the other half an attempt to distract himself from his worries, they still nibbled at Kellen’s composure like a swarm of hungry mice at a bread loaf. Leaf and Star—he didn’t know the answers to half of them—and the ones he could answer, he didn’t know how to, not in any way Cilarnen could understand.

Any mention of the Wild Magic seemed to simply baffle Cilarnen, like attempting to explain color to a blind man. True, it had confused Kellen when he began to study it, but even then he’d realized that there was a pattern within it—somewhere.

Cilarnen seemed wholly unable to grasp that pattern—or even the idea that there could be a pattern.

He’s not a Wildmage. He’ll NEVER be a Wildmage.

They reached the horse-lines. And Cilarnen—blessedly—shut up, staring at the waiting ranks of destriers.

“I thought we’d go for a ride this morning. I’ll have to go out and catch Firareth first, though. What were you riding when you came?”

Cilarnen seemed to wilt slightly. “A mule. A very nice mule of course—his name is Oakleaf, but—Kellen, the Elves keep their promises, don’t they?”

“Did someone promise you something?” Kellen said carefully.

“When I came from Stonehearth, Lady Sarlin gave me a horse. Her name was Tinsin. She was a plowhorse—the Centaurs didn’t have any riding horses, of course. She wasn’t very fast. Nemermet—our guide—didn’t like that. He took her away from me. He said she’d be well treated, just as if she were Elven stock, and returned to Stonehearth in the spring, but …”

“Then she will,” Kellen said firmly. “The Elves honor their allies, and if you told Nemermet that Tinsin was your responsibility, he’d take that very seriously.”

“Oh,” Cilarnen said. He seemed to relax a little. “I wasn’t sure.”

“Be sure,” Kellen said seriously. “Don’t ever call an Elf a liar. Don’t even think it.” Or you might find yourself in a Challenge Circle, and I’m not even sure you can lift a sword. “Remember about them making everything into an art? Their honor is an art, too, and they spend a lifetime perfecting it.”

They walked out into the herd. Kellen stopped to pat familiar friends, looking for Firareth. He should be with the nearer herd, those who still had riders.

“They’re all so beautiful,” Cilarnen said longingly.

“Elven-bred, from the Fields of Vardirvoshan, and trained for war,” Kellen said. “We should be able to find you something faster than a mule—you’ll need it, to keep up with the army when it’s on the move. How well do you ride?”

“Better than you do,” Cilarnen said smugly.

That’s the last straw Kellen turned to the nearest horse handler, who was moving through the herd. “I See you, Anamitar. It would please me greatly to know if Anganil has yet found a rider.”

Chapter Twenty-five

Gifts and Promises

THE YOUNG BLACK stallion was yet unpartnered. By the time Kellen had brought in Firareth and saddled him, Anganil had been brought to the horse-lines, and his gear had been brought from storage. He wore no armor, and his saddle-trappings were now all in white.

By the time Anganil was saddled, they’d collected something of an audience.

Kellen supposed it wasn’t very nice of him to set Cilarnen up for a quick flight into a snowbank—but Leaf and Star, the boy needed to stop making so many assumptions!

“He’s war-trained,” Kellen warned, swinging into his saddle. “He’s young, and he hasn’t been ridden for a while. If he likes you, and you can stay in the saddle, he’s yours to ride for as long as you’re with the army.”

He felt safe in making that much of a promise, especially since Cilarnen’s possession of Anganil wasn’t likely to extend much beyond the next five minutes. After that, they could find him something he could handle.

He tried not to think of Ciltesse, who had chosen Anganil, hoping Kellen would ride him. Ciltesse would have enjoyed this moment very much.

Or been appalled by it.

But apparently Cilarnen did know something about horses. He took the time to make friends with the stallion, stroking his nose and speaking gently to him. Kellen offered him a piece of honey-cake, and Cilarnen fed Anganil the sticky-sweet morsel.

So far, so good.

When Anganil had accepted his presence, Cilarnen quickly mounted. The stallion held perfectly still, merely lifting one hind hoof and setting it down again.

Once they’d ridden away from camp, however, it was a different story. It was just as well that Cilarnen was—as he’d claimed—a good horseman—as Anganil was fresh, playful … and very, very bored.

After the third time the stallion plunged sidewise in feigned panic at a swirl of wind-drifted snow, Kellen said, “You’d better give him a run before he really starts playing up. Come on.”

He spurred Firareth into a canter, then a gallop. Anganil was only too happy to follow.

Kellen figured they’d probably have time for a good gallop up to the end of the camp and back. In the distance, he could see others taking advantage of the rest and the comparatively good weather; there were teams of draft mules out, clearing a level practice field for the cavalry units to drill on later, and groups of Elves were even building the elaborate and mysterious snow-sculptures he’d seen back in Sentarshadeen after the first heavy snowfall.

Anganil overtook Firareth, and Kellen let him. Cilarnen still seemed to be in control, but Kellen could tell he was having to work for it.

Then he saw Shalkan.

Shalkan was pacing them, several hundred yards farther out. The white unicorn was a ghost against the snow, running effortlessly along the top of it. Kellen waved, and Shalkan tossed his head in response.

Then, suddenly, Cilarnen saw Shalkan as well.

He stared, transfixed, at what was obviously the first unicorn he’d ever seen. For one moment, no part of his attention was on Anganil.

And Anganil knew it.

The stallion put on a burst of speed, then leaped into the air. He came down on his forehand, ducked his head, and kicked out hard with his hind legs.

Cilarnen went flying over his head into the snow. Anganil sprang sideways and began to run in good earnest.

Oh, no—

Kellen had wanted Cilarnen to take a fall—but not that hard a fall!

He checked Firareth and vaulted from the saddle, running to where Cilarnen lay sprawled in the snow. “Are you all right?” he demanded. If he’s dead—or hurt—Idalia will kill me. And I’ll deserve it. Stupid, stupid, stupid—

But Cilarnen seemed only to be breathless—and indignant.

“He threw me off!” Cilarnen said disgustedly, allowing Kellen to help him to his feet. He looked around, searching for Anganil. “And now he’s bolted.”

“He knew you weren’t paying attention. Those are some of the war moves I told you about.” Kellen helped him up, almost giddy with relief. “Don’t worry. Shalkan will bring him back.”

“That—was a unicorn,” Cilarnen said, once he’d mounted up behind Kellen, and they were riding off in the direction Anganil had gone.

“Yes it was.” Kellen smiled a little at the wonder in Cilarnen’s voice. “His name is Shalkan, and he’s my friend. There’s a dragon here, too. His name is Ancaladar. You’ll probably see him later.”

Shalkan had herded Anganil in a wide circle, and now the destrier was running toward them, the unicorn at his heels. Kellen moved Firareth to block the young destrier’s path. Anganil, sensing that the game was up, stopped and stood quietly, switching his tail innocently.

“You have the oddest ideas of fun,” Shalkan said, coming forward. “I suppose this is Cilarnen?”

“It can talk!” Cilarnen blurted.

Kellen groaned inwardly and closed his eyes. Poor Cilarnen. When Shalkan got done with him—

“Oh, my, yes,” Shalkan said in his archest tones. “Quite as well as a human. Isn’t that surprising? Of course, I’ve had a great deal more practice at talking than you seem to have. Why, I can form complete sentences and say exactly what I mean, for example.”

“But—I mean—I didn’t—That is—” Cilarnen stuttered.

Kellen ignored the byplay. He dismounted, walked over to Anganil, led the young stallion over to Firareth, and tied his reins firmly to Firareth’s saddle. He didn’t intend to spend the rest of the morning chasing Anganil through the snow if Anganil took it into his head to dash off again. Then he walked over to Shalkan.

“He doesn’t know about unicorns because nobody teaches anything about them in the City—anything important, anyway,” Kellen said, in a voice low enough that Cilarnen probably wouldn’t hear. “Which you know already. And I haven’t had time to explain everything to him yet.”

Cilarnen clambered down from Firareth’s back and came over to them. Apparently Shalkan was willing to permit his approach, for the unicorn stayed where he was.

Cilarnen was staring at Shalkan, oblivious to the falling snow. “Can I touch him?” he asked, and the note of raw longing in his voice would have melted a much harder heart than Kellen’s.

“You have to ask Shalkan,” Kellen said. “It’s not my decision.”

“May I?” Cilarnen asked, speaking directly to Shalkan now. “I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just—You’re so beautiful.”

“He’ll give you a honey-cake,” Kellen said cunningly, rummaging in his tunic.

“Bribery,” Shalkan scoffed, lowering his head and pawing at the snow—but apparently the combination of contrition, bribery, and flattery was sufficient. After crunching his way through the honey-cake held on Cilarnen’s outstretched hand, Shalkan allowed himself to be touched. From the look on Cilarnen’s face, he was willing to stand there forever, stroking the soft fur of Shalkan’s neck.

“We need to get back,” Kellen finally—reluctantly—said. He actually hated to tear Cilarnen away. The boy looked utterly smitten.

“Will I get to see you again?” Cilarnen said to Shalkan, sounding forlorn.

Kellen could tell that Shalkan was trying very hard not to laugh, but the unicorn’s voice, when he answered, was admirably steady.

“Oh, have Kellen bring you up to the Unicorn Camp whenever he likes. You can meet the rest of us there.” With that, Shalkan turned and trotted off.

Cilarnen turned to Kellen, his whole face a question.

“You didn’t think Shalkan was the only one, did you?” Kellen said. “Come on.”

He’d expected Cilarnen to ride back with him, but Cilarnen moved confidently toward Anganil.

“Cilarnen—”

“Yes, yes, yes. He’s thrown me once, and now he’ll see if he can do it again. I know.” He looked over his shoulder at Kellen, with determination in the line of his jaw. “But you said I could try.”

Yes, Idalia would kill him. And she’d skin him first. But how could he not give the boy a chance? He was learning.

He was learning faster than Kellen had, in some ways.

“Go ahead. Try not to get killed.”

He waited, holding Anganil’s headstall, until Cilarnen had mounted, and then handed him the reins.

The ride back went pretty much as Kellen had assumed it would—with one exception: Cilarnen was not thrown again. Once Anganil realized that this very entertaining spectacle was not to be allowed to repeat itself, he quieted down completely, and the two destriers trotted sedately side-by-side back to the horse-lines.

Cilarnen had only a little difficulty removing the unfamiliar tack, and soon they were on their way back to Kellen’s pavilion again. And there was no doubt whatsoever that although meeting Shalkan must have been the high point of Cilarnen’s life, riding the destrier had been the second highest. He was so full of wonder and ebullience that a little of it actually bubbled over and made Kellen’s spirits rise.

“I’ve never ridden a horse like that before!” Cilarnen said excitedly.

“You’ve never seen a horse like that before,” Kellen corrected him.

“Hyandur—” Cilarnen began.

“Rode a palfrey—a riding horse. Not a warhorse. Anything Elven-bred is beautiful,” Kellen conceded, “but the destriers are special. Very, very special.”

Kellen opened the flap of his tent and stepped inside, calling light into the lanterns to brighten the gloom. He noticed that Isinwen had already lit the brazier and stoked it high; it was actually warm in the tent.

And Isinwen had indeed been busy. There was a ewer and bowl waiting on the low table that had previously held the tea service, and piled on the clothes chest were Cilarnen’s new clothes.

Not only was there a full outfit, including boots, gloves, and cloak—with, Kellen did not doubt, more to come—it all matched (at least as far as Kellen could tell), and since it looked turquoise in the light of Kellen’s tent, it was probably blue.

Kellen picked up the gloves. Now here was something odd. There ought to be a pattern woven into the leggings, embroidered on the tunic, stamped into the leather of the gloves and boots. But there wasn’t.

How, he wondered, had Isinwen managed that?

“Here you go,” he said, gesturing at the clothing. “Get dressed. You might even have time to get something to eat before we’re supposed to be there, assuming your appetite’s back.”

Cilarnen had carried the tunic over to the doorway and was studying it in the light. “Blue,” he said in disgust. “Like a Student.”

“That’s purely accident,” Kellen said forcefully. “Isinwen chose the color because he thought it would be becoming to you. The clothes are warm. You’re not a Knight, so you’re not stuck with the color. You can change it. You can ask for clothing to be made for you later in any color you like.”

“To my House colors?”

“Maybe.” Kellen tried to remember what they were, and couldn’t. “Not if the Elves don’t think they’re suitable for your complexion though. And only Knights really have specific colors.”

“Is that why everything you have is green?”

Here we go again. “It matches Shalkan’s eyes. As you’ve probably noticed. Now, it would please me greatly if you would honor me by getting dressed. You’ll be warmer, and you’ll be appropriately garbed for the occasion.”

Cilarnen pulled off his gloves and began to unlace his short cloak. “I suppose, since you’re my friend, you’re telling me the truth about the clothes,” he said dubiously.

“I’m not your friend,” Kellen said with simple bluntness. Certainly not yet. Perhaps not ever.

Cilarnen stopped. “Then … why did you give me Anganil?”

Kellen thought hard—and honestly. “To teach you,” he finally said.

Cilarnen removed his cloak and set it aside. For a few minutes he was occupied—in silence—with changing from old clothes to new, stopping for a quick wash in between. Isinwen had even been able to provide a belt with a couple of carrying-pouches, though Cilarnen’s own Centaur-made knife would have to retain its own sheath until a new one could be made. It would look odd, but if he wore it toward the back, it would be hidden by the cloak.

When Cilarnen was dressed, he tucked his gloves through his belt in the fashion of Armethalieh, and smoothed his hand down the thick velvet. “You wanted to teach me that this is neither Armethalieh nor Stonehearth,” he said, understanding in his voice.

“Yes,” Kellen said. “Once more, you must begin again.” I hope you can. He held out the cloak—hooded, ankle-length, and lined in ermine.

Cilarnen no longer looked like a rustic Wild Lands farmer. He looked elegant and patrician.

“Kellen,” Cilarnen said in a troubled voice. “Remember that I told you I saw the Thing at Stonehearth?”

As if I’ve forgotten that for an instant.

“It looked human at first—when it spoke to me. It was wearing odd clothes, all white. Clothes I’d never seen before. Until now. Not exactly like these, but … similar.”

It was dressed like an Elf? Kellen wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was sure it was something meaningful … and bad.

“You’ll need to draw what you saw for us, as exactly as you can. It may be important.” He thought hard for a moment. “In fact, every tiny little detail you can remember might be critical.”

Cilarnen nodded soberly.

Colors mattered to the Elves. White was the color of the Unformed—Anganil’s tack had been white because he had no master.

It was also the color of the shrouds the Elves used to suspend their dead in the trees.

The color of Unmaking.

WHEN Kellen and Cilarnen arrived at Redhelwar’s tent, the Senior Commanders and some others—Jermayan, Idalia, Vestakia; representatives of the Centaur and High Reaches fighting forces; a few other Wildmages—were already there.

The honored guest arrives last, Kellen reminded himself. He hadn’t expected quite so large an audience for Cilarnen’s speech, but he suspected that rumors were already flying about the camp, and it would be just as well to be able to provide hard information in as many directions as possible as quickly as possible to keep those rumors from growing.

Small cups of tea were served; a token formality only.

“You have spoken with Cilarnen High-Mage of Armethalieh, Kellen,” Redhelwar said, coming quickly to the point. “What have you learned?”

“I believe him indeed to be Cilarnen Volpiril,” Kellen said carefully. Best to settle the obvious questions first. “Vestakia sensed no Taint in him, nor did Shalkan object to either his presence nor his touch. I would say … he is who he seems.”

“And the reason for his presence here?” Redhelwar asked.

“In Stonehearth, one of Them spoke to him as if he were me.” He looked at Cilarnen curiously. Why had Kardus brought Cilarnen to him? He’d never thought to ask.

“I had to tell someone,” Cilarnen said. “Someone who could help. Kardus said to tell you.”

“The Wild Magic gave Kardus the Task of bringing Cilarnen and his information to me,” Kellen said, setting the pieces of the puzzle into a form the Elves would easily understand.

“From the look upon both your faces, the news that Cilarnen brought is of grave importance,” Belepheriel said. “It would be good if you would share it with us.”

“Tell them what It said to you,” Kellen said.

Once more Cilarnen recited the words the Demon had spoken to him in Stonehearth. He might have dropped a bolt of lightning in their midst and gotten less reaction.

“A foothold in the human city!” Padredor exclaimed. “Impossible—they could not breach its wards any more than they can breach our own.”

“Yet, if I ken these words aright, they have breached them,” Adaerion pointed out. “Yet one does not properly understand what catspaws could they use in a place where everyone must be human and all magic but Mage-magic is banned.”

“We have to find out,” Kellen said. He looked at Idalia.

She shook her head. “I haven’t had any luck Seeing the City since we fled the last Scouring Hunt. The Gods know I’ve tried, but … nothing. And putting that together with this news makes me very uneasy.”

“There is another matter I would raise concerning Cilarnen,” Kellen said, choosing his words with care. “I do not speak against his honor, yet it is a mystery. He is here because he was Banished, as I was, from Armethalieh. It is the custom of the High Mages to burn the Magegift from the minds of those they Banish. That they did not do it in my case was … an oversight.” And the work of the Wild Magic, he did not doubt. “Yet Cilarnen’s was not destroyed—only suppressed until the day of the battle at Stonehearth.”

“Who was supposed to do it?” Idalia asked. “If we’re looking for treasonous Mages, there’s a place to start.”

“It was Undermage Lord Anigrel,” Cilarnen said.

“I suppose Master Anigrel could have been elevated,” Kellen said doubtfully, “but he was Lycaelon’s private secretary. You might as well expect Lycaelon himself to be plotting to overthrow the City.”

“Could it have gone wrong?” Idalia asked. “Could he have tried to Burn it out and just … missed?”

Cilarnen shook his head. “I am no Mind-healer, my lady—one must study for years to become adept at that—but I know a little of the theory. To ‘miss’ would have killed me. To leave me whole, but without my Gift, that is as delicate a thing as—as taking the spice out of brewed tea. To simply put it to sleep, so I didn’t even know it was there … that is more delicate work still. Yet—” He shook his head. “Yet I think, now, that is what was deliberately done.”

“Could a Journeyman do it?” Kellen asked. That had been Anigrel’s rank—and by the way the City worked, it would be for years to come.

Cilarnen shook his head again, smiling painfully. “It is not what I studied—would have studied. But Mindwork is only done by a Master Undermage … and work so delicate, I would say would require a Magister-Practimus—a full High Mage—at least.”

“How delicate?” Kellen asked. “Is it just that you need a light touch, or a mind for details, or what, exactly?”

“I don’t know! Kellen, I was only an Entered Apprentice! I’d barely begun my studies in the Art Magickal!” Cilarnen protested.

“You know more than anyone else here,” Kellen said. “You’re going to have to make your best guesses and tell us all you can.”

“I’ll tell you what I … know,” Cilarnen said, hesitating over the last word. “You know the Mageborn swear oaths not to speak about the High Magick to the Commons, but don’t worry that I’ll hold anything back. I’ve already broken those oaths.”

He looked miserable—no, more than that. Lost. Kellen didn’t know what to say to comfort him.

“When you were Banished from your City, Cilarnen High Mage, your people took your name and your rank from you,” Belepheriel said, with the gravity of a judge. “In doing that, they also took from you all your sworn oaths. In speaking now, you violate nothing, and may save many. It is a new way you must learn now, but this is a time of learning new ways.”

“Thank you,” Cilarnen said softly, bowing his head. Unconsciously he touched his chest, where his City-Talisman would have hung.

“It looks like Anigrel is where we need to start,” Idalia said briskly. “And I very much want to see who’s sitting on the High Council these days, if there’s been a shift there. And who Lycaelon is now claiming as his son. The question is: how?”

“That is a matter to be settled among Wildmages,” Redhelwar said firmly. “What my commanders and I must know is the extent of this ‘foothold’ It spoke of, so that we may determine what to do.”

Idalia bowed. “We will bring you this information as quickly as we can, Redhelwar.”

She and the other Wildmages left the pavilion.

KELLEN and Cilarnen remained behind.

Redhelwar regarded Kellen, brows raised.

Kellen bowed.

“You would speak,” Redhelwar observed.

“I would,” Kellen agreed. “You know it has long been in my mind that this campaign has been Their attempt to keep us from seeing what needs to be seen.”

“And it is now in your mind that while we dally here, They strike first at Armethalieh,” Redhelwar said.

“Not dally,” Kellen said. “And not strike. I believe—I believe that this is a very different sort of warfare than They have ever practiced before. The Mageborn, I believe, remember Them, and fear Them, though they keep the fact a closely-guarded secret. I do not believe that a foothold could be taken by force. But … by seduction. As one of Them tried to seduce me at the Black Cairn. If it had worked—if I had believed Its lies—perhaps I would now be the agent you were all searching for in Armethalieh.”

“No,” Redhelwar said somberly, “for we would all be dead of drought and wildfire. But should Armethalieh fight for the Darkness instead of the Light … Go with Idalia, Kellen. See what Knight-Magery and High Magick can do to assist her.”

Kellen bowed again and left, taking Cilarnen with him.

THEY caught up to the other Wildmages at the edge of the Mountainfolk camp.

“Redhelwar sent us to see what we could do to help,” Kellen explained. “I can’t think of a thing I can do,” he added, shrugging.

“Not until we have some idea of what we’re going to do,” Idalia agreed. She turned her attention to Cilarnen.

“I know there are wards, but I’ve never worked on them,” he said. “So I have no idea of how to get past them. The little ones, for things like keeping mice out of grain—I’ve helped with those.”

“What about distance-seeing spells?” Idalia asked.

Cilarnen looked perfectly blank.

Why, Idalia, how could you ever imagine that any of the Mageborn would ever want to see anything that happened outside the City? Kellen thought mockingly. If such spells existed in the arsenal of the High Magick, they were undoubtedly restricted to the higher ranks of the Mageborn. Cilarnen wouldn’t have begun to learn them for years—decades.

“Well, we’ll get started. I want to try a few things—and have Jermayan and Ancaladar try them, too. Atroist and some of the Lost Lands Wildmages have arrived, and they know a number of ways of doing things I’m not familiar with. But I don’t think we’ll need your help yet. Join us here for dinner and I’ll let you know how far we’ve gotten. Bring wine.”

Kellen laughed shortly at the morose tone of Idalia’s voice.

“Wine it is,” he said. “Come on, Cilarnen, we’ll go up to the Unicorn Camp and catch them up on the gossip. Shalkan will pin my ears back if I don’t.”

THEY stopped first at the dining tent to collect a cold lunch and some treats for the horses, and soon were riding up to the Unicorn Camp. Anganil behaved himself far better on this journey than he had on the last.

“So we don’t have anything to do for the rest of the day?” Cilarnen asked.

“You may not,” Kellen said. “When we get back, I’m going to see if the practice field is free. If it is, I’ll take my troop out for a couple of hours of drill. You should see Artenel about getting some armor fitted—you may not be able to use a sword, but you’ll still need armor.”

“I can use a sword!” Cilarnen protested. “Master Kalos said I would have made a fine swordsman—I studied with him thrice a sennight.”

“Reed-blade,” Kellen said, struggling to keep his voice neutral. Cilarnen was right to be proud of his skill, but it was useless in war. “It is not the sort of sword we carry in the field.”

“You think it’s useless,” Cilarnen said, stung.

“Pay attention to your mount. I did not say that. I have never studied reed-blade. The quickness and coordination: those skills will probably transfer to another weapon if you wish to learn one. But the swords we use take a great deal of strength, and learning any weapon takes time, and you are a Mage, not a Knight.”

“You’re both,” Cilarnen pointed out. “And I’m not much of a Mage.”

Leaf and Star, send me a Selken Trader! Kellen kept his voice patient. “I’m a particular kind of Wildmage, called a Knight-Mage. I’m very good at fighting, not as good at Wildmagery.”

“It’s nice to know there’s something you’re not good at,” Cilarnen muttered.

Kellen wondered if Cilarnen had meant him to hear the remark. It was odd to think that Cilarnen must be just as off-balance and resentful as he was, now that their situations were reversed. Here, Kellen must seem to have all the advantages Cilarnen had once possessed, plus a higher rank than Cilarnen had ever held.

Well, the truth wouldn’t hurt. “At the moment, you’re the best High Mage in a thousand leagues. You are our only expert in High Magery. And as for Magecraft, who knows what the future may hold?”

“You can’t believe the City would ever take me back?” Cilarnen said in disbelief.

“I believe I do not know—and neither do you,” Kellen said firmly. “If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you should be very careful how you use the words ‘never’ and ‘forever,’ because you might have to eat them one day.”

They reached the Unicorn Camp. In the distance, beyond the camp, Kellen could see plumes of snow arcing from the ground, as the remaining Unicorn Knights engaged in elaborate war games.

“They’re practicing,” Kellen said. “Let’s go watch.”

BEFORE he’d gotten his own command, he’d participated in a few of these games, but even a Knight-Mage’s skill couldn’t quite make up for years of practice, and he still hadn’t entirely mastered the long Elven lance.

Both teams were armed with the lance. The object of the game was a small leather ring, to be picked up on the lance point, carried off, and defended.

There were, as far as Kellen could tell, no other rules.

He and Cilarnen stood well back from the edge of the field as the unicorns darted in and out among each other, springing like deer, as their riders vied strenuously for possession of the mostly-invisible object. Occasionally one unicorn would leap right over another, and woe to the rider who didn’t duck in time.

“They ride them?” Cilarnen asked, sounding surprised.

“By mutual consent,” Kellen said.

“Why are they all the way out here?” Cilarnen asked.

Kellen suspected the direction this conversation was going to go, but he really had no choice. There were things Cilarnen needed to know, and if he found out things Kellen would rather he didn’t know in addition, well, that was a part of paying his price.

“Unicorns are creatures of magic. Magic has limitations as well as advantages. What did they teach you about unicorns in Armethalieh?”

Cilarnen frowned. “Their horn is proof against poison. That they share the nature of both the goat and the lion. And only virgins can tame them.”

“Their horns purify just about anything. Their ‘nature’ is their own, and no one can actually ‘tame’ a unicorn. But only virgins can be around them,” Kellen corrected. “Virgin meaning someone who is both chaste and celibate—and they can definitely tell.”

“So that’s why they’re all this way from the rest of the camp?” Cilarnen said, accepting Kellen’s explanation without a blink.

“That’s right.”

“Come to tell us what’s going on?” Shalkan asked before Cilarnen could come up with any more questions. “Or is the game more interesting?”

“Oh, I’m sure they’ve come for a quiet chat,” Gesade said.

Kellen looked over his shoulder. The two unicorns were standing behind them.

“Let’s go back to the Unicorn Camp,” he said to Cilarnen.

When they reached the edge, he swung down off Firareth and patted his shoulder.

“Drop Anganil’s reins to the ground and tell him to stand,” Kellen said to Cilarnen. “He won’t wander.”

Cilarnen looked dubious, but followed Kellen’s suggestion.

They made their way to the center of camp. Kellen added more charcoal to the communal brazier.

The two unicorns waited expectantly. Gesade’s ears flicked back and forth as she followed the sound of his movements. If Cilarnen noticed her blindness, he had the sense not to mention it.

Kellen told his part of the story, and encouraged Cilarnen to add his own, just as he had told it to Kellen early this morning.

“I hardly think that was fair,” Gesade said when Cilarnen had finished. “You were trying to do the right thing.”

“I didn’t think,” Cilarnen said, still sounding confused by his own actions. “My—my father would not have listened. The whole City knew that. But any of the Mageborn has the right of personal appeal to the Arch-Mage. It would have been a hideous scandal. I would certainly have been disowned. But … it would have been better.”

“It wouldn’t have worked,” Kellen said flatly. “I don’t say this because …” Because he’s a hidebound monster who tried to kill me twice.

“Kellen, we all knew,” Cilarnen said tactfully. “You and Lycaelon … didn’t get on.”

“Yes,” Kellen said. “But … don’t you see, Cilarnen? It’s like war. Lycaelon was on one side. The other twelve members of the High Council were on the other. Those odds are not good for … winning. And we now know that They are involved somehow.” A thought struck him. “I think that all of this might have been arranged to empty a Council seat. Your friends—did any of them have connections to the High Council?”

Cilarnen, didn’t even have to think. Unlike Kellen, he must have had the ranks and lineage of every one of the Mageborn committed to memory. “Jorade was the great-great-grandnephew of Lord Isas—and his heir. Geont was a Pentres, but the Pentreses are allied to the Breulins, and Lord Breulin sits upon the Council.”

“So of the six of you, three had Council connections. What of Master Raellan?”

“He helped us a great deal—without him, we would never have found each other. But I’m sure he had no connection to the High Council. He was a Journeyman—of a minor house at best, perhaps even the son of a commoner like poor Tiedor. He never did give a family name, and we thought it would be tactless to ask.”

But you trusted him with all your lives, because he was Mageborn. Kellen didn’t ask what had happened to Master Raellen. It would be too cruel. Cilarnen didn’t know what had happened to any of them. By now they were either dead, living somewhere in the City stripped of their Magegift and their memories, or—if they’d been incredibly lucky—simply didn’t remember anything about the whole “conspiracy” at all.

“Kellen … you don’t think … it all happened just so someone else could take a Council seat?” Cilarnen sounded horrified.

Kellen didn’t answer. It seemed likely to him. In the normal course of things, there wouldn’t have been a vacancy for years—even decades.

“If one of the Tainted is on the Council, They have more of a ‘stranglehold’ than a ‘foothold,’” Gesade said, “assuming I understand how your High Council works.”

“What does Redhelwar plan?” Shalkan asked.

“To see what Idalia and the others can come up with to see into the City,” Kellen said. “And to make his plans depending on what they do see.”

SCRYING was not the answer. Idalia and the others ruled that out quickly enough—even Jermayan, with Ancaladar’s power to draw on, could not force the scrying bowl to show him Armethalieh.

“Flowers,” Idalia said in rueful exasperation, looking at the image in the bowl. “Very nice, I don’t think. I’m happy to know that spring will come, of course, but it isn’t very helpful.”

To send a spy into the City was impossible. To send anything but magic across the City-wards was impossible.

But they had to find the right spell.

It was Atroist who provided the first clue to the answer. The Lostlands Wildmages were accustomed to speaking to one another over far distances—Idalia and Jermayan had seen such a spell at work when Atroist spoke with Drothi.

“But it needs a focus at the other end,” Atroist said. “And I do not think you will find one in your Golden City of Mages.”

“Then combine it with a scrying spell—or parts of one, anyway,” Tarik said. “That doesn’t need a focus.”

“But scrying is unfocused,” Idalia pointed out. “It shows you what you need, not what you want—and this time, we need to see exactly what we want.”

“Then blend in some Hunt Magic,” Tarik suggested. “When you go hunting for deer, it’s no use at all Calling hares.”

“To see is well and good,” Jermayan said, “but you do not need merely to See. You need also to Know. So this must be not just a spell of Seeing, but a spell of Knowing, such as Kellen uses. It does you no good to see if you do not understand what you see.”

“There is a spell the Forest Wife teaches us,” a Wildmage named Kavaaeri said slowly. She was one of the few female Wildmages to have come with the High Reaches folk. “We use it for herbs and mushrooms, so that we are sure of them before we use them. It is not a Knight-Mage spell … but it is a spell of Knowing.”

The discussion went on.

AT dusk Kellen collected Cilarnen from the Centaur encampment and went to join the Wildmages.

He’d worried about whether Cilarnen would be able to stand the proximity of so many Wildmages—he suspected, from what Kardus had told him, that being around Wildmages for Cilarnen was like being around non-virgins for Shalkan.

“It’s not too bad,” Cilarnen said. “It’s just … it feels as if something terrible is going to happen. But nothing ever does. I can stand it. As long as nobody casts a spell on me,” he added darkly.

“We’d almost always ask your permission,” Kellen assured him. “Unless you were unconscious, and it was for a healing—or to keep you from harming someone else.”

“Well, I don’t ever want a spell cast on me,” Cilarnen said fervently. “To heal me or for anything else. If I’m going to hurt somebody, stop me some other way.”

Kellen didn’t answer. He wasn’t about to make a promise he might not be able to keep.

THE Wildmages were gathered together in one of the great lodge-tents of the Mountainfolk, a structure large enough to accommodate several dozen people at once, and tall enough at its domed center for Kellen to stand comfortably upright.

Even Kardus was there, kneeling among the others and looking perfectly at ease, though Kellen wasn’t sure how the Centaur had managed to negotiate the narrow doorway.

Both Kellen and Cilarnen were carrying rucksacks. Though wine was difficult to find in an Elven camp, with Vestakia’s and Isinwen’s help, Kellen had managed to assemble a number of bottles of things that more-or-less fit the definition, from mead to hard cider to Elven fruit cordials to some actual bottles of wine. He hoped Idalia appreciated the effort.

The lodge was filled with the good smells of roast meat and fresh bread—and the residue of enough magic to make him want to sneeze, though Cilarnen didn’t seem to react to it. Looking around, Kellen saw a seat by Idalia and moved toward it. Cilarnen went to sit by Kardus.

“You look tired,” Kellen said, folding himself easily into a cross-legged position beside his sister.

“A long day of battering my head against the merely difficult,” Idalia said gloomily.

“We are to call hares and become mushrooms,” Jermayan explained kindly. “Presuming Kindolhinadetil will grant us the loan of a mirror.”

“Yes of course,” Kellen said, with only a touch of irony. “That makes perfect sense.” He opened the rucksack and passed Idalia one of the wine bottles.

“Spoiled fruit,” Jermayan pronounced, regarding it.

Kellen grinned and offered him one of the cordials.

The food had been cooked elsewhere. Now the platters of meat—roast mutton—and baskets of bread began to pass around. The meal was conducted in the style of the High Reaches, with several people sharing a communal platter.

As they ate, Idalia filled him in on what they’d accomplished that day.

“—so while we think we may have a spell that will allow us to see what’s going on in the City, we aren’t sure we have enough power to cast it,” she finished.

There were three components to each spell of the Wild Magic: the power to cast the spell—always paid personally by the Wildmage—the power of the spell’s work—which could be shared among many—and the Mageprice, which the Wildmage alone paid.

Idalia was saying that this spell was so powerful she didn’t even have the power to cast it.

Kellen looked at Jermayan.

“Not even Ancaladar and I. I have spoken to him. And there is yet another difficulty, were I to be the one who cast this spell.”

“One, we know they’ll notice. It’s only a matter of time. There’d probably be a little more time if a human were to cast it, instead of an Elf. Two, it’s not just a spell of Seeing, but of Knowing—” Idalia said.

“Which means it would work best of all if somebody familiar with the City cast it,” Kellen finished. “Because they’d already have some idea of what they were seeing, and wouldn’t have to learn as much. That means you, me, or Cilarnen.”

“That means me,” Idalia corrected. “Cilarnen’s not a Wildmage, and you’re a Knight-Mage. I’d have the best chance of success—if I had the power to cast it.”

“What about using a keystone?” Kellen said. “Like before?”

Idalia shook her head firmly. “We thought of that, and Drelech cast the talking stones to see if that would work. It needs to be a living source.”

As the platters were cleared away, the discussion returned, once more, to the spell. Kellen could tell that the Wildmages were now covering ground they had covered before, hoping for a solution.

He could see Cilarnen and Kardus talking quietly between themselves. Jermayan was watching them alertly, probably able to hear what was being said.

At last Cilarnen—who had obviously needed to be persuaded of something—made his way into the middle of the lodge and got to his feet.

The discussion stopped.

“I am unfamiliar with your … magic,” he began hesitantly. “And I do not mean to offend. But Kardus tells me I must ask. Why do you not simply link your magic as the High Mages do?”

Kellen had rarely had the pleasure—if that was the word—of seeing his sister so completely nonplussed.

“Sit down over here,” she said. “Explain.”

Cilarnen darted an agonized glance at Kellen. Kellen did his best to look encouraging.

Cilarnen came and sat down in front of Idalia, doing his best to keep a respectable distance between them.

“In Armathalieh,” Cilarnen said, obviously searching for just the right words, “the High Mages work together, sharing their power. It is part of every Mage’s training to learn to meld the power each holds into a greater whole, for the good of the City. I had thought …” he faltered to a stop.

But it was something Wildmages never learned—never needed to learn. Because Wildmages were usually solitary creatures, who drew their power from themselves, from willing donors, and from paying their Mageprices.

“It’s true,” Kellen said, shrugging. “Anigrel told me. They may steal the citizens’ personal power with the Talismans and use that instead of their own, but they still share the power among themselves when they do a Working. Somehow.”

“Is that—” Cilarnen began, staring at Kellen.

Idalia interrupted him. “Do you know how this is done, Cilarnen? Can you tell me?”

“I know how to do it,” Cilarnen said slowly. “I can tell you what the High Mages do—but I cannot do it with you! Not with a Wildmage!” His voice held unfeigned horror.

“I promise you, Cilarnen, if we figure this out, I will only practice on another Wildmage,” Idalia said gently. “Jermayan, would Ancaladar consent to be a part of such a … sharing?”

“I do not know,” Jermayan said. His voice was troubled. “First we must see if such a thing can be learned.”

BUT before even that could be attempted, it had to be explained—and there they nearly came to grief, for Cilarnen was a High Mage of the Golden City … and High Magick and Wildmagery were nothing alike.

“Prayers to the Light? Fasting? Proper incense? Huntsman strike me if I do any such thing,” a Wildmage named Kerleu growled, a few moments into Cilarnen’s explanation.

“Nor am I going to wave my hands and babble to empty air like a mad thing,” Cilarnen muttered under his breath.

“Patience, friends,” Wirance said, his hands out in a placating gesture before things could grow more heated. “We will take what we can use—but we cannot do even that if you do not let the boy finish his explanation.”

“Proper preparation. Proper intent,” Kellen said, struggling to translate between the magic he only dimly remembered—and hadn’t studied all that closely—and the one he knew. “Shielding?”

“Of course the working areas are shielded!” Cilarnen snapped. “Even you should remember that!”

Kellen held on to his temper with an effort. “What comes next?” he asked evenly.

Cilarnen explained.

And explained again.

And again.

“We’ll try this again tomorrow,” Idalia said with a sigh. “Maybe it will make more sense then. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m tired. Cilarnen, you’ve been very patient and you look like you could use a good night’s sleep—and I know you can, Kellen.”

And better to call a halt now, before tempers were well and truly lost, Kellen thought.

“Right. Come on, Cilarnen.”

They were the first out of the lodge, but waited outside for Kardus.

“I’ll see you back to your tent,” Kellen said.

“You don’t have to,” Cilarnen said.

“Oh, but how else will I know where it is—so I can wake you up in the middle of the night?” Kellen said lightly. They walked a little to the side, out of the path of the emerging Wildmages.

“Why can’t they understand it?” Cilarnen said in frustration. “It’s so simple.”

“It’s a different kind of magic,” Kellen said. “It’s like—like trying to learn to play a lute when you’ve only ever played a trumpet. Wildmages generally work alone. It’s even possible a Wildmage might not meet another Wildmage in his or her entire life.”

Cilarnen shook his head, obviously finding the very concept unnatural.

“What you said back there—about the City Talismans—”

“It’s why your spells don’t work very well—and why the High Mages are so powerful,” Kellen replied instantly, glad for the opening to let the boy know the truth about the Talismans. “Here, outside the City, the only thing that fuels your magic is your own personal power. Haven’t you felt weak after casting a spell?”

“Yes, but—”

“That’s why. You’re only using your own power, not the power gathered from the whole City.”

Kardus joined diem—squirming less than gracefully out through the lodge’s doorway, which had certainly not been designed for Centaurs—and the three of them began to walk toward Kardus and Cilarnen’s tent.

“But—Then—I’m not ever going to be able to use most of the spells I know,” Cilarnen said.

“Maybe,” Kellen said. “Anigrel told me that everyone has the power that fuels Magery. Non-Mages have no use for it, so the Mages figured out a way to harvest and store it.” His voice hardened. “They didn’t ask permission, and they don’t pay for what they take. That’s wrong.”

“No,” Cilarnen said, slowly. “They do pay for it—with all the spells they do for the City. The power has to come from somewhere. You said so. The Mages work hard to keep the City running—I worked hard, when I was an Entered Apprentice. But …” Now he nodded. “You’re right about one thing. They should still tell people what they’re doing. The Commons have a right to know that they’re helping the City, too.”

It was a way of looking at the matter that Kellen hadn’t considered before. And it was true that the City was a pleasant place to live—if you followed the rules.

“So you’d have the High Mages tell the people what they were doing?” he asked curiously. “What if someone didn’t want to have his power harvested?”

He held his breath, waiting for Cilarnen’s answer. Let it be the right one.

“It’s just another tax—Light knows there are taxes enough,” Cilarnen said, shrugging dismissively. “If they didn’t want to pay this one, they’d have to leave, I suppose, because there’s no way to live in the City without getting the benefit of the spells and it wouldn’t be fair to everyone else to let them stay. A season mucking out stalls in one of the Delfier villages—like I did in Stonehearth—might convince them they’d rather pay the tax. Or they might like to farm, and not pay it. But either way, they’d know what was being taken, and whether or not they were willing to pay it. It’s not right to take it without telling them.”

Kellen let out his breath in a long sigh. The right answer indeed—and a number of ideas that would have the entire High Council in spinning fits if it ever heard them.

“There may be a solution to your problem of a power source. But we’ll need to solve Idalia’s first,” Kellen said.

They’d reached the tent—and just in time. The snow, which had been falling in a thin powdery dust, began to thicken, and Kellen felt the sting of sleet.

“Sleep well,” he said, and turned away.

KELLEN and his troop spent the following day with Vestakia at the further cavern as she attempted to communicate with the Crystal Spiders.

It was frustrating work—not because the gentle otherworldly creatures weren’t willing to help, but because they were. Vestakia’s mind was flooded with images and information she found it impossible to interpret.

“I think,” she said, sitting up in the midst of a ring of softly glowing Spiders, “that they do sense their kindred in other caverns. And I think there is at least one more cavern of Shadowed Elves—if I am understanding anything they tell me! But, Kellen—if they never leave their caverns, how can they tell me where the cavern is?”

Kellen shook his head. There had to be a solution to that riddle, if they could only find it. “At least we know we need to keep looking.”

“Maybe there’s something, well, distinctive enough that someone could recognize it if I could describe it,” Vestakia said. “But I’m getting a proper headache seeing the world through eight eyes instead of two!”

“Then you need to stop. Tell them you’ll come back and talk with them again.” Maps. We need maps showing where all the caves beneath the Elven Lands are. Too bad there aren’t any.

Vestakia sighed and lay back down. The Crystal Spiders moved over her in a softly-glowing wave, and then retreated once she had spoken to them, moving quickly into the far depths of the cave. She rolled to her knees. Kellen turned away, and Isinwen moved forward to help her to her feet.

He mustn’t think about her. Mustn’t care if she was cold, or tired … because if he did, he’d never be able to stop. And he’d never stop with just thinking.

“I know what you’re going to ask.”

Jermayan waited.

The remains of Ancaladar’s breakfast—Vestakia had brought the bullock up before she’d left for the cavern—was nothing more than a few smears of blood upon the snow; the dragon was a tidy eater. Keeping him fed had not precisely been a strain on the army’s resources, but it had required careful planning. Still, a promise was a promise: Ancaladar had not had to hunt for himself since he had accepted Jermayan’s Bond.

Last night, after the Wildmages’ conclave, Jermayan had come here, to the place he and Ancaladar often shared. It was an ice-pavilion, similar to others he had built, but large enough to hold Ancaladar comfortably and shelter the dragon from the wind and the snow. There was even stabling for Valdien, for Ancaladar’s “pavilion” was a certain distance from the camp, almost at the edge of the forest, to discourage idle sightseers.

Jermayan had explained everything that had taken place. Perhaps it was only an act of courtesy—Jermayan was still not entirely certain how much of his thoughts the dragon shared—but he found that talking matters over with his friend helped to clear his own mind.

He had asked for nothing.

“Ask, then.” The dragon was coiled half-out of his pavilion, his sinuous neck curved about so that his jaw rested on the snow just before his foreclaws.

Jermayan swung down from Valdien’s saddle and walked forward.

“Will you—will we—join in this link Idalia proposes? I do not yet understand how it may be done, but she seems to feel it can be learned. And Cilarnen is anxious to teach it.”

“I could say no,” Ancaladar said.

Jermayan knew that the dragon’s greatest fear—bordering on paranoia—was to be taken—used as nothing more than a reservoir of magical power.

He knelt in the snow by Ancaladar’s head.

“Beloved, I will let no one harm you. At least … it is a risk all will share equally. Every Wildmage. Without our power, I do not think it will succeed. And nothing can destroy our Bond.”

“If I said no, you could force me,” Ancaladar said, very softly. “You could take what you needed.”

“But I would not,” Jermayan said, reaching out to stroke Ancaladar’s head. “I would only ask for your help. I would never take what you did not wish to give.”

Ancaladar hesitated. Jermayan could feel the dragon’s fear.

And felt it begin to ebb.

“Yes,” Ancaladar said at last. “We will share in the spells.”

WHEN Kellen and his party reached the camp again, there was good news awaiting them.

“We’ve solved the problem—the first of them, anyway,” Idalia said. There’d been a message waiting at the horse-lines for Kellen to come and see her, and he’d finally tracked her down in her tent.

He was surprised to see Cilarnen there as well. He was lying on Idalia’s bedroll, a compress over his eyes.

Idalia shrugged, following Kellen’s look. “Oh, he doesn’t want any spells cast on him. But he doesn’t have any objection to casting spells on someone else. So after we spent the morning getting nowhere, Kardus finally got the idea of asking him about the other spells he knew. He cast something called Knowing on Atroist—all with permission, of course—and put the spell directly into Atroist’s mind. Atroist got a hideous headache and Cilarnen passed out. But then Atroist knew exactly how the High Mages perform the Linking Spell, and was able to explain it to the rest of us. We’re going to try it tonight, now that Kindolhinadetil’s mirror has arrived. We don’t need the link for that, but it’s a good idea to practice it. And how was your day?”

“Less exciting,” Kellen said, blinking at Idalia’s matter-of-fact summary. If you had asked him two days ago just how likely this was—a High Mage casting a spell on a Wildmage!—he’d have assumed the questioner was mad to even think the idea. “Vestakia says the Crystal Spiders think there’s at least one more cavern to clear, but she’s having trouble finding out just where it is.” He was still trying to wrap his mind about what she’d just told him so blithely. “Idalia, Cilarnen—Atroist—something could have gone wrong,” he finished inadequately.

“They both knew the risks. We all discussed them before we tried it. They both agreed. It was probably more dangerous to Atroist, all things considered.”

Considering, Kellen thought, that Cilarnen was a less than half-trained High Mage, it was entirely possible that he could have killed Atroist.

But this was war. And they had both known the risks.

“And it did work.” Cilarnen’s voice sounded faint, and very hoarse. He sat up with a stifled groan, running his fingers through his hair, and blinked owlishly at Kellen. There were dark shadows under his eyes, and he looked as if he’d just recovered from a high fever. “And I didn’t kill anybody.”

“No,” Idalia said. “And you certainly put on quite a show.”

Kellen wondered what it was Cilarnen had done, exactly.

“I don’t think I could light a candle right now,” Cilarnen said. He felt around himself, obviously searching for something.

“It’s over here,” Idalia said, indicating the table. “I had one of the Healers—not a Wildmage—bring it, after you dropped it. I didn’t know if a Wildmage’s handling it would make a difference.”

“Neither do I.” Cilarnen shrugged. “It’s just a tool, but no one but one of the Mages would ever touch one in the City.”

Kellen glanced over at the table. Lying on it was a crudely finished length of ashwood.

A Mageborn’s Wand.

He shifted to spell-sight—it was truly second-nature now—and saw the residue of power eddying through the wood, fading slowly. The more it was used, the more attuned to its owner it would become—or so Mage-theory held.

“You’ll want to finish that,” he heard himself saying. “Artenel can loan you the tools, and give you the proper grade of silver for the caps. You’ll need a belt-case, too.”

“Just as if I were a proper Mage,” Cilarnen said, a note of bitter humor in his voice. “Now all I lack is a dozen other tools, a library of spellbooks, and a lifetime of training.”

“‘It is not meet to harvest the fruit before the seed is planted,’” Kellen said, quoting Master Belesharon once more.

“In other words, the future will take care of itself,” Idalia said. “And I wouldn’t be too surprised to find that some of those things could come into our hands if we need them. Now, Kellen, we’ll need your help with this spell—because I want you to be my anchor for the big one. For that, we’ll need somebody keeping an eye on things in case … well, just in case. And no one better than a Knight-Mage. So you’ll need the practice as well.”

Kellen nodded. He wasn’t looking forward to any of this—if someone was going to poke a stick into the hornet’s nest, he’d much prefer it to be him rather than Idalia. But he had to admit that her logic was sound: a Wildmage would be better at a spell of pure Wildmagery than a Knight-Mage. And a Wildmage raised in Armethalieh would have the best chance of all.

“Lady Idalia, would it be permissible for me to watch?” Cilarnen asked. “Not if it is forbidden, of course,” he added quickly.

“On the condition that you stop calling me ‘Lady Idalia.’ It’s just ‘Idalia.’ And if you think you can walk that far,” Idalia said. “Who knows? We might make a Wildmage of you yet,” she added with a smile.

“The Eternal Light forfend,” Cilarnen replied, but for the first time, it sounded as if he had a bit of a sense of humor about it. He got carefully to his feet and tucked his wand securely inside his tunic.

IT would have been impossible to gather the Wildmages together properly for this work in any of the structures within the camp except the main dining tent, and that would have inconvenienced far too many people, since they would need it for at least two days. So Jermayan and Ancaladar had once again created an ice-pavilion for the work, as they had for Atroist’s Calling Spell—only this one was several times larger than that had been.

The ice-pavilion was circular, and glowed with Coldfire—an eerie sight in the dusk. Its polished surface—a faithful, though enormous, replica of a traditional Elven campaigning tent—was already crusted white with new-fallen snow.

Ancaladar was coiled around it. Kellen guessed from Cilarnen’s lack of reaction that he’d already seen Ancaladar for the first time earlier today.

“Ah,” the dragon said. “The young Mage who makes such lovely colors. Come to see what the Wildmages will do with the fruits of your wisdom?”

“Indeed I have,” Cilarnen said. His voice shook only slightly—though with cold, weariness—or astonishment at conversing with a dragon—it was difficult to say. “But I think I can safely promise not to learn anything.”

Ancaladar laughed. “Go inside before you freeze. And behold the wonders of Kindolhinadetil’s mirror.”

The three of them stepped inside. Some of the other Wildmages were already present Jermayan had crafted a bench that ran all the way around the edge of the pavilion, and Cilarnen moved toward it quickly.

Idalia had seen the mirror before. Kellen hadn’t. He stared.

It was a perfect oval as tall as he was, set in a wide standing frame. The frame was of a light-colored fine-grained wood, intricately carved.

But it was hard to say with what. Each time Kellen was certain he had identified an object depicted in the frame and the base—fruit and flower, tree and bird—it seemed to change. Was that a deer? Or a wolf? Or was it a vine?

He gave up.

But then he looked directly at the mirror.

It was made of a single thick pane of flawless rock-crystal backed with Elvensilver, and the reflection it gave back was utterly perfect.

Kellen hadn’t had much time for mirrors lately. There’d been none in the Wildwood, and he’d paid little attention to the small ones in the house in Sentarshadeen. Since then, well … he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a mirror.

Was this him?

He faced a stranger. A man … and one he wouldn’t want to face in battle, either. He towered over Cilarnen—even after several moonturns working in Stonehearth’s stables, you’d never mistake Cilarnen for anything but an Armethaliehan Mageborn. Kellen …

They’d call me a High Reaches barbarian trying to pass for an Elf, he thought with an inward grin. Well, if he wanted nothing to do with the City, the City had obviously returned the favor.

He turned away from the mirror.

“It’s certainly impressive,” he said.

“It will serve our needs,” Jermayan said with a dismissive shrug.

“The rest of you have had all day to figure out this spell,” Kellen said, as more Wildmages began to arrive. “Now you’re going to have to explain it to me.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Against All Odds

WELL, AT HEART it seems to be most like a Healing Spell that you stop in the middle,” Idalia said. “And no actual Healing takes place. Everyone who uses magic has personal shields—with every gift comes an equal weakness. Wildmages can sense more of the world around them than non-Wildmages—without shields to block that out sometimes, we’d drown in all that information. Or be far more vulnerable to spells cast against us than non-Wildmages. Or just to the random influences of magical Otherfolk, even if they didn’t mean to affect us. You don’t have that problem as much as we do—”

“But then, I can’t cast spells as well,” Kellen finished.

“Right,” Idalia said, pleased that he understood the matter so easily and seemed willing—so far—to go along with her plans. “A natural balance. So we need to drop those shields, blend our powers … and act as one.”

She tried to sound confident and assured. She’d refused to accept Jermayan’s betrothal pendant for fear that it would establish a deeper form of just such a link as she was proposing to forge now—allowing him to see into her mind, and perhaps glimpse her unpaid price in its fullness.

But that had been before so many things. His Bond with Ancaladar, for one. The discovery of precisely how much trouble they were all in, for another. She could just hope that with so many minds joined, all focused upon their task, the secret of her unpaid Mageprice would remain unshared.

“Tonight we charge the mirror with our shared energy,” Idalia announced formally, once everyone had arrived. Even Kardus was there—though the Centaur Wildmage had no innate magic, nor any ability to cast spells, he was as much a Wildmage as any of them. “Making it possibly the largest keystone any of us has ever seen. Tomorrow, in the light—at noon—we will work the spell, and see what we can see of Armethalieh. In addition to his mirror, Kindolhinadetil has sent namanar from Ysterialpoerin’s Flower Forest—ghostwood—which we will need for the spell. I have spoken with Redhelwar. Tonight he will speak with the army, and see who will share in the price of the spell.”

“Not the Healers,” Wirance said. “They may be needed.”

“And not all the army,” Kellen said. “Even if they all volunteer. We could still be attacked.”

“Agreed,” Idalia said. “Kellen, you and Redhelwar make the disposition of the units that will not be involved. They’ll need to be well away from here when the spell is cast. And now, let’s get to work.”

NORMALLY the charging of a keystone—even a big one—would have been simple, but for this, they needed a circle of protection as well. Idalia walked around outside the edge of the gathering, drawing a faint line on the snow floor of the pavilion with her walking staff. Then she returned to the center, and threw a handful of herbs on the waiting brazier.

Kellen felt the wall of protection go up around them, and a sudden sense of utter quiet descended upon him.

And more than that.

It was like that night at the battle for the farther cavern, when he had used his battle-sight to see every unit of the army at once. Only now it was the Wildmages around him that he sensed, and he realized that he could draw upon their power as easily as he could call upon his own.

But right now that was not his task. Kellen relaxed as much as he could, remembering what Idalia had said—that this was like a Healing. He concentrated on not concentrating, on being a vessel of power for another to draw from. He felt the magic shift and flow through him—his own, others’—strange, but not uncomfortable.

And then it was done.

Kindolhinadetil’s mirror radiated power like a furnace, the clear crystal sheet of mirror glowing with an inward light to the senses of a Wildmage—or Knight-Mage.

“One more of that will be more than enough for me,” Wirance said firmly, as soon as the shields had been dismissed. “Still, it will work.”

“And I think it is something we shall do more of in the future,” Atroist said, glancing at his fellow Lost Lands Wildmages. “With such strength to draw on, even the most difficult Healing could be made easy.”

“To each fox his own hare,” Wirance said agreeably.

The assembly began to disperse. Jermayan, Ancaladar, and Idalia would remain here tonight, to ensure that the mirror was not tampered with—for even the most benign of reasons.

Kellen took the opportunity to walk back with Atroist. He wanted to hear how the migration of the Lostlanders into the Wild Lands had gone.

“All came, as Drothi promised,” Atroist said. “By the grace of the Good Goddess, it was as if the attention of the Dark Folk was turned elsewhere for that time, for if their creatures had harried us upon the way, we would not now be here. And the Firstlings met us far outside their own borders, with mules and wagons to speed the journey and see us safely through their own lands. Once we are settled in the west, the young men and the rest of the Wildmages will return to honor our bargain and join with the army … though it is not comfortable to hear that the Dark Folk have been seen in the Western Lands as well.”

“I did not know it when I asked your aid,” Kellen said. “I’m not certain how They manage it.”

“Nevertheless, the west is a soft and pleasant land,” Atroist said, “much in need of strong backs and hard workers to make it bloom. The Springtide will be a glorious sight.”

If any of us lives to see it, Kellen thought.

HIS work that night was far from done, but fortunately the spell of preparing the mirror had taken very little of his energy. He went from the ice-pavilion to Redhelwar’s pavilion, where he briefed the Army’s General on Idalia’s plans, and the part the army would share in the spell.

For a healing, a physical link was needed between the Wildmage and those who shared in the price. Fortunately that wouldn’t be necessary in this case—or Vestakia could weave a cartload of blankets out of all the hair that would have to be gathered.

“You say you would wish to withhold certain elements of the army from sharing in the spell-price,” Redhelwar said. “It is … unlikely … that any will wish to refuse to pay the price, so it will save time to make our dispositions now.”

“The wounded will not participate, of course, nor will the Healers,” Kellen said. “I would wish to withhold a third of the army and support troops—in case of attack, and to deal with those matters which cannot be set aside, such as the care of the horses. Those who participate … they could fight if they had to, but they will be exhausted. Losses would be heavy.”

“And we have had too many losses already. So.”

Redhelwar brought out a thick—and much-amended—scroll listing each unit by name, and they got to work.

WHEN their dispositions had been made, Redhelwar summoned his senior commanders, and Kellen had to explain the entire matter again, albeit in a much shorter version this time. Next, the senior commanders would brief their subcommanders, who would explain matters to their commands.

Tomorrow at the morning meal, Redhelwar would address the army. When those of his komentaiia who were to share in the price brought him their consent to participate in the Wildmage’s spell, they would also bring the consent of every person serving under them. Redhelwar would consent to share the price of the spell, and in doing so, would bring with him the consent of all the others.

If there were an attack, it would deprive the army of its general, which was why Kellen had been careful to exclude two of the senior commanders from the price. But it was the only way: in magical terms, Redhelwar was the army, just as in Sentarshadeen, Andoreniel was the city. Only Redhelwar could properly give consent to participate on behalf of the entire army. Otherwise, the Wildmages themselves, and not proxies, would have to hear consent from each of the soldiers individually—and they’d still be listening a sennight from now!

But though Redhelwar would be the only one formally asked, all who participated in the spell would have been asked, and consented. That was the way it must be.

With that accomplished, Kellen had one last task before him. Tomorrow he would be acting as a Knight-Mage … which meant he must ask his troop to share in the price.

He gathered them together in a corner of the dining tent. Of the original thirty he had been given to command, there were less than a dozen left. The others were all new to him, added to his command since the battle of the farther cavern.

Briefly he explained to them what was to be done tomorrow, and the part they would be asked to play.

“And now I must ask: is there anyone here who will share in the price of the spell?”

The Elves exchanged glances.

“Foolish human,” Ambanire—one of the new recruits—said. “We all will, of course.”

The others nodded.

“Kellen, you know you don’t have to ask,” Isinwen said.

“No, actually,” Kellen said. “I do. Trust me, that’s the way Wild Magic works. There is no such thing as implied consent. Isinwen, tomorrow you have command. I’ll be busy. Afterward, you’ll all be very … tired. I don’t know more than that. So I suggest you all get a good night’s sleep.”

THERE was someone in his tent.

Kellen didn’t need the footprints outside in the fresh snow to tell him so. He knew. And it didn’t take a Knight-Mage’s Gift to tell him who it was: even here in a war camp, the threshold of one’s own dwelling was sacrosanct. No Elf would cross it without permission, even if its owner were not present. But a human—especially a young human entirely untutored in the courtesy that came so naturally to the Elves—

“What do you want, Cilarnen?” he said, stepping into the tent.

Cilarnen had left it dark; Kellen lit the lamps.

Cilarnen was sitting on the low stool that was the tent’s only seating—probably to keep himself awake, for he had been half-dozing when Kellen arrived, and sat up with a jolt. Kellen could smell a faint unfamiliar medicinal smell in the air. Idalia’s cordial? Well, exhaustion and strain could bring on a headache as well.

“I … I wanted to talk to you. Before tomorrow. Alone.”

Kellen didn’t want to talk. He wanted to sleep. But it must be something important—at least in Cilarnen’s mind—to bring him here when he was obviously so desperately tired.

“You’re here, it isn’t tomorrow, and we’re alone—as much as that’s possible,” Kellen said. He couldn’t begin to imagine what Cilarnen wanted to see him about, but after all that Cilarnen had done to help make tomorrow’s spell a success, he owed Cilarnen a hearing, no matter how much he’d rather be sleeping.

“Tomorrow … I want to be with the rest of you. With the Wildmages.”

Kellen could not have been more stunned if Cilarnen had announced he suddenly wanted to become a Wildmage.

“In the Circle? Inside the Shields? With us?”

Cilarnen nodded.

“Why?” Kellen asked bluntly.

“Kellen, you said I was the smartest student at the Mage-College. I don’t know if you were right or not, but I’ve been thinking, ever since, well, I finally saw you again. These Things—they’re smart, too, aren’t they?”

“As smart as we are,” Kellen said grimly. “Maybe smarter.”

“But the one in Stonehearth mistook me for you. And we look nothing alike, you know,” Cilarnen said seriously. “So they’re either stupid—or there’s some reason for them to confuse the two of us. If you think like Them. Or see like Them.”

Kellen waited. Cilarnen’s reasoning made sense so far, though he didn’t like where it was going.

“So—a reason. But I can’t figure out what it is. I can’t think like a … That. I can’t even think like one of you. But Vestakia and Kardus both say I’m not Tainted with Dark Magery—Vestakia said she’d know, and that if she didn’t, Shalkan would.”

“That’s true,” Kellen said. “Whatever else we have to worry about, we don’t have to worry about that.”

Cilarnen smiled, though it clearly took an effort to do so.

“I think I’d rather die than be anything like the thing I saw at Stonehearth. It killed and it killed, and it … laughed. But you see, Kellen … maybe I’m supposed to be there tomorrow. Because you’ll be there tomorrow. Maybe It saw something nobody else has seen—but not something bad. Maybe something it was afraid of. Something that could help.”

It was possible, Kellen decided. All they really knew about Demons was that they were evil, terribly powerful, immortal, could assume any shape, and fueled their magic through the blood and pain of others. It was not impossible—in fact, it was highly likely—that they could sense things non-Demons couldn’t. And he couldn’t think like a Demon any more than Cilarnen could.

Oh, he could guess at their tactics. Imagine their strategy—some of the time. But truly think like one? No creature of the Light could manage that.

“Maybe you’re right,” Kellen said slowly. “Maybe your being there could help. Or maybe it will kill you.”

Cilarnen looked directly at him, startled. This was obviously not what he’d expected to hear.

“Yes, I mean to scare you,” Kellen said. “I want you to know exactly what you’re asking for. This will be the most powerful spell any of us has ever attempted. A spell of the Wild Magic. You’ll be right in the middle of it. We don’t control the Wild Magic, not entirely; it works through us in its own way, though always for the Good. We’re its tools, not the other way around. You might find yourself linked to several dozen Wildmages. If just being around us makes you uncomfortable, think what that would do. Think hard.”

Kellen watched as Cilarnen pictured in his mind what Kellen had suggested. He could tell the boy was imagining something intolerably painful.

“I still want—I need—to be there. I’ve brought the message. My work—Kardus’s Task—they’re done. The Elves will take Tinsin back to Stonehearth. And Anganil will find another rider … if the Light forsakes me,” Cilarnen said slowly. And if smiling had cost him an effort, there was no doubt in Kellen’s mind that those words cost him every bit of courage and will that he had.

“Leaf and Star send that it doesn’t,” Kellen said. “Now go to bed. Here. It’s too late and too cold for you to walk all the way back to the Centaur camp now—you’d probably fall asleep in the first snowdrift you found. Take the pallet. I’ve slept rougher than this before.”

He opened his clothes chest and began pulling out his extra blankets and spare cloak. They’d make an adequate bed for the night, and his coldwarg-fur-lined cloak was warm enough to serve as a sleeping pallet in its own right.

“But—” Cilarnen began.

“No arguments. I’m saving all of mine for Idalia tomorrow,” Kellen said.

Cilarnen was quickly asleep. Kellen lay awake a few moments longer, wondering if he were doing the right thing, then decided there was no point in worrying about it.

He slept.

THE funerals for the High Mages Perizel and Arance eclipsed in splendor even that of High Mage Vilmos two moonturns earlier, though they were held much more privately, in the Chapel of the Light at the Mage-College. At least Vilmos had died with dignity and honor—giving his all for the good of the City in a Great Working.

Perizel and Arance had been murdered.

It was impossible that the Commons should learn of it, of course—but every Mageborn in the Mage Quarter knew almost before the Magewardens had arrived at the houses of the deceased.

“THEY were poisoned, Lord Arch-Mage,” Anigrel said, entering Lycaelon’s office as Dawn Bells sounded its single lonely carillon. “We know how, but not by whom. My agents are questioning the servants—and the families.”

“It seems that you were right, my son,” Lycaelon said heavily, motioning for Anigrel to seat himself. “This monstrous conspiracy of Wildmages strikes at our very marrow. But how could they be poisoned?”

It seemed as if the Arch-Mage had aged a year for every sennight that had passed since the Banishings of early winter. In one sense, this was the time of his greatest triumph, since as far as Lycaelon Tavadon knew, the reins of power settled more firmly into his hands each day.

But apparently its emptiness ate at him like a wasting disease that owed nothing to any spell of Anigrel’s. At the moment, Anigrel had no interest in hurrying his new father to reunion with the Light. He found the Arch-Mage too useful where he was: an enthusiastic partisan of Anigrel’s policies, one whose purity of motive and loyalty to the City were unquestionable—and unquestioned.

“Lord Perizel is accustomed to take a cup of kaffeyah before he retires,” Anigrel said, taking care to sound as if presenting the news pained him. “Lord Arance is fond of Ividion red—his servants say he generally takes wine in his library while looking over his collection of rare books. We did not find poison in either the glass or the cup. Nor would we … because we found traces of umbrastone. It would make any poison undetectable … Father.”

“Light deliver us,” Lycaelon groaned. He looked at Anigrel beseechingly.

“I will discover our enemies. I swear it. But until I do, I must ask you … do not fill those vacancies. We know that Arance and Perizel were good and loyal men. It is possible that we will not be able to say the same of any who put themselves forward to take their place.”

“Yes.” Lycaelon’s eyes narrowed. “At a time like this, I must have no one about me whom I cannot trust. You are right, Anigrel. But … with only eight upon the Council, and you and I called so often to other duties, I fear the Great Workings will suffer. The City expects so much of us …”

“I have a plan that I hope will lift some of that burden from your shoulders,” Anigrel said, lowering his eyes modestly.

He took a deep breath, forcing himself to remain calm. He was so very close now! For many years, against the possibility this day might come, he had been working upon an elaborate configuration of spells; tiny modifications of the City Wards. His changes would be undetectable to a casual inspection—but they would allow his Dark Lady and her kindred to send their magics through the City-Wards unhindered—and undetected.

And where spells could go, bodies could soon follow …

“Ah, my son, you are always thinking of the good of the City, even as you work yourself to exhaustion. You must share your thoughts with me,” Lycaelon said eagerly.

Quickly Anigrel outlined his plan. All Mages of sufficient rank had always assisted in the Great Workings—why not dedicate specific groups of High Mages to specific tasks—weather spells, water purification spells, bell-setting, the City-Wards—freeing the more powerful and experienced Council Mages to lend their expertise to those unique and delicate problems that were sure to appear?

“Some of us could work with them at first, of course—to be sure everything runs properly. But other Mages often work in the Great Circles. It is in my mind to recruit from among their numbers. Those whom my Magewardens deem suitable, of course.”

“It is an excellent plan,” Lycaelon said. “The Council will approve it. It must. And, Anigrel … I hesitate to ask this of you, but you must lead the Circle that charges the City-Wards. I can trust no one but you with a task so vital to our welfare. You must choose the Mages for this Circle as well—and let as many of them be Magewardens as possible.”

“It is a heavy burden you lay upon me, Father,” Anigrel said gravely. “But I will try to bear it well—for the good of the City.”

THE day of the Working dawned pale and overcast—and far too cold to snow. Kellen noted that fact almost automatically—and turned over and went back to sleep.

A few hours later he was roused—all the way from sleep this time—by the ringing of his bell-rope.

He was on his feet without being quite awake, sword in hand, wondering vaguely why he’d slept in his clothes. He unpegged the tent flap to find Kharren standing before him.

“Knight-Mage,” she said courteously, “a last duty to discharge as alakomentai before you may leave your command to Isinwen. Adaerion gathers the first of the subcommanders in his pavilion in half an hour.”

“I shall be there,” Kellen promised, bowing.

He closed the tent flap again and glanced over at Cilarnen. Let him sleep as long as he could. Kellen added his own blankets to the ones already covering Cilarnen.

Kellen had just time to thrust his feet into his boots, comb his hair straight and tie it back—no time for braiding—and buckle on his weapons before running all the way to Adaerion’s pavilion.

The day was just as cold as he’d suspected it would be.

In Adaerion’s pavilion he, along with a dozen other subcommanders, gave his sworn oath, upon his honor, that he and all his command agreed to share in the price for the Work to come.

Afterward, Kellen felt both relieved and nervous. All the duties and responsibilities of the army had been lifted from him. All that remained was his service to the Wild Magic.

None of the Wildmages was certain-of what would happen when the spell was cast. It could be as safe as a scrying spell—or as dangerous as the assault on the Black Cairn. There was no way to know except by doing.

What if this is a trap? Cilarnen is innocent—I truly believe that—but what if this is still a trap? The Demons have given us information before, knowing we would have no choice but to act upon it. If They arranged for him to find out what he did, They would also know we would do everything in our power to investigate further. Making ourselves vulnerable …

And just as with the discovery of the Shadowed Elves, there was no way to turn away from such a task. If what Cilarnen said was true—if there was any possibility that it was true—they had to know.

They had to do exactly what they were doing now.

Someday, Kellen vowed grimly, we will no longer dance to your piping, Shadow Mountain. Someday WE will choose the battlefield—and the battle. And we will win.

TWO hours before noon, Redhelwar addressed the army on the drill field just outside the camp. He spoke slowly, pausing between each sentence, for his words must be relayed to the edges of the command.

He spoke of simple things—the drought that was past, the depth of the winter snows, the glory of the Springtide to come. He did not speak of what the Wildmages were about to do. He did not need to.

“We shall not go down to the Dark consenting,” he said at last. “We shall fight. Who will share with me in the price of the spell?”

It was now that the senior and allied commanders were to have come forward, bringing the oaths of their commands.

Instead, something unrehearsed, unplanned, and unprecedented—especially in the lives of the Elves, who lived by ritual and ceremony—happened.

The entire army—every Elf, every Centaur, every human there—shouted out their consent, over and over again.

“LIGHT deliver us,” Cilarnen said softly, listening to the roar of the army. He and Kellen had remained behind to watch; Kellen had wanted to hear Redhelwar’s speech. They were mounted on their destriers a few hundred yards from where the army had gathered, for they would need to be inside the ice-pavilion before those who were sharing in the spell-price surrounded it.

“Consent—asked and granted,” Kellen said. “Without it we are thieves, and the Wild Magic will turn against us. Come on. It’s time to go.”

THEY rode Anganil and Firareth all the way to the pavilion—those of the army sharing in the price would follow on foot—and when they got there Kellen dismounted, looping his reins back over Firareth’s saddle and motioning for Cilarnen to do the same.

“Home,” he said to the destrier, pointing back at the camp and giving him an encouraging slap on the rump. “You, too,” he said to Anganil.

Both animals trotted off toward the camp.

“They’ll go where they’re used to being fed,” Kellen said, noting Cilarnen’s look of disbelief. “The handlers will bring them in and take care of them. There’s no magic involved. It’s one of the commands they know.”

“Like ‘dump your rider in the snow’?” Cilarnen suggested, with a faint nervous smile.

“If we’re both still alive tomorrow, maybe there will be time to start training you to make use of what Anganil knows,” Kellen said absently. “I doubt you’ll ever be a knight, but you have the makings of a fine rider.”

They walked toward the pavilion, each occupied by his own sober thoughts.

The other Wildmages were already gathered here, though not all were yet inside. The Mountainfolk undoubtedly thought this was a fine calm day—even warm—and the Lostlanders were used to even harsher conditions. Some were gathered around a brazier, brewing their thick black tea and talking quietly. Others paced back and forth, their heavy furs dark against the snow.

It was the calm before battle.

Ancaladar was coiled around the pavilion, as immobile as if he’d decided to become a part of it. The dragon raised his head as they approached, his large golden eyes fixed on Cilarnen.

“This should be interesting,” Ancaladar commented, lowering his head again.

They went inside. Idalia was standing near the mirror, talking intently to Jermayan. She looked up as Kellen entered.

And saw Cilarnen.

Last night Kellen had told Cilarnen he was saving all his arguments for Idalia. Now he wondered if arguing was going to be good enough. Idalia walked over to them.

“Good morning, Kellen. Have you decided to murder Cilarnen after all, or is there another reason he’s here?” Her violet eyes flashed dangerously. She knew—they all knew—of Cilarnen’s particular sensitivity to the Wild Magic. This was the last place he should be.

“He believes he has a good reason to stand in the Circle with us. I’ve heard his reasons, and I agree,” Kellen said, matching bluntness with bluntness. “I’ve told him it may kill him. He has still chosen to come.”

“Cilarnen—” Idalia began.

“Idalia,” Kellen said gently. “No one is asking your permission.”

Idalia stared at Kellen as if seeing him for the very first time.

Jermayan appeared at Idalia’s side. Even in plain sight, even in a crowd of people, the Elven Mage could appear and disappear with a silent grace that owed nothing to magic.

“To know these reasons would make good hearing,” Jermayan said quietly, putting a hand on Idalia’s arm.

“It’s a question,” Kellen said to Cilarnen, when Cilarnen said nothing. Keyed-up as he was, Cilarnen might not have understood, and Jermayan was being very polite. “Answer it or not as you choose.”

“I think …” Cilarnen faltered to a stop and started again. “The Thing in Stonehearth saw something in me. Something that made it confuse me with Kellen. I … need to be here. To help, if I can.”

There was another silence. Idalia looked from Cilarnen to Kellen, and back again. At last she nodded—not permitting, but accepting. “As Kellen says, it’s your choice.”

“Stand where you like,” Kellen said to Cilarnen. “I don’t think it will matter.”

“I’ll want you in the center with me, Kellen,” Idalia said. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

She took his arm and walked with him over to the space before Kindolhinadetil’s mirror. Her stave leaned against it. There was now an iron brazier set before it—one of the largest the Elves possessed—filled with pieces of namanar wood. On a square of cloth beside it lay a small herb bundle that would also be needed.

“You’ve grown up, little brother. I’m glad,” Idalia said.

“You always knew I would,” Kellen pointed out. “And I’ve had good teachers, and better examples.” Did she think he’d grown up because he’d argued with her? he wondered. Or because he hadn’t?

“The best, I hope. Now. I’ll stand here. You’ll stand behind me. You’ll see what I See—everyone will, I think, just like a regular scrying spell, but if this spell goes the way I think, I’m the only one who will Know whatever there is to know. But you should be able to sense how the spell is running, and … interfere, if it becomes necessary.”

And hope the Wild Magic shows me what I need to do, Kellen thought soberly.

SOON all the Wildmages had moved into the pavilion, and the army had moved into position outside.

Redhelwar stepped through the opening, and bowed to Idalia.

Idalia returned the salute gravely.

“Today we will attempt to see beyond the wards of the City of a Thousand Bells, called Armethalieh, and know what takes place within her walls,” Idalia announced formally. “Who will share with me the price of the Working?”

“The army and its allies will share in the price of the Working, Wildmage Idalia,” Redhelwar said. “In token, I bring this.”

He held out his hand. Resting upon the palm was a tiny circlet: a band made of three strands of Redhelwar’s hair, intricately braided into an endless ring.

“I accept your oath and your gift,” Idalia said, taking the ring. “May the Gods of the Wild Magic favor us this day.”

“Leaf and Star will that it be so,” Redhelwar answered, bowing and retreating from the tent.

Idalia returned to the center and lit the brazier. As the ghostwood began to kindle, she took her staff and began to walk around the outer edge of the group of Wildmages, drawing a line in the beaten snow.

SHE refused to let herself think beyond each moment. There was one last reason why she was the only possible person to be the caster of this spell: all her prices were now paid, save for one. For any other, the Mageprice for a spell such as this would surely be heavy.

She returned to her place in the center of the circle, between Kellen and the brazier. He stood as calmly as if he were already in deep trance, as alertly as if he might be called upon to fight at any moment.

Waiting.

She’d said he’d grown up, and he had. Whatever past trouble there had been between him and Cilarnen, it was over now. He no longer needed her—he might still value her opinion, but he would never again depend on it instead of his own. The work of bringing him to adulthood—and vital work it had been—was done.

If disaster struck, those she loved—and who loved her—would survive.

Idalia knelt and took up the bundle of dried herbs and the ring of hair. She slipped her dagger from her belt and scored a long line down her palm, then clutched the herbs and hair in that hand tightly, moistening both with her blood.

Then she cast them onto the brazier of burning wood.

The smoke coiling upward changed color abruptly, and she felt the shimmer as the dome of protection rose around them all, expanding outward to enfold the army as well.

The Link formed, the Power of the assembled-Wildmages joining together, becoming one, becoming hers. She felt the spell uncoil within her as she inhaled the smoke.

She reached out toward the mirror.

Show me what I need to See: Tell me what I need to Know.

It glowed bright as the moon, growing larger and larger until it was all there was.

SHE was in the City.

Not now—but then. What she saw was in the past For a moment she was puzzled, then realized she must need to See this as well.

The Temple of the Light. An Adoption ceremony. The spell let her Know the meaning of everything she Saw, and so she knew that what she saw was Anigrel being adopted into House Tavadon, and that later this same day he would be appointed to the Mage Council and take Volpiril’s seat.

She knew that Breulin and Isas had been forced to resign.

She knew that Anigrel was Cilarnen’s Master Raellan.

There is no conspiracy. There never was. Anigrel started it all—

With dreamlike swiftness, the hours and days of Anigrel’s life unfolded to her: the formation of the Magewardens and the Commons Wardens—the network of spies to inform upon the people of Armethalieh and sow terror among them. Every thread of unholy Darkness woven through the golden fabric of the City was spun from Anigrel’s hands.

She watched as he murdered Lord Vilmos.

And she saw … she saw …

DEEP in the darkness of the World Without Sun, Savilla came out of her entrancement with a strangled cry of rage, though it was long before the proper time for her Rising.

Someone was tampering with her slave.

She felt it, through the soul-deep link she shared with her Mage-man.

The festering sickness of the Light approached him.

They will not!

WITH the fresh horrors of not one, but two murders to convince them—and not merely murders of Mageborn, but of members of the Mage Council itself—High Mage Anigrel’s proposals for special, dedicated, highly secure groups of Mages to handle the routine magick of the City had passed by unanimous Council vote.

No one had suggested filling the empty Council seats. No one had dared. They were beginning to learn—slowly, but they were learning—that to disagree with any of Anigrel’s proposals could well be seen as a sign of sympathy with the burgeoning Wildmage Menace.

And certainly there was no one better than the Chief Magewarden to see to the security of the City-Wards themselves.

Tonight his plans would bear their first fruits. Tonight he and highly loyal acolytes would begin to change the Wards surrounding the City. And soon …

Soon the City-wards would keep out only what Anigrel wanted kept out.

The Circle was assembled. The hour was correct. The braziers were lit, and the air was thick with the proper incense—a compound Anigrel had crafted personally. The nine Mages of the Points of the Light began to draw the elaborate sigils, chanting out the spell as they did so, while Anigrel and the remaining three sang the complex antiphon. The Great Sword warmed in his hands; soon it would be time to draw the first of the Seals …

IDALIA watched in sick horror. It was worse than she had imagined—worse than anyone had feared. Anigrel was the Demons’ creature—had been for years. And now he’d managed to reach a position where he could strip away Armethalieh’s defenses—and let the Demons in.

He was going to give them the City.

And all she could do was watch.

SAVILLA stood naked in her ivory chamber. The walls were spattered with blood, and the remains of half-a-dozen dismembered slaves lay scattered about, for she’d had no time to be neat or elegant. The obsidian bowl was filled to overflowing with hot fresh blood, and more pooled on the ebony table and ran down its legs to the floor.

Her Mage-man was doing his City-magic—that made everything much easier. She could touch what Overlooked him.

Wildmages.

Savilla’s fury grew until it nearly choked her. How dare they meddle in her plans?

She bared her fangs in savage glee as she tested the power of their spell and followed it to its source. They’d worked so hard and so diligently to penetrate the human city’s defenses.

But a breech for you is a breech for me, my darlings, Savilla purred to herself in sudden delight. In their desperation, they had made themselves vulnerable.

She struck with all her might.

KELLEN Saw all that Idalia Saw—they all did—but without the Knowing, it meant little to him. He let the images go, concentrating on feeling the currents of power that flowed through them all—through the ring of Wildmages into Idalia; from the army into the ring of Wildmages—searching constantly for anything out of place.

The spark that was Cilarnen was like a bright ember; different, apart, but not wrong.

Jermayan … another sort of difference. Not wrong.

Kellen ignored them both.

Then:

“No!”

Shouted—whispered—thought—he did not know which of these he did. But disaster—he sensed it—coming—already here—he didn’t know which.

He reached out to Idalia. She had to end the spell.

He was too late.

Time seemed to slow. The surface of the mirror faded to darkness, and bowed outward as if its surface were not crystal, but oil. It reached for Idalia.

If it touched her, they would all die.

HE was sure they all felt they were doing something—even Kardus was staring into the mirror as if he could see something other than the reflections of Idalia and Kellen and everyone else here standing around in a circle. All Cilarnen knew was that the ice-pavilion was filled with smoke—very little of it was escaping through the smoke-hole in the roof—and it made him want to cough.

And that he’d never been so uncomfortable in his life.

It was like when he’d handled Wirance’s Books—but worse.

It was like being terrified—only his mind wasn’t terrified at all. His mind could see no reason for fear standing in a smoke-filled house made of ice.

But his heart was beating so hard that his entire body shook, and inside his gloves, his palms were slick with sweat.

And then he heard Kellen cry out.

CILARNEN flung Mageshield over Idalia at the exact moment Jermayan Cast his own shield. Kellen felt Cilarnen reach the end of his own power in seconds—

And felt Ancaladar bolster Cilarnen’s power with his own.

“Freely given,” Kellen heard. “Freely given.”

Cilarnen’s shield strengthened.

Held.

The two shields—one of High Magick, one of Elven Magery—sparked and boiled over each other, the emerald and purple refusing to blend.

They have to hold! Kellen felt as if the whole force of both forms of magic—neither his—was pouring through him, tearing him apart.

But the power of the Circle was his as well.

He drew upon it, forcing the two Shields together. His pain was a distant thing; he forced it still farther from his consciousness, focusing all his intent upon holding the two shields together. Now he could see them clasped in a faint blue tracery: his Will. The will of a Knight-Mage, which could not be turned aside from its purpose, save by death.

A bolt of pure Darkness struck their combined shield.

He heard Cilarnen scream; felt Jermayan’s agony. Ancaladar bellowed in pain and outrage.

The shield held. And he held; though he felt as if every atom of his body was being torn asunder, he held, and held, and held, by will alone, and then as his will eroded, and he felt even that failing—

He was filled again with power, with a pure white power that held every color of magic there ever was within itself. And what little remained of his ability to think put a name to that power.

Shalkan.

This was why Shalkan held back from the other Workings, even when it was to heal one of his own kind. This was what Shalkan had been saving himself for, without knowing exactly what would be needed, only that it would. He fed the very essence of unicorn through the bond that tied him to Kellen, and into Kellen’s Will, into Cilarnen, because Cilarnen was as virgin as Kellen, into the shield, so that all powers fused into one color that held all—

With a lightless flash and an earsplitting shriek of backlash, the Darkbolt recoiled upon itself.

The mirror … dissolved.

The Link was gone, and so was the Dome of Protection. The shields vanished beneath Kellen’s grasp, and with them, his need to hold them. Suddenly alone in his own skin, Kellen tried to take a step, and went sprawling. Without the spell to concentrate on, all that was left was the pain: he felt drained—unnaturally drained—as if his body had given up more than it could safely give, and he hurt from the energies he had forced through himself.

Never be a High Mage … Kellen thought groggily.

He tried to get to his knees, but he was too sick and dizzy to move.

Cilarnen—Jermayan—I have to get up—

“Stay down. It’s all right. I know what they want,” someone—Idalia?—said. “I know what they’re doing.”

DARKNESS transmuted to Light fountained forth from the obsidian bowl, shattering it into a thousand razor shards that embedded themselves in the Demon Queen’s flesh. Far worse than that was the backlash of her spell—Savilla had struck against the hated Enemy with all her might, and her own power had turned against her to strike her down. Drained of power, she lay insensible until Prince Zyperis found her.

It was he who carried her back to her resting chamber in secret, who drew the stone shards from her flesh and tenderly sucked each wound clean.

“Rest, darling Mama,” he said lovingly. “Soon you will be strong again.”

PRINCE Zyperis regarded his mother with every expression of tenderness—and why not? For the first time in his life, he had seen her helpless and vulnerable.

For now, it was their secret—and one Zyperis intended to share with no one else. But secrets were power among the Endarkened … and now he knew how Yethlenga had died: by the power of the Wild Magic and the High Magick combined.

It was a fearful thing to know that the puling creatures of the Light could slay them—they, who were meant to live forever, by the favor of He Who Is!

On the other hand, it was also … an opportunity.

He had not been ready to exploit it this time, nor had Queen Savilla been quite weak enough. But if he arranged matters properly—if he made sure that the Wildmages’ pet High Mage flourished—

Then perhaps his beloved mother could meet with a timely accident the next time she faced the forces of the Light.

And there would be a new King in the World Without Sun.

THE cost of the spell to see into Armethalieh had been higher than any of them had imagined. No one had died, but that was as much as anyone could say. If there had been an attack in its aftermath, the army would have been slaughtered, for of those who had shared in the price, many had fainted where they stood, and the rest were too weak to as much as lift a sword. It would be sennights before the army was able to fight at full strength once more.

Those who had not shared in the spell-price—and it was fortunate that so many had been exempted—found themselves occupied caring for those who had—helping the troops from the field around the ice-pavilion, and then returning to carry away the unconscious Wildmages and Cilarnen. Shalkan, too, had been found unconscious, guarded by the rest of the unicorn herd until a Healer could be brought to help him.

SOMEHOW the Demons—not the Mages—had seen the spell. And had managed to turn it against them. If Cilarnen had not been here—if Ancaladar had not granted him the power he had needed to use his magick—if he and Jermayan and Kellen had not somehow been able to fuse their powers and Shalkan had not added his own unique power to the lot …

She would be dead, and the Wildmages linked to her so mind-blasted that they might never have been able to serve the Wild Magic again. Cilarnen … she was not sure what would have happened to him. Nothing good.

If and if and if. But all had gone as the Wild Magic willed.

Their spell-shields had protected her—it was why she was still standing. And now—as soon as there was someone conscious to tell it to—she would be able to tell what she had learned.

Tears of fear and frustration gathered in Idalia’s eyes as she thought of what she had seen in the mirror.

SHE was able to speak to Redhelwar that evening, though the Army’s General was still confined to his bed. She summarized what she had learned through the spell.

“And soon the human City will be theirs, and all its Mages,” Redhelwar said, his voice flat with exhaustion and grief. “As Kellen said: there was something They needed before They were willing to move openly.”

“They don’t have it yet,” Idalia said. And I pray to the Gods of the Wild Magic we can keep Them from getting it.

IT was the next day before she dared to try to wake Kellen—even Jermayan, with Ancaladar’s inexhaustible vitality to draw upon, still slept—but Kellen had to know what she knew as soon as possible.

They had to plan.

“DON’T wake him, Idalia,” Isinwen begged as she entered Kellen’s pavilion. The Elven Knight was sitting cross-legged beside the sleeping pallet, though he looked as if he ought to be in one himself. The pavilion was warm; obviously Isinwen was here to see that the brazier remained full and lit.

“I have to, Isinwen,” Idalia said gently. “There are things he needs to know, and they cannot wait any longer.”

“Then let me make tea first,” Isinwen said resignedly, lighting the tea brazier.

When the tea was ready, Isinwen left.

No one can make you feel quite as guilty as a loyal servant, Idalia thought with an inward sigh. And Isinwen certainly seemed to have appointed himself to that position. She went over and knelt beside her sleeping brother.

IDALIA was calling him.

But he was so tired …

With an effort, Kellen forced himself to consciousness.

The mirror. The spell. The attack.

Idalia knows.

“Cilarnen—” he said, his voice a croak. “Shalkan.”

“Alive,” Idalia said. “They’re all alive. I think he—they—will all be okay. They’re still asleep. But I need you now.”

Kellen tried to sit up. His body wouldn’t obey, and that alarmed him enough to give him the strength to pull himself into a sitting position. Idalia steadied him and put a mug of tea into his hand.

Kellen took a deep breath, clearing his head, and gulped at the tea. It was hot, strong, and horribly sweet—just what he needed.

Exhaustion still dragged at him. But his mind was clearing quickly.

“They attacked us. Here.”

“Yes,” Idalia said. She shook her head in self-disgust. “Something I should have thought of, I suppose. We made a link to Their servant in the City. We expected an attack from the Mages, but …”

“But an opening is an opening, and They could use it just as well,” Kellen finished. “But Their attack didn’t work. Just like at Stonehearth—a Wildmage and a High Mage working together can hurt Them. Kill Them. I think … Idalia, I think that’s what the High Magick was originally for.”

“To help kill Them? It would be nice to think so. But I don’t think knowing that is going to do us a lot of good now.”

Kellen had finished his tea. Idalia refilled his mug, adding several more honey-disks.

“Idalia … I saw what you Saw. But I didn’t understand it. Anigrel … he’s on the Council now?”

“He’s the one Cilarnen was told about in Stonehearth. Lycaelon has adopted him, made him a High Mage, and put him on the Council. He’s the traitor—he has been for years. There’s more—much more—but the main thing is this: he’s changing the Wards of the City so that Their spells can pass through them.”

His body might be exhausted, but Kellen’s mind was fully alert. It was the missing piece of the puzzle he’d searched for for so long.

“Once they can bespell the City, they can take the Wards down entirely and enter it in the flesh. But not … not just for prey. They could have stripped the Lost Land bare any time They liked if that was all they wanted. They want something more. Allies? But They are the ancient enemy of the Mageborn, too. Lycaelon would never …”

“He’ll do what Anigrel tells him to,” Idalia said grimly. “And Anigrel is telling him that Wildmages are the ones out to destroy his precious City—and have been for generations.”

“Xaqiue,” Kellen said. “We’re the Wildmages, so we’re the enemy—us, the Elves, the Allies. Idalia, it all makes sense now. They don’t want to face us in the field. They never did. And if They destroy us … even Armethalieh might notice—and fight. But if They can get Armethalieh to do their fighting for Them …”

“Then Light destroys Light … and They destroy what’s left,” Idalia said despairingly.

“Now we know what They want,” Kellen said. “And we know what we have to stop.” And he felt a strange elation, as strong as Idalia’s despair. “Knowledge is power, Idalia. And—I think—we’ve only begun to understand ours.”

Epilogue

THE FIRST WORKING had been accomplished successfully.

There had been a moment—just as he was about to inscribe the first of the seven Seals—when for a moment the Council chamber had vanished from Anigrel’s sight, dissolved first in intolerable brightness and cold, and then in darkness and the scent of freshly-spilled blood.

But it had only been a moment. The web of the Working had held.

Of course Anigrel wondered about the cause. But none of the other Mages had sensed any disruption in the spell, and his own subsequent investigations had revealed nothing. Perhaps someone in the Mage Council had been attempting to Overlook the Working. Next time he would make doubly sure that any uninvited spectators received a more lasting greeting than they could imagine.

Each day, now, it would be safer to openly use those powers that were his true heritage.

He had waited impatiently for his Dark Lady to use her new freedom to contact him, and as the days passed and she did not, he grew close to despair. He knew his spells had not failed. How, then, had he displeased her?

At last the time came for him to make his own attempt. Even now, he dared not deviate from his schedule, lest his presumption displease her further. Besides, moondark was the time of greatest power for those spells he had learned under her tutelage.

At last the fortnight passed. He retreated to his rooms, filled the iron bowl with blood, and waited.

“You please me—and disappoint me,” came the voice in his mind. Her touch was stronger than ever; he could almost feel her soft hands upon his flesh.

Anigrel dropped to his knees in confusion.

“I—I have done all you asked of me. I will do more!”

“Yes. You must do more—and quickly. Did you not notice, upon that night you worked to loosen the chains that bind your city against me, that the Wildmages struck at your life? It was only through my intervention that you still live. If I am to protect you further, those fetters must be loosed entirely. And you must convince the Arch-Mage to ally himself with us at once.”

“But—” He’d known it was their ultimate goal. But it would not be an easy one to achieve. Another year—perhaps two—to soften Lycaelon’s mind further—

“At once! I have indulged you for long enough—do this now, or face the ruin of all our hopes!”

Her fury was like a lash; Anigrel cringed from her displeasure even as he longed for the pain of her touch.

“Yes, Mistress—I swear to you I shall do this for you. Armethalieh shall be yours before the first flowers bloom.”

“Much sooner, I hope … for your sake. My sweet Anigrel, do you not know how deeply I yearn to make you mine entirely? Do not make me wait much longer …”

“I swear to you, Mistress. The City shall be yours to do with as you will.”

And I—I shall be yours as well.

When

Darkness

Falls

The Obsidian Trilogy:

Book three

Mercedes Lackey

and James Mallory

When

Darkness

Falls

Prologue

The Surface of the Mirror

THE DAY OF the Working at the Allied camp outside Ysterialpoerin dawned pale and overcast—and far too cold to snow. None of the Wildmages was certain of what would happen when the spell to see past the wards of Armethalieh was cast. The spell itself could be as safe as a scrying spell, or as dangerous as the assault upon the Black Cairn; there was no way to know except by doing. But though the spell itself might be safe, its aftermath was certain to be dangerous, since a spell of such power would inevitably draw the attention of the Endarkened, and even after centuries of fighting Them, all the Allies really knew about Demons was that They were evil, terribly powerful, immortal, could assume any shape, and fueled Their magic through the blood and pain of others. It was not impossible—in fact, it was highly likely—that They could sense things non-Demons couldn’t.

Oh, Kellen could guess at Their tactics. Imagine Their strategy—some of the time. But truly think like one? No Creature of the Light could manage that.

What if this is a trap? Cilarnen is innocent—I truly believe that—but what if this is still a trap? The Demons have given us information before, knowing we would have no choice but to act upon it. If They arranged for Cilarnen to find out what he did, They would also know we would do everything in our power to investigate further. Making ourselves vulnerable …

And just as with the discovery of the Shadowed Elves, there was no way to turn away from such a task. If what Cilarnen said was true—if there was any possibility that there was a Dark-tainted traitor within Armethalieh—the Allies had to know.

They had to do exactly what they were doing now.

Someday, Kellen vowed grimly, we will no longer dance to your piping, Shadow Mountain. Someday we will choose the battlefield—and the battle. And we will win.

IT would have been impossible to gather the Wildmages together properly for this work in any of the structures within the camp, so Jermayan and the black dragon Ancaladar had created an ice-pavilion for the work. Its polished surface—a faithful, though enormous, replica of a traditional Elven campaigning tent—was already crusted white with new-fallen snow.

Kellen and Cilarnen walked toward the pavilion, each occupied by his own sober thoughts.

The other Wildmages were already gathered here, though not all were yet inside. The Mountainfolk undoubtedly thought this was a fine calm day—even warm—and the Lostlanders were used to even harsher conditions. Some were gathered around a brazier, brewing their thick black tea and talking quietly. Others paced back and forth, their heavy furs dark against the snow.

It was the calm before battle.

Ancaladar was coiled around the pavilion, as immobile as if he’d decided to become a part of it. The dragon raised his head as they approached, his large golden eyes fixed on Cilarnen.

“This should be interesting,” Ancaladar commented, lowering his head again.

They went inside. Idalia was standing near the mirror, talking intently to Jermayan. She looked up as Kellen and Cilarnen entered, and her violet eyes flashed dangerously. Cilarnen was a High Mage born and bred. He had been unjustly Banished from Armethalieh, yet somehow managed to retain his Magegift—and with it, a peculiar—and painful—sensitivity to the Wild Magic. This was the last place Cilarnen should be.

“He believes he has a good reason to stand in the Circle with us. I’ve heard his reasons, and I agree,” Kellen said evenly. “I’ve told him it may kill him. He has still chosen to come.”

“Cilarnen—” Idalia began.

“Idalia,” Kellen said gently. “No one is asking your permission.”

Idalia stared at Kellen as if seeing him for the very first time.

Jermayan appeared at Idalia’s side. Even in plain sight, even in a crowd of people, the Elven Mage could appear and disappear with a silent grace that owed nothing to magic and everything to his Elven heritage.

“To know these reasons would make good hearing,” Jermayan said quietly, putting a hand on Idalia’s arm.

“I think …” Cilarnen faltered to a stop and started again. “I … need to be here. To help, if I can.”

There was another silence. Idalia looked from Cilarnen to Kellen and back again. At last she nodded—not permitting but accepting. “As Kellen says, it’s your choice.”

“Stand where you like,” Kellen said to Cilarnen. “I don’t think it will matter.”

“I’ll want you in the center with me, Kellen,” Idalia said. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

She took his arm and walked with him over to the space before Kindolhinadetil’s mirror. Her stave leaned against it. There was now an iron brazier set before it—one of the largest the Elves possessed—filled with pieces of namanar wood. On a square of cloth beside it lay a small herb bundle that would also be needed.

The mirror was a perfect oval as tall as Kellen was, set in a wide standing frame. The frame was of a light-colored fine-grained wood, intricately carved.

But it was hard to say with what. Each time Kellen was certain he had identified an object depicted in the frame and the base—fruit and flower, tree and bird—it seemed to change. Was that a deer? Or a wolf? Or was it a vine?

He gave up.

But then he looked directly at the mirror.

It was made of a single thick pane of flawless rock crystal backed with Elvensilver, and the reflection it gave back was utterly perfect.

Kellen hadn’t had much time for mirrors lately. There’d been none in the Wildwood, and he’d paid little attention to the small ones in the house in Sentarshadeen. Since then, well… he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a mirror.

Was this him?

He was no longer the gawky, awkward, half-grown boy who’d been Banished from Armethalieh two seasons before, a child ill-at-ease in his own body.

In the mirror, Kellen saw a stranger. A man … and one he wouldn’t want to face in battle, either. Curly light brown hair, long enough by now to braid tightly at the back of his neck, gray eyes. Broad shoulders, strong muscles honed by hours of sword-practice and long hours spent in armor. He towered over Cilarnen—even after several moonturns working in Stonehearth’s stables, you’d never mistake Cilarnen for anything but one of the fine-boned and delicate Armethaliehan Mageborn. Kellen…

They’d call me a High Reaches barbarian trying to pass for an Elf, he thought with an inward grin. Well, if he wanted nothing to do with the City, the City had obviously returned the favor.

“It’s certainly impressive,” he said.

“It will serve our needs,” Idalia said with a dismissive shrug. “Now. I’ll stand here. You’ll stand behind me. You’ll see what I See—everyone will, I think, just like a regular scrying spell, but if this spell goes the way I think, I’m the only one who will Know whatever there is to know. But you should be able to sense how the spell is running, and … interfere, if it becomes necessary.”

And hope the Wild Magic shows me what I need to do, Kellen thought soberly.

Idalia lit the brazier. As the ghostwood began to kindle, she took her staff and began to walk around the outer edge of the group of Wildmages, drawing a line in the beaten snow.

SHE refused to let herself think beyond each moment, trying to make herself seem confident and assured. She’d refused to accept Jermayan’s betrothal pendant for fear that it would establish a deeper form of just such a link as she was proposing to forge now, and allow him to see into her mind to glimpse her unpaid Price in its fullness. She could just hope that with so many minds joined, all focused upon their task, the secret of her unpaid Mageprice would remain unshared by Jermayan.

The circle drawn, she returned to her place in the center of the circle, between Kellen and the brazier. He stood as calmly as if he were already in deep trance, as alertly as if he might be called upon to fight at any moment.

Waiting.

Idalia knelt and took up the tokens needed to cast the spell. She slipped her dagger from her belt and scored a long line down her palm, then clutched the herbs and hair in that hand tightly, moistening both with her blood.

Then she cast them onto the brazier of burning wood.

The smoke coiling upward changed color abruptly, and Idalia felt the shimmer as the dome of Protection rose around them all, expanding outward to enfold the army that waited outside as well.

The Link formed, and the Power of the assembled Wildmages joined together, becoming one, becoming hers. She felt the spell uncoil within her as she inhaled the smoke.

She reached out toward the mirror.

Show me what I need to See: Tell me what I need to Know.

The spellbound mirror glowed bright as the moon, growing larger and larger until it was all there was.

IDALIA was in the City.

Not now—but then. What she saw was in the past. For a moment she was puzzled, then realized she must need to See this as well as anything that might be happening now.

The Temple of the Light. The Adoption ceremony of a pale fair-haired man a decade—perhaps a few years more—older than Kellen. The spell let her Know the meaning of everything she Saw, and so she knew that what she saw was Anigrel—Kellen’s former tutor, Lycaelon’s private secretary, the Mage who had neglected to Burn the Magegift from Cilarnen’s mind before Cilarnen was Banished—being adopted into House Tavadon. Later this same day Anigrel would be appointed to the Mage Council and take High Mage Volpiril’s seat.

She knew that Mages Breulin and Isas had been forced to resign.

With dreamlike swiftness, the hours and days of Anigrel’s life unfolded to her: the formation of the Magewardens and the Commons Wardens—the network of spies to inform upon the people of Armethalieh and sow terror among them. Every thread of unholy Darkness woven through the golden fabric of the City was spun from Anigrel’s hands.

The conspiracy for which Cilarnen was Banished never existed. Anigrel started it all—

Idalia watched in sick horror as Anigrel murdered Lord Vilmos. It was worse than she had imagined—worse than anyone had feared. Anigrel was the Demons’ creature—had been for years. And now he’d managed to reach a position where he would soon be able to strip away Armethalieh’s defenses—and let the Demons in.

He was going to give them the City.

And all she could do was watch.

DEEP in the darkness of the World Without Sun, the Demon Queen Savilla stood naked in her ivory chamber. Through the soul-deep link she shared with her Mageman, she felt the festering sickness of the Light approach him.

They will not!

The walls were spattered with blood, and the remains of half-a-dozen dismembered slaves lay scattered about, for she’d had no time to be neat or elegant. The obsidian bowl was filled to overflowing with hot fresh blood, and more pooled on the ebony table and ran down its legs to the floor.

Savilla’s fury grew until it nearly choked her. How dare Wildmages meddle in her plans?

She bared her fangs in savage glee as she tested the power of their spell and followed it to its source. They’d worked so hard and so diligently to penetrate the human city’s defenses.

But a breech for you is a breech for me, my darlings, Savilla purred to herself in sudden delight. In their desperation, they had made themselves vulnerable.

She struck with all her might.

KELLEN Saw all that Idalia Saw—they all did—but without the Knowing, it meant little to him. He let the images go, concentrating on feeling the currents of power that flowed through them all—through the ring of Wildmages into Idalia; from the army into the ring of Wildmages—searching constantly for anything out of place.

The spark that was Cilarnen was like a bright ember; different, apart, but not wrong.

Jermayan … another sort of difference.

Kellen ignored them both.

Then:

“No!”

He sensed disaster—coming—already here—he didn’t know which.

He reached out to Idalia. She had to end the spell.

He was too late.

Time seemed to slow. The surface of the mirror faded to darkness, and bowed outward as if its surface were not crystal but oil. It reached for Idalia.

If it touched her, they would all die.

KELLEN saw Cilarnen fling Mage-Shield over Idalia at the exact moment Jermayan Cast his own Shield. But Cilarnen had only his own power to draw upon, and Kellen felt him reach the end of that power in seconds—

And felt Ancaladar bolster Cilarnen’s power with his own.

“Freely given,” Kellen heard. “Freely given.”

Cilarnen’s shield strengthened.

Held.

The two shields—one of High Magick, one of Elven Magery—sparked and boiled over each other, the emerald and purple refusing to blend. In moments they would fly apart, leaving Idalia vulnerable to the attack.

They have to hold!

Kellen felt as if the whole force of both forms of magic—neither his—was pouring through him, tearing him apart.

But the power of the entire Circle was his to wield as well.

He drew upon it, forcing the two Shields together. He felt as if he’d plunged both hands into a bed of live coals, but his pain was a distant thing. He forced it still farther from his consciousness, focusing all his intent upon holding the two Shields together. Now he could see them clasped in a faint blue tracery: his Will. The will of a Knight-Mage, which could not be turned aside from its purpose, save by death.

Time seemed to speed up again. The bolt of pure Darkness struck their combined Shield, and if he had felt pain before, it was nothing to what he experienced now. He heard Cilarnen scream; felt Jermayan’s agony. Ancaladar bellowed in pain and outrage at the pain—and more, the vileness of the attack.

The Shield held. And Kellen held; though he felt as if every atom of his body was being torn asunder, he held, and held, and held, by will alone, as the Darkness hammered at their combined defense, and then as his will eroded, and he felt even that failing—

He was filled again with power, with a pure white power that held every color of magic there ever was within itself. And what little remained of his ability to think put a name to that power.

Shalkan.

This was why Shalkan had held back from the other workings, even when it was to heal one of his own kind. This was what Shalkan had been saving himself for, without knowing exactly what would be needed, only that it would. He fed the very essence of unicorn through the bond that tied him to Kellen, and into Kellen’s Will, into Cilarnen, because Cilarnen was as virgin as Kellen, into the Shield, so that all powers fused into one color that held all—

With a lightless flash and an earsplitting shriek of backlash, the Darkbolt recoiled upon itself.

Kindolhinadetil’s mirror … dissolved.

The Link was gone, and so was the Sphere of Protection. The two Shields vanished beneath Kellen’s grasp, and with them, his need to hold them. Suddenly alone in his own skin, Kellen tried to take a step, and went sprawling. Without the spell to concentrate on, all that was left was the pain.

He felt drained—unnaturally drained—as if his body had given up more than it could safely give, and he hurt from the energies he had forced through himself.

I’ll never be a High Mage … Kellen thought groggily.

He tried to get to his knees, but he was too sick and dizzy to move.

Cilarnen—Jermayan—I have to get up—

“Stay down. It’s all right. I know what they want,” someone—Idalia?—said. “I know what they’re doing.”

Chapter One

A Thousand Shades of Darkness

THE PRICE THAT the Wildmages, the Elves, and their Allies had paid to learn the plans of their Enemy had been high. Two-thirds of the Allied camp had shared in the cost of the Wildmages’ spell, and lay now in their tents stunned into exhaustion, cared for by those who had been exempted from the Price of the spell.

No one had expected that the Price would be so heavy. If not for Cilarnen, Jermayan, and Kellen managing to blend their magics to shield Idalia from the attack of the Demon Queen Savilla and save the lives of the spell-linked Wildmages, the sacrifice would have been greater still: the lives of all the Elven Army’s Wildmages, and perhaps the death of hundreds, even thousands, of fighters.

But with Shalkan and Ancaladar’s help, Wild Magic and High Magick had worked together, though the effort of making them do so had cost Kellen dearly. And the spell had done what they needed it to do: Idalia had seen across Armethalieh’s wards and decoded the cryptic warning that it had cost Cilarnen Volpiril so much to bring them. They now knew the specifics of the Demon’s foothold in the Golden City.

Somehow, long ago, Savilla had touched the mind of the young Mageborn Anigrel, corrupting him utterly while he was still a child. All his life Anigrel had worked to one goal: to see the Endarkened gain ultimate power. Though Anigrel’s father had been Commonsborn, Anigrel had risen above his lowly birth, becoming Arch-Mage Lycaelon Tavadon’s private secretary and tutor to his son, Kellen, all the while worshipping his Dark Lady in secret. When Kellen had been Banished for practicing the Wild Magic, Anigrel’s fortunes had continued to rise: Lycaelon had relied upon him more and more, elevating him swiftly through the ranks of Magehood. To increase his clandestine power, Anigrel had invented a conspiracy against the Mage Council, which had resulted in the Banishment of High Mage Volpiril’s son, Cilarnen, and the resignation of several members of the High Council. The Arch-Mage, knowing nothing of this, had appointed Anigrel to one of the new vacancies, and adopted him as his son and heir.

From his new position of power, Anigrel had continued his work, sowing fear and distrust throughout the City against the Elves and the Wildmages, and creating the Magewardens and the Commons Wardens to watch the High Mages and the Commons for any sign of further treason—treason he himself had created. And all along he moved closer to his ultimate goal: removing the ancient and complex wards from the walls of Armethalieh—wards which sealed the City against attack by Demonic magic… .

IT was three days before Kellen was able to leave his bed, and at that, he was the first of the Wildmages—other than Idalia, who had not been touched at all by the spell’s backlash—to be able to do so.

HE guessed he was just stubborn.

All his life he’d been stubborn. His earliest memories—the ones he knew that were truly his, that hadn’t been tampered with by Lycaelon to remove inconvenient memories of his sister Idalia—were of people telling him he was “too stubborn”—whatever that had meant in terms of life in Armethalieh. Too stubborn to learn his lessons by rote. Too stubborn to be a proper Mage-student and ornament to House Tavadon.

Later, of course, when he’d discovered that he was not only a Wildmage, but a Knight-Mage, he’d understood, because a Knight-Mage’s most vital tool and weapon was his will. Once a Knight-Mage had made up his (or her—Kellen supposed the Wild Magic could make a female Knight-Mage if it chose, just as there were female Elven Knights) mind to do something, only Death could turn him aside from his purpose. If that wasn’t being stubborn, Kellen didn’t know what was.

Being stubborn had saved his life—and the lives of those around him and under his command—more than once since this war began. And it was a war. There could be no doubt in anyone’s mind about that now.

When it had begun—it seemed so long ago, though the establishment of the Black Cairn to keep the rains from falling on the Elven Lands, which marked the first move in the Demons’ strategy, could hardly have been more than a full turn of the seasons ago—no one had been sure of that. Even after Kellen had destroyed the Cairn, and the Elves had discovered that the Elven Lands were infested with a race of Dark-tainted beings that had lived there, unsuspected, for centuries, they had still not been sure.

After all, the Elves had fought the Endarkened twice before—the last time a thousand years ago—and each time it had been openly, on the battlefield. Only Kellen had been sure that this was war again, and though the Elves were polite, and certainly respected the fact that he was the first Knight-Mage born in a thousand years, they hadn’t been willing to pay a lot of attention to the opinions of a seventeen-year-old boy. Even battle after battle with the Shadowed Elves—with Kellen proving himself in every one—hadn’t really changed their minds. Elves lived a thousand years, and they did not hurry. Especially about changing long-held opinions.

But even before the Wildmages’ spell, many of them had been changing their minds. Unfortunately, even if they did, it wasn’t much help. You couldn’t have a war if only one side showed up, and the Endarkened had shown absolutely no interest in taking to the battlefield. They were more than happy to cause droughts, to force the Elves and their Allies to expend their strength in things like cleansing the Elven Lands of the Shadowed Elves, to breed monsters in the Lost Lands and send them out to prey on anything they could reach, but as no one knew where Obsidian Mountain—the Demons’ stronghold—was, or how to reach it, there was no way for the Allies to carry the war to the Enemy.

Leaving aside the fact that we’re probably outnumbered, and we know that They’re more powerful than we are, Kellen thought to himself. Demons were the most powerful Mages there were. All the Allies had to set against them was a handful of Wildmages, and no High Mages at all. In the last war, Armethalieh had fought on the Allied side. But not this time.

Despite that, the constant doubts and near-despair that Kellen had felt since the beginning were gone. With Idalia’s discovery of the traitor within Armethalieh, and the discovery of the Endarkened’s strategy, Kellen now knew why the Demons had been refusing to fight openly. Their intention was to subvert Armethalieh and make it fight against the Elves on behalf of the Demons—Light against Light. And then the Demons would destroy the winner.

Which means that powerful as They are, They’re still afraid of us. Which has to mean we have a chance of winning. All we have to do is figure out what it is—and use it.

IT was more effort than he’d expected it would be to dress, and for the first time in ages Kellen actually noticed the weight of his Coldwarg-fur cloak when he settled it over his shoulders. But it was unthinkable to brave the outdoors without it—when he’d broken the power of the Black Cairn, ending the year-long drought, the weather-patterns had been violently unsettled, and were still returning to normal. One of the side-effects of that was the hardest winter the Elven Lands had seen in centuries—and the coldest and snowiest, too.

When Kellen stepped out of his pavilion, the cold bit into him like a sword, and he shuddered, pulling his cloak tightly around him. It was sheer stubborn restlessness, he admitted to himself, that had gotten him up and out—that, and the fact that he wanted to see how Cilarnen was doing for himself. Since the Golden City had sealed its gates against the “Lesser Races,” its name, and that of the High Mages, had been a byword for stupidity and ignorance. Cilarnen had as much to do to prove himself in the wider world as Vestakia did, and in helping to thwart the Demon attack upon Idalia, he’d done much to enhance his reputation.

Cilarnen was still living in the Centaur camp. Idalia had been a frequent visitor to Kellen’s bedside, and she’d told Kellen that Cilarnen had been taken back there to recover, since the Healer’s Tents were still filled with wounded from the Battle for the Heart of the Forest. By the time Kellen had walked there, he considered himself well-served for his rash decision to venture out. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this exhausted—even poisoned and half-frozen, he hadn’t felt quite this hollow-boned.

Fortunately, most of the rest of the army seemed to be in better shape than he was. Oh, the camp was a great deal quieter than he’d ever seen it, and he didn’t hear the sounds of drilling on the practice-field, but Kellen merely had the sense that the army was resting, not mortally wounded. And since he had come into his power, he had learned to rely upon those instincts.

He reached the edge of the Elven encampment and passed over into the Centaur encampment.

The Elves had their elaborate pavilions, and the Mountainfolk had their sturdy domed tents, but neither design would do for the Centaurfolk. Though in their villages they lived in houses very much like those of the humans with whom they often shared their lives, on campaign, their physical needs were best accommodated by a series of large boxy tents, big enough to hold a dozen Centaurs at once.

The last time Kellen had been here, he had realized that Andoreniel’s people must have constructed all of these tents specially when Andoreniel had summoned the Centaur levies, because the Elves never, but never, went to war in winter, and in summer, the Centaurs would probably simply have slept outdoors. But for a winter campaign—and a hard winter at that—different arrangements had to be made. At least this way, nobody would freeze.

He found the tent where Cilarnen was staying without difficulty, making a mental note to see about at least getting Cilarnen a pavilion of his own to pitch in the Centaur camp as soon as possible. They’d had so many losses, Kellen reflected grimly, that a spare pavilion and furniture wouldn’t be hard to find.

He lifted the flap and ducked inside—no Elven formality here!—glad to be out of the wind. It was comparatively warm inside; a heavy clay pot filled with coals set in the center of the tent radiated warmth.

The Centaur Wildmage Kardus stood beside Cilarnen’s bedside, dozing, the only person in the tent besides Cilarnen.

The Centaurs had no ability to do magic, so Kardus, as a Centaur Wildmage, was as much a rarity as Kellen himself. Kellen supposed Kardus’s lack of innate magic was the reason he wasn’t suffering the same aftereffects of the spell that the other Wildmages were.

Kardus wore his black hair as long as any Elf, and braided into it were a number of charms and ornaments. He carried more such charms on his necklace, and others upon the broad belt that lay upon his hips. Some of them were bespelled—gifts from other Wildmages—since if Kardus could not cast spells of his own, that certainly did not keep him from taking advantage of the magic others gave him. His horselike body—for the Centaurs only closely resembled horses, being actually smaller and stockier—was as black as his hair, and he had three white feet, a pattern Kellen had not seen in any other Centaur.

Kardus cast no spells, but like all Wildmages, possessed the Three Books of the Wild Magic and followed their teachings. Unlike all other Wildmages, Kardus’s life was guided by mysterious Knowings and Tasks presented to him, so he said, by the Gods of the Wild Magic, which he dealt with in his own way.

It was one such Task and Knowing that had brought Kardus’s path to cross with Cilarnen’s for the first time at Stonehearth, and their ways had lain together ever since. Kellen was glad for Cilarnen’s sake. With everything that was being thrown at him so abruptly, Cilarnen desperately needed a level-headed friend to support him.

There was a stool at Cilarnen’s bedside—placed for the convenience of the human Healers who came to check on him, Kellen supposed—and Kellen moved forward and sat down on it heavily. Another few moments and he would have sat down on the floor. He’d overestimated his strength, he supposed, and right now he wasn’t really looking forward to the long cold walk back.

Cilarnen was lying listlessly in his sleeping pallet. There were deep shadows under his eyes, and he looked ravaged, as if he’d been suffering from a high fever. But he opened his eyes when Kellen sat down.

“Kellen,” he said. “Did we win?”

What? Leaf and Star, hadn’t anyone told the boy? It didn’t matter that Cilarnen was a full year older than Kellen was. In so many ways Kellen was older than Cilarnen was, and always would be—though Gods of the Wild Magic forefend that he ever call Cilarnen “boy” aloud.

But perhaps Cilarnen simply needed to hear it again. Certainly the stakes were high enough that the truth could bear repeating.

“Yes. You saved us all.”

Cilarnen grimaced and turned his head away, as if Kellen were offering false praise.

“Cilarnen, it’s true,” Kellen said. “It wasn’t your shield alone that stopped the attack, or Jermayan’s. It was both together. I think that’s the secret: High Magick and Wild Magic working together. I don’t think They can stand that. I think it’s how you won at Stonehearth—because you and Wirance worked together there.”

Cilarnen took a deep breath, struggling to sit up. Kellen moved quickly to help him, feeling Cilarnen’s muscles tremble with the effort. Even a season’s hard labor in the stables of the Centaur village of Stonehearth hadn’t done much to put muscle on Cilarnen’s fine-boned Mageborn frame. Kellen took after his Mountainborn mother—after two seasons of Knightly training he had the muscles and the stamina for a hard winter campaign. For the first time, it occurred to him that Cilarnen simply might not be physically strong enough to survive out here.

“So all we have to do to defeat Them is convince the High Mages to fight for the Elves,” Cilarnen said with a faint note of despairing humor in his voice. “Well, that’s simple enough.”

“Harder tasks have been accomplished, when one has set their feet upon the Herdsman’s Path,” Kardus said reprovingly, raising his head. “And now, since you will admit that you are awake, tea, and soup. I will fetch them.” Kardus walked from the tent, collecting his cloak at the door.

“He nags me to eat,” Cilarnen said with a sigh when the Centaur Wildmage had gone.

“Isinwen does the same to me,” Kellen said. “You have to eat, though. You’re going to need all your strength.”

“For what?” Cilarnen demanded bitterly. “I’m a High Mage who can’t do magick—unless you want fires lit or water boiled—because to cast any really powerful spells I need training I haven’t got, tools I haven’t got, and most of all, a power source I can’t possibly get!”

“You’ve already saved us once,” Kellen said, refusing to let Cilarnen give in to despair. “You know more spells of the High Magick than anyone else between here and Armethalieh. You can make the tools. As for the power source … don’t just give up. Besides, you’re more than just a source of spells. You’re the one with the best idea of Armethaliehan politics. We’ll need your advice.”

Cilarnen stared at Kellen as if Kellen had lost his mind.

“Think about it,” Kellen said. “I never paid any attention. Idalia left the city more than a decade ago. But you … you know the families, the people. If someone can figure out a way to get a warning to them that they’ll listen to, it might just turn out to be you.”

Cilarnen shook his head in disbelief. But he looked thoughtful.

KARDUS insisted that Kellen share Cilarnen’s meal, and Kellen was grateful for the strength that it lent him, for he realized that he had another stop to make before he could return to the comfort of his bed.

Redhelwar, the Commander of the Elven Army, had shared in the spell-price for the Working, and like all the others, was still recovering from its effects. From Idalia, Kellen knew that Redhelwar already knew all that she had learned. But what Kellen did not know was what Redhelwar intended to do about it. When Cilarnen had first come with his cryptic warning, Redhelwar had set the Wildmages to discover what it truly meant before deciding what to do.

Now he knew.

If the Demons got Armethalieh …

They have everything They want. Everything They were waiting to get before They attacked us openly. And if They can convince Armethalieh to attack us …

The thought made him feel sick. Against Armethalieh—even with the power of the High Mages on the Armethaliehan side—the Allied Army would be fairly evenly matched. Which meant both forces would cut each other to pieces in a long, bloody, drawn-out war. Armethalieh would give no quarter. The Demons would see to that. They would make sure that the Golden City was convinced that the Elves, the Wildmages, and anyone who fought at their side had to be utterly destroyed.

And when it was over, no matter who won, there would be no victory.

So we can’t fight them. We can’t possibly surrender to them. There’s no place we can run from them—I’m sure the Endarkened will see to that. We’ve got to keep that war from happening.

He walked up the slope to Redhelwar’s scarlet pavilion. Ninolion, Redhelwar’s adjutant, was waiting inside the doorway and ushered Kellen in out of the wind with the briefest of Elven courtesies.

Kellen stood inside the doorway, waiting to be noticed.

The Army’s General was alone at his worktable, making changes to the great map that represented the eastern portion of the Elven Lands. Maps fascinated Kellen, though they were largely a mystery to him: In Armethalieh, the world had stopped at the City walls, so of course in the City, the creation and study of maps—aside from maps of the streets of the City—were among the many things that were strictly anathema, forbidden to Mageborn and Commons alike. Before Kellen had come to live among the Elves, he had never imagined that the world could be depicted as a series of marks on vellum. Well, actually, he’d never imagined the world at all, come to that.

Under Master Belesharon’s tutelage at the House of Sword and Shield in Sentarshadeen, he had learned a little—a very little—of how to read them, and so he could tell that this one represented not only Ysterialpoerin and its surrounding forest, but the Army camped outside it. Its scale was such that it included even the two Elven cities to the north of Ysterialpoerin: Lerkalpoldara and Realthataladon, and the mountains that surrounded them.

But north even of them, Redhelwar was making careful marks upon the map, at various points along the Border.

At last Redhelwar glanced up. “I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage. Be welcome at my hearth. It is my hour to drink tea, and I would be honored if you would join me.”

“It is always a joy to drink tea in the pavilion of a friend,” Kellen answered. The proper response came easily to him now, though once finding the right words for the intricate verbal dance of Elven courtesy would have baffled and frustrated him. But Elves did not hurry—if there was one lesson that Kellen had had to learn the hard way, it was that one. They were creatures of age-honed ritual and politeness, and—except when actually using War Manners—sometimes maddeningly indirect speech.

But at the moment nobody was actually attacking, he’d be glad of a cup of tea, and he’d welcome the chance to collect his thoughts before finding out what Redhelwar was thinking—and figuring out if he had to try to change the Elven Commander’s mind.

Redhelwar gestured him to a seat, and Kellen sank into it gratefully.

In the fashion that Kellen had become used to over the past several moon-turns, Redhelwar then began a seemingly-idle discussion of the weather—cold, though after the last series of severe storms, they could expect only moderate snow for the next few sennights—and the entertaining seasonal menu they had been granted through the generosity of Kindolhinadetil, Viceroy of Ysterialpoerin, who had made sure that the Army was well-supplied with both fresh and preserved food.

Apparently “entertaining seasonal menu” meant they were eating the green-needle trees of the Heart Forest; Kellen tried not to think too hard about that, but he’d eaten a lot of things he never thought he’d eat since he’d been Banished from the City.

“One observes that the other Wildmages are still abed,” Redhelwar remarked shrewdly when they both had full mugs of Winter Spice tea before them. “Even Jermayan, with Ancaladar’s power to draw upon, has not ventured forth to taste the pleasures of the day.” “The pleasures of the day” being a joke, or as much of one as Redhelwar ever made.

And Jermayan is probably the strongest of all the Wildmages, with Ancaladar’s power to draw on.

“I was restless,” Kellen admitted. “And I am well-served for my impetuousness.”

“Nevertheless, you have come in a good hour, for matters have … progressed since They chose to move so openly against us, and I would welcome your counsel,” Redhelwar said, allowing the conversation to turn to practical matters at last.

The Army’s General gestured to the map spread out upon the table. “Scouts have come from Lerkalpoldara and Realthataladon, bringing news of the Borders. The Enemy sends its creatures to gather in strength—here, and here, and here—the Ice Trolls and the Frost Giants—and those who can pass through the Boundary-wards—the ice-drakes, the Deathwings, the Coldwarg, and others—freely do so in greater kind and number than have been seen since the Great War. They once used the Lost Lands as their nursery, but I think that now that time has passed. Now Their creatures will use the Elven Lands as a gateway to harry the Wild Lands to the west and south … and I do not think we can protect them.”

“It’s another feint,” Kellen said slowly, reasoning it out. “They must know we’ve discovered Their agent in Armethalieh. Anigrel wants to open the City to Them. If he succeeds, They win.”

“Yet we cannot abandon our allies to Their attack,” Redhelwar said. “And those who might defend them are here, gathered at Andoreniel’s word. I sent to Sentarshadeen as soon as Idalia told me the news from the City, and only this morning I have received Andoreniel’s answering word to me.”

Kellen was impressed. Even a unicorn couldn’t cover the distance to Sentarshadeen and back in just four days, and that would have left no time for the royal Council to debate its reply. Though Andoreniel was the king of the Elves, he did not act without the advice and consent of his Council.

“It would be good to know how this was done—and to hear the words of Andoreniel,” Kellen said carefully.

“You will wonder how word could travel so fast in winter, without magic to aid it,” Redhelwar said with a faint smile. “Yet we have never relied upon magic as you humans do. The weather was calm enough to send birds; they flew to the signaling towers, and the towers passed the message along by means of sunlight and mirrors through the mountains until it reached a place where it must be transferred to the birds once more. Andoreniel’s word to me returned the same way.

“As soon as Ancaladar has recovered enough strength to fly, I am to ask him to go to each of the Nine Cities in turn, starting with those closest to the Eastern borders, and carry all the women with child to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns of the Moon. Andoreniel says that we will open it to the children of our Allies as well—the Centaurkin, the Mountainfolk, and the Lostlanders who have come down into the Wild Lands so that their Wildmages may fight at our side.”

It took Kellen a moment to understand what he was hearing. The Crowned Horns of the Moon was a fortress in the Mystral Mountains that dated back to the days of the Great War. It had never been taken by direct assault, and Kellen didn’t think that even the Demons’ trickery could manage to find Them a way in. When Andoreniel had first realized that Shadow Mountain might be moving against the Elves, he had ordered all the Elven children of the Nine Cities moved to the fortress, purely as a precaution, there to be guarded by a coterie of hand-picked defenders, Elven Knights and unicorns both. Elven children were few, and when Kellen had visited there, most of the Crowned Horns still stood empty.

But now Andoreniel was proposing to fill it.

And that told Kellen that Andoreniel was certain the Allies were going to lose.

Of course, if the Allies lost, nobody in the Fortress of the Crowned Horns was going to survive anyway.

But that’s not right! Kellen thought angrily. For the first time since this all began, we’ve finally got a chance of winning. We know what They want—what They have to have—and where it is. For the first time, we actually have a chance!

“It won’t work,” Kellen said bluntly.

Redhelwar gazed at him, his brows raised in mild reproof. Kellen knew he’d been rude—much more than rude, by Elven standards—but he couldn’t help it.

“Knight-Mage wisdom?” Redhelwar asked, dropping into War Manners.

“Simple common sense,” Kellen answered. “They won’t all fit. The pregnant women and the children of the Herdsfolk, the Centaurkin, the Mountainfolk … humans and Centaurs live shorter lives than Elves. I don’t know about Centaurs, but humans certainly breed faster. You’re talking about not a few dozen children and women, or even a few hundred, but a couple of thousand at the very least, and probably more, scattered throughout the Wild Lands and the High Reaches. If you choose to do this, you can’t leave anybody behind. And if you do choose to do this … Redhelwar, it is as good as saying we have already lost. There will be panic. And … how are they to get there? Ancaladar can bring the women of the Nine Cities, I guess, but the others? If they have to come overland, in winter … either the Army will have to protect them—and we can’t split the Army—or they have to come unprotected. Either way, anyone on the ground is a feast for anything They want to throw at them.”

The longer he spoke, the more problems crowded into Kellen’s mind. Getting word to everyone. Preventing panic. Gathering them for the journey. Protecting them at every stage—keeping them from freezing would be the least of everyone’s problems; these were children they were talking about.

Kellen shook his head wordlessly. It wouldn’t work. It was well-intentioned, but it wouldn’t work.

“Surely Andoreniel has thought of this,” Redhelwar said, sounding puzzled and weary.

“The message came very fast,” Kellen suggested tentatively.

“I will send again,” Redhelwar said after a long pause. “This time, the message will go by Unicorn Knight. Meanwhile, of your courtesy, perhaps you will oblige me by thinking of some way to protect the children of our Allies that does not involve feeding them to a pack of Coldwarg.”

IF only I could think of one, Kellen reflected sourly, leaving Redhelwar’s tent. The problem was the same one it had always been—the Demons wouldn’t stand and fight. Although of course if they did, they’d probably slaughter the entire Allied Army …

The trouble is, we need all our strength, and our Allies, to have any hope of winning. And why should they stay here in the Elvenlands if the Demons are attacking them at home?

Kellen sighed. The weariness he’d held at bay in Redhelwar’s tent had come sneaking back, making it hard to think clearly.

ISINWEN, Kellen’s Second, was waiting for Kellen when he got back to his tent, and the look of disapproval on the Elven Knight’s face made Kellen wish—just for an instant—that he’d stayed out in the wind.

“I observe,” Isinwen said quietly, “that many would lose heart should we lose you, Kellen.”

The oblique rebuke cut more sharply than any outright scold could have. Kellen shook his head, acknowledging the barb, and allowed Isinwen to help him off with his cloak.

“I will not die of a walk around the camp, Isinwen,” he said gently, sitting down on a stool to pull off his boots. “I wanted to test my strength. From what I have learned today, I can tell you that we will not have Wildmages to support us for a sennight, perhaps two.”

The sudden feeling of a key turning in a lock made him blink.

Yes.

He’d wanted to know that. The army needed to know it. And there was certainly no way to find it out other than taking a stroll himself.

Sometimes he wished the Wild Magic could be—well, more obvious about things. But it never was.

“Then … I suppose it is for the best. Providing you do not take a lung-fever and end up in bed for a moonturn,” Isinwen said, still sounding faintly exasperated.

Kellen laughed, though there was no real humor in the sound. “I don’t have time.” He set his sword beside his boots. “It would please me greatly if you would present this information to Ninolion at your convenience.”

He yawned; he couldn’t help himself.

“Get back into bed,” Isinwen said firmly. “I will make known to Ninolion what you have learned, so he may advise Redhelwar. And we shall all hope that their services will not be needed.”

Kellen nodded in acknowledgment, pulling off his heavy outer tunic. Weariness pulled at him like heavy chains; he had only a moment to hope that he’d find some more of the answers they needed in sleep before it claimed him.

THE cost of attacking the Wildmages—and defending her creature within the Golden City—had been high. It had cost Queen Savilla dearly, both in the drain upon her power—for when the Wildmages had turned her Darkbolt back upon her, the backlash had depleted her of as much power again as it had cost her to cast it—and in the knowledge it had given to her son Zyperis, for it had been he who had found her in her ritual chamber, and he who had nursed her back to strength in secret.

Among the Endarkened, knowledge was power. Now Zyperis had seen her humbled; weakened nearly to death. Now he knew a secret lost for a thousand years: that the magic of Mage-man and Wildmage, working together, could end the eternal lives of the perfect creatures of He Who Is.

Zyperis was ambitious. He was her son, after all. He knew he could never hope to rule the World Without Sun while she lived—and the Endarkened lived forever.

He would want to use what he had learned. If not at once, then soon.

And meanwhile, the cursed Light-begotten had almost certainly discovered the existence of her Armethaliehan slave and learned his intentions.

Let them, Savilla thought, regarding her reflected image in the mirror of her Rising chamber. Around her, well-cowed slaves from the World Above scuttled, bringing jewels and perfumes and cosmetics to ornament the Queen of the En-darkened to properly appear before her subjects once more. It is too late for them to use what they have learned. I have won. Anigrel sits upon Armethalieh’s High Council. The reins of power are in his hands. Soon the City of a Thousand Bells will be mine to turn against my enemies.

And meanwhile … I shall distract my son and lover as easily as I have distracted my enemies. He is young. Let him think I fear him. For now.

Until it is too late for him as well.

As always upon her Rising, there were the Petitions of the Grooming Chamber to be heard. It did not matter that there was a war to conduct; the petty squabbles of the Endarkened nobles must always have first claim on Savilla’s attention, for centuries of rule had taught her that over time quarrels grew into vendettas that spread until they drew everyone into them, on one side or the other. And eventually Savilla would be forced to take a side—unless the matter, whatever it was, was settled before it had truly begun to fester, while the grievance was still a matter of a favorite slave or a bottle of spilled perfume.

Fortunately, these days such matters were few, for this was a time of such splendor and abundance as the Endarkened had not seen in centuries. Slaves and prey were available in plenty—and Savilla intended to open new hunting grounds very soon, which would distract her restless quarrelsome subjects further.

When the last of the lesser nobles’ petitions had been heard, she beckoned her son forward.

Zyperis had been waiting with uncharacteristic patience while the others were heard. As always when she beheld her son, Savilla felt a pang of delight. So bold, so handsome, so much her match in cunning and daring. Time would make him her equal, and inevitably he would challenge her, for that was the way of the Kings and Queens beneath the Earth.

In that way Savilla had taken the throne from her own father, Uralesse, lulling and beguiling him over the centuries. Uralesse would never have had the patience and the vision to take this long subtle path to destroy the Children of the Light. He had spent too many centuries mourning his own shattering defeat on the battlefield in the Great War. Yet Savilla, who had fought at his side, had not despaired as he had. In that defeat she had seen the need to begin anew in a new way.

First she had needed to kill Uralesse, to gain the power to put her plans into motion. Then it had been necessary to move with maddening slowness, for the Endarkened had been weakened nearly to destruction by their last defeat at the hands of the Light-spawn, and should they have realized they had not truly won, all Savilla’s plans would have been as a quenched candle-flame. For centuries, as generations of the race of Men lived and died, and the long-lived Elves turned back to harp and loom and forgot them, Savilla had worked through her human agents to unbind the great Alliance that had proved the undoing of the Endarkened. The human city raised its walls and closed them tight. The Elves forgot war and thought only of peace.

And Savilla had planned.

“MAMA?” Zyperis asked.

Savilla blinked slowly. Her son was kneeling at her feet, the picture of perfect humility. It was not precisely feigned … but it was something Zyperis granted, not something Savilla took. It was a shift in the balance of power, and both of them recognized it.

But it is only temporary, Savilla vowed.

“I was contemplating the great favors I shall bestow upon you,” she said. “We have all worked hard for this day—you with your agents among the humans most of all. Now it is time to move forward… .”

Savilla spoke long and persuasively, mantling Zyperis with her great scarlet wings—a token of great favor. The Endarkened Prince’s face glowed with delight, for he had long chafed at inaction—and at being excluded from her plans.

“Oh, Mama, how wonderful!” he said, when she had finished speaking. “Surely the Elven King’s allies will desert him to look to their own once we begin to act in the Wild Lands! But… you have always said …”

“Oh, my son,” she said, stroking his cheek fondly, “it will not matter soon. Just go slowly, as I have told you. Stay far from any lands the Mage-men have ever claimed as their own, for it would not do for them to suspect that their ancient enemy is anything but an ancient myth.”

Zyperis drew himself up proudly. “You will see, my sweet Crown of Pain. I shall do all as you would do it yourself. They will sicken, sorrow, and despair—and barely know at first that it is we who are to blame for it all. You shall feast upon unicorn and dryad, wood-nymph and selkie: I shall bring them to you with my own hands!”

“I shall rely upon you,” Savilla purred, stroking his long black hair as he knelt at her feet. “Sow dissention in their ranks, fill their homelands with sickness and blight, drive the game from their hunters’ nets, and all the time let them wonder if we are to blame, or if it is terrible coincidence… .”

“Because they dare not ignore either one,” Zyperis said happily. “Whether the cause is an enemy’s hand, or simple misfortune, the result is the same.”

“Our victory,” Savilla agreed.

Zyperis raised her hands to his lips and kissed them. She felt the touch of his fangs upon her skin and closed her eyes momentarily in pleasure.

She would bring him to heel. And his anger and frustration would make his utter and inevitable submission all the sweeter.

When Zyperis had gone, Savilla accepted a spangled cloak of gossamer spider-silk from one of her attendants. Draping it loosely about her shoulders, she left her private chambers.

THE World Without Sun was vast, extending far beneath the surface of the earth. Let the Light-begotten think their world was vast: That of the Endarkened was vaster still, so enormous that there were few indeed who knew every chamber and pathway of it.

It was a place of secrets, for the Endarkened treasured secrets as much as they cherished the pain and death of others. It took Savilla more than half of her Rising-cycle to reach the place she sought, a chamber of incalculable age, deep in the living rock. Its very existence had been forgotten by most of the Endarkened. Uralesse had not known of it.

Savilla had come here once before, long ago, and learned the magics that would one day allow her to pierce the wards of Armethalieh and make a young boy her servant. When she had first come here, the walls of the Golden City had barely been begun. It would be centuries before she dared to try the spells she had learned that day.

The cost to her of forging that tiny chink in Armethalieh’s defenses had been great. It had taken her years, as the World Above measured time, to prepare the spell, years more to fully recover from the casting of it, as her human catspaw grew from boy to man.

Now she meant to cast a spell more subtle still.

Uncounted thousands of years ago, when the Elves were a hundred scattered warrior tribes who fought against each other as often as they fought together, and humans were no more than grunting brutes yet to find their magic, the Endarkened and the Elves had fought for the first time. In those days, there had still been Elven Mages, and the most powerful of these was Vielissar Farcarinon, whose name was still a curse among the Endarkened.

It was she who had united the Elven tribes beneath her rule, she who had brought the dragons to be their allies, increasing the power of the Elven Mages a thousandfold.

It was Vielissar Farcarinon who, through the power of the Wild Magic and the power of the dragons, had forged the bargain that would keep He Who Is from acting directly upon the world for ever after. To win that boon, the Elves had given up their magic.

Wounded nearly to death in that war, maddened with grief by the casting out from the world of their Creator, it had taken the Endarkened millennia to recover from their defeat. When they had next struck against the Children of Light, they had expected their victory to be quick, for though He Who Is had been barred from the world, the Endarkened were still creatures of magic, and the Elves now had none.

But while they had slept in the World Without Sun, a new race had risen in the World Above. Humans had aided the Elves, and with them had come the Wildmages. Though human magic was a subtly different thing than the Elven Magery the Endarkened had faced before, the Endarkened had still been defeated.

But now they are weak, all of them. They have forgotten. And I…I shall call He Who Is back into the world again. His presence will assure our victory. I shall become first among His children, and none of my subjects will ever challenge my power. And all this world will at last become what He willed that it should be, what He intended it to be when we were first created.

Changeless.

Perfect.

Eternal.

Savilla drew a deep breath, readying herself for what she would do next. Later would come the sacrifices—and there would be many of them, until she had filled this chamber once again with blood, as she had done once before, so many years ago. But now, to begin, simple intent was enough. In a sense, a promise.

To any senses but those of the Endarkened, the chamber would have been unremittingly black. Savilla saw, not colors precisely, but a thousand shades of darkness, hues that no other race had words for. The darkness showed her a chamber carved of the living rock. Every inch of the walls and ceiling was covered with deeply-incised symbols in the ancient Endarkened script. They did not run in neat rows, but swirled along the rock, dipping and arcing, as if perhaps they had once been straight, and Time itself had bent the lines of writing, while leaving each etched symbol sharp and clear as the day it had been cut into the rock. As if what was written there was too horrible for even Time to touch it.

In the center of the chamber there was a long hollow spike of obsidian that stood as high as Savilla’s heart. It tapered to a needle-fine point, and looked as delicate as any of the glass knives in Savilla’s own torture chamber, but she knew from experimentation that nothing she could do would chip or break it.

There were a hundred ways to kill someone with the obsidian spire.

Impale a victim upon it, and they could die as quickly or slowly as Savilla wished. The chamber enjoyed the slow deaths, as was only to be expected. But most of all it enjoyed the deaths she brought about when, as a living victim writhed, impaled upon it, she struck the obsidian shaft with one of the round smooth black stones that lay scattered about the floor of the chamber.

Then the entire chamber rang like a crystal bell, the glyphs upon the walls blooming into dark fire. The victim died at once—but not painlessly. No. That death was the most agonizing of all, as if every iota of pain it was possible for one frail mortal shell of flesh to experience were somehow compacted into one single moment.

Those bodies simply vanished.

But those executions were not without cost to Savilla, for when she engineered such ultimate communions for her victims with the obsidian spire, she felt everything her mortal victims did.

A high price.

But it will be worth it, to allow He Who Is to return to the world once more.

The last time Savilla had left the chamber, it had been littered with bone and decaying flesh. All that was gone now, dissolved by the strange alchemy of the Black Chamber. All that remained were the scattered stones upon the floor, the spell-runes upon the walls, the obsidian spire itself.

Once begun, once promised, Savilla could not stop or turn aside. At best, she could delay, and delay would come at a price.

But she did not wish to delay.

She would prepare the way. She would gather the power.

He Who Is would enter the world once more, and reward the one who had made it possible.

And destroy all His enemies.

Savilla placed her hands atop the obsidian spire, and pressed down. The point pierced both her hands. She saw the glistening black point break through her scarlet skin, and saw the dark blood well forth around it. Her body shuddered faintly with pain, her great ribbed wings trembling and unfurling.

All around her, the chamber sang faintly in approval.

Chapter Two

Against All Odds

NO MATTER HOW desirable it might have been to keep what the Wildmages had learned confined to the High Command alone, Kellen quickly discovered that wasn’t possible. Almost the first thing he’d learned when he’d first met the Elves was that they gossiped as naturally as they breathed, and that gossip flew through an Elven city—or an Elven war-camp—as swiftly as summer lightning.

“Everyone knows,” Idalia said succinctly.

She’d come to his pavilion the morning after he’d seen Redhelwar. Isinwen had undoubtedly asked her to come—at the moment, Idalia was the only Wildmage Healer they had.

Kellen had slept for the rest of the day and through the night as well, and awoke feeling much stronger. Not fully recovered, of course, but if the Gods of the Wild Magic—and the Enemy, of course—allowed him another sennight of rest, he knew he’d be back to his old self.

“I’m fine,” he’d said hastily, the moment he’d seen her. Idalia’s strengthening cordials were notoriously unpalatable.

She’d laughed, seeing his expression. “Then I’ll just make tea. That way I can tell Isinwen that I’ve seen you, and that you’re not at Death’s Gate.”

Kellen made a rude noise. “He’s seen me at Death’s Gate. He should know the difference.”

Idalia glanced over her shoulder, in the middle of kindling the brazier for tea. “But this time it’s more than a matter of a few Shadowed Elves, and an Enemy who may not come for decades … or centuries. Tell me, when you saw Redhelwar yesterday, how did he seem to you?”

“Not very happy.” Quickly Kellen related the details of his conversation with the Army’s General—and the strange orders that had come from Andoreniel.

Idalia set the pot on the brazier to heat and squatted beside it. She shook her head ruefully. “Well, Andoreniel has to do something. The whole army knows what we saw in the mirror by now—and that includes the Centaurs, the Herds-folk, and the Mountainfolk. They don’t have Elven land-wards to protect them. And the Mountainfolk trade with Armethalieh. They know how powerful the High Mages are. The idea that Armethalieh could come in on Their side …”

“That doesn’t mean we just give up!” Kellen protested.

Idalia met his eyes. There was no despair in that violet gaze, but there was no hope there, either. “Can you tell me Armethalieh isn’t going to fall because of Anigrel? Can you tell me we can convince the High Mages to fight on our side? Can you think of some way we can protect our Allies? You said it yourself—even if they try to move in winter, the weather will kill as many of them as They will. And winter’s only half over.”

“So we need to give them hope,” Kellen said stubbornly. “Idalia, I don’t have answers—not all of them, anyway. Most of the time I just seem to know when something’s a bad idea—and giving up and trying to fight a defensive war against Them is a really bad idea.

“And I know—and so do you—that if They didn’t think we could defeat Them, They wouldn’t be working so hard to weaken us instead of attacking us directly.”

The water had boiled, and Idalia sifted loose tea—Armethaliehan Black, Kellen’s favorite—into the waiting pot and filled it. While the tea steeped, she and Kellen sat in silence, listening to the wind whistle over the heavy silk of the pavilion.

When the tea was ready, she filled two mugs, added several honey-disks for sweetening, and passed one to Kellen.

“You know Redhelwar values your advice,” she said at last. “What will you suggest?”

Kellen ran his hand through his hair, raking it back out of his eyes. It hadn’t been cut since he’d left the City, and it was long enough now for some of the shorter Elven styles—though no Elf would ever have to contend with Kellen’s mop of unruly light-brown curls.

“Right now two-thirds of the army isn’t fit to fight, and we’ve got a lot of wounded. On top of that, we still need to locate the other Enclave of Shadowed Elves that the Crystal Spiders told us about. And …” Kellen hesitated. “Andoreniel is the King. Redhelwar will follow his orders, not my suggestions.”

“Then we’d better hope you come up with some good suggestions,” Idalia said. “And that Vestakia can locate that other Enclave.”

BECAUSE of their Elven blood—no matter how debased and Tainted—the land-wards surrounding the Elven Lands did not recognize the Shadowed Elves as enemies, and while any yet lived, they could use that weakness to bring other ancient foes of the Elves into the land, bypassing the protections of the land-wards, as they had done when they had helped the Frost Giants and Ice Trolls to attack the caravan bound for the Fortress of the Crowned Horns.

When Kellen and Idalia had gone down into the caverns where the Shadowed Elves laired, they had found allies, for not all creatures who lived in darkness were of the Dark. The Crystal Spiders had suffered greatly from the Shadowed Elves’ encroachment, for the Dark-tainted Elven hybrids had preyed cruelly upon the gentle unworldly arachnids, taking their webs to make hunting nets, and feasting upon their eggs and their young. When the Elves had liberated them, the Crystal Spiders had promised to help them in their fight in any way they could.

In communicating with them while cleansing the Further Cavern of duergar, Kellen had discovered that the Crystal Spiders shared a sort of group mind—and that furthermore, they also seemed to be in contact with all the other Crystal Spiders in the other caves across the Elven Lands, no matter how widely separated. That was how Kellen had discovered that there was at least one more Enclave of the Shadowed Elves.

But attempting to communicate telepathically with a race so alien was a long and exhausting process. The Crystal Spiders neither saw nor thought as humans—or even Elves—did. It was Vestakia who had realized that if the Crystal Spiders could sense the presence of what they called “Black Minds,” possibly they could tell the army where to search for them. Vestakia had volunteered to take on the task of attempting to figure out what the Crystal Spiders were trying to tell them.

It was a suggestion motivated by something very near to desperation. Vestakia was the daughter of the Prince of Shadow Mountain. Her mother, Virgivet, had been a Lostlands Wildmage, who had worked a powerful spell, so that even though Vestakia had much of the outward appearance of a Demon—Their ruby skin, yellow eyes, fangs, and even a pair of tiny golden horns upon her forehead—her heart and soul were as human as her mother’s. She had been raised in hiding, for no one in the Lostlands who caught sight of her would believe she was not the monster she appeared to be—nor had her father ever stopped searching for her, to drag her back to Shadow Mountain. Yet the Gods of the Wild Magic had granted her a second boon besides her human spirit.

Vestakia could sense the presence of Demons and their magic, and had used that gift to hide herself from them in the Lostlands until the day Kellen had rescued her from a thieving goatherd. As her powers grew, Vestakia came to be able to sense all forms of Demonic Taint, and that was how she had discovered the first three Enclaves of Shadowed Elves.

But she had to be nearby for her powers of detection to work—within a few miles of the source at the outside. Earlier in the winter, Jermayan had taken her on patrol with Ancaladar. They had covered hundreds of leagues, searching for Shadowed Elf Enclaves. But the weather was much worse now, and that method wouldn’t work any longer.

A few days ago, Redhelwar had re-established a secondary camp at the mouth of the farther caverns, so that Vestakia could go down into them to work with the Crystal Spiders no matter the weather.

It was the first time she had seen him in many days, for Kellen spent little time in her presence, and none of it alone with her. Vestakia understood the reason for this very well. It wasn’t because Kellen didn’t like her quite as much as she liked him. Entirely the opposite, she suspected—and hoped. But Kellen was a Knight-Mage, and he was vowed to a year and a day of chastity and celibacy, the price Shalkan—and the Wild Magic—had required for rescuing him from the Outlaw Hunt. Her own mother had given up twenty years of her life to pay the Mageprice that had given Vestakia a human soul. She knew Mageprices could be harsh things.

So when Kellen came to escort her down into the caverns to meet the Crystal Spiders for the first time, Vestakia did her best to pay as little attention to him as she would to any of the Elven Knights who were her nearly-constant companions.

EVERY day was shorter than the last, and colder, and darker. Idalia said this was normal, and had nothing to do with Demon sorcery; Kellen, raised in a city where Mages had controlled the weather, was dubious, but supposed she must be right. As Redhelwar waited for the Unicorn Knights he had sent to Sentarshadeen to return, the army began to resume its normal activity. As they had planned before the spell of Kindolhinadetil’s Mirror, arrangements were made for Vestakia to go down into the cavern to try to communicate with the Crystal Spiders. As they were shy and timid creatures, Kellen went with Vestakia to perform the introduction.

He hadn’t seen her since Cilarnen’s arrival in camp, and was alarmed at how tired she looked.

“You work too hard,” he blurted out before he could stop himself. “Are you sure you can do this?”

“I suppose you’d rather do it yourself,” Vestakia shot back. “Keirasti told me how much you both enjoyed the caverns.”

Kellen forced himself to look away. No. He mustn’t tell Vestakia not to do something because he was worried about her—any more than he’d tell Keirasti, or Isinwen. Or Idalia.

Kellen grinned to himself, imagining how much luck he’d have telling Idalia not to do something “for her own good.”

“They’re cold and damp and very uncomfortable,” he said, forcing a light tone into his voice. “But Redhelwar tells me you won’t have to sleep down there. He’s established a secondary camp at the cavernmouth, so you’ll have all the possible comforts of, ah, camp.”

Without waiting for her reply, he swung into Firareth’s saddle. Isinwen assisted Vestakia into her palfrey’s saddle—a courtesy only, as by now Vestakia had gotten enough practice to become quite a good rider.

Kellen’s troop rode toward the farther caverns, along the well-marked track made by the supply-wagons that had gone on ahead of them to set up the camp. A light snow was falling, but by now hardly a day passed without some snow, and Kellen barely noticed it.

When they reached the caverns, Kellen dismounted and chose six of his troop to accompany them into the cavern. Such caution was automatic by now—even though the caverns had been thoroughly cleared of Tainted creatures, there was always the possibility that something might have crept back in.

Supplying themselves with lanterns—Kellen didn’t want to count on his ability to cast Coldfire just yet—they entered the caverns.

It was a long walk, and one that brought back unpleasant memories for all of them.

“Not much farther now,” Kellen said, when they’d passed through the cavern where the Shadowed Elf village had once stood. Little remained to show what it had once been; the Elves had scoured the place thoroughly in the aftermath of the battle, and even taken down most of the crude stone huts that the Shadowed Elves had constructed.

Kellen reached the place where he’d last encountered the Crystal Spiders. The cave was so vast that their lanterns gave very little light, and even with their superior night-sight, Kellen doubted that the Elves could see much more than he could.

“I’m sure they know we’re here,” he told Vestakia. “But it may take them a little while to show up. We should move away from the others a bit—I think they’re sort of shy.”

Vestakia made a stifled sound that might have been a giggle. “I suppose they have every right to be—with odd-looking strangers barging into their home at all hours! Come on, then.”

The two of them walked a few yards away from the others and stood, waiting. Kellen set his lantern down on the cave floor and rested his hand on the pommel of his sword.

He didn’t feel nervous, precisely. He felt some of the same keyed-up energy that he did when he was about to go into battle, but it was an energy without an outlet. There was no battle to fight—not an immediate one, at any rate. And there were far too many problems that had to be solved.

He’d learned enough since the day he’d ridden out from Sentarshadeen to join the army at Ondoladeshiron to know what most of them were, unfortunately for his peace of mind.

They had to keep their Allies in the field and with the army. The Herdsfolk and the Mountainfolk were their Wildmages and their mountaineers and light infantry; the Centaurkin were their heavy infantry. Right now humans and Centaurs made up about a third of the army; in the spring, when the full levies arrived, they would make up two-thirds of it. According to the Teaching Songs he’d learned at the House of Sword and Shield, maintaining the Alliance had always been the main difficulty for the Allies, and one the Demons always exploited. If they left to protect their own lands, the Demons could destroy all of them piecemeal.

If they stayed, it would be to watch their loved ones die while they did nothing, for even if he wanted to, there was no way Andoreniel could protect all the Wild Lands, the High Reaches, and the Elvenlands at once.

Even though everyone knew the stakes if the Demons should win, it was a hard thing to ask someone to let his family, his village, everyone he knew fall prey to Demons and their creations—especially when it was clear that the Elves were not suffering the same losses.

It hasn’t started yet, Kellen told himself. I know it will—if I can think of it, They certainly can. But we still have time to come up with a countermove. I’ll ask Jermayan’s advice. He’s older than I am—a lot older. And he’s trained for this all his life, even if he never expected it to happen… .

Just then he became aware of a faint scuffling sound.

“They’re here,” he said quietly.

A vast living carpet of spiders was moving across the floor of the cave toward Kellen and Vestakia. Each of them was the size of a large cat, and their bodies were covered with thick transparent bristles, giving them something of the look of puffballs. Both Kellen and Vestakia could see them clearly, because the Crystal Spiders radiated their own light in a rainbow of pastel colors: green, pink, violet, yellow, blue …

“They’re beautiful,” Vestakia said in surprise.

“I guess they are—for spiders,” Kellen said, trying not to grin. He knelt down and pulled off one of his armored gauntlets. Contact with bare skin made it much easier to communicate telepathically with the creatures.

The Spiders clambered up over his body. Their legs made a faint scritching sound as they passed over his armor. One of them settled into his hand, and its bristles tickled his skin. As always when he was in contact with them, a sense of peace and warmth filled him like phantom sunlight.

:Welcome,: the Spiders sent. :You have brought the one who will help to fight the Black Minds?:

“Yes,” Kellen answered. He spoke aloud—it was easier that way to focus his thoughts for the Crystal Spiders to hear. “This is Vestakia. She helps us fight the Black Minds.”

Vestakia had already knelt down and removed both her gauntlets. More Spiders appeared out of the darkness, and clambered up her body.

“Hello,” Vestakia said, more calmly than Kellen would have under the circumstances.

Something happened then that he hadn’t expected—though he should have expected it. He knew the Crystal Spiders were telepathic, and seemed to function as a group mind. The whole basis of his and Vestakia’s plan relied on the hope that the Crystal Spiders here were in touch with their brethren elsewhere—in all the caves everywhere across the Elven Lands—and would be able to tell Vestakia the location of other Enclaves of the Shadowed Elves.

It simply hadn’t occurred to Kellen that the Crystal Spiders would put them in touch with each other.

For a moment the cold dampness of the cave fell away. Instinctively Kellen reached out toward the warmth—human warmth—and love embedded in the web of the Crystal Spiders’ linked minds—

No!

He lunged to his feet, hastily dislodging several Crystal Spiders. They scuttled backward, and Kellen strode quickly away into the darkness, gripping the haft of his sword until his fingers ached.

Gods of the Wild Magic, what had he almost done? He had a Price to pay! Break his vow, and Shalkan would have no choice but to exact the penalty.

“Kellen?” Vestakia said uncertainly.

Kellen’s face burned hot with shame. She’d been able to sense, to feel, the same things he had—

He cut off the direction of those thoughts with painfully-acquired discipline.

“Just ask them what you need to know,” he said harshly, willing himself to pretend that the last few minutes hadn’t happened. “They know what Black Minds are, and they know we need to find the others.”

After a moment, he heard Vestakia speaking in a low voice to the Spiders, but the eternal background noise of the deep caves blurred her words, and he couldn’t make them out. He didn’t try very hard, either. For the first time, Kellen blessed the fact that his hearing wasn’t as sharp as the Elves’. He didn’t want to know what she might be saying right now.

Her voice stopped, and when the silence stretched, Kellen risked a glance over his shoulder.

She was covered in the Spiders, the outlines of her slender body completely obscured beneath the round furry forms. In the faint luminescence from their bodies, he could see that her head was thrown back and her eyes were closed, as if she basked in sunlight.

At least, Kellen thought ruefully, he didn’t seem to have offended the Crystal Spiders too badly.

Making a careful detour around the Spiders and Vestakia—though he doubted that just now she’d have noticed him if he’d jumped up and down and shouted—he walked back to where Isinwen and the others stood, waiting patiently.

“It would be good to know how long the Lady Vestakia will remain,” Isinwen said when Kellen had joined him.

“I’m not sure,” Kellen admitted. “I know—from my own experience—that the Crystal Spiders don’t think the way we do. And they don’t have anything like the same sense of time. I do know that they won’t hurt her.”

“Then we must wait,” Isinwen said inarguably.

It was something Kellen had become fairly good at over the last several moonturns—the life of an army seemed to involve a great deal of waiting, far more than it did actual fighting, and eventually Vestakia heaved a deep sigh and lowered her head. A few seconds later, the Crystal Spiders began to move, picking their way delicately down along her shoulders and arms. Kellen was always impressed by how gracefully they moved. Next they began flowing in a tidal motion across the floor of the cavern, until their glow was lost in the shadows. Vestakia stretched—much as if she were rousing from a deep sleep—and began to get stiffly to her feet.

Ambanire—one of the new recruits who had been added to Kellen’s troop after the Battle of the Further Cavern—moved forward (quickly, yet seemingly without haste, in the fashion of the Elves) to assist her. This time, the aid was more than simple courtesy. Kellen knew from his own experience how sitting motionless for an extended period in the frigid damp of the deep caves made one stiff and sore. Vestakia actually tottered a bit, clutching at Ambanire’s arm for support.

“I had hoped it was going to be easier than this,” she said when she rejoined the others. Reyezeyt passed her a flask of cordial—it wasn’t warm, but it was sweet, and certainly better than nothing. Vestakia took it and drank gratefully.

“There is another Enclave of the Shadowed Elves—as we already knew,” she said when she’d finished drinking. “The Crystal Spiders are eager to tell me all about it.” She uttered a stifled giggle. “If I could just figure out what they were saying! A realm of ice and jewels—what does that mean?”

“Understanding will surely come with time,” Isinwen answered when Kellen said nothing. “And from all you have said, the caves, damp and cold as they are, are far better than flying about in the heavens at this time of year.”

“Oh, yes!” Vestakia agreed fervently. “I like flying—but I am very tired of snow!”

KELLEN saw Vestakia to her tent at the new camp—she’d be staying here, well-guarded, for the immediate future. Until matters changed—or until she managed to figure out what the cryptic pictures the Crystal Spiders were putting into her mind meant.

He sent the rest of his troop on ahead, saying he’d follow shortly. He suspected that Shalkan was out here somewhere, and if the unicorn wanted to scold him for his near-miss, he’d prefer it was done with as much privacy as possible.

There were only a couple of hours of light left by the time Kellen left the camp, having spoken at length to Ercanirnei, the Elven Knight who commanded Vestakia’s camp. Ercanirnei was from Lerkalpoldara, one of the two northernmost of the Nine Cities—where, he assured Kellen, the winters were nearly as long and as harsh as they were in the High Reaches, so there was little he did not know of the ways of snow and ice. Kellen need have no fear that Ercanirnei would fail in any attention to the safety and well-being of the Army’s Treasure.

Kellen supposed he would have to take as much comfort from that as he could. Because he was going to have to make very sure that his path and Vestakia’s didn’t cross for a very long time.

At last he turned Firareth’s head in the direction of what, for lack of a better word, had to be called home. The only sounds were the crunch of the war-stallion’s hooves through the icy crust of the fresh snow, the creak and jingle of Firareth’s harness and Kellen’s armor, and the sound of the wind. The winter twilight seemed to reverse the natural colors of the world: The sky and the clouds were dun with flashes of gold where the slanting winter sun managed to peek through; the trees, the ground, and the shadows were all in shades of blue; even the snow looked blue, even if a very pale blue.

If it had been a picture, Kellen would have thought it was very pretty. While he was riding through it, all he could think about was how cold it was. His breath froze in his nostrils as he inhaled, and each exhalation made a cloud of steam, quickly whipped away by the wind. That had picked up, so even if it wasn’t snowing any harder, there was a lot more snow in the air. It was going to be a long cold ride back.

But not really a lonely one. As Kellen left the cavern-camp, he felt his Knight-Mage senses spread out across the landscape. There behind him was the cavern-camp, all quiet. Ahead, a larger presence, was the main camp outside Ysterialpoerin. Everything was quiet there as well. Around it, like spokes spread out from a wheel, were the pickets and the sentries, and beyond them, the scout parties. Farther ahead, he could sense Ysterialpoerin itself.

No immediate danger.

“You managed to stay out of trouble today,” Shalkan said, coming up beside him.

“Just barely,” Kellen answered. Since he’d been expecting Shalkan, he managed not to jump out of his skin at the abrupt arrival, but it took a bit of effort. No matter how finely-tuned his Knight-Mage senses were, a unicorn was as stealthy as the falling snow itself. “I should have seen it coming, though.”

The unicorn dipped his head in acknowledgement. While Firareth forged through the drifted snow, Shalkan trotted along daintily atop it, barely leaving a trace of his passage.

“You can’t foresee everything,” the unicorn said.

Kellen bit back the immediate—and obvious—reply. The fact that Shalkan was right didn’t make it any easier to hear. If I can’t manage something as fundamental as figuring out how to keep from breaking a simple vow, how am I ever going to manage to figure out something really hard—like what it will take to save Armethalieh and defeat the Demons?

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Shalkan said. “Just because you can manage to drag yourself into the saddle and ride around the landscape doesn’t mean you’re completely recovered. You’re tired. It’s affecting your judgment.”

“Just what I needed to hear,” Kellen muttered under his breath.

“I suppose you’d rather go on riding into disaster as if nothing were wrong?” Shalkan asked sweetly, since he could hear Kellen perfectly well.

Kellen winced at the sarcasm. “I’d rather nothing were wrong,” he answered honestly. “Instead of so many things being wrong I hardly know where to start worrying.”

“Start in the obvious place, then,” Shalkan advised. “With something you can fix.”

“And what… ?” Kellen began, then blinked. Where Shalkan had been a moment before was nothing more than a unicorn-sized hole in the air.

It was obvious that Shalkan had meant him to solve that puzzle on his own, and it occupied Kellen for the rest of the ride back to the main camp. Thinking things over carefully, Kellen had to admit there were very few things he could actually control just now.

With enormous reluctance, he came to the very conclusion Shalkan had meant him to reach: that the best thing he could do right now was rest.

HE left Firareth at the horselines. The ostlers would make sure that the destrier’s coat was toweled dry where it had been under the harness and that Firareth got a good warm feed before he was turned out into the near herd. Kellen was hoping for much the same treatment himself, as he headed through the darkness to the main dining tent. There he could be sure of a hot meal—even if it did involve greenneedle leaves—and several mugs of hot cider to wash the taste of the caves out of his mouth. Maybe a night’s rest would give him some fresh ideas, and in the morning he could talk to Jermayan.

To his surprise, when Kellen walked into the dining tent, Cilarnen was there. Though it would be days, or even sennights yet, before the army’s Wildmages could call upon the Wild Magic again, nearly all of those who had participated in the spell of Kindolhinadetil’s Mirror had left their beds by now, but as of this morning, Cilarnen had not. Though Kellen had tried hard not to think of it, he had worried that the intense exposure to the Wild Magic had been as inimical to the young High Mage as they had originally feared, and that Cilarnen would simply waste away, one of the hidden casualties of the war.

But now, Cilarnen was sitting at a table in the far corner of the tent with Wirance—the High Reaches Wildmage who had accompanied him from Stone-hearth into the Elven Lands—beside him. Cilarnen looked alert and vigorous—and actually more cheerful than Kellen could remember ever having seen him. The table before him was heaped with books—bound books, not the cased scrolls the Elves preferred.

And the books looked oddly familiar… .

“Kellen!” Cilarnen called out excitedly, seeing him. “You missed all the excitement! Come and see what Kindolhinadetil has brought us!”

“Brought to you, you mean,” Wirance growled good-naturedly, as Kellen reached the table.

“They were a gift to all of us—to the human mages—” Cilarnen said, trying—and failing—to sound apologetic. “I don’t really think Kindolhinadetil can tell humans apart very well.”

“Or one kind of magic from another,” Kellen agreed, puzzled. “Except for Jermayan, who’s Bonded to Ancaladar, all the Elves have is what they call ‘small magics,’ and I have no idea what…”

In the middle of his sentence, he looked down, and completely forgot what he’d been about to say.

The books were from his father’s library.

Or—they could have been. Lycaelon Tavadon’s passion was rare books, and it would have been amazing indeed if the Arch-Mage of Armethalieh did not own a number of rare and ancient books on the Art Magickal.

“What—” he sputtered. “Where—”

Cilarnen laughed. “I wanted to know the same thing—but you’re the one who told me that it’s very rude to ask Elves questions, Kellen! And anyway, I wasn’t here when they came—so if you want to know, you’ll have to ask someone else. All I know is that they’re a gift from Kindolhinadetil’s library.”

Kellen sat down slowly opposite Cilarnen. He picked up a book at random and opened it to a middle page. There were no words—it was a table of complicated symbols, arranged in a grid. He turned the page. More symbols, this time arranged in a circle.

Meaningless.

He set the book down and tried not to look as baffled as he felt.

“They’re books of High Magick, Kellen,” Cilarnen said, his voice filled with excitement and delight. “Spellbooks. Glyphs—sigils—seals—wards—that one is for the wand; this one here is for the sword—these have spoken spells and conjurations—it is everything a Master Mage would have in his personal library! Kellen, with these I can finish my training—back home I was ready to test for Full Apprentice; Master Tocsel taught me well—I know I would have passed, and once you have made Apprentice, progress through the grades is mostly a matter of power and mastering the spellwork—oh, that and patronage, but that doesn’t matter here!”

Cilarnen was practically babbling, his voice filled with relief. Kellen felt a pang of sympathy—as much as he was a Knight-Mage, or Idalia was a Wildmage, Cilarnen was a High Mage, and his unjust Banishment had cut him off from the only life he had ever known—or wanted.

“But… how did Kindolhinadetil … ?”

Wirance snorted. “Who knows what the Elves may choose to do or predict how they may choose to do it? A man might grow old wondering. For my part, I have heard that the library here in the Forest City is an amazing thing, containing books from many lands. It is plain that it also holds books from your Armethalieh as well, and that Kindolhinadetil decided to make you a present of them.”

“I’m sure he meant them as a present to all of us,” Cilarnen said, though it was obvious from his expression that it would take a more than a Wildmage—or several Wildmages—to get him to give them up.

“I have all the books I need—and so does any Wildmage,” Wirance told Cilarnen. “Look at them! You’d need a packhorse just to carry them—and from all you’ve said, that’s barely the beginning of what you need for that High Magick of yours. Faugh! Keep your bloodless nonsense, and welcome.”

But though his words were rough, the Mountainborn Wildmage’s expression was kindly. He had fought beside Cilarnen at Stonehearth, and though he understood High Magick as little as Cilarnen understood the Wild Magic, he respected Cilarnen himself.

“I shall keep my ‘bloodless nonsense,’ old man,” Cilarnen answered lightly. “And you may go on babbling to empty air and burning wet leaves—and reading blank books—and I shall do nothing to stop you. Light knows, the world is big enough that I think there is room for us both in it.”

“Then I shall leave you to it, and take my old bones to their rest,” Wirance said, getting to his feet. “Mind that you do not do too much too soon.”

“As if I could do anything at all,” Cilarnen said, when Wirance had gone. His good humor had vanished as if it had never been, and the abrupt change startled Kellen. “I had nearly forgotten … seeing all this … what good will all the knowledge in the world do me without the power to cast my spells? I cannot forever be relying upon Ancaladar’s power.”

“No,” Kellen agreed. The dragon had loaned his power to Cilarnen’s Shielding spell to save all their lives, but Ancaladar was understandably touchy about being regarded as nothing more than a living storage battery. And besides, so far as Kellen knew, Ancaladar was only supposed to be able to express his magic through his Bonded—Jermayan. They had all been linked together in the Spell of Kindol-hinadetil’s Mirror, which explained, Kellen supposed, why Ancaladar had been able to loan Cilarnen his power. But that would hardly work as a regular solution.

“But the Wild Magic has arranged for you to gain the spellbooks you need to study the High Magick,” Kellen said, “so obviously it wants you to be a High Mage. And that means you will find a way to power your spells, when the time comes.”

Cilarnen regarded him as if he’d lost his wits. “‘The Wild Magic has arranged,’” he quoted. “The Wild Magic didn’t arrange anything. Kindolhinadetil made the Wildmages a gift of books from his library.”

“Which only you can use,” Kellen pointed out. “And which are exactly the books you need. That’s how the Wild Magic works.”

Cilarnen shook his head, plainly unconvinced.

“Have you eaten?” Kellen asked, changing the subject. “Because I haven’t, and I’m hungry.” Without waiting for an answer, he got to his feet and headed for the kitchen.

The kitchen staff knew him by sight; he’d barely opened his mouth before he was handed a heavily-laden tray. Hot cider, hot stew, several stuffed buns, and a large mug of Winter Spice tea as well. He took the tray back to the table.

Cilarnen was being as stubborn as … as an Elf. Why wouldn’t he admit what was so obvious to Kellen—that the books were here because the Wild Magic willed it so? The Elves of Ysterialpoerin understood humans about as well as a cat understood maths; it was highly unlikely (in Kellen’s opinion) that Ysterialpoerin’s Viceroy would have simply decided to empty his library of every book Cilarnen would find useful and hand them over without the Wild Magic being involved somehow.

And it wasn’t as if Cilarnen had never seen the Wild Magic at work. He’d seen Wirance casting spells at Stonehearth. He’d been part of the Spell of Kindolhinadetil’s Mirror. He knew it was real.

But it functions very differently from the High Magick he’s used to, Kellen reminded himself. The High Magick is mechanical, like—like a machine. The Wild Magic is alive; we speak to it, and it speaks to—and through—us. You remember when the Books came to you, and you felt the difference for the first time. But Cilarnen is not called to the Wild Magic. He cannot feel what a Wildmage feels.

He set the tray down on the table.

“Do you really think your—the Wild Magic arranged for me to have these books?” Cilarnen asked doubtfully.

“Yes, I do,” Kellen said honestly, picking up a bun and biting into it.

“I think you’re mad,” Cilarnen said simply. “A magic that thinks—that wants things …” He took a deep breath. “But I know there is a Wild Magic. And you haven’t been wrong so far. And the books are here, and they’re what I need. I suppose it doesn’t matter what I believe about how they got here. Now all I have to do is study them. And learn in a few sennights what ought to take me years.”

There was a grim note in his voice, and that made Kellen take a moment to think about what Cilarnen was intending to do.

The study of the High Magick was dangerous and fraught with peril. All of his Mage-teachers had said that so often—and in so many different ways—that Kellen had simply started ignoring it years before he’d been Banished. His own lessons had been merely boring, not particularly hazardous.

Of course, he’d never gotten beyond Student Apprentice work.

The look he must have had on his face made Cilarnen laugh out loud.

“Oh, Kellen, if you tell me it will be dangerous I promise I will get Kardus to throw you into the nearest snowbank! I am not planning to practice in the middle of the camp, I promise you—I think that might only do The Enemy’s work for him! No, when the time comes I will find a place that is safely out of the way—I think that ice-house your Elven Mage built for your working will do, as I am sure it is not going to melt any time soon. And wards are simple, and can be built up over several days.

“But there are things I must know, especially now that we know that Anigrel is Their agent. He meant me to escape my Banishing alive, and with my Magegift intact. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Kellen said slowly. It was a puzzle that needed more thought than any of them had been able to devote to it. “You aren’t Tainted in any way. Shalkan—Idalia—Vestakia—they all agree on that. And I would trust any one of them with my life. With all our lives.”

“But there are other ways of tampering with a mind—as you well know,” Cilarnen answered bleakly. He would not meet Kellen’s eyes. They were both thinking of Magecraft that owed nothing to Demontaint—the High Mage’s ability to remove memories, and even implant false ones, seamlessly and unde-tectably. It had been done to Kellen when he was a child, to erase his memories of his sister.

If Anigrel had done it to Cilarnen—with the High Magick—there was no way for either of them to know. Wild Magic would not detect the alteration.

“I know my Magegift was suppressed, until seeing that Thing at Stonehearth made it come back. I want to know why—and what else might have been done to me. And I will discover a way to be of some use to you all—without taking that which can only be freely given. I swear it by the Eternal Light,” Cilarnen vowed.

“If anyone can—in or out of Armethalieh—it’s you,” Kellen said.

He was sure of that—Cilarnen had abandoned none of the good things about Armethalieh, but somehow he seemed able to cast off much of what was hidebound and bad. If anyone could manage to look at the High Magick in a new way, and find some way to use it, even here, it was Cilarnen Volpiril.

“Now eat something.” Kellen pushed one of the stuffed buns across the table.

AFTER they’d both eaten—Kellen bullied Cilarnen into making a proper meal—he helped the young High Mage carry his library to his new quarters.

Cilarnen was still living in the Centaur encampment, but now he had what Kellen unconsciously thought of as “proper” accommodations: one of the Elven pavilions. It looked as if it had formerly belonged to one of the Healers, for even in the dark and the snow Kellen could see that its surface was covered with some sort of design, though he could not make out precisely what it was.

“Well, come in,” Cilarnen said when Kellen automatically stopped at the threshold.

I’ve spent much too long with the Elves, Kellen thought ruefully to himself. Their ways were starting to seem automatic to him, to the point that it did not occur to him to enter a dwelling-place without being expressly invited. He followed Cilarnen inside.

The interior of the pavilion was much like his own—though of course, having been a Healer’s pavilion, it was slightly larger. A brazier had been left burning, and it was … well, it was as warm as the pavilions ever got.

Cilarnen set his armful of books down on the nearest chest and motioned for Kellen to do the same with his own burden. He kindled a spill from the brazier and lit the hanging lamps by hand, shrugging apologetically.

“I’m no better off,” Kellen told him. “I couldn’t even cast Coldfire in the caverns today.”

Cilarnen smiled in acknowledgment. “What will we do, Kellen?” he asked seriously.

There were too many possible answers to that question.

“The best we can,” Kellen answered. “There is hope, you know. They would not be working so hard to convince us there was none if that was not the case.”

“I think you truly believe that,” Cilarnen said after a moment. “And, for what it’s worth, I think … I don’t care whether you’re right or not. I’m going to believe you.”

“Thanks … I think,” Kellen answered. “Now you should get some rest. I certainly intend to.”

Cilarnen looked longingly toward the pile of books, then sighed. “I suppose you’re right. I won’t become a Master Mage in one night.”

“Sleep well,” Kellen answered, stepping from the tent.

THE next morning, after checking with the Captain of the Day Watch to see what duties might be required of his troop, Kellen saddled Firareth and went in search of Jermayan. Though the Elven Knight had quarters within the camp itself, he rarely used them, preferring to spend his time with Ancaladar, in the ice-pavilion he had built near the edge of the forest to shelter the great black dragon from the wind and the storm. Kellen was fairly sure that Ancaladar didn’t feel the cold—at least not the way he did, or even Shalkan did—but nobody liked to be crusted in ice and buried in snow if there was any way to avoid it. And Jermayan and Valdien certainly did not.

But when Kellen reached the ice-pavilion, it was deserted. Nor was Valdien awaiting his master’s return in the stabling Jermayan had built to shelter the Elven destrier from the storm. That implied to Kellen that wherever Jermayan was, he did not expect to return soon.

He glanced up at the sky, squinting against the ice-laden wind. Not the best weather for flying, and the clouds were low; he doubted that the two of them were on patrol. To see the ground, Ancaladar would have to fly beneath the cloud-cover, so low that he’d be constantly at the mercy of the strong winds of the lower air.

Perhaps Idalia would know where they were.

Kellen turned Firareth’s head back toward the camp.

“HE has gone to Lerkalpoldara to begin the evacuation that Andoreniel ordered,” Idalia said when Kellen finally tracked her down. “They left last night, when the winds dropped. I do not know when he will return—sennights, perhaps, as Ancaladar cannot carry very many passengers at a time, but no other way is actually safe.”

Kellen took a deep breath. He hadn’t realized until just this moment how much he’d wanted to talk things over with Jermayan and get his opinion of how matters stood.

“You look like you’ve just lost your last friend,” Idalia said. “Anything I can do to help?”

Kellen shrugged. “I’d wanted Jermayan’s advice. We can’t move all the Allied women and children to the Crowned Horns, and if they can’t all go, moving any of them there is going to open a pretty ugly can of worms, as the Mountainborn say. But we can’t just leave them without protection, especially when we have some. So I was going to ask Jermayan what he thought.”

Idalia considered for a moment. “Well, you’re right,” she said after a pause. “And they can’t move in winter anyway, but that isn’t the point, really. They need to know we’re trying to help. That will give them—everyone, really—the courage to hold out until spring, when they can move.”

“Idalia, when is spring?” Kellen asked. He knew how long a year was, of course, but seasonal changes were still largely a mystery to him.

Idalia laughed, reaching out to ruffle his hair. “I sometimes forget what a sheltered life you’ve led! The Longest Night is less than a moonturn away—that’s the midpoint of winter, though really, there are more cold days after it than before it. But four moonturns after that—at least in Sentarshadeen—the trees will be setting new leaves and it will be the middle of spring plowing season in the Wild Lands.” Her expression turned dark. “At least, it will be if the weather runs the way it has in previous years.”

And assuming any of us is there to plow. Kellen didn’t say that aloud. Four moonturns—almost five? If the war went on that long, he hated to imagine what they’d be doing then.

Would it take that long for Anigrel to persuade Armethalieh to open its gates to the Demons?

And if, against all odds, they could convince the City to come in on the Allied side …

Then the war might be considerably longer than a few moonturns. According to what he’d learned at the House of Sword and Shield, the Great War had lasted most of a century, from the first Endarkened attacks to what everyone had thought was their ultimate defeat.

“Well, that’s not so long to wait,” Kellen said, trying to put a good face on things. “I’m sure the Mountainborn and the Wildlanders can hold out where they are against whatever They intend to do that long if we can convince them we have a plan to help them as soon as the weather turns.” All I need to do is come up with one.

“If anybody can think of something the Elves are likely to miss, it’s you, brother mine,” Idalia said reassuringly. “Now scat—unless you want to help me roll bandages, count out medicines, or deal with the rest of the decidedly non-magical scutwork that goes with being a Healer.” She grinned impishly. “Or you could go help Cilarnen study to become a High Mage.”

“Gods of the Wild Magic forefend!” Kellen swore feelingly. “That idiocy makes my head hurt! If you want to do magic, why not just do it, instead of consulting a bunch of books about the right time and hour to do a spell, and locking yourself away from everything in the world that’s truly magical?” He knew he sounded just like Cilarnen when Cilarnen was talking about the Wild Magic, but he couldn’t help it. Even the thought of High Magick made him want to run away and bury his head in the snow.

“If I knew the answer to that, Kellen, I’d probably be a High Mage—assuming, of course, I’d had the great good fortune to be born male, since “everybody knows’ that women can’t do magic,” Idalia said. “Now scat. I have work to do, and I’m sure you do, too.”

And on that note, Kellen had no choice but to take his leave.

THIS was the work he’d been born for.

Cilarnen barely noticed the cold, or the moan of the wind whipping around his pavilion. He’d been appalled by it when he’d first seen it—pale yellow, and covered with an intricate design of birds and flowers that made it look like nothing in the world so much as a vulgar serving woman’s shawl. Now the only thing that mattered to him was that the color let in a lot of light.

The books Kindolhinadetil had sent were spread over every available surface. He’d discovered that he only had to ask for things to be given them—providing they were available in the camp, of course—and so he had a thick sheaf of loose sheets of vellum on which he was making careful notes, both of things he would need for the work to come, and of notes from his reading.

He had so many questions! But there was no one at all to ask. If the answers could not be found among these books, he must do without them.

And he could not do without them.

I cannot do the Great Conjurations—they require a full working Circle of thirteen High Mages all performing their parts—but there are so many other spells I can do. Or I could do, if I had the power!

And, strangely, there were other spells that he thought he could manage now, spells that only seemed to require a Mage’s own personal power, but that were in the books among advanced—and even proscribed—magicks. Spells of scrying and divination.

Why? Because whoever did them would see things that the High Council didn’t approve of? Or because they’re dangerous? The books don’t say. They expect you to know. And I don’t…

He’d awoken early that morning, too excited at the prospect of study to sleep. He’d dressed quickly, lit the lanterns and the braziers, and begun. Several hours later, hunger had driven him from his pavilion long enough to seek breakfast—though it was nearly midday by then—and he’d ensured that wouldn’t happen again by stuffing his tunic as full of rolls and pastries as he could.

Everything was here. Everything. There was even a copy of the Art Khemitic—there was no way now to gather the necessary materials, but if they only could, they could probably make enough umbrastone to destroy all the magick in Armethalieh.

Kermis said that what the Art Khemitic was best for was getting blown up. I wonder if that would be useful?

The thought of his friend—of all his friends—brought a momentary spasm of grief. What had happened to them? Were any of them still alive? If they were, did they even remember him? Or had their memories been edited—as Kellen Tavadon’s had once been—“for the good of the City”?

Cilarnen set the book on the Art Khemitic aside. He would never know what had happened to them.

Because of Lord Anigrel.

Who had left him alive, his Magegift intact.

Why?

I have to know.

A sharp and all-too-familiar stabbing ache began behind his eyes. He’d thought the headaches were gone forever when his suppressed Gift had resurfaced, but they’d returned as soon as he’d gotten to Ysterialpoerin.

Maybe I’m just allergic to large quantities of Elves.

Or maybe something else was trying to happen to him.

Whatever it is, I’m not going to let it happen. Not if I have to find the spell that burns my Magegift out myself.

Grimly, Cilarnen reached for another book.

The answer was here somewhere.

It had to be.

Chapter Three

The Winter City

LERKALPOLDARA WAS THE northernmost of the Nine Cities, held in the icy grasp of winter for more than half the year. It lay between two mountain ranges, upon a vast tundral plain within the valley of Bazrahil that woke to fierce beautiful life in the short seasons of warmth.

In those seasons, the Elves of Lerkalpoldara roamed the plains with their vast herds of horses and livestock—for Lerkalpoldara was a city only by courtesy. When the snows came, the Elves retreated to their Flower Forest, pitched their tents one last time, and constructed, as the winter deepened, elaborate walls of ice behind which to live until the spring thaws came.

The drought that had lain heavy on Sentarshadeen had taken an even more brutal toll upon Lerkalpoldara. When the snows had melted, and the spring rains had not come, Chalaseniel and Magarabeleniel, Vicereigns of Lerkalpoldara, had driven the vast majority of their livestock south, hoping to find water for the animals there, for they knew that without the rains, it was only a matter of time before the streams and springs of Lerkalpoldara failed and the animals would be too weak to make the journey over the mountains.

They had not even kept horses for riding. As Magarabeleniel had said when she reached Windalorianan and had been able to pass the task of driving the herds on to others, horses, as the riders of Windalorianan knew best of any in the Nine Cities, drank a great deal. If the Lerkalpoldarans could not even be sure of providing water for their goats, their cattle, and their talldeer, how much less could they expect to water horses?

And so, after leaving the herds in the south, Magarabeleniel had gone back across the mountains with her people on foot.

When the drought had broken and the rains had come, Gaiscawenorel of Windalorianan, the Viceroy’s son, had gone himself over the mountain pass, returning Lerkalpoldara’s horses and her herds. The herd had been gathered from across half the Elven Land, for while much of the livestock had been sacrificed when there had been no water to keep it alive, to the Elves, their horses were as precious as their children, and to keep them alive in the drought-time they had taken them to wherever there was water to keep them.

When he had reached the top of the pass that led down into Bazrahil, Gaiscawenorel had seen that the lands belonging to the City-Without-Walls had been terribly injured. The plains had gone tinder-dry with the lack of rain, and somehow they had been set ablaze. As he had looked down from the pass, he saw a black scar of burning that stretched a thousand miles. It was only by the mercy of Leaf and Star that Lerkalpoldara’s Flower Forest had been spared from the fire.

THE spring to come would have given Chalaseniel and Magarabeleniel a chance to rebuild the herds and the flocks, Jermayan thought grimly, as he and Ancaladar flew through the mountain pass on their way to Lerkalpoldara. But almost as soon as Gaiscawenorel had delivered the horses, and the sibling rulers had gathered up what they could of their scattered and winnowed herds in the teeth of the autumn storms to drive them home again, Andoreniel’s summonses had come, and they must send, first their children to refuge at the Fortress of the Crowned Horns, and then their warriors forth to face the malice of Shadow Mountain.

A sudden gust of wind flipped Ancaladar over and spun him around like a child’s toy. Jermayan had never been so grateful for the straps that bound him to his Bonded’s saddle. Without them, he would have been dashed to the ice and rocks below a thousand times since they’d begun their flight: The winds were so strong and so unpredictable here in the east that he didn’t think that even a combination of his spells (assuming he could actually manage to cast any yet, though the prospect of imminent death was a great incentive) and Ancaladar’s speed and strength could save his life if he fell.

The dragon could read weather as well as Jermayan could read the pages of a scroll. Better, in fact, as Ancaladar could see not only what was, and for hundreds of miles around, but tell what was to be for several days’ distance. They had left on Andoreniel’s errand in the middle of the night (skulking out of the camp like thieves, as Jermayan thought of it) because Ancaladar said it was the time that the air would be most quiet for hours to come. But if this was quiet, Jermayan would hate to see turbulent.

They had flown above the clouds, and dawn had come as they flew. Normally, the high sky was quiet, but this time the rivers of air were not going where Ancaladar wished to go, and the dragon had been forced to leap from one to the next like a salmon in spring, sometimes dropping hundreds of feet with a bone-rattling thump, sometimes being swept a thousand feet into the sky so swiftly it took Jermayan’s breath away. And though they crossed the land below faster than the fastest running unicorn, Ancaladar had been forced to fight for every mile of distance.

“Fear not,” Ancaladar said aloud, sensing Jermayan’s unease through their Bond. “The journey to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns will be far easier—for us, and for our passengers. The wind-rivers run more comfortably in that direction.”

“For their sake, I hope so,” Jermayan said feelingly.

ANDORENIEL’S decree should already have been passed to all of the Nine Cities by the signaling towers, and in case that had failed, Jermayan’s own word would certainly be enough, especially with Ancaladar to back it up. But if they were not already expecting him at his various destinations, he suspected valuable time might be wasted—especially at Lerkalpoldara.

The journey into the east itself had been bad enough, but when it came time to descend into the valley that was their goal, the passage down into the more turbulent air made all the flying Jermayan had ever before done a-dragon-back seem like the most gentle excursion he had ever taken with Vestakia. The mountains did the same for the winds that rocks would have done to the waters in a rushing stream—and finally, in a desperate attempt to seek shelter from at least some of the winds, Ancaladar flew so low that he was below the mountain-tops.

Here the winds were fierce and cold, carrying a brutal burden of snow and ice. But they were funneled by the towering granite peaks surrounding them, and they only blew one way.

Three times Ancaladar aimed himself at the pass into Bazrahil that the Elves called the Gatekeeper, only to pull up at the last moment, beating desperately at the air as he drove himself up, away from the sheer granite cliffs that flanked each side of the western side of the pass. The pass was sealed to ground travel this deep into the winter—especially a hard winter like this one—and the only way in or out of Lerkalpoldara’s valley until the spring thaw was either for a few Mountain Scouts on foot, which would be wildly dangerous, or for someone like Ancaladar.

The fourth time, as Ancaladar prepared to dive at the pass, Jermayan felt the great black dragon summon all his skill and determination. Ancaladar forced himself higher into the churning air than on the previous three attempts, and this time thrust himself down through the winds with the fury of a striking thunderbolt.

There would be no turning aside this time, Jermayan realized. They would either make it through the pass, or he would discover which was harder—frozen granite or a dragon’s head.

The wind whistled over armor, harness, and dragonhide with a sound Jermayan had not known it could make. It was louder than a whistle; it was a scream such as the Stone Golems Kellen had told him about might make, assuming such creatures had voices: wholly inhuman, wholly unalive, utterly dispassionate, yet somehow filled with intent and purpose. It made a stabbing ache in Jermayan’s jaw and made his eyes water; the tears were instantly turned to ice, and crumbled as he blinked them away.

The mountains appeared as they shot through the clouds; drew closer. The gap between them, its size difficult to judge, appeared from among a hundred scattered mountains, and in an instant was less than a hundred yards away. Then the granite wall filled the world.

Their force and speed was all that saved them. Suddenly they were through. The scream became a muffled boom—Jermayan winced, as air with nowhere to go pressed against his ears—and he heard a shrill painful grating sound like sword-upon-sword that he identified, after a moment, as the grating of Ancaladar’s belly-scales over pack-ice. There was nothing to be done about it: The pass was too narrow for Ancaladar to spread his wings.

Despite that, they shot forward at a speed nearly as fast as Ancaladar’s fastest flight. The walls of the pass, crusted in ice, sped by above them, so fast they were no more than a blur of white.

Then they reached the top of the pass, and Ancaladar shot off into space.

It had not, perhaps, been the dragon’s intention. He began to tumble, his wings flapping as he desperately strained once more for height. They had left the pass behind, but not the mountains, and at any moment the wind might sweep them back against the rock and ice once more.

At last Ancaladar found the air-current he sought, and veered off and up into the sky.

“It will be easier next time, Bonded,” he said, a faint note of amusement in his voice.

“It would be … interesting to learn how it is that you have come to such a conclusion, should it please you to share such information,” Jermayan said, after a very long pause. By the time he had found his voice, they were away from the walls of the mountains, and could dare to fly above the clouds again.

“Of course,” Ancaladar replied. “You wingless ones make trails upon the ground, and having once made them, can follow them easily, though the creation of them is a difficult matter, needing much thought. So it is with finding a path through the air. It is true that these change, with the day and the season, but that means only that more of them need be learned to a single destination. Yet all the sky-paths to one destination are but variations upon a single theme, as it is in music. You are a musician, Bonded. You will understand this well. I have now written my theme—and a difficult one it was—and now I can create variations upon it.”

“As you say,” Jermayan said, not entirely convinced. Knowing where to go was one thing. Being able to go there was quite another.

After a few more minutes’ flight—and compared to what had gone before, it was actually quite smooth—Ancaladar began his descent to the Flower Forest of Lerkalpoldara.

They landed in a snowstorm. The wind blew with such stunning force that even Ancaladar—who had been prepared for it—skidded several feet before he dug his claws into the ice beneath the drifting snow and anchored himself.

Jermayan knew it could not be truly cold—the coldest days of all were too arid to allow snow to fall from the sky, and on those nearly as cold, what rained down from the heavens was not snow, but a sort of ice dust. But even so, he felt as cold as if he were still in the upper air.

Ahead was the Winter City of Lerkalpoldara, nearly invisible in the snow.

Its walls towered higher than the roof of the House of Leaf and Star. Were the weather better, Jermayan knew he would see breathtaking beauty, for all life among the Elves was art, even the building of a city of ice that would be swept away with the flowers of spring. As it was, centuries of experience had allowed the Elves to sculpt the snow around the city into structures to direct the wind so that it kept a path leading up to the walls clear.

“Go,” Ancaladar said. “I shall be fine here.”

Stiffly, Jermayan dismounted from the saddle. Fortunately, they had not needed to recreate an entire pack-harness for this mission, as Ancaladar’s original harness had taken a fortnight to make: Artenel had simply needed to come up with some way of attaching new carry-baskets to Ancaladar’s existing harness, a quick and simple matter. As for the baskets themselves, they could be provided at the departure point. Which was just as well, Jermayan reflected, as he walked toward the city, as the baskets would surely not have survived the journey here… .

As he drew closer to the walls of the Winter City, he could see them clearly, and he frowned in confusion. The wind-cleared path led forward, but to a stark and utterly featureless wall of ice that looked as if it owed its sculpture less to Elven hands, and more to wind and snow. It was crude, perhaps even ungraceful in places, and Jermayan’s heart ached with sudden fear: Had the Enemy’s agents penetrated the Elven Lands as far as Lerkalpoldara?

But the head that appeared over the top of the ice wall was reassuringly Elven, cloaked in the white furs and artfully-tattered silks of a Scout-sentry.

“It is a strange bird that flies in winter,” the woman observed, “yet we would recognize Ancaladar and his rider anywhere. I See you, Jermayan, Elven Mage and Knight.”

“I See you, Magarabeleniel, Vicereign of Lerkalpoldara,” Jermayan responded, gazing up. “We are grateful that you recognized us, for I have no doubt that if you had not, our welcome would have been colder than the snow.”

“Maiden Winter is more than playful this year,” Magarabeleniel agreed wryly. “But come. Be welcome in our city and at our hearth.”

For a moment Jermayan wondered how that was to be possible, for he saw no sign of a doorway in the wall, but a second head appeared beside hers, and a ladder of rope and bone was lowered down to him.

He expected to climb up it, but as soon as his hands and feet were securely in place upon its rungs, unseen hands within Lerkalpoldara pulled him quickly up the wall, and guided him over the side, until he was standing on a ledge a few feet below the top. From here he could look out over the valley—just now, though it was near midday, the twisting veils of hard-driven snow obscured everything. Even Ancaladar was invisible, though Jermayan knew the dragon must be where he had left him, and something of Ancaladar’s size and color would be difficult to miss.

He glanced around. Below him stood Lerkalpoldara’s Flower Forest. Even in winter he could smell the life of the forest, and it warmed him as no fire could. Surrounding the forest were the tents of the Elves of Lerkalpoldara. They were made of heavy wool, dyed and woven in elaborate patterns—heavier and sturdier than the campaigning tents of the Elven Knights, for these were not a temporary accommodation, but the only home of the Elves of the Plains City.

Lerkalpoldara had sent many of her young men and women to Andoreniel’s army to fight—and many more had gone to tend the cows and horses, the sheep and pigs and goats, to repair armor and harness, to mend old tents and to make new ones, and to cook—for Lerkalpoldara’s people lived all the year in tents and under sky, and no one in all the Nine Cities was more expert in making and holding camp tidily and well.

Of those that had not gone to war, not all would be here within walls at this time, for the herds that were the life of the Plains Elves must be husbanded, even in winter, and her people took turns to care for the central herd.

But only a handful of the people did this, and even accounting for those who were riding herd, and those who were away at war, Jermayan saw too few tents erected here within the Winter City, and too many sentries standing upon the walls, even in the midst of a storm.

This was a city at war.

But with what, or whom ? And why had word not come to Redhelwar, or Andoreniel?

Questions it would have been the height of rudeness to ask—even if Maga-rabeleniel had not far outranked him—crowded Jermayan’s thoughts, but the Elven Knight held his tongue. There was yet time.

Magarabeleniel led him down from the walls and into the streets of the Winter City. Here the air was comparatively still, the winds blocked by the walls of the city.

Together they walked among the tents to The House of Sky and Grass. Jermayan saw no one else as he passed between the tents, not even the street-sweepers who would normally be about in this weather, for even though the ice-walls blocked most of the falling snow, it did not block all of it. But word of his arrival had obviously gone ahead, and the inhabitants of the Winter City were doing him the courtesy of ignoring his presence entirely.

The House of Sky and Grass was no larger than the largest of the other tents they passed—perhaps the size of Redhelwar’s pavilion—and there was nothing to mark it as the Vicereign’s House save an elaborate braided knot of dried summer grass that hung beside the door. Magarabeleniel stopped beneath the canopy.

“Be welcome in my home and at my hearth, Jermayan son of Malkirinath, Elven Knight, Ancaladar’s Bondmate. Stay as long as you will, and when you go, go with joy.”

“To be welcomed at the hearth of a friend is to be made doubly welcome,” Jermayan answered formally. “I accept with thanks.” He followed her into the tent.

The floor of the tent was covered with rugs that matched the weaving of the tent’s walls, and here the air was so warm that the ice on Jermayan’s heavy stormcloak actually began to melt. There was a rack near the doorway to hang outdoor garments, and after Magarabeleniel had pulled the door curtains snug against the outside air, they both removed their outer layers—and Jermayan his armor—and spread them to dry, Jermayan accepting a houserobe and boots from his hostess.

Though there seemed to be no one else present, someone had obviously been here recently, for the braziers and the lanterns were lit, and someone had prepared the tea things. The kettle was boiling, and a low table was prepared with what looked to be a rather more substantial meal than Jermayan was used to taking with his tea.

“You will discover that you do not hunger, here in the Great Cold,” Magara-beleniel said. “But one must eat, all the same.”

She seated herself upon a cushion upon the floor, and motioned for him to do the same. She filled the teapot, and as the tea steeped, they began with a thick soup, and talk of the weather.

They did not speak of the sentries upon the walls, or why those walls were so stark and plain.

Over several small courses—all very rich—and several pots of tea—they discussed many things, though never, of course, the reason Jermayan had come. The weavers had produced some truly splendid work recently. The autumn flowers had been less extravagant than usual, but some beautiful specimens had still been seen. The herds were as well as could be expected, and in ten years or so would have been restored to their former size. The burn which Gaiscawenorel had remarked upon the Plain, of course, would be gone long before that; in a growing season, or perhaps two, no trace of it would remain. Grass fires were a fact of life, and easily dealt with; it was only the Great Drought that had made this one so very difficult.

At last Magarabeleniel allowed the conversation to turn to the progress of the war—though still, of course, not to the reason that Jermayan had come.

“I regret that my brother is not here to greet you as well, but he is riding with the herds and will not return for at least a fortnight. Were he here, he would wonder how it goes with our folk who answered Andoreniel’s call, if there were anything you cared to tell of that.”

“Were Chalaseniel here, I would have much to tell him,” Jermayan answered, and spoke at length of the army’s recent battles. Of the Shadowed Elves, and their fight against them. Of their victory in determining the Demons’ ultimate strategy: to gain the human Mage-City for their own. And of Redhelwar’s recent discovery that the Demons were now massing their forces to send what creatures they could into the Elven Lands, as well as along their borders, using the ways the Shadowed Elves had prepared.

There was a long silence after Jermayan finished telling this news, and in it he came to realize that whatever message Andoreniel might have sent, it had not reached Lerkalpoldara. Well, that was only to be expected. And so Magarabele-niel’s next words did not surprise him.

“Andoreniel knows we will fight the Shadow to our last breath, as we did in the days of old, no matter how unlikely the chance of victory,” Magarabeleniel said at last. “Should the City of a Thousand Bells fall—and forgive me for speaking bluntly, cousin, but what you tell me does not make me think it will long stand, with this canker in its heart—then I cannot think where in all the forests or beneath all the stars the Children of Leaf and Star may find shelter from the Shadow’s hunger. We will stand against it, and fall—and unlike the Seven, no victory will rise up from our slain bodies. But no one can truly know how the game will play before the stones are laid upon the board, as Master Belesharon has told us all, so we will not think of that yet. What is in my mind now is of a more practical nature. It is in my mind to wonder at your purpose in traveling to tell me of these things now, with so much of winter yet to run, for you have seen the Gatekeeper, and know he is not to be traversed for many moonturns yet—later this year, we think, than in other years. We would have sent word of this, but the ice has claimed our signaling mirrors, and those who would care for them are with the army. All who remain must look to the herds, and to other difficulties of which you do not yet know.”

Though the tone of her voice had not changed, there was a faint note of warning there.

“I would hear of these difficulties, if there were anything you cared to tell,” Jermayan said mildly.

“You have said that the Ancient Enemy wishes to send its forces into the Elven Lands, to strike and harry. I say to you that they are here now. Some we have faced of old, and know. Others we have never seen before, but know now to our cost: the great white bats that fly by day and night.

“These monsters drove the wolf and tiger down upon the herds, for anything that lives will run from a Coldwarg pack. The Coldwarg followed them to slay, first the predators and then the herds. Yet were it Coldwarg alone, well, we have slain Coldwarg before. They make a fine cloak-lining—yes, and a saddle-cloth, too!” She smiled, faintly and without mirth. “Yet there are others, and worse. After the high passes froze, but before the Great Cold set in, we saw signs of shade-walkers and even the hint of an ice-drake lair, though that we are not sure of, for it is not cold enough yet to bring the creature out to hunt. But to know that the war against the Shadow goes badly makes ill hearing, for I think our own war for the Eastern Plains is that one in small, and I tell you plainly, cousin, the walls of the Winter City shall not rise with next year’s snow.”

Because there will be no one left alive to build them again, Jermayan thought to himself. The Lerkalpoldarans could fight—indeed, they were fighting—but without magic and without Elvensteel. And against the monsters of Shadow Mountain’s brewing, it was a battle they could not win.

In such a position, a prudent general called for retreat, and Jermayan was certain that Magarabeleniel had thought of that a thousand times over, but from the high plains of Lerkalpoldara, in winter, they could not retreat. The Gatekeeper was the only pass of any size out of the mountains, and Jermayan and Ancaladar had flown through it on the way in. Even if the Lerkalpoldarans were willing to abandon all of their livestock and everything they owned, they could not make it through that ice-choked pass on foot. They were trapped here in the northernmost east, with their numbers slowly dwindling day by day against the assaults of the Shadow.

“And now I would hear what message you bear from Andoreniel,” Magara-beleniel said, when Jermayan had sat silent for a very long time.

“In autumn, you sent your children to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns, where, by the grace of Leaf and Star, all arrived safely. Now, as the Enemy grows bolder, Andoreniel has sent me to bring all women with child to the same safety upon Ancaladar’s back. It is his decree.”

“So badly as that…” Magarabeleniel whispered, bowing her head. “It goes so badly as that… .”

After a moment she straightened, composed again. “Indeed, I am desolated to be forced to bear words of rebuke and refusal to Andoreniel in this time of his difficulty, and were matters otherwise, I would have found it a restful thing to have visited the Fortress of the Crowned Horns, for I have never seen it, and it would have been a pleasant thing to see my nephew Rierochan again. Yet I cannot leave my people, no matter what Andoreniel’s decree, nor is any woman to be so ordered, as if she were herself a child, but given a choice to go or to stay. There are four here who must choose. I have chosen. Three have yet to choose.”

She regarded him steadily, her black eyes unyielding.

“I thank you for your courtesy,” Jermayan said, bowing his head. It had not occurred to him that the Lady of Lerkalpoldara might be among those affected by Andoreniel’s decree; in the face of what she had just told him about Enemy forces drawing closer around the city, it made sense that she did not want to leave her people, whatever the cost.

“But come. I believe our cloaks are dry now. Let me show you the walls of Lerkalpoldara, though they are far from what they should be. And I can make you known to the rest of the folk, before they burst with curiosity,” Magarabeleniel said.

THOUGH Lerkalpoldara’s normal population was greatly diminished, those that remained were filled with lively curiosity about Jermayan and his errand—and about Ancaladar as well.

Jermayan’s mind was in turmoil. It had never before occurred to him to disobey a decree of Andoreniel’s, yet how could he rescue a handful—at most—of the people here and leave the rest to die?

What if none of the other three women wanted to come? How could he order them if Magarabeleniel refused to order them?

The city that had been so empty when he and Magarabeleniel had walked through it a few hours earlier was now bustling with life—paths being swept; snow being carried away, and the walls being repaired or added to. Magarabeleniel took Jermayan on a leisurely tour of the city, stopping to speak with everyone, and by the time they reached the Flower Forest—which Jermayan had slowly come to realize was their eventual destination—the inhabitants of Lerkalpoldara knew a great deal about dragons.

“Your dragon can come in here to spend the night. He will be warmer—and safer as well,” Magarabeleniel said. “They mean to show us our fate by slaughtering everything that lives here upon the plains, everything wild and tame. It is how we have escaped death so far, for They will happily slaughter cows and talldeer instead of us—the bodies just lie there and freeze, now, for there is nothing left to eat them. The wolves are gone, and the foxes, and the weasels … the ice-tiger is gone, though we saw too many of them while they were being starved out. The owls are gone … everything that flies in the air but one.”

She took a deep breath. “We have made a promise to one another, my people and I. In the spring the wind sets east and blows over the pass until summer. The grasslands bloom and flower—I think that even this year they will flower. The rivers roar with melt and all the springs are full. But in summer the wind shifts away from the passes. The grass turns from green to gold. The rivers wane to streams and no rain comes in any year. And when that time comes, whoever is still alive will take a torch and a string of fast horses and ride into the wind, and set the Plains alight so that the fires kindle like a chain of pearls. If he cannot ride he will run; if he cannot run, he will walk; if he cannot walk he will set the Plains alight where he stands. But we will burn it all this time—every leaf, every seed, every blade of grass, the Flower Forest itself, so that They gain no foothold here, nor anything They can use.”

It was as if Jermayan had opened a door and stepped back a thousand years, to the time of the Great War. Such desperate bargains, such terrible battles, had been commonplace then, and the land still bore their scars.

There must, there must be another way!

“I hear your words, Lady, and will bear them to Andoreniel with all you have said. I thank you for your courtesy to Ancaladar; he tells me he does not feel the cold, but there are times when it makes my heart ache with cold to look upon him.”

“The forest is warm,” Magarabeleniel said, and indeed, it was warm enough that Jermayan had removed his heavy fur-lined mittens and thrown back the hood of his heavy fur cloak. “And he need not fear to fly over our walls in the storm, for the winds will drop soon, the better for him to see his way. Nor will we fire upon him, for we have had time to learn our Enemy by now.”

Though Jermayan doubted that even the heavy shafts of the Elven hunting bow could penetrate Ancaladar’s scales, the barbed quarrels could certainly tear the membrane of his great wings, and Jermayan was not yet certain of his power to repair such damage. Though he had Ancaladar’s inexhaustible power to draw upon, he was the one who must do the drawing, and that part of him which was an Elven Mage had been taxed to the uttermost by the spell of Kindolhinadetil’s Mirror. Like Kellen and the other Wildmages—and the High Mage Cilarnen—who had played their parts in that spell, the longer he could go without doing magic, the better it would be for him.

“And so I shall tell him,” Jermayan said. “In truth, he is quite timid, and will welcome the reassurance.”

Magarabeleniel made a faint noise that might, months ago, have been something as undignified as a laugh. “Perhaps you think I will believe any nursery-tale you care to sing, Jermayan, but I have been to Sentarshadeen, and am no child at her first Spring Foaling. If you can fight as well as you can dance, your dragon cannot be timid. But refresh yourself here in our forest, if you will, and perhaps you will rejoin me and my advisors for the evening meal.”

“It will be my pleasure,” Jermayan assured her, bowing as Magarabeleniel turned and walked away.

The shadows lengthened as he walked deeper into the forest, and over the sound of the wind he heard a wild deep-chested howling.

Coldwarg.

Tainted, creatures of the Shadow, created specifically to hunt and kill unicorns, but willing, even eager, to kill anything; they lusted for the pain and fear of their victims even more than for their deaths.

And they were only one of the monsters that plagued the High Plains, if what Magarabeleniel said was true.

Coldwarg could be slain. Deathwings could be slain. Even shadewalkers could be slain. But it had taken Ancaladar to kill the last ice-drake they had seen, and the ice-drake had very nearly killed him. If there were indeed an ice-drake here, lairing until the winter had deepened further, when it finally emerged and began to hunt, the Lerkalpoldarans would have no defense against it.

What was he to do? Jermayan knew he must not stay longer than needed to complete his mission—or acknowledge failure. He must press on to the other Eight Cities. And then he must return to the army, for the power he could lend to the battles it had yet to fight could be vital.

And what then, Son of Malkirinath? Were you to level the Golden City, slay everyone within it, guilty and innocent alike, you would not win this war. You would only deny Them a tool to Their using. The war would go on, as your friends die about you, until there is nothing left… .

Perhaps the destruction of Armethalieh by the Light would buy time, but at a price no one of the Light would be willing to pay. There was always the danger, in fighting the creatures of the Shadow, in being tempted to use Their methods in order to win, but all that was, was a sort of surrender to Them. No one thought it was better to lose cleanly than to win with the Shadow’s tools: It was simply that it was impossible to win with the Shadow’s tools. No victory for the Light could be gained by using the tools and the methods of the Shadow—once they were taken up, they began to twist the wielder, changing him or her bit by bit, moment by moment, until he or she no longer recognized the original purpose for which their side had once fought. They began to make changes, compromises, disastrous alliances—until soon they were the Shadow’s pawn in all but name.

Was that what had happened to Anigrel, in Armethalieh?

Or was he one of the rare ones who stared the Darkness unblinkingly in Its eyes, and flung himself into Its embrace, knowing full well what it was that he chose to serve?

How could any creature, mad or sane, do such a thing?

Jermayan shook his head, a human gesture he had picked up from Idalia. He did not know, but as Master Belesharon was fond of saying, all answers are to be found in the Circle, or else you have asked the wrong question.

It did not matter how Anigrel had come to do such a thing.

What mattered was how what he had set in motion could be stopped.

THOUGH it had seemed unlikely that afternoon, when Jermayan had landed in the full strength of the snowstorm, as the shadows of evening fell, the temperature dropped sharply, and the snow stopped falling.

Earlier, Jermayan had passed Magarabeleniel’s message on to Ancaladar through the Bond they shared, and now Ancaladar descended into a clearing at the forest’s heart—though leaving the forest again might be a more difficult matter.

Snow, leaves, and loose branches cascaded to the forest floor as Ancaladar settled to the ground, folding his wings warily, for his flanks pressed against the trunks of the trees at the edges of the clearing. Jermayan wasn’t at all sure of how the dragon could possibly move without knocking trees over.

“So this is a Flower Forest?” the dragon observed. “It is very nice.”

“Yes,” Jermayan agreed. “I think … I think we will be leaving here soon. And without what we came for.”

“Indeed,” said Ancaladar, sounding maddeningly calm. “I believe you must reconsider.”

Jermayan stared at his friend in surprise. Of all the things he had expected to hear from Ancaladar, this had not been among them.

“While you spoke with the Lady of Lerkalpoldara, I flew over the valley, for I did not feel comfortable upon the ground,” Ancaladar said. “And I saw many distressing things. Coldwarg packs—flights of Deathwings—creatures such as I have not seen”—the dragon shuddered—“in a thousand years. They have come over the northern border, I think; over the mountains, from the High Desert beyond the Elven Lands. I believe there is even another ice-drake such as the one I slew here. One does not forget that smell easily, I promise you.

“They will slay everyone here. And then, perhaps, they will seek fresh game, for I do not think that the closed passes will stop any of them, and they are all creatures of the cold and the dark.”

The dragon regarded Jermayan steadily from its great golden eyes.

“It would interest me greatly, of course, to hear your thoughts on the matter of how to prevent this, should you choose to share them,” Jermayan said.

“I have given it consideration,” Ancaladar said, sounding faintly amused. “You must open the Gatekeeper. The people will go through and seek refuge in Windalorianan, with as much of the stock as will travel fast. The creatures will follow them, so you must fly ahead and warn Windalorianan as well. But Windalorianan would have suffered attack in any event, whether you unsealed the Gatekeeper or not, so you must not feel that by doing so you have exposed them to peril they would otherwise have escaped.”

It took a moment for the full impact of Ancaladar’s words to sink in.

“You cannot mean for me to bespell the ice and snow of the pass,” Jermayan said, unable to believe what he was hearing. Even if he could clear the Gatekeeper—something that would not be a certain thing even if he were entirely rested—the Lerkalpoldarans must reach it and get through it, which the Enemy would not wish to see happen. Most of all, he was not completely certain that Magarabeleniel would not wish to remain behind and fight.

“Of course I mean nothing,” Ancaladar answered, rather tartly. “After all, I cast no spells, wield no magic. I am no great Elven Mage, who calls storms and builds palaces out of ice! It is of course for you to decide what you must do.”

“I am sorry, my friend.” Jermayan reached out and placed a hand upon the dragon’s head. Even through the armored gauntlet he still wore, he could feel the heat that radiated from beneath the dragon’s skin. Ancaladar was always warm.

“If it can be done … then surely they would come south to the plains of Vardir-voshanon if they could. And once they had done so, surely then Magarabeleniel and the others would be willing to leave for the Fortress of the Crowned Horns.”

“Perhaps you will ask them tonight, at dinner.”

Jermayan considered the possibility. But no. It would be too cruel to hold out the hope of life and freedom, only to deny it to them in the end. He would speak to them of leaving after he had opened the Gatekeeper.

If he could.

He shook his head. “Tomorrow morning, my friend, you and I shall see what we can do about that matter. And then we shall speak to Magarabeleniel again.”

THAT evening Magarabeleniel’s tent was filled with guests: all the Council elders who remained in Lerkalpoldara, those who were being considered to replace the absent Counselors, and those others who might have a particular interest in the news from Outside. All in all, if the entire city was not here, a good portion of it was, with the rest gathered upon the walls.

“Not a night goes by that They do not try our walls,” a woman named Elodi-ane grumbled dourly. She was the chief of the weavers—or of those who remained in Lerkalpoldara. “We have built them thicker than ever before, and on the outside they are as smooth as Elvenware, yet it does not stop the creatures from trying to climb them. Each morning we melt away the damage they have caused, and rebuild the walls anew. They will not break them down.”

But some of them can fly over your walls, Jermayan thought bleakly. And he had seen what an ice-drake could do: If it did not simply slither over the walls as if they were not there, it could smash right through them.

As if to underscore the truth of Jermayan’s grim thoughts, the Coldwarg howling, which had been intermittent through the late afternoon, began again in earnest, rising and falling like cresting waves. It was as bad as he had ever heard it when the packs had followed the army, looking for any opening to exploit.

Magarabeleniel had made certain that all of the pregnant women were present that evening, and that each was given the opportunity to speak with Jermayan. He was not in the least surprised that all of them refused to obey Andoreniel’s decree. Here, knowing that their city faced extinction at the hands of creatures of the Shadow, to save themselves must seem faithless and cowardly.

Though it was impossible not to hear the howling of the Coldwarg, it was possible to ignore it. There was even music during the meal—not to mask the sound, precisely, but to transform it into something else: The sound of harp and flute, blending with the howling of the Coldwarg and the moaning of the wind, made a strange sad melody that was perfect for this time and place.

“And now that you have spoken Andoreniel’s word, and heard the word of the Vicereign of Lerkalpoldara, you are naturally welcome to remain in the House of Sky and Grass for as long as may please you,” Magarabeleniel said. “Though I fear we cannot offer such rare sport as you may have lately been used to.”

“I would say that you hold yourselves too lightly here in the Winter City, Lady, and that it is possible that I may yet linger a few days. Come the morning, should Ancaladar be able to manage it, I believe I should like to fly once again over the valley.”

“Tanarakiel tells us that the weather should remain calm for the next sennight—unfortunate, in a way, as the Deathwings prefer to fly when the air is still, and no walls will keep them out. Still, they dare not try the Flower Forest, so we will move beneath the canopy until the winds bluster again. And in doing so, we will make the space for you and Ancaladar to go forth in the morning.”

“It will be as you say, Lady,” Jermayan said, inclining his head.

“And perhaps, should you see my brother upon your journeying, you would be so good as to tell him that it is not convenient for me to await him a fortnight from now, but that I should prefer him to return to the city at once.”

AN hour before dawn Jermayan was awakened by his hostess, and assisted her and several others in collapsing the House of Sky and Grass and rolling it into a neat bundle about its poles. A few of the smaller tents would be taken into the Flower Forest until the danger of attack from the sky was past, but the majority of the tents and furnishings that made up the Lerkalpoldarans’ possessions would remain tidily bundled against the walls.

By an hour or so after dawn, the entire city was packed and ready to move, and the entire space within the walls of ice had been emptied. Only the marks in the packed snow, the sculptures of ice, and the gently-meandering trails darkened with ash gave any hint that a city had once covered the several acres enclosed by the gleaming wall of ice.

The day was free of snow, and the air was still, but though it was clear, the day was far from bright: There were high clouds in the sky, and the light was gray. Still, the day would serve for flying.

When the preparations had all been made, and the city had been cleared away, Ancaladar emerged from the forest. Kellen had described the dragon’s uncanny ability to insinuate his massive form into the tightest of places, and now Jermayan watched the same process in reverse, as the dragon seemed to ooze from between the trees as if his great scaled form were liquid, not flesh. If Jermayan had not removed Ancaladar’s harness last night, he doubted the trick would have been possible now, so tightly did the dragon seem to be wedged among the trees. Yet Ancaladar extracted himself from the forest without dislodging a single trunk.

Jermayan could feel his Bondmate’s relief to be done with the delicate operation, however, and once he was free of the forest Ancaladar shook himself all over, rattling his great wings like half-unfurled fans.

Now Jermayan came forward carrying Ancaladar’s flying harness—or, as the dragon insisted, Jermayan’s flying harness, as Ancaladar had no need of a saddle and straps to fly. First Jermayan wiped away the last of the quickly-melting snow with a soft cloth, then buckled the flying harness into place with the swiftness of long familiarity.

But though there was more than enough room here outside the Flower Forest for Ancaladar to stand and even to spread his wings, there was far from sufficient space within the walls of Lerkalpoldara for him to launch himself into the sky.

“It is not such a high wall,” Ancaladar said, peering over it. “And I think, if I am careful, I can climb over it without damaging it. Mount up, Bonded, and we will see if I am right.”

“By all means, do as the dragon says,” Magarabeleniel said to Jermayan, a stifled note of despairing amusement in her voice. “I am sorry that we could not make the walls higher, Ancaladar, but if they were very much higher, they would fall down, and then we would have no walls at all.”

“If the walls were higher, I could not climb over them,” Ancaladar said soothingly, crouching down so that Jermayan could step up to the saddle upon his neck. “And most creatures will not be able to climb over even these.”

By now Jermayan had buckled himself into place in Ancaladar’s saddle. He raised a hand in salute to Magarabeleniel, and Ancaladar got to his feet once more.

A few steps brought them to the wall itself. The portion they faced had been prudently cleared of sentries; now Ancaladar reared up on his hind legs, spreading his great wings wide for balance. Jermayan was grateful, once again, for the straps that held him firmly in the saddle no matter what position Ancaladar assumed.

Jermayan had expected many possibilities from his friend in scaling the wall, but he had not expected Ancaladar to simply hop. Ancaladar furled his wings, gathered himself, and sprang strongly upward off his haunches, bounding into the sky as if he were a giant hare.

Though he spread his wings as soon as they had cleared the top of the wall, nothing could prevent a bone-jarring landing. Still, Ancaladar sounded pleased with himself as he said:

“The wall remains undamaged. As I promised.”

“Let us only hope there will be no need of it soon,” Jermayan said.

Ancaladar dropped to all fours and began to canter forward, then to run, and soon had launched himself into the air. As Tanarakiel had promised, the air was entirely still, and the clouds were so high that for Jermayan and Ancaladar’s purposes they might as well not have been there at all. As a result, of course, the air was far colder than it had been on the previous day, so cold that there was hardly any difference between the temperature on the ground and in the high sky.

As they rose in a long flat spiral, Jermayan could look down and see the whole of the valley—an unbroken sweep of whiteness save for the Flower Forest and the Winter City now falling far behind them. Moving dots on the landscape below resolved themselves into herds—of horses, cattle, talldeer—some with accompanying riders.

But less congenial things roamed the landscape as well. Jermayan saw the faint gray shadows of prowling Coldwarg, and lean dark slashes that Ancaladar identified as shadewalkers. As Magarabeleniel had warned him he would, he came to a place where he found the snow stained with the blood not of simple kills, but of mass slaughters, and that place was ringed with tracks unlike those of any animal Jermayan had ever seen. Ancaladar told him that the tracks belonged to a herd of serpentmarae. They had undoubtedly run their prey to exhaustion, and then kicked and trampled it to death with their sharp cloven hooves.

They flew on.

If he could not do this thing, Jermayan knew, some day a few moonturns from now, all in Lerkalpoldara would share the fate of those unfortunate beasts below.

And if Kellen could not—somehow—find a way to save them all, it would be very little longer until all the Elven Lands—in fact, all the world—shared Lerkalpoldara’s fate.

It was a heavy burden to place upon the shoulders of a child—for Kellen was young even by human standards—but it was no Elf or human who had placed it there, but the Wild Magic itself, which had made Kellen Tavadon a Knight-Mage.

They approached the Gatekeeper.

This close to the mountain wall, on even the mildest day, the air was unsettled, and only speed could make their passage smooth. Jermayan had only a few moments to regard the pass before Ancaladar had soared past it in a wide circle.

He would be near the pass for seconds only—but time enough to set the spell, if he could set it at all.

The Elves had given up their share in the Great Magics in the time of Great Queen Vieliessar Farcarinon, at the time of the First War. It was she who had learned the secret of Bonding with dragons, and so had gained the power for the Elven Wildmages to defeat the Endarkened, long before humans had been much more than a particularly promising sort of animal, far less civilized than the fauns of the forest.

But all the Wild Magic was based on prices and bargains, and so in exchange for that victory, Vieliessar Farcarinon, in the name of her people, had surrendered the Elves’ share in the Greater Magics, in exchange for peace and long life. The Elven Mages lived out their brief lives—as the lives of the Elves had been in those days—and died, and no more Wildmages were born among the Elves, though the Elves’ lives could thereafter be measured in centuries. The Children of Leaf and Star taught the arts of Civilization to the brief bright humans, and when that race was old enough to understand, the Elves taught the humans about the Wild Magic as well, for they had never ceased to revere it, and to follow its teachings. And soon magic flared bright among the humans—and just in time, by Elven standards, for a scant few thousand years later, the Enemy struck once more.

That war the Elves had fought without Greater Magics of their own, for in that time the last Elven Mage was ten thousand years dead. Yet they had fought beside allies in whom the Wild Magic burned brightly, and thought that they had triumphed, thinking themselves as secure in their victory as the Great Queen and their ancestors once did.

Now the Great Enemy gathered once more, and Jermayan found himself resurrected, a creature out of legend, with powers that had not been seen since the ancient days of Elven civilization, powers subtly unlike any others those of the Light could claim.

The human Wildmages’ magic was that of what could be. However unlikely it appeared to a non-Mage, its workings were merely improbable, not impossible.

The High Magick—which Jermayan understood much better now that Cilarnen had come to live among them—was also a magic of change, but of tiny changes layered one upon another like coat after coat of lacquer. The end result was often profoundly startling, but not to one who truly saw how it had been accomplished. And so, though the High Magick did not work closely with the natural world as the Wild Magic did, each individual change it made in the fabric of the world’s being was not large.

But an Elven Mage, especially one Bonded to a Dragon …

Elven Magery was the magic of Transformation. One thing became another, without regard for what it had once been: Fire burned upon ice, stone became water, air became ice.

Perhaps that was the deeper reason for Vieliessar Farcarinon’s bargain. With such power, might not the Elves, in time, have become no different than the Enemy they fought? Perhaps Men would never have risen up at all if the Elves had not renounced their Magery. And there would never have been any Wildmages.

“Are you ready, Bonded?” Ancaladar asked, breaking into Jermayan’s thoughts.

“It is now, or not at all,” Jermayan responded with grim humor. It was a favorite expression of Kellen’s, and one that had always puzzled him. For the Elves, there was always another time one could do a thing.

Until They had returned. And at last, “now” was the only time there was, for all the races of the Light.

He concentrated his mind upon his purpose, and let it fill with the unnam-able colorshapes that were the forms of the spells of Elven Magery.

To do even that much filled him with pain, but Jermayan had felt pain before. He gathered up the spell waiting in his mind, and struck.

The snow and ice of the pass suddenly glowed as brightly as if the sun had suddenly come forth from behind the clouds, and for a moment that was all.

Then suddenly the pass itself began to boil with mist, as the ice and snow, down to the bare rock of the mountainside itself, began simply to waft away.

Jermayan felt as if he could not breathe. His heart hammered in his chest, the air darkened in his vision, as if Ancaladar had unwarily flown too high. He felt the power of the spell flow from him as if it were the blood from his veins. Each beat of his slowing heart bound the magic more firmly to its course—and drained away more of his life with it. A spell was only as strong as the focus of its power—while Jermayan’s power was the limitless power of a dragon’s magical might, his focus was the mortal power of an Elven Knight.

But he did not die. He would not, for if he did, Ancaladar’s life would be extinguished with his own, for the Bond that was the source of the Mage’s great power was also the dragon’s greatest weakness.

At last the spell was run, and Ancaladar carried them gently to the ground, and Jermayan roused himself to gaze up at his handiwork.

The mountains that ringed the valley of Bazrahil were white with snow, save for the few patches of gray where a snow-spill had ripped the burden of snow and ice from the face of the rock—in every place but one. The pass the Elves called the Gatekeeper was now a dark scar against the whiteness, its rock as bare as it would be at summer’s height.

“One obstacle gone,” Ancaladar said, both relief and satisfaction in his voice. “Now all that remains is to convince the Vicereign of the wisdom of abandoning her city.”

Chapter Four

The Smoke of That Grat Burning

BUT IN THE end, that was far easier than casting the spell had been—easier, in fact, even than the return to Lerkalpoldara itself, for with the clear weather, the Deathwings were out in force, hunting for any prey they might find, and Jermayan was in no condition to offer battle. It was left to Ancaladar to outfly them, which was a long and delicate matter. The dragon’s one advantage was that he could fly far higher and faster than his enemy, and unlike in his previous clashes with the Deathwings, he did not have to worry about protecting the army from aerial attacks. In the end, Ancaladar carried Jermayan high above the clouds, where the creatures could not follow.

“This,” Jermayan observed, gazing down at the tops of the clouds speeding by below them, as Ancaladar made a wide circle about Lerkalpoldara far below, “may provide the two of us with a temporary respite, but it does nothing to accomplish our return in safety.”

And in fact he was not certain how safe Ancaladar would be once the dragon was on the ground, even if he could land within the walls of Lerkalpoldara. The Deathwings’ favorite tactic, as they had seen so far, was to swoop upon their victims and carry them off into the sky. Obviously that would not work on Ancaladar—but it was always possible they might have another form of attack held in reserve.

“If we are quick, we can land before they are aware of us. I can see them through the clouds—they circle the city like ravens over a battlefield. I will take off again to draw them away, and return again at nightfall. You need not fear for my safety—they are nasty and foul-tasting, but their claws cannot pierce my hide, and I will take care to fly high.”

Jermayan knew that Ancaladar was being optimistic for his benefit, but he also knew they did not have the luxury of waiting out the day in the hope—no more than that—that the Deathwings would leave with the darkness. The creatures had flown by night before, and Ancaladar’s presence might incite them to do so again.

“Very well,” he said.

“Then we go—now.”

Ancaladar folded back his wings, and for a moment he hung weightless in the sky. Then he began to fall—no, more than that, to dive, his long sinuous neck extended, the wind whistling along his neck-barbs as he arrowed head-first toward the earth. Even through his armor, the saddle-straps cut into Jermayan’s shoulders and torso; he hung against them rather than being pressed down into the saddle.

They flashed through the clouds, and now Jermayan could see the Winter City far below. Gray-white shapes circled above it, seeking for some unwary victim to snatch, but everyone had retreated within the Flower Forest, and the Deathwings dared not venture too close to its protection.

Then they plunged through the flock of Deathwings. Pain lanced through Jermayan’s head as the creatures shrilled their soundless cries. Ancaladar spread his wings with a boom like distant thunder, his body jerking itself level with a whiplash crack that rattled Jermayan’s teeth. The Elven Knight had been waiting for that part of the maneuver; the moment it was done, he began loosening the buckles and straps of the flying harness. A fall from this height would not kill him, and it would save precious moments on the ground.

Even though he was expecting it, the jarring shock when Ancaladar dug all four sets of claws into the ice to stop himself flung Jermayan from the saddle. His training in the House of Sword and Shield stood him in good stead, however, for he converted the motion to a forward roll and came up running, fleeing for the safety of the Flower Forest as if his very life depended on it. Behind him he heard the hiss and squeal of the ice as Ancaladar sprang to his feet and turned, bounding toward the wall and then over it as lightly as a unicorn could leap a hedge.

Jermayan did not stop running until the green shadows of the Flower Forest had replaced the bright glare of the Winter City outside.

“One hopes that your flight this morning was all that you hoped for from it,” Magarabeleniel said, stepping out from behind a tree. Here in the Flower Forest, she had exchanged her furs and robes of winter’s white for garments that echoed the browns and greens of the winter forest—for the Flower Forest was in leaf at every season.

“I did what I had intended to do,” Jermayan said, “but it is with regret that I must say I was unable to bear your word to Chalaseniel, for Ancaladar and I found ourselves to be of unbearable interest to those flying rats that plague your city.”

Unexpectedly, Magarabeleniel laughed. “Jermayan, you malign rats! Their skins have a hundred uses, they are loyal, they make good pets—and one may even eat them if one is starving. None of these things is true of those creatures—even when we kill them, the stink is nearly unbearable, no matter what we do, so that even in death they strike at us. As for Chalaseniel, I shall send riders to him tonight, if I can.”

“Perhaps you have more to tell him than you know,” Jermayan said.

“The Lady of Lerkalpoldara knows all that transpires on the Plains of Bazrahil,” Magarabeleniel assured him. “It was my nurse’s first teaching, when I was scarcely old enough to follow the talldeer. Come. We will take tea, and you will tell me what I am presumed to know already.”

SOON Jermayan was settled in her tent—a much smaller tent, tucked among the trees, but no less the House of Sky and Grass for that—with a cup of hot tea in his hand. It smelled of honey and new-mown hay—an odd tea to drink in the depths of winter, but no one in the Winter City thought that they would live to drink the teas of summer in their rightful season. They spoke for a few minutes about the weather—not idle pleasantry for a tent-dwelling people—and Jermayan learned that Tanarakiel believed that the clear weather would hold for some days yet. How long she could not say, though surely four or five.

“A blessing and a curse, that, both—but clear weather for your flight, at least,” Magarabeleniel said.

“A flight I must make soon, but before I go, I would see you safely upon your way. This morning I have opened the Gatekeeper, and the road to Windalorianan lies clear. I would counsel you to take it while you may, and if you would take it, you must go soon.”

There was a long pause after such blunt speaking. Magarabeleniel gazed off into the distance, seemingly entranced by the muted glow of light on the bronze trunk of an alyon, and the winter-gold carpet of moss at its feet. In spring the bronze of the alyon’s bark would warm to copper, the moss brighten to green, and the forest waken to even more vibrant life.

Were any of them here to see it. If, in fact, the forest itself were here at all.

The death of a Flower Forest was rare, but not unthinkable. The Flower Forests themselves were but the remnants of the great Elven Forests which had once covered the mountains of the east, where now there was little more than sparse grass and a few stunted trees—where anything would grow at all. The forests had been re-seeded before—and could be again, if Lerkalpoldara’s was lost.

But the thought of destroying it lest it be defiled by the Enemy was heartbreaking.

Jermayan realized that without noticing he had been straining to hear the sounds of birds, for even in winter the Flower Forests were filled with them. Many had no other home. But there was silence in the trees.

“There are no birds, Jermayan,” Magarabeleniel said softly, seeing his face. “Even here.” She took a deep breath. “This is my word to you: We will cross the pass. I do not know how many of us will survive the journey, for I know the creatures of the Enemy will not wish to lose their prey, but it is a chance at life, at least for some, and we will take it.”

THE winter days were short this far north, and a few hours after dark, Ancaladar returned.

He was not alone.

“Ancaladar has told me that the Gatekeeper is clear and we may all leave—if we do not mind fighting off Coldwarg, shadewalkers, and herds of serpentmarae,” Chalaseniel said, appearing in the doorway of the House of Grass and Wind. He did not sound as if the prospect dismayed him particularly.

Though he had been dressed for riding with the herd, it was still not sufficient protection from the cold of the high sky, but though he looked chilled through, he also looked like someone who had received unexpectedly good news—as indeed he had.

Chalaseniel was co-Viceroy of Lerkalpoldara, Magarabeleniel’s brother—reckless where she was prudent, optimistic where she was dour, impetuous where she was cautious, cheerful where she was bleak. Or so the Elves judged them; Jermayan suspected that humans would see little difference between the siblings’ behavior at all.

“I have sent the word among the herd-riders. They must bring the talldeer and the horses here as fast as they can, as many as the can manage and still come quickly. We will go as soon as they arrive and the beasts can be set to harness.”

If Magarabeleniel was surprised at her brother’s unlooked-for arrival, or at his presumption of knowing her mind, she did not show it. “We will burn the forest before we leave,” she said calmly, as Chalaseniel went to change his wet and frozen riding leathers.

When he returned, she poured tea, and Chalaseniel seated himself beside Jermayan.

“I See you, Jermayan, son of Malkirinath, Elven Knight, Ancaladar’s Bonded,” he said formally, now acknowledging Jermayan’s presence.

“I See you, Chalaseniel, brother of Magarabeleniel, Viceroy of Lerkalpoldara,” Jermayan returned, equally formally.

“You have our gratitude for this,” Chalaseniel said simply. “And now, there is much to do.”

“Much has been done,” Magarabeleniel said. “Elodiane and Tanarakiel oversee the preparation of sledges to carry the tents. Lauryoneth and Sarimarel check to see that the harness is strong and will not break, for we dare not stop to mend it this side of Windalorianan. If we can pass the Gatekeeper, the Enemy can do so as well, unless he is sealed again.”

She glanced at Jermayan, the unspoken question plain in her eyes.

“Sealed or unsealed, Lady—and I confess, I am not certain if I am able to seal the pass again—your mountain passes will not stop the creatures of the Enemy from going where they will. They are creatures of Shadow, who thrive upon the dark and the cold.”

Magarabeleniel gave a faint shrug. “Then we shall pray for Leaf and Star to favor us, and hope that Windalorianan will look favorably upon us, despite the plague we bring with us.”

“It is a plague that will be everywhere in the Elven Lands soon,” Jermayan said grimly. “The ancient subject-races of the Enemy—Ice Trolls, snow giants, duergar, goblins, and the like—might need the help of the Shadowed Elves to cross the ancient Elven land-wards, but either the monsters of the Enemy’s breeding needed no such aid, or they had been smuggled in long since.”

“Three days to reach the mountains, another day to reach the pass itself,” Chalaseniel said, and now the lightness was gone from his voice. “I think they may toy with us at first. That will give us a day, perhaps two. Then they will begin to attack in earnest. Shadewalkers do not range so far from their home dens, but neither Coldwarg nor serpentmarae have dens, and both will be eager to hunt us.”

“If they hunt us, then we shall hunt them,” Magarabeleniel said grimly. “They are beasts out of Shadow, but they can be killed, and we have arrows enough for all of them. The weather will hold—Tanarakiel says it will, if the herds arrive no later than tomorrow night, and hard cold makes good running. A chance for any is better than no chance for all.”

There was no possible argument with that.

THE herds of which Chalaseniel had spoken arrived in the middle of the next day. Their arrival was heralded by a great disturbance among the Deathwings, which dove upon them, over and over, in an attempt to pluck the riders from the saddles, or, failing that, blind the herd animals so that they would panic and become easy prey.

But the Elves of Lerkalpoldara possessed many moonturns of experience with their winged enemy. The herd-riders swung from their saddles to the sides of their mounts, firing upward past their horses’ shoulders with the short horseman’s bow as they clung to their saddles with crooked knees.

Those on the walls fired the Elven longbow, and behind the head of each arrow was a round ball of oil-soaked wool. These they lit from a brazier just before launching their shafts, and shot flaming arrows into the sky. The Deathwings dissolved instantly upon death into a puddle of foul-smelling liquid—and in life, as Jermayan discovered now, they burned like dry hay, if you could only set one properly alight.

Jermayan stood just inside the wall, waiting.

It would do the herds no good to arrive and be trapped outside the walls. Nor would the walls be of any use for protection against the four-footed enemy if they had a hole knocked in them.

“Now,” Ancaladar said, his voice a whisper in Jermayan’s ear though the dragon soared far above.

Jermayan cast his spell. Several yards of wall … vanished.

The herd-riders surged through with the mixed herd of horses and talldeer—quite enough animals to fill the empty enclosure that had once held the Winter City, but, as Jermayan knew from talking to Magarabeleniel and Chalaseniel, many of the animals were intended as bait, to draw the attentions of packs that would follow them for as long as possible.

When they were all through the gap, Jermayan cast another spell, and the wall remade itself again. The two simple spells rippled through his mind easily, and though they were followed by a surge of weakness, it was not as bad as Jermayan feared it would be. His strength was returning rapidly, and with it, he gained new hope for victory in the fight to come.

His task complete, Ancaladar soared off above the clouds, where the Deathwings could not follow—for there certainly was not room for him and the livestock within the walls below.

IN the wait for the animals to arrive, much had been accomplished, most of it unthinkable in any time other than this. Many of the smaller trees of the Flower Forest had been cut down to clear a space for the Lerkalpoldarans to work. The carts which carried their tents in summer had been converted to sledges to move the same tents over winter’s ice, for they would need their protection on the journey. Everything that was not essential would be left behind, to be burned along with the Flower Forest. But that left an entire city of clothing, food, tents, and weapons to move.

Chalaseniel and Magarabeleniel had decided that their best hope of avoiding immediate ambush was to leave at dusk. The Deathwings would probably depart then, and even starlight on snow would give the Elves enough light to see by over the first part of their journey.

But many will die. Perhaps all, yet with more hope than if they did not make the attempt. And there is no chance to fly anyone to the Crowned Horns now, even if they would go, for the baskets for the journey were to have been made here, and now there is no time for that, Jermayan thought.

Talldeer, Jermayan discovered, were not quite like deer at all. They were beasts nearly as large as horses, superbly adapted for the cold. They had the split hooves and small flat heads of deer, but their antlers were enormous, far heavier and thicker than those of the small red deer of the south. They produced wool like sheep, which was the majority of the wool the Lerkalpoldarans used for their rugs and tents.

The talldeer were also the primary draft animal used on the Plains of Bazrahil, and now, as Jermayan watched, the Lerkalpoldarans began to harness them in hitches of twelve. No reins or bridles were used, only traces and collars. Normally the talldeer wagons followed the rest of the herd, or if necessary the hitch could be led by someone holding the headstall of the leader.

“Oh, they will run when the herd runs—and the herd will run, with riders to goad it,” Elodiane said, seeing Jermayan’s expression. “You should be grateful you will be in the heavens far above, on the back of a nice, safe dragon.”

It was hardly the way Jermayan would think of it himself, but at the moment he was grateful that he would not be either one of the sledge-drivers or one of those who were mounted. That would be most of the Winter City’s population, whose task it would be to drive the supply wagons and the herd of remounts onward as fast as possible, across a landscape which afforded no cover, no place where they could rest and recover from the assaults that would surely come.

The herd-riders switched their saddles to fresh horses as the talldeer were harnessed, and more horses were saddled. These were not Vardirvoshan-bred destriers, but they were magnificent animals for all that, strong and fast, bred to work and to run beneath the sky.

Many of them were carrying packs as well, for the co-Viceroys had made plans within plans, and in the ultimate extremity the Lerkalpoldarans would flee on horseback, abandoning the talldeer and the sledges as a further sacrifice to the Coldwarg, carrying with them nothing but food for the horses. It was better to arrive in Windalorianan starving and in rags than not at all.

By sunset everything was ready, and the space within the walls of the Winter City was uncomfortably crowded. The life of an entire city had been packed into thirty sledges, and its citizens, save for those who still watched the walls, sat their horses like the most disciplined of cavalry.

“I shall remain to light the forest,” Magarabeleniel said, her voice soft with grief.

“No,” Jermayan said. “I shall do that. And if you are prepared, I shall open the wall once more.”

“I think it would be best,” Chalaseniel said. “It grows… crowded here, cousin. And I have never liked walls overmuch!”

With a gesture, Jermayan caused a section of wall to vanish. It was only a small spell, and he was grateful to see that each time he called upon his Magery it came more easily. Riders began streaming through the gap at once, followed by sledges and the herd of free-running talldeer and horses. As soon as there was space, the sentinels came down from the walls to claim their own mounts, and followed the others. The cries of encouragement and whistles of the herders were soon dimmed by the wind.

Jermayan looked up into the sky. The clouds had fled with evening, and the sky was dark blue, showing the first stars of night. A darker shadow blotted out those stars, and then Ancaladar landed.

“Mucky,” the dragon said fastidiously, lifting first one foot then the next.

“It was a great many animals in a very small space,” Jermayan said apologetically, gathering up Ancaladar’s harness. Once the dragon was harnessed, they were quickly aloft.

“So far, so good,” Ancaladar said, glancing down at the refugees. They formed a dark line against the snow, nearly a mile in length, and were obviously running flat-out. He’d better tell Chalaseniel and Magarabeleniel to rein them in soon, or they’d simply exhaust their beasts now, and they had scores of leagues yet to travel.

But there was another task to complete first. He and Ancaladar turned back toward Lerkalpoldara.

Fire was the simplest and easiest spell, the first learned by any Mage, no matter what Path they followed. With Ancaladar’s power to draw upon, Jermayan could burn air, or rock.

How much simpler, then, to burn that which was meant to burn?

He reached down.

The entire forest came alight at once, every tree bursting into flame in the same moment. The heat rolled out from it in every direction, melting the ice around the forest and exposing the winter-parched grass on the ground beneath. It was brighter than the sun of the dull winter’s day; it was summer ripped out of its proper season and chained to earth, and it roared with the injustice of it, a constant sound almost like falling water. The heat created an updraft that Ancaladar had to fly around, just as if the furnace air were a pillar of marble that had suddenly sprouted out of the ice.

In moments the grass exposed by the melted ice had baked dry and begun to kindle, though the melting snow around it would keep the grass fire from spreading far. The constant trickle of melt into the fire made steam, and added a high hissing sound to the deep roaring note of the burning. The wind blew the smoke sideways, but the steam swirled above it, the two billows silver and black.

But no amount of snowmelt could save the forest from its fate. The trees were blackened now, their leaves gone, their remaining branches skeletal. It was impossible to tell what had been vilya, what alyon, what namanar and orchad and lemuri. The forest floor was ash that swirled and danced in the wind caused by the burning. All that existed was the red-gold of fire.

The radiant heat had begun to melt the walls of the winter city as well. They glistened like soft custard, running with water, their tops already humped and shapeless. The inside of the walls curved outward now, as if they, too, were attempting to escape the heat of the burning forest, and a fan of water poured out through the gap that Jermayan had made in the wall, softening the riders’ tracks in the snow. The water froze again to ice as it spread farther from the fire.

As Jermayan watched, a portion of the standing wall around the Winter City collapsed under its own now-uneven weight. Now more and more of the wall began to collapse, melting away from the edges of the central gap.

The trees of the Flower Forest, wasted away to cinders by the conflagration, began to fall into the flame. The sound of their collapse was not audible above the roar of the burning, but each one that fell released a dense cloud of gold and white sparks that swirled on the updraft. They fell into the ragged pennon of smoke and steam. The center of the forest, where the heat had been greatest, was already gone entirely, and the trees that surrounded that center had been sharpened by the flames to spearpoints. Their crowns were gone, toppled away into the inferno. Their smaller branches had been burned away entirely and the larger ones had been set afire, burning where they grew until they were consumed entirely or had burned through close to the trunk, leaving the weight of the branch to fall free into the fire below. Now all that was left was a ragged forest of spikes, their broken and uneven points jabbing into a sickly orange sky.

Another section of the wall collapsed, caving mushily, as if it were made of wet sand.

Satisfied at last that the forest was dead beyond all rescue, Jermayan and Ancaladar flew after the others.

THE first attack occurred at dawn a day later.

They were given that much grace at least: a night and a day and a night to race across the snow toward the Gatekeeper, knowing every minute, every mile, was precious ground gained. They did not stop, though after the first exodus from Lerkalpoldara the convoy moved only at the walk. Riders stopped to change for remounts and rode on. At slightly longer intervals, one of the sledges would change its team, releasing its exhausted animals into the larger herd. That was all.

Though it was seemingly effortless, and hardly faster than the pace an Elf on foot might keep, the toll it took on both beast and Elf was brutal, for there was no rest for either. Many of the animals fell behind—too tired to go on, or simply unwilling to be driven further; they fell to their knees in the snow or simply stood, heads hanging, staring miserably after the retreating herd.

Water was the most precious commodity, for one of the things that had to be left behind in Lerkalpoldara was the bulky collections of mirrors and catchbasins that melted snow and ice and turned them into warm, drinkable water. And there was no time now to stop and build a fire to melt snow.

There at least Jermayan could aid them. The spell that would temporarily unfreeze a mile or so of river as they passed, so that the animals could drink and be on their way again quickly, was a simple one and did not drain him. His Mage-strength grew with each passing hour; when the time came, his power might, perhaps, be enough.

The convoy lost animals at the rivers as well. Some waded out to where the river turned icy again and drowned, some drank so much they made themselves sick, some simply refused to leave the riverbank, for the talldeer were not used to being driven this way.

The main force went on.

Jermayan and Ancaladar flew above the long column, watching for pursuers. They’d expected trouble at the dawn of the first day, but not even Deathwings were visible in the sky, and no Coldwarg were to be seen upon the ground. Even the smoke of the burning Flower Forest had long since blown away, and when Jermayan and Ancaladar returned to overfly the site of the city, they saw that the trees themselves, and such things as the Elves had left behind, had been reduced to cinders and ash at the center of a glistening disk of flawless ice. The melted snow had re-frozen as smoothly as a mirror around the ruins of what had once been the Winter City.

All through that day their luck had held, and on into the night. Another day and night would see them into the foothills and forests at the base of the mountains, where Magarabeleniel hoped to rest the animals before beginning the climb to the Gatekeeper. Though Jermayan had cleared the pass itself, the road to the pass was still choked with ice. He had not tampered with it yet, knowing he must save his power to help the Lerkalpoldarans deal with what might be following them.

As it developed, he was grateful that he had.

At dawn of their second day on the march, Jermayan heard a distant chorus of howls greet the rising sun. Those below him heard it as well: From his vantage point high above, Jermayan saw a ripple of movement pass through the animals below, as horses that had been plodding through the snow a moment before were now lifting their heads to sniff the wind nervously. The talldeer jostled for position, preparing to fight.

It was not coming from behind them—No, thought Jermayan wearily, that would render things far too simple—but from in front. The long absence of the Coldwarg from their trail was now explained: They had been making a great circle around the convoy, a circle so wide that Jermayan and Ancaladar had not seen it, and now they were attacking from directly ahead.

The wind was blowing toward the convoy, and the pack was still several miles off. The Lerkalpoldarans’ animals could hear them, though were not yet sure where they were.

“Magarabeleniel—Chalaseniel—the Coldwarg pack lies ahead,” Jermayan said, using a simple spell to carry his words to their ears alone.

“There is worse,” Ancaladar said tersely.

Without pausing to consult Jermayan, the black dragon wheeled around, carrying Jermayan back along the way they had come. In a moment, Jermayan saw what Ancaladar had seen.

A herd of serpentmarae was following them.

Serpentmarae were often used as riding animals by the Creatures of the Dark. They vaguely resembled small misshapen horses, but with cloven hooves, wolf-yellow eyes, and the sharp fangs of flesh-eaters. Their mottled mud-colored skin was hairless, as were the long whip-like tails that had given them their names. Their preferred method of killing a group of victims was to trap them in the center of the herd and then trample them to death, but their sharp fangs were just as effective as a means of killing their victims.

With a gesture, Jermayan summoned lightning down from a cloudless sky. The bolt sizzled as it split the air, and struck the herd dead-center with a bright flare of light. Bodies—and charred pieces of bodies—flew in all directions. The handful of survivors staggered slowly away from the crater Jermayan had made and then began to flee from the convoy.

Though the attack had not pained him, a few more such would truly weaken him, and he could not afford that so early in their flight. As little as he liked the idea, Jermayan must hold back from doing all he could, for if he exhausted himself here, there was no chance of resting this side of Windalorianan, and his magic might be even more vital later. He unwrapped his Elven Bow from its protective covering as Ancaladar turned in the direction of the Coldwarg pack.

“There are more serpentmarae,” Ancaladar said, resignation in his voice, “but they are several hours away.”

“We will deal with them when we must,” Jermayan said. “The Coldwarg pack is here now.”

Coldwarg were difficult to kill. They were nearly as large as serpentmarae, and far more savage, for they had no other purpose in the world than to kill any creature they could clamp their jaws around.

Ancaladar flew low over the pack, and Jermayan fired. Every arrow hit its mark, but he quickly realized that unless he managed to take one of the creatures directly in the heart, he could expend an entire quiver on one of them without killing it, and flying over the pack the angle was such that a heart-shot was difficult to get. He continued to cast spells upon the pack as much as he dared—Fire was one that did not strain his resources, and it would kill as well as any other.

But he could not kill them all.

Ancaladar’s approach was more direct. He simply dipped low enough to seize the creatures in his foreclaws, one by one, and twisted them in half.

A few miles behind, the Lerkalpoldarans had made their preparations as well. They well knew that their convoy could not outrun the Coldwarg pack, nor outmaneuver it—the creatures had been bred to take down unicorns, after all—so their only hope left was to outthink it.

The riders of the sledges abandoned them and mounted horses. They separated out the horses from the talldeer herd; if it were possible afterward, they would reclaim the talldeer herd and their possessions.

By now the animals had caught the scent of what hunted them. Without the horses to hold them back, the talldeer turned in a body and began to veer away from the horses, picking up speed as they saw they were not stopped, until they were running as fast as they could.

All of the riders strung their bows and nocked arrows, bunched their horses and the unsaddled stock, and waited. And a few—a very few—of the bravest of the Elves dismounted and prepared to do battle on foot, for the Elven longbow could not be used from horseback.

Not all of Ancaladar’s depredations upon the pack, nor Jermayan’s careful sparing spells, had discouraged the pack’s survivors, who seemed to understand that the inhabitants of an entire Elven city were attempting to escape the wrath of their Endarkened allies. Even while the convoy was settling itself into position, the first Coldwarg appeared.

The convoy was not an army, and they had no true leader. A human city would at least have had a city Militia, and even a city guard, but Elven cities had no such things, for to offend against good taste and good manners was unthinkable. Their Knights and their Scouts defended the Elven Cities from danger arising from without: Lerkalpoldara’s Knights were all away at war, and her Scouts were used to acting independently.

It was almost enough.

The archers shot at whim and random, without plan. The first Coldwarg died under a longbowyer’s arrow, for the range of a longbow was farther than that of a horseman’s bow, but she was only the fastest of a pack that still numbered in dozens. Others followed, and the archers did not slay them all.

Jermayan and Ancaladar were busy enough. They were circling the bunched Elves from above, firing down at the Coldwarg.

Though Jermayan could call down Fire, he could not be everywhere at once. And so he was helpless to do much more than watch as one of the Coldwarg eluded death at the arrows of the archers and reached the Elven band. It broke through the line, followed by half a dozen of its fellows, snapping and slaughtering in a mad frenzy as the horses nearest to it plunged madly to escape.

The convoy was ringed by the Coldwarg pack. Any of the horses that tried to bolt through the ring of circling Coldwarg would be instantly cut down.

The Elves frantically tried to destroy the predators in their midst. They succeeded, cutting the Coldwarg down with axes and spears, but the cost was high: ten or a dozen Elves slain for every Coldwarg life ended. Beyond the immediate range of the herd, Jermayan and Ancaladar did all they could to ravage the pack, decreasing its numbers as best they could. Jermayan had discovered that an arrow fired from directly above would pierce a Coldwarg’s heart and kill one of the beasts, but to make the shot required perfect timing and absolute concentration, and as good as he was, Jermayan often missed.

The pack had quickly learned that the vast black shadow in the sky meant danger, and scattered quickly the moment Ancaladar swooped down from above. But such momentary intermissions in their attacks gave little respite to the Lerkalpoldarans. Jermayan’s only hope was that together he and Ancaladar could kill enough of the Coldwarg to make the creatures break off their attack and flee.

As the dragon and his rider pulled up from one such dive, they saw movement in the sky from the east. Flying toward them, their motion a ponderous parody of that of their smaller cave-bat cousins, were several score Deathwings, as many as had circled the Winter City two days before.

They could not be allowed to reach the convoy. They would swoop down among the massed Elves, pluck riders from horseback, and toss their victims to the waiting Coldwarg. Jermayan did not know who they took their orders from here—he hoped there was no Enclave of the Shadowed Elves this far north—but from all Chalaseniel and Magarabeleniel had told him, these Deathwings behaved much as the ones that followed the army had, whether they were following orders or not.

He must abandon the Elves on the ground to fend for themselves against the Coldwarg to deal with an enemy only he and Ancaladar could fight.

In moments they were close enough to see the glitter of the pale winter morning sunlight on the Deathwings’ flat black eyes. The Deathwings bore a faint resemblance to Coldwarg, with their long canine muzzles and sharp carnivorous teeth. They might deliver prey into Coldwarg jaws, but they would probably quarrel over the remains later.

You should not have come, Jermayan thought toward them grimly.

In the south, they had not known how easily the Deathwings burned. Now Jermayan set the nearest ones afire with a thought.

The winged monsters burned like pitch-soaked torches, keening wild soundless death-cries that made Jermayan feel as if some invisible force was pressing his head between two giant hands. In their death-agonies, they veered wildly in circles, some crashing into each other before they plummeted to earth.

Weariness pulled at him like quicksand, warning him to cease his labors—Fire was a simple spell, but he had been casting it for what seemed like hours—but he dared not stop. Now he and Ancaladar were the pursuers, hunting the Deathwings across the sky with merciless ferocity.

When they were gone, he saw no more.

They turned back to the convoy, scanning the ground below as they flew. Riderless horses—both saddled and unsaddled—fled from the battle; Chalaseniel had released the herd, maddened to panic by the presence of so many predators, hoping to draw off the pack. A few Coldwarg loped after them, harrying their heels, but the main body of the pack remained with the mounted Elves. The snow around the Elves was churned to red mud. Coldwarg bodies lay upon the snow, and living Coldwarg toyed with the bodies of the dead and—horribly—the dying. The screams came faintly to Jermayan’s ears.

He set another arrow to his bowstring and carefully took aim at a new target.

It was brutal, agonizing work; not quick, without easy victory. Hundreds of Elves died to kill a pack of less than three-score Coldwarg.

When the last white-furred body lay dead upon the snow, Jermayan made a broad circle to look for the talldeer and the horses.

He came upon a slaughter.

The talldeer, fleeing from the Coldwarg, had blundered directly into the following serpentmarae. The talldeer that were running free had been able to make their escape, but those yoked to the sledges had been easy prey.

Terrible as it was, the beasts’ sacrifice had bought the fleeing Elves time, for the serpentmarae had lingered over their kills, and lingered longer to feed. Now they wandered slowly in the direction of the convoy, but almost certainly would trail the convoy without attacking until hunger—or superior numbers—made the thought of attacking attractive once again.

Jermayan returned to the convoy to replenish his supply of arrows and give what aid he could to the wounded.

HE was able to report what he had seen to Chalaseniel and Magarabeleniel, who made the decision to try to recover the sledges and round up what talldeer and remounts could be gathered quickly.

Only twenty of the sledges had usable harness. Salvaging what harness they could, and rounding up the herd animals, took precious hours they did not have. But there was no choice. The supplies and the remounts were as precious as sleep. Or water.

There was no room to carry their dead with them. They could lay them out decorously in the clean snow before they left. That was all.

IT took twice as long as they had expected to reach the Gatekeeper—a full sennight. As Tanarakiel had foreseen, on the fourth day out from the Winter City, the weather had failed, bringing heavy snow.

It was that, paradoxically, that had saved their lives. The Coldwarg and the serpentmarae had harried them across the plains—though the Deathwings had not returned after Jermayan’s first decisive victory over them—winnowing their numbers slowly but inexorably.

The hellbeasts had been no more bitter an enemy than the cold. The Lerkalpoldarans said it was cold enough to freeze fire, though Jermayan did not put the local saying to the test. It was the cold that made leather brittle and delicate, no matter how lavishly it was greased, and when enough pieces of a harness broke, the sledge its talldeer were pulling had to be abandoned.

Night and day, they did not stop. Every hour, every mile, was precious. They made camp only to brew tea, to allow the animals with them to eat and drink, before moving on. True children of the Plains, the Elves slept in their saddles and wagons. For food, they butchered the animals that dropped from exhaustion on the long march. When they had left Lerkelpoldara, they had packed little food for themselves, knowing this was what they would do. Nearly all the space they could spare in the sledges was packed with fodder for the animals. But even so, they drove the talldeer onward in nearly starving condition; a mark of their true desperation.

When the snow came the harsh cold lessened, the temperature rising nearly to freezing. The serpentmarae fled for shelter and even the Coldwarg dropped back out of sight.

It had taken them five days to reach the foothills, when it should have, by Chalaseniel’s estimation, have taken three. But they had reached them at last, and there was wood to burn and shelter from the wind and the snow.

In summer this would be the foot of the trail that led over the mountain, and the trail would be clearly visible. Now, in the middle of a winter snowstorm, with their horses floundering through snow to their withers, to believe that there was a path here at all required an act of faith.

Jermayan did what he could to clear it. His spellcasting against the Death-wings had tired him, and that strength had not been easily regained, here in the High Cold. But it was enough to ease their way.

They had paused in the foothills long enough to eat, and to make a final disposition of the nine sledges that still remained, and to rest a few hours.

Then they had begun the ascent to the Gatekeeper itself.

The combination of the storm and the air-currents near the mountain wall were such that scout-flying was now impossible for Ancaladar and Jermayan, and would have been even if Jermayan had possessed the full resources of an Elven Mage to wield. They could wait behind, or wait ahead, but they could do nothing else. In any event, they would not be able to see the Lerkalpoldarans through the trees and the blinding snow. Jermayan left them Coldfire to light their way, and he and Ancaladar went on ahead.

If he had not, none of them would have reached the summit.

“I smell something,” Ancaladar said.

They stood within the pass itself. Bare rock it might have been a sennight before, but it was already filling with snow that would soon pack down to ice. Fortunately the constant winds at this altitude blew most of it away. The Gatekeeper would remain passable for some days yet.

Without Ancaladar, Jermayan would have frozen where he stood, but the dragon’s body radiated heat like a furnace. Jermayan stood beside him, within the shelter of one half-spread wing. It was, he reflected, the first time he’d been truly warm since they’d left Lerkalpoldara.

“It cannot be good,” Jermayan said uneasily.

“Magarabeleniel said the city’s scouts thought there was an ice-drake somewhere on the plains, did she not? And indeed, I thought I smelled one as we landed.”

“It is true that they suspected the presence of one, though they were not certain.”

“It is not on the plains—not anymore,” Ancaladar said with certainty. “I believe we should find it before it finds her people.”

Wearily, Jermayan mounted once more. Ancaladar folded his wings tightly against his body and trotted down out of the pass, until there was space to launch himself into the air.

The Lerkalpoldarans were still in the trees below, invisible. The ice-drake’s lair would probably be above the tree-line, where it was colder. But it would be quickly drawn to the heat of prey.

Even if he were at the height of his powers, no spell Jermayan knew had any effect upon an ice-drake, and Ancaladar had barely defeated the last one they had encountered.

But we do not need to kill this one, Jermayan realized. We only need to keep it from killing the Lerkalpoldarans.

“THERE,” Ancaladar said at last, indicating a cave in the ice below. Even without his Bonded’s heightened sense of smell, Jermayan would have known that something laired there, for the path to the entrance was polished smooth by the passage of a long heavy body. “I would never be so slovenly in leaving a path to my lair,” the dragon said disparagingly.

“It is not as if anyone wishes to seek out ice-drakes,” Jermayan answered soothingly. “There is no reason for it to hide as you were forced to. But now we must draw it out.”

“That is a simple matter, simply done,” Ancaladar said. He landed on the slope below the cave, and waited.

They were only on the ground for a few moments before the ice-drake appeared. A wave of bone-numbing cold preceded it, and at that warning, Ancaladar flung himself into the air—not a moment too soon, for the long ice-white serpentine body whipped out from its hole with stunning speed, a fog of poison breathing from the ice-drake’s jaws as the creature swung its head about, looking for its prey.

Ancaladar landed again, farther down the slope, luring his enemy onward, and the ice-drake obligingly rushed forward. This time, the black dragon barely made it into the air in time to evade the creature’s attack. It rose up on its coils, exhaling a thick fog of poison.

Ancaladar wheeled around and struck the ice-drake from above and behind, seizing it, as he had the other he had fought, just behind the head.

This time he did not waste time in trying to kill it, nor did Jermayan spend any of his own energy on anything but Healing spells to save his friend from the worst of the monster’s cold-damage. This time Ancaladar simply flew as high and as far as he could, doing his best to keep the wildly-thrashing serpent from striking his wings, or from coiling itself around his body.

“I see a lake,” Ancaladar gasped, when they were well across the valley.

“Yes,” Jermayan said, understanding what was in his Bondmate’s mind.

With a groan of relief, Ancaladar released the ice-drake.

It plummeted through the air, thrashing helplessly, and Ancaladar spiraled down after it to watch its fall. They flew beneath the low clouds, to where they could see the dark star of water in the center of the frozen lake where its impact had shattered the thick sheet of ice.

But the lake was already freezing again—this time from within, frozen by the ice-drake’s radiant cold. The ice-drake’s head appeared above the surface as it churned the freezing slurry in its frantic attempts to escape, but though it thrashed madly, it could only get a small portion of its length near the surface, and was unable to pull itself out onto the unbroken ice. Jermayan and Ancaladar could see that the lake was obviously freezing faster than the creature could pull itself free of the water, and in a few moments it would be held fast beyond all escape.

The lake itself would entomb the creature until it melted in the spring—if a solid block of ice with an ice-drake at its heart ever would melt—when the very warmth that had liberated the ice-drake might do what magic could not. Assuming of course that the ice-drake did not starve before then.

At the very least, the east was safe from this ice-drake for now.

“Let us return and tell the Lerkalpoldarans of their good fortune,” Ancaladar said, with a sigh of relief.

“It will be a pleasure to have good news to share, for once,” Jermayan agreed.

OVER a thousand souls had left the walls of Lerkalpoldara’s Winter City. A few days later, just under three hundred stood at the top of the pass with Jermayan and Ancaladar. It was only by the grace of Leaf and Star that among their number could be counted all of the women with child whom Jermayan had originally come to Lerkalpoldara to bring away.

They had succeeded in keeping six sledges out of the original thirty with them, though they no longer had any draft animals running free. There were no spare horses left, either; the remount herd was gone, most ridden to exhaustion or death, the few survivors abandoned in the foothills.

Magarabeleniel ruled alone now. Last night, as Jermayan had fought to protect their rear guard from Coldwarg following them across the ice, Chalaseniel had died among those fighting a shadewalker. There had been no time to stop to mourn him; no chance to recover his body, just as there had been no chance to honor any of the seven hundred who had died, whether by the jaws or hooves of monsters, or from cold, frost-burn, or simple exhaustion.

“Now you must leave us,” Magarabeleniel said to him simply. “You have Andoreniel’s work to do, and we must go to Windalorianan, to tell Vanantiriel and Leamrainsia that Lerkalpoldara is fallen, and we are all that remain. The fortune of Leaf and Star go with you and with Ancaladar on your journey.”

“And with all of you. And may Leaf and Star grant that we see you again on a happier day,” Jermayan answered.

“Let it be so,” Magarabeleniel said. She turned her horse’s head and rode to the top of the column, and the riders moved slowly off through the blowing snow.

BEFORE he left the Gatekeeper, there was one last task Jermayan wished to perform. He was not sure if he could, but he wished to try, for the sake of Magarabeleniel and her people.

And here and now it should not be so difficult.

He stretched out his hands toward the pass.

A shimmering curtain of ice began to form in the air, soap-bubble-thin at first, then becoming thicker. It spread to the walls of the pass, and rose to the very top, in moments becoming a wall thicker and higher than those that had circled the lost Winter City, sealing the pass against anything that might wish to follow as unequivocally as a wall of solid rock.

If the monsters that now roamed the Plains of Bazrahil wished to cross the pass, they would have to work for the privilege.

Chapter Five

The Best of All Beginnings

OUTSIDE YSTERIALPOERIN, A fortnight after Jermayan’s departure, the army held a council of war.

They were still awaiting new orders from Andoreniel, and the silence was beginning to worry all of the Senior Commanders, Redhelwar most of all. His forces were still not yet fully battle-ready, though another fortnight, at most, should see the majority of the Allies prepared to fight. Most unsettling of all, they had no clear idea of who to fight. Vestakia had still not been able to discover from the Crystal Spiders where the next—and Leaf and Star grant, the last—Enclave of the Shadowed Elves lay, nor did Redhelwar dare move his army against any lesser threat.

IT was not a small group that was gathered in Redhelwar’s tent, though since the Battle of the Further Caverns, and the Battle for the Heart of the Forest, some long-familiar faces were absent from the strategy meeting, and would be forever. Nor was it restricted entirely to the Elves, for the Allied Senior Commanders were there as well.

In addition to Padredor, Adaerion, Arambor, Belepheriel, and Ninolion, Rulorwen, Master of the Engineers, had been newly raised in rank. Though he and his command were not mounted Knights, Rulorwen’s quiet promise was that if something held still long enough, he and his people would destroy it, tunnel beneath it, dismantle it for the army’s later use, or build a bridge across it.

There were also two Elven sub-commanders present, for their specialized work for the army was vital: Artenal, Master of the Armorers, whose work it was to come up with new weapons and armor to deal with the evolving threats that the army faced; and Riasen, who had become captain of the Unicorn Knights upon Petariel’s death.

Idalia was there both as Wildmage and as chief of the Healers, who were drawn from every race that marched with the army.

Kerleu, Wirance, and Kearn attended to represent the High Reaches Wildmages and the Mountainfolk, including the farmers from the Wildlands who had fled to the High Reaches when Armethalieh had expanded her borders and had answered Andoreniel’s call for levies instead of returning home, adding their numbers to the small but valued cadre of Mountainborn foot troops. At home the Mountainfolk were organized first by families, then by clans, and at last the clans were gathered into houses. To an outsider, the Mountainborn organization looked like anarchy at best, madness at worst, for it was a structure designed to acknowledge the harsh realities of life in the High Reaches, where at the beginning of winter, no man—or woman—might be sure they would see the spring.

As such, though they were fierce warriors, who did all and more that Redhelwar asked of them, they simply did not have the same sort of organization that either the Elves or the Centaurs did. What Kerleu, Wirance, and Kearn heard here would be carried back to the Mountainfolk camp to be discussed among them all, with a final decision reached only after hours—perhaps days—of arguing.

Atroist was here for the Lostlander Wildmages, and Feyrt was here as the leader of the Lostlander fighting men. Though the villages were autonomous at home, here Feyrt had been elected absolute leader of all the warriors—Belrix, or War King—in a move unprecedented in Lostlander history. Though their numbers were small, they had already proven to be terrifyingly expert fighters, adept with their ancestral weapon, the murragh, or steelbride—a massive sword which, blade to pommel, stood taller than a tall man. Razor sharp and heavy as a war-axe, the murragh took much training to use properly, but it was said that an expert wielder could behead a running horse or slice a lightly armored man in half with one blow.

Feyrt deferred to Atroist in all matters where the Wild Magic chose to give counsel, of course, for the Lostlanders lived more closely than any other folk with the power of the Wild Magic, since it had been their only defense against the constant raids of the Dark Folk, as they called Demons.

Kellen was there; that went without saying. He was the army’s only Knight-Mage; the only Knight-Mage there was, so far as anyone knew, and the only one born in the last thousand years. This particular form of the Wild Magic gave an instinctive understanding of battle and war. Which didn’t mean Kellen always knew what he knew. Or that other people believed that he knew it.

Cilarnen was there as well, though he had no true right to be, being neither a fighter nor one whose work was to support the fighters. But of all of them—even Kellen—he was the one who best understood Armethalieh, and he was the one who could best advise Redhelwar and the others in how to deal with her.

And dealing with Armethalieh was one of their many priorities.

Kellen had not seen Cilarnen since Kindolhinadetil had made his odd gift of books, and he was shocked at how changed Cilarnen seemed. The boy had lost weight—his skin was tightly drawn across the bones of his face and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes. He wondered if Cilarnen was still having his headaches, and if the Healers had discovered the cause. He promised himself he would make time to see Cilarnen after this meeting was over, and find out how his work was progressing.

The traditional Elven formalities were shortened—out of respect to the humans and the Centaurs—to a single ceremonious round of tea.

“We begin by hearing reports and sharing information in this informal manner,” Redhelwar said. “I regret to inform you all that fresh word has not yet come from Sentarshadeen.”

There was a moment of dismayed silence as those present heard Redhelwar’s news.

“Vestakia is making some progress in her task at least,” Idalia said with a rueful sigh. “She has ruled out the north and the east as locations for a Shadowed Elf Enclave—the lands around Windalorianan, Deskethomaynel, and Lerkalpoldara. Unfortunately, with the new encroachments, she’s starting to get, well, interference from the increased Enemy activity along our Borders and within the Elven Lands themselves. So far it isn’t bad, but if it gets worse, opening herself to link to the Spiders will become difficult, if not impossible.”

“So we had better have an answer before then.”

Kreylmedd was the warchief of the Centaurs, Redhelwar’s liaison to the Centaur camp, here with his lieutenants Siust and Truanolm. The three of them, between them, spoke for the Centaur army. In times of peace Kreylmedd was a landholder and a council member in the village of Mossmeade, and the beer he brewed was famed throughout the Wild Lands. Siust was a blacksmith said to be able to work iron fine enough to shoe the wind, whose forge held many fine young apprentices and journeymen, and had produced more than one master smith. Truanolm was a miller, whose eight sons and five daughters held much of the land between Merryknoll and Greenlaw, and whose fields kept his grindstones turning constantly.

But fifty generations ago their ancestors had fought beside the Elves against Shadow Mountain, and if the Centaurs had forgotten much else about that time, they had not forgotten the need to be ready. Each generation they trained and prepared their Centaur warriors, even though they saw no more of battle than keeping the peace at country fairs and occasional run-ins with bandits and outlaws.

Now the Centaurs were the backbone of Redhelwar’s army, for the Centaur nation was more numerous than the Elves. They fought as his heavy cavalry—infantry: slower-moving than an Elven Knight mounted on a destrier, but massive and unstoppable.

“We will hope that she does, for if she does not, we will not be able to strike at the next Enclave of the Shadowed Elves. But whether we can do this or not, we must also find a way to warn the human city of the treachery she nurtures within,” Adaerion said.

“Tell Armethalieh anything? Herdsman guide you,” Kreylmedd said with a cynical snort.

“To warn the City of a Thousand Bells is only one of many priorities,” Redhelwar said, summoning the meeting back to order. “The Frost Giants are gathering beyond Deskethomaynel, and in a moonturn their shamans will be able to batter through the land-wards and the Frost Giants and their kindred will walk the Elven Lands unopposed. There is plague in both Deskethomaynel and Windalorianan—it brings fever and delirium, and many are stricken. There have been no deaths yet, but they are expected.

“And this day, at last, riders have come from Deskethomaynel, bringing terrible news. Lerkalpoldara is no more. Its Flower Forest is gone.”

There was a moment of stunned silence from the Elves in the tent.

“They were besieged by the beasts of the Shadow, their passes sealed by winter, their numbers too few to defend themselves—not that any defense would have been possible against Them.”

Kellen groaned inwardly. This was hardly the sort of talk he wanted to hear from the army’s general, especially when he was talking to his senior commanders.

“When Jermayan went to the Winter City upon Andoreniel’s orders, he saw how it was with them,” Redhelwar continued. “By the grace of Leaf and Star, Jermayan and Ancaladar were able to unseal the pass leading out of the valley and help in the evacuation, but losses were yet heavy. At the pass he had to leave them to make their own way to Windalorianan while he flew on to Deskethomaynel, from which he sends this message, so he knows not how many of the three hundred survivors of the city reached their destination.”

“Leaf and Star deliver us,” Belepheriel said softly. “One of the Nine is gone.”

“Believe me, I share your grief,” Kerleu of the High Reaches said, “but before I came to this council I spoke over distance with my home village. My wife tells me there is sickness there as well—perhaps of the same sort that has stricken your cities—and in the other villages nearby. She says that the Forest Wife has warned her that sickness will soon come to the plants of the forest as well, and the Huntsman warns that the monsters our cousins of the Lost Lands have long feared and fought are now moving into our domain.”

“They can be fought,” Feyrt said simply. “But your losses will be heavy. The story-songs tell us that the first year the Dark Folk came to ravage us, after we had gone to live in the Lost Lands, half of all the Folk died before we learned how to fight them and win.”

“That is no comfort,” Kerleu snapped, “when we have stripped the High Reaches of her Wildmages and fighting folk to come here and die in Elven Lands! We’d meant to draw the Enemy to us, but instead They seem to be everywhere but here—in our homes, and at our children’s throats!”

“What are we to do?” Redhelwar said aloud, as if he were alone in the tent.

Everyone, including Redhelwar, looked toward Kellen.

When he had first ridden off to war—it seemed like a century ago now!—Kellen had been the only one who knew it really was a war, and that Shadow Mountain was as serious about destroying them in the here-and-now as it had been a thousand years ago. Then, he had realized that the only way to get the Elves to believe him—and to follow a battlefield strategy that had any hope of winning—was to teach them to trust, not Kellen-the-teenager, but Kellen-the-Knight-Mage.

Apparently he’d succeeded.

He took a deep breath.

“They want us to scatter our forces,” he said, beginning with what they all knew. “They want us to try to hold the whole of the Elven Border against Them, and it can’t be done. They are trying to pull us in every direction at once. Warning Armethalieh has to be our highest priority—not because it was once my home, and still is Cilarnen’s, and not because it is the largest human city, but because if They take it They will become too powerful to be stopped. If warning Armethalieh won’t work, we have to keep Them from taking it by some other way.”

The others regarded him intently, the humans and Centaurs nodding but still not yet convinced, the Elves gazing at him alertly.

“As for the Frost Giants…”

Kellen took a deep breath.

“Lerkelpoldara is gone. That can’t be changed. Evacuate Windalorianan and Deskethomaynel as well. Bring the inhabitants here to help hold Ysterialpoerin—perhaps the sickness Jermayan mentions will decrease once the inhabitants arrive here, and if not, Ysterialpoerin has fine healers.

“I know travel is hard in winter, especially this winter, but those who can should travel farther into the south. Ondoladeshiron, Realthataladon, Thulta-foniseen, Valwendigorean, and Sentarshadeen are all to the south and west of here, and as yet they are some distance from the encroachments. It should be spring before they are in real danger, and many of the Enemy’s creatures will simply retreat into the north in the warm seasons.”

“So you would simply abandon the east to our enemy,” Redhelwar said, and his voice was so inflectionless it did not even hold a question.

“I think these attacks are a feint,” Kellen answered. “If we do not take their bait, they will withdraw, and concentrate their forces elsewhere. But whether they do or not, we cannot hold all the Elven Lands with the forces we have. Your cities are small and widely scattered. The Endarkened use that against you, concentrating their forces against each city one at a time and destroying it before moving on to the next. And I think that once they see that we don’t mean to turn our forces east to fight them, they’ll stop provoking us there and move on to another attack point.” Probably in the west, Kellen thought bleakly.

“Concentrating their forces in the High Reaches, where they only dally with us now,” Kerleu said, echoing Kellen’s unspoken thought.

“It’s possible,” Kellen said, keeping his voice even. “You all know: We are almost certainly outnumbered by the Enemy. They have resources we don’t know about. They are more mobile than we are, and they have more power. Without a doubt we will take losses, and heavy ones, before this is over.

“But remember this as well: If the Enemy did not think we had a good chance of defeating them, they would not be wasting so much time on us. We know what they need in order to win, and what they’re doing to get it. Stop them, and this becomes a different war entirely.”

“Brave words for the long view,” Kearn said. “But how does that help the High Reaches now?”

“From what we saw in Kindolhinadetil’s Mirror, Anigrel expects to get the High Mages to turn control of Armethalieh over to Them willingly, as Allies, by convincing them that we—the Elves and the Wildmages—are the true threat to their safety, not Them. What I believe that means is that They will have to work hard to disguise Their true nature from the High Mages, to aid in that masquerade. Since the High Reaches trades with Armethalieh, and the Mountainfolk have right of passage through Armethaliehan lands, I don’t think They will dare risk making as much trouble in the High Reaches, where the High Mages are likely to notice and ask questions.”

“You don’t think,” Wirance said.

“I know they remember the De—Them in Armethalieh,” Cilarnen said. “It’s true that most people only think of Them as a nursery tale, but I’m sure the Mage Council knows that they’re real. I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately, and I’m pretty sure that if they saw anything that looked like Them around, all the High Mages would ride out in a body to attack it—even if it meant leaving Armethalieh.”

Kellen flashed Cilarnen a grateful look. Cilarnen shrugged and smiled faintly.

Now came the crux of the matter, and the part Kellen was pretty sure the Elves wouldn’t like. He’d hoped to have had word from Andoreniel before going into this, but it was something that had to be dealt with. Kerleu, Wirance, and Kearn could no more make the gathered Mountainfolk do something—or not do it—than they could influence the path of the wind. They were here because of treaties between their people and the Elves, but it was, as it had always been, a fragile alliance, and they would resent seeing their families left unprotected.

Feyrt and Atroist ruled the Lostlanders more decisively, nor were the people they had left behind in danger—yet. The Lostlanders had been settled among the Centaurs and humans of the Wild Lands, which the Lostlanders thought—even in winter—was a very pleasant place in comparison to their own harsh homeland. But the High Reaches were the road to the Wild Lands, and no one could doubt that the farmers, Herdingfolk, and Centaurs of the Wild Lands would be next in the Endarkened’s plans.

Kreylmedd, Siust, and Truanolm knew it as well—they had all taken the Siege of Stonehearth to heart, when only one of Them had nearly destroyed an entire Centaur village in just a few moments. Centaurs had no magic at all to protect them; they were incapable of using it. And while more than half their fighting strength was still at home, to arrive in the spring—(if any of them, Kellen amended mentally, were still here in the spring)—even the fact that their villages were currently well-defended would not protect them from the sort of threats they would face.

Kellen only hoped that the Elves’ trust in him was as great as he thought it was.

“You know that Andoreniel has offered the protection of the Fortress of the Crowned Horns to the pregnant women and children of all who fight beside us. But even if there were any way to get all of them there, there’s no point in pretending there’s room for all of them.”

Redhelwar cleared his throat meaningfully. Adaerion, Kellen’s direct superior in line-of-command, had developed a rapt interest in the carpet. Of all the Elves, only Belepheriel, who had conferred upon him the third degree of Knighthood, and Riasen were watching him with interest and confidence.

“But the Elven Lands themselves will offer slightly more protection than either the High Reaches or the Wild Lands, so we’d better find someplace in the southwest for the noncombatants to stay.”

“You don’t do anything by halves, do you, brother mine?” Idalia muttered, low enough that Kellen was fairly sure he was the only one meant to hear.

“Bring them here?” Redhelwar asked, stunned, direct to the point of rudeness.

“It is what Andoreniel meant to do, after all,” Belepheriel pointed out inarguably. “Save that this is more practical than attempting to barrack them all in a fortress where they will not fit. Where will you put them? In the Elven Lands, yes, but not among us. That will not serve.”

“Nor would we wish it to,” Kerleu said. “Fight beside you, gladly. Live among you? A man would cut his throat in a week. I say this as fact, not insult.”

“Fact or insult,” Kreylmedd said, “the question stands: Where? Not that there isn’t plenty of time to argue about it, as nobody can stir a stump until spring, and I expect there will be plenty to do to get whatever place you choose ready.”

“A cave would suit all of your purposes,” Rulorwen said suddenly.

For a moment Kellen thought the Master of Engineers was joking—so far they’d found nothing but incredible danger in caves, as well as plenty of Shadowed Elves—but searching the Elf’s solemn face he realized that Rulorwen was perfectly serious.

“It would be good to know what lies behind your thoughts,” Kellen said, falling into the everyday form of Elven politeness entirely without thinking.

“What is in my mind, Kellen Knight-Mage, is this: The Caverns of Halacira are near Sentarshadeen, which is near our southeastern border, which has so far been safe. They are extensive, and fairly well explored: We mine many of our gemstones there, and as a result of that work, many of the cavern spaces have been finished into rooms. It would be easier than many other places to convert into a defensible stronghold: simply seal off all but one or two entrances. Best of all, the Jeweled Caverns have a constant source of water in Angarussa the Undying, which flows through the caverns.”

The name was vaguely familiar, and suddenly Kellen remembered. He’d ridden past Angarussa the Undying—or more precisely, over it—on his second day out from Sentarshadeen, when he and Jermayan had been riding in search of the Black Cairn.

“It would be good to know that it would fulfill all the requirements of the situation,” Kellen suggested.

“Anyone who has seen the Jeweled Caverns of Halacira would be easy in his mind upon that matter,” Rulorwen said, “for he would know that the caverns are quite vast, and should the finished areas be insufficient to the necessity before us, further areas could be finished and put to use.”

“I am instructed,” Kellen said, borrowing one of the favored phrases from the House of Sword and Shield. “Good. We’ll use that, then. A nice homey cave.”

Idalia kicked him under the table, her face studiously blank.

Of course that was not the end of the matter, but after an hour and more of debate, no one—not Lostlanders, not Wildlanders, not Centaurs, not even the Elves themselves, could find something to truly object to in the proposal. The caves could be made safe and comfortable. That they were located within the borders of the Elven Lands was the best hope of protection that the Elves could offer to their Allies.

Kellen remembered the horror with which Jermayan had once reacted to the suggestion that humans even cross the Elven Lands. The war was changing everything. He only hoped that even if they won, enough of the good things survived.

“I shall send to inform Andoreniel of your decision,” Redhelwar said, with only the faintest of ironies in his voice. “Meanwhile, you may take a force to Halacira, to scout and secure the caves, as well as blazoning our line of march as far south as Ondoladeshiron, should word come from Andoreniel that we be permitted to withdraw to the Gathering Plain.”

KELLEN caught Cilarnen’s eye as the meeting came to a close, and after making an appointment to meet with Redhelwar on the following morning to discuss the disposition and selection of the force that would be dispatched to Halacira within the next sennight, he caught up with Cilarnen outside the pavilion.

“I haven’t seen you around lately,” he said.

Cilarnen smiled wanly. “Not quite as indirect as one of the Elves, Tavadon, but it will do, believe me! You haven’t seen me because you’ve been at the other end of the camp. And I’ve been studying. Light deliver me—if I’d studied half this hard back in the City I’d be sitting on the Mage Council right now, I swear it!” He rubbed his forehead wearily. “Oh, don’t fear I’ve neglected Anganil. He gets a good ride morning and night if I can manage it—which means assuming the weather cooperates. Weather! If I never see any more weather I shall be well pleased,” he muttered darkly.

“They tell me it is worse this year than it has been before,” Kellen said, as they began to walk slowly in the direction of the Centaur encampment.

“It is uncivilized. I am tired of huddling in a freezing tent like an animal,” Cilarnen said with a shuddering sigh. “I am tired of strange clothes and strange food and not having my own bathroom. I know it sounds petty, when we are all—when the world itself—is in so much danger, but I want to go home. And the worst of it is, I know home isn’t even there. That damned Dark-tainted traitor Anigrel has ruined everything we in the City took centuries to build, and if we cannot stop him, he will smash it completely.”

Cilarnen caught himself with an effort, and took a deep breath. “But it hasn’t happened yet, and will not, by the Mercy of the Light, and just now you heard about a whole city of your friends that has been destroyed. For that I am truly sorry. I should like to see an Elven City someday.”

If there are any left standing soon, Kellen thought. “I hope you will,” he said. “Thank you for your kindness.”

“And you will want to know if I’ve gotten anywhere with turning myself into a useful High Mage. I think so. But I think … I think I need your help.”

THE last time Kellen had seen Cilarnen’s tent it had looked very much like his own, with the addition, of course, of a double armload of books.

Since then, the tent had exploded into chaos. Kellen only hoped that Redhelwar did not order the main force of the army to move out on short notice, because he was certain that the contents of Cilarnen’s pavilion could not be packed for moving in anything less than two days. Cilarnen’s sleeping pallet was crammed off in a corner, a table and stool had been added—both were heaped with papers—and in addition to the books, several scrolls had been added to the disorder.

Now that was puzzling. The scrolls could only be written in Elven—the older the book, the more likely it was to use the older alphabet—and Kellen was pretty sure that Cilarnen didn’t read Elven.

In addition to the scrolls and the new furniture, Cilarnen’s tent now also contained a stave cut precisely to Cilarnen’s height, a broadsword—which did not seem to be intended for what Kellen would consider practical use—and a set of shelves crammed into a corner and filled with pots, bags, jars, and boxes.

There was barely room to move.

Cilarnen set the lamps and braziers alight with a gesture as the two of them entered—perilous, that, with the amount of loose vellum, scrolls, and bound books the pavilion contained, the pavilion was a tinderbox—and as the air began to warm, Kellen could smell that the air was redolent of oddly familiar scents.

“Light-incense,” he said, surprised.

“Well, the ingredients for it, anyway,” Cilarnen said. “Or most of them. You can’t do a conjuration without it. Fortunately I found the recipe in one of the books, as Armethalieh is hardly likely to send me some if I ask. All I have to do now is figure out a way to get my hands on either oil of cassiar, or cassiar bark, and I can compound as much as I need.”

“Ask Kindolhinadetil,” Kellen said. “Or, properly, ask Redhelwar to ask Kindolhinadetil. He might have some. Cassiars probably grow in the Flower Forest.”

“If he has given me all these books, I suppose he might let me harvest a bit from his trees,” Cilarnen said, sounding faintly baffled.

Moving carefully, Cilarnen consolidated several piles until he had cleared space atop the storage trunks for them to sit. Their cloaks hung in the one corner of the tent not filled with papers—Cilarnen had that much practicality—slowly dripping melting snow onto the carpet.

“I can offer you tea—if I can find the tea-brazier and the pot,” he said. “Of course, I don’t have any decent tea, but still …”

“I’ll take the thought for the deed,” Kellen said. “So what did you want my help with?”

“What, should we not discuss the weather for at least half-a-bell?” Cilarnen teased. Then he sobered, settling to business.

“I think I may have figured out how to power my magick, Kellen.

“You know how they do it in Armethalieh. Because Power is something that everyone has in tiny amounts, though only those with the Magegift can use it to fuel their spells, long ago the High Mages decided that they would harvest and store the power of the unGifted citizens and use it for their spells, adding it to their own natural power. If I have to rely on nothing more than my own innate power, there are very few spells of the High Magick that I will ever be able to successfully cast, but outside of Armethalieh, with its elaborate system of Talismans and—probably—greater reservoirs, there is no mechanism for harvesting and storing Power.”

Kellen nodded. Cilarnen was telling him nothing neither of them didn’t already know, but he was obviously working his way up to something.

“But Armethalieh didn’t always exist, and for the High Mages to create their system, they had to have a power source before they discovered that one, or else they wouldn’t have been able to cast spells in the first place and invent the High Magick, do you see? These books that Kindolhinadetil gave me are very very old, Kellen—I studied one or two of the same ones back in the City, and in the copies I saw there, everything was slightly different. As if they’d been rewritten here and there over the centuries. So I wasn’t surprised when I finally came across references to the original source of the High Mages’ power—something that, needless to say, is certainly nowhere taught in the City today.

“It seems that the High Mages once harnessed Elemental energy directly to fuel their spells. Apparently it was very dangerous—the one book I have that talks much about it goes on and on about how the Mage must be careful not to cast too many spells, and to rest frequently, lest he burn out his Gift and his life. And apparently you couldn’t do it for long—the book talks about High Mages ‘retiring if they can’ after seven years—as if that ever happened. That part just doesn’t make sense!”

It might not make sense to Cilarnen, but it did to Kellen. If Cilarnen was talking about High Mages from before the founding of Armethalieh, then he was talking about High Mages who were still fighting Demons—for, he now knew, Armethalieh had been founded shortly after the end of The Great War, when the High Magick came to declare the Wild Magic anathema. High Mages who fought for the Light would almost certainly die young, burning out their Magegift on the battlefield fighting the Endarkened.

“Anyway, I’m not exactly ready to evoke an Elemental and try to figure out how to take away its power in order to use it myself,” Cilarnen said. “I’m barely used to the idea that the Elemental Powers are something—things—you might actually meet, and not abstract concepts used to balance out the design of a spell. I keep thinking of them as a different kind of Illusory Creature, and then my mind stops working entirely. But whatever they really are, I’m certainly not going to kidnap one of them and steal from it. And even if I could figure out how to ask for its permission, I think the arrangement of taking its power might kill it—assuming they can be killed.”

Kellen was sure by now that Cilarnen was taking as long to get to the point as any Elf ever had. But he could also see that whatever conclusion he had reached was a troubling one for the young High Mage, so he supposed that it was just as well to let Cilarnen reach the point in his own way.

“But the Elves guard their land through the land-wards, which are also linked—according to these scrolls—to the Elemental Powers. Oh, I can’t exactly read them, of course, but Kardus can, and I think I am learning to puzzle out a word or two. At any rate, I think I could adapt the High Magery spell to link with the land-wards and draw on the Elemental Powers through that. I wouldn’t be tapping into the energy of any specific Elemental Creature, so there would be no danger of harming any of them, and I do not think I could draw enough power off the landwards to affect them. At any rate, I could easily do a divination to make sure.”

Cilarnen seemed to be finished talking, and so far he had not raised any points, as far as Kellen could see, that would require Kellen’s help.

And if what he had said he had learned from the ancient texts was true, even if Cilarnen knew precisely what he was doing, it would be more than dangerous. And he was talking about adapting a spell that hadn’t been cast since the last time there were Knight-Mages—and if there was one thing Kellen knew for sure, it was that playing fast-and-loose with the rule-bound High Magick wasn’t simply dangerous. It was disastrous.

“Cilarnen …” he began uneasily.

“You think I don’t understand the consequences?” Cilarnen asked. “Or just the magickal theory involved? At heart it’s a simple substitution of Powers of equivalent class: every Mage learns it in order to adapt spells to specific functions. Otherwise you couldn’t—oh, Preserve a specific loaf of bread instead of all bread within the range of your spell.”

It’s just like Maths. At heart, the High Magick is just like Maths, Kellen realized with a stunning sense of sudden insight.

Of course, he’d always liked Maths. And he doubted anything was ever going to make him like—or really understand—the High Magick.

“This is a lot more complicated than loaves of bread,” he pointed out. “And even if you get it exactly right, it could still kill you—which I know you know. But mainly, you said you needed my help, and I know it can’t be in the spellwork.”

Kellen’s comment startled a sharp laugh from Cilarnen. “As if I would have you anywhere near any proper Working Circle! Precious Light, Kellen, I would as soon Work without a Circle at all as have your help! And you would be just as pleased to have me guard your back in battle, I imagine. Whatever it is that you do, I suppose you do it very well, but you are even less of a High Mage than I am. No, it is the matter of permission. If I am to try to take power from the Elven land-wards, I must have permission. But whose? And how do I ask for it?”

KELLEN raised the matter with Redhelwar the following day, when he met with the Army’s General to plan his own journey toward the south.

“In a matter such as this, affecting the whole of the land, it is Andoreniel who is the voice of the land,” Redhelwar said, after a long hesitation. But his voice was troubled.

“Yet Andoreniel is silent,” Kellen said, forcing himself to remain calm. “As is Ashaniel. And we are far from Sentarshadeen. I do not believe that we may let this matter lie until Cilarnen can go in person to Sentarshadeen. Jermayan and Ancaladar could make the journey quickly and safely to bring Cilarnen there, it is true. But we do not know when they will return to the army, and while they are on the wing, flying between cities, there is no way of getting a message to them quickly, so the same problem applies. If I take Cilarnen with me, we will be several moonturns on the road. It is time we cannot afford to waste. We know that a High Mage and a Wildmage combining their powers can slay Them—and the High Magick has other spells that the Wild Magic does not.”

“I cannot speak in Andoreniel’s name,” Redhelwar said. “But Kindolhinadetil is the Voice of Andoreniel. We must go to him and ask for his counsel.”

THERE are so many ways this can go horribly wrong, Kellen thought a sennight later, and magic was the farthest thing from his mind.

He, Cilarnen, Redhelwar, and several others were on their way to seek an audience from Kindolhinadetil at the House of Bough and Wind.

And Kellen was very much afraid that Cilarnen was going to have to speak for himself.

Kellen had taken every spare moment he had in the past several days—and there weren’t many—to give Cilarnen every warning and piece of advice he could think of about how to behave when he met the Viceroy of Ysterialpoerin. Cilarnen thought the Elves he’d met so far were bizarre and mysterious, but they were nothing compared to the Elves who lived in the Heart of the Forest. Jermayan had once told Kellen that the Elves of Ysterialpoerin were the ones who lived as closely as possible to the way Elves had lived before there were humans. Isinwen, Kellen’s second in command, had left Ysterialpoerin, the city of his birth, because he found the people stultifying formal. If they were so formal that even other Elves wanted to leave, Kellen couldn’t imagine them having any patience at all with humans. The one time he’d been there, he’d kept his mouth shut and his head down, and hoped they hadn’t noticed him too much.

He’d told Cilarnen all that, of course. But he wasn’t sure he’d gotten through to him. And he hadn’t really had the time to figure out a way to get through, because the preparations for his own departure were taking up all his attention.

When Redhelwar had said he was giving Kellen a “force” to take to Halacira, Kellen had imagined it would be something small—perhaps his own troop with a few supply-wagons added.

Instead, Redhelwar was placing a full third of the army under Kellen’s direct command.

There were ways in which it made sense. Two sets of messengers had failed to report back from Sentarshadeen; Kellen might need to fight his way into the southwest and be able to send back word with a heavily-defended force to the main army without weakening his own forces. Artenel and several of Rulorwen’s people were accompanying Kellen in order to begin the assessment of the caverns, and Engineers do not travel light; there would also need to be enough mounted troops to protect the Engineers’ equipment.

Pack animals, destriers, and draft animals—and their riders and handlers—all had to be fed and sheltered, which meant supply and equipment wagons, which in turn added to the number of draft animals… .

And Kellen was in charge of all of it.

In part this indicated a vote of confidence from the Army’s General. Partly it was—Kellen sighed inwardly—another test. Being placed in charge of this portion of the army meant he was being placed in charge of commanders who were—except for Artenel—his equals in rank, and certainly his seniors in age and possibly experience. Redhelwar would wish to know if Kellen could command them.

What Kellen wanted to know was if he could keep them alive. The continuing silence from Sentarshadeen worried him desperately. Perhaps Cilarnen could find out what the problem was there.

If today’s meeting went well.

If Cilarnen didn’t manage to offend Kindolhinadetil completely.

And, of course, don’t forget, if this is something Kindolhinadetil can even grant. Redhelwar only said we could “ask his counsel.”He didn’t say what would come of it.

“Will you stop twitching?” Cilarnen whispered beneath the steady crunch of their horses’ hooves through the snow-crust. The day was clear and bright—for a change—one less thing to worry about in a day that held far too many things to worry about. As much as Kellen had needed to leave Isinwen behind to oversee the work of departure, he’d felt he’d needed him with the embassy to Kindolhinadetil even more. Ysterialpoerin was Isinwen’s birthplace, and Kellen’s Second might be able to help keep Cilarnen from unwittingly giving grave offense. Isinwen rode silently behind Kellen, dressed, as Kellen was, in the best their clothes-chests had to offer after a season of hard campaigning.

“I’m worried enough as it is,” Cilarnen went on, in an undertone that was—nevertheless—perfectly audible not only to Kellen but to every Elf there. “You’ve already made it sound as if everything I know about Elves is true.”

“That they never lie, and they never tell the truth.” Kellen didn’t even need to look around to know that Isinwen would be wearing his blandest expression. Kellen forced himself not to think of the consequences if Cilarnen said something so shatteringly tactless in front of the Viceroy. Dammit—Cilarnen was the one who’d grown up being successfully groomed for a Council seat until Anigrel had maneuvered him into plotting treason. Why couldn’t he remember something as simple as how acute Elven hearing was?

I’ll only have to hope he remembers it when it really counts, Kellen thought gloomily. Then a new thought struck him. Just what did Cilarnen really know about Elves? The proverb he’d just quoted to himself was from the oldest Proscribed Histories of the City. He’d learned it from Idalia, who’d been using it to teach him quite a different lesson. What Cilarnen would have been taught, as Kellen had been—back in the City—was that Elves were fatally beautiful, treacherous, and incapable of telling the truth at all.

He only hoped experience—and familiarity—had been a better teacher to Cilarnen than the City Histories had been.

Kellen forced a smile. “The truth is, I don’t know what to expect in Ysteri-alpoerin. I don’t like that.”

“Well, who does?” Cilarnen said crossly. “But from what you say, the Viceroy is the only one who can give permission for me to try this experiment, so …” he shrugged helplessly, the gesture muffled by the heavy cloak he wore.

Kellen nodded. Outnumbered as they were in this war, they could afford to overlook nothing that might give them the edge in battle. No matter what risk it involved.

THE High Reaches had a stark beauty in winter. It was a land of dark forests and deep valleys nestled among the mountains that had given the area its name. It marked the border between the Elven Lands and the Wild Lands, and its people loved it fiercely. Centuries ago, in the aftermath of the Great War, humans had come to these high hills and mountains seeking one thing: freedom and peace, and they had found it here. They traded with their neighbors—the Centaurs, the lowlanders, even with Armethalieh in the West—and went their own way, holding to their own customs as they always had, for as long as they could remember.

They followed the teachings of the Huntsman and the Forest Wife, who taught them to live in harmony with their land, taking only what was needed, and always returning gift for gift.

And so they had prospered.

No longer.

Death came to the High Reaches on silent scarlet wings.

PRINCE Zyperis stood in the middle of the forest. He could barely contain his glee. Where to begin? The best part was that the foolish Lightborn would not know that he had been here … oh, not for a moonturn at least. It would all be done in secret.

And sometimes secrets could be the highest form of Their art.

He spread his wings wide and shook them, and a fine black mist drifted from them on the cold still air. It settled on the trees around him, and wherever it touched, the greenneedle bark began to whiten, just a little.

Within days, the tree would be dead.

The blight would spread throughout the forest, spreading from tree to tree upon the wind, to everything that grew. The winds would carry it beyond the High Reaches, into the Elven Lands and the Wildlands as well. It would begin slowly—that was its beauty—but within one turn of the moon that the Light-born used to mark Time, it would have spread so far that all who lived here would know of it… though they would not know its source.

Zyperis walked on, pausing now and again to seed the forest with blight.

And that was not all.

As he walked, he transformed himself, taking on a form he had often used: a shape pleasing to the Lightborn. There were many wanderers these days, and even if someone should see him, out here in the deep woods, it would not be that unusual.

As he walked, he scattered grain upon the snow. It glowed faintly, but the hungry animals—hares, deer, birds—who came to feed upon it would not notice.

All of them would leave their feast carrying plague.

As would those who fed upon them.

And those who fed upon them.

Plague and blight, the surest, most stealthy weapons of the Endarkened. They would spread through the High Reaches—oh, not necessarily to kill. That would not be sufficiently elegant. But to starve, to weaken, to cripple.

To call the Elves’ troublesome Allies home.

AS on his last visit, Kellen felt entirely out of place in Ysterialpoerin, and the idea that the Elves—any Elves—could consider the city homelike and inviting was disturbing to him in some way he couldn’t entirely articulate.

It wasn’t as if they were simply living in the woods. Kellen had done that—with and without a roof over his head—and while he preferred to be comfortable, he could understand people (like Idalia) who’d rather live in the forest than in a town.

But in Ysterialpoerin, the Elves had taken a city and made it look like a forest. Only not like a real forest—by now Kellen had seen plenty of those—but like a dream of a forest, so that the longer you were in Ysterialpoerin, the more you felt as if you were asleep with your eyes open.

It was … perfect. Every snow-covered branch, every drooping bough, even the shadows on the glittering surface of the snow were … perfect.

It made Kellen feel as if he were suffocating. In a strange way, it reminded him of the City. But at least if you were born in Ysterialpoerin and didn’t like it, there was somewhere else you could go, since in the Elven Lands, nobody objected to your leaving the place where you had been born.

He glanced over at Cilarnen. Cilarnen looked as if he’d been hit over the head with a very large hammer. He was staring around himself, eyes wide, and his lips were pressed together in a tight line.

At last they reached the House of Bough and Wind. Kellen was pleased to see that its beauty had brought Cilarnen out of himself. So far as he knew, it was the only building in Ysterialpoerin that looked like a conventional house, and it was as beautiful as all things Elven, though thankfully in a way humans could appreciate.

This time they were making a formal visit, so Kindolhinadetil and Neishan-dellazel were not waiting for them on the steps of the House. Instead there were six servants waiting—one for every rider—all wearing long gray hooded cloaks precisely the color of the House. The cloaks were stitched all over with tiny colorless crystals that precisely duplicated the pattern of the carving of leaf and vine that covered every inch of the structure, and when they came silently down from the steps and across the snow to take the horses’ headstalls, the fabric shimmered in the pale sunlight as though stitched in flame.

They did not speak, so Redhelwar and the others did not speak either. When the riders had dismounted, and their horses had been led away, the door of the House opened, and a woman appeared.

To Kellen’s great surprise, he recognized her. It was the Lady Arquelle, the Elven Healer from Ysterialpoerin who had aided the Unicorn Knights after the Battle for the Heart of the Forest.

“In the name of Kindolhinadetil, Voice of Andoreniel in Ysterialpoerin, in the name of Neishandellazel, Lady of Ysterialpoerin, we See you, Redhelwar, General of Andoreniel’s armies; Adaerion; Dionan; Kellen Knight-Mage; Isinwen; and Cilarnen High Mage of the City of a Thousand Bells. Be welcome in the House of Bough and Wind, branch of Leaf and Star.”

As was traditional among the Elves, she had put the most important name last; Kellen wasn’t sure whether to be pleased that Kindolhinadetil knew that Cilarnen was important or just continue to worry about all the ways this meeting could go wrong.

“We thank the Name of Kindolhinadetil for his welcome,” Redhelwar responded gravely, “to find sanctuary in the home of a friend is to be doubly blessed.”

Arquelle stood aside, holding the door even wider, and the six of them entered.

Kellen was glad he’d warned Cilarnen what to expect, because even having been here before, even knowing what he was going to see and knowing that it was all an illusion, crafted not by magic but by simple skill, it nearly took his breath away.

As soon as he crossed the threshold of the doorway into the House of Bough and Wind, he was standing in a summer forest. The snow might be melting on his boots, but the melt was trickling away into thick green moss. Trees stretched away as far as the eye could see—it didn’t matter that he knew he’d walked into a perfectly house-seeming house on the outside: In here there was a forest. He could smell flowers and feel the warm summer breeze, and as he looked up into the golden light of the forest canopy, he could see butterflies flitting back and forth among the leaves. He wondered if the forest outside looked anything like this when it was summer, and if so, did they make the House of Bough and Wind look as if it were a winter forest then? Interesting thought.

More servants appeared to take their hooded cloaks and fur-lined gloves, and the party followed the Lady Arquelle farther into the House.

HE wasn’t sure how or when it happened. He’d been lulled by the beauty of the forest, even if it wasn’t, in any true sense, “real”—but when they arrived in what, for lack of a better term, his mind insisted on thinking of as the “clearing” where Kindolhinadetil and Neishandellazel were waiting for them, Adaerion, Isinwen, and Dionan were no longer with them. He, Redhelwar, and Cilarnen were the only ones following Arquelle.

Kellen blinked, running the last few minutes through his mind. Adaerion and Dionan had been ahead of him; Isinwen had been behind. No, at one point Adaerion and Dionan had simply stepped aside, going around a tree in one direction while Redhelwar went around it in another. They’d gone off somewhere else then, and probably Isinwen with them.

Obviously they’d been told to somehow—possibly even by something as obvious (to Elven eyes) as the message-wands Elven scouts used to mark trails and leave messages. But compared to Elves, humans were nearly color-blind, and there were a number of things that Elves saw that Kellen simply couldn’t see.

Yes, that was the simplest explanation. After all, it couldn’t be magic.

And, if that was how it had to be, there was no point in complaining. But it only underscored the fact that Kellen had no idea of how the Ysterialpoerin Elves’ minds worked. And he’d been counting on Isinwen to smooth things over, if need be.

THE last time they had come this way, the “clearing” had been filled with what Kellen had assumed then was the Viceregal Court—or at least Kindolhinadetil’s Council. This time it was empty except for the Viceroy of Ysterialpoerin and his Lady. They were seated upon the same ornately-carved chairs in the center of the clearing, but to Kellen’s faint surprise, three more chairs stood empty facing the others, obviously meant for him, Cilarnen, and Redhelwar. The inevitable teaservice was also there, set beside Nishandellazel’s chair.

I will never understand the Elves, Kellen thought ruefully. This was all a great deal more … informal … than what he’d been led to expect from his last visit to the House of Bough and Wind.

Arquelle led them to their chairs and then knelt beside the teaservice, beginning the protracted preparation of tea. Apparently this was to be conducted entirely in silence. Maybe Kindolhinadetil and Nishanellazel wanted to see how long the two humans could go without saying anything.

But as Kellen sat there in the warm silence, listening to distant drone of in sects and the sleepy calling of birds—all illusion, but how did they manage it?—he felt himself begin to relax in a way he had not in a very long time. Even his toes started to warm up. If they wanted to sit here for the next three hours and not say a word, fine. He’d just watch the butterflies. He wondered if they were real butterflies. Idalia would probably know if there were any way to keep butter flies alive in winter. Maybe the Elves kept them as pets, the way some people kept birds. And the forest truly seemed to go on for miles, though it couldn’t possibly, even if this were the only room in the entire House of Bough and Wind. He’d seen the outside of the House. It was big, of course, but not that big… .

Arquelle handed him a cup of tea and Kellen took it, lost in thoughts that, for the moment, had nothing to do with the war or his problems.

“NOW, perhaps, if it were to find answering agreement in your hearts, would be a good time to begin,” Kindolhinadetil said a while later, setting aside his cup. “In repose is found the best of all beginnings.”

“Your words are indeed wise,” Redhelwar said. “And so it is with a glad heart that I turn to the Voice of Andoreniel for wise counsel.”

It all sounded to Kellen—who’d heard hours of similar exchanges in his time with the Elves—like meaningless interchanges of empty flattering phrases, made doubly ridiculous by the fact that he strongly suspected that Kindolhinadetil already knew every single detail of why they were here and what they’d come to ask, and, further, had known them a sennight ago.

But you did not rush Elves. Not unless somebody was actually about to die.

He slanted his glance sideways to see how Cilarnen was taking all this. To his relief, Cilarnen looked calm, even faintly detached. Well, Kellen supposed that good High-Mages-in-training got used to being bored. And good at concealing their boredom.

“… then perhaps it would be well did the High Mage speak upon his own behalf,” Kindolhinadetil said eventually.

Cilarnen rose to his feet and bowed deeply, first to Nishandellazel, then to Kindolhinadetil.

“Lady Nishandellazel; Kindolhinadetil, Voice of Andoreniel, it is my honor to speak before you. Hear my words, though I am but a poor speaker, unused to your ways. I am Cilarnen, son of Setarion, of the House of Volpiril, of Armethalieh, called among many names the City of Mages. The secrets of the High Mages are many, but here is one: that the power that we use to fuel our spells is present in every person, though it can only be turned to magick by those with the Magegift. For centuries the High Mages of Armethalieh have harvested and stored that power without their citizen-subjects’ knowledge, and thus have become powerful and feared. Without access to such a store they—we—are nearly powerless, yet there is another way to fuel the Magegift. In ancient days, at the dawn of the City and perhaps even before, the High Magick was given strength by Elemental energy, just as your Elven land-wards are now. It would be dangerous, I believe, to an Elemental Creature were I to attempt to use its power, nor do I know how to speak with one to make such an arrangement. Yet I believe I could draw on the power of the land-wards without harm to the creatures that power them, did I have permission of those in whose keeping such wards are. And so I come before you in petition. With the power to cast the Greater Spells of my Art, I could learn more, and faster, of the ways of the High Magick than I could ever learn without. And I could be of aid to Redhelwar as well. The High Magick holds spells for speaking over distance, for augury, and for war that are … different in inclination from those of the Wild Magic. It has other powers as well. Some I know now, some I can only learn once I have the full powers of a High Mage.

“I know such a request should properly be put before the King, but… I do not think we have time to wait.”

Cilarnen bowed again and stood silently, waiting.

Despite himself, Kellen was impressed. Cilarnen’s speech had taken careful planning.

He knew, of course, that Cilarnen’s speech would certainly be considered almost offensively concise just about anywhere in the Elven Lands, doubly so in Ysterialpoerin. But he also knew that Andoreniel did not choose fools to reign over the rest of the Nine—now Eight—Cities. Kindolhinadetil might never have seen a human in all his long life before he’d seen Kellen, but before he’d come to today’s meeting, he had undoubtedly studied their ways as thoroughly as Cilarnen had been studying those books. The wise did not take offense casually; Cilarnen had made a great effort to be polite, and that was what Kindolhinadetil would see.

The silence lengthened, and both humans waited, betraying no sign of apprehension. Kellen had been trained in the House of Sword and Shield not to waste his energy in anticipating an encounter, but simply to respond to it when it came; Cilarnen, he was coming to realize, had skills honed equally sharp, though for a different battlefield.

At last Kindolhinadetil spoke.

“You speak of what will be gained, not what may be lost. Speak now of these things, of the harm that might come to the land-wards … and to yourself.”

Kellen saw Cilarnen hesitate, then take a deep breath.

“Viceroy, I do not know. The Elementals’ first duty is to the land-wards, and all that I have read tells me that such creatures have a sort of consciousness. I believe they would know if what I intend would harm the land-wards, and either stop it before it began, or break the link afterward. I am told they are a sort of living creature, with the power to act in their own interests, or in the interests of those they serve, which implies to me that they would choose to preserve the land-wards at their traditional strength rather than aid me, if they had to choose between the two. Further, once I have the power to do so, if I do indeed gain such power, I shall do a divination to be quite certain that the link is harmless to the land-wards, so that even if the Elemental Creatures are incapable of making such an assessment, the High Magick will make the determination, and if it is wrong to continue, I shall stop immediately.

“As for harm to me …” Cilarnen hesitated again. “Attempting this may kill me outright. Using my Magegift in this fashion will certainly cause it to be Burned from me over time, and perhaps I will die then. Beyond that, I do not know.”

Again there was silence, save for the sound of the wind through the trees. It made Kellen think, with regret and something oddly like homesickness, of the only true summer he’d ever known, the one he’d spent with Idalia in the Wild-wood, and wonder if he, if anyone, would live to see another one.

“A fair answer, human child,” Kindolhinadetil said at last. “If you had lied to me about any part of it, even the danger to yourself, I would have forbidden it outright. But as you have trusted me, may Leaf and Star guide us all to true wisdom.”

He and Nishandellazel rose to their feet. Apparently the audience was over.

ARQUELLE conducted the three of them back through the “forest” to the front door of the House of Bough and Wind. Though Kellen could have managed to find the way himself—no Knight-Mage could truly be “lost,” since the Wild Magic gave him the innate ability to exactly retrace his steps—it would have taken quite a bit of effort on his part.

He wasn’t at all surprised to see their horses waiting for them, with Adaerion, Dionan, and Isinwen already mounted. The other three looked very much as if they had just awakened from a dream—even Isinwen, who must be used to things like this.

Pleasant as it had been (in an odd way), Kellen didn’t really think he wanted to come back to the House of Bough and Wind any time soon. If ever. What he thought of as “normal” Elves were hard enough to deal with for a simple roundear. The Elves of Ysterialpoerin were downright spooky.

“SO was that a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’?” Cilarnen asked once they’d left the city and were riding through the Heart-Forest in the direction of camp.

Kellen glanced sideways at Isinwen. His Second gave no indication that he had heard anything at all.

“I have absolutely no idea,” Kellen said with a deep sigh. “It would be good to know how to find out—without, of course, offending anyone,” he said, gazing pointedly at Isinwen.

The Elven Knight abandoned his pretense of polite deafness.

“The Lady Arquelle will have made clear to Kindolhinadetil, as a member of the Council, the most desirable way to phrase things to avoid misunderstandings when one is conversing with humans,” Isinwen began. “Certainly since the attack on the Heart of the Forest, Kindolhinadetil as much as anyone knows that there is a need for decisiveness and speed in making decisions related to the conduct of the war. But this is not a decision he should be asked to make, and he knows it. He will certainly consult his Council before proceeding.

“I still have family here,” Isinwen said. “Kindolhinadetil, of course, is aware of this. It is possible he will pass word of his decision to me privately, knowing I will pass it on to you. That way he may render a judgment without making it a matter for—too public—comment.”

“If that’s what he intends, he’ll have to be quick about it,” Kellen said. “We leave in four days.”

BUT the days leading up to Kellen’s departure passed without any word from Kindolhinadetil, through official or unofficial channels. Nor did word come from Sentarshadeen, or from Jermayan.

Kellen could not delay his departure, no matter how much he wanted to know what Kindolhinadetil’s decision would be. No matter how important Cilarnen’s work, the young High Mage was still only one xaique-piece on the board, and the winning play—if it could be made—involved many others. With the continuing silence from the south, Kellen’s mission took on added importance. Once he had reached Halacira and established a presence there, Redhelwar told him he was to take a force on into Sentarshadeen to discover the reason for the continuing silence from Andoreniel.

For without word from Andoreniel, the army could not move.

Chapter Six

The Stars and the Light

THE MORNING OF Kellen’s departure was much like any other; light snow and bitter cold. The Wildmages traveling with his convoy predicted a sennight of calm weather, with snow no heavier than could be expected at this season, but there was a mountain range to cross between Ysterialpoerin and Ondoladeshiron, and they could be certain of heavy weather in the higher altitudes. If they were not unreasonably delayed by the weather, they should be at Ondoladeshiron within the moonturn, and from there, the rest of the journey should be somewhat easier. The trek between Sentarshadeen and Ondoladeshiron had only taken ten days when he’d come up from Sentarshadeen to the Gathering Plain with the army the first time—but Kellen suspected that there’d been a great deal less snow on the ground then. Not to mention the fact that he’d been traveling with a smaller—and more lightly-burdened—force.

They’d just have to do their best, though. Even if Redhelwar hadn’t impressed upon him the need for haste—and an Elf counseling hurry was impressive enough—it didn’t take a Knight-Mage’s special senses to know that they had no time to spare. Anigrel wasn’t going to be wasting any time in bringing Armethalieh’s wards down—and once the Demons could actually get into the City … well, Kellen knew from bitter experience how persuasive the Endarkened could be. They’d be able to convince the High Council of anything they chose—and have the Mageborn to feed off of as an added bonus. The sooner he got to Sentarshadeen and found out why Andoreniel had fallen silent, the better.

Amid the last-minute bustle as troops, horses, mules, oxen, and sledges found their places in line, his friends had come to bid him a private farewell. Idalia was there, of course, and Vestakia had come down to the main camp from the caverns to be there at his departure as well.

Kellen had not seen her for nearly a moonturn, and only the self-discipline he had learned over the sennights of this long hard winter war kept him from showing how shocked he was to see her. She looked thin and worn, almost haggard, drained by the twin struggles to understand the Crystal Spiders’ Otherworldly minds and to withstand the growing sense of Demontaint in the Elvenlands. Vestakia looked a little more than Otherworldly herself, despite the bright red and gold velvets she wore.

“Take care of yourself,” Idalia said, giving Kellen a quick fierce hug. “Don’t make me regret staying here instead of going with you.”

“I’m sure I’ll see you soon enough—just as soon as the Crystal Spiders manage to tell us where the last Enclave of the Shadowed Elves is. And besides, I’ll feel much better knowing that you’re here to keep an eye on Cilarnen,” Kellen said.

He kept his eyes on his sister, not looking at Vestakia. He would give Vestakia a warrior’s courtesy of ignoring her wounds—for they were wounds, as much as any sword-cut taken in battle—but it was hard to see her this way.

It was harder still to know that he could stop all her pain with a simple request to Redhelwar to remove her from the caverns, and that he wouldn’t. Vestakia wouldn’t thank him for saving her life when there was a chance her sacrifice could save others—in fact, she’d despise him for even suggesting it—but it was more than that. He knew, down in a part of himself he didn’t like to look at too often, that even if she asked, no, even if she begged, to be sent away to safety, he’d do his very best to find some way to keep her here where her talents could be used. Because winning this war was more important than preserving any single life, and he knew it. He’d learned that about himself, and the knowledge wasn’t a very pleasant thing.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love his friends. Kellen hadn’t had many friends—any friends, he corrected himself—until he’d been Banished from Armethalieh. Somehow the war—knowing when you got up in the morning that they—or you—might not be there by nightfall—made friendships forge faster and burn brighter. Leaf and Star, he was willing to call Cilarnen a friend, something he would once have sworn would never happen!

But he would use them all ruthlessly when the opportunity came, if it would grant the Allies a chance of victory. He, and the Wild Magic that worked through him.

He only hoped he could live with himself afterward if it worked. If it didn’t work, living with himself wasn’t something he’d have to worry about.

“I’m far too old for nursemaids,” Cilarnen said firmly, startling Kellen out of his grim thoughts. What had they just been talking about? Oh, yes—he’d said Idalia should keep an eye on Cilarnen. As if any of the Mageborn would tolerate that for an instant! Kellen smiled to himself. Cilarnen had Centaurs for friends and had made great strides in learning to deal suitably with the Elves, but compared to the brainwashing the Mageborn received about women, what they were told about the Other Races and the Wild Magic was just a mild suggestion, really. Kellen was a little surprised Idalia hadn’t poisoned Cilarnen by now for his unconscious attitude toward her.

“But I wish I were going with you,” Cilarnen added with a touch of wistfulness.

“Leaf and Star—why?” Kellen demanded, honestly surprised. “There won’t be time to open a book—or wave a wand—between here and Sentarshadeen. And I’m sure you’d freeze, besides. I know I’m going to.”

“I don’t know,” Cilarnen said pensively. “I just wish I were.”

Idalia shot Cilarnen an odd look. “Well, you can at least ride a little way with him. Anganil will enjoy the exercise.”

“And you’d meant to do that anyway,” Vestakia pointed out, with a small smile.

It was inarguably true, as Anganil stood tacked-out and ready beside Firareth, his breath steaming in the cold shadows of morning.

“If you’re going, go,” Idalia said. “The day isn’t getting any younger.”

“I’ll see you all soon,” Kellen said, swinging up into Firareth’s saddle. Whenever that will be. If we’re all still alive.

He waved, and Isinwen lifted a horn to his lips and blew a complicated series of notes. It echoed up and down the line as the horses and the baggage-train began slowly to move.

CILARNEN turned Anganil back an hour later—even though they had seen no sign of Tainted predators anywhere near camp since the Battle for the Heart of the Forest, there was no sense in exposing a lone rider to danger. Cilarnen was in high spirits, looking forward to the prospect of a good fast gallop over the cleared and trampled trail that Kellen’s people had left.

When he was gone, Kellen felt oddly alone, although he was precisely as un-alone as he had been the moment before. Isinwen and the rest of his troop rode behind him; to his left Keirasti’s people did the same.

Because of the heavy wagons, they were taking a course that would circle around the forest as much as possible, keeping them on the open plain. But for that same reason, their path lay where the snow was heaviest.

Like the others, Kellen wore a thin veil of gauze over the eye-slits of his visor to provide protection against snow-glare. It was not especially needed today, when the sky was overcast, but he already knew from experience that bright sun on a brilliant snowfield could give you a memorable headache.

This particular snowfield looked as if it might be especially brilliant if the sun ever came out from behind the clouds. It stretched as far as Kellen could see, snow that was as flat as still water, though here and there it had been shaped and sculpted by the wind into odd dunes and ridges, a surface of powdered ice that chilled the cold wind even further as it blew across it, freezing exposed skin instantly and slowly numbing even the best protected flesh as the hours passed. Occasional animal tracks were preserved in the surface, though the wind had scrubbed at them until they were hard to read: Kellen recognized hare, bird—hawk? owl?—and something that was neither one, weathered away to an anonymous line of dots in the snow. Probably a fox after that hare.

The snow was also exceptionally deep: certainly up to the shoulder of an Elven destrier, and out here, sun and wind had turned its top layer to a crust of ice thick enough to cut flesh. If the cavalry had to make its own way through the snow, they’d be lucky to manage five miles a day, and the army wouldn’t reach Sentarshadeen until Midsummer, if that.

But if the Elves preferred not to fight in winter, that certainly didn’t mean they didn’t know how. At the head of the column ran a large sledge drawn by twelve patient oxen. The oxen were hitched in single file, so that except for the first beast, its chest well protected by a shield of studded leather, none of the animals actually had to break through the icy crust of the snow, and only the lead animal had to struggle against an unbroken trail. All their enormous brawn could be concentrated on pulling the prow-shaped sledge behind them, and its only purpose was to turn the snow out of a wide enough path for a sumpter-wagon—or four destriers riding abreast—to pass.

Kellen had never seen anything like it before. The snow had not been deep enough when the army got to Ysterialpoerin to require it, he supposed, or else there hadn’t been time to build one along the way. But it was very much like an odd Elven sculpture; as the oxen dragged it forward, the snow slid over its curves and angles, pressed into two high mounds several feet apart with a flat firm packed-down area between. If he had not seen it himself, Kellen would have been willing to swear that the trail it left could only be accomplished by magic—and a very powerful spell besides—but it was nothing more than Elven ingenuity. Though every few hours they had to back the team up and change out to fresh animals—and though the whole army could only move at the oxen’s walking pace—they were still making far better speed than they would have been did they have to break their own trail through this snow, and without overtiring the horses, or taking any injuries.

And we have absolutely no room to maneuver. If something hits the column, and we have to leave the path, we might as well be riding through shoulder-deep mud. And no Ancaladar to look down and tell us what’s coming from miles away.

Was that why the Scouts had never reported back? Because they’d never reached Sentarshadeen in the first place? But they’d been riding unicorns. The snow would have presented no difficulty for them.

Coldwargs would. Or Deathwings. And if either of those come after us…

It was something he’d rather not think about, but now he had no choice. He was the leader of his own small army. He had to think about everything.

A bright dazzle on the snow ahead—as if the sun had broken through, even though Kellen knew it hadn’t—caught his attention. Kellen relaxed fractionally. Shalkan. If there were anything really bad out there, Shalkan wouldn’t be cavorting around. He’d be crying havoc at the top of his lungs, and Kellen knew from experience just how loud a unicorn could yell.

So they’d have that warning, at least. And the horns could pass messages up and down the line faster than speech—complicated ones, too.

What then?

Kellen spent the rest of the day making plans for every imaginable possibility.

BEFORE the first sennight was over, he learned the trick of sending the ox-sledge off in the morning with an armed escort before breaking camp. The army easily caught up to it within an hour, but it gained them valuable time. In the evening, he did the reverse: stopped to make camp, sending the sledge on to break as much more trail as it could while there was still light, while the camp was being set up at the same time.

“You’re learning,” Wirance said approvingly, as they shared tea in Kellen’s tent one night.

“I’d better be,” Kellen answered grimly.

While there was very little the Mountainborn Wildmage could teach Kellen about the Wild Magic—their styles were much too different—and nothing at all that Wirance could teach Kellen about war—since the Wild Magic was doing that in its own way—no one born and bred in the High Reaches was a stranger to cold and snow, and there Kellen eagerly absorbed everything Wirance was willing to teach.

In the cold, every motion, every act, must do the work of two. Food was sleep, and sleep was food—and your body would lie to you in strange ways, telling you that you needed neither one, telling you that you weren’t thirsty when you were, keeping you from being hungry until you starved to death.

Kellen had thought he had gotten used to the cold and winter back in Yste-rialpoerin camp. On the march he realized how pampered he’d been, with relatively little exertion, abundant fuel and food, and a comparatively sheltered campsite. Out here there were none of those things. Thanks to the Wildmages, they had water in abundance, from melted snow—but if they didn’t reach Ondoladeshiron within a sennight or so of their timetable, there would be no fodder for the animals—which would hardly matter, as Kellen and the others would have been reduced to eating them to stay alive.

One more thing to worry about.

The other thing to be concerned about was the weather, and there Wirance was more than valuable. He could not only tell Kellen how the weather was going to run—just as any Wildmage could—but tell Kellen about weather: what was normal, what was unnatural, how long winter would run … while the Elves were willing to talk endlessly about the weather, the great disadvantage there was that they couldn’t easily be questioned about it, and Kellen needed to repair the ignorance of growing up in a city where the weather was controlled by magick.

Mud and springtime, now. If they all survived that long and the Demons ever actually fought a pitched battle against them, that would all be pretty interesting. He remembered when the Rains had started after he’d destroyed the Black Cairn, and everything had turned to mud. Apparently, it did that every year, though most years on a slightly smaller scale. Still, mud was mud, slippery and inconvenient. And this spring the mud wouldn’t be on a small scale at all, since all this snowmelt was going to have to go somewhere, just as Belepheriel had said once.

He frowned. Wirance said you couldn’t move sledges through mud, and he knew from his own experience that you couldn’t move wagons through it. What that meant was that by spring the army had better be where it needed to be, because it wasn’t going to be able to move its supplies.

And who’s going to be handling Spring Planting while every able-bodied fighter from Ysterialpoerin to Armethalieh is fighting Demons? Cilarnen said the Delfier Valley lost most of the fall harvest because of the rains; Belepheriel was saying that they won’t be able to plant some of the usual crops this spring in the Elven Lands because of the weather. If all of the farmers are with the army, nobody’s going to be planting anything at all, though. When the stores run out, we’ll all starve unless everyone can put a new crop in the ground this spring.

A chill that owed nothing to the snow passed over Kellen. He knew their resources were slender, but he’d been thinking in terms of troops and magic. For the first time he realized the stark truth: If they were going to win at all, they had to win fast.

Very fast.

AGAINST all odds, Kellen’s force continued to be free of Shadow-borne attack. Kellen wondered if it was because the creatures he associated with Shadow Mountain were massing on the northern border to support the Demons’ Allies, or if, as Redhelwar had feared, they’d left the Elven Lands entirely for easier prey elsewhere.

But if the Coldwarg and their cousins were absent, that did not mean the convoy was safe from attack.

Wolves, panthers, and lowland tiger prowled the upland plains and the foothills, just as ice-tiger patrolled the higher peaks. Normally the predators shied away from Men and Elves, coexisting peacefully on the abundance of wild game available.

But not this year.

First the Great Drought had come. It had hit the smallest animals first and hardest, killing many and driving others from their usual homes. The larger animals had followed—the predators in search of prey, the grazers in search of grass that was not burnt and withered, and all of them in search of water. The rains had come at last, but not soon enough to save many of them.

By the time the herds and flocks had begun to return to their accustomed ranges, followed by their hunters, winter had begun, bringing with it war, and the predators of Shadow. They had destroyed everything that might be of use to their enemy—slaughtered the deer-herds and the wild cattle and left their carcasses to spoil in the cold; dug up warrens of rabbits; killed the wild boar and even dug the squirrels out of their winter nests.

Little escaped them.

But they had spared those creatures who preyed on the deer and the wild ox and all the others, and moonturn by moonturn wolf, panther, and tiger grew more ravenous, and more desperate for prey.

THE wolfpack began trailing the army at the end of the first sennight, drawn to them by the scent of food. Reyezeyt reported that the pack was unusually large; he told Kellen his guesses as to the reason, and Kellen saw no reason to doubt him. Reyezeyt had been from Lerkelpoldara; before he had come to the House of Sword and Shield to train as an Elven Knight, he had never slept a single night beneath a roof of stone or wood. He understood the tides of the natural world in a way that no one else—not even other Elves—could.

And he—and everyone else who came from the northernmost Elven City—now had a greater reason to hate Shadow Mountain than ever before.

There was little for Kellen to do against the wolves. Some of the Wildmages traveling with the army were skilled in animal communication, but what point was there in telling a starving animal to forsake the only source of food it could see? All he could do was increase the sentries and make sure the horselines and the ox-herds were especially well-guarded.

The wolfpack shadowed the army for another sennight before it finally attacked.

The attack came just at dawn—always a vulnerable time for the camp—when the oxen were being hitched to the snow-sledge and the escort was saddling up their destriers.

The day was overcast, with a low heavy sky that hid the mountain peaks in the distance, and a fine powdery snow fell nearly straight down, for the wind had dropped just before dawn.

“Kellen!”

Shalkan’s distant shout was the first warning he had. Kellen was in his tent, awake but only half-armored, when he heard Shalkan’s call. It was almost immediately followed by a volley of horn-song: They were under attack.

He grabbed his helmet and his sword and flung himself out of his tent.

In the wild, Reyezeyt had told him, wolves would run their prey down, taking the weakest member of the herd while the stronger ones escaped. Here they were desperate enough to dash into what they saw as a standing herd and attempt to drag their prey out—or eat it where it stood, dead or alive.

They’d gotten past the sentries with few losses to their numbers, and the animals, scenting the wolves only when they were almost upon them, were reacting violently. The normally-stolid oxen were bawling in alarm, jostling one another in their fear: If they took it into their heads to stampede, they’d do far more harm to the camp than the wolfpack ever could.

The destriers, on the other hand, were obviously looking forward to a good fight. Ears back and teeth bared, they rolled their eyes and stamped their feet, looking around eagerly for the enemy. The ostlers had already seen what the true danger here was, and were moving the horse-herd as far from the oxen as possible. At the same time, Elves were moving over the snow, attacking the swarming pack with sword and bow.

Kellen ran toward Shalkan.

The unicorn was standing on top of the snow, watching things from a safe—for him—distance. Kellen floundered through the snow toward him and dragged himself up over Shalkan’s back.

“Of all the things that are happening in this war, I think this is the saddest,” the unicorn remarked in conversational tones. “They’re just animals. They haven’t got any choice.”

“Neither do we,” Kellen said grimly. “We have to get to Halacira in one piece. Let’s go.”

With a bound, Shalkan sprang off across the surface of the snow, moving faster than the fastest wolf. He circled around the convoy and came upon the wolves from the back.

Kellen showed no mercy. With the deer gone, the wolves would begin to prey on the domestic herds next—if they hadn’t already. And the Elves were already facing famine.

Light At The Heart Of The Mountain—the thousand-year sword Bele-pheriel had given him—did her work incomparably. Each stroke severed spines, limbs, heads. The wolves were considerably easier than Coldwarg to kill.

But he did not accomplish his objective. He did not drive off the pack.

In the end, it was the oxen themselves that did that. With the wolves diving among them snapping at their legs and flanks, no power on earth could keep them from stampeding, but Kellen and the Knights were able to buy the ostlers and the Wildmages enough time to bunch and turn the ox-herd so that when it did bolt, it went exactly where they wanted it to go.

Right into the wolves that were harassing them.

Most of the wolves were able to get out of the way. A few of them were trapped in the middle of the herd and were trampled underfoot. And Kellen was quite impressed at how fast a herd of thoroughly maddened oxen could manage to gallop across a fresh snowfield.

The surviving wolves fled, pursued by archers, who managed to take down a few more before they were out of range.

Then all that was left was cleaning up and resuming the interrupted morning routine.

“You know they’ll be back, don’t you?” Shalkan asked, as Kellen slipped from his back and prepared to walk down into the camp.

“Not the ones we killed,” Kellen pointed out reasonably. Though there would be others, he was certain, unless the Wildmages could come up with some way of arranging things so that the wolves looked elsewhere for prey. “I’ll see you later.” He began wading back through the snow toward the camp.

WINTER was as much an enemy as a wolfpack, however, and one that never went away. It was a relief to reach a wind-scrubbed streambed and to be able to trot the horses along it for a few miles, but such reliefs were few. Possibly on the other side of the mountains the snow would not be as deep. Kellen hoped not; as it was, he could not imagine how anyone following them along the trail they blazed would ever be able to find the trail-wands they were leaving behind to mark their passage, even with the carefully built-up snow-cairns to help.

Kellen had once speculated that winning a battle with a sword in one’s hand was very little like commanding an army, and on this journey he proved himself right a dozen times over. He gave thanks to the Gods of the Wild Magic each time that he didn’t have to figure out how to fight a battle in addition to simply learning how to move an army. It seemed to him that he spent his days riding from one end of the caravan to the other sorting matters out: scouting, patrols, halts for repairs, changes to the marching order, and endless administrative details. Without Isinwen and Wirance to remember everything he forgot, or that he simply didn’t have time to hear—as not even a Knight-Mage could manage to be in two places at once—things would not have run nearly as smoothly as they did. It was a full sennight before Kellen felt he was truly beginning to properly understand the fighting force Redhelwar had placed at his disposal.

It’s not enough to know them as people and to have fought beside them. Redhelwar’s done that, and so have I. I have to know what they can do, and what they’re best at.

And how to use them …

Despite the fact that every moment not actually spent asleep seemed to be spent solving problems, Kellen also somehow seemed to have a lot of free time to think. When he’d entered the Elven Lands for the first time it had been late summer, and even though the land had been drought-parched and suffering then, Kellen had been struck by its extraordinary beauty, and, despite everything, its vitality. Now it was deep winter, and you couldn’t see the land at all—unless you counted the mountain peaks in the distance—but that sense of vitality he’d taken for granted was gone.

“SOMETIMES I forget that you are a Knight-Mage, and not a proper Wildmage,” Wirance said when Kellen mentioned it to him that night.

“So this is something you’ve noticed all along?” Kellen said. Nice of everybody to mention this to me.

Wirance shrugged eloquently.

“The land … ails,” Isinwen said, sounding uncomfortable.

Kellen sighed and rubbed his forehead. “It would be good to know if anything Cilarnen wishes to do will make a difference to the land.” And if Kindolhinadetil will give him permission to do it, since the land is “ailing.”

Isinwen looked at him blankly. “That is in the hands of Leaf and Star,” he said at last.

There was a sudden commotion outside Kellen’s tent, and the entry-bells jingled. “Enter,” Kellen called.

Keirasti entered the tent and nodded. “The latest scouts are back. You’ll want to hear what they have to say.”

AFTER the first sennight had passed with no attacks, at least from the Enemy, Kellen had felt confident enough to begin sending out scouting parties. He also sent messengers back to the army, for even the information that they’d traveled a sennight without incident was valuable, and the broken trail would be fairly easy for riders to follow back to the main encampment.

Though Kellen had gotten the vague impression that all Elves lived in one of the Nine Cities, his troops assured him this was not so. There were small villages and even single dwelling places scattered all across the Elven Lands (though considering the size of an Elven city, Kellen privately reflected, he could probably fit the entire population of a “small village” into his tent and still have room to sleep comfortably). And while they were undetectable for all practical purposes, that didn’t mean they were actively hidden, or even hard to find, at least for other Elves. Kellen had instructed his scouts to seek out as many of such houses and villages as they could reach, to give their inhabitants the news about Lerkelpoldara, and encourage them to seek shelter in Ysterialpoerin.

BECAUSE of the continuing danger from wolves and other natural predators, he sent the scouts out in groups of four. This group had included Nironoshan, and he was the one making the report.

Kellen had put Keirasti in charge of the scouts, and so Nironoshan was waiting in Keirasti’s tent, a mug of tea already in his hands. Kellen accepted his own mug of Winter Spice tea gratefully and hunkered down on his heels, waiting for Nironoshan to speak.

Elves never made a point of displaying their emotions at the best of times, but Nironoshan was a member of Kellen’s own troop and had been with him from the day Redhelwar had first given Kellen a command of his own. As much as Kellen could read the expressions of any of the Elves, he could read Nironoshan’s, and he could tell that something had upset the Elven Knight greatly.

“Commander,” Nironoshan said simply. “We have returned from the village of White Spring. There is no one there left alive.”

THE scouting party had begun with the outlying steadings along the path of march—single dwellings in the vicinity of White Spring. All were empty, but Nironoshan and the others did not find that entirely unusual. The inhabitants might have left because of the unusually hard weather. They might be serving with the army. They might be off on an extended hunting trip. There might be any number of reasons for the houses to be vacant, and he and the other scouts had seen no sign that the dwellings had been left in haste, or that the inhabitants had been forced out by violence.

On the chance the inhabitants might return, they had left warnings to evacuate, and continued on to White Spring. Though they had looked to see signs of game along the way, there had been none, confirming Reyezeyt’s theory that the Coldwarg and other creatures of the Enemy had slaughtered or driven off most of the wild creatures in the area.

As the scouting party approached White Spring, they had seen the plague flags.

The yellow banners on their tall red-painted willow poles were ice-crusted and tattered by weather. They had obviously not been recently tended. The scouts approached cautiously. The small village was silent.

“Not even the animals were left, Kellen. I think they had turned them loose to fend for themselves at the last, when they could no longer care for them, and of course the wolves took them.” Nironoshan shook his head sadly. “Better they had killed them themselves, but perhaps they were too ill to think of that.”

“Perhaps,” Kellen said. “Or perhaps someone had already taken them away.”

Nironoshan shook his head again. “No. We searched the village. Everyone who belonged there was there.”

THEY had entered the village, hoping against all evidence that someone might be alive. They did not find the orderly stillness they had seen in the single houses. Wolves had been here, wandering through the streets and pawing at the doors. The beasts had not been able to enter, but they had gotten into the now-empty stables and byres and coops, picking them clean of whatever they had held and destroying everything they could not eat.

Nironoshan and the others had done what the wolves could not, opening the doors and entering the small cluster of houses one by one.

The first house, he told Kellen, had apparently been used to hold the earliest plague cases until they could be taken to the trees. Those bodies were neatly wrapped and laid out. But the sickness had obviously spread quickly after that. The disposition of the rest of the bodies told the grim story far too plainly: Some lay in their beds, as if they had been tended in their illness, but far more of the bodies had been found, Nironoshan reported, sprawled upon the floors of their houses, as if Death had come upon them and struck them down where they stood. It was obvious that from the first deaths to the death of everyone had been only a matter of days; long enough for the people of White Spring to set out the plague-flags, but not long enough for them to understand how serious the situation was and to decide to send a messenger to Ysterialpoerin for help.

“None of us touched anything,” Nironoshan said, sounding uneasy. “And we did not stay long. But that the Shadow’s Kiss should come again …”

“Again?” Kellen asked, before he could stop himself from asking a direct question. “What do you mean ‘again’?”

“I saw the bodies,” Nironoshan said. “It is just as it was in the time of the Great War. They send sickness to do their foul work. It is Their doing.”

And sickness was an enemy no armor—or shield—could defend against.

IT had now been a full moonturn since Jermayan had begun his latest series of flights to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns, and a few more sennights—he hoped—would see that mission complete.

From Lerkelpoldara he had gone to Deskethomaynel, where he had been able to make use of the signaling mirrors. He had finally been able to send a report to Redhelwar of all he had done on the Plains of Bazrahil, and of the tragic fate of the Winter City. He had ferried his living cargo to the fortress of the Crowned Horns, and then gone to Sentarshadeen to bring the news there in person.

Among those who needed to leave Sentarshadeen for the Fortress of the Crowned Horns was the Queen herself. Andoreniel’s decree made more sense now that Jermayan knew of her condition, for Andoreniel certainly could not send Ashaniel to safety and leave the other Elven women unprotected. There were already reports of plague in the human lands—sent by the Enemy, both Andoreniel and Jermayan were certain—and it was only a matter of time before it crossed the borders into the Elven Lands themselves.

From Sentarshadeen Jermayan had returned to Windaloriannan, where he discovered, to his relief, that the ragged band of refugees from Lerkelpoldara had arrived at the city without any further losses. Magarabeleniel greeted him there, and at last agreed to accompany him to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns, having left the remains of her people in the safekeeping of Vanantiriel, the Viceroy of Windaloriannan.

“Though it seems that we are all to become refugees,” Vanantiriel told Jermayan. “The signaling mirrors have sent word from Redhelwar. He tells us we are to prepare to cede the north to the Shadow, and move south as far and as fast as we can. It will be a difficult thing traveling in winter, and with so many sick, but we shall do what we must.”

“In Sentarshadeen, we had reports of sickness in the human lands,” Jermayan said uneasily.

“Our old enemy is here among us as well,” Vanantiriel said with a grim smile. “And the Knight-Mage warns that Their Allies seek to broach the land-wards besides, destroying us in our cities one by one, just as they did at Lerkelpoldara.”

“It is the sort of tactic They would find appealing,” Jermayan admitted. “It is a hard thing to leave one’s home, knowing that it may be overrun and spoiled by the Enemy, but Kellen has told us over and over that Their strategy is always to entice us into splitting our forces and our attention so that we can be more easily destroyed. And I have never found him to be wrong, when he speaks as a Knight-Mage. They attack our homes, certain that we will not be able to resist defending them, when to defend them is to lose all. And so I said in Deskethomaynel as well.”

“Then I shall expect to see Arelin Viceroy in Ysterialpoerin, where we can finish our game of xaique face to face,” Vanantiriel said with a deep sigh. “And that shall be some compensation for leaving the Fields of Vardirvoshanon and moving all of our horses in this weather—for when your Knight-Mage suggested we move, I am certain he was not suggesting that they be left behind.”

I am certain, Jermayan thought, that it did not occur to Kellen that the Fields of Vardirvoshanon were here, with their thousands of mares, stallions, and yearling foals. Nevertheless, he is right: Windaloriannan is vulnerable, and the Enemy will strike at it next. With one of the Triad of the North fallen, it is logical that the other two should be Their next targets. And he is also right that we must save the Triad of the Heartland—Ysterialpoerin, Ondoladeshiron, andValwendigorean—by sacrificing the north. But it is not easy… .

“WE’RE nearly done,” Ancaladar told him consolingly, as they flew from Re-althataladaon toward the Crowned Horns. Ondoladashiron was next, then Ysterialpoerin, then they would be done.

They had swept back and forth from city to city—through what remained of the North Triad, through the Heart Triad, and among the close-held cities of the Southern Triad—Sentarshadeen, Thultafoniseen, and Realthataladon—gathering their precious cargo and bearing it safe to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns. Once he brought the women from Ysterialpoerin to the Crowned Horns, Master Tyrvin would seal up the doors of the fortress for the last time, perhaps never to open them again.

Jermayan forced his mind away from such thoughts. He must believe they could find their way to victory yet a third time. But in the First War, they had been … perhaps more evenly matched against their foe, neither side having yet fully taken the measure of the other, and in the Great War they had had the full strength of the humans, in arms and magic, to draw upon, rather than dreading every moment to see it turned into a sword for their throats.

Better that the sea had claimed Armethalieh before the first stone of her walls had been laid upon the next, than that the world should see this day.

“I think you underestimate the humans’ resiliency of spirit,” Ancaladar protested softly. “They will see through Anigrel’s tricks, given time.”

“Time!” Jermayan said. “When have humans ever had enough time? And especially now—when none of us has enough time!”

“I must say, they took their time giving you their answer,” Idalia said tartly, as Cilarnen peered distractedly out through the tent-flap. “There’s a messenger from Ysterialpoerin for you waiting with Redhelwar.”

She’d been in the dining tent that morning when the messenger had come with a scroll for Cilarnen, more than a sennight after Kellen’s departure with his convoy. Ninolion had come to the dining tent looking for him, and Idalia had attached herself to the search. After all, Kellen had told her to keep an eye on Cilarnen.

He was easily found in his tent in the Centaur encampment, looking precisely like a wondertale depiction of a High Mage: vague, irritable, and decidedly unkempt. Idalia doubted that he’d either eaten or slept recently, and his pavilion reeked of the most interesting collection of herbal smells to be found outside of Healer’s Alley. For a brief moment she wished that Shalkan hadn’t gone off with Kellen—she was sure that the unicorn could manage to talk sense into the boy, even if no one else could.

Cilarnen stared at them both in blank incomprehension, definitely with no idea of why they had come and possibly with no idea of who they were.

Men and High Mages, Idalia thought irascibly.

“A messenger has come from Kindolhinadetil,” she repeated. “The Viceroy of Ysterialpoerin. For you. He’s waiting in Redhelwar’s pavilion. To see you. It would be helpful if you were a little more presentable when you went.” Idalia spoke slowly and plainly, giving Cilarnen time to return to the here-and-now from whatever dream-world he’d been wandering in.

Abruptly Cilarnen’s eyes snapped into focus and he seemed to come to himself. He sketched a barely-correct bow and withdrew into his tent like a snapping-turtle retreating into its shell. More quickly than Idalia would have thought possible, he emerged again: tidied, hair brushed, and in a fresh pale blue tunic, fastening a white fur cloak about his shoulders and pulling on his gloves. When he bowed again, his bow was correct and flawlessly executed.

“Idalia. Ninolion. My regrets that my present accommodation forced you to await me in the street; it was especially unfortunate in view of the weather.” It was, as usual, snowing. “Equally unfortunate in that I was unable to offer you tea, a lapse which I hope to repair at your earliest convenience.”

Now it was Idalia’s turn to stare. She’d been quite certain—well, fairly certain, anyway—that Cilarnen was not twins. Yet the young man babbling inanely (and urbanely) along at her side just now bore very little resemblance to the intense wild-eyed young mystic who had answered Ninolion’s summons to the door of his tent.

“I, too, look forward to such an occasion,” Ninolion said blandly. “I believe that to take tea with you would be highly entertaining.”

“One regrets, of course, that one’s library of tea is not large, nor all that it could be were matters otherwise. I possess some Armethaliehan Black, and naturally some Winter Spice; I’ve recently been able to acquire some Phastan Red, though unfortunately it is in block form, not leaf. Phastan Silvertip, is, of course, the preferred growth, though somewhat common; connoisseurs favor Phastan Gold, which is quite rare. And naturally, as my own knowledge runs more in the line of the cured-leaf teas, I would welcome instruction and advice in those areas where my understanding should prove deficient.”

At least, thought Idalia, Cilarnen seems to have taken to heart all of Kellen’s instructions on making small talk and not trying to hurry an Elven conversation along. Though he must have been bursting with impatience to find out what Kindolhinadetil’s messenger had to say, he and Ninolion were happily chattering along about the sorts of tea that might be available in camp for Cilarnen to add to his collection, and the possibility of him getting his hands on more cured-leaf varieties, which most Elves found so bitter as to be unpalatable. Both of them were in complete agreement that the High Reaches Smokeleaf was utterly undrinkable—which only went to prove, Idalia supposed, that she would never be a true connoisseur of tea.

This conversation continued all the way to Redhelwar’s tent and well inside. The messenger, Enolwiar, was introduced, and gave Cilarnen the message. It was in the form of a thin scroll in a golden case, with the implication of this particular form of delivery being that the messenger himself would not be privy to the information he conveyed. He, too, was solicited for his opinions on the matter of tea, which he was, of course, perfectly happy to provide.

The entire Shadow army might be waiting outside … and they’d have to go on waiting while the Elves finished their tea. Little brother, you had much more patience than I ever gave you credit for, Idalia thought crossly.

When he had finished his tea, Enolwiar thanked Redhelwar for his courtesy and hospitality, and left. But Cilarnen still made no move toward the scroll-case.

“Well?” Idalia demanded, after a pause. “Are you just going to stare at it? Or are you going to open it and see what Kindolhinadetil’s answer is?”

“I’ll assume he’s made the right choice,” Cilarnen said, in a somewhat stifled voice, reaching for the scroll. “Since it took him this long to do it. Saying ‘no’ wouldn’t take very long at all.”

It took him a few moments to figure out how to work the catch, but at last the case opened, and the inner spindle slid free. Cilarnen pounced on the curl of vellum and scanned it eagerly.

“Perhaps I spoke too soon,” he said, sounding puzzled and faintly hurt. “I can read it, but I can’t tell what it says.”

“Let me try,” Idalia suggested. Cilarnen handed the sheet to her, but she found herself in much the same situation: staring at a page of beautifully-calligraphed and illuminated text that seemed to be … a poem. About astronomy, as far as she could tell.

It might, of course, be something else. In fact, it almost certainly was. But if it was a personal message from Kindolhinadetil to Cilarnen—and she supposed it really had to be—she had no idea of how to interpret it, either. Wordlessly, she passed the page to Redhelwar.

The army’s general regarded the page for only a moment, and both the humans sensed that he was trying very hard not to smile.

“ ‘To Cilarnen High Mage, of the Golden City of Armethalieh, from Kindolhinadetil Viceroy, of the House of Bough and Wind, Greetings. In this dark time, when our great Enemy attempts to quench not only the stars but the light itself, we must act in ways that in times of peace and serenity would seem to be not only madness, but treason. Therefore I counsel you to do all that you can to come into your power, to use it as a sword and shield in battle against our great Enemy. In which matter I as the hand and voice of Andoreniel urge you to do what you will do for the good of the land unless the King himself should unspeak these words.’”

Redhelwar curled the sheet around the spindle again and closed the scroll-case, passing it back to Cilarnen.

Even more-or-less translated, Kindolhinadetil’s message made hard going. Idalia and Cilarnen looked at each other, and Idalia was prepared to say that Cilarnen looked as confused as she felt.

“I think he said I can try to tap the power of the land-wards, at least unless—or until—the King says I can’t,” Cilarnen said hesitantly.

“Indeed, to be exceptionally brief, that is the gist of the Viceroy’s message to you,” Redhelwar said kindly. “It is written very much in the old style, and I thought perhaps you would be unfamiliar with the conventions of the form,” he added gently. “It would be good to know what it is that you will do, now that you have heard his word to you.”

“I’m going to have to go and see if I can do something that I’d always been told—back in the City—couldn’t be done. I’m going to make a pact with Elemental Forces. And see if I live through it,” Cilarnen answered with grim cheerfulness.

KARDUS and Idalia had said goodbye to him as if they were sending him off to war. In a way, Cilarnen supposed they were—the only kind of war he was equipped to fight. Not a war of horses and armor, but a war of spells, of Illusory Creatures and Elemental Beings. Of dragons and unicorns.

And, yes, of Demons.

High Magick could find them. High Magick could kill them. True, it had to be done in concert with a Wildmage, but the Allies seemed to have plenty of those, and he was the only High Mage there was. On their side, anyway.

For now.

The Allies talked about finding more Wildmages. They even talked about finding and training another Knight-Mage like Kellen—everybody said he was a different kind of Wildmage, but nobody had ever explained the difference to Cilarnen in any way he understood. But they all overlooked one thing.

If this worked, Cilarnen could find and train more High Mages.

Everyone had the power that fueled the High Magick, the power that the High Magick burned the way a lamp burned oil. The difference was, the High Mages could use that power, not merely create and horde it. What made them respected (feared, a small part of Cilarnen’s mind traitorously supplied) was that they had found a way to harvest (steal) a lot of that power, so they would have a lot of it to use. They had found that way because that method was safer, easier, and more comfortable than the method Cilarnen was about to try.

But with everyone having the power—and that meant Wildlander farmers and High Reaches families, too—that certainly meant that there were people born into those families who could use the power just as those born into Mage-born families did. It had just never been awakened in them, the way the power naturally awoke in the sons of Mageborn families from close proximity to all the magick in Armethalieh.

There might not be many, but they were out there. They had to be.

Cilarnen could find them and train them.

If this worked.

And if the Demons would give them time.

Idalia, Kardus, and Cilarnen’s other friends among the Wildmages had spent the whole morning moving his tent and everything he owned up to the ice-pavilion that was going to be his new home. That way, when (if) he made a disastrous mistake with his spellcraft, the only person he’d blow to Darkness would be him.

Idalia had worried about how far he was from the main camp, since now the patrols were starting to see wolves in the Heart-Forest, though the Ysterialpoer-ines said that this was rare this early in the season (and thus a cause for even more concern than it would be normally), but Cilarnen had assured her that if his plans worked as he hoped, he would have nothing to fear from wolves. And if they did not, he would have nothing to fear from wolves for quite a different reason.

He had been very nearly rude, shooing them out of his new camp as quickly as possible, ignoring their offers to stay and help him finish setting up, or—worse yet—stay the night. But he could not afford the presence of the non-Mageborn. He had gained Kindolhinadetil’s permission at last, and this was the last day for nearly a moonturn upon which he could perform the Summoning Ritual. He had an enormous amount of work to complete before the appropriate half-bell.

There were five wandering stars in the night sky over the City: Metwoch, Gwener, Tienstag, Dediau, and Shanbe. Each one governed a day of the sennight; the two leftover days were governed by the sun and the moon. In addition, the seven heavenly bodies, plus the four Magickal Elements, plus the Eternal Light, were paired to govern the ritual bells that marked time in Armethalieh in its twelve daylight aspects and twelve nighttime aspects. The Summoning Ritual must be performed under a waxing moon, upon the day and the portion of the bell of Metwoch dedicated to it. If he missed tonight, the day and half-bell of Metwoch under a waxing moon would not come again for an entire moonturn.

And that was only the beginning of his preparations.

There were braziers in the Number of Metwoch which had to be set out in precisely the right directions, the Seal of Metwoch to be inscribed upon the floor of his working area with his ritual sword, the proper incenses to be compounded and burned at the proper times leading up to the casting of his Circle, the preliminary prayers and ablutions to take care of—because contacting an Elemental was a potentially-dangerous business and he did not wish to scrimp on any part of the procedure and cause himself unnecessary risk due to sloppy preparation and having allowed his attention to wander at the vital moment.

Normally a Mage would have an apprentice—or a number of apprentices—to do most of the scutwork while he concentrated on those tasks that only he could do. Cilarnen had to do it all himself.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so happy.

Cilarnen vaguely remembered Kellen from Before. In those days Kellen had been a sulky gangly boy who stank of the Commons and radiated misery like heat. Lord Lycaelon must have flinched every time he’d laid eyes on him. So much had changed! Now Kellen was happy, having apparently found something that he understood.

He’d obviously never understood the High Magick, and so he’d hated it. From the little he’d said since Cilarnen had met him again, Kellen still thought of the High Magick as really only a way to get the unGifted to grovel to you. But what he had never understood—and what Cilarnen had always known too well to even be able to articulate it—was that the High Magick was always so much more than that.

It was beauty. It was an end in itself. Cilarnen could have found true joy in spending his entire life serving its exacting specifications.

At its heart, the High Magick was a map to the way the world worked. Describe something exactly, know it utterly, and you could change it in any way you desired. How could anyone want anything more than this? Not the power—but the knowledge! See into the heart of a tree, and you could create anything you wanted, from furniture to a forest. Or you could just see the tree, and have the knowledge that it could be either one at any time you wished. Because you understood the tree from its first seedling bud to the ash of its burning.

Spells could be elegantly simple, such as the ones that made fire or heated water—or turned water to ice. Or they could be brilliantly complex, like the spells that stopped Time in order to preserve food and strengthen walls. Or they could be created from layers of several different classes of spell together to produce an effect which seemed—on the surface—to be nothing like any of them. Like Mageshield, which was at root a stasis spell combined with several other simple spells, including the spell of levitation that moved it through the air.

Once, Cilarnen’s highest ambition had been to become an arcane experimenter, one of those Mages who worked day-in, day-out with the simple homely building-block spells, trying them in new combinations in an attempt to produce a useful new spell for the good of the City.

Such a possibility now seemed as unlikely as that he would live until summer.

Or that Kellen Tavadon would ever understand how purely glorious the High Magick could be.

Because he’s all caught up in his Wild Magic, I suppose. Wild? Lunatic, is more like it! Truly, I’ve heard more sense from the headsick people my masters were called upon to cure when I was an Entered Apprentice. But it does not mean there is harm in them … so why not leave them alone instead of condemning them to death and pretending they are agents of Demonkind? It’s just that their magic seems so … untidy.

Untidy or not, Cilarnen did have to admit that it took far less time: He’d never seen a Wildmage cast a spell that took more than half a chime, if that. As for him, it was mid-day when he began working, and five bells later when his preparations were complete.

It lacked a bell of midnight, the second half of which was Metwoch’s time, so Cilarnen allowed himself a chime of rest before beginning the last series of invocations and prayers. By now his workspace shimmered with the wards he had set, and he was feeling the tug of exhaustion, for he had used up nearly all his own personal reserves of power as the bells moved from Dediau to Shanbe and on to Metwoch.

THE glyphs he traced hung before him in the air. He whispered their names under his breath, and the air was so cold that steam rose to swirl amid the traceries of colored light.

Soon. It would be soon.

He had never done anything like this before.

The High Magick taught that any creatures the Mageborn might see in their spells were only hallucinations—one of the first things a young Apprentice studied was the types of Illusory Creatures he might expect to see during his working life, and how to ignore them. They were, so he was told, only the symbols of the power he commanded by right of his training in the High Magick.

But Cilarnen knew now that they were not symbols, but real.

And he had not come to command, but to ask.

I ask not for myself, but for the good I might do with any Power You would loan me, he recited in his mind. It was only the truth, but he wondered if, when the time came—if the time came—he would be calm enough to say the words aloud.

“Come to me, Powers of the Elven Lands. I co—I ask that you come to me. In the name of those who rule these lands, I summon you—I request that you come before me to hear my words.”

He drew the last of the sigils in the air before the eleventh brazier. It was the most complicated of all, and he was sweating before he had finished. For a moment it hung in the air, perfect, and Cilarnen let out the pent-up breath he had been holding in a long sigh of relief.

But then it began to blur and change, swelling and growing brighter. If it had been badly done, it would simply have faded away.

Something must have gone dreadfully wrong.

He clutched his wand tightly, scouring his mind for some counterspell to contain the damage. But he had stretched his resources to their uttermost simply to cast this spell. He could not do so much as light a candle now.

The glyph became a ball of light, then an oval, then a cylinder. All its colors faded into a pale blue-white, as it slowly settled to the ice, balancing on its end. It began to melt into itself as Cilarnen watched in horrified fascination, slowly taking on something like a human form.

By the Eternal Light. It’s worked. I called it here.

And now it’s going to kill me.

He’d done nothing to protect himself from what he’d intended to summon—he’d had barely enough energy to cast the most basic of wards and then to cast the Summoning Spell itself. All he could do was watch.

It was like seeing something come from far away, as the manikin took on form. The glow resolved itself into flame—blue flame—racing all over its body. It was small and slender, the humanlike form inches shorter than Cilarnen himself, and somehow Cilarnen could see eyes, a nose, a mouth in that burning face of flame, although he was not certain of how he could make them out.

He had not known what would come to his Summoning—the land-wards which protected the Elven Lands were made up of a blending of all four Elements—but it seemed that the Powers themselves had chosen.

And what they had sent was a Salamander, creature of Elemental Fire.

“You have Called Me, Cilarnen Volpiril. For what task?” Its voice was blurred and hard to understand, like the roaring of a large fire, and he could smell an odd scent that he could not quite describe. Something burning, he decided. But not wood. It smelled like fire itself, burning without fuel.

“I need your help. The Elves need your help.”

“We already aid the Children of Leaf and Star.”

Cilarnen sensed rather than saw the strange drawing-inward, as if the Salamander was preparing once more to depart. And he knew he did not have the strength to cast this spell again.

“No! Wait!”

He did not know what he said then. He’d had a speech carefully prepared, but he’d forgotten it. He babbled like a fool, telling the creature things he was certain it already knew—about the Demons, and the war. About the High Mages, and their ancient source of power, and what they had taken to use instead. And how he hoped to fight the Demons, but he needed …

“Help,” the Salamander finished for him. “Our help.”

He felt the creature look into him, as if only now was it seeing him for the first time. A terror he had not known he had the energy left to feel gripped him. Cilarnen had not felt so afraid when he and his friends had been discovered by the Stone Golems in the City, or on the night he had thought his Magegift stripped from him. He had thought he had been afraid when he had seen the Scouring Hunt for what it truly was, or when he had seen the Demon’s face in Stonehearth.

All those moments were pale echoes of this. Each of those times, Cilarnen understood now, he could only have died. The force he confronted now was raw Magick Itself: It had the power to unmake him, as if he had never been at all. No one would remember him—that he had been here, that he had cast this spell … in Armethalieh, his family would forget his very existence… .

The Salamander smiled sadly, and Cilarnen’s terror faded. No, it would not do that. It had such power, yes, but for all its inhumanity, it was a Creature of the Light. It had come at his call.

Did he have the courage to accept the help it might offer?

He’d thought he’d understood what that would mean. He’d had no idea. This was Death, as certain as any a warrior faced upon a battlefield. Yes, he could gain the power to cast any spell he needed, but it would be like carrying the sun itself within the marrow of his bones. Such power would waste him as surely as if he consumed a slow-acting poison, and in the end it would kill him. “The life of a Battle-Mage is bright and brief,” the old books had said. Well, now he understood why. The Mages had not changed their ways for no reason. They had changed in order to live.

“Help me,” he whispered.

“Take my hand, Cilarnen Volpiril,” the creature of blue flame said, “and be one with the land.”

He hesitated at the thought of plunging his hand into that conflagration. The ice-pavilion was filled with heat. His clothes were steaming with it. The only oddity was that the wards and the circle stopped the heat precisely, so that the circle itself was wet with water, but the ice outside it was dry with cold.

But he had called it, and now it had agreed.

And if this did not work, he did not know what else to try.

He reached out, and took its hand.

The Salamander flowed into him through their clasped hands. Fast enough that Cilarnen didn’t have time to think of ways to stop it, slow enough that he knew what was happening and had time to think of the precise word to label the sensation.

It was intolerable.

That was what it was.

It was intolerable.

He was being stretched from within, his lungs pressed against his ribs so hard he could not take a breath, and the same cloying unclassifiable burning scent was all around him now, except now it was coming from inside: It was on his breath, in his nostrils, on his tongue. He felt light filling his brain and shining out through his eyes, blinding him; he gagged on thick radiance filling the back of his throat and he tried to cough it out, to empty his throat and his stomach and his lungs, but he couldn’t. It was there, stretching him until he thought his skin might tear like a too-tight glove. But what would spill out?

Slowly all of it faded away: the light, the smell, the gagging pressure. He was alone in the ice pavilion, and suddenly he was shivering with cold.

He felt a faint numbness in his hands and lips, like frostburn or poison, but in a few minutes that faded, too, and Cilarnen realized he was cold because all of the braziers in the ice-pavilion had gone out and he was standing in four inches of cold water.

The Salamander was gone. Cilarnen felt as if he’d just suddenly awakened from an odd dream. As if the spell had been a dream. It had all seemed very logical and even compelling at the time, but now that he was awake, its events seemed peculiar, even absurd, and the more time that passed, the more the events of the dream became vague and unreal.

He knew from his reading that the Great Spells were often like that, but he had never cast one before and didn’t know if this experience was what it ought to feel like. He simply felt as if he ought to be terribly frightened, and for some reason his body wouldn’t cooperate.

He stepped carefully to the edge of the circle—there was more ice beneath the water, and a scrum of ice was already re-forming at the edges of the circle—and stepped out onto the ice. As he walked toward the braziers, his shoes began to stick to the ice as they froze.

With a gesture, he lit the braziers.

All of them.

He shouldn’t have had the power to do that after the ritual, but he did.

He felt the Salamander’s ghostly presence as it shifted beneath his skin. It wasn’t there, not of itself. That would kill him in truth just as he had feared during the ritual. But he was now linked to the land-wards of the Elven Lands, and through them, to the Elemental Powers that gave them life: sylph, gnome, undine, Salamander.

He had the power he needed.

HE completed the ritual—the prayers and glyphs that ended it were simple, compared to the preparations—and spent the rest of the night reinforcing the wards around the ice-pavilion, making them as strong and complex as he could. Now that he could practice—really practice—there was a lot more potential for disaster than ever before.

Warping a Mageshield, or … some of the spells for summoning lightning, or a rain of fire … I don’t want to even try those without the best damping wards I can possibly cast. Layers of them.

And if he meant to go viewing over a distance, the most important thing was that no one he chose to look at be able to look at him.

Cilarnen knew that both Idalia and Kellen thought that the High Magick contained no spells for seeing things at a distance. He smiled. As if no High Mage had ever wanted to see something on the other side of the City without leaving the comfort and privacy of his own chambers! The City might not be as vast as the Elvenlands, but it was the whole world to its inhabitants, and contained the world in miniature. Of course, the spells of Far-Seeing were not made available to every Apprentice or Journeyman who might be tempted to misuse them. It would be as unfortunate to look in the wrong window as to look beyond the bounds of Armethalieh, and it was much better for all if the Lower Grades were not tempted. But that didn’t mean such spells didn’t exist, and they were in the books that Kindolhinadetil had provided him with. It would be simple enough to adjust the parameters of the spell to compensate for the increased distance from the place he wanted to view, and he could visualize where he wanted to see very clearly.

The Council Chamber of Armethalieh.

But not now. Now he needed rest, and sleep, and food. The sun was rising, the traditional signal to the end of the labors of a High Mage.

Cilarnen doused the braziers, wrapped his cloak tightly around himself against the morning chill, and headed for his own tent.

Chapter Seven

The Sword of the city

IF ARMETHALIEH WERE known anywhere outside her own walls—a matter of supreme indifference to both her inhabitants and her rulers—she was known as the City of Mages. Wildly inaccurate tales were told about Armethalieh in the lands beyond the sea, but one thing known about her was the simple truth: Mages had built her and Mages ruled her, for Armethalieh was a city of magick.

The ultimate authority in Armethalieh was the High Council: twelve High Mages ruled over by the Arch-Mage, the ultimate authority in the City.

At least, that had been true once.

Three High Mages—Lords Breulin, Isas, and Volpiril—had left the Council under mysterious circumstances to retire into private life.

One had died during a ritual that he had been far too old and frail to participate in—Lord Vilmos.

Two—Lords Arance and Perizel—had been murdered by evil Wildmage magic, that much everyone in the City knew.

Only one of the six empty seats had been refilled, and that by the Arch-Mage’s own adopted son, Anigrel Tavadon.

The High Council had once debated strongly and at endless length over every facet of the numerous laws that governed every facet of life in the Golden City, for as well as being a city of Mages, Armethalieh was a city of Law, and the High Council was the ultimate expression of that law. Now the only voice heard within the Council Chamber was Anigrel Tavadon’s.

Had it not been Anigrel’s idea to set a group of Wardens over the Commons to report all suspicious activity, so that never again would treason be attempted against the Mageborn? And because the Wildmages were so viciously clever, extending their taint to the Mageborn themselves, there were Wardens to watch over the Mageborn themselves. For their own protection, of course.

But Anigrel’s reforms had not stopped there. Since the ranks of the High Council were now so sadly depleted—by treason and murder within their very ranks, proof of the growing Wildmage menace—had not Anigrel drawn from the ranks of the Magewardens a group of loyal young acolytes to take over some of the most important spellwork involved in running the City itself, so that the Council could expend its own resources on only the most vital matters?

Indeed, as the sennights stretched to moonturns, the High Council found—with varying senses of relief and unease among its members—that more and more of its magickal work was turned over to the Magewardens. And there was less of it to do than ever before, for at Anigrel’s urging, the Council had reinstated a series of ancient taxes on the citizens of Armethalieh for the privilege of calling upon the Mages for magick at all.

The Great Spells of Protection and Preservation were still cast, of course: Food was preserved, fires were quenched, walls were strengthened, the bells that kept time in the Golden City continued to do so. And most of all, the Great Wards that strengthened the high stone walls of Armethalieh against any assault, magickal or physical, remained firm.

OR so they believe.

Anigrel Tavadon—he had possessed another name once, but it was quite unimportant to him now—stood in his private robing chamber, preparing to take his place in the Circle. Though his rank—entirely unofficial, to be sure, but influential just the same—would have allowed him to delegate this task to his subordinates without eliciting any comment, Anigrel always attended the Warding Circles.

It was the most important thing he did; the keystone of his secret life. Long before Anigrel had pledged his service to the City, he had sworn his allegiance to an older, darker power. From earliest childhood, Anigrel had served the Queen of the Endarkened, and everything he had done in life looked toward the day when he could lay the Golden City at her feet as her prize.

The City Wards were centuries old, layer upon layer of protective spells to ensure that nothing that was not human could enter the City of Mages, that no spell of Darkness, that nothing Tainted, that no creature of baneful intent, could pass its gates or soar over its walls to imperil those who lived within. Any who had attained the rank of High Mage could read these wards as easily as one of the unGifted could read a book of wondertales, and would instantly recognize any change in them.

That was why he had needed to be so very careful.

Every change he had made had been insignificant in itself. And at the same time he worked upon the wards, he had changed the City, creating such a climate of fear among the Mageborn so that by the time the changes could no longer be hidden—and that time was very near, perhaps even tonight—anyone who could see the changes to the City Wards, and who dared to speak of it, could easily be arrested and condemned as a traitor.

Anigrel smiled. But the time in which any would see the change to the City Wards would be very brief, for when the changes became visible, it would be the signal that his Dark Lady’s powers could reach within the City at last.

Oh, she would not yet be able to enter in person. Much more work would still have to be done. It was no light thing to dismantle the spells of centuries: he did not have such power. But when the wards had been transformed, her influence would be able to extend within the City openly and easily—not along the tiny thread he had nurtured all his life, but as a rushing torrent of blessed Darkness. She could protect him from any who opposed him, erase the knowledge of his tamperings from the minds of those who discovered it.

And help him winnow the High Council still further.

Once Lycaelon had dreamed of ruling Armethalieh alone and unopposed. Perhaps, before the old man died, Anigrel would grant him his wish. Meron and Harith were annoying old fools, and once Anigrel had the power that compromising the City Wards would grant him—the power to conceal his own dark magic—he could ensure that even more members of the High Council met with unfortunate … accidents.

He finished robing—only the sheerest of gray linen would do for this most important of the City’s rituals—picked up the Sword of the City, and walked from the chamber.

THE long and elaborate ritual was completed without a flaw. The Magewardens were all young and ambitious; they saw Anigrel as the very embodiment of Armethalieh, and were personally loyal to him. Through him, they had gained power and rank that would not otherwise have been theirs for years, if not decades, and all of them were ambitious enough to do nothing to risk it. Anigrel had chosen and promoted his Magewardens on the basis of ability alone, advancing them through the ranks far more quickly than tradition would have permitted. The men who stood in the Circle with him, who carried out his orders and spied upon their fellow Mageborn “for the good of the City,” would have been mere Journeymen without his patronage, and every one of them knew it. The black badge and tabard of the Magewardens allowed them equality with the most exalted of the High Mages—equality, and even superiority, for no High Mage was safe from what Anigrel’s Magewardens might report to him under the veil of strict secrecy and anonymity, and every one of the Mageborn knew it.

When Anigrel left the Circle, Lycaelon was waiting for him.

As always, the Arch-Mage wore his gray Mage-robes, with their embroidered tabard of rank over them. One who was experienced in Mage-heraldry could read from the symbols upon a Mage’s tabard not only a Mage’s House and lineage—for the tabard was naturally embroidered in the Household Colors of that Mage—but his rank, his position, and the Great Workings to which he had been called. A Mage’s tabard held the entire history of his life in service to the City, and it was a constantly-changing tapestry, for those who had the eyes to see.

Though Lycaelon had other garments, of course, Anigrel had rarely seen him wear them. Lycaelon’s identification with the City—and his Art—was utterly complete. Long ago, the distinction between the private man and the Arch-Mage of Armethalieh had been utterly forgotten. Lycaelon Tavadon had no private life.

That Lycaelon should be up and about at this hour was in and of itself not unusual, for the High Mages were as much creatures of nighttime as daylight. Spells might be cast at any bell, but the Great Workings were best accomplished during the bells of night, when the City was at its quietest, and the intrusive clamor of waking minds was stilled by sleep.

But the peculiar look of worry upon the Arch-Mage’s face was something Anigrel was not used to seeing. It was no part of Anigrel’s plans that his adoptive father should find things to worry about. Anigrel spent precious bells of his time ensuring that Lycaelon believed that the City was running more smoothly than it ever had before. What had the old man found to worry him now?

“My son,” Lycaelon said, “I know you are weary, but I felt you should know of this at once—before the Council session tomorrow.”

“Later today, surely?” Anigrel said, with a gentle smile, for the Council House rang all the bells of the night, and he had heard First Dawn Bells just as the ritual ended.

“The Council will know you have been in the Circle tonight, and so will wait until Noontide Bells to convene, but I had thought it best to prepare you now. There has been another attack upon Nerendale. The farmers there petition to leave their village, and move closer to the City.”

“The Wildmages grow bolder, Father,” Anigrel murmured, putting a soothing hand upon Lycaelon’s arm.

Of course he’d already known about this. His spies were better than Lycaelon’s—or anyone else in the City’s. The trouble was, Lycaelon should not have known about it at all.

“Tell me everything, Father,” Anigrel said soothingly.

NERENDALE was at the far edge of the Delfier Valley. Before Lord Volpiril’s disastrous decision to reduce the bounds of the City lands, it had been a large and prosperous farming community, one which had also contained a trading outpost since the decision to bar the Mountain Traders from the City over a decade before. Since that time, the trading caravans from the High Reaches came only as far as Nerendale to exchange their freight of furs and cloth and medicinals—and sometimes even precious Elvenware—for grain, cloth, produce, and Golden Suns.

But hard times had come to Nerendale, as to all the villages that had once prospered under Armethalieh’s care, and now, for the first time in centuries, the farmers suffered disaster after disaster, barely understanding why.

When the Bounds had been restricted, at first they had rejoiced at the cessation of tithe and tax. But then torrential autumn rains had fallen heavily upon all the villages of the valley, destroying the crops in the field and bringing famine to the land. The Bounds had lately been restored—and with them, the taxes and tithes—but too late to save this year’s crops.

And now a new scourge had come to trouble the farmers of the Delfier Valley: Not only their herdbeasts, but their people were vanishing mysteriously in ones and twos, always without a trace. It was always the outlying villages—such as Nerendale.

So far.

As a Trading Post, Nerendale naturally had a High Mage in residence, for there was no other way to determine the suitability of the trade goods offered by the Mountainfolk. This year, Lycaelon had taken the unprecedented step of sending High Mages to many of the other villages as well, for without doing so, it might have been impossible to bring the villagers to heel in the spring, and without the fruits of their labors, Armethalieh would begin to starve in earnest.

The High Mages, naturally, had been the first to vanish when the raids on the villages began, for as Anigrel knew—though Lycaelon certainly did not—it was the servants of Anigrel’s Dark Lady, not Wildmage terrorists, who raided the villages of the Delfier Valley.

The time was near when the Endarkened would be able to walk openly through the streets of Armethalieh, but so that time could come, the High Mages must be utterly convinced that the Wildmages and the Other Races were a great threat, and one that drew ever closer with each passing day.

Anigrel listened intently as Lycaelon told him the news from Nerendale—of the inhabitants of an outlying house taken in the night; the terror of the village headman—and nodded, as if he were weighing the matter carefully.

“Truly, Father, I believe you are right. The farmers must leave Nerendale. It would be cruel to ask them to remain when they are so frightened. We will show the people we can be merciful as well as just. Perhaps the Council will agree to send the Militia to escort them to the nearest suitable village, so that they can feel perfectly safe. I will go myself.”

“No—no, you must not do that,” Lycaelon said, shaking his head. “You are far too selfless—what if the Wildmages lurking in the forest should manage to bespell you? You must think of the City! Armethalieh needs you more than ever—far more than a few farmers ever could. No, no, my son. Your place is here. I will insist that the Council send the Militia, and I will have them choose suitable Journeymen to accompany our soldiers. It is a fine idea to show how Armethalieh cares for her dependents, providing it is not taken to extremes.”

Anigrel forced himself not to smile. Lycaelon had responded just as Anigrel had known that he would. And Lycaelon would always remember that Anigrel had offered to go to Nerendale.

“Of course, Father. Your wisdom is an inspiration to me,” Anigrel said, lowing his eyes modestly.

And when his friends had feasted upon all of them—villagers, Militia, and Mages all—Lycaelon would be nearly ready to listen to his suggestion of … an alliance.

HE saw everything.

He’d had to make do with a bowl of water instead of the sphere of flawless crystal the High Mages normally used for the work of seeing things from afar, but the books were clear. Any transparent substance, they said, could be used as a medium to summon the Visions of Far-Seeing.

Cilarnen knew, of course, that none of the Wildmages had been able to see into the City, but they always spoke of the Wild Magic as though it were a living thing—like Anganil, or Shalkan, or the Salamander that had come to his call. If that were so, then the Wild Magic could decide whether or not to do what they asked it to do.

The High Magick was not like that. It was without mind and will. It was a tool, nothing more—an extension of the High Mage’s mind and will. There was not the slightest possibility that a spell of the High Magick could ever control its caster, nor require him to do something against his wishes.

And therefore—so Cilarnen believed—the wards They had put in place against the Wild Magic would be useless against the spells of a High Mage.

And he was right.

Two days after he had linked his power to that of the Elven Lands, Cilarnen was ready to cast the Spell of Far-Seeing.

He had spent the previous day preparing a number of useful spells so that they could be triggered with nothing more than a single keyword—High Magick was a slow and painstaking process, though it could be made to seem rapid to the uninitiated—and practicing others. The last time he had cast Mageshield he had done so out of desperation and in a blind panic; thank the Light—and Shalkan and Ancaladar—it had held, or they would certainly all be dead now, and the Allies would know nothing about Anigrel and his plans to destroy the City.

Now he practiced it carefully, building it up layer by layer, just as Master Tocsel had taught him, until he was satisfied that his old facility with it had returned. A student first learned the glyphs by studying them in a text, then to draw them upon the air with a wand. Next came the spells of wand and glyph, and the summoning of Fire, which was essentially a matter of visualizing the proper glyph, though that almost always came as a surprise to students when it was explained to them.

The second Spell of Visualization every Student learned was Mageshield: Those who did not learn it did not live to learn any other spells.

Once Cilarnen was satisfied that he could once more Shield himself instantly against any attack, he was ready to look into the City.

He prepared his working area carefully, making it as much like a High Mage’s workspace as he could, given his circumstances; lit the lamps on his newly-erected Altar to the Light and recited the whole of the Litany of the Light, then prepared his Circle. That was easy enough, as the Salamander’s visit had left a geometrically-perfect ring melted deeply into the floor of the ice-pavilion.

The Elvenware bowl he placed upon his worktable was as white as the snow that covered the ground outside, and so delicate that it was a miracle of a sort that it had survived unbroken through all of its journeys, for Isinwen, who had provided it for him several sennights ago, had said it had come all the way from a city called Sentarshadeen, from the workshop of an Elf named Iletel, who was a master craftsman among their kind.

Gazing upon its simple beauty, Cilarnen could well believe that. Only the wealthiest High Mage in Armethalieh could afford to purchase such a substantial piece of Elvenware to grace his collection, and he had never seen any as fine.

You know, I never thought of it before, and I would certainly never have dared to question Father about it, but… we despise them as a mockery of the Light and bar them from even setting foot within the City, yet the Elves make some of our most eagerly-desired trade-goods. There’s not a Mageborn family in the City that doesn’t have at least one piece of Elvenware on display.

Well, he shouldn’t be surprised. Kellen had told him that Armethalieh was built upon a firm foundation of hypocrisy.

But now it was time to clear his mind for the spell he wished to cast.

He picked up a homely wooden jug and poured the bowl full of melted snow. He could only tell it was filling by the glints of light on the surface of the water, sliding and breaking apart as the water rocked and jounced off the walls of the bowl. Once it was full, the surface slowly stilled, the waves slowing and disappearing, the bubbles in the water rising to the top. When the water was completely still, the bowl looked in fact as if it truly was filled with the finest crystal.

Cilarnen took his wand into his right hand, and sketched the first of the glyphs of the spell.

When the spell was complete, the glyph doubled itself, one copy of it rushing through the wall of the ice-pavilion, speeding in the direction of Armethalieh, while the other half continued to hang above the Elvenware bowl. In a few moments more the absent copy reached its destination, and the glyph blurred into images. The images did not appear in the bowl, as Cilarnen had vaguely expected, but above it, like mist hanging above a lake.

As he had planned, Cilarnen was looking upon the Council Chamber. The High Mages had no notion they were being watched: The copy of the glyph that was there was heavily Warded, wrapped in every spell Cilarnen could devise.

And if someone did happen to notice it … well! It certainly wasn’t a Wildmage spell. It was nothing more—or less—than their own High Magick. He thought they’d be so busy accusing one another of treachery that he’d have plenty of time to cover his tracks.

And after looking through Idalia’s eyes at what Armethalieh had become, he wanted to see for himself how the City was being run these days.

As he had hoped, the Council was in session, but only seven of the thirteen seats were filled. Cilarnen recognized every face from the old days but one; the slender blond young man who sat in Cilarnen’s father’s own seat. That one he only knew from Idalia’s spell. Anigrel the secret Darkmage: the Mage with a Commons-born father who had been Lycaelon’s secretary and Kellen’s tutor. Lycaelon thought his own son a traitor, but his adopted son had betrayed the Tavadons more terribly than the Arch-Mage could possibly imagine.

He tried to remember what he could about the political alliances among the Council. His father had certainly spoken to him of them often enough, preparing him for the day when he might join them, and would certainly serve them.

Arch-Mage Lycaelon Tavadon. He looked far older than he had the last time Cilanen had seen him, on the night of his Banishing, as if all the cares of the City weighed deeply on his shoulders these days. Cilarnen felt a pang of pity for him. It must be hard beyond words to have lost both his children to what he must believe was something worse than Demon magic, and now be facing the worst threat to face his beloved City since the days the first stones of her walls were laid. And he did not even suspect that the worst threat of all sat beside him in his own Council chambers, sat at his table in his own home… .

Cilarnen turned his attentions to the others.

High Mage Harith had always been Lycaelon’s political crony; he would support any decision the Arch-Mage made without bothering to think for himself. Harith had no hope of ascending to the ultimate power himself; he was an old man, and had already climbed as high as he would ever reach. He would die where he was, in service to the City and the Arch-Mage.

High Mage Ganaret was ambitious, but not for himself precisely; Ganaret was always willing to endorse any project that involved exalting the power and prestige of the Mageborn, even at the expense of the other classes who shared the City with them—and so, Cilarnen’s father had said, Ganaret was easily swayed in some matters.

High Mage Lorins he knew very little of, save that his father had always said that he was ambitious, and sought to become Arch-Mage himself.

High Mage Nagid; an excellent Mage, but interested most of all in his own comfort. That made him one of the most conservative voices on the Council, unwilling to consider change unless it was forced upon him. That, too, Lord Volpiril had said, could be useful when properly manipulated.

High Mage Dagan. Dagan was old and fearful, and Cilarnen saw marks of strain and sleeplessness etched into the old man’s face. It was odd to think of any of the High Council as being old men, though no one ascended to that post except after attaining the rank of High Mage and devoting years of service to the City in addition before being proposed for membership when a vacancy arose. And in normal times, vacancies on the Mage Council were rare things.

Anigrel Tavadon.

In the presence of so many elderly High Mages, his youth stood out like a beacon; he was less than twice Cilarnen’s own age. He had used the High Mages’ fear, their love for the City and their desire to protect Armethalieh, to set himself on the High Council. To destroy it from within.

Just as—in the disguise of “Master Raellan”—he had used Cilarnen’s own love for the City to lead him into the pretend conspiracy that had begun it all.

Cilarnen listened as the High Council debated a measure to send the Militia to Nerendale to evacuate the village’s survivors and settle them among the inhabitants of the nearby villages such as Greenmile, Overlook, and Long Walk. The reason, Cilarnen inferred from the Council’s long-winded speeches, was that the village’s inhabitants were too fearful of the continuing murderous raids of the Wildmages on Nerendale to remain where they were.

That’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard! Certainly a Wildmage would kill someone—Kellen has killed lots of people, and he’s a Wildmage—but not innocent helpless farmers! Someone else is doing this, and I’m sure Anigrel knows who.

Cilarnen made certain to note the time that the Council said that the Militia would arrive at Nerendale. He was almost certain he knew who was truly behind the attacks, but it wouldn’t hurt to see if he could get proof.

The Council then began a long debate on the structuring of a new series of taxes on magick. Cilarnen doubted he could learn much more here—and besides, there were other places he wanted to see in the City. And he didn’t want to press his luck by remaining in the Council Chamber too long. He was fairly certain they’d know someone had been spying on them. What he was counting on was that they wouldn’t know who it had been.

HOUSE Volpiril still looked the same. The green-and-copper banners—their house colors—still hung on either side of the front door; the forbidding statues of snarling winged lions that flanked the walkway out by the street—all were as familiar to Cilarnen as the fingers of his own hand. As he regarded the front door, Vedhin, their formidably-correct butler, opened it, ushering his mother, two sisters, several maids, and a phalanx of menservants through the portal. Since it was his mother and his sisters, Cilarnen had literally no notion whatsoever where they might be going, as well as the feeling that it might be impertinent to try to find out.

He sent the Glyph of Far-Seeing on into the house.

Here, too, nothing had changed—but then, each piece of furniture had been in precisely these positions in his grandfather’s day, and if he had inherited, Cilarnen would never have thought of changing a single thing.

He had to force himself to follow the stairs to his father’s study.

Setarion Volpiril sat behind his desk, writing a letter. Cilarnen felt a clutch of joy at the sight of his father, and firmly suppressed it; strong emotion of any kind would break the spell.

His father seemed to have aged decades since the last time Cilarnen had seen him; the auburn hair of the Volpiril line had paled and was thickly streaked with gray, and new lines etched his cheeks. Even more shocking than this, Lord Volpiril’s gray Mage-robes were flung carelessly over a chair—ready to be donned at need, it was true, but Cilarnen beheld his father in ordinary clothing such as any wealthy fashionable noble might own. He couldn’t remember seeing his father in anything but his gray Mage-robes and rank-tabard before, at any time in his entire life.

It gave Cilarnen an odd feeling, as if his father’s life must have changed as profoundly as Cilarnen’s own.

But Lord Volpiril was alive. Alive! Idalia had sworn to Cilarnen that he was, that Anigrel had lied to Cilarnen in the punishment cells, but all along Cilarnen had never quite dared to believe it. In this moment it didn’t matter to him that he’d been condemned as a traitor and that his father surely believed in his guilt. They were both alive, and while that was true, there was a chance for him to let his father know the truth.

Strong emotion, as Cilarnen well knew, was the enemy of magick. The intense joy he could no longer suppress upon seeing his father disrupted the spell at last. The images faded until once more Cilarnen was staring at nothing more than a bowl of water.

He drew a deep breath. It didn’t matter. He’d learned what he needed to know.

And in two days, he would see what there was to see at Nerendale.

TWO days later he cast the spell again.

This time it was much harder to find what he sought.

He’d never been to Nerendale, and knew nobody who had. If his life depended on locating it, he only hoped he’d have plenty of time to look.

But today he had one particular advantage, because he’d heard in the Council Chamber that the Mage Council intended to send High Mages with the Militia.

One of the things the High Mages were asked to do most often in the City was to find lost objects: a necklace, a key, a favorite pair of gloves. Almost always the object could be found using an Affinity spell, since the object and the person seeking it would have been in close contact very recently. But they were also sometimes asked to find objects for which an Affinity spell would not work: a will, a lost pet, a family heirloom only rumored to exist. For such circumstances, one of the High Magick’s many different Seeking spells must be used.

What Cilarnen intended to do now was to Seek all High Mages outside of Armethalieh, using himself as an example of what he wanted the spell to find. It should lead him directly to Nerendale.

If it led him to some other group of High Mages, well, that at least would be interesting. Very interesting indeed …

THE wondertales that were popular within the City created images of the farming villages that were wholly unlike real life. The “cottages” the wondertales described were as spacious as a merchant’s townhouse; the work of tilling and planting and harvest was neither arduous nor time-consuming.

Having lived for several moonturns in Stonehearth, Cilarnen knew what a farming village looked like; and though he had not been there in spring to see the planting begin, he had no doubt that the work was even more strenuous than the winter’s work he had been doing in the stables.

He was surprised at how very much Nerendale resembled Stonehearth, though the one was a human village under the protection of the City of a Thousand Bells, and the other was a city inhabited only by Centaurs in the midst of the Wild Lands. In fact, Stonehearth was by far the more sophisticated of the two, with two-story houses, a village wall, stone-paved streets, and, Cilarnen suspected, other refinements that Nerendale did not have.

But the village square of Nerendale looked essentially the same as that of Stonehearth, save for the fact that Stonehearth did not have a Temple of the Light. There was even a well in just about the same place, and, standing around the well, two score very bored looking members of Armethalieh’s Militia, mounted on fine chestnut horses.

Or at least Cilarnen would have thought them fine once, before he had seen Elvenbred animals. Now they seemed to him to be weedy, narrow-chested, second-rate animals, without either style or stamina.

The two Mages’ animals were no better. Both were riding grays—undoubtedly borrowed from their fathers’ stables, since journeyman Mages such as they both were certainly were not keeping horses of their own. The grays were skittish high-bred young animals who wanted nothing to do with the Militia’s chestnuts, even as tired out as they must be after the long ride here from the City, and so far the Mages had not bothered to set a spell of Control over them.

He had not thought he would recognize either of the Mages, but he did. One of them was Juvalira, a Senior Journeyman with whom Cilarnen had served during his Apprenticeship. The other was Juvalira’s usual partner, Thekinalo. Both were of middle-level Mage families, without close ties to the Council, as Cilarnen remembered, though Thekinalo had a cousin who was secretary to Lord Harith. Both had older brothers who were Undermages—Juvalira’s brother was an Apprentice Undermage; Thekinalo’s brother had attained Mastership the last Cilarnen had heard—and both of whom served on two of the many Councils that kept the City running smoothly. Juvalira’s brother was Assistant Private Secretary to the Master of the Vermin Control Board for the Seventh District, and Thekinalo’s brother served on the Water Purification Council. Both families were realistic, and neither looked as high for their sons as a seat on the High Council. Undoubtedly Juvalira and Thekinalo expected to follow their brothers into lives of service to the City, marry well when the time came, and bring honor to their respective family names.

And they were both going to die today.

Cilarnen listened as the Captain of the Militia troop argued with the village elders. The Captain wanted to leave immediately. The headman, who had petitioned for help but had received no advance word of their arrival, wanted time for everyone to gather their possessions for the journey. And everyone was gathered around the Captain, shouting about how vital those possessions were—everything from skeps of dormant bees, to foraging pigs, to scattered flocks of sheep and goats, to lost chickens.

A year ago, Cilarnen would have just thought it was funny.

Now he wished Kellen were there with them.

Cilarnen wasn’t really sure how he felt about Kellen Tavadon—whether he liked him and wanted to be friends; or was so jealous of what Kellen could do and the way everybody seemed to adore him for it that he just wanted to strangle him (as if he could); or still felt the simple soothing contempt for Kellen that he had had when the two of them were boys in Armethalieh, and Cilarnen was the envied success, and Kellen was just… pitiable.

But what he did know for sure was that if you dropped Kellen in the middle of the situation in Nerendale, he’d somehow manage to get everyone to stop shouting, and also get everybody organized and moving almost immediately. Because Cilarnen didn’t think they had the time to waste arguing about what to bring, and neither Juvalira nor Thekinalo were doing anything to help.

Cilarnen could have wept.

He was far from knowing all the spells that made up a High Mage’s repertoire, but by now he knew about them. The two Journeymen could have been searching for danger—they knew there was danger around, even if only from whatever was killing the villagers. They could have been calling in the livestock with cantrips of persuasion. And even if they chose to do none of those things, they could have used the inbred reverence of the villages for the Mages of Armethalieh to quell this squabbling and make everyone understand that the village must be evacuated at once.

But they did none of those things.

I remember back in the City, they found it easier to laugh at the disaster my father caused than try to do anything to fix it. By the Light, can all the High Mages be so self-obsessed?

It was earlier in Nerendale than where Cilarnen was; he could tell by the way the shadows lay on the walls of the huts that in Nerendale the sun had not yet reached midheaven, while here near Ysterialpoerin it was already a bell past midday.

He watched, helplessly and in growing despair, as the soldiers shouted and the farmers argued and the blurry winter shadows grew shorter.

This time They came in the light.

Because this time it wouldn’t matter who saw Them, because They meant to leave no one alive.

CILARNEN was the only one who saw Them come. He had drawn the Glyph of Far-Seeing back to high above the village, where he didn’t have to listen to the tragic circular arguments between the villagers and the Captain. From there he could see the whole of the village: the roads, fields, and woods beyond, and the sky above. Because of the Mages’ newly-restored weather-spells, the sky was a pale glassy blue; a color he remembered seeing often enough in winter growing up in the City. Until he had left, he’d thought it was normal for the sky to be that color throughout the winter, but since he’d left, he’d barely seen blue sky at all.

They came from the east. At first he thought the dark shadows upon the horizon were a flock of birds, but only for a few seconds. No flock of birds would fly so fast, nor be so misshapen.

Demons.

Four … six … a dozen. And even one would be enough to kill everyone there.

“Run, you fools! There are Demons attacking!”

He dropped the wards that hid his glyph from detection for long enough to shout that warning, knowing even as he did that it would be useless. Thekinalo and Juvalira heard him—he wondered if they recognized his voice—and began looking wildly around for the source of the outcry.

In doing so, they saw the advancing Demons.

They flung Mage-Shield over the square, shouting orders for the villagers to take shelter, to bar their doors against the mysterious attack. Their voices came to Cilarnen with faint yet unmistakable clarity through the lens of his spell.

The first of the Demons landed atop the shimmering violet Mage-Shield as if it were a dome of glass. As if it were ice, not glass, Cilarnen saw the protective barrier melt away to nothing, absorbed by the Demon’s own magic. The Demon It sprang to the ground, crouching for a moment on bare hands and feet, and gazed up at Juvalira with glowing yellow eyes.

Cilarnen saw the expression on the Mage’s face when he realized what it was he was facing. Childhood nightmares come true. Bad dreams and Commons’ nursery tales brought terrifyingly to life.

It straightened to its full height, and even though Juvalira was mounted, It was able to look him in the eye. Juvalira’s horse skittered wildly sideways, but that did not save him. The Demon plucked him from the saddle as easily as if he were a small child and sprang into the sky with him, unfurling Its great scarlet wings with a snap.

It had only taken seconds.

Juvalira screamed, but his screams were lost in the other screams of men and horses, for the other Demons that had flown behind the first had landed.

One landed on the back of Juvalira’s now-riderless horse. It was trapped in the midst of two-score other horses, all of which had only one thought in their minds: run. Those of the Militia who were still mounted—for many had been thrown in the first seconds after the Demons made their appearance—had no control over their panicked animals at all. Cilarnen heard the screams of those who had fallen beneath the trampling hooves and knew, miserably, that those who died in this way were the lucky ones.

What happened next maddened the terrified animals even further. The Demon that had landed on the gray’s back reached forward. It dug its fingers into the base of the animal’s neck—impossibly, they seemed to sink in, as if they were knives.

Then It gave a savage yank, and the horse’s head and neck parted from its body as easily as a man might tear soft fruit into pieces. Blood jetted from the wet red stump, and the Demon bounded into the air again as the dismembered body collapsed to the earth.

Cilarnen should have felt rage, despair, horror, but he knew that if he felt any of those things it would break the spell. And the most important thing of all—far more important than his own feelings—seemed to Cilarnen to be that he should see and remember what happened in Nerendale today, so that someone, somewhere, would know the truth. Though he knew that what he had seen was only the beginning of the horrors to come, he forced himself to continue watching.

Thekinalo’s horse had thrown him when the first Demon had landed, and he had run into the village’s small Temple of the Light. The sacred enclosure gave him no protection from the Demon that followed him. It killed the Light-priest packing up the sacred objects in the shrine with one backhanded blow.

Thekinalo’s face was chalk white with fear, but he had enough courage to try to fight. He summoned up a spell and cast it at the Demon.

There was a bright flash, and the Demon was enfolded in light. At first Cilarnen thought it must be Fire. But then he realized, as the light grew brighter and brighter still, that Thekinalo had prepared a cantrip for Lightning—a dangerous spell, one a Journeyman should not, by rights, know.

Cilarnen held his breath, hoping it would work.

But the light faded, and the Demon was still there, untouched. It was laughing. All around it, the Temple was burning, as if the lightning had sprayed away from its body like water to kindle everything it touched.

The Demon grabbed Thekinalo. His robes smoked and began to burn where the Demon touched him. The Lightning spell had blown away a large section of the roof and wall; the Demon rose up through the opening, not using its wings at all. Only when they were level with the roof did Thekinalo seem to notice what had happened and begin to struggle.

As if that were some sort of signal in the Demon’s mind, the entire Temple became a roaring blaze, as if it had been suddenly soaked in oil. Thekinalo struggled to throw himself down into the blaze, but it was no use. The Demon, its wings beating strongly now, bore him off into the sky.

They’re taking Juvalira and Thekinalo away alive so that they can torture them to death. Because they’re Mages. Because pain and death fuel the Dark Magic. And if They can get into Armethalieh, They’ll have a whole city full of Mageborn to fuel Their magic. And who knows how strong that will make Them?

In the square beside the village well, Demons barred the way to freedom. Some of the Militiamen had tried to fight, but their only arms were sword and truncheon, and Cilarnen was willing to bet that they had never used either one in actual battle. They were soldiers of Armethalieh, after all. Who could there be to fight?

The Demons had torn those few who had dared to oppose them apart with their bare hands. They hadn’t even bothered to use spells.

The surviving members of the Militia were as willing to flee as their horses, only there was nowhere to go. The alleyways between the small stone huts that ringed the village square were narrow, and the Demons had blocked them with the bodies of dead horses. The Temple of the Light was burning, blocking that avenue of escape. And Demons barred the road out of the village.

A few of the soldiers were still in the saddle, though by now most were on foot, in nearly as much danger from their terrified horses as from the Demons. Now the Demons began to move in, perhaps jealous that anyone else should kill today. They began at the edges of the mass of milling animals, disemboweling horses with one swift swipe of their claws and spreading the entrails in glistening ropes across the ground, leaving the wounded dying animal to thrash and scream in agony as They moved on to the next victim.

Cilarnen forced himself to look around, to see what else was happening here, and that was when he saw four Demons crouched quietly on the roofs of nearby houses. Their wings were folded and Their shoulders were hunched; in Their stillness, They bore an eerie resemblance to the Stone Golems of Armethalieh.

Why are They just watching?

Curious and disgusted all at once, Cilarnen moved his glyph farther away, until once more he felt as if he were hovering high above the village.

When the two Mages had ordered the villagers into their houses, the farmers had not each run to their own homes, but had all crowded into the nearest available shelter: the houses immediately around the village square. Now the children—and the smallest and slenderest of the adults—were climbing out through the windows at the back of the houses and running in groups of two and three down the narrow lanes that led to the fallow fields and the trees beyond.

The Demons on the rooftops were watching with interest.

They cannot mean to let the villagers escape … not now that they have seen the sort of creature their enemy is!

He was right.

The first of the fugitives was at the edge of the fields when the first of the Demons lofted Itself into the air. It soared like a great and terrible carrion bird over one small band of refugees, and as It did, their bodies burst into flame.

It seemed to be a contest among the four as to which could kill most inventively with Its spells. Cilarnen saw flesh liquefied, bodies erupt into hideous boils which burst in fountains of blood and pus until the victim had wasted entirely away, saw bones distort and grow through flesh, saw living men and women turned inside out with a gesture.

And when They had killed everyone who had fled the village, the Demons returned to the houses still sheltering survivors, and took on the forms of four of those who had fled, and climbed in the windows.

Cilarnen steeled himself against imagining what would happen next, and looked back into the village square.

It had been perhaps a chime, if that, since he had last looked, but there was nothing left alive. The body parts of the men and the horses had been mixed together into one red jellylike mass. It covered the ground evenly around the fountain. In places blood had pooled in a declivity in the meat, and the blood sparkled in the sun.

It was hard to imagine that men and horses had been here and been killed. Looking at this strange mess, too horrible for the mind to make sense of, it seemed so much more logical that they had just vanished, somehow, and this … stuff … had been transported out of some other reality to take their place.

Then Cilarnen saw a hand, perfect and unmistakable, still clutching a cavalry sword, and it took all of his training to hold his emotions at bay.

He managed.

Master Tocsel would have approved.

His father—

No.

Cilarnen forced himself to watch, to note every detail, to record all he saw and not to care. Not yet. Strength, insight, dispassion—these made a High Mage. He would master himself. He would master his Gift.

For the good of all the land.

The Demons were playing amid the … mess, jumping up and down in the remains to see the blood splash, just as a child would play in a mud puddle.

They thought it was funny, Cilarnen realized, with a distant sense of discovery. They thought mortality was amusing, they thought pain and death and suffering was entertaining. It was obvious from their behavior that they didn’t think of the humans who had died here today as enemies, nor did they even grant them the basic dignity that the Wildlander farmers gave to the animals they slaughtered for their dinner tables.

No.

The longer he watched, the more obvious it was to Cilarnen that the Demons thought that anybody who died was simply stupid. Because if they weren’t stupid, they’d be both immortal and invulnerable, as Demons were. And obviously the feelings of something stupid enough to get itself killed weren’t even worth considering.

He felt bile rise in his throat, and swallowed hard, willing himself to have the detachment he needed to maintain the spell.

Control. Detachment. Power.

One of the four that had been in the houses stalked out into the square. It had resumed its own form.

It wore a human skin like a cape.

It looked upward, to where the Glyph of Far-Seeing was.

And smiled, baring long bloody fangs.

It knew I was here all along—they all knew! They wanted me to watch—or let me watch—because—because—

It was, at last, too much. With a cry of horror Cilarnen struck out at his worktable, knocking it sideways. His wand, a jar of incense, the small brazier, the Elvenware bowl, were all swept from its surface. The vision vanished like smoke as the bowl spun to the ice. The sound it made when it hit and shattered had a horrible flat finality, like snapping bone.

The terrible spectacle Cilarnen had forced himself to watch unfeelingly came cascading back into his mind, and this time he did not have the needs of the spell to protect him. He staggered out of the ice-pavilion, and the unfiltered light of day struck his eyes like a blow. The normalcy and familiarity of his surroundings should have been soothing, after what he had watched happen in Nerendale, but they were not. Cilarnen looked at the wide expanse of gray sky above, the luminous white of the untouched snowfield below, the green-shading-to-black of the forest’s edge in the distance, and he could see none of these things as themselves, only as what they were not.

Not the sky filled with Demons.

Not the ground soaked with blood, covered with fragments of men and horses, each piece reminding him, as if a story were being spoken aloud in his head, of how some living thing had died in agony at the hands of Demons.

Not the houses that had become killing-pens for the last of the villagers, who had died at the hands of those they thought were their own kin.

Knowing these things at all was like poison. To know the Demons had let him see them …

It was as if he had been a willing participant in what They had done.

Cilarnen fell to his knees in the snow, gagging. Of course he had fasted in preparation for the spell, so there was nothing in his stomach to bring up, but that only made things worse. He felt as if while he had been watching the Demons, somehow They had been looking into him as well. He felt unclean—Tainted—and try as he might, he could not spew up that foulness, make it a thing outside himself.

He felt the old pain return behind his eyes as he scrubbed at his face with snow. Tainted. Somehow he was Tainted, in a way none of them could find the answer to. No one could see it—not Shalkan, not Vestakia, but more than ever Cilarnen was certain that somewhere deep inside himself there was a trap cunningly laid by Master Anigrel when he had sent Cilarnen’s Magegift to sleep.

The thought dissolved before he could fully grasp it, swept away by exhaustion and urgency. The others would want to know all that he knew, and he must tell them immediately.

He forced himself to his feet, shaking with cold and everything he had forced himself not to feel while the spell was running. Tears froze on his face as he stumbled across the snow toward his sleeping pavilion. He would need his warmest clothes for the walk back to the main camp.

MENERCHEL and Hindulo were the ones that found him. Hindulo had scented strange magic on the wind, which was what had brought the two of them so far from their assigned patrol area in the first place. The chestnut unicorn lowered his golden horn to touch the fallen body in the snow experimentally.

“This is not good,” Hindulo pronounced, as Cilarnen stirred only sluggishly. “We need him.”

“Fool of a human and a child!” Menerchel burst out in exasperation, going to his knees beside Cilarnen and lifting Cilarnen to his feet. The boy blinked at him groggily, obviously unaware of how close he had come to death out here in the cold. Cold stole one’s wits, encouraging even adults to believe that they could lie down for a few minutes rest in the snow and arise safely. “Though even children know better than to wander in the snow at night,” Menerchel added.

“Proper children do not come from the Mage City, where they do not have weather,” Hindulo reminded his rider.

“I wasn’t wandering,” Cilarnen protested. His voice was hoarse and slurred. “I must see Redhelwar. Or Idalia.”

“An odd selection of choices,” Menerchel observed. “But Idalia you must certainly see. And quickly, I think.”

“Come—I shall carry the two of you as close to the main camp as I can, and you will take him the rest of the way. Be sure and find out what he thought was so important that he forgot everything he’d learned about weather,” Hindulo added.

“I can hear you,” Cilarnen said, sounding faintly irritated. It was still difficult to understand his speech, but Menerchel could tell he was making a great effort to be understood. “I could tell you now, if you like.” He took a deep breath and began to cough.

Menerchel picked him up and set him on Hindulo’s back, then mounted up behind him. Cilarnen slumped forward against the unicorn’s neck before he could stop himself. He struggled to sit upright; the warmth Hindulo radiated was enough to thaw him to the point his teeth began to chatter violently.

His shivering passed after a few minutes, and Cilarnen began to talk, his voice stronger now, and clear. His speech was as blunt as a sword-cut, but Menerchel was not offended. It would be foolish to hold Mages—especially young human Mages—to the same standards of conduct as his own people. Different peoples had different customs, after all. And Mages were different from everyone.

“There is—there was—a village called Nerendale in the Delfier Valley, where the Mountainfolk come—came—to trade with the City. The—They—came there, and killed them all. And the men and the horses—They took the Mages away with Them—Juvelira and Thekinalo—I knew them—I worked with them at home… .” The boy’s voice faltered, catching on a sob.

“How could you see this?” Hindulo demanded, not pausing in his easy trot across the surface of the snow. “The Wildmages have not been able to see what goes on in the City.”

“I am no Wildmage. The High Magick does what I tell it to do,” Cilarnen said, his voice going hard. But Menerchel could feel his body shaking beneath the heavy cloak with something that was more than cold.

“No further,” Hindalo said regretfully, stopping.

The edge of the main camp lay just ahead. In the darkness, the pavilions that had their lanterns lit glowed as if they themselves were enormous colored lanterns, and the sound of laughter and even music could be heard across the distance. Near the camp the deep loose snow had been cleared from the ground so that the Centaurs and the various mounted units could drill; what remained was hard-packed and easy to walk upon.

“Menerchel will wish to know if he must carry you,” the unicorn added for Cilarnen’s benefit, tossing his head.

“I can walk!” Cilarnen said instantly. “But… I will be grateful if you will come with me, Menerchel. And I thank you—both—for being there tonight.”

“It is a small matter,” Menerchel said. “Do not think of it.”

He swung down from Hindulo’s back, and helped Cilarnen to dismount. The boy was a little unsteady on his feet, but in much better shape than he had been when they had first found him.

“I will wait for you at the edge of camp,” Hindulo said, turning and springing away. His body was a golden gleam against the snow as he sprang through the darkness.

Cilarnen turned to watch Hindulo go.

“They are the most beautiful things in all the world,” he said, as solemnly and intensely as if he were passing judgment.

“In that matter, you and he are in full agreement,” Menerchel said with a smile. “And I as well, for that matter. Come. It is not far.”

Hasty and strange the young human Mage certainly was, but anything that loved unicorns as Cilarnen High Mage so obviously did was certainly of the Light.

A High Mage was something Menerchel only knew of from the oldest of Master Belesharon’s Teaching Stories. He had never expected to meet one—in fact, if anyone had asked him five years ago, he would have solemnly assured them that it was far more likely that he would meet a Knight-Mage first—even though as far as anyone knew at that time, there were no Knight-Mages at all, and there was an entire city of High Mages at the other side of the Wild Lands.

But to meet a High Mage—if he had been foolish enough to attempt it—Menerchel would have had to leave the Elven Lands (and he had been entirely happy in Thultafoniseen, working in his family’s tea business, when he and Hindulo were not engaged in other duties), cross the Wild Lands, and successfully enter Armethalieh, something his friend Hyandur had not been able to do—doing much to prove, in Menerchel’s mind, that the thing could not be done save by overwhelming force.

And since Menerchel had thought in those days that he would be unlikely to leave Thultafoniseen for long, and never leave the Elven Lands at all, and he knew that he was certainly incapable of overwhelming Armethalieh by himself, and the High Mages never left their city, it seemed far more likely that, of the two possibilities, he would see a Knight-Mage first, since a Knight-Mage was a kind of Wildmage when all was said and done, and they were not in the least uncommon in the Elven Lands.

And in fact he had seen a Knight-Mage first, but to add rarity to improbability, a High Mage had left the City of Mages and traveled across the Wild Lands and into the Elven Lands, so now Menerchel had seen a High Mage as well.

I must stop wishing to see things—unless it is our victory, and all of Them vanished. I am certain Hindulo would agree. And yet… it seems very odd to me that such brief and hasty people as the High Mages should have such power as Kellen and Cilarnen have both spoken of. Perhaps they have such powers precisely because there are creatures such as Them in the world. In which case, if all of Them were destroyed, would the High Mages lose their powers as well?

It was a riddle that could not be solved tonight.

Healer’s Row was near the middle of the camp, where the most vulnerable of the camp’s inhabitants—the sick, the wounded, and the Healers, who rarely wore armor, at least while treating patients—could be sheltered in the event the camp was directly attacked. Because it was early in the evening, Menerchel looked for Idalia first in the sick-tents, and not at her own pavilion.

CILARNEN sat on the long bench in the outer room with Menerchel while another Elf—Yatimumil, he thought his name was—went off to get Idalia. The setting bore an odd resemblance to the day he’d met Kellen, and Kellen had dragged him off to the Healer’s tent.

His head had hurt then, too. Thank the Light it wasn’t summer; he felt as if the cold was the only thing keeping the pain at bay. He lowered his head into his hands and squeezed his temples. It didn’t help.

There were Healing Spells in the High Magick, of course, but nowhere in all the Art Magickal had a time been foreseen when a Mage might have to heal himself. Wildmages might wander the earth like solitary lunatics, so Wirance had told him, never seeing another of their own kind from the moment they embraced their magical destiny till the day of their death, but High Mage worked in Circles, in Colleges, in Councils… Cilarnen could be a solitary High Mage much easier than he could imagine one.

“I See you, Menerchel.”

When he heard Idalia’s voice, Cilarnen raised his head.

Menerchel bowed. “I See you, Idalia. The blessings of Leaf and Star be upon you this night. I bring you Cilarnen High Mage, whom Hindulo found asleep in a snowbank, though not for long enough to take much hurt from it, I think. He brings grave news of a place called Nerendale, and he would have you know of it. I regret such rudeness and brevity, but the Unicorn Scouts ride picket tonight, and I am needed elsewhere.”

“Then you must go at once, Menerchel, and give my thanks to Hindulo. The blessings of Leaf and Star go with you also.”

She waited until Menerchel had left, and then turned to Cilarnen.

“Of all the stupid, half-witted, inconsiderate—” she began furiously.

Cilarnen laughed, though it turned into a groan of pain halfway through. “ ‘Stupid’ and ‘half-witted’ I will grant you, Lady—Idalia—though by the Light, I could not bear to be alone tonight—but how ‘inconsiderate’?”

Idalia stared at him for a moment, then took a deep breath. “To begin, once we noticed you missing, we’d have to go looking for you. And then, once we found you dead, some of us would be sorry. And even those who did not mourn your loss would worry that your death meant that some enemy had managed to get close to the camp to kill you.”

“I see,” Cilarnen said distantly. “I apologize for troubling you, Wildmage. Nevertheless, my news is urgent. Perhaps you will hear it and give your opinion as to whether Redhelwar should hear this at once.”

IDALIA sighed inwardly. She’d managed to forget what Kellen had been like at the very first—in feverish high spirits one moment and brooding in corners the next, wearing his feelings on the outside of his skin and as volatile as only a teenaged boy could be.

Though he did his best, Cilarnen was a thousand times worse, adding to Kellen’s mix the sensibilities of a pampered aristocrat and the arrogance of a High Mage. That they all hadn’t been tempted to murder him a thousand times over was a tribute to the fact that somehow Armethalieh hadn’t managed to ruin him.

But tonight he was tired, and he knew he’d pulled a stupid stunt trying to walk down from the ice-pavilion in the dark. It was a long walk even in the daylight. Too long, unless the air was absolutely still and the sun was out.

And he looked ill. Feverish.

Let the plague not come here. Gods of the Wild Magic, is that too much to ask? So many people gathered in one place, it would go through the camp like fire through a standing grain field at harvest.

“Cilarnen?” she asked quietly. “Are you ill? Is that why you came?”

“No.” He sounded very positive, but she had never seen him look less well in all the time she had known him. “My head hurts again, but that is not why I came. They have killed everyone in Nerendale, and the Militia, too. Anigrel sent them to Nerendale—I think he sent them so that they would be there to be killed. Perhaps it was a sort of sacrifice. Or perhaps he does it willingly. They have two High Mages now as well—they were not friends of mine, but they were men I knew. Middle Houses, of course. Not well-connected. Or else they would not have been sent, you see.” His tone was reasonable, but his pupils were widely dilated, and his words made no sense at all.

“Cilarnen,” Idalia said carefully, “you can’t know what’s going on in Nerendale. That’s inside the Bounds, and none of us can scry inside the Bounds.”

“The difference between your magic and mine,” Cilarnen said dismissively, “is that mine does what I tell it to, and yours does what it thinks you should do. Today I saw Nerendale. I wish I hadn’t,” he added, as if to himself.

“You made your magic work,” Idalia said, realizing what Cilarnen was not saying.

Cilarnen nodded, and then winced. “I can cast any of the spells of a High Mage. I haven’t practiced most of them, and I don’t understand them, and I still don’t have a lot of the equipment and materials I need, and some of the spells just require more than one person, but as long as I’m within the Elven Lands, I have the power.” He took a deep breath, and seemed to consider the matter carefully. “I think I’d rather have a dragon.”

Idalia shook her head, exasperated with herself. Shock. He was in shock. She hadn’t seen the symptoms because she hadn’t been looking for them and they were masked by the magic, but they were there, now that she was looking for them.

Curse every High Mage back to the founding of Armethalieh for the way they raised their sons! Cilarnen was no Elven Knight, but it looked like the Mage College could show the House of Sword and Shield a thing or two about stoic endurance.

And possibly pure stupidity.

“First I’ll get you the cordial for your headache. Then I’ll get you a mug of hot sweet cider and a little soup. Then you can tell me about Nerendale from the very beginning. If you can look into Armethalieh, there are some things I’d like to look at.”

SHE sent a runner to the Centaur camp for Kardus, then she had Yatimumil get Cilarnen into dry clothes and wrapped in blankets and settled between a pair of warming braziers. Once she’d dosed him with the cordial and gotten some food and drink into him, his color improved, and he seemed to be tracking better.

By that time, Kardus had arrived.

“You have seen Them again,” the Centaur Wildmage said without preamble.

Cilarnen nodded, looking very much as if he wanted to cry. He nodded. “Like Stonehearth. Worse. Anigrel… he knew They’d be there. I know he did. He sent the Militia right to them. And two High Mages. They took them away alive. They killed all the others.”

“Cilarnen,” Idalia said gently, “will you be able to tell this twice?”

While nothing that had happened several hours ago in Nerendale could be urgent enough to justify rousing Redelwar for in the middle of the night, he would certainly need to be told, and it would be best if he could be told by the one who had actually witnessed the events.

Cilarnen nodded shortly. He seemed to draw on his resources, pulling the facts together in the proper order. Then he began.

“As you’ve guessed by now, the spell to gain a power source worked. The Elven Elementals sent help. As soon as I had a source of power for my spells, the first thing I did was to cast the Glyph of Far-Seeing upon the Council Chamber of Armethalieh.”

Cilarnen said this as if it were the most logical—and reasonable—thing in the world. Idalia supposed a High Mage might think it was, and silently cursed herself for not sending someone to check on Cilarnen every single day—but the army’s resources were still stretched far too thin since the Battle for the Heart Forest and the Spell of Kindolhinadetil’s Mirror. He’d been sure he’d be fine, and was so insistent about being left alone—to study, she’d thought—that she’d simply let the matter drop. The ice-pavilion had been within range of the farthest-out of the patrols, after all, so it wasn’t as if nobody at all had been keeping an eye on him.

Just not, apparently, a close enough one. She’d been going to ride up there tomorrow, since it would have been four days without word.

She sighed. She should have gone sooner. She knew how single-minded Cilarnen had become once he’d gotten the idea that getting his magic back was possible. It probably hadn’t even occurred to him that he should let someone know what he’d done and what he was about to do.

And he’d made fun of the Wildmages for being solitary!

“There are only seven on the High Council now,” Cilarnen went on. “Lord Anigrel—Lord Anigrel, oh, that is a mockery! House Anigrel was never particularly high among the Mage Houses; when Ceonece Anigrel married Torbet Dusaynt there was a great scandal, as he was a commoner, like poor Tiedor, but he had a strong Gift, and House Anigrel fostered him… . Anyway, Lord Anigrel proposed sending the Militia to evacuate Nerendale. The villagers had petitioned for relief. According to the Council, the Wildmages were raiding in the Valley and killing villagers, and they were afraid to stay.”

“Wildmages!” Kardus said in disbelief. “But that’s—”

“Part of Anigrel’s plan,” Idalia said bitterly. “So the Council—which apparently means Anigrel these days—sent a detachment of the Militia to move them.”

“Yes,” Cilarnen said. He pulled his blankets more tightly around himself, staring down at his empty cider mug. “I knew when they would arrive, and I knew there would be Mages with the Militia, so I sent out my next Far-Seeing Spell two days later to find any Mages outside the walls of Armethalieh, since I didn’t know where Nerendale was, or what it looked like. And I found them. Forty soldiers and two Journeymen, Masters Juvalira and Thekinalo. The villagers didn’t know they were coming, and they’d made no preparations to leave. They stood around and argued about what they needed to take. Juvalira and Thekinalo could have made them stop, but they didn’t.

“Then six of Them came.” He stopped, staring at something only he could see.

It took little effort for Idalia to imagine what had happened next, however, and then it did take an effort to keep from grabbing him and shaking him until his teeth rattled. They should never have left him to himself for so long without checking on him. He might have listened to her, or maybe not, but he would certainly have listened to Vestakia or Kardus.

What he would not have done was gone looking for Demons while he was all alone, no matter how much the Allies needed to know what he might learn.

“They saw you, didn’t They?” she said quietly.

Cilarnen jerked as if he’d been stung by a wasp, and stared at her in startled surprise. Then understanding grew in his expression as he realized how she must know. She’d faced the Demon Queen through Kindolhinadetil’s Mirror.

“I thought I’d been careful enough. I’d shielded the glyph. It went undetected in Armethalieh—if it had not, the Stone Golems in the Council Chamber would have alerted the Mages. But They knew I was watching all along. They wanted me to watch, as They … played with the people there.”

“That is Their way,” Kardus said gravely. “They wish to spoil everything They touch. They are the enemy of all who walk in the Light.”

“And now all those people are dead,” Cilarnen said, a despairing note in his voice. “And Anigrel will make it seem as if the Wildmages are responsible, and make everyone in the City even more terrified of Wildmages, if that’s even possible. Idalia, you’ll never get an alliance now. He’s seen to that.”

She wasn’t going to let him talk himself into a complete blue funk.

“Unfortunately, They’ve made one huge mistake. You saw what really happened at Nerendale—and you can testify to that before the High Council under Truthspell,” Idalia said.

Cilarnen stared at her, hope and confusion mixed in his expression. “But… I’ve been Banished,” he said blankly.

Idalia laughed shortly. “Somehow, Cilarnen, I think the entire Elven Army at your back might just be able to reverse that decree. But what you need right now is a bowl of soup and a warm bed. I’ll inform Redhelwar about this now, but I don’t think you’ll be making your report to him until sometime tomorrow, because horrible as this news is, it isn’t urgent.

“But once you’ve recovered, if you can use the High Magick to see places that we can’t, don’t be surprised if Redhelwar has a long list of tasks for you.”

Cilarnen drew a deep breath, obviously at the end of his strength. “If I’m all that Armethalieh can send to help, be sure that I will do all I can.”

Chapter Eight

Hare and Hound

THERE WERE TEN women in Ondoladeshiron who must be taken to the Crowned Horns. This was Ancaladar and Jermayan’s second trip.

He’d grown up with Caronide, Heryelion, Miranaya, and Fire-taldo, just as he had with Amentiel, Missondore, Estauril, Vira-narya, Aryante, and Ingaruuile. Aryante was the youngest—she had been a child when he had left Ondoladeshiron—while Missondore was nearly four centuries his elder. Estauril and Heryelion were close enough to his own age for the three of them to have played together as children.

But they were all part of the fabric of his life.

The fabric that seemed to be unraveling so drastically now.

The people of the War City were careful and practical. Sentarshadeen was the City of Peace, and Ysterialpoerin was the City of History. But Ondoladeshiron, the War City, was where the armies mustered in time of danger, and it was always … watchful.

Jermayan had been saddened, but not surprised, to see the changes war had brought to the city of his birth. Of course many of the city’s inhabitants were away with the army, since Ondoladeshiron sent more students to the House of Sword and Shield than any other of the Nine Cities, and so he had been prepared to see much of the city deserted, but Rochinuviel had asked everyone to move their dwelling-places to the district nearest the Flower Forest, in many cases occupying the homes of those who were away.

It had seemed to Jermayan as if the city had shrunk.

There were many practical reasons for the Vicereign’s request, of course. If the people were gathered close together, they could watch over one another. There was less chance that any of the Dark-tainted creatures who now roamed the Elven Lands might attack a lone dwelling at the edge of the city and overwhelm its occupant. And the nearness of the Flower Forest provided its own subtle protection from Taint, as well as raising the spirits of all who gazed upon it.

But the sight of the streets of empty shuttered dwellings at the outskirts of the city had brought home the reality of the war to Jermayan as nothing else had, despite the terrible battles he had fought, despite seeing Windalorianan destroyed. Watching Ondoladeshiron quietly dwindle, without fire or battle, was like watching a loved one slowly die of a long wasting illness. It had a silent horror that struck him to the roots of his being.

Even if we win this war, nothing will ever be the same again.

“They said that a thousand years ago,” Ancaladar said for his ears alone, breaking into his reverie as they flew toward the Crowned Horns. Jermayan was never quite certain whether the dragon read his mind, or was simply an uncannily accurate guesser. It would certainly take no great sorcery to guess the direction of his mind lately, Jermayan thought ruefully. He had been all but rude ever since they had arrived in Ondoladeshiron. Fortunately the mirror-relays had been working well between Realthataladon and Ondoladeshiron, and everything he and Ancaladar had needed had been waiting for them, so their wait there had been brief, giving him less time to brood over the changes to the city. All they’d needed to do was await the break in the weather that Ancaladar had said was coming.

“And you see? The world went on. Different, and also good,” the dragon continued insistently, finishing his argument.

Yes, my friend, but we won that war,Jermayan answered silently.

Ancaladar snorted explosively. If they had not been carrying passengers, Jermayan was certain he would have been treated to some spectacular aerial acrobatics to jar him out of his mood. Ancaladar said nothing, but he did not need to. Jermayan could easily imagine the dragon’s reply:

“If you do not win this war, you will not need to worry about the state of the world at all.”

Jermayan sighed. He wished he could share Kellen’s faith that matters had taken a turn for the better, but Kellen was the only one who seemed to think they had. For all their sakes, he hoped Kellen was right, but he simply lacked a Knight-Mage’s vision.

A movement on the snow far below caught his attention.

A pack of Coldwarg was loping across the snow in search of prey. They were difficult to spot, being nearly the color of the snow, and it was motion more than color that had attracted Jermayan’s eye.

Some of the pack looked up as Ancaladar’s shadow passed over them. But the dragon did not attack, and they ignored him as they ran on.

So many … Jermayan thought. A pack of such size would make trouble for even the army, should it encounter them. No lesser band of travelers would be safe. They seek to tighten their grasp upon us by proxy, isolating us from each other through weather and Their creatures.

Finally the Fortress was once more in sight. Today it gleamed like the bright crown of the mountains it had been built to be, in those ancient days.

MASTER Tyrvin had not been pleased to hear he must open the doors of his fortress again, and not once, but more than a dozen times so that Jermayan and Ancaladar could bring the women of the Nine Cities to him. When Kellen had visited here earlier in the winter, he had convinced Tyrvin of the need to keep the fortress sealed against any who might be a Demon in disguise. Only Andoreniel’s decree, made for the most logical and compelling, if not the best, of reasons could have convinced the Fortress’s master to obey.

Fortunately I need endure my old friend’s silent reproaches only once more after today, for there is only one atYsterialpoerin who must come here, and then this task is done.

As he landed, Ancaladar broke through the ice-crust on the snow at the foot of the causeway with the sound of an axe biting into wood. Where the crust was unbroken, it was thick enough to bear Jermayan’s weight, and he quickly moved around Ancaladar, helping his passengers from the carrying baskets and then cutting the baskets free of the harness the dragon wore, for they would only hinder Ancaladar on his flight to Ysterialpoerin, and at any moment they might need to fight.

By the time Jermayan was finished with his task, the Knights waiting on the narrow causeway that provided the only access to the Fortress had reached the dragon’s side and were shepherding Jermayan’s charges up the causeway. Jermayan prepared to follow.

“Will you be long?” Ancaladar asked, turning his head to look directly at Jermayan.

“I must see Ashaniel; she left word last time that she wished to see me, but she was asleep when I came, and they would not waken her. But I will be brief.”

Ancaladar snorted gustily. “Brief for Elves,” the dragon sighed. “I will wait.” He spread his wings to catch as much of the sun’s rays as they possibly could.

BY now the narrow halls and corridors of the Fortress were as familiar to Jermayan as the back of his own hand, but the Fortress had been designed to confuse intruders, and he was pleased to have an escort as he followed Shentorris to Ashaniel’s chambers. The colorful and elaborate murals on the walls looked even more battered than the last time he had inspected them; the inevitable result of the corridors being used as battlegrounds for active children.

For battlegrounds and not playgrounds they had now become. Now every child here, not just those who had been students at the House of Sword and Shield, was learning everything the Knights had to teach. It did not matter if they were barely old enough to walk, like Kalainia, or nearly old enough to take the field outside, like Alkadoran, who had been nearly ready to enter the House of Sword and Shield to begin his Knightly training when he had come with the caravan from Sentarshadeen: Each learned all he or she was capable of, whether it was simply to run and hide, or the dancelike moves of swordless fighting, or how to attack with club, stave, bow, sword… .

As he and Shentorris moved down the hall, two Elven children ran the other way. The elder could have been no more than five, her companion at least a year younger, and their faces shone with delight at the wonderful game they were playing. Hands over their mouths to stifle giggles, they dodged down the cross-corridor.

Behind them came Alkadoran, his face grim. In his mind, at least, this was no game, for he was one of the children who had been captured and held prisoner by the Shadowed Elves, and more than many here, he knew the true horror that they all faced. He did not give the two Knights a passing glance, but continued down the corridor after the two children at a measured pace, his lips moving as he counted off seconds.

Hare and Hound, a game all children play … but if it is ever played out in earnest in this place, the stakes will be far higher than the forfeit of a sweetmeat or a hair ribbon. Leaf and Star, if the day comes that the children must fight because we have failed to defend them, I think it would be much better for us, and for them as well, if this place had been sealed up so tightly that they had starved to death instead.

And that is yet possible. Tyr says the food supplies here will not last much past late spring. We must find some way to resupply… .

After several more twists and turns—corridors were short on purpose, and there were many ways to reach every destination—Shentorris stopped before a door. “Come and see Master Tyrvin before you leave. Sandalon will bring you.” He tapped at the door.

A voice from within bid them enter, and Shentorris opened the door.

Few of the rooms of the Fortress of the Crowned Horns had windows, and Ashaniel’s chamber was no exception, though the walls had been painted to make the room seem as if it were a tower room, with paintings of pretended windows on all four walls looking out over the Mystrals in high summer, when the meadows below were green and starred with flowers.

Sandalon and Lairamo, the Elven woman who was nurse to the young Elven Prince, were with the Queen. Jermayan was sorry to see that Sandalon still looked hollow-eyed and unnaturally aged. Idalia had told him that Sandalon blamed himself for being the cause of all the deaths in the caravan that he had been a part of. Idalia had said that he’d told Lairamo that it was his fault because the caravan had only been taken because of him.

It was a terrible weight of responsibility for a young child to carry. They’d all told him it wasn’t true, that he wasn’t responsible for the deaths, or for the capture of Alkadoran, Kalainia, and all the rest.

But of course, in a way he was right: The Endarkened had struck at that caravan precisely because Sandalon was traveling with it. But to say the boy was responsible for the attack would be as if one were saying he could accept responsibility for what They chose to do. And he couldn’t.

It was a difficult concept to explain to a five-year-old child who knew only that some day he would be King, and that being King meant taking responsibility.

Jermayan entered, bowing very low.

“Oh, come, Jermayan, there is no need for such formality here. It was I who asked to see you.”

Jermayan raised his head, and then rose gracefully from his bow. “I shall do whatever my Queen desires.”

Ashaniel chuckled, low in her throat. “You are just as mannerly as Sandalon, you know, Jermayan—and just as hard on your clothes.”

“It is difficult to follow the fashion in the field,” Jermayan said ruefully, settling himself beside her, at her gesture, on the low padded bench. “But naturally such matters are meaningless to you. As always, you neither set nor follow fashion, but transcend it.”

Ashaniel wore a simple gray gown beneath an open fur-lined robe. The lines of the gown were loose, designed to conceal much, though she was not yet halfway through her pregnancy. But unless there were stores of unfinished cloth here in the fortress, the gown she had arrived wearing was the only clothing she had. Ancaladar could carry passengers, but not baggage.

“Were it the season to carry a fan, I would strike you with it to remind you of the utter foolishness of that remark,” Ashaniel said serenely. “Lairamo, perhaps you would find it appropriate to distract our guest with tea before he says something even more foolish.”

Lairamo went to the cabinet at the side of the room and brought out the tea-brazier and a pot.

AS the water heated and then the tea brewed, the three of them spoke of inconsequential things: the weather, the people now living in the Fortress. Both Jermayan and Ashaniel encouraged Sandalon to talk about how he found things here in his new home, since for the first time in his life, there were children his own age around for him to play with. But he was difficult to draw out, as if he were struggling with ideas that he simply did not have the words to express. What he wanted to know about was Kellen, and Shalkan, and Vestakia, and Idalia. In order to save the child from enumerating the entire list of people he had known back in Sentarshadeen, Jermayan told him all that he knew about all of Sandalon’s friends as he had last seen them. He was glad he was able to say that they were all alive and well.

He hoped what he told the boy was still true.

When the tea was poured, and a cup of cider had been mulled for Sandalon, Jermayan sensed that they would soon be coming to the reason that Ashaniel had summoned him.

Sandalon seemed to sense it, too. He finished his drink in a few inelegant gulps and looked appealingly at his mother. She smiled and reached out to ruffle his short dark hair.

“I think it is time for you to go and play gan with Lairamo for a little while, my heart. And then Jermayan will need you to show him the way back to Master Tyrvin’s chambers, or else he will wander here for a very long time.”

Sandalon actually looked grateful to be excused, while the boy Jermayan had known of old would have teased to be allowed to stay and listen in on the conversation of the adults.

“Do you rea—I mean, thank you for allowing me to be of service to you, Jermayan.” The boy made a deep and surprisingly-practiced bow.

“It is my honor and my pleasure as well, Sandalon,” Jermayan replied.

Lairamo took Sandalon’s hand and led him from the room, through a door that was not the one through which Jermayan had entered. The door was flanked by tall painted windows showing a vista of imaginary rooftops, mountains, and a long sweep of flower-starred green. Spring.

Jermayan hardly dared to imagine what horrors this spring would bring.

Ashaniel settled herself more comfortably and refilled both their cups.

“Now,” she said, a hint of winter’s ice in her voice. “Truth will make good hearing.”

Jermayan stared at her in surprise. Ashaniel raised her eyebrows.

“Master Tyrvin assures me that we are all quite safe. One presumes that he is training children of six to wield a dagger because we are all quite safe. One presumes also that he must think that Magarabeleniel has suddenly been wreft of the power of speech—oh, she is no fool, as you know, to spread her news everywhere, but certainly she spoke to me. And so has every woman from every city that you have ferried here.”

“Perhaps,” Jermayan said quietly, “you know more than I.”

“Perhaps,” Ashaniel said unrelentingly. “And if you tell me what you know, we may be certain of it.”

Jermayan bowed his head, acknowledging defeat. “I think I may not know as much as you, Lady Ashaniel, since for nearly two moonturns Ancaladar and I have been flying among the Nine Cities, and our only news is fragmentary and long out of date. Of Lerkalpoldara you know as much as I. You know, too, that Deskethomayel and Windalorianan have been evacuated, their inhabitants sent south. I know that none of them went to Ondoladeshiron, for I have just come from there, and I only hope they reached what destinations they chose safely. There was fear of both plague and blight in Windalorianan when I was there, and also of ancient Allies of the Enemy breaching our northern borders. Because of the Shadowed Elves, Their creatures already roam our land freely: serpentmarae, ice-drakes, and Coldwarg, despoiling the land of both game and herd, and tainting what it feeds upon. Coldwarg I saw myself on our flight here.”

Ashaniel nodded in reluctant approval of this summary. “It is much as I have heard. And so we fall back upon our young cities in the west, and surrender the north to the darkness. Victory, it seems, lies outside our borders, in who claims the allegiance of the Mage City, and when. But I must know what lies within your thoughts, Jermayan, and if it seems to you that it is possible that the High Mages will come to listen to us in time to save themselves and us.”

Jermayan hesitated. He wanted to tell her that certainly Armethalieh would come to its senses and ally itself with the Children of Leaf and Star as Men had with Elves in the last Great War.

But not even Kellen had faith in that, though Kellen believed the Light would win this war.

“Perhaps yes, perhaps no,” Jermayan said at last. “Kellen believes that whatever path the Golden City chooses, the Light can yet prevail.”

“But I would hear your thoughts, not what Kellen believes,” Ashaniel reminded him softly.

“It is … too soon to say,” Jermayan said, after a long silence had grown between them. “The human High Mage Cilarnen reminds us of something we had nearly forgotten—that Armethalieh, too, remembers the ancient Enemy. The war has not yet touched the human city. When it does, it may well be that they awaken to their true danger and fight, for all that Anigrel High Mage has done to make them blind and unaware.”

“So … ‘the Wild Magic goes as it wills’?” the Queen quoted with a faint smile.

“Kellen Knight-Mage has often been right before. And he feels we are closer to victory than we have ever yet been,” Jermayan said honestly.

“But all know that Kellen has two selves,” Ashaniel said, touching once again on many of the Elves’ greatest worry. “It would be good to know which speaks: the human boy or the Knight-Mage. We all hope. But I must know.”

Jermayan shook his head decisively. “Once, at the beginning, before Kellen knew what it was to be a Knight-Mage, before any of us knew what the cost of this war was to be … yes, then he had two selves and either might speak. But the fires of war have burned the boy to ash, and only the Knight-Mage speaks now.”

“Then the Knight-Mage believes there is a chance for victory,” Ashaniel said, resting her hand lightly against her stomach.

“One thing Kellen has never done well is evade the truth. It is wholly entertaining to watch him try. The Wild Magic speaks to him. If he believed anything other than what he has said, I would know. And I would not have come to see you at all.”

His words caused Ashaniel to go completely still for a moment. Then she smiled—the first genuine peaceful smile Jermayan had seen since he had entered her chamber.

“Then fare you well, Jermayan, and a swift and serene journey to you. May our victory come swiftly, and at a price no higher than any of us can bear.”

“May Leaf and Star grant that it be so,” Jermayan said, getting to his feet.

SANDALON escorted him through the labyrinthine corridors of the Fortress of the Crowned Horns. In contrast to his earlier silence, the boy chattered along now, pointing out landmarks of his games and—now—talking about friends and playfellows.

“Aralmar is very slow. She is in my group—we’re the Badgers—but she never hides fast enough, and Master Tyrvin says we are not to help each other hide lest we be caught ourselves.”

He looked at Jermayan questioningly.

“I suppose if those are Master Tyrvin’s orders, you must obey them. He was my master once, and he is very wise. Still, if you can help Aralmar so that she can hide faster, and keep anyone from catching you at it, that would be a very clever thing to do. And since Master Tyrvin is teaching you to be clever, it would be hard for him to object.”

Sandalon beamed, and even skipped a few steps. Then he slowed again. “Mama is very sad,” he said.

“I think perhaps she will be less sad now,” Jermayan said. He only hoped Kellen never found out that he’d told Ashaniel that they were going to win because Kellen said they were going to win. He wasn’t entirely certain how Kellen would react.

“Because we’re—” Sandalon began excitedly, then managed to stop. “I mean, it would be good to know how much longer we’ll have to remain here.”

“I’m sorry, Sandalon,” Jermayan said. “I truly don’t know.”

SANDALON stopped before a familiar door. “I will leave you here, of your courtesy,” he said, with carefully-acquired manners.

“I thank you for your company on the way,” Jermayan answered, equally formally. He waited until the boy was out of sight before knocking at Master Tyrvin’s door.

After a moment, Tyrvin opened it. “Enter and be welcome,” he said, stepping aside to allow Jermayan to pass.

“I will not keep you overlong,” Tyrvin said without preamble, “for I am certain Ancaladar will not thank me for it. Yet I will be grateful for all that you wish to tell.”

Jermayan bowed in acknowledgment. “You will rejoice, I am certain, to know that you will only see me once more. I fly once from Ysterialpoerin, and then you may seal the Fortress until our victory.”

“I do not doubt this to be a matter much upon Ashaniel’s mind,” Tyrvin commented.

“I hope I brought her comfort. I could say to her only what I have said to you, and what Kellen Knight-Mage has said to Redhelwar: that he believes we may prevail.”

“Let our victory come before high summer, then,” Tyrvin said bluntly. “We are adequately provisioned, but we cannot hold out past that. And from all you have told me of what roams the land, it will not be possible to resupply us.”

Jermayan shook his head in reluctant agreement. “No supply caravan can reach you safely overland, even in the spring. The Coldwarg will retreat with the snows, but They have other creatures who do not fear the warmth. And you will not dare to unbar your doors lest any who come be the Enemy in disguise.”

“True enough,” Tyrvin said. “You and Ancaladar I know cannot be impersonated by Them. But few others.”

There was a long moment of silence, filled with the things neither Knight wished to say aloud.

“You must go now,” Tyrvin said at last. “I will walk you to the gate.”

“BRIEF, were you?” Ancaladar scoffed. He got to his feet and fanned his wings, shaking nonexistent drifts of snow from them.

“As brief as was suitable,” Jermayan said. He brushed crusted snow from the stirrup and vaulted into Ancaladar’s saddle, pulling the riding-straps into place with the ease of long practice.

Ancaladar lumbered through the snow, bounding down the long slope that led away from the Fortress, his wings folded tightly against his back as he built up speed. Snow and shards of ice-crust sprayed up around him to either side in wide fans.

When he was running flat-out, he spread his wings with a sudden snap, and was pulled from the ground. For the first few yards, the dragon struggled for height, wings fanning, but then he found the wind he’d been seeking and gained height quickly in a series of sharp zig-zagging motions, until he’d reached what he considered a safe height above the ground.

“And now?” Ancaladar asked, once he was soaring smoothly through the sky.

“Ysterialpoerin,” Jermayan answered. “But I wish to go to the camp first, and speak to Redhelwar.”

“And Idalia,” the dragon said smugly.

KELLEN’S scouts had brought more reports of plague in the days that followed, until he ordered his scouts to stay away from settlements entirely. He dared not risk losing any of his troops to sickness out here in the cold waste, especially with the mountains still to cross.

They lost a fortnight camped at the foot of the Mystrals as a winter storm raged over them. To attempt to ascend the mountains in such weather would be purest suicide, but though the delay was unavoidable, it gnawed at Kellen’s nerves. At least they’d be able to stop at Ondoladeshiron to resupply, and to get out of the weather for a day or so, and from there the journey to Halacira and on to Sentarshadeen should be fairly easy going. The weather should be milder too, at least by comparison.

At last the weather broke, and the army moved on.

When they entered the mountains, Kellen rode far ahead of everyone, for Shalkan, sure-footed as a mountain goat and light-footed as only a unicorn could be, blazed the trail through the passes for the snow-sledge to follow. The unicorn was able to tell where the ice would bear the weight of the carts and horses, and where it would crack and fissure, trapping the heavy, slow-moving oxen. The two of them searched the slopes above for the treacherous, precariously-balanced weights of snow that might at any moment cascade into a deadly snow-spill, crushing men and animals beneath tons of snow and ice.

Most of all, both Knight-Mage and unicorn strained their senses to detect the Enemy’s creatures. The high cold realms were their natural habitat, and the narrow mountain passes were the perfect spot for an ambush.

“ARE you sure this is the smartest thing we’ve ever done?” Kellen asked, trying to keep the uneasiness out of his voice.

It was their seventh day in the mountains, and so far they had encountered no living things at all. Kellen distrusted the quiet; in his time with the army, he had gained the soldier’s dislike of too much good fortune. It always seemed to mean that some particularly bad stroke of luck was about to fall.

And so far, they’d been far too lucky. Only a few cases of frost-burn, some snow-dazzle, and a bit of mountain-sickness, all of which the Wildmages—all from the High Reaches—had warned him to expect. They’d run out of fresh meat during the storm, but they still had enough provisions to make Ondoladeshiron.

Much too easy, Kellen thought grimly. And I know They know we’re here. Why aren’t They trying to stop us?

He had the sense that Their attention was elsewhere, that They weren’t paying attention to him because They felt They didn’t need to. Either Their attacks and defenses had been put into place long ago, or They were concentrating Their attentions on something They thought was far more important than destroying a third of the Elven Army.

And if that was the case, Kellen desperately wanted to know what it was.

Kellen’s force was several hundred yards behind him, and the whistling of the wind over the ice-covered rocks drowned out any sound they made. Though he could sense their presence through the Wild Magic, his eyes and ears insisted to Kellen that he and Shalkan were completely alone in a frigid gray and white wilderness. He hadn’t really liked the idea of riding out with him and Shalkan so far ahead of any possible support—or rescue—but they were the only ones who would be able to find any traps before the army did. He really had no choice.

“Oh, let me see …” Shalkan appeared to actually be giving Kellen’s question serious thought. “We faced down several Outlaw Hunts clumped together armed with nothing more than a big stick. We attacked an Endarkened stronghold with only Jermayan and Vestakia for company, and then you defied the Queen of Shadow Mountain in your underwear. You challenged Belepheriel and disobeyed Redhelwar and entered the Shadowed Elf caverns with only Idalia to accompany you. This is probably not the most ill-considered venture of your career.”

“You know, that makes me feel a lot better,” Kellen said.

“It should,” Shalkan said sweetly. “Since you survived all those things, you’ll probably survive this, too.”

“ ‘Probably,’” Kellen muttered.

“Well, there are no certainties, of course,” Shalkan drawled. “I just think you ought to bear in mind that if you don’t survive, this army you’re leading probably won’t make it to the banks of the Angarussa, and if Redhelwar loses a third of his Knights and his Knight-Mage, I don’t think he can win the war. And now I think it’s time for you to dismount so we can fight for our lives.”

The last sentence was delivered in the same light conversational tones as the rest of Shalkan’s speech, so it took a moment for the sense of his words to penetrate.

Kellen didn’t waste a moment in foolish questions, but flung himself from the unicorn’s saddle. The quiver of trail-wands at his hip spilled onto the ice as he drew his sword.

Light at the Heart of the Mountain glowed, even in the dull winter’s light. Kellen knew his sword had no magic—the Elves were not Mages, to craft magic swords—but the blade had a perfection that was nearly Otherworldly.

As if the flicker of light on steel were a signal, a thunderous roar filled the air, coming from farther up the narrow pass. Kellen knew instinctively—a Knight-Mage’s gift—that the passage opened out ahead. They could use the room to fight, if they could reach the open space before whatever had made the sound reached them.

Something strong enough to stop us, he thought as he ran. Don’t bother with arrows, then. Cut it to pieces. And stay out of its reach.

That wasn’t going to be easy.

All at once the walls of the passage ended, and Kellen was standing at the entrance to an ice-field that slanted down and away from him. It was one of the landmarks he and Shalkan had been told to look for; it meant they were near the top of the pass and would be starting down soon. It would also give the army a place to stop and rest for a few hours.

Just as he reached the open air, he saw something come charging up the slope. When it saw him, it skidded to a stop. Kellen sensed he’d disappointed it: He should have been terrified of its bellowing, and cowered in the narrow pass until it could reach him and tear him to pieces.

It reared up on its hind legs.

And up—

And up—

“Shadewalker,” Shalkan said tersely from behind Kellen’s left shoulder. “Though usually they come in black,” he added in something closer to his normal conversational tones.

Atroist and Jermayan had said that Shadewalkers looked like giant bears. When Kellen had lived in the Wildwood, Idalia had told him to be wary of bears, but Kellen had never seen one. He decided now he didn’t want to.

The Shadewalker was as tall as three men standing upon one another’s shoulders, and so massive that it actually looked squat. It was covered in thick dirty-white fur. It had a flat triangular earless head that reminded Kellen of a snake’s—and Kellen hated snakes—and beady blazing red eyes. Long curved yellow teeth protruded from both its upper and lower jaws, distorting its rubbery black lips. It had narrow sloping shoulders, and its long arms dangled. Against the whiteness of its fur the long black claws that studded its paws glistened like glass knives. Its hind legs were squat, bulging with muscle.

It will try to get past me and reach the convoy, Kellen thought. Then there was no more time for thought as the Shadewalker dropped to all four legs again and charged.

If he had not been a Knight-Mage, trained in the House of Sword and Shield, it would have been fatally easy for Kellen to misjudge the scale of his attacker and the seeming slowness of its attack, and not gotten out of the way in time. But as if Time itself had stopped, Kellen knew where the blow would strike. He dug his heels into the treacherous ice beneath his feet and sprang backward at the last moment, striking downward with his sword as he did.

The claws missed him by inches, and his sword did not cut as deeply as he’d hoped. But it drew blood, and the Shadewalker recoiled, bellowing in outrage.

Kellen was already running down the slope, away from the entrance to the pass. Shalkan danced over the ice, circling in the opposite direction. Both knew that the Shadewalker would not dare turn its back on them while it was uncertain of how much of a threat they represented.

It reared up, slapping at the shallow cut on its arm, trying to keep both of them in sight at once. Certain now that he had the Shadewalker’s attention, Kellen stopped and turned, concentrating upon the enemy he must kill.

For Kellen, the world became stark and vivid, as he automatically dropped into Battlesight. The Shadewalker’s enormous muscled form was overlaid with a vivid tracery of red and blue images, showing Kellen where best to strike, and how the beast would attack, but how he could land a blow upon an enemy with a reach more than three times his own was a problem never addressed within the Teaching Circle at the House of Sword and Shield.

He must find a way.

Half a dozen times Kellen began an attack, only to break off at the last moment as the Shadewalker moved to block it. The only parts of it within his reach were its enormous arms, and while he could hit them, he was not completely sure he could do enough damage. The only thing he succeeded in doing was in luring it farther out onto the snowfield, where he and Shalkan had more room to move.

He was afraid for Shalkan.

He pushed that fear aside.

He was afraid for the Knights who would be hurrying to help.

He pushed that fear aside.

Only the Battle-mind could help him now.

Once, in the House of Sword and Shield, Kellen had sparred against a dozen Knights. Then, the object of the exercise was to move through them neither striking nor being struck: Master Belesharon had called it “Water Mind,” and it was one of the gifts of a Knight-Mage. It was also the hardest thing Kellen had ever achieved, for Water Mind showed him the course of the unfolding battle as if it were the water through which a fish swam, and as the fish sensed obstacles in its path, so Kellen could sense how the fight would move, and he could move with it, or around it.

Or into it.

Water Mind was dangerous, for it drained energy, strength, reserves, far past the point of exhaustion. But he had no choice now.

Kellen felt the utter peace of Water Mind enfold him, and suddenly he had all the time in the world. The tracery of light over the Shadewalker’s body dimmed and vanished, for Kellen no longer needed it. He stepped forward, bringing his sword up in a drawing cut beneath its arm, and stepped back.

It was as if he and the Shadewalker no longer fought, but cooperated in the deadly dance of its destruction. Kellen never shifted more than a few steps to avoid its wildly-thrashing arms; when it lowered its head to snap at him, his dagger was already in his hand. He drove it through the bottom of the jaw, spiking the creature’s tongue to its soft palate and making it keen in muffled agony.

Shalkan darted in behind, stabbing with his horn. The Shadewalker swung around on all fours, slashing at the unicorn, then turned back to confront his chief tormenter, pawing at its chin and finally tearing the dagger free in a spatter of blood.

Kellen cut again, this time across the ribs. He reversed his blade and brought it down hard across the Shadewalker’s foreleg. He felt the blade grate against bone, but the limb remained intact.

The Shadewalker reared back, taking its wounded head and arm out of Kellen’s reach, but as it did, it exposed its belly.

Kellen feinted toward it with his sword—

Swayed backward out of the way of the slashing blow the creature aimed at him—

And struck with all his might in the moment it was off-balance.

It tumbled forward, its weight ripping its flesh along the edge of the blade. Kellen let the momentum of his strike carry him in the opposite direction, so that he would not be beneath the Shadewalker’s body when it collapsed. Its belly tore open with a foul-smelling gush of entrails; it collapsed into them, releasing a wet stench. Almost instantly frost began to form on the exposed gray-pink surfaces.

It struggled to get to its feet for a few seconds longer, then something else tore inside it, and dark red blood came squirting out over the mass of pale intestines and onto the snow, causing a cloud of steam to rise around the still-twitching body.

Seeing that, Kellen knew his work was over, and Water Mind left him.

The floating peace he had felt only an instant before deserted him. Suddenly he felt as if he couldn’t breathe—or as if he hadn’t taken a breath in far too long. He took an unsteady step backward, and sat down—hard—on the ice. The world darkened, and all he could see were sparkling lights before his eyes.

“Kellen?” Shalkan’s voice, sounding very far away.

“Kellen!”

Isinwen dragged him to his feet. Though Kellen’s vision was still hazy, he could see Rhuifai, Seheimith, Janshil, and the rest of his troop crowded in behind his Second.

“I’m fine,” he said unconvincingly.

“You’re hurt,” Isinwen said, sounding worried.

“No,” Kellen protested. But a deep breath brought a sudden soreness in his right side, and when he reached down, his fingers encountered roughness instead of the glassy smoothness of his armor’s enameled surface.

He looked down. There were three long furrows across his ribs, where one of the Shadewalker’s blows had come a little too close. He would have an excellent set of bruises to show for this encounter.

“Nothing that Allheal won’t cure,” Kellen said, feeling stronger now.

“You take too many chances,” Isinwen said, a note of exasperation—and relief—in his voice.

Kellen nodded. There was nothing to say. He knew it was wrong to hazard himself this way when he was responsible for the lives of his entire force. But he also knew that no one else could do what he had done, and if he had not done it, his command would have perished.

“Go back to the convoy and bring them up. Pass the word that we will stop here long enough to drink tea. I could do with a cup myself,” he added. He felt thirsty—unusually so. Undoubtedly it was more of the aftermath of Water Mind. The floating state was a potent tool, but just like his own sword or dagger, it did not care what it harmed, and could destroy him as easily as an enemy.

Isinwen sent the others went back to their waiting destriers, and, with a last glance around the snowfield to make sure that no other danger lay in wait, followed. A few moments later six of the Knights mounted up and headed back toward the rest of the convoy. The rest settled down, spreading their cloaks to form a windbreak, and prepared to brew tea.

When they were thoroughly engaged in the activity, Shalkan trotted back to Kellen’s side.

“Not that I had any doubts, of course, but it was interesting to watch,” the unicorn said.

“Even more interesting to do,” Kellen said, stretching tentatively.

He realized that the blood from the kill had frozen along the surface of his blade and sighed. It would take warm water and oil, then a session with a sharpening stone, before the blade was at its best again.

It took him three tries to summon Fire into the small block of charcoal that he laid inside his shield—he could have gone and gotten Fire from Isinwen but it would have meant leaving Shalkan alone—but once it was burning, it gave off enough heat to melt the ice beneath it sufficiently that he could begin to clean his sword. Once it was clean enough to sheath, Kellen tipped the charcoal out onto the ice and set the shield aside.

“There’s something here you should see,” Shalkan said, prodding at the body of the Shadewalker.

“What?” Kellen asked.

“Figure it out for yourself,” Shalkan said, twitching his tail. “I’ll be around.”

Kellen sighed. It was awkward having to divide his time between Shalkan and the army, but there really wasn’t any way for him to have specified that all members of his command be chaste virgins. It simply wasn’t practical.

Keirasti and her troop rode out onto the ice-field, passing Isinwen and the others with a casual salute. She swung down off Orata’s back and walked over to the body of the Shadewalker.

“That is a very ugly bear,” she announced.

Kellen walked over to join her. “Shalkan said it was something called a Shadewalker.”

“And it seems we are not the first to try its mettle recently,” Keirasti continued. “It bears wounds of recent fighting—sword wounds—less than a sennight old, I judge.”

She pointed.

“But… those are mine,” Kellen said, dumbfounded.

He realized suddenly just how lucky he’d been to strike the fatal blow that he had. The Shadewalker’s earlier injuries had already partly healed by the time he’d struck the blow that killed it—in fact, the first wound he’d given it was entirely gone. Even the deep cut to its foreleg was more than half healed.

The wounds Shalkan had given it were still raw and fresh, however, which made Kellen wonder. He knelt down beside it and investigated the body carefully, parting the fur to inspect the hide, and found several more wounds, these old enough to have healed over into angry raised knots in the Shadewalker’s black skin.

“The scouts Redhelwar sent to Sentarshadeen came this way,” he said.

“It is the main road to the King’s city, and the fastest way,” Keirasti said, puzzled at the seeming change of subject. “It is the way I would have gone, were I sent.”

“Then they met this… thing,” Kellen said. “And from the look of these wounds, they didn’t get farther than this, either.”

Fighting against an enemy who could heal anything but a mortal wound a hundred times faster than normal, the messengers must have been unable to kill it. And it had undoubtedly made sure to catch them in a place where their unicorn mounts couldn’t simply outrun it. That trick would have worked again, on Kellen, if he and Shalkan had been a few seconds slower reaching the icefield.

Keirasti made a quick gesture over her heart. “Gone to Leaf and Star,” she said quietly.

“But never again,” Kellen said grimly.

THEY saw no further evidence of the Enemy in their descent from the Mystrals, which made Kellen brood over their continuing good fortune. Their losses continued to be light, but descending a mountain presented more hazards than going up one—they lost wagons and teams of oxen down the sides of cliffs, along with supplies they could ill-afford to lose. It was up to Kellen to make the decisions that had to be made with the loss of supplies, and he chose to divert the remaining food, as much as possible, to the horses and oxen. The Knights could manage on shorter rations than their animals could, and Ondoladeshiron was less than a moonturn away now, depending on the weather.

But if the Enemy left them alone, the winter weather nearly made up for Their absence. Just after the army crossed the top of the peaks, the weather turned unexpectedly bad, making their descent through the mountains slow and miserable. Kellen and his Seconds pushed everyone as hard and as fast as they dared—they had to get down out of the mountains before they froze, starved, or were simply buried in snow.

THAT’S it, Kellen thought, patting Firareth’s neck. Leather glove met padded crinet-cover with a dull wet sound, but Firareth seemed pleased. I’m not going over those again—not even at high summer.

It was early morning, barely light enough to ride. For a few hours, the Wildmages had promised them a break in the weather, and Kellen meant to take full advantage of it. For the last several days the army had been making its way through a series of mountain valleys, each indistinguishable from the last—or the next. But now they could fairly say that the mountains were behind them at last.

And if Redhelwar was to follow them, the Army’s General would have to take the same route—and Redhelwar had most of the army’s heavy equipment—the large tents, the main horse herds and remounts, the Centaur cavalry. And half again as many souls to move.

But he’ll have to move south to Ondoladeshiron. Five of the six Elven Cities that remain—if Deskethomaynel and Windalorianan were evacuated—are south of the Mystrals, and he has to be in a position to defend them if that’s what Andoreniel decides to do. The only one north of the Mystrals isYsterialpoerin, and the Elves won’t leave that.

But that makes it such a perfect target… .

Kellen sighed. He knew there was no point in worrying about that now. His job was to scout Halacira as a refuge for the families of the Elven Allies, and then go on to Sentarshadeen. And then, yes, report back to Redhelwar, which would probably mean crossing the Mystrals again—though fortunately not with a full army this time. Fortunately, they didn’t need the snow-sledge here on the plains, and their progress would be faster.

BUT after the first sennight, Kellen realized he had no choice but to send an advance party ahead to the city. They’d simply lost too much of their supplies crossing the mountains.

It was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. He wanted to lead the advance party himself, and knew that as the commander he had to stay with the main force.

But to send them off alone, knowing that the relative peace of their journey so far might simply be a subtle trap of the Enemy, knowing the advance party might never reach Ondoladeshiron at all … who, could he send?

He agonized over his choice, knowing it was obvious. The party should be made up of Knights from the skirmishing units, used to traveling light and fast and fighting independently. Keirasti should be in command; he knew she’d lead them well. They’d need Reyezeyt, who was one of the best trackers he had.

No matter who he sent, he’d be sending friends.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it?

He was alone in his tent, looking down at the scroll that carried the tally of his command. Outside the wind howled, making the heavy fabric of the tent shudder. He huddled next to a single brazier, using a ball of Coldfire for light. Charcoal and lamp oil were only two of the things they were running out of, and everybody was sleeping four and five to a pavilion for warmth, but he’d needed to be alone right now. There was nobody he could really talk to about this, nobody who could make these decisions for him. Tomorrow he had to make the selections and send an advance party to Ondoladeshiron in hopes they could bring back supplies. He probably should have done it yesterday.

This isn’t like a battle. There isn’t one right answer. I don’t even know that they won’t get through and get back. I just have to be willing to send them, and know, if they die, that I’m the one who sent them to their deaths.

And that was why he hesitated.

Not because he wasn’t willing to do that.

But because he was.

Long before he’d become a Knight-Mage, before he’d really understood what the Wild Magic was, Kellen’s greatest fear had been that he would become a tool of the Dark. Though he’d realized his original fear was unfounded, the more he’d come to learn about the Demons, and how they corrupted Wildmages to their use, the more he worried—about his actions, and their consequences, and his reasons for doing everything he did. Ancaladar had said that in the Last War, the Bonded had taken their dragons with them into the service of the Demons out of love—the desire not to see their dragons die at the end of a human lifespan.

So the path into the Dark can begin with good intentions, and the desire to do good, even if it’s wrong and misplaced. And if I’m willing to sacrifice lives in a good cause, am I going to know when to stop?

And if I don’t, is anyone going to be able to stop me?

He took a deep breath.

If I do nothing out of fear of what I may do, They win anyway.

He unrolled the scroll and began to choose.

A sennight later Keirasti met them on the road—if you could call it that—coming up from Ondoladeshiron. All thirty of the Knights Kellen had sent were with her, and she had six sledgewagons of supplies.

Even though they had encountered Keirasti’s trail-wands along the way—each cluster proof that the party she commanded was still alive—Kellen did not relax until she had rejoined the main force.

Even as he gave the orders to make camp, and as the army surrounded the wagons and began unloading them, Kellen realized he’d been expecting the very worst up until the last moment—for Keirasti and her people to be ambushed within sight of the army, or …

Or things I can’t imagine until the moment they’d happen. But manage to worry about anyway, Kellen realized with a rueful grin.

“It would be good to know what you can tell about the journey,” he said, bringing Firareth up beside Orata.

“We brought tea,” Keirasti said, pushing her fur-lined hood back from her helmet and starting with what she obviously considered the most important matter. “Grain, charcoal, oil, trailfood. Rochinuviel says not to come into the city when you get there—they have plague. It’s in Sentarshadeen as well—everywhere in the south—the mirror-relays are up south of the Mystrals, and they have fresh news. And some Darkspawn blight is infesting the forest and killing the trees around the city, though it hasn’t attacked the Flower Forest. Rochinuviel worries that they may not be able to plant in the spring, if what is affecting the trees spreads. She thinks the Deathwings bring it—they were certainly too busy with something to bother us, though we saw enough of them. No Coldwarg bothered us either, for which Leaf and Star be thanked, though I shot enough serpentmarae to make myself a new pavilion, if I’d stopped to skin the damned things.”

Kellen grinned, too relieved to see her to worry about the bleak news she’d brought.

“I’m glad you’re back.”

Keirasti snorted. “As if I’d leave you to wander around out here all by yourself. As soon as we’ve unloaded everything, we’ll all have a proper hot meal, and then I can make a full report.”

THAT night, well-fed and reasonably warm for the first time in sennights, Kellen took the opportunity to discuss what Keirasti had told him with Shalkan. He’d had a spare pavilion pitched at a suitable distance from the main camp for the unicorn’s comfort—he wouldn’t risk spending the night here, but he could certainly afford a few hours, now that they had the charcoal to spare to keep him from freezing.

Keirasti hadn’t had much to add to her initial report—only more details of the journey to Ondoladeshiron, and more information about what she had heard from the Vicereign.

“You were expecting plague,” Shalkan pointed out. “And they’re having more success in treating it in Ondoladeshiron, according to Rochinuviel, than they did at White Spring.”

“Yes…” Kellen admitted slowly. Once Reyezeyt had reminded him that plague was mentioned in the Teaching Songs about the Great War, he’d spent a lot of time going over what he remembered of them, and asking Isinwen to fill in the gaps in what he remembered. “The stories about the Last War mention sickness … if it’s following the same pattern now as it did then, it will spread from the people to the animals—or maybe there are different kinds, and the animals just haven’t started getting sick yet. And They certainly used some kind of crop-blight last time: It’s one of the reasons so little grows in the Lostlands. But there are remedies for it, too. And if They sent the blight this early in the winter, it isn’t going to affect very much, and we’ll know we need to be ready for it in the spring.”

If, he reflected, there was anyone available to plant crops in the spring. He ruffled the unicorn’s fur, wordlessly seeking comfort. Shalkan leaned into him.

“So it doesn’t make sense for them to use it now,” he went on, following the train of his own thoughts. “It seems as if they’re throwing everything at us here in the Elven Lands that they can get over the Borders. And why would they bother if they were certain they were going to win?”

“Well, they haven’t got Armethalieh yet,” Shalkan agreed. “And even if They can weaken the Land-wards to the point where Frost Giants and Ice Trolls can cross them, instead of just being brought in by the Shadowed Elves, They still won’t risk crossing them Themselves. But that doesn’t mean that enough High Mages working for them can’t destroy the Land-wards.”

“Or strengthen them,” Kellen said. “Maybe Cilarnen can tell us if that’s possible. But the point is, if They were so certain that winning was just a matter of time—taking Armethalieh over to the Dark and using it—why bother about us at all?”

“Knowing the answer to that is not the same thing as being able to use it,” Shalkan said.

“Not yet,” Kellen answered grimly.

WITH the additional supplies that Keirasti had brought, the last sennight’s journey toward Ondoladeshiron was nearly easy.

As Keirasti had warned, herds of serpentmarae roamed the plain for hundreds of miles around the city, and along the way Kellen got his first look at the creatures.

The sight of the herd of dun-colored beasts pacing the convoy—they resembled giant rats as much as anything equine—was deeply unsettling to Kellen, for it brought back sharp memories of the vision he’d once had of a battle of the Great War, in which he’d seen these things being ridden into battle against the forces of the Light. For now, the serpentmarae herd simply followed at a wary distance, hoping to pull down stragglers—or, as Reyezeyt informed him, to attack the other creatures of the Plains who also followed the convoy, hoping for food.

He did what he could: assigned several skirmishing units to ride up and down the column, making sure that nobody fell behind, even by so much as a few hundred yards; posted additional guards at every night camp. And always he worried about what he might have left undone, and if he might be overlooking something vital.

IT was with both relief and an odd sense of loss that Kellen finally sighted the Gathering Plain outside Ondoladeshiron. The first time he’d seen it—was it only a few moonturns ago?—he’d been a different person entirely.

The Wild Magic is a magic of change, and change isn’t always pleasant—or easy, he reminded himself. He’d known then that he would have a crucial part to play in the war to come, and knew that he would have to change if he was to play it. But he’d never suspected how much he’d have to change, or what that change would cost him.

I’ve killed more times than I can count. I’ve lost friends. I’ve seen friends die. And maybe worst of all, I’ve learned to see my friends as pieces on a xaique-board, and I know that I’ll do what I have to do to win.

Because not to win, when the stakes were this high, was unthinkable.

There were more supplies waiting for them on the Gathering Plain—cairns containing more fuel, fresh meat, blankets—and Kellen set his people to the task of making a more permanent camp. They’d all earned a rest—even if only a few days.

And he wanted to talk to Rochinuviel, if that were at all possible.

“THE messages left with the supplies say that the sickness is under control in Ondoladeshiron,” Isinwen reported, holding out a handful of long slender sticks to Kellen. Kellen could see that they were ringed with bands of color, but Elves saw far more colors than humans did; one of the few skills Kellen had been unable to master in the House of Sword and Shield was that of reading the trail-wands that the Elves used to leave messages in the field.

“Read them to me, of your courtesy,” Kellen said.

“The Vicereign still does not wish us to enter the city, but there is a place outside where the foresters will check for messages, and where they will leave fresh supplies for us. She says that the mirrors say that the serpentmarae have not been sighted south of here. Which means that the rest of our journey should be a simple matter indeed.”

“Oh yes, very simple,” Kellen agreed ironically. “I hope to speak with Rochinuviel while I’m here, if that can be arranged.”

“I can ask if she is willing. Artenel already has a long list of items that he wishes to acquire, so you would need to send someone to the message-cairn in any event.”

Redhelwar had been unable to spare Rulorwen to send with Kellen, since the Master Engineer’s skills would certainly be needed to get the bulk of the army over the Mystrals. But the Chief Artificer possessed many of the same skills, and in company with several of Rulorwen’s most promising apprentices, should be able to do everything necessary at Halacira.

“I’ll go myself,” Kellen decided. “If it’s between here and the city, it isn’t far, and if I take Shalkan, we can outrun anything we can’t outfight. And I should be able to sense trouble, which would be a good thing to know about anyway. Naturally, I expect you to let me know if you don’t think this is a good idea.”

Isinwen bowed. “If I did not, Kellen, Shalkan certainly would. But as you say, we are near the city, and Rochinuviel says it has been quiet here. I shall see what else we need to replace, and I should have the tally for you sometime tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Kellen said, bowing in return. “That’s certainly soon enough. And now, I believe there was a gan board included among the fresh supplies, and I believe Nironoshan has challenged you to a match. For myself, I shall merely watch, and learn.”

COMPARED to the weather on the other side of the Mystrals—and in them—the temperatures here on the Gathering Plain were almost what Kellen was prepared to consider balmy, though he was also sure he’d quickly get tired of the wind that never seemed to stop blowing. He supposed if you had wings, though, you’d like a lot of wind; he remembered that Ondoladeshiron was where Idalia had come to when she’d transformed from a Silver Eagle back into a human. He glanced up at the mountain peaks, wondering if there were any Silver Eagles left.

Catching the direction of his thoughts, he firmly banished the speculation. He was going to enjoy the day as much as he could—the weather was clear, the sky was actually blue, and it was a grand day for a ride.

Despite the fact that he’d gone off to bed long before Isinwen and Nironoshan had finished their game of gan—games could take hours, even days, to play out, and both Knights were master players—by the time he’d awakened in the morning, the list he’d asked for was nearly complete. In addition to Artenel’s mysterious list of requirements, the Wildmages and the other Healers were running low on supplies as well. Nothing absolutely vital, as he understood it, but it would all be nice to have.

The morning had been spent in meeting with his subcommanders—Artenel, who had assured him cheerfully that in a day or so, he could have bathing facilities set up, as well as a sheltered cooking area—Anindetiel the horsemaster and Thinelel the wagonmaster, who reported on the health of their respective charges—Wirance, who promised him detailed information about the weather as soon as possible—and several others. When Isinwen had presented him with the supply list, Kellen had told him that they would stay at Ondoladeshiron for a full sennight.

He didn’t want to lose the time, but the horses and oxen had been pushed hard over the mountains, and deserved a full rest before they went on. Wagons and gear needed mending. And from here, Kellen could send scouts to cover a good distance of the trail ahead, which would save time later. South of the Ondoladeshiron plain, they descended into forest, and while there was a broad high road through it—which should make moving the wagons a simple matter—the storms of winter might have felled trees or created other obstacles which they’d have to move.

It was best to be prepared.

And for now, having spent his morning making decisions and giving orders, he had nothing to do with his afternoon beyond riding over to the rendezvous point at Ondoladeshiron with Shalkan and leaving the scroll with the list of the army’s needs. Fortunately, the unicorn’s armor hadn’t been in one of the wagons they’d lost. He was sure he’d never have heard the end of it.

“YOU should add honey-cakes to that list,” Shalkan said musingly, as Kellen swung into the saddle. “People like honey-cakes.”

Kellen laughed. “It was the first thing I wrote down,” he assured the unicorn. “I’m sure Rochinuviel will be able to find some for you.”

“Firareth likes them too,” Shalkan said piously. “I’m not just thinking of myself, you know.”

“Certainly not,” Kellen agreed, as the unicorn trotted off. “I hadn’t thought so for a minute.”

Honey-cakes would be nice, he thought. And pancakes with jam, and fresh butter. Milk. And proper tea, brewed strong and hot. “We’ll see what they have.”

In only a few moments, they were well beyond the perimeter of the camp. It was quiet out here, Kellen realized with a sense of peaceful discovery. Shalkan’s hooves made no sound at all as the unicorn trotted over the surface of the snow, and the bustle and constant noise of the army was far behind him. For the first time in sennights nobody needed anything from him. There were no decisions to make. He could just be.

“You needed a rest,” Shalkan observed, after they’d ridden along in silence for several minutes. “You were worrying too much.”

“I hope it didn’t show.” Redhelwar never seemed to worry—the only time Kellen had seen the Elven General truly off-balance was when Kellen had brought him the news that the Shadowed Elves had turned their caverns into a death-trap for the army.

“Not much. I suppose people would rather have their commander worrying about things than taking everything too calmly. But they trust you. You’re Kellen Knight-Mage, you know,” Shalkan said.

As if I need reminding. Kellen made a rude noise. “I’m seventeen, and half a year ago I’d never held a sword in my hand in my entire life. And when I think about it that way, it seems like any moment I’m going to wake up in Idalia’s cabin back in the Wildwood, and all of this is just going to have been a crazy dream.”

“If you’d known this was where you’d end up, doing this, would you have left the City?” Shalkan asked, his tone idle.

“That’s a dumb question!” Kellen burst out, stung. “I mean, yes, of course I would. Hell, I’d probably have left earlier. This is what I’m good at. It’s what I’m supposed to be doing. And … it needs to be done. And there’s nobody else.”

“Good,” the unicorn said, sounding satisfied. “Just remember that when you worry about not being good enough, or getting things wrong.”

“Everybody gets things wrong sometimes,” Kellen protested automatically. But his heart wasn’t in it. He’d known before he started that it didn’t matter if he was seventeen and had barely discovered his life’s purpose, that to get done what the Wild Magic needed him to do he had to be good enough. And to get the Elves to see that, he had to be right—not some of the time, but all of the time. He couldn’t afford mistakes. The people depending on him couldn’t afford his mistakes.

It was a heavy burden to carry, all the more because most of the time he didn’t think about it at all. He just did what he had to do.

And I’ll keep doing it for as long as it takes. I just have to remember that I’m not alone. I have the Wild Magic to rely on. It made me a Knight-Mage. It won’t let me fail.

“Come on,” Kellen said aloud. “Is this as fast as you can go? I could walk to Ondoladeshiron faster.”

“Well,” Shalkan drawled, flicking his ears back, “since you ask so nicely …”

Kellen barely had a moment to gather himself before the unicorn was off, bounding at top speed across the snow.

UNICORNS didn’t gallop like horses, they bounded like deer, and a unicorn’s top speed was very fast indeed. The wind whipped through every slit in Kellen’s helmet, blasting his skin like liquid ice, and his Coldwarg-fur cloak streamed out behind him as if it were made of nothing more substantial than thin silk. He laughed aloud for the sheer joy of it.

But too soon the run was over. Ahead he saw what looked like nothing more than a natural outcropping of stone and scattered boulders—the city of Ondoladeshiron, hidden in plain sight by Elven artifice that was, to Kellen, far more wonderful than simple magic. Beyond the stones—even knowing that they were really houses, he could not make himself see them as such—Kellen could see the dark green of Ondoladeshiron’s Flower Forest. The trees at its outer edge were snow-crusted, but still flourishing.

Shalkan slowed to a trot, then a walk, but didn’t stop.

“Aren’t we almost at the city?” Kellen asked. “I thought Rochinuviel said we weren’t supposed to go into the city.”

“The city has become appreciably smaller,” Shalkan said, stretching out his long neck and sniffing the air. “The Elves that are still here have moved closer to the Flower Forest. These houses are deserted now.”

Kellen wondered how he knew; Keirasti hadn’t mentioned that, and she would have told him if she’d known. But he’d long since resigned himself to the fact that Shalkan—all the unicorns, in fact—simply had sources of information of their own.

“And we have company,” Shalkan said. “Someone is waiting at the rendezvous for us.”

When they came closer, Kellen could see a banner on a pole set outside of one of the houses—that must be what marked it as the rendezvous, but it was obviously much more than that. A design flashed on its surface, silver on white—the same design as on one of the banners that hung in Andoreniel’s Council Chamber.

“Huh,” Kellen said. “The Vicereign came herself? How did she know I’d be the one to come?”

“Maybe it was a lucky guess,” Shalkan said. “Maybe when you get to be as old as Rochinuviel some things aren’t hard to predict.”

WHEN Kellen reached the place where the banner stood, a door opened in the side of what looked like a tumble of snow-covered stone. Suddenly Kellen’s perceptions shifted, and what had seemed to be only a pile of rock a moment before was now—obviously—a house.

And Rochinuviel herself was standing in the doorway. The Vicereign of Ondoladeshiron looked very much as she had the last time Kellen had seen her—a graceful, androgynous figure dressed in white, her furs and jewels as elaborate as if she sat in her own Council Chamber. But unlike Ashaniel, whose Elven beauty had dazzled him from the first moment he’d seen her, there was something so remote and unyielding about Rochinuviel that she made him think of a piece of sculpture crafted by some unknown race that had absolutely nothing in common with humans.

“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage. Be welcome at this hearth. We will drink tea,” Rochinuviel said.

“I See you, Rochinuviel, Voice of Andoreniel,” Kellen said, dismounting. “I am welcomed.”

To Kellen’s faint surprise, Shalkan followed him inside, as if it were expected. He remembered that at the Mustering of the Armies, Rochinuviel had greeted the Unicorn Knights personally, so obviously her presence didn’t cause Shalkan any discomfort.

The house looked very much like the one he and Idalia had shared in Sen-tarshadeen, except for the fact that not only was this one empty, it hadn’t even been prepared for occupancy. A carpet had been spread on the floor of the Common Room, with cushions for seating, and several braziers gave the room a pleasant warmth, but except for the stone walls and glass windows, it might have been Kellen’s own tent.

As before, Rochinuviel had a companion with her, already seated upon one of the cushions, another Elf garbed almost identically to the Vicereign, but in shades of palest gray. Kellen wondered what the woman’s function was. Adjutant? Chaperone? It was impossible to imagine Rochinuviel needing one, any more than it was possible to imagine being rude or boisterous in her presence.

The traditional Elven teaservice was set out in the center of the carpet. Rochinuviel seated herself gracefully upon one of the cushions and began to prepare tea.

Kellen removed his cloak and gauntlets and bundled them neatly, setting them aside before selecting a cushion opposite her and sitting down—passably, but with quite a bit less grace. Shalkan folded himself neatly beside him, still in his saddle and armor.

The silence unfolded. Once it would have bothered him, but now he was content to let matters proceed in their own good time. There was no reason just now to rush things, after all.

When the water had boiled and the tea was steeping, Rochinuviel spoke.

“My heart rejoices to see your company arrived in such good order. When Keirasti came to us a fortnight ago she was most vigorous in her requirements and in her need for haste,” Rochinuviel said.

Well, that could mean nearly anything. And it certainly sounded as if Rochinuviel wanted to get right down to business. “I trust all went as you would have it go,” Kellen said, after a moment’s thought. “Our passage over the Mys-trals was not without… moments of unusual interest… and unfortunately we lost several wagons of supplies in the crossing.”

“So I was given to understand,” Rochinuviel said, with a faint enigmatic smile. “I am not unaware of the needs of an army in the field, nor the disadvantages that come with a winter campaign. You may give your current list of requirements to Sherediel.”

The woman in gray held out a slender gloved hand. After a moment’s fumbling in his tunic, Kellen produced the scroll. Sherediel tucked it neatly away into a fold in her robe and folded her hands again, apparently content to take no part in the conversation at all.

“I wished to see you so that I might give you news from the south, as Keirasti tells me that you will go to Sentarshadeen,” Rochinuviel continued. “But first we will drink tea, and perhaps you will oblige me in telling me the current news of the war, for Jermayan’s news was many sennights old when he came here.”

Kellen must have looked more confused than he intended, for she explained.

“He was here and gone before Keirasti arrived, to take the women with child to the Crowned Horns, as Andoreniel commanded. I do not say I agree or disagree with his decision. It is what it is. But had any of us been able to see the future, it might have been a different one.”

Now this was odd speaking indeed from the Vicereign, and all of Kellen’s senses strained to understand what it meant. Rochinuviel seemed to be attempting to tell him something without actually saying it outright, but while her implicit meaning might have been plain as day to another Elf, he was baffled. Maybe she’d speak more plainly soon. Or maybe Shalkan knew what she was talking about and he could ask him on the ride back.

“Not much has changed for us with the army between the time he left and the time I did,” Kellen said, both responding to her desire for information and playing for time. “The Allies of the Enemy push against the land-wards to the north. Redhelwar believes they will break through the land-wards, but our forces are not great enough to defend the north and also meet the greater threat the Enemy poses in the south and west. We were able to cast a spell to see into Armethalieh, as perhaps Jermayan will have told you, and we now know that the Enemy has an agent there who is working to open the city to Them.”

Rochinuviel pursed her lips. “Indeed, Jermayan said as much. He said you believed Their work in the Mage City to be the greater threat to us—and so we must abandon our northern cities to the Shadow.”

“If—” Kellen began, but Rochinuviel held up her hand.

“The tea is ready.”

It was a tea he had never tasted before—Rochinuviel told him the name was Ironwind—and with the first sip, Kellen wasn’t sure he cared for it at all. Unlike most of the Elven teas he’d tasted, its flavor was intensely bitter. But it was also warming, seeming to burn all the way down his throat and into the pit of his stomach.

Cilarnen, he knew, would be able to go on for at least half an hour about its qualities. Kellen thought it was about as close to drinking a sword blade as he’d like to get.

“And with the bitter, the sweet, for balance,” Rochinuviel said. She opened a diminutive box containing small round objects in pastel colors.

Following her lead, Kellen took one and put it in his mouth. The candy was creamy and grainy at the same time; it was also intensely sweet—without the tea, it would have been much too sweet—and tasted of honey, flowers, and, he suspected, some of the same spices that were in the tea. He took another sip of the tea—he found that mingled with the aftertaste of the candy, its flavor was much improved—and then selected one of the candies and offered it to Shalkan. The unicorn crunched it greedily, looking pleased.

“I haven’t had these in far too long,” Shalkan said. “Thank you.”

“If they please you, I shall be certain to send a package of them to you,” Rochinuviel said, smiling with genuine warmth this time. “But I have interrupted the guest, and for that, I beg pardon.”

Kellen wracked his brain to remember what they’d been talking about before the tea had been poured. Oh yes, nothing important. Merely matters of life and death.

“It was nothing. I only wished to remark that if They should gain control of Armethalieh, They will have a great store of … food … at Their disposal, as well as access to wielders of the High Magick. Control of the City will provide Them with an advantage that we dare not let Them have. Further, I believe that Their tactics up until this point have all been misdirection, to keep us from seeing that this was Their ultimate goal, and to keep us and the Armethaliehans from uniting against Them, our common enemy.”

Rochinuviel bowed her head, acknowledging the argument, and poured more tea into the tiny Elvenware cups.

“And here we come to the matter that I wished to speak to you of—a matter that I judge is best held closely and not scattered to the winds of gossip.”

Kellen sat up straighter. This was important—important enough that the Vicereign of Ondoladeshiron had made a shrewd guess that he’d be here today and come to meet him, so that they could talk in what amounted to total secrecy.

“I had wished to speak with you to see what news you could give me of the south,” he answered, feeling uneasy.

“Perhaps you already suspect what I have to tell. I warn you that it does not make good hearing. My grandfather was General of the Armies also, and fought at the direction of the King when last the Shadow walked the land. And so I know that if the King cannot say what shall be done, it is a grievous thing.”

Is Andoreniel dead? Automatically Kellen reached out a hand and laid it across Shalkan’s neck.

“I have said before that there is plague in Sentarshadeen. Now I add what I have just learned but long suspected. The King lies ill—too ill to make the decisions that must be made. Ashaniel cannot speak for him—she lies at the Fortress of the Crowned Horns, with the Crown Prince, who is but a child.”

“But—But Andoreniel’s Council…” Kellen stammered.

“Counsels the King,” Rochinuviel finished. “As do we, when times are otherwise. None of us speak in his name. And those who might, in Sentarshadeen, perhaps lie ill as well. Or judge that it is best to watch—and wait.”

Kellen felt as if he had just been hit very hard in the stomach. Andoreniel ill? But the army needed orders.

Who was going to make the decisions?

“Redhelwar—” he began, struggling to form the sentence politely.

“The Army’s General does not know of the King’s indisposition. Had I known earlier, I would have sent word with Jermayan. Word has just now reached us, by unicorn rider—they hoped he would rally, but he does not.”

“If the King should die—” Kellen said, still trying to grasp the enormity of the disaster.

“Then Sandalon becomes King, and Ashaniel rules for him for many years yet. And we are no better off,” Rochinuviel said inexorably. “I do not say what transpires in Sentarshadeen, for I do not know. But I imagine that those of the Council who are still in health are doing what they can to act as they believe Andoreniel would have them act.”

Kellen’s experiences of Andoreniel’s Council had not been pleasant ones. He didn’t doubt the truth of Rochinuviel’s words, but he also knew that the Council took far too long to make up its mind about anything—and now, more than ever, speed and decisiveness was needed. That, and more—breaking with the traditional Elven way of doing things.

Andoreniel could do it—had done it. But not his Council.

“I thank you for sharing your wisdom with me,” he said automatically. “And I am grateful for your words.”

“Use them carefully,” Rochinuviel said. “For it is in my mind that if Andoreniel’s plight should come to be widely known, that knowledge would be more dangerous than plague.”

HER words echoed in Kellen’s mind as he rode Shalkan—at a sedate walk—back to the Gathering Plain.

Part of him wanted to race there at top speed and start shouting orders, but he knew he needed time to think.

Redhelwar had to be told at once. That was imperative.

He couldn’t just send Shalkan with a message—Kellen’s Mageprice kept Shalkan with him. And Kellen couldn’t go. He had to stay with the army—if he simply took off with Shalkan, no matter what story he gave for doing so, he’d start precisely the kind of panic he needed at all costs to avoid.

And there was still the mission to Halacira and Sentarshadeen. More than ever, Kellen wanted to get to Sentarshadeen and see for himself what was going on there. But if they didn’t secure the caverns as a possible refugee camp, there was a strong possibility there wasn’t going to be any army to worry about.

He groaned aloud. “Leaf and Star, what a mess!”

“To put it mildly,” Shalkan said. “What are you going to do?”

The moment Shalkan asked the question, calm settled over Kellen. “I’m going to think,” he said quietly.

WHEN he got back to camp (carrying Shalkan’s armor, as he certainly couldn’t ride Shalkan into camp), he was able to greet his people as if nothing had happened. The short winter day was already drawing toward dusk, and nobody found it unusual for Kellen to go off to his pavilion once he’d checked with Isinwen. Isinwen could run the camp, barring emergencies. As Kellen’s Second, that had become part of his job.

But Kellen breathed a deep sigh of relief once he reached his pavilion and pegged the door shut behind him. Instinctively, he knew he’d convinced his Second that all was well and that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and what Isinwen believed, the others would believe as well. But to keep up that deception—and it was a deception, Kellen acknowledged to himself—he needed to find a deeper measure of peace within himself, and find it quickly.

He lit the lamps and the braziers, took off his armor, and rummaged through his packs until he’d found his three Books.

He hadn’t had much time for studying them lately, and he really doubted that the answer to his current dilemma was to be found in any of them—not The Book of Moon, which addressed the “how” of the Wild Magic, nor The Book of Sun, which mostly addressed the “when,” nor even The Book of Stars, the most abstruse of the three, which was essentially about the “whether or not” of the Wild Magic—when it was best to intervene, and when it was best to just leave well enough alone.

Although if this is “well enough,” I’d hate to see a really bad situation, Kellen thought with a sigh, opening the third Book. He guessed he was looking for peace of mind and calm as much as anything—he couldn’t make any good decisions while he was chasing himself in circles, much less act as if he hadn’t just received what was almost the worst possible news the Allies could have gotten. So he might as well improve his mind. The Book of Stars always managed to make him feel better, even when he didn’t understand half of what it was saying.

What if Andorieniel dies? Ashaniel and Sandalon can’t rule the Elven Lands from the Fortress of the Crowned Horns, and they can’t come back. So the Council will have to make the decisions. And that just won’t work.

Because the Council would probably—even now—still want to want for the Endarkened to fight a “traditional” war. And the Endarkened weren’t going to do that—or weren’t going to do that until the probability of victory was overwhelmingly on Their side.

Would Redhelwar act without waiting for the decisions of the Council? Did he even know what needed to be done next?

Do you?

Kellen took a deep breath, feeling as if he stood on the edge of a very high cliff. A rash decision right now would do nobody any good. Master Belesharon always said that to make a decision before it was needful was worse than making no decision at all.

Kellen put all thought of the future from his mind and settled down to read The Book of Stars.

As always his Book seemed to be speaking directly to him.

“Do nothing in haste, and everything in its proper time.”

“What will be, is. And what is, will be.”

“A Knight-Mage changes his surroundings by his very presence. Sometimes his presence is enough.”

He read until a grumbling in his stomach told him that it was far past dinnertime, and closed his Book with a sigh, feeling better.

Nothing was any different than it had been this morning. And as much as the leisurely Elven way of doing things drove him crazy sometimes, right now he had to admit that as bleak as things were, the best thing to do was stick to his original plan. As urgent as matters were, the army needed rest before anyone went anywhere. And that would give him the time to think carefully over who was going where.

“THIS had better be good,” Keirasti grumbled, though Kellen could tell her heart wasn’t in it.

“I thought you’d like to take Orata for a ride,” Kellen said, with as much innocence as he could muster. “She’s getting fat and lazy sitting in camp, and so is Firareth. And we’ll be moving out day after tomorrow. Which is why I wanted to talk to you now.”

“Privately,” Keirasti observed, nodding at the emptiness surrounding them. “Which will be remarked, if not overheard.”

“Then it must be remarked,” Kellen said. “And not overheard.”

He’d thought long and hard about this. He’d spent the last several days writing up a full report of everything that had happened so far for Redhelwar—the scroll was a fat one—and he’d already chosen the people he intended to send back over the Mystrals. But he hadn’t yet told them they were going, intending to leave that for the last minute. Keirasti would be leading them—she’d handled the other mission to Ondoladeshiron well, and Kellen knew that she could do this just as expertly.

And he’d decided that she would need to know why she was going—all of it. So that in case disaster happened, the party was attacked, the report was lost, she would understand that she had to get through and deliver the gist of Kellen’s message personally, no matter who and what she had to sacrifice to do it.

“I wish to lay a very heavy burden upon you,” he said, beginning slowly and carefully. “Before I can tell you what it is, and why, I must tell you that it might require you to … throw away … hundreds of lives and save your own. I must know if you can do that.”

“Leaf and Star,” Keirasti whispered, reining Orata to a halt. “Kellen, I do not yet understand.”

“Keirasti, can you let everyone under your care die to save yourself just because I tell you it’s necessary? Hundreds of people?” Kellen asked bluntly.

The Elven Knight stared at him for a long moment, her dark eyes wide and unseeing beneath her helm. At last she nodded slowly. “Yes, komentai’i. I can do this.”

Kellen let out a shuddering breath. “Leaf and Star grant you will not need to. You must tell no one—no one—of what we speak of here today. Ever.”

Keirasti nodded again. “I understand.”

“Tomorrow I am sending you and four hundred of my command back over the mountains. You must find Redhelwar wherever he is and deliver my report to him. It must reach him at all costs, no matter what you must do to get it there, no matter what sacrifices you must make. You must go as fast as you can.”

Which meant risk, for her and all he would send with her, and though he could spare her two of the Wildmages to accompany her party, they would not be enough to protect her force from a magical attack, or to heal her injured swiftly.

“I… hear and obey, komentai’i,” Keirasti said.

Kellen smiled unhappily. “If that were all, I would not have sworn you to secrecy. My report may be lost… and … I think you need to know why I am sending you.” He took a deep breath and continued.

“Rochinuviel has had word from Sentarshadeen. Andoreniel lies gravely ill with plague, too ill to give orders. The Healers do not know when—or if—he will recover. Redhelwar doesn’t know that he is sick; Rochinuviel found out too late to send a message with Jermayan when he came to Ondoladeshiron. This information is too … sensitive … to trust to the signaling mirrors—even if they did work across the Mystrals.”

And Rochinuviel doesn’t think the Council has sent word to Redhelwar. That was clear enough from what she said to me. If they had, we would almost certainly have met up with the rider. And I think Shalkan would have known, somehow.

Keirasti actually rocked in her saddle. Orata took a nervous step sideways in the snow, and tossed her head inquiringly. “The King …” Keirasti said.

“Ashaniel and Sandalon are safe at the Fortress of the Crowned Horns,” Kellen said, reminding both of them. “And Andoreniel could recover. I will go to Sentarshadeen as soon as I am finished at Halacira, and see him myself.”

Keirasti nodded, still looking stunned. Kellen waited, giving her time to take in what he had just told her. He’d had several days to get used to knowing that the Allies were essentially without a leader, after all, and when you came right down to it, Andoreniel wasn’t his King. It was different for Keirasti.

After a few more moments she blinked and nodded, signifying that she was ready to go on.

“Knight-Mage, what are your orders for the Army’s General?” she asked simply.

There it was, right out in the open, the one thing he’d been avoiding for days.

No, not avoiding. Setting aside until the proper time.

An irresistible sense of Presence filled him—the same calm that came with casting a Healing spell, or sinking into Water Mind. He knew the words he had to say, just as if he’d rehearsed them for sennights—or remembered them from an old Teaching Song.

“Say to the Army’s General all that I have told you, and that it would please me greatly if he would bring the Army to the Gathering Plain to hear the news from Sentarshadeen,” Kellen said firmly, and without a trace of doubt.

The sense of waiting Presence lifted.

What have I done? Have I just taken command of the Army? What if Redhelwar says no and stays in Ysterialpoerin?

There was no answer to that, nor would there be for quite some time. But he’d done all he could.

Keirasti sighed. “It shall be done. And now … if we are to depart tomorrow, there is much for me to do tonight.”

“Travel safely,” Kellen said.

“Komentai’i,” Keirasti answered uncompromisingly, “We will travel fast.”

Chapter Nine

A Lifetime in a Moon

IT HAD BEEN nearly three moonturns since Vestakia had begun her attempts to communicate with the Crystal Spiders, and the knowledge of failure was growing in her soul like a poisoned wound she could not heal.

If only she could make sense of what the Crystal Spiders were trying to tell her!

Since she had begun her work, she had risen each day at dawn, breakfasted, and gone with her guards down into the caverns. She was grateful for their presence, for Vestakia never forgot, not even for a moment, that her Endarkened father would do anything to get her back—and the Endarkened had many allies.

For the last several sennights she had divided her time between the Main Camp and the caverns, for with the steady influx of refugees from the now-abandoned Elven Cities farther north—and the outbreak of plague both in the temporary city and in Ysterialpoerin itself—every Healer was needed to tend them. And though Vestakia preferred not to go among strangers who would be shocked by her Demonic appearance, her assistance in the Main Camp could free another Elven or Wildmage healer to go among the sick and injured civilians—and skilled hands were always needed to compound medicines.

And her work here at the Further Caverns seemed to be going nowhere.

Though both Kellen and Idalia had spoken of how confusing communication with the Crystal Spiders was, Vestakia had hoped her Wildmage heritage—and the odd gifts it brought with it—would make things easier for her, but her hopes had been dashed on the very first day, when Kellen had brought her down into the caverns.

Of course she had learned much about learning to communicate with an alien mind, and even see through its eyes. Linking with the Crystal Spiders was an easy thing now, and sorting through the mind-pictures they sent her no longer caused Vestakia the sickness and disorientation it had at first. And oddly enough, though no magic was truly involved, the skills at perception and concentration that she honed in the caverns were useful elsewhere: Not only had she become far more expert at diagnosing the ills of her patients—or telling the minds of most of the people around her, in fact—simply from the way they looked and held themselves—but she could read the mood and intention of the mute beasts around her, and even her equestrian skills had improved remarkably as a result.

There was no doubt about it. When all of this was over, she would be an excellent goatherd, if that was what she chose to do. That was how she had begun her life, after all: as a goatherd, tending the herd of goats her mother Virgivet and her aunt Patanene had taken away from their home village with them into exile deep in the Lost Lands to provide them—and later, Vestakia—with food, shelter, clothing, and even trade-goods. Until Kellen, Shalkan, and Jermayan had found and rescued her, the goats had been her closest companions, and though she had learned much since of Healing, it was always good to know that she still had her first skills to rely on.

Assuming, of course, that all of this was ever over in a way that allowed for the herding of goats.

But no matter how much work there was for her at the main camp, her sense of duty drew her back, over and over, to the Further Cavern, and her frustrating communion with the Crystal Spiders.

By now Vestakia felt she knew everything about the location that she sought except where it was. The mind-pictures the Crystal Spiders sent her during their communications were still blurred and fragmented, the kaleidoscopic images of a world seen through eight eyes multiplied dozens of times over, but by now she was used to that. She was even used to seeing images of things that could not be, for by now she knew that the Crystal Spiders could create artificial images to communicate, as well as simply transmitting images of things they had seen.

Jewels and water. Jewels and water. A riddle she could not solve.

Even Cilarnen could not solve it with his Armethaliehan magick. They had all hoped, once he had found a source to power his spells, but… not only did the High Magick require a great deal of preparation for many of its spells, but they had to be done at specific times as well. And if that were not enough complication, the divination and scrying that Idalia and the other Wildmages took so much for granted was nearly absent from the High Magick, or so Cilarnen said. The forms of distance-seeing the High Magick did possess required that the Mage already have a link with what he wished to see, either of familiarity, or through a tangible object.

And what use is that? If you already know what it looks like, or where it is, why do you need magic to take a look at it? Vestakia had wondered irritably when he’d explained. But she hadn’t said anything aloud. Cilarnen was already doing everything that he could—and much more than he safely could—to help their cause.

But it was frustrating.

Late this morning Vestakia had returned from three days spent at the Main Camp. The Healers were desperate to keep the plague from spreading to the army—or from claiming any more lives than it already had among the others—and though a Wildmage-infused cordial was having a certain amount of effect in treating it, a great deal of the stuff was needed, and preparing the cordial for charging was painstaking work.

But it was also vital work.

The Elves called the plague Shadow’s Kiss, from the characteristic dark scars it left behind on all of its victims. If one survived most diseases, Vestakia knew, one was safe from them forever—that had been true of the goat-pox she had contracted as a child.

But if one survived Shadow’s Kiss, it was still possible to get it again, and no one who got it a second time survived.

Or perhaps, Vestakia thought with a sigh, the second plague was a completely separate disease that only struck those who had been exposed to the first plague. The symptoms were very different: a quick high fever lasting only a day, followed by death. Unlike the original plague, it didn’t seem to be contagious.

They had no way of knowing.

All they knew was that they had no way of treating the second plague. It seemed to be new—the Elven Healers said it wasn’t mentioned in any of the Story Songs of the Last War.

Despite the fact that they were their main source of information on how to treat many of the diseases they were facing now, both Vestakia and Idalia were getting very tired of the Elven Story Songs.

Very nearly as tired as they were of seeing people die because their medicines simply weren’t working very well.

WHEN she’d gotten back to the smaller camp at last, the only thing she’d wanted was to throw herself down on her bedroll and sleep, but a sense of duty drove her down into the caverns.

There she had tried, yet again, to extract the information they all desperately needed from the Crystal Spiders’ completely willing yet utterly alien minds, working until Khirethil—the captain of the troop who watched over her while she was beneath the mountain—had finally insisted that she stop.

“You gain nothing by forcing us to carry you to your bed, Vestakia,” Khirethil had said, her black eyes uncompromising. “And in working yourself into exhaustion, you waste time in the end.”

It was good advice, and kindly meant, and Vestakia had forced herself to take it.

In camp, under Khirethil’s steady gaze, Vestakia also forced herself to eat, though the food lay heavily in her stomach. Afterward she had excused herself quickly, and gone to her pavilion.

Until she had started working here, she had not had a pavilion of her own, but shared Idalia’s tent—for warmth and companionship far more than safety, for among the people of the Allied army she felt accepted and, yes, cherished as she had never expected to find herself in all the years of her life. From the moment she had been born, Demonic in form but human in soul, her mother and her aunt had taught her and warned her: Trust no one. Show yourself to no one. No one will look beyond the surface and dare to believe in the human soul within.

But Kellen had. Even now, tired and miserable as she was, the thought of him brought a warm glow of happiness to Vestakia’s spirit. From the first moment he had seen her, Kellen had trusted her, believed in her, without question. What had grown between them—or might grow between them—was very awkward, given the Mageprice that Kellen paid, but Vestakia’s own mother had given up twenty years of her life so that Vestakia could be human, and Vestakia was familiar with Mageprices. And a year and a day was not forever.

But even constrained as they were—not to look, not to touch, barely to take notice of one another save as comrades in the field, Vestakia wished Kellen were here now.

How he would laugh to see her pavilion!

She’d known, of course, that the Elves tended to choose a “signature” color for a person—Kellen’s was a very pretty green, just the color of Shalkan’s eyes—and she should have had fair warning when the armor that Artenel had produced for her had been enameled a cherry-red the exact shade of her skin, but she really hadn’t expected to be presented with a matching tent.

It was quite a lovely color, really. And it certainly stood out against all this snow.

But since the Elves did things very thoroughly, and very single-mindedly, it turned out that nearly all of her clothes were red as well. And that made them rather hard to find, sometimes, in a red tent.

Yes, Kellen would definitely laugh.

Making certain that the braziers were filled for night, Vestakia got out of her armor and into a sleeping tunic and leggings. Curling up beneath several layers of blanket and fur coverlet, she pulled the one remaining lantern over to her and blew it out, then lay shivering in her bed as she waited for her covers to warm. Her muscles were filled with tiny tremors, and there was a nauseated, metallic taste in her mouth; she knew she was far too exhausted for sleep to come easily, no matter how badly she needed it.

Tomorrow she would think of something that would work. She had to.

The army can do nothing until it knows where the last Enclave of the Shadowed Elves is. In the dark, her mind returned to the problem that obsessed her. It did not help matters to know how much they were all depending on her to find the key. Like the other Healers, Vestakia had dealt with the Allied wounded after the two battles for the caverns, and the horrific Battle for the Heart Forest. She knew what a terrible enemy the Shadowed Elves could be. And if that weren’t bad enough, the Shadowed Elves could bring other Allies of the Endarkened into the center of the Elven Lands without breaching the land-wards, as well as causing monsters such as the Deathwings and Coldwarg to do their bidding. If they were not stopped, they might attack Ysterialpoerin again—or one of the southern cities.

South.

Vestakia felt a faint spark of recognition. She felt that the last Enclave must be somewhere south of here, but she couldn’t say why she felt that, and she could ask no one to act upon such a vague disorganized feeling. Certainly the Crystal Spiders had no sense of direction that she’d ever figured out. So the feeling couldn’t come from them.

And if it didn’t, it couldn’t be allowed to count.

She sighed in frustration, pulling the blankets up higher. Jermayan and Ancaladar would be rejoining them soon—a sennight or two at most, Idalia had said—and if nothing else, the three of them could try flying a search-grid again, though in the winter storms it would be almost impossible for Ancaladar to fly low enough for her to sense a Shadowed Elf Enclave.

But they had to do something!

SLEEP came at last, and with it, vivid disjointed dreams that verged on nightmares.

Caverns … but caverns so much vaster and deeper than the ones Vestakia had spent so many hours in that it was impossible to compare them. She sensed that these caverns were utterly without light, yet somehow she could see, and all around her were the creations of a civilization far older and far more inhuman than that of the Crystal Spiders, one whose works made her dream-self shudder as she glimpsed them.

Thoughts that were not her own crowded her mind. For now they were still distant and indistinct as faint whispers in a noisy room, yet they terrified her with the possibility that she might come to hear and understand them clearly. As if the whispered thoughts represented a physical danger that she could escape, Vestakia tried to run, but only succeeded in entangling herself deeper in the dream-stuff clouding her mind.

SHE was in a garden, but this was no garden that had ever flourished beneath the rays of the sun. Everything here was cold unliving stone, yet she could sense that each stone cried out in pain, as if it were a living suffering thing whose torment would continue forever.

There was someone standing beside her, someone whose face she dared not raise her eyes to see, for if she looked, it would shatter her mind forever. She heard a voice:

“Do you love me, my own?”

And she heard her own voice reply:

“As I love power and pain, my mother, my heart …”

WITH a choked scream, Vestakia awoke. She was sitting bolt upright, her fists crammed into her mouth, heart hammering so hard her whole body shuddered with its force. Her whole body was covered in clammy, greasy sweat, and before she was quite awake, violent nausea overcame her. She barely made it to the slops bowl in time to deliver up her evening meal—and, it seemed, everything she’d ever eaten—in a foul-smelling rush of bile. She gagged and heaved over the vessel long after there was anything in her stomach to void, knowing as she did that what she really wanted to rid herself of—her dream—would not be so easily banished.

At last she sat back on her heels, panting and gasping, and reached for her water jug. The water was ice-cold, but she relished the shock, rinsing and spitting until she’d cleared her mouth.

She had a blinding headache, and she felt weak and ill. Her tunic and leggings were clammy with sweat, and she hardly had the strength to change them. But the thought of summoning Khirethil to help her—she was sure the Elven Knight was awake; Khirethil’s pavilion was pitched right next to hers, and Vestakia knew from experience that Elves slept lightly—galvanized her, at least as far as dragging the sodden items from her body and wrapping herself in her fur-lined cloak.

That would have to do for the moment.

Blessed Goddess, what is happening to me? Is it plague? The bruising that was one of the earliest symptoms probably wouldn’t show on her cherry-red skin. But she had no sign of fever, which was one of the next symptoms. And Idalia had been fairly sure that her half-Demon heritage would protect her from catching it at all.

She forced herself to take several deep breaths. You know it isn’t plague. She’d only been hoping it was. Plague would have been a kinder answer than what Vestakia suspected to be the truth.

Ever since she had begun to become a woman, she had known she was linked to the Demons—she could sense Them, and Their magic, and use that gift to hide from Them. Lately, the scope of her power had grown, so that she could sense not only Them, but what They had touched. It was a fortunate gift, for it had allowed Vestakia and her friends to track the Shadowed Elves in the first place, and rescue Sandalon and the other children they had captured, as well as finding their other Enclaves.

But it wasn’t something she could just turn off when she didn’t want it. And she didn’t need to hear the reports from Redhelwar’s scouts and patrols to know that Their Allies were broaching the boundaries of the Elven Lands to the north. Even though it was hundreds of miles away, Vestakia could feel it like a sore tooth—even more so when she was linked with the Crystal Spiders.

The work she was doing with them—concentrating so hard, sennight after sennight, on seeing things unseen—had opened up her Gift in a way it had never been opened before.

And now I can feel my father’s mind as well.

Tears sprang to Vestakia’s mind, and she hugged herself tightly. It was the very last thing she wanted. Her father was the Prince of Shadow Mountain, and he had doomed her mother and her aunt to a life of exile and caused them both to die years before their time. He had hunted Vestakia her entire life, and—until Kellen had rescued her and she had come to live in the Elven Lands—every waking moment of her life had been lived in fear either that her father would find her, or that one of the Lostlanders would accidentally see her face and kill her for the Demon she appeared to be. When Kellen had brought her into the Elven Lands, she’d thought she was safe from that forever.

But now that temporary sanctuary was gone—or nearly so. Tonight’s bad dream wasn’t the first she’d had, Vestakia sensed; simply the first one she managed to remember. There would be more, and worse ones, and if—when—if—the power of the Demons grew, the nightmares would invade her waking mind as well.

There were things she could do to stop that; potions that blocked Gift and allowed the minds of Mages and Healers to rest. She had taken one of them before. It would block her ability to sense Them—and probably her ability to link her mind with the Crystal Spiders, as well.

No.

The Allies needed to find the last Enclave of the Shadowed Elves.

And any possibility, however faint, that she might be able to give the Allies insight into what the Enemy thought and planned was something too valuable to throw away, no matter what it cost her.

South. The Crystal Spiders do not know where the last Enclave of the Shadowed Elves is, but he does. It is from him that my belief comes, not what I take from their minds.

Vestakia blinked back tears of acceptance and relief. It was not much, but it was something. If they must search for the last Enclave upon the wing, at least the area they had to search would be that much smaller.

Moving slowly and painfully, she crept to her clothes-chest and began to rummage through it for something dry and warm to wear. She thought she had slept only a few hours, and she was sure sleep would not return tonight, nor did she really want it to. Far better to let the images from her nightmare fade than risk renewing them—and at any rate, the slops-bowl certainly needed emptying.

Besides, her head throbbed, and her bones ached, and she was thirsty. At least in an Elven camp, one could always be sure of getting a hot cup of Allheal tea.

AT last Jermayan returned to the war-camp outside Ysterialpoerin, after nearly three moonturns of absence. And he saw why there were no refugees in Ondoladeshiron.

They had all come here.

Though it was counted as one of the Heart Triad, Ysterialpoerin was nearly as far north as Deskethomaynel. It only made sense that instead of risking a dangerous mountain journey in the depths of winter, the refugees of the Northern Triad would head for the only remaining city north of the Mystrals: Ysterialpoerin.

Lerkelpoldara had fallen, and left behind only a handful of survivors, but Windalorianan and Deskethomaynel had been fully inhabited, save for those they had sent to war, and the women and children who were now at the Fortress of the Crowned Horns. Both cities had evacuated in good order, bringing all that they could safely carry—and Windalorianan had brought every single mare, stallion, yearling, and foal from the Plains of Vardirvoshanon, as well—for to leave the Elven horses behind would be as unthinkable as leaving Windalorianan itself behind.

All were here.

As Jermayan and Ancaladar circled the Heart Forest on their way toward the camp, they could see that a vast second city, many times the size of Ysteri-alpoerin, had now spread around it, filling the Heart Forest and spreading out onto the plain beyond. The Windalorianan herds were dark clusters against the snow, and riders circled them on constant guard. Prowling over the snow at a safe distance beyond, Jermayan could see the dark shapes of wolves.

We will have to move, Jermayan thought, considering the army. Even if Windalorianan and Deskethomaynel had been able to bring every scrap of stored food in their winter larders with them—and he doubted that had been possible—Ysterialpoerin’s resources would still be stretched to the utmost feeding the population not of one city, but of three, and there was no hunting to be had. To ask them to feed the army as well would be … impractical.

ANCALADAR landed just outside the Unicorn Camp. No one walked farther than they had to in winter, and while Jermayan was certainly no fit company for unicorns, there was no place closer he dared land, and Valdien would be down at the horselines, not stabled up at Ancaladar’s ice-pavilion. The Windalorianan herds were not at all familiar with dragons, and no one would thank him for causing the stock to bolt.

“I will come to you as soon as I can, my friend,” Jermayan said, dismounting and unbuckling Ancaladar’s saddle. For all its size, it was surprisingly light.

“Bring Idalia,” Ancaladar said. “I have missed her.”

“So have I,” Jermayan answered.

He left Ancaladar’s saddle with Riasen, who promised to see it taken into the main camp, and began his long walk.

Idalia met him just inside the main camp.

“I See you, Jermayan. You look cold,” she said, offering him a flask.

“I See you, Idalia. It is good to look upon you again,” he answered, taking it. The warm cider it contained was highly-spiced, banishing some of the cold in his limbs. “Ancaladar sends his regards, and hopes for your company tonight.”

“I trust he is not the only one,” she answered, smiling.

“He is not,” Jermayan said. “It cheers me to find the army in such good order, but I confess myself also … puzzled.”

Idalia sighed. “Well, it’s not as if we haven’t had plenty to do here, with all the refugees arriving. And I can’t say I’m unhappy not to have been dealing with casualties. The plague cases are bad enough.”

“They had hoped, in Ondoladeshiron, that it had not crossed the mountains,” Jermayan said.

“Jermayan, it came from the north,” Idalia said. “And—” She stopped. “Never mind. Redhelwar wants to see you as soon as you arrive. It’s his bad news to tell. Don’t worry—Kellen’s all right. At least, we haven’t heard from him since he left.”

“And we must assume that he would have sent word—or the Wild Magic would have—if ill fortune had befallen his mission,” Jermayan said, finishing her unvoiced thought.

Idalia nodded. “I’d know if something happened to him,” she said. “I know I would.”

“As would I, should harm come to you,” Jermayan said quietly.

NINOLION quickly admitted him to Redhelwar’s tent. Over tea, Jermayan told the Army’s General all that he had seen and heard in the sennights he had been away from the army.

“It surprises me to see the army still here,” Jermayan said cautiously. “All was well when I left Sentarshadeen, though it was one of the first cities to which we flew. Ashaniel was well when last I saw her, though she is anxious to leave the Crowned Horns and rejoin Andoreniel.”

“There has been no word from Sentarshadeen,” Redhelwar said bluntly. “No word—and no orders. Nor has any messenger that I have yet sent returned from there.

“I have done all I can, save act without orders,” Redhelwar continued. “The Wildmages cannot advise me. Even Cilarnen cannot, though he has found a way to use his power. Though the High Magick can see things that the Wild Magic cannot, it has its own limitations, and as Cilarnen has neither been to Sentarshadeen nor seen a Shadowed Elf, he can neither See Andoreniel nor where the last of the Shadowed Elves may be hiding.”

“Then it is plain that I must go to Sentarshadeen, and seek out Andoreniel at once,” Jermayan said.

“As much as I would wish this, I cannot counsel you to act against the last orders Andoreniel did give you,” Redhelwar said heavily. “The women of Ysteri-alpoerin have yet to be transported to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns. That task must come first.”

Jermayan shook his head in frustration, though he knew Redhelwar was right. “It will be a matter of but half a day, and then we will fly for Sentarshadeen, and end this troubling silence. And, further, I am moved to speak as Kellen would, in his absence.”

Redhelwar smiled faintly. “I admit, I have missed his bold counsel. It has been … quiet… since he left.”

Jermayan inclined his head in agreement. “It is true that, as Idalia tells me, we are needed here, and I am troubled at the thought that our absence might invite an attack upon Ysterialpoerin by those whom we oppose. Yet it is also true that our presence is a great drain upon the resources of the Forest City, especially now that she has so many other calls upon her substance. It is in my mind that Kellen would say that you must prepare the army to move south to Ondoladeshiron, even though Andoreniel has sent no word, lest the army become too great a drain upon Ysterialpoerin. I wish I could say that the Wild Magic speaks in this, but I cannot.”

“We are not humans, to depend upon magic for everything,” Redhelwar answered slowly. “It is good counsel—yet I fear, as you do, to leave them undefended.”

“I have no resolution for you,” Jermayan said unhappily.

“And so it must be my decision. Go. Rest, for both you and Ancaladar are to weary to fly again before morning, even if you would. I shall see you again when you have returned from the Crowned Horns. There are messages that must go to Sentarshadeen.”

Jermayan left Redhelwar’s pavilion, his steps heavy. Idalia was waiting for him.

“And now you know everything I do,” she said, tucking her arm through his.

“Tomorrow I make my last flight to the Crowned Horns—and then Ancaladar and I must go to Sentarshadeen, to discover the reason for Andoreniel’s silence,” Jermayan said.

“I’d go with you,” Idalia said wistfully, “but there’s so much work to do here. Vestakia’s been wearing herself to a frazzle trying to be in two places at once. She had such high hopes of getting information from the Crystal Spiders. They want to help, Jermayan, but Vestakia says she just can’t understand what they’re telling her.”

Jermayan regarded her quizzically. Idalia sighed heavily.

“She says they’re trying to communicate symbolically. Showing her pictures of a cave filled with water. And jewels. The same image, over and over, for sennights. But that doesn’t mean anything to her, and she can’t get them to make it any clearer.”

They had been walking in the direction of Healer’s Row, where Idalia’s pavilion was. When she said those last words Jermayan stopped in mid-step.

“A cave marked out by water and jewels. It would be good to think that there were two such places in our land. I know of only one, and in it these things are not symbols, but reality.”

“Jermayan! You know where it is?” Idalia demanded.

“Perhaps I am wrong,” Jermayan answered, though not as if he thought he were. “But a cavern with water, and jewels … that sounds as if the Crystal Spiders speak of the Caverns of Halacira, through which runs Angarussa the Undying.”

“Redhelwar sent Kellen there,” Idalia said, her voice emotionless. “He might already be there.”

“Perhaps,” Jermayan said gently, “you might ask Vestakia to come to us, to see if she has more to tell.”

THAT morning, Vestakia had entered the caverns filled with a grim determination. She would have an answer she could use this time no matter what she had to do to get it, Vestakia vowed. After a mostly-sleepless night, she and Khirethil and Khirethil’s troop went down into the caverns once more. After so many sennights, the preparation for communicating with the Crystal Spiders had become almost a ritual. They came down into the caverns, she laid a heavy fur robe on the floor to protect her as much as possible from the chill of the stone floor, lay down upon it, and waited.

Soon the Crystal Spiders appeared, moving over the floor in a softly-glowing wave of many-legged bodies. They looked very much like the lanterns the Elves lighted outside their homes back in Sentarshadeen—assuming, of course, that those lanterns could walk.

The Crystal Spiders settled over her body, touching her face and hands with their stiff feathery bristles.

:Once more you come to us,: she heard in her mind.

“Yes. I still haven’t found what I need. You have to show me … show me something about this place that makes it special to the Elves.”

There was a long pause, during which she felt the pressure of the Crystal Spiders’ thoughts like a background chorus of whispers in her mind. Though it was nothing like the experience of her dream, it reminded her of it, and she could not help shuddering, just a little.

:You touch the Dark?: came the question, clear and strong in her mind.

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation. “I think I am beginning to see into my father’s mind. I think it can be a weapon to help in our fight.”

:Darkness swallows Light. Be wary.:

There was silence then—not even the whispers—and Vestakia began to believe the Crystal Spiders might have nothing to tell her. She was shaping another question for them when the images began.

Fast—too fast for her to “see” any of them clearly—they appeared inside her mind in quick flashes, changing so swiftly she began to grow sick and dizzy. She closed her eyes tightly, willing herself to endure. She sensed that whatever was taking place, the Crystal Spiders were making a greater effort to communicate in a way she could understand than they ever had before.

On and on the dizzying kaleidoscope of images went, until at last one held. Steadied.

She was looking at a vast cavern, like one she had seen here with her own eyes. The same conical pillars of stone extended from ceiling and floor, except here, some of them had been carved into familiar shapes.

Xaique-pieces.

The images withdrew from her mind, and Vestakia blinked, forcing herself to breathe normally. Her head pounded, as if it had been forced to hold far more than it ought. But her sense of triumph was so strong she almost didn’t care.

A cavern filled with giant xaique-pieces? Surely someone would recognize that description!

“Thank you,” she said to the spiders. “I think this is what we need.”

:We thank you for battling the Dark Minds. We hope we did not damage you, but we sensed your need was great.:

“Oh yes,” Vestakia said. “Yes, it was.”

WHEN the Crystal Spiders had retreated, and she tried to get to her feet, she discovered that she was as weak as if she’d lain long abed with a high fever. Khirethil had to help her to her feet.

“It would be good to hear that your work has prospered. It is nearly noon.”

“So long?” Vestakia gasped. They’d come down to the caves just after dawn, and she’d thought only a few minutes had passed.

“I … think I have the answer now. We need to ride back to the Main Camp and find somebody who will know.”

“We need to ride back to the Main Camp,” Khirethil agreed. “But to place you beneath the eye of the Healers, were I to be consulted.”

“There’s no time for that!” Vestakia said impatiently. “Though I suppose Idalia would be a good place to start.” Idalia knew as much about the Elven Lands as anyone Vestakia knew. If she didn’t recognize Vestakia’s description of the caverns, she might know someone who did.

JERMAYAN and Idalia were just preparing to send a messenger up to the Further Cavern when Khirethil’s troop rode down to Healer’s Alley with Vestakia—chilled, shivering, and wrapped in several fur cloaks in addition to her own.

Khirethil and Idalia both insisted on putting Vestakia into a warm bed at once, while Vestakia was equally adamant that she must deliver her news: The Crystal Spiders had finally provided her with a landmark that someone would be able to use to identify the last of the Shadowed Elf Enclaves.

“Tell me, then, of your courtesy,” Jermayan said, bowing slightly. “I do admit, that while Idalia is an admirable woman, there are times when she does not listen as well as she might, especially when one is attempting to tell her something important.” There was a faintly teasing note in his voice.

“This news will wait,” Idalia snapped. “The fact that Vestakia is freezing will not.”

“But I am not freezing now,” Vestakia said pleadingly. “I am perfectly warm, truly I am, Idalia. And I have worked so hard to find this out, and I am so tired. I want to tell someone. And I am sure that Jermayan must know.”

“Very well then,” Idalia said grudgingly. Her gruffness, both Vestakia and Jermayan knew, was caused by very real worry over Vestakia’s health. “You may talk to Jermayan. I shall go to prepare you a sleeping cordial. And when I come back, you will drink it.”

“I see our speech is to be brief,” Jermayan said. “Then let us begin.”

Vestakia drew a deep breath. “From the first, the Crystal Spiders have been showing me pictures of water and jewels—it is their way of making names, I think, because they do not talk in words. Sometimes they would show me actual pictures, but they were just the same: water and jewels. It made no sense to me!”

“It makes sense to me,” Jermayan said. “But you have said that today they showed you a different thing.”

“Yes!” Vestakia said, her voice vibrant with relief. “Today they showed me a great cavern carved to look like a giant xaique board, with all of the pieces in place, and the floor inlaid as well. Surely someone must know of such a place, Jermayan!”

“Indeed, and this confirms my deepest fears, for you have just told me that the Crystal Spiders say that the last lair of the Shadowed Elves is at the Jeweled Caverns of Halacira.”

“But… Kellen is going to Halacira,” Vestakia said numbly.

“He is,” Jermayan said. “But he will not reach the caverns for some time yet, I am certain. When I return from the Crowned Horns, I will take your warning to Kellen, and he will be grateful to receive it, you may be sure.”

“But—” Vestakia said.

“No buts—” Idalia said implacably, returning with a large steaming mug. “We now know where the last Enclave is, which is a lot more than we knew this morning. Kellen has been fighting these things all winter and doing just fine. And he certainly wouldn’t thank me if I let you wear yourself to a frazzle worrying about him after you’d done your part. Now drink, and get a good rest. You’ve spent far too much time in those damp caverns.”

Meekly, Vestakia did as she was told.

JERMAYAN and Idalia waited until Vestakia was asleep, then left the Healer’s Tent. Khirethil would stand guard over Vestakia, making certain she remained where she was supposed to even if she woke up. A nice warm sleep would be the best thing for her.

WHILE they waited, Jermayan wrote out the details of what Vestakia had learned and gave them to a runner to deliver to Redhelwar, so that the Army’s General would have the latest information—though there was little more that Redhelwar could do about it than what—as it turned out—he had already done.

No one knew better than Jermayan how well Kellen fought. And Kellen had as much experience as any of them against the Shadowed Elves. Further, Kellen was a Knight-Mage, the first in a thousand years. The Wild Magic often worked with great subtlety; it was not impossible that Kellen’s being sent to Halacira was part of the unfolding of a pattern of the Wild Magic too vast and enigmatic for either Elves or Men to see. If there was one thing Jermayan was certain of about his young human friend, it was that Kellen would not go charging blindly into anything without making certain that it wasn’t a trap.

And yet…

“It would be reassuring if we could warn Kellen immediately,” Jermayan said aloud, when he and Idalia left the pavilion. He had told Vestakia that Kellen was days away from reaching Halacira, but in truth he was not certain of that at all. Distance was a variable thing in winter, depending much upon weather conditions. It was possible that Kellen was already there—or if not actually there, then certainly close enough that the Shadowed Elves might venture out of their stronghold to attack him.

Idalia made a rude noise. “If your magic can’t reach him, mine certainly won’t. But we can try Cilarnen. It’s a lovely day for a ride, I think.”

They turned and headed back in the direction of the horse-lines.

VALDIEN was delighted to see his master after such a long absence, and Cella had not gotten as much exercise as Idalia would have liked, with all the work she’d had to do in both camps. The two animals were quickly saddled, and Idalia and Jermayan set out.

“Cilarnen is living up at the pavilion you built for the mirror-spell now,” Idalia told him as they rode. “He says he needs the quiet to work. Kardus visits him—daily, since a problem we ran into earlier—and I think the unicorns are fascinated by the High Magick, but otherwise he pretty much keeps to himself.”

“I do not know that I would think that entirely wise,” Jermayan said slowly.

“He says it’s safer,” Idalia said. “I’m not sure for whom. There’s a lot he isn’t telling us, but it’s only common sense that you can’t cram a lifetime of training and study into a few moonturns without serious side-effects. And I don’t know much about the High Magick, but I do know it isn’t meant to be worked by just one person alone, even if he does have … help.”

“Redhelwar said that he has found a source of power for his spells,” Jermayan said doubtfully.

Idalia made a face. “He’s gained the consent of the Elementals to draw on them directly. Don’t even ask me to explain how that works.”

SOMEONE was coming, but he would be finished long before they were close enough to be a nuisance.

It had taken him a long time to build up this most dangerous of spells, but it was vital. He had told Kardus what he must do; the Centaur Wildmage, understanding the necessity, had promised to cease his visits until Cilarnen was finished. Cilarnen understood why Idalia thought they were necessary, and Kardus was his friend, but the constant fussing and interruptions annoyed him. To do what he must do, to learn what he must know, he needed privacy and solitude. A lot of it.

If he could not do it, there was always the possibility that he would be the traitor within, the Endarkened’s weapon to use against the forces of the Light at the moment of their greatest weakness.

He knew that Anigrel had tampered with his mind.

He knew part of what the Tainted Darkmage had done: He had suppressed Cilarnen’s Magegift when he should have Burned it from his mind.

Why?

And what else had he done?

How did it aid Anigrel—and the Demons—to have Cilarnen—whole, and in possession of his Magegift, alive and among Anigrel’s enemies?

He must know.

He had told the Elves truly that he was no Mindhealer, and even now, with infinite power to draw on, and a High Mage’s library at his disposal, he could not claim such skills, for those healing arts took a lifetime of practice to master.

But to find a compulsion set in his mind …

Perhaps he had the skill for that.

For the past three days he had been sitting in the center of the ice-pavilion, his sword across his knees.

Sifting through things that had no name in words.

All of his early training was there, laid down like layers of rock in the earth, or the densely-colorful weavings of a fine tapestry.

He touched each piece. Each was as it should be. Harmless. Innocent. He left them alone.

It took time—days—to work through all the years of his training. It took a lifetime to make a High Mage, or it should. What he was now, what he was making of himself in sennights instead of years, was something different, as different from a High Mage, he imagined, as Kellen Tavadon was from a Wild Mage. Something created to burn brightly in time of war.

At last he reached the place where things … stopped.

There it was. Alien magic, twined through his own. No wonder he’d been having headaches, Cilarnen realized. The only wonder was that he’d been having so few of them.

It lay dormant, glowing an ugly blackish-red to his spell-sight. It took him hours to work it free, setting layer upon layer of wards around it as he went. It was the most delicate and painstaking magick Cilarnen had ever performed—in a sense, in that moment he took and passed the test for Master Mage.

Once he had removed it from his mind, he was able to trigger it harmlessly, examining it in the moment that it expended itself fruitlessly against the wards he had created around it.

As if in a dream, he saw what might have been. Himself and Kellen, standing beside each other. There was no magick involved in the two of them seeking each other out: That had been inevitable from the moment Cilarnen had been Banished—and lived. Even without the Demons’raid on Stonehearth, it would have happened eventually.

And Anigrel’s spell, lying dormant—not even a spell, as such, for the unicorns andVestakia could have detected that—but a receiver for a spell, waiting for the moment when Anigrel would be invested with his full power as a Darkmage, and trigger it… .

And Cilarnen would strike at Kellen with all a High Mage’s power.

Killing them both.

Cilarnen smiled grimly as the spell-construct fizzled away in a tiny flash of light. He carefully banished the wards he had constructed to contain it, and got stiffly to his feet, rubbing his head.

No more headaches around Kellen. Maybe no more headaches around Wildmages in general, although that might be too much to hope for. Their magics were as different as fire and water.

Which was why, together, they could slay Demons.

Cilarnen stretched, groaning as muscles too long unused protested. He was light-headed from long fasting, and dizzy from lack of sleep.

But company was coming, and it was time to go and greet them.

THEY were within sight of the ice-pavilion when the snow rose up to bar their way.

Valdien stopped dead. Cella shied, and danced nervously.

The snow fell away, revealing the form of a man, carved entirely in ice.

“Very pretty,” Idalia said dryly, patting her palfrey’s neck soothingly.

The creature stood motionless in the snow.

“I wonder what would happen if we just rode around it?” Idalia said to no one in particular.

“I’m afraid it would try to stop you,” Cilarnen called, walking toward them.

The young High Mage was unkempt and unshaven. His short red-gold hair was as rumpled and disheveled as if he’d been running his fingers through it in lieu of a comb, and he didn’t look as if he’d slept for days.

He’d obviously dressed in haste to greet them. The pale-blue tunic and trousers he’d dragged on were meant for sleeping, not for a walk in the snow, and he was holding his heavy fur cloak closed with bare hands. But whatever he’d been doing, it seemed to have gone well, for despite his obvious exhaustion, he looked triumphant.

He paused a short distance away and sketched a quick glyph with his wand. “I’m sorry—you got here sooner than I thought you would. It’s all right now. I’ve put it to sleep.”

Valdien regarded the ice-statue—which looked no different now than it had a moment before—suspiciously, then took a step forward and nosed it. It remained unmoving. The destrier flicked his ears and apparently dismissed the strange object from further consideration.

“You didn’t come all this way just to admire my ice-golems,” Cilarnen said, walking the rest of the way up to them. “Though I do admit I’m proud of them.” He rubbed his forehead.

“Are you still having headaches?” Idalia asked.

“I think that was the last of them,” Cilarnen answered cryptically. “But if you’d like to stable your horses, I’m sure Anganil won’t mind sharing. And even if it is the servants’ day off, I can certainly offer you tea.”

SINCE the last time Idalia had been here, Cilarnen had constructed a stabling area for Anganil—not as elegant as Jermayan’s ice-pavilion, but sturdy and warm. They left Cella and Valdien there, and shortly the three of them were seated in Cilarnen’s painted pavilion, waiting for the tea to brew.

He’d lost weight, Idalia judged critically. And he reminded her, oddly, of Kellen. It wasn’t so much that he’d gained in self-confidence—Cilarnen Volpiril of Armethalieh had always had that—as that in the last few sennights he’d acquired a kind of certainty. He knew what he had to do, and how he had to do it.

No matter how high the cost.

“We’ve come because we need you to do something,” Idalia said, bypassing the courtly Elven dance of politeness. Cilarnen wouldn’t expect it, and they didn’t have time for it anyway.

She hated to ask him for anything at all right now—especially now that she saw how tired he was—but this matter was beyond urgent.

“Of course,” Cilarnen agreed. He glanced at Jermayan. “But with the most powerful Mage in the Elven Lands sitting beside you, you’ll forgive me for being … worried.”

Idalia smiled faintly. “We’ve discovered that the last of the Shadowed Elf Enclaves that Vestakia was searching for is Halacira. Kellen is going there. We need to warn him at once. Can you do it?”

“Probably not,” Cilarnen said lightly. He looked at their faces. “As you knew,” he added doubtfully.

There was a long moment of silence, and then Cilarnen spoke again, in the tone of one repeating a much-given speech.

“Kellen is a sort of Wildmage. The High Magick is innately incompatible with Wildmagery. I can bespell a Wildmage, assuming I use a large destructive spell, like Lightning, but something subtle, like speaking over a distance, or Far-Seeing … no. And I have tried. Redhelwar wanted me to send messages to you, Jermayan, and that didn’t work at all. Look how hard Kellen had to work to hold your power and mine together in the mirror spell, and it took Shalkan to help. Whoever designed the High Magick did not design it to be compatible with the Wild Magic, the Eternal Light knows why.”

Idalia’s shoulders drooped. Jermayan put a comforting arm around her.

“Then he’ll have to manage on his own,” she said bleakly.

“Wait,” Cilarnen said. “There’s something else I can try. The Glyph of Far-Seeing can find things I have seen, and I have seen Kellen’s army. I can’t see him, but I can see them. I don’t know if anyone without some sort of Gift could hear me through the Glyph, but I could try. Would that help?”

An angry retort sprang to Idalia’s lips, but she bit it back. Cilarnen was already exhausted to the point of foolishness, yet he was still offering to help.

“Yes,” she said gently. “That would help, Cilarnen.”

He sighed and nodded, eyelids drooping before he caught himself. “Then give me the exact message you need to send. And then go away. I don’t wish to be rude, but it’s a delicate spell, and you’re both powerful Wildmages. If I discover anything urgent, I’ll send one of my ice-golems to the camp. Come to me then.”

Idalia nodded. “Tell Kellen the Shadowed Elves are in Halacira. He’ll know what to do.”

“HE has changed a great deal,” Jermayan said to Idalia, as they rode back to the camp to pick up a few things before heading up to Ancaladar’s pavilion for the night.

“He’s trying to do in sennights what takes years,” Idalia said. “I think he’s trying to make up for the fact that Armethalieh is refusing to honor the ancient treaties. All by himself.”

IT was near dawn when Ancaladar awakened Jermayan.

The Elven Knight came instantly awake.

“Cilarnen is coming, Bonded,” the dragon said softly.

“Coming? Here?” Jermayan reached for his sword and began to dress, tucking the furs around Idalia again in a futile attempt to keep from waking her, though he knew from experience that she slept as lightly as he.

“He seems very upset,” the dragon said mildly, peering out through the doorway of the tent. “Shall I go and see why?”

“Better not,” Idalia said, sitting up. “I don’t think he’s slept in days, and the last thing we want is for Anganil to pitch him off into the snow.”

“The news can’t be good if he’s come himself—and come here,” Jermayan said grimly, continuing to dress.

“I’ll make tea,” Idalia said pragmatically.

By the time they were both dressed—and the water had approached the boil—Cilarnen was in sight. He had not bothered with either saddle or bridle, riding Anganil tackless and bareback over the snow, lighting his way with a great globe of Magelight that followed him like a captive moon. It turned the snow azure in the predawn gloom. He looked like something out of one of the ancient story-songs; almost like an Elemental creature himself.

He slid from Anganil’s back as he reached the pavilion, and staggered a couple of steps before sinking to his knees in the snow. Jermayan caught him and steadied him on his feet.

“There’s news,” Cilarnen gasped. “I didn’t see Kellen. It’s bad, though.”

“Come in and get warm,” Idalia demanded. “It will wait a second or two.”

“It won’t,” Cilarnen insisted, trying without success to shrug Jermayan off. “I Saw—I Saw some of Kellen’s people—only a few hundred—heading back across the Mystrals. Toward Ysterialpoerin. I don’t know who they were, and I couldn’t talk to them, but I recognized the horses. I’m sure they were with Kellen’s people when they left.”

Without a word Jermayan passed Cilarnen to Idalia, and strode into the tent. Cilarnen leaned against her heavily; she could feel him shaking with cold and exhaustion.

“Cilarnen, are you sure?”

“Idalia, who else would be crossing the Mystrals at this time of year? I can’t tell one Elf from another, especially in armor, but I do know horses. Those horses went out with Kellen’s party. I’m sure of it. And Kardus and I came through those mountains to get here; it’s not as if I’d forget what they look like.”

The speech had drained the last of his strength; she nearly carried him into the pavilion. There, Jermayan had finished putting on his armor and had picked up Ancaladar’s saddle.

“I must go and see,” he said simply.

Idalia nodded. There was nothing else to say.

“I’m sorry,” Cilarnen whispered.

“‘Sorry’?” Idalia demanded, lowering him to the floor of the pavilion and wrapping him in the heaviest of the discarded sleeping furs. “Sorry for bringing us what might be vital warning? It’s true, then, what the Wildlanders have always said—that they are all mad in the City. Now, you will drink a cup of tea, and eat something, and then you will sleep—here—or I promise you, by the Gods of the Wild Magic, I shall Heal the abuses you have heaped on your body myself!”

“Anything … but that…” Cilarnen said faintly.

Outside the ice-pavilion, Idalia heard the booming sound of Ancaladar taking flight.

IT had been six days since she had left the Gathering Plain and Kellen, and Keirasti had pushed her people mercilessly into the mountains.

If the weather favored them beyond all reason, it would be four sennights, perhaps five, before they saw Ysterialpoerin again.

Too long, with the urgency of the news she carried.

There was no way to go any faster. Horses were not unicorns, to outrun the wind, and they could not travel without the supplies the carts carried. And even if the mirror-relays were reliable, Kellen was right: The message she carried was not one that could be trusted to the mirrors. It was one she wished she did not know herself.

Once they reached the far side of the mountains, however, they would abandon the wagons and the heavy equipment, and go on with just what they could carry themselves, using their remounts as pack-horses. They would make better time that way. A sennight outside of Ysterialpoerin she would leave most of her command behind and take a small force, with several remounts for each Knight, and ride as fast as she could for the camp.

And pray to Leaf and Star that they met nothing to oppose them along the way. Her command was already suffering, from frost-burn, snow-glare, and the persistent cough that settled in the chest in the High Cold. Rest and warmth would soothe these ills, but there was no time for either. Each morning she had begged the gods that no horse would fall lame from the punishing pace she set, for they could not spare even an hour to stop to tend it, and Keirasti would leave no animal behind to starve and die, or be killed by predators.

“Keirasti! In the sky! Something comes!” Reyezeyt called, pointing eastward.

Keirasti looked, but could see nothing. Her heart sank in her chest. The Deathwings had found them, and as Kellen had warned her, she must leave her people to die, so that his message might get through.

“Archers!” she shouted. “Prepare for attack!”

JERMAYAN and Ancaladar flew westward, following the route Kellen’s army had taken nearly two moonturns before. The dragon’s sharp eyes picked out the ice-cairns and clusters of trail-wands that marked their path, though all other trace of their passage was erased by wind and fresh snow.

What can have happened? I have been through the Southern Triad not a fortnight ago, and seen no sign of the Enemy. I cannot believe they have destroyed all but a few hundred of those Redhelwar sent.

I cannot believe that Kellen is dead.

Idalia said she would know.

“Do not anticipate the day, Beloved,” Ancaladar said softly. “Soon we will find what Cilarnen has Seen, and we may ask them ourselves. Have patience.”

Jermayan smothered a curse. He knew his Bonded was right, but…

But Kellen had said, over and over, that to split their forces was arrant folly. He would never divide a force under his command.

Unless he faced a disaster beyond Jermayan’s ability to imagine.

As they reached the mountains, the winds grew more turbulent, and Ancaladar fought and strained to follow the army’s course. Again and again Jermayan was flung against the straps of the riding-harness, until he was as bruised as if he were still a novice Knight standing in the practice-Circle. He barely noticed, straining his eyes to pierce the blowing snow that covered the ground below.

“There,” Ancaladar said.

In one of the narrow mountain valleys at the western side of the Mystrals, Jermayan saw what Cilarnen had undoubtedly Seen: a small party of Knights—a scant handful in comparison to what had been sent—with only half-a-dozen wagons accompanying them.

“Land,” he said tersely.

SHE would not give the order to desert her command until the last moment. Her people would obey her without question—that much she knew—but she would carry the shame and horror of it to her grave, for she did not know if the reason for what she did would ever be known.

And she did not even know if abandoning her comrades would work, or if the skyborne enemy would simply kill them all.

“Keirasti! It is Ancaladar!” Reyezeyt said.

They must stop. Gods send that they will stop.

“Archers, light arrows and loose,” she ordered.

The first rank of archers set fire to their arrows and loosed them into the sky, signaling the oncoming dragon and his rider. Even as Ancaladar circled to land, Keirasti had vaulted from Orata’s back.

“Maredhiel,” she said over her shoulder to her Second, “it would please me greatly if you were to make camp here until I return.”

“It would please me greatly as well,” Maredhiel said, relief in her voice. She raised her horn to her lips and blew the signal to make camp.

ANCALADAR had barely settled into the snow by the time Keirasti reached him.

“Jermayan, I know not where you fly, but you must take me to Redhelwar at once. Kellen has ordered this, and it is more vital than any other purpose you may have that I reach him at once.”

“He is riding into a Shadowed Elf trap at Halacira,” Jermayan said. “When did you leave him—and where?”

“On the Gathering Plain, six days past,” Keirasti said promptly. “He will not reach Halacira for another four days yet, by my judgment; we would have reached it a fortnight ago, save that weather delayed us on the road. But my message will not wait even an hour.”

“Then come,” Jermayan said. “We will talk upon the wing.”

As soon as Keirasti had strapped herself into place, Ancaladar began his larruping run upslope to gain the necessary speed for takeoff. After a few moments he had gained the necessary momentum, and bounded into the sky.

THIS time there was no need to fly close to the ground to try to track a warband that might be lost or injured, and Ancaladar was able to take advantage of every current in the high sky to ease their flight. It also meant that they flew very high, and Keirasti’s teeth were quickly chattering, even with the heat the dragon’s body radiated to warm her.

“Of what I carry I may not speak,” she said. “But Kellen and all who travel with him were well when I left him. We have had no casualties and few injuries—more than I can say for the Shadewalker we encountered in the pass, which Kellen slew. No more messengers will find their deaths trying to reach Sentarshadeen, I think.”

“So much makes good hearing,” Jermayan said. But why Kellen felt it so vital to send Keirasti back from Ondoladeshiron with a message for Redhelwar—and apparently a message of such terrible urgency—was a puzzle of grave importance. “Yet I would hear more.”

“And I would tell it to you,” Keirasti said, her voice tight with frustration. “Yet Kellen swore me to silence, that the information I carried, and that which I know, be given to the hand and ear of none but the Army’s General.”

“Now that is disturbing,” Ancaladar said mildly. “I really do think we’d better go ask Kellen about this ourselves.”

“So do I,” Jermayan said. He gritted his teeth, duty warring with the inclination of his heart. “Unfortunately, there is one thing we must do first.”

“I would be grateful, if it is possible, if you were able to return me to my people on your way to speak to Kellen, of course,” Keirasti said. “Maredhiel will wait there until spring, otherwise, and once I have delivered my message, there is no reason my troops should not return to Kellen.”

“That I may promise with a full certainty of accomplishment,” Jermayan said with relief. “Once I have delivered you to Redhelwar, I must make my last flight to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns, to discharge the last of my duty to Andoreniel. Then I shall return you to your people, and join Kellen by sunset, long before he has reached Halacira.”

JERMAYAN landed as near the horse-lines as he dared. He helped Keirasti unbuckle the unfamiliar straps, and as soon as she was safely clear, Ancaladar began his takeoff run again. It was only a short flight to Ysterialpoerin, but he would have to choose his landing-place carefully.

Jermayan only wished he could afford the time to stop and speak to Idalia, but now he grudged every hour that must elapse until he could fly to Kellen. If he knew his heart’s twin, she would already have brought Cilarnen down to Healer’s Row, where he could be tended more efficiently, and news of his and Keirasti’s arrival would already be spreading through the camp. Soon Idalia would know that Kellen was alive and well.

Or had been six days ago, at least.

Keirasti must have pushed her small band like Maiden Winter Herself to have gotten so far into the Mystrals in only six days; whatever message Kellen had entrusted her with must be of a terrible urgency.

And you will know what it is soon enough. B;y this evening’s sunset, if fortune favors you.

KEIRASTI presented herself at Ninolion’s pavilion shaking with cold and weariness. Redhelwar’s adjutant shot to his feet, looking as if he beheld a spirit risen out of the earth itself.

“I come from Kellen Knight-Mage with urgent information for Redhelwar Army’s General,” Keirasti said, holding herself upright with great effort.

She’d thought she’d been cold, crossing the Mystrals, but the flight back to Ysterialpoerin on Ancaladar’s back had introduced her to realms of cold she had never before imagined—and unnatural conditions of height and speed, as well. If that was what being an Elven Mage entailed, she was thankful that the Gods of Leaf and Star had seen fit to make her a simple Elven Knight.

Ninolion rose to his feet and bowed. “I will inform Redhelwar. And I will bring tea.”

LESS than half an hour later she was seated in Redhelwar’s scarlet pavilion, drinking yet another mug of tea. The potent liquid was rich with Allheal and honey, the brewing nicely judged to her weary state.

“I know already how you have come here, for all saw Ancaladar overfly the camp,” Redhelwar said. “And you have said that Kellen sent you.”

“He wished me to give this dispatch into your hand as fast as possible, and at all costs,” Keirasti said, untying the scroll-case from where it lay against her armor and placing it into Redhelwar’s hand. As she did, she felt a great burden ease. “In case it was lost, or had to be destroyed, he told me what it contains, but I am sworn never to speak of it, save to you.”

Redhelwar broke the seal and began to read. As he read, a greater stillness descended over the tent, as if the air itself grew heavier.

At last Redhelwar finished reading.

“When you left Kellen, where was he?” Redhelwar asked bluntly.

Keirasti had been expecting this. If there were ever a time for War Manners, it was now.

“He continues on to Halacira. I left him six days ago; it will be four days more at least, I judge, before he reaches there. This is good, as Jermayan tells me that the Shadowed Elves lair there, and he flies to bring Kellen warning as soon as he returns from the Crowned Horns.”

“As I too have heard,” Redhelwar said. He sighed, shaking his head. “I am grateful that our passage through the Mystrals will be peaceful, at least. You will wish to return to your command, and I believe Jermayan will wish to accommodate you. I will ask that you inform Rochinuviel to expect us.”

Redhelwar would do as Kellen wished, and bring the army to Ondoladeshiron. Keirasti’s emotions were in turmoil. She was certain that Kellen had been sent by the Wild Magic to aid them in this time of their greatest need, but part of her felt a strange disquiet that the orderly arrangement of things that had stood unchanged for uncounted centuries was being blown away as abruptly as blossoms in a sudden storm. If things could change so suddenly, who could say what the future might hold?

“It shall be as you say, Redhelwar,” she said, bowing her head.

“Now go. Rest and eat. There is much to do to prepare the army to move, and for the sake of Kellen’s warning, it must be done with speed. I will send someone to you when Jermayan returns.”

Keirasti stood. “I thank you for that kindness.”

Redhelwar smiled. “Some would say it is no kindness, to send you back out into the cold and the snow. But I know it is what you would wish.”

Chapter Ten

The Xaique Board Underground

THE FOREST LOOKED different in winter. Or it might only be he who’d changed, Kellen thought. The first time he’d ridden through these trees, searching for the Black Cairn, he’d had no idea of who he really was. Now, he was … whole.

The winter weather, comparatively mild south and west of the Mystrals, continued to favor them, though the Wildmages said another storm was coming. That was one of the reasons Kellen had pushed the army as hard as he had—that, and his desperate need, now, to reach Sentarshadeen and Andoreniel. Once he was in Sentarshadeen, he could send a message by unicorn to Redhelwar, and recall Keirasti. With luck, the riders could catch her before she reached the mountains themselves. He’d left her barely six days ago, but his troops had gotten a good rest at Ondoladeshiron and he’d pushed them hard through the lowlands. He didn’t intend to tarry at Halacira, either—a quick check to make sure the caverns were safe, then he’d leave Artenel and a reserve force there to begin the work of readying them to become a fortress, and move on to Sentarshadeen. In summer, the caverns were a day and a half’s ride from the Elven royal city—the journey might take twice that time in winter.

What he would do once he reached Sentarshadeen, he wasn’t sure yet. He wished Idalia was here. He was no great Healer, and that was what Andoreniel needed most of all.

If the Elven King weren’t already dead.

If he was, it would be a disaster for the Allies. Kellen could not imagine the Elven Council acting with quick decision, and Ashaniel wasn’t here. He didn’t know if Redhelwar would act at all without orders, nor could he imagine the Elven Lands divided by civil war.

The Wild Magic will not let that happen, he thought to himself, and even he was not sure whether that thought was a certainty—or a prayer.

THE last time Kellen had come this way, he had not approached the caverns themselves. Umerchiel, who knew this area well, led the army off the War Road—through the high road leading between Sentarshadeen and Ondoladesh-iron was not really as wide or as flat as some of the larger avenues in Armethalieh, it counted as a main thoroughfare in Elven terms—in the direction of the caverns.

Before they reached the caves, they came to the Angarussa.

Even at the height of the Great Drought, the river had still run strongly, and with the torrential rains it had once more become one of the greatest rivers of the Elven Lands. But the cold that had followed the rains had been long and bitter, and the river that Kellen now saw was completely concealed beneath a thick shield of ice.

He called for Artenel.

“It would be good to know if the ice will bear our weight,” he said to the Elven Artificer.

Artenel nodded, and rode out onto the middle of the river. There he dismounted, and peered down into the ice. Next he took a slender metal rod from his horse’s pack and knelt upon the ice, tapping at it gently and listening intently. After a few moments he rode back.

“The ice is quite thick,” he reported. “The army may cross safely. But not all at once, and not all in one place. It is my recommendation that you choose several crossing-places.”

Kellen nodded.

He prepared to give the order for the first units to cross, and stopped.

This was where he’d seen the Tainted starflowers, the first time he’d been here.

“Get the maps of the caverns.”

PART of him seethed with impatience at wasting precious time—he was almost entirely sure that there was nothing at Halacira besides the jewel-mines Jermayan had once described to him. But another part had learned hard lessons in too many battles. Those starflowers had to have been a warning.

And for once, going into a cave, they had complete and accurate maps. The Elves had been working the caves at Halacira for centuries.

“Churashil, Thenalakti, Arvaruth, Farathirian, Merioniach—I want you to cross first. Take your troops and ride ahead to these secondary entrances that I see marked on this map. Guard them closely. I wish nothing to escape from these caverns. If you see any sign of movement, sound your horn, but no one is to leave his position. I will leave a reserve force outside the main entrance that will come to your aid.”

Although how quickly such a force could reach the trouble spot, when the entrances his sub-commanders must guard were scattered over several miles, was a troubling question.

“If it is possible, and seems good to you, block the entrances that you find.”

“Yes, komentai’i,” Churashil said. The others nodded.

The Knights began to move off. By the time the rest of the army was across and in position near the Main Entrance, the five groups guarding the entrances should be in position.

He turned to his Wildmages.

“Wirance, Kerleu, you must go to the others and tell them I need enough Coldfire to crown at least two hundred Knights. I would also like some of you to follow us into the caverns and cast Coldfire on the walls as we go.”

Wirance regarded him, eyebrows raised. “Expecting trouble, are you?”

Kellen smiled without humor. “No. I’m just planning for it.”

He wished—and not for the first time since he’d left Ysterialpoerin—that Vestakia were here. Not simply because he missed her company, but because right now she would have been incredibly useful to have around.

He didn’t know that he was facing trouble across the river. In fact, it was likelier than not that he wasn’t, and he was wasting precious time here when he could have been doing a quick reconnoiter of the caverns and heading quickly on to Sentarshadeen.

But he couldn’t—he wouldn’t—let his impatience cost lives. His information from Rochinuviel was already more than a sennight old. Whatever would happen in Sentarshadeen might have already happened. It was beyond his control. This wasn’t.

He owed all those who had already died, and those who trusted him now, his very best efforts.

And part of him—a very tiny part, all things considered—felt a spark of pride. Even a moonturn ago he would not have had the experience—and, yes, the wisdom—to organize something like this. To think three and four steps ahead of the enemy—even an enemy he wasn’t quite sure was there.

Why, he might even be able to beat Idalia at xaique now.

IT was a couple of hours past noon by the time the sledges crossed, the last elements of the army. By then the surface of the ice was starting to show signs of strain, though Artenel assured Kellen it would hold.

He waited on the far bank, watching as the slow heavy sledges made their way, one by one, across the surface of the frozen river.

“Fun, isn’t it?” Shalkan asked.

“In a weird way,” Kellen answered honestly. “It would be a lot more fun if there were no possibility that anyone could get hurt.”

“I suppose that’s why the Elves have Flower Wars,” the unicorn said thoughtfully.

“I don’t suppose you could go on to Sentarshadeen and see what’s going on there?” Kellen said hopefully.

Shalkan snorted rudely. “And leave you here to fend for yourself? You’d probably get lost in the caverns and never come out. Though I understand they’re worth an extended look.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I have time for sightseeing,” Kellen grumbled. “I just wish I could be everywhere at once.”

“That, unfortunately, is beyond even the power of a Knight-Mage,” Shalkan said repressively. “Though you might manage something close to it if you Bonded to a dragon.”

“No thanks,” Kellen said briefly. Leaving aside the fact that there weren’t any dragons either available or willing, the idea of shortening the lifespan of an immortal creature to a few brief decades would make him feel horribly guilty. It seemed utterly unfair. At least with Jermayan, Ancaladar would have centuries.

“It’s time to go,” Shalkan said.

“Wish me luck,” Kellen said.

“Good hunting,” the unicorn replied.

FIRARETH quickly passed the ox-drawn sledges as Kellen rode up to the head of the line. Pale nimbuses of Coldfire shimmered around the heads of many that he passed, testament to the Wildmages’ tireless labors. Around him, units reorganized into marching order as the remains of the column reformed, several groups dropping back to guard the vulnerable supply-carts. Just because they hadn’t been attacked yet didn’t mean they weren’t going to be. Both unicorns and scouts from Sentarshadeen should be patrolling the woods this far east, but by now Kellen took nothing for granted.

Another hour’s march brought them in sight of the cavern’s mouth.

Even if he had not known what this place was, there would have been no mistaking it for anything but an ancient and well-loved place of the Elves.

The opening of the cave had been shaped. Not made perfectly symmetrical—that wasn’t the Elven way—but improved, so that it was somehow more vivid than something that had been left untouched. In contrast, the rock face that flanked the entrance had obviously been painstakingly engineered, for in this season, the cavernmouth was surrounded by a lacy webwork of ice, as delicate as spun sugar, created when streams of water arching into the air had frozen. They sparkled in the sunlight, giving back all the colors of the rainbow.

I wonder how they managed that? Kellen thought. And why? Surely no one came to the Caverns of Halacira at this time of year to see this. He wondered what the cavern face looked like in summer.

He’d made most of his dispositions while the army was waiting to cross. He took care of the last-minute details now. He would lead the first group into the caverns; after half an hour, Umerchiel would follow with a second force. Another party would stand ready to ride to the aid of those barricading the cave-system’s other exits.

That accounted for the disposition of nearly all of his command, save for a skeleton force remaining behind to guard the supply wagons and begin the work of setting up the camp, since Artenel’s forces would be settling into a permanent camp here, and he’d be leaving the oxen and the heavy equipment behind with most of his people while he headed on to Sentarshadeen.

And whether there was trouble in the caverns or not, he simply couldn’t take his entire force down with him. It was bad enough—from a tactical standpoint—that he’d be leading them, but that was something he simply couldn’t forgo. As a Knight-Mage, his battle-sense would give them the advantage that could spell life or death.

Assuming there was anything here at all.

Warily, Kellen gazed at the cavernmouth, shifting with the ease of long practice into battle-sight, but there was nothing to see, and his Wildmage senses brought him no trace of warning.

He blew out a deep breath, watching it turn to a plume of fog on the winter air. As was so often the case, the only way to know was to go and see.

He cast his own globe of Coldfire over his head and loosened his sword in his sheath. Isinwen handed him one of Artenel’s glass shields. Just in case, everyone was carrying them now.

He gave the order to advance.

THE passage into the caverns bore the same resemblance to the caves he had been in previously as a garden did to a wild woodland. He realized that subconsciously he’d been expecting something a good deal cruder. Hadn’t Jermayan said that these were mines?

If the Elves did mine here, they did a good job of concealing it.

Some of the things he saw were patently artificial, like the twining pattern of Greet-the-Day vine that curled along the top edge of the walls, though it took him a few seconds to realize that the plant, with its delicate bell-shaped flowers, was carved out of the stone itself. As they got farther from the entrance, he saw that there were small niches carved into the walls, each one a perfect miniature copy of an Elven house-front, and obviously designed to hold lanterns. Every few yards there was a step down, so instead of a long steep slope into the earth, they descended by means of a series of short level terraces.

It would not be pleasant to have to retreat up these long shallow steps fighting a holding action against an enemy, Kellen thought soberly. Nor would it be an easy matter to get carts, either on wheels or sledges, through this passage. He hoped one of the other passages was better suited for moving heavy equipment in and out.

As they moved deeper into the earth, he ran through the details of the cavern map in his head. After the entry passageway, there was a large open cavern. Galleries led off that to the left and right, and directly ahead the main passage continued onward to the point about half a league farther on to where the An-garussa flowed through the caverns. Beyond that was one of the other exits from the cavern system.

The caverns had several levels, and Umerchiel had told him that there were staircases between the upper and lower galleries in many places, as well as pumps, carts, and equipment to lift ore from the deepest levels of the cave systems. Without Vestakia, the caverns would take at least three days to search thoroughly, but it was a task he dared not slight. Perhaps tomorrow, if all went well today, he would bring more people into the caves to search and clear them, but for now Kellen wouldn’t be easy in his mind until he had overlooked as much as he could himself, searching with battle-sight for obvious traps.

When they entered the first open space, he received another of those odd surprises that one had to get used to when dealing with Elves. Though the walls of the cavern had been left pretty much untouched—aside from carved niches for lanterns, now empty—the entire stone floor of the cavern had been carefully inlaid to mimic one of the carpets Kellen had seen covering the floors of the House of Leaf and Star. He glanced back toward the entrance, and saw, as he’d expected, that whatever craftsman had laid down the design had even created the tasseled fringe at the edge of the carpet, making it slightly mussed, as a real carpet’s fringe would be by the passage of feet over its surface.

Elves. They’re just, I don’t know … different.

There were four galleries on each side of the chamber. After checking each entrance for traps—or any sign that something bad had passed this way—Kellen left sentry-parties at each entrance, with orders to call for help—or simply fall back—if anything did appear. When Umerchiel’s force arrived, it would relieve Kellen’s all along his line of sortie. They needed to secure the topmost levels of the cave system before descending deeper. Fortunately, not all of the cave system involved multiple levels; the Elves had probably been worried about disturbing the Angarussa too much and ending up with an underground ocean instead of a jewel mine.

ONCE it would have been easy to fall under the spell of this place. If he hadn’t seen Sentarshadeen, or Ysterialpoerin. Or the Fortress of the Crowned Horns. Or Pelashia’s Veil. They entered a cavern that seemed to stretch on for miles, its vaulted ceiling stretching off to the distant horizon. But his senses told him that the space he and his troops stood within was small. It was only that the walls were carved in the semblance of distant caverns, the imitation so perfect that it could fool the eye, but not the body. Only the fact that their Coldfire illuminated the deepest “depths” of the carven caverns hinted at the artifice. Kellen paused to run his fingers over the carving, almost unable to believe what his senses told him even as he broke the illusion.

They moved on.

As they passed into the next chamber, the temperature dropped sharply, and the air began to feel much damper. Kellen inhaled deeply. They must be nearing the Angarussa, which meant they could start to clear some of the side-passages soon. After so long in the arid cold of winter, the dampness felt good.

This chamber, unlike the one they were leaving, was large in truth. The Coldfire illumination they all carried seemed to shrink back, burning brightly in a tight ball above their heads, illuminating the floor, but not reaching out to the walls or the ceiling.

The floor was inlaid in a pattern of green and white squares.

A few steps farther into the chamber, Kellen understood why.

Here, the action of rock and water had again created tall columns of stone that stretched from floor to ceiling. But these the Elves had not left untouched. Though they remained where the random action of Nature had deposited them, of the partial columns that had been allowed to remain, each one had been carved into the likeness of a xaique game-piece. It was as if some giant unfinished game of xaique were being played out on the floor of this chamber.

The moment Kellen approached the first of the carvings, he felt a thrill of unease.

Something is wrong here.

He did not know where the conviction came from. He had never seen Halacira before. But the feeling was strong, and he trusted it.

And a moment later, he understood.

One of the xaique figures—a delicate little dancer, her arms raised to offer a garland of flowers—had been smashed. The inside surface of the stone was paler than the outside; the mutilations to the statue seemed to glow in the dimness, and the chips and fragments that lay scattered on the stone floor glittered almost like ice.

At his shoulder, he heard Isinwen draw breath sharply, and heard a low susurrus of speech as word was passed back through the waiting Elves.

No Elf would have done this. No Elf could have done this.

Show me, Kellen said to his magic.

But instead of the clear vision of what-had-been that he had come to expect, it was as if a fog descended over his vision. He did not see what had gone before, nor did he see the utter darkness of the cavern without Coldfire. Instead he saw twisting shadows that slithered over each other like ink poured into water. He knew something had been here—and something Tainted, it was easy to guess—but precisely what it had been, he could not see.

He blinked his battle-sight away and turned to Isinwen.

“We know now that there have been trespassers here. But when they were here, and whether they remain, I cannot tell. You will oblige me by asking everyone to remain alert. And send someone to warn the sentries and Umerchiel.”

“Komentai,” Isinwen said, turning away to pass the order.

A lot of Shadowed Elves had escaped after the Battle for the Heart of the Forest. No one knew how many, but enough to cause serious problems for the Allies. They could be here. Something that hated Elves certainly was. If the Shadowed Elves were, it seemed to Kellen that they did not want to fight another losing battle. Perhaps they had learned wisdom in their earlier defeats. Or perhaps they knew that they were the last of their kind.

But from everything he’d learned of them previously, he thought that if he offered them a great enough prize, and a tempting enough target, he could lure them out. The Shadowed Elves seemed to be incapable of avoiding battle when their enemy came close enough.

“I need a few volunteers …” Kellen said, turning to his sub-commanders.

WITH fifty chosen Knights at his back, Kellen moved deeper into Halacira. Since everyone with him had volunteered to go, the difficulty had been in picking the best people for the task, not in finding ones willing to go.

He chose Knights that he could afford to lose.

There was every possibility that he was leading them into a trap. It was, after all, partly his intention to spring a trap. But he accepted the grim possibility that the trap’s jaws might close on them all with lethal effect.

He had no choice but to place himself at risk. Of everyone there, he had not only the best chance to keep the warriors with him safe, but to provide an irresistible target for any enemy within these caverns. He knew, without false pride, that Shadow Mountain desperately wanted to get its hands on him, both because of his past victories over it, and because he was a Knight-Mage. If a Wildmage represented a source of both power and food to the Endarkened, he knew that a Knight-Mage must represent even more enticing bait.

As he and the Elves accompanying him moved across the enormous xaique board and toward what the maps had marked as the Southern Promenade, they saw that more and more of the carven xaique-pieces had been marred in some way, though none as thoroughly as the first they’d seen. There were no traps that he was able to detect, though now Kellen traveled a zig-zag course across the cavern floor, sweeping every inch of it himself. His sense of unease deepened. Beyond the Southern Promenade—another series of linked caverns, with galleries leading off them; the perfect place for an ambush—they should reach the banks of the Angarussa Underground, and beyond that a long, comparatively narrow passage leading up to the surface again. If they were allowed to traverse that entire distance unchallenged—it was at least a mile, if he was reading the maps at all correctly—then there would be no choice but to try another sweep, and another, through different parts of the cave-system, until they were absolutely certain they had secured every last square inch of it.

It might take sennights.

And meanwhile, what would be happening in Sentarshadeen?

They left the xaique chamber.

The next chamber’s walls had been extensively carved—into the semblance of a Flower Forest. Kellen realized he would search the caverns of Halacira in vain for signs of mining; it had slowly dawned on him that the elaborate stone-carving was the way that the Elves disguised—or at least made up for—their mineworking activities. But the chamber seemed completely untouched by any activities of the interlopers.

The next chamber was carved with scenes of … mining. Stone scaffolds covered the walls, with stone figures climbing upon them, stone tools in their hands.

Still nothing.

He wondered what it was about the xaique board that had roused someone’s anger to smash it and reveal their presence.

Xaique is about war. The figure with the garland … Master Belesharon told me she has something to do with the Flower Wars, which aren’t actually real wars. Whoever is here is sending a sort of message to us—they want to be found—though I think only Master Belesharon could understand the whole of it.

I understand enough. I understand that there’s someone here who needs to be gotten rid of.

The mining-cavern was long and comparatively narrow, its floor sloping very slightly downward. Suddenly Kellen’s armored sabaton skidded on the smooth stone floor.

It was wet.

He knelt down and touched the stone. A distinct sheen of moisture clung to the stone, heavy enough to make it slippery. He raised his fingers to his nose and sniffed. Water.

“Be careful,” he said aloud. “The floor is wet.”

And why was it wet? It was true that the Angarussa had undoubtedly been running very high in its bed this season—both above and underground—but if Kellen was certain of one thing, it was that the Elves would have made certain that the caverns would not flood. And if for some strange reason they did not choose to do that, Umerchiel would have mentioned the possibility of flooding.

But if there was a trap, they were supposed to be walking into it. Gritting his teeth, Kellen gave the signal to advance.

The floor in the next cavern—its walls, suitably, as this was the last one before they reached the Angarussa, were carved with a frieze of selkies at play amid the currents of a river—was also slick with moisture, but no wetter than the floor of the one before.

At the end of the cavern, they came to a wall.

It was nothing the Elves had made. It was well-built, of blocks of shaped stone obviously cut from someplace here in the caverns, but compared to the workmanship of the Elves, it was as crude as a child’s mud-pies. It blocked the opening to the next cavern, the one that led to the Angarussa. It was not quite finished, at least if it had been meant to seal the opening completely; there was still an opening at the top, where a few courses of stone had yet to be laid.

Umerchiel had described the chamber beyond to him, and it was clearly indicated on the map. A long low transverse gallery, the Angarussa ran through it at the bottom of a deep gorge: This chamber was actually entirely artificial, created to expose the river where it traveled beneath the earth. A stone bridge crossed the river at the top of the gorge, level with the floor of the gallery, and led to the passageway to the surface, where Churashil was waiting with his guard-party.

Kellen regarded the wall with his battle-sight. Not the trigger to a trap, but part of one. He pulled off his heavy leather glove and the armored gauntlet beneath it and touched the wall with his bare hand.

The stone was damp, beaded with water.

Holding his breath, he tapped it experimentally—and very gently—with his sword. The stone gave back a dull thudding sound. The wall was very thick, or else the chamber beyond had been filled in completely.

“I’m going to see if I can see over the top,” Kellen said.

“Komentai, let me go,” Ambanire said urgently.

“No. This is a trap. I need to see more.”

Replacing his glove and gauntlet, and sheathing his sword, Kellen began to climb.

He reached the top, and sent the ball of Coldfire hovering over his head out into the chamber.

For an instant he could not believe what he saw.

Water. Black and still and smooth as glass, it filled the chamber beyond to the level of the retaining wall, a vast underground lake extending into the passage to the surface.

Suddenly there was a booming crash, and Kellen saw the level of the water in the lake begin to drop sharply.

“Ambanire, sound the alarm,” he said, dropping back to the ground. Whatever had been meant to kill them, he’d just found it. He drew his sword.

UMERCHERIEL’S forces had reached the xaique chamber a little after Kellen’s party had gone on ahead. Isinwen showed him the mutilated statues, and they settled in to wait.

It was hard to calculate time so far beneath the earth, but Isinwen thought that no more than three quarters of an hour had passed when he felt a long rumbling shake the rock beneath his feet.

A roaring sound built, as if suddenly they stood beneath an enormous waterfall, and a strong wind began to blow from the direction they had come.

He heard the sound of running—no, splashing—feet.

The orderly ranks of waiting Knights parted to allow the passage of the guards Kellen and Umerchiel had left on the side-galleries of the first cavern. They were as wet as if they’d fallen into the Angarussa itself.

“Isinwen! The caves fill with water!”

The ground shook again, and over the roar of water, Isinwen heard the distant notes of Ambanire’s warhorn.

The water was to his ankles now, rising with a relentless surging motion. It came from the direction of the cavern’s mouth.

“Follow me,” Isinwen said. “Quickly!”

A strong steady wind began to blow toward Kellen, and he felt the rock beneath his feet shudder, as if the subterranean earth were some nightmare beast attempting to cast off unwelcome vermin. He risked one more climb up the wall. It was just as he’d feared. The water was already level with the surface of the bridge, and whirlpools eddied in its surface as the artificial lake was sucked elsewhere into the caverns. Suddenly the water that had been seeping toward them slowly but steadily began to pour into the chamber with the steady force of the An-garussa itself. When Kellen dropped to the floor again he was standing ankle-deep in a river that poured inexorably through the caverns with the steady force of a rising spring.

Dams. It was why the Angarussa had been so easy to cross. It had been frozen nearly solid because there hadn’t been much water in its bed. Kellen knew from bitter experience that the Shadowed Elves were master engineers; they must have constructed a series of dams and spillways down here somewhere and diverted the Angarussa to fill them. Now they were pumping that water back up into the upper caverns, trapping Isinwen and the rest of his force.

As Kellen stared out at the rock it was as if, for a moment, it turned to smoke. He could see the dam-mechanism; the series of side and lower galleries painstakingly bricked up and outfitted with a complex mechanism of pumps and conduits over the last three moonturns.

There was no way he could reach them to disable it.

And there was worse. The vibrations he had felt were the sound of several of the side-galleries collapsing. The water roaring into the Caverns of Halacira would have even less space to fill than otherwise, and so it would fill it faster.

But though the work of the Shadowed Elves was brilliantly-conceived and sweeping in scope, it had been hastily-executed and would not hold for long. Already Kellen’s battle-sight showed him that the damming and pumping mechanisms were buckling under the strain of operation and the new walls designed to seal up caverns as artificial dams were crumbling under the weight of the water pressing on them. Soon all the Shadowed Elves’ careful work would give way and nearly everything would return to normal within the Caverns of Halacira.

But before that happened, Kellen and the people he had led down here would all be dead. If he could not get his army out before the water trapped them here, two thirds of the force Redhelwar had sent with him would drown beneath the earth.

And there was only one way out.

Across the bridge.

“We’ve got to get this wall down,” he told his men. “This is the way we’re going out.”

He began to hack at the wall with his sword.

THE stone was soft and water-soaked; the wall was not something that was meant to hold for long. Ambanire shoved him rudely aside and began chipping at the mortar between two stones with his dagger; Kellen quickly switched to the smaller weapon and applied himself to the softer bands between the stone as well.

The water was rising around their legs.

Cilarnen or Jermayan could summon a lightning bolt to blast the stone to ash. As far as Kellen knew, he had no such abilities—even if he could call up a thunderstorm out of season, he couldn’t bring the lightning here—and if he could, it would be far more likely to strike Elven armor than inert stone. He hammered harder at the wall, fury and frustration lending him a strength nearly that of his companions. He had not led them this far just to let them die.

“Shield—and push.”

It was not his own thought. It seemed to come from outside him. It was almost Shalkan’s voice, and yet not.

But I don’t Shield—I can’t!

Shield was a spell no Knight-Mage cast, or needed.

But he wasn’t going to let his people die simply because he wasn’t willing to try.

“Stand back,” he told the others.

The water was to their hips.

When Idalia had thought he was going to be a regular Wildmage, she’d told him about casting Shield-spells. A Wildmage Shielded naturally when Healing, though that wasn’t quite the same thing. And of course, in his lessons in the High Magick, he’d had the principles of Mage-Shield dinned into him by Anigrel morning, noon, and night for almost a decade.

He did his best to forget all of it.

He placed his hands flat against the wall.

I need this, he said to the Wild Magic. I need this for my people. They trust me to keep them alive. I will pay any price—anything!

He felt the Presence descend.

“When the time comes, you must… let go.”

Once he would have thought of that as a light Price. Now he thought it might be the highest Price of all.

Yes, he thought.

The sense of listening Presence departed.

His hands began to glow—brighter than the Coldfire above his head, until he had to close his eyes. Not the green glow of Healing—that he had seen before. Nor was it the blue light he had unconsciously expected—the first voice in his mind had sounded a lot like Shalkan. Instead, it was almost a blend of the two, a deep blue green, a color he had never seen in Nature. Even with his eyes closed, he could still see what the light was doing. It spread from his hands over the wall, and where it touched, the red glow of Taint vanished like smoke, until the entire wall radiated with the Shield he should never have been able to cast.

He pushed.

The stone resisted, but now it was soft and rotten, almost like chalk. His hands went through, pushing a large chunk of the center of the wall with them, and he pulled back just in time to keep from getting hit by the top of the wall as it fell free.

Water began to rush through the gap.

“Come on,” he said to the others, his voice ragged with the exhaustion that came with summoning the Wild Magic. “Tear it down. Quickly.”

A mile was a variable distance.

It was one thing if you were walking through the woods on a warm spring day. Another if you were riding—or walking—through a winter blizzard.

Yet another trying to move through waist-deep water in a cave beneath the earth.

Moving at the head of the Knights, Isinwen splashed forward as quickly as he could, though the waist-deep water slowed his steps and those of his men as if they moved through thick mud.

His heavy fur cloak was a sodden weight; he unclasped it and let the water pull it away. Though his heavy wool surcoat was also soaked with as much water as it could hold, and clung heavily to him, he did not consider removing it: That would require unbuckling his swordbelt, and he dared not take the time. Every item of clothing he wore was designed to withstand the cold of winter and the subterranean chill of a winter cave; it provided no protection at all against the icy water that he waded through, and the fur, thick weaves, and heavy leather soaked up and retained water, adding to the weight he carried.

The weight that would hold him down, hold every one of them down, and drown them when the waters reached above their heads. He could—they all could—strip off their armor and swim for it, but they would be miles from their supply wagons when they reached the surface.

And the exit they were heading for was narrow and steep, a small staircase.

It would take so many a long time to ascend by such a narrow passage.

THE cave-opening was clear, and the water was pouring through it, back into the bed of the Angarussa. The level of the water here in the selkie-cavern had dropped to their knees, though the force of the current, as it foamed through the narrow opening, had increased. Kellen was glad to see that the river was running swiftly through its channel—which meant that at least some of the water in the caves should be draining away—but the water level was beginning to rise again as well—swiftly—it was possible that this gallery might refill, even with the constant drainage, cutting off their only way out. If these caves were flooded, then any chambers below this level were also flooded. Since the cave floors were both level and even, the water was almost certainly the same depth everywhere in every one of the surviving chambers.

They were running out of time.

Had he made the wrong decision, to go deeper into the caves with only a skeleton force? He knew he hadn’t. If he had proceeded with his entire command, they would have been trapped here when the Shadowed Elves opened the spillways, with no time to open a line of retreat.

“Ambanire, it would please me greatly should you desire to take the Knights and cross the bridge to join up with Churashil’s force immediately. Direct him to send messengers back to the main force: We will need our horses brought to this entrance.”

The bridge itself was not trapped. Perhaps the Shadowed Elves themselves needed it. Perhaps trapping it was something they hadn’t gotten around to. Or perhaps they’d realized that if they left it alone, it would be a lure he simply couldn’t refuse.

“At once, komentai.”

Ambanire turned and began to wade out toward the bridge, through the rushing water.

Now Kellen could see the steady glow of Coldfire that meant the approach of his main force. He felt a wave of relief. Isinwen wasn’t an idiot, after all, needing Kellen to direct his every move. By the time the water had reached his ankles, he would already have begun to move the forces Kellen had left with him, and gathered Umacheriel’s men with him along the way—whether he had heard the horn-call or not.

Suddenly, from the darkness ahead, came the gutteral barking yelps of the Shadowed Elves.

There were no other exits from this gallery on the maps. They had been hiding in the darkness. Waiting.

Ambanire’s men had just reached the middle of the bridge. It was a narrow strip of smooth stone, just wide enough for two Elves to cross side by side. In normal times, the surface of the Angarussa ran several feet below it. Now the swiftly-rushing current was nearly level with the bridge’s surface. The wet stone was slick as ice. Any armored Knight who slipped from it would drown beneath the surface of the icy water before he had the chance to struggle free of his armor.

The Shadowed Elves came swarming out of the darkness, too many to count. They held the far side of the bridge, but they did not need it to cross. As their archers began firing, more of the Tainted creatures began climbing across the walls of the cavern, heading toward Kellen.

“Back!” Kellen shouted, drawing his sword. If they could hold them in the doorway, they might survive the assault. But survival wasn’t enough. They had to get across the bridge while they still could—and it was obvious that the Shadowed Elves intended to hold them here until the water did its work. They didn’t care whether they lived or died—only that they killed Elves.

Shadowed Elf archers ran out onto the bridge, pressing their advantage. Though the glass shields Kellen’s force carried provided more protection than the shields the Knights normally carried, some of the arrows still found their mark. Kellen watched helplessly as Elves staggered and fell, plummeting into the black water. Even though the wounds might not ordinarily have been fatal, they were enough to send their victims over the side of the bridge.

And there was no way he could get to them.

He waded through the rising water, out into the river gallery. The Elves who had not yet begun to cross had retreated to the bridgehead, forming a guard for those still on the bridge, but that wasn’t enough either. How many Shadowed Elves had escaped Ysterialpoerin?

They needed the bridge. They needed the Shadowed Elves to come through. All of them.

Kellen grabbed the shoulder of the nearest Knight.

“Back!” he shouted, over the howls of the Shadowed Elves, the clash of steel and the roar of the rising water. “Back into the other cavern! Tell Isinwen to retreat!”

The Knights at the bridgehead began to back away, turning to head for the doorway.

It was blocked by a party of Shadowed Elves. They wore no armor, but every one of them carried an Elven-forged sword.

With a roar of anger, the Elves moved to engage their enemy.

It was almost a parody of a battle. Every move was slowed by the rising water, making the normally-graceful Elves clumsy and slow. The numbing chill of the caves penetrated their sodden clothing. Cloaks and surcoats wound around them, dragging them down and fouling blows.

But still, against this smaller, unarmored enemy, the conclusion of the battle was not in doubt. The water swirled with Shadowed Elf blood, its color impossible to tell in the azure Coldlight, and the bodies of their dead floated away from the battle, sliding down into the Angarussa.

Kellen glanced back. The last of the survivors were off the bridge.

More Shadowed Elves should have been crossing. More should have been swarming over the walls and the ceiling toward the embattled Elven Knights.

Instead, they … waited.

He could See the way the battle would go, See the Shadowed Elves’ intention. This time they did not mean to follow their prey into the caves, as they always had before. This time they would wait, holding the cavern until the waters rose again. They would send a few attackers to convince him otherwise, but somewhere, in their last battles, they had learned patience and restraint. It could be a fatal lesson for the Elves.

He splashed back through the current after the others, cursing at his slowness. After a seeming eternity, he reached the others.

“The Shadowed Elves are holding the bridge. They aren’t going to attack, and they aren’t going to let us cross,” he said shortly. “What about going back to the main entrance?”

“The water is even deeper there,” Isinwen said. “It jets from the side galleries with the force of the river itself, making a wall we cannot breech.”

It was only what Kellen had expected.

“Where’s Wirance?”

The water rose several inches before Wirance arrived at his side, and while they waited Kellen removed his cloak and surcoat, and ordered those around him to do the same. He inspected his bow with resignation. The Elven bows had greater range and force than those of the Shadowed Elves, but by now their bowstrings were soaked. Useless. He tossed his bow and quiver into the water in disgust.

“Some of the archers string their bows with silver, Isinwen said. “The range is not as great, but—”

But silver would not stretch to uselessness in the damp.

“I want every one of them here. Now.”

Isinwen moved off to pass the word.

As Isinwen departed, Wirance arrived. The Mountainborn Wildmage’s leather armor was black with water, and his lips were blue with cold.

“I hope you have an idea,” he said when he saw Kellen.

“The Shadowed Elves have built pumps and dams to flood the caverns. They’ll fail soon. They’ll fail now if we can jar them enough. I need you and the other Wildmages to come up with something that will shake these caves—hard.”

If they saw that their plan to drown Kellen and his army had failed, the Shadowed Elves might revert to their old tactics and commit to an all-out attack. If not, at least Kellen’s people would escape drowning, and be able to scour the caves for them afterward.

Wirance considered for a moment. “There is a spell. It will take time to cast. And it might just seal us in.”

Kellen grimaced. “It’s not as if we have a lot of choices. Do it.”

Isinwen was struggling back toward the front of the army, staggering through the heavy weight of water and clutching the Elves around him for support as he moved. “Come on. We’re going to try to take the bridge the old-fashioned way.”

Kellen made his dispositions quickly. Umerchiel’s force would remain to protect the Wildmages. Kellen, Isinwen, and the rest of the first force would do their best to cross the bridge and establish a bridgehead on the far side, so that they could protect more of their force in the crossing.

It would not be the easiest thing they’d ever done.

They made their way—once more—back to the river-cavern. Several times Elves fell, disappearing beneath the surface of the water to be dragged to the surface again by the Knights around them. Kellen only hoped that Isinwen had been right about the bows—part of his plan relied on being able to drive the Shadowed Elves back from the far side of the bridge.

The water poured with increasing force through the opening between the two caverns, white crests of foam upon its top.

As they reached the cavern’s mouth, Kellen once again passed the word of his plan to all his commanders. A good General, he’d learned, did not keep his plans to himself. Others must be ready to carry them out if he was unable to.

And unlike a proper story-song General, Kellen would be leading this engagement, not directing it.

“It doesn’t matter if some of them get past you. In fact, we want as many of them to get past you as possible. The more that attack Umerchiel’s force, the fewer there will be holding the bridge. That’s what we have to secure. If we can take the far side, we can bring enough of our force across to take the fight to them.”

“So we begin,” Isinwen said. “Leaf and Star guide us this day.”

Kellen nodded. The Elven archers who were still able to loose arrows readied their bows.

Kellen raised Light At The Heart Of The Mountain in salute and slogged forward.

The water level dropped sharply once they were in the river-gallery, but Kellen saw, with a sinking heart, that the river now ran across the surface of the bridge itself.

He began to run. Master Belesharon had made him run through snow. This was not much harder.

He reached the bridge. It was as slick as glass, but he had fought in a Circle whose floor was oiled glass.

He ran faster.

Behind him, the Elven archers began to attack.

He’d caught the Shadowed Elves off guard, but it gave him no advantage. They would recover long before he could reach the far side of the bridge. Already their archers began to loose their deadly poisoned darts. Kellen ducked as far behind his shield as he could—it seemed to weigh far more than it had this morning; the subterranean cold and the cost of the spell he had cast were telling on him. Behind him, more Knights followed.

The world dimmed and brightened, in the peculiar vividness of battle-sight. He could see in every direction at once. The Elves behind him were moving away from the cavern opening as fast as they could, moving along the sides of the cavern walls. Fortunately the Shadowed Elf bows did not have the range of their Elven cousins, and they were out of range of the poisoned arrows.

Ahead, the Shadowed Elves were starting across the bridge, while others began, once again, to swarm the cavern walls, this time carrying the flasks of acid and poison that could kill instantly. Male and female were mixed equally in their ranks, and Kellen Knew that these were the last survivors of the Enclaves they had destroyed farther north.

The first of the enemy reached him. Kellen slashed at the body with his sword, the blow carrying the Shadowed Elf into the water.

On the far side of the river, several of the Shadowed Elves flung themselves into the water and began swimming toward the bridge.

The cold doesn’t bother them. And the current will sweep them toward the bridge. Which is exactly where they want to go …

He banished the thought from his mind. There was no time to think now, or to change his plan. He had made the best possible plan that he could. It would work.

Or they would die.

It was a nightmare battle in the icy darkness, with only the globes of Cold-fire to illuminate the scene. The enemy came from in front—behind—beside—slowing their passage across the narrow bridgeway, and the water rose, threatening to do what even the Shadowed Elves could not: sweep them from the bridge and drown them in the depths of the river.

Worse, though the Angarussa had been running free before, the bodies of the Shadowed Elf dead did not sink, but floated. They had been pulled by the current toward the exit-passage of the river, and now blocked the outflow completely.

He drove all those thoughts from his mind.

All that existed were the targets for his sword.

Light At The Heart Of The Mountain rose and fell like a breath of wind, severing heads, arms, legs. The faceted jewel in her pommel glowed an eldritch blue in the reflected Coldlight, sparkling in the darkness. Each step Kellen managed to take forward was bought at the cost of a death—Shadowed Elves’, Elven Knights.

A furious anger possessed him, banishing pain and weariness. He slammed his shield into the face of his next attacker, then tossed it aside. Spinning, turning, dancing through the river water as if it were the dry stone floor of the House of Sword and Shield, he hammered not only his sword, but his very will against the Shadowed Elves before him, daring them to stand and fight.

The press of the enemy before him broke. The Shadowed Elves were backing away, the ones facing him clawing their way over the ones behind them to escape his sword. The push of bodies drove many of them down into the river. The current was sluggish now, and they were not swept away, but they didn’t seem to know which way to swim.

He felt a spell begin to build, jarring him momentarily from the battle-trance.

“Off the bridge! Off the bridge—now!”

He’d nearly reached the far side. He gained it in a few jumps, Isinwen just behind him. Sometime during the crossing the Shadowed Elves had stopped firing. They pushed forward.

The Elves still on the bridge crossed it at a splashing run, single file, hacking at the hands of the Shadowed Elves who lurked in the water trying to drag them from the bridge. The water was knee-deep above the causeway now, and rising. It would be even higher where Umerchiel was.

On the far side of the bridge, the Shadowed Elves seemed to go insane, throwing themselves on Kellen and the others with even greater ferocity than before. There was no thought of restraint now, of tactics. All they wanted to do was kill. Instead of facing them in ones and twos, Kellen was covered with clawing stabbing creatures attempting to tear his armor from his body.

Suddenly the cavern rocked.

He’d felt the shaking in the caverns when the Shadowed Elves had opened their dams. That had been nothing in comparison to this. It jarred him to his knees, and it didn’t stop. Wirance had been right. The Wildmage’s spell would do the Shadowed Elves’ work for them.

The Shadowed Elves howled in terror at the quaking, breaking off their attack and turning to flee. It saved Kellen’s life—if they had taken advantage of the moment, he’d surely be dead.

But they hadn’t, and even while the aftershocks still shook the gallery, Kellen rolled to his feet and ran after them.

The Angarussa was running backward.

The river’s level was dropping as fast as water draining from a bathtub, and the river was flowing in the opposite direction that it had been before. Already the causeway was exposed again, and the rest of the Elves running across it took full advantage of the moment.

VESTAKIA slept through the rest of the day and into the night, repairing much of the damage she had done to herself in the long struggle to understand the Crystal Spiders. Her sleep, thanks to Idalia’s cordial, was without dreams.

She was awakened, very early the following morning, by the arrival of Idalia and Cilarnen.

SHE had seen little of Cilarnen over the past several sennights. Even when she had been down at the Main Camp, he had been in seclusion up at his ice-pavilion, engaged in his mysterious researches. When Idalia first brought him into the pavilion, for one horrified instant, Vestakia thought he had succumbed to the Shadow’s Kiss; his eyes glittered fever-bright, there were hectic spots of color in his pale cheeks, and he reeled and staggered on unsteady feet as if he were drunk.

“Cilarnen!” she gasped.

“Another casualty of war,” Idalia said ruefully. But the mockery in her tone could not disguise her concern. She lowered him gently onto a bench.

“I’d throw up, I think, if I’d eaten anything much lately,” Cilarnen said, bending over to rest his head in his hands.

“What have you been doing to yourself?” Vestakia demanded fiercely.

At her words, he raised his head and smiled at her charmingly.

“Only magick, Lady Vestakia. It is not the simple business for High Mages that it seems to be for Wildmages. Hence, you see, the large city, the many servants … all the things I don’t seem to have at the moment.”

His tone was light, despite his obvious pain, making her smile despite herself.

“Vestakia, since you seem to be feeling better this morning, perhaps you could tend to our latest patient,” Idalia said. “Sweet gruel for his tender stomach, I think, then into bed with him. Keep him warm. And stay with him—or I shall put you back into a bed again as well.”

Vestakia simply tossed her head.

“Some people, Cilarnen, think that others can do nothing without constant supervision. Shall we show them that they are wrong?”

“Indeed, Lady Vestakia, I would be honored to assist you.”

WHILE he ate and drank—the light breakfast was really all he could manage just now, after so many days of fasting—Cilarnen told Vestakia of his night’s labors, and that Jermayan had gone in search of those he had seen in his vision.

Her teasing mood instantly sobered.

“But … what could have happened?” she asked in bewilderment.

“That I do not know. But Jermayan has set out to find them and see. Vestakia, there cannot have been a battle. I saw no wounded at all. And … these are the Elven Lands. You’ve said yourself that the last Enclave of the Shadowed Elves is at Halacira. They were nowhere near that. Certainly it is troubling, but Jermayan will find them soon, and bring news. We shall just have to wait until then.”

BUT it was not Jermayan who entered the Healer’s Tent to join them, a few hours later, but Keirasti, accompanied by Idalia.

The Elven Knight looked exhausted, and stunned with cold. Vestakia jumped up immediately from her place by Cilarnen’s bedside, and went to fetch her a large mug of soup. Soup and tea were always ready and waiting in the Healer’s pavilion.

“Before anyone asks, Kellen is alive and well,” Idalia said. “At least he was six days ago, when Keirasti left him. And he was nowhere near Halacira.”

“Well, there’s some good news,” Cilarnen said, lying back against his pillows again.

“Indeed it is,” Keirasti said. “I judge he is yet a sennight from Halacira. When Jermayan returns from the Crowned Horns, he will take your warning to Kellen, and he will be grateful to receive it, you may be sure.”

“I must go with Jermayan,” Vestakia said, coming over and handing Keirasti a large mug of thick soup. “I can help.”

“No,” Keirasti said. “Jermayan has promised he will return me to my command. They await me at the foot of the Mystrals. Ancaladar can only carry two at speed.”

“He can take your warning to Kellen,” Idalia said gently. “That will be what Kellen needs now. He’ll probably send for you anyway very soon, to make sure the caverns are clear.”

AND it would be just as well, Idalia reflected, for Vestakia to have a day or two to rest and compose herself before she saw Kellen again. The way she looked right now, the poor girl would probably throw herself into Kellen’s arms the moment she saw him, and though her brother might have a head made of wood sometimes, he wasn’t made of stone. But he did have a vow of chastity and celibacy that had some moonturns yet to run, and Idalia doubted it would be the easiest thing in the world to remember with a weeping Vestakia in his arms.

“And you’ll have plenty to do here before you go. Redhelwar has given the order to move the army south.”

“South? We’re to move?” Cilarnen sat bolt upright. “But I—”

“Must stay right there and rest,” Idalia said inexorably. “You will have plenty of time later to pack that mare’s nest you call a camp. Which you cannot do if you are facedown in the snow, asleep with exhaustion.”

Cilarnen subsided, grumbling.

Just then one of the other Healers entered the tent.

“Ancaladar is flying over the camp. Jermayan will be here soon.”

“I must prepare,” Keirasti said, setting down her wooden mug. “And hope not to freeze on the return journey.”

She got to her feet, picking up two bulky packs that lay at her feet. “I thank you for these, Idalia. Our Healers were running low on supplies.”

“At least you won’t have to cross the Mystrals on horseback again soon,” Idalia said. “Safe journey to you.”

“Leaf and Star be with you all.”

IDALIA and Vestakia rode out to see Jermayan and Keirasti off. Jermayan had ridden down into the camp on Valdien, who was once again stabled up at Ancaladar’s ice-pavilion. Keirasti was riding pillion behind Idalia, since her destrier was still with her command.

“Be safe,” Idalia said to Jermayan.

“I shall keep him so,” Ancaladar promised.

“It should be a simple matter,” Jermayan said. “At least as simple as anything involving the Shadowed Elves is.”

“If only I had known sooner!” Vestakia said.

“Then all would have happened just as it has,” Jermayan told her. “We must clear those caverns to fit them to our own use, and we would have sent just such a force to do it. Kellen is hardly a novice at this work. I will bring him your warning, and he will proceed with care.”

Vestakia nodded, looking miserable and unconvinced.

Jermayan stepped up into Ancaladar’s saddle, and reached down to help Keirasti into the saddle behind him. The packs she was taking back to her command, which had been lashed to Valdien’s saddle, were already tied in place. The two riders began to buckle themselves in.

“Come on,” Idalia said, setting her foot into Cella’s stirrup and taking Valdien’s reins with her. “The horses won’t like getting a faceful of snow when Ancaladar takes off, and neither will we.”

The two riders backed off a little distance as Ancaladar began his takeoff run. In moments the dragon was skyborne, circling over the camp in an ascending spiral and then heading westward, his black wings outstretched.

“Back to camp, then,” Idalia said.

WHEN they returned to the Healer’s Pavilion, Cilarnen was up and dressed.

“By your leave,” Cilarnen said, when he saw Idalia. “I’d better go back to my own camp. Since we’re moving, I have packing—a lot of packing—to do. And preparations to make. And there’s no one to do it but me.”

Idalia regarded him critically. Rest and food had done much to restore his vitality. The trouble was, she didn’t really trust him to take care of himself.

“If you work yourself until you drop, you’ll be no use to anyone. And I’ll have no choice but to treat you to a selection of my strengthening cordials. And I warn you now, they taste incredibly vile.”

“Your point is well taken,” Cilarnen said with a faint smile. “Still, the work must be done, or I will be of no use to the army anyway. I promise to be careful. Elven tea is vile enough. I would hate to risk the experience of any more of your cordials. Kardus will help me. And perhaps Vestakia will come also.”

“Fine. She can keep an eye on you. If she agrees?”

“If you don’t need me down in camp, I’d be happy to keep an eye on Cilarnen,” Vestakia said, with a faintly wicked smile. “And he can tell me more about Armethalieh.”

Cilarnen bowed again. “That I shall be more than happy to do. It was once the most beautiful place in the world, and the Eternal Light grant that it shall be so again.”

Chapter Eleven

To Live in the City of Distance

ANCALADAR SPED THROUGH the great halls of the upper air, his wings barely moving. The wind whistled over the armor of his two riders, making a monotonous, atonal song.

“Redhelwar orders the army south,” Jermayan said.

“Yes,” Keirasti agreed.

“So Kellen would have advised him, and so I said to him,” Jermayan said. “And yet I wonder at the timing of it.”

“And so you must, until you speak with Kellen,” Keirasti said implacably.

Jermayan sighed. “And so I shall.”

And when he spoke to Kellen, he would discover what Kellen had learned that was of such terrible urgency that he had needed to send Keirasti north to deliver the information to Redhelwar at all costs.

Though the flight back to where Keirasti had left Maredhiel and the rest of her command was just as long as the one away from her, it seemed shorter, for this time they knew exactly where they were going, and Ancaladar had no need to search every inch of the crags below for traces of a party in distress.

The site was easy to spot, for in the handful of hours—less than a full day—that Keirasti had been gone, the Knights had set up a full camp and picketed the horses. Ancaladar banked once over the ring of tents, the looked for a suitable landing place. It was easily found, for the mountain valley was filled with sweeps of smooth snow.

“Easy enough to land,” the dragon grumbled, as he set his wings for his final descent. “Harder to get airborne again.”

Jermayan patted Ancaladar’s neck in sympathy. Left to himself, the dragon would make his flights from high places, such as the tops of mountains, where he had strong winds to bear him up, and hundreds of feet of free air below him in which to maneuver. Though he could take off from a level plain—and had, many times—as Ancaladar said, it was more work.

The landings were not things of ease, either.

At the last moment, Ancaladar fanned his wings backward—hard—and stood almost upright in the air, hitting the deep snow hind feet first. The backwinging in the air slowed his already greatly-diminished forward speed, but not enough to keep him from digging a deep trench through the heavy powdery snow. On solid ground, draconic landings were light and elegant things, but the uncertain surface of the snow often did not permit such grace.

At last Ancaladar settled his belly into the snow and folded his wings.

“We’re here,” he said unnecessarily.

Keirasti began to unbuckle her straps.

Maredhiel was already riding out toward them, leading Orata.

Keirasti glanced toward the sky. “You have only an hour of light more at best. It would please me should you choose to stay with us for the night and journey on in the morning.”

“This is familiar territory to us,” Ancaladar replied. “And the winds over the plains ahead present no challenge. If my Bonded agrees, we will fly on.”

“Then let it be so. When you see Kellen, tell him I will be with him before another sennight passes.”

She slipped down from the dragon’s back, grunting as she found herself waist-deep in snow, and began untying the nearer pack from Ancaladar’s saddle. Jermayan reached back to loose the one she could not reach, handing it across to her.

By the time they were both free, Maredhiel had reached them.

“Alas that you rejoin us so speedily,” the Elven Knight said cheerfully. “I had thought we were to have at least a moonturn’s recreation here in this garden spot.”

“So much for your dreams of ease, lazy one,” Keirasti said to her Second. “Take this pack up with you; it is filled with Idalia’s medicines. Tomorrow we begin to rejoin the army.”

Whatever message Keirasti had carried, Jermayan reflected, Maredhiel obviously had no inkling of it. She accepted her parcel readily, with no indication that she was burdened by more-than-ordinary cares.

He waited for the two Knights to ride away.

“Soon we can ask Kellen,” Ancaladar said.

“Yes,” Jermayan answered. “Soon.”

IN the end, it came down to the simple work of butchery.

They outnumbered their enemy ten—a hundred—to one, and the Shadowed Elves had no place to run to. Some of them fled through the passage that led to the surface; Kellen’s battle-sight showed him that Churashil’s force made short work of them there.

But far more remained in the caverns below. Some had managed to evade Kellen’s force, but Umerchiel and the others waited in the chamber beyond, and there were no other exists from it. So they, too, were accounted for.

Many of the Shadowed Elves in the river gallery had thrown down their weapons when the caverns began to shake; it became a matter of finding those that were still alive, driving them up against the walls of the gallery, and cutting them to pieces.

Sometimes the Shadowed Elves would hide among the mounds of their dead. After the first one had attacked from such a hiding place, Kellen ordered all the Shadowed Elf corpses checked. They found more survivors. Two Elves would hold the victim while a third slit the captive’s throat.

None of the swimmers reached the far shore alive.

By the time the Elves had finished their bloody work, the Angarussa had begun to run normally, washing the bodies of the floating dead that had fallen into its waters away with it.

After he had disposed of the Shadowed Elf sortie that had reached the surface, Churashil had sent scouts down into the caverns, and received new orders from Kellen. Braziers had been brought to warm the river-gallery, and a steady stream of wounded were being evacuated to the main camp.

There weren’t many. Only a tiny fraction of the company of Elves Kellen had brought into Halacira had actually engaged the enemy in the Shadowed Elf attack.

And most of them had drowned.

Eventually Kellen’s people would have to try to dredge the river to recover the bodies.

Kellen tried to think of what he could have done differently, had he known Halacira had become an Enclave of the Shadowed Elves before he’d entered the caverns. But he could think of nothing. He would still have had to go down into the caves with his Knights to find them. The caves would still have been entrapped. The Shadowed Elves would still have flooded the caves.

If he had gone alone, he might have gotten out the way he’d come. Or he might have died. If he’d come down with a smaller force, they might all have died, for it was their overwhelming numbers that had kept so many of them alive today.

As brutal as it was, despite the losses they had suffered, this was the best outcome they could have hoped for.

It didn’t feel right.

And they were still going to have to search the caves thoroughly, because they could not allow even one of the Tainted creatures to survive.

“Did the day go as you wished it?”

Wirance walked over to the nearest brazier and held his hands out to its warmth. The Wildmage looked exhausted. Lines of weariness etched his weather-beaten features.

“What are you still doing here?” Kellen demanded. “I told Umerchiel to send all the Wildmages up to the Healers as soon as the passage was clear.”

“Aye, well, as to that… I stayed with Kerleu. I have to say, I thought we were going to bring the whole place down on us when the spell ran. But the mountain’s bones run deep.”

Kerleu stayed too? But all the wounded should have been evacuated hours ago.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Kellen said.

“A life was the Price, a life freely given,” Wirance said. “We all agreed to pay it. He had a valiant heart, but crossing the Mystrals too often will weaken it. It could well have happened without the spell.”

But it didn’t.

Kellen drew a deep breath. “He is no less a casualty of war than Ambanire, or any other who fell in battle here today. He will be so honored.”

Wirance clapped him on the shoulder. “All goes as the Huntsman wills, lad. Kerleu goes to the Forest to be born again to the Wife. He’ll be back, sure as flowers in the spring.”

Kellen nodded, though spring—and Wirance’s easy certainty that it would come—seemed very far away.

“And the day?” Wirance said again.

“We won,” Kellen said slowly. “In a day or two, I suppose we’ll know whether the caverns are clear. And Artenel and his people can get to work rebuilding them to make them into a fortress.”

“So no one who died here died for nothing,” Wirance said, sounding satisfied. “And now that I’ve got a little heat in these old bones, I’ll get back to Kerleu.”

“I’ll go with you.”

MUCH of the main force of the army was still in the selkie-chamber and the mining-cavern beyond it. Kellen searched until he found Isinwen. His Second was battered—and, of course, soaking wet—but alive and well.

“It’s going to take forever to move everyone out across the causeway,” Kellen said once greetings had been exchanged. “Is there any chance now of getting out through the main entrance?”

For one thing, it was closer to the camp. That meant dry clothes, fires, and food—something all of them needed. Churashil had brought horses and wagons around to the river cavern entrance to transport the wounded, and the Knights that had so far made their way to the surface through that exit, but the sun was setting, and to move all the horses around to that entrance and ride back again would take a long time—and they’d be even colder than they were now.

“The main entrance should be clear by now—if damp,” Isinwen said after a moment’s thought.

“Take a party and see.”

THOUGH several of the side-galleries had collapsed—due to either the Shadowed Elves’ work or the Wildmages’ spell—the route to the surface was clear, and Kellen immediately began evacuating his army through the larger entrance. He would leave no one behind in the caves tonight, not even the dead. Guarding the exits would have to be enough.

Leaving the caves went a good deal faster than entering them had. He was glad of that much. There were a number of blessings to be counted, if he cared to: no duergar had lurked anywhere in the unlighted depths of the caves to draw any of his troops farther in. The Shadowed Elves had not summoned any of the Shadow’s other allies to aid them—if the Elves had faced Frost Giants and Ice Trolls here in Halacira, as well as Shadowed Elves and rising water, their situation would have been unwinnable.

But the Shadowed Elves had been willing to die to the last soul to destroy their enemy, and perhaps their allies had not. Or perhaps they simply had not been able to reach them in time.

Finally the last band of Elves prepared to ascend to the surface. Kellen wrapped his borrowed—dry—cloak around him and followed.

AS the day dimmed, Jermayan and Ancaladar saw no trace of Kellen’s army, though as they neared Halacira, they saw signs of their passage in plenty, for the trees had kept the snow from eradicating the marks of the horses and wagons completely.

“He cannot have moved the army this fast,” Jermayan groaned.

“He has,” Ancaladar answered simply.

It was—barely—possible. For a master general, in complete command of his forces, driven by a necessity Jermayan could only wonder at. He could only hope that Kellen had stopped to rest for a day or two in camp before going down into the caverns.

But in his heart, he began to suspect he might already be too late.

When they flew over the Angarussa, he saw that its surface was cracked and marred by the passage of thousands of Elven Knights. His worst suspicions were confirmed when he reached the camp. It was fully set, but not fully tenanted. There was a deep path beaten in the snow between the campsite and the main entrance to the caverns. Near the trees, he could already see a few bodies wrapped in white.

“I will find a place to land,” Ancaladar said.

The clearing Ancaladar found was a little distance from the main camp. After unsaddling Ancaladar, it took Jermayan a good half hour to make his way through the snow to the edge of the camp.

Artenel greeted him.

“I See you, Jermayan.”

“I See you, Artenel. I expected to find you still upon the road for Halacira.”

“Come, take tea. We might well have been, but we have made good time. And just as well, else the Shadowed Elves that Kellen encountered in the caverns below would have had more time to complete their work, and the day would have gone more wretchedly than it has. I would have welcomed the opportunity to have studied the engines they used to flood the caverns, but I believe they have now been smashed beyond all discerning.”

“It will please me to hear all that you can tell. I came to warn Kellen that there was an Enclave here—but I see my warning comes too late.”

If he had flown here directly the moment Idalia had told him of Vestakia’s visions—

If he had not stopped to bring Keirasti back to Redhelwar, or put off his flight to the Crowned Horns—

“Our losses were light, so I am told,” Artenel said simply. “The Wild Magic warned him that there was Taint in the caverns below, but we did not suspect that our poor brothers would be able to call the river into them. Umerchiel believes we have slain them all this time, but it will be many days before we are certain.”

Artenel’s words did much to reassure Jermayan, but little to comfort him. He had simply forgotten how fast Kellen could move when he decided there was a need to hurry.

And Jermayan still didn’t know what it was.

“I am grateful for your offer of tea, but I must speak with Kellen as soon as I can,” Jermayan said.

“Then you should go to the cavernmouth. Go first to the horse-lines. Casanilde is there, and will find you a mount to take you swiftly.”

“My thanks to you,” Jermayan said.

A few minutes later Jermayan was riding toward the horse-lines along the beaten path through the snow. Along the way he passed groups of weary riders heading back from the cavern mouth, and Elves leading more strings of horses back to the entrance to mount those yet to depart.

When he reached the cavernmouth, Jermayan saw that a series of hasty shelters had been erected, offering shelter and tea to those who had just come up from the depths. Kellen stood beneath one awning, holding a mug of tea in one hand and leaning over a flaming brazier.

Jermayan felt a deep pang of relief. Kellen looked exhausted, but uninjured.

“You’ll burn yourself if you stand any closer,” Jermayan said.

Kellen glanced up, first looking pleased to see his friend, then wary at the possibility of bad news.

“I bring no ill tidings,” Jermayan said quickly. “I came to bring you warning. I see now that it is too late.”

Kellen shook his head slowly. “I made too many mistakes. I can’t think of anything I could have done differently, but…” He stopped. “I sent Keirasti back over the Mystrals with a message for Redhelwar. Jermayan—”

“I have already brought her and her message before the Army’s General, and returned her to her command. She asks me to tell you she will be with you soon.”

Kellen smiled at that. “I just bet she will.”

“It would please me greatly to know what news she carried that was of such urgency,” Jermayan said.

Kellen looked around. “I don’t see Ancaladar.”

“He is there.” Jermayan pointed in the direction of the clearing where he had left the dragon.

“Let’s go.”

Kellen paused to give last orders to a few of his commanders, then mounted Firareth, and the two of them rode off toward Ancaladar’s clearing. When the two of them were out of sight of the cavernmouth, Kellen spoke again.

“When we were at Ondoladeshiron, I had an audience with Rochinuviel. She’d had a private message from Sentarshadeen just after you left. There’s plague in Sentarshadeen, and Andoreniel is very ill. Too ill to give orders. She didn’t think a messenger had been sent to Redhelwar, and even if one had, nothing was getting through the pass. There was a Shadewalker.”

Jermayan barely heard the rest of Kellen’s words.

“The King is ill?” he asked, with blunt rudeness.

“I don’t know what will happen to the army if Andoreniel can’t give it orders,” Kellen said, sounding as close to despair as Jermayan had ever heard him. “I asked Redhelwar to move the army to Ondoladeshiron, but … I don’t know if he will.”

“He is doing it now,” Jermayan said. “Though to move an army across the mountains in the depths of winter is no quick matter.”

“DON’T I know it,” Kellen said.

A combination of uneasiness and relief filled him. He knew it was the right thing to do, but having Redhelwar take his advice … well, that only meant that he’d have to figure out what to do once the army had reached Ondoladeshiron, that was all.

“This speaks to why you moved in such haste to reach Halacira,” Jermayan went on. “Sentarshadeen was your true destination.”

“I wanted to see for myself what was going on there—and help Andoreniel, if I could. And I thought I might be able to send back Unicorn Scouts to the army. Even with Keirasti’s head-start, they’d still get there faster than she would.”

“But now that need not be done,” Jermayan observed. “And there is news from Ysterialpoerin that you do not know, for much has changed since you left.”

By now they had reached the clearing where Ancaladar waited.

The dragon’s radiant heat—though Ancaladar swore he had no control over the magic for which he was such a mighty reservoir of power, he did seem to be able to control the amount of heat he radiated—had melted the snow around him in a wide circle, and steam rose from the bare ground in plumes. Kellen dismounted and moved forward gratefully into Ancaladar’s pocket-summer.

“Kellen,” the black dragon greeted him. “I am glad to see you safe. We were worried about you.”

“Not as worried as I was about me,” Kellen said fervently.

“There is bad news, Bonded,” Jermayan said. Quickly he related what Kellen had told him.

“Bad news indeed,” Ancaladar said, stretching out his long neck so that Jermayan could rub the sensitive skin beneath the hinge of his jaw. “Perhaps you can Heal him. But there is good news as well. The people of the Northern Cities are safe among the trees of Ysterialpoerin. Further, Cilarnen has discovered a source of power, and masters the spells of the High Magick.”

“It worked?” Kellen asked.

“It did indeed,” the dragon agreed. “Without Cilarnen’s spells, we would not have found Keirasti. He recognized her horses, you see.”

It was the first remotely funny thing Kellen had heard in far too long, and he laughed. Cilarnen could honestly not tell one Elf from another, but oh, horses were an entirely different matter… .

“But why were you looking for Keirasti?”

“In truth, we were looking for you,” Jermayan said, “because Vestakia had received visions of a cavern of xaique-pieces, and when she told me what the Crystal Spiders had shown her, I thought to warn you against the Caverns of Halacira. But the High Magick and the Wild Magic do not marry well together, and Cilarnen could not see you. His Far-Seeing spells can only seek out what he knows, and so they showed him Keirasti’s horses. When I went to her, she demanded to be taken to Redhelwar at once. Both she and I thought you still some days from the caverns. I thought there was time.”

Kellen put a hand gently on his friend’s shoulder. “Jermayan, it wouldn’t have made any difference. In fact, if I’d had warning, it might have made matters worse. I went down into Halacira expecting, well, some kind of trouble, because we’d seen Taint there before, when you and I rode in search of the Black Cairn. If I’d known that the Shadowed Elves had an Enclave there, I might have chosen different tactics. And … I think the tactics I chose were the best ones for the situation.”

Even as he said it, and hard as it was to say, Kellen knew it was true. He’d fought a battle in the Caverns of Halacira, and in every battle there were deaths. If he was too cautious, refusing to fight in case some of his troops might die, he would never be able to win a battle.

It was another lesson, and a hard one.

“The Wild Magic goes as it wills,” Jermayan said. “It would be good to know what you propose to do now.”

“I need to be sure the caverns are clear. For that I need Vestakia. I need to get to Sentarshadeen and see if anything can be done for Andoreniel, and Idalia is the best Healer I know. And Cilarnen … maybe the High Magick can do something where we can’t.”

“Then tomorrow I will bring them to you,” Ancaladar said. “Along with the many things that Cilarnen will swear that he needs to be of help. I have become quite resigned to being a pack animal in the last few moonturns, I promise you.” The dragon snorted gustily. “But I am hungry.”

“That I can take care of,” Kellen said. “We were going to slaughter one of the teams of oxen tonight. We need the fresh meat, and we’re running low on fodder anyway.”

THE next morning, as Kellen’s encampment began the sadly-familiar process of recovering from a battle, Ancaladar took wing northward again.

Along the way they sighted Keirasti’s troop far below. Ancaladar soared above them as Jermayan used a spell to cast his voice down to her, telling her that Kellen had already met his enemy at the Caverns of Halacira, and that he had prevailed.

He saw her brandish her sword at him in salute and acknowledgment, standing high in her stirrups, and they flew on.

AS they flew over the camp at Ysterialpoerin, it was already obvious that it would be moving very soon. Rows of wagon, still without teams, stood in lines of array, slowly taking on loads. Several streets of tents were already gone. The outlying herds were being brought into a semblance of order.

“I shall miss this.” Ancaladar sighed, as he settled into his ice-pavilion once more and rested his jaw on his forelegs.

“I believe that within a day or two at most, you will be back in your canyon in the meadows beyond the House of Sword and Shield,” Jermayan said. “I am certain Kellen intends to go there as soon as he feels he may leave Halacira safely.”

“No one may know what the future holds,” Ancaladar said somberly. “Not even Mages.”

IDALIA had left Valdien at his accustomed stabling with food and water for several days—though it was unlikely in the extreme, Jermayan thought, that she did not intend to visit every night to make certain of the destrier’s comfort. Having unsaddled Ancaladar, he immediately saddled Valdien and rode down toward the camp.

The weather was starting to turn for the worse. In less than a sennight it would be Midwinter, and after that, if the weather ran at all true to previous years, the really hard part of the winter would begin, the weather getting bleaker and more foul until Kindling, the point that marked the halfway point between winter and spring. In some years, Kindling had marked when the very first snow-flowers appeared in the Unicorn Meadow. Jermayan did not think that would be the case this year.

JERMAYAN went first to Redhelwar to report on what he had learned at Halacira. Despite everything, the news he brought was good, and Redhelwar agreed that Vestakia, Cilarnen, and Idalia should accompany Jermayan back to the Caverns, and then on to Sentarshadeen to provide what assistance they could to Andoreniel.

Having Redhelwar’s blessing, Jermayan had next gone to the Artificers, for if Ancaladar must carry three in addition to his rider, plus the working equipment of a High Mage, the carrying-baskets and harness that Jermayan had used so many times before would be needed. Mirqualirel, who had ascended to the post of Chief Armorer for the army now that Artenel had departed with Kellen, promised Jermayan that the items he required would be but the work of a few hours, and that Ancaladar would certainly be ready to fly again before nightfall.

Jermayan vowed that this would be the last time his patient friend would be called upon to do something he disliked so very much, but at the moment he could see no other way to get the others there as quickly as Kellen needed.

With the rest of his preparations made, he went to seek out Idalia.

Healer’s Row had become a scene of controlled chaos. Though the Healers knew their duty lay with the army, it could not be denied that there was work aplenty for them in Ysterialpoerin and the Forest City that had grown up around it, and in the sennights that had passed, many of the Healers had become very attached to those people in the tent-city whom they had labored to save from the ravages of cold-sickness and plague.

Now, on the eve of their departure, the Healers struggled to be everywhere at once, and to pack for the journey as well. The complicated mechanisms of brewing and distilling that had been set up to take advantage of the long sennights of a permanent camp must be taken down and carefully packed away against the day when they could be set up once more.

Remedies must be decocted into unbreakable containers and carefully labeled, as the next person who reached for them might not have a full Healer’s training. Field aid kits must be prepared, and those that had been used must be restocked against need. There were a thousand tasks to perform before the moment Redhelwar gave the order to march.

Jermayan moved carefully among the hurrying bodies until he spotted the flash of Vestakia’s scarlet skin. She was helping to take down one of the large Healing pavilions—with their double walls for added warmth, and many inner partitions, this was a complicated process, and must be overseen carefully, so that the pavilion could be erected quickly—either at a new campsite, or—Leaf and Star avert—in the middle of some disaster so that the injured could be quickly and safely seen to.

Once the great mass of cloth lay flat upon the ground, and the others moved in to begin folding it into a tiny parcel so that it could be placed upon one of the wagon, he moved in to touch her arm. She spun around, obviously having had no idea he was near.

“Jermayan!” she gasped. Her whole face was a question.

Even after another day’s rest and care, the marks of strain and exhaustion were still clear on her fine-boned features. This was something more than the effect of days and nights of trying to talk to the Crystal Spiders, Jermayan sensed.

“I rejoice to tell you that Kellen is alive and well,” he said quickly. “The casualties at Halacira were light, for the Wild Magic guided his hand.”

She frowned as the sense of his words reached her.

“Then … he has already reached Halacira.”

“And the battle has been fought, and we have been victorious. Do not think that your warning has been in vain, for without it we would not have attempted to search him out, and would not have brought Keirasti back to deliver her message to Redhelwar—nor would I have gone on to speak to Kellen. It has all worked out for the best, even though the results have not been … quite as we expected.”

Vestakia grimaced, but her worried gaze did not leave his face.

“And as the Crystal Spiders showed you, the Shadowed Elves were indeed there. Though Kellen believes the Shadowed Elves are no more, to be certain, he wishes you to come to him.”

“But of course I will! Did he think I wouldn’t?” she demanded indignantly. “I just have to tell Idalia that I’m going.”

“Indeed you do not,” Jermayan said. “He has asked for Idalia as well—and Cilarnen, too. I am to bring all three of you as fast as I can.”

Vestakia’s lips formed a silent “o,” beginning a question that she steeled herself not to ask.

“Well!” she said instead. “I am not certain that Ancaladar will ever forgive you for making him carry such a heavy load—for I do not think you will get Cilarnen to accompany you if you ask him to leave even one book or brazier behind.”

“I must ask him if they are all entirely necessary,” Jermayan said, “or if some of his supplies may be sent with the army. But first, I must find Idalia and see if she will consent to accompany us.”

“But of course she will!” Vestakia said. “Oh, Jermayan, I am so glad I said my goodbyes to the Crystal Spiders this morning! I would hate to simply have left them without thanking them for all their hard work. And I am certain they are glad that they have their caves back at last.”

Jermayan only hoped that the Crystal Spiders that had been at Halacira had survived the deluge that had nearly drowned the army there, but saw no reason to tell Vestakia about that now. She would discover the full details of that battle soon enough.

“Then we will find Idalia,” Jermayan said, taking her arm. “And hope she does not slay both of us for our presumption in hoping to remove her when there is so much work to be done here.”

IDALIA instantly guessed from their faces that the news was good.

“Oh, Idalia—Kellen has already fought the Shadowed Elves—and he has won!” Vestakia cried in relief. She ran across the tent to Idalia and flung her arms around the taller woman’s neck.

Idalia was standing in the tent where the Healers kept their stores. Trunks and baskets of supplies stood everywhere, with half-empty shelves a mute testimony to what she had been doing when Vestakia interrupted her.

She hugged Vestakia in return, then placed her hands on her hips and regarded Jermayan.

“He must have had some excellent reason for shaving half a sennight off the time between Ondoladeshiron to Halacira—and in this season,” she said.

“And he looks forward to telling you what it is,” Jermayan agreed. He had no intention of spreading the news about Andoreniel about the camp here, even if it had been his secret to tell. “He has asked me to bring you—and Vestakia, and Cilarnen—to the camp at Halacira as soon as I can. Mirqualirel is having carrying-baskets made, so you will be able to bring more than your clothes, though not a great deal, apparently. Vestakia tells me that the High Magick requires many … objects.”

IDALIA shook her head, torn between the vast burden of work she would have to leave undone here, and the certain knowledge that Kellen would not have asked her to come if his need of her were not great. It was plain that Jermayan now knew the full content of whatever message Keirasti had brought—but Elves’ ears were sharp, and he certainly wouldn’t blurt it out in the middle of the camp. Not when Keirasti had gone to such agonizing lengths to keep it secret.

“He has not yet told Cilarnen that he must leave his precious library and all his toys and fly over the mountain, has he?” she said to Vestakia, nodding toward Jermayan.

She saw Vestakia’s face light with a flash of inner mischief, and rejoiced inwardly. Since Kellen had left, and Vestakia had taken on the burden of trying to discover the location of the Shadowed Elves, Vestakia had been wearing herself down to nothing but a haggard shadow of her normal self. Now, at least, that was over.

Though apparently they now faced an even more appalling problem.

“He has not,” Vestakia agreed. “I think he hoped you would help.”

“I suppose I must,” Idalia said, with an exaggerated and very theatrical sigh, the behavior assumed for Vestakia’s benefit. “Elves are very timid creatures, you know. Timid, and … shy.”

CILARNEN stared at the three of them as if they’d all gone mad.

The ice-golem had not appeared this time as they rode up to the mirror-pavilion, and Idalia could only assume that he’d already disenchanted it. If he’d had more than one, disenchanting all of them might take a lot of work, nor could he leave his protective wards standing in place. Those without any trace of magic might never notice them, but for Elementals and the many Brightfolk races that made their homes in the Elvenlands, Cilarnen’s wards might as well have been stone walls. Depending on how they were constructed, innocent creatures of magic might become trapped within them and die. So he must remove them all, and Idalia suspected it might be a long process.

It certainly explained why he was not farther along in his packing.

An entire half-wagon had been reserved for Cilarnen’s use. He would need all of it, between his pavilion itself and all of the equipment he had collected. So far it stood completely empty, though with Kardus and the driver’s help he’d gotten as far as removing all of the trunks from its bed.

“Leave?” he said. “Now? With Ancaladar? But… Ancaladar can’t carry all this!”

“Kellen wouldn’t have asked for you if it wasn’t important,” Idalia said gently. Vestakia had gotten another good night’s rest, but it was clear that Cilarnen hadn’t. He’d told her he’d rest better behind his own wards and shields, but it was plain that the moment he’d heard that the army was to move, he’d begin dismantling his temple, working through the night.

He ran a hand through his hair. “How much can I take?”

Vestakia looked at Idalia.

“I’m sure Kellen has nearly everything I need,” Idalia said. “I’ll want to take a chest or two of medicines. Nothing more.”

“And I don’t need anything,” Vestakia said. “I already have more than I ever had in my life, right now.”

Cilarnen smiled. “I’m sorry, but… I’m sure Kellen doesn’t want to see me just so he’ll have someone to beat at gan. So I’ll need my spellbooks. My workbooks. My robe. My sword, my wand, my staff. My scrying-crystal. All my incenses and herbs. I imagine he can provide braziers and candles, so I suppose I can leave those.” He groaned. “I won’t be able to take my tabulum. I might not be able to take my floor-cloth, either.”

He ran a hand through his hair again, causing it to stand up in short auburn tufts. “I suppose it’s just as well I hadn’t really started packing yet.”

“I can help,” Vestakia offered. “I would have come earlier, but…”

“I’ll need your help—and Kardus’s, too,” Cilarnen said simply.

WHILE Vestakia and the Centaur Wildmage helped Cilarnen separate those items of his Art that were absolutely vital from those that were merely desirable to bring along, Idalia and Jermayan occupied themselves in preparing soup and tea to keep everyone going, and in packing those items of a nonmagickal nature that would have to be sent with the army.

“I must say,” Idalia said, bundling and tying a roll of blankets, “being a Wildmage seems much easier somehow. Cilarnen has said that he thinks the High Mages fought in the Great War—but frankly, I can’t see how they would have managed it.”

“Perhaps their spells were less elaborate then,” Jermayan answered. “Or perhaps they had the luxury of preparing them in advance. I have heard all my life of what grim and terrible days those were—but at least that war was fought openly, against an enemy willing to challenge us upon an honest battlefield.”

“Yes,” Idalia answered tartly, dropping the bundle atop several others and kneeling to roll the first of the carpets beneath. “And we all know how well that worked out. Most of the land scoured to bare rock where nothing still grows a thousand years later. Half the races of the Light destroyed completely, and the rest slaughtered to a tenth of their populations. The Great Flower Forest of Ulanya, burned to ash. And we still didn’t win.”

“Idalia, my heart,” Jermayan said, dropping an armful of Cilarnen’s clothes into a open chest and coming to kneel beside her. “It is only simple truth that our circumstances are worse now than ever before. We do not know what the future may hold, save that we may only hope that we may all stand together to welcome victory. And I would be greatly honored, in such uncertain times, were you to consent to wear my betrothal pendant now.”

Once before Jermayan had offered her his betrothal pendant. And Idalia had refused, because to accept it would form a link between them that might allow him to see into her mind, and know the secret she dared not let him guess.

The magic she had used to keep the rains from destroying Sentarshadeen had come at a very high Price.

Her life.

The Price was yet to be paid, but Mageprices always came due. Idalia did not know when it would be, but the knowledge of it was a burden she would not add to the ones Jermayan already carried.

“At the proper time,” she said. “That time will come, and we will both know when it is. That much I promise you.”

“Then I will take your promise,” Jermayan said. “And only remind you of it on those occasions when you say to me that it is the Elves who delay when matters could profitably proceed with more … swiftness.”

BY the time everything was ready, it had been dark for several hours, but by now Ancaladar had made this flight several times, and he assured Jermayan that even with the additional burden, he did not mind flying at night.

“Besides,” the dragon told Cilarnen, “you won’t be able to see the ground that way.”

“I think that’s probably best,” the young High Mage said nervously. He didn’t look at all pleased with the idea of going up into the sky, though the others knew he had gotten a dragon’s eye view of the ground many times with his magick.

Of course, it was different if you were actually there.

“I am afraid the flight will be neither smooth nor short,” Ancaladar went on, sounding concerned for his young passenger’s nerves, “yet the weather will get no better over the next several days.”

“I’m not complaining,” Cilarnen said, with stubborn bravery. “I’m just not going to enjoy it. But I’m sure you’ll get me there alive and safe. Just don’t expect me to be of any use to anybody for a few hours after we land.”

“Well in that case,” said Idalia, who had come prepared, “you might as well drink this. It’s a sleeping cordial. I don’t think you’ll actually sleep, of course, but it might take the edge off. Don’t worry, there’s not a drop of magic in it, just herbs and a touch of dream-honey.”

She held out the tiny glass vial to him. Cilarnen drained it quickly, without a single word of complaint.

Mirqualirel had provided six baskets, as many as Ancaladar could carry attached to his flying harness. The other four had already been packed with what they were taking with them, most of it Cilarnen’s supplies, all of the pieces thickly-wrapped, most of them first in bespelled silk, and then in leather. Now Vestakia helped Cilarnen into one of the two remaining baskets and assisted him as he pulled the straps tight. Once he was secure, she climbed quickly into her own.

“I feel like a basket of cheeses set to go to market,” she commented as Jermayan checked her straps.

Idalia was settling into the saddle behind Jermayan’s, pulling her own belts tight. If the journey was to be as cold and bumpy as Ancaladar claimed, she wanted to run no risk of falling out.

AFTER Jermayan left that morning, Kellen turned to the work he had come here to do.

The secondary entrances to Halacira must be sealed. Later, the passages could be filled in from within by quarried stone, but for now, wooden doors would serve. He set Artenel to the task of designing them, and sent work-parties into the forest to fell the trees that would be needed, with others to guard them. Felling trees was hard work in winter, but it must be done.

Still other parties were sent out as scouts, to make sure the area was clear of enemies. After his experience in Halacira, Kellen took nothing for granted.

They would need a bridge to cross the Angarussa as well, as soon as Artenel could build one, for the Wildmages’ work beneath the earth had shattered the river’s thick covering of ice, and the river ran freely in its bed. There was no safe passage across it now. The only bridge across the river lay several miles closer to Sentarshadeen, and it was a narrow one, unsuitable for cavalry or wagons. To get to Sentarshadeen from Halacira now, he would have to take the forest road—or fly.

Which meant, Kellen realized with an inward sigh, that when Keirasti arrived with her troops in a sennight, they would be trapped on the other side of the river.

Maybe Jermayan could build them a bridge.

He thought of the power Jermayan could command as an Elven Mage—magic bordering on the unbelievable. Surely there had been Elven Mages in the Great War?

If there had been, why had the Demons ever gotten as far as They had?

He had no idea.

He did his best to delegate as much as he could, wishing with all his heart that Adaerion were here—or Belepheriel. As soon as Vestakia arrived and the caverns were pronounced clean of Taint, he had to go on to Sentarshadeen to see Andoreniel, and that meant leaving someone else in charge here—but who? Redhelwar had sent him out with a force of sub-commanders of his own rank; though all of them were decades, many of them centuries, older than he was, none of them had a Knight-Mage’s intuitive ability to command an army in the field. If they were attacked …

If there is any possibility of that, you cannot go.

He could not abandon his command to danger simply because he thought he had something better to do.

Then Idalia will have to do it for me, he thought grimly. And Vestakia. And Jermayan. And Cilarnen.

It was why he’d called for them, after all.

WHEN he’d given every order he could think of to give, Kellen took Isinwen and twenty others and went down into the caverns again. Of his own twelve, Ambanire, Nironoshan, Seheimith, and Sihemand had perished in the caverns; he would have to go over the rolls and reorganize several commands. He wanted to talk to Shalkan about that—not because he thought the unicorn would have any particular ideas about troop formation, but just because talking to his friend always helped to clear his head. When they had been on the march, it had not often been possible to find the time—or the place—to talk safely with Shalkan, but here at Halacira, things were different, and Kellen intended to take full advantage of that, for what small comfort it could give him.

One of Master Belesharon’s favorite sayings had always been that a commander of armies lived in a city of distance, and more and more these days Kellen was starting to understand what that meant. He was the one who had to make the decisions. There was no one else who could. And nobody he could share them with. He could ask for advice, and even take it, but the final responsibility for every decision was his.

As much as he hated the comparison, he supposed it was a little like being High Mage of Armethalieh.

THE caves were still very damp, and in places there were pools of water on the floors, but now that the series of dams and pumps that the Shadowed Elves had built had been smashed, most of the water had drained back into the bed of the Angarussa. Much of the Coldfire that the Wildmages had cast on the walls of the main galleries still glowed, and Kellen added more where he could, though he still felt the aftereffects of the spell he’d cast the day before to break down the dam-wall the Shadowed Elves had built. Still, Coldfire was a simple spell, one that asked little more than a payment of personal energy on the part of the Wildmage.

They inspected as much of the cave as they could, cautiously exploring the lower levels. Those, too, were damp but free of standing water, and Kellen’s spell-sight enabled them to stay out of the areas where the rock was now dangerously unstable. He’d had the foresight to bring chalk, and marked those places when he came to them, as Artenel would certainly want to know.

There was so much to do here.

There was so much to do everywhere—and all of it vital.

If they held off the Enemy until Planting—six moonturns from now, as Kellen reckoned the Elven calendar—Halacira would have to be ready to welcome refugees. The Allies wouldn’t fight if it meant abandoning their families to the Enemy, and even if Fortress Halacira were largely symbolic, it would keep them going now.

A few moonturns ago you would have thought something like that was dishonest, Kellen realized. Building a fortress—holding out a hope of safety—that he thought would never be used.

Now he only thought of it as a practical way to keep the army going.

And they’d use it if they could.

He just didn’t think they’d get the chance.

What am I becoming?

He knew what he was becoming.

A Commander of Armies.

BY the time Kellen had finished his preliminary survey of the caverns and returned to the surface, the sun was setting. Jermayan had not yet arrived. Kellen dismissed his men to a well-earned rest, heard brief reports from his commanders, stuffed his tunic with meat-pasties and honey-disks, and took a covered mug of tea out beyond the horse-lines to think.

“Are we having fun yet?” Shalkan asked, joining him.

Kellen drained his mug in a few gulps—it was almost cold, anyway—and sat down on a nearby pile of logs. It looked as if Artenel’s men had managed to fell a good part of the forest today, which was just as well. He knew the Elves hated to do it, preferring to harvest trees only according to a careful plan, but right now they needed a lot of timber in a hurry.

He dug in his tunic for the honey-disks, and offered them to Shalkan.

“Sure we are,” he said unconvincingly.

“You did the best you could,” Shalkan reminded him.

“I know,” Kellen said. “Jermayan says that Andoreniel’s … sick.”

“So Ancaladar told me.”

“All They have to do is take the City—finish taking the City. And sit back and wait while the plagues wipe us out. Even before I left, Redhelwar heard it was starting to take hold in the High Reaches. Not just among the Mountainfolk, but in the forests. That means it will reach the Wildlander granaries soon, if it hasn’t already. And the herds.”

“I know,” Shalkan said.

“And I’m sitting here thinking about how to reorganize the units that took losses at Halacira.”

“That has to be done, too,” the unicorn said inarguably.

“And building a fortress nobody will ever use.”

Shalkan rested his chin on Kellen’s shoulder. “Are you sure?” The unicorn’s breath was warm in Kellen’s ear. It smelled of honey.

“I’m sure it has to be done anyway,” Kellen said with a long sigh. He reached up to stroke Shalkan’s neck.

“Then do it. No one can see all of the future. Only their own part in it. And … Wait.” Shalkan looked up, gazing at something Kellen couldn’t see.

“They’re coming.”

WHEN he’d left that morning, Jermayan had lit the landing-grove with Cold-fire. Beneath their coverings of snow, the trees at the edges of the clearing glowed an eerie spectral blue, as if they were not honest wood and greenneedle leaf, but some strange glass copy made by the Elves and set in their place.

Which was not, considering what Kellen knew of the Elves, something he wasn’t entirely certain he’d never see.

The Coldfire rendered the grove nearly as bright as day, and made the clearing easy for Ancaladar to find.

By the time Kellen rode into the clearing on Firareth, leading a string of horses—he’d gone back to get mounts for the new arrivals, and tell Isinwen to make arrangements to send a baggage cart, as it would have been a long walk in the night cold otherwise—the four of them had already dismounted. Vestakia was on her knees in the snow, hugging Shalkan, while Jermayan and Idalia hung back, giving Shalkan the space he needed to approach Vestakia in comfort.

They were supporting Cilarnen between them.

“Is he all right?” Kellen asked.

“Doesn’t like to fly,” Idalia said, doing her best to suppress a smile. “I gave him a soothing cordial.”

“I am never doing that again,” Cilarnen said fervently, raising his head with an effort. His speech sounded slurred. “If we were meant to fly, there would be spells for it. I’m sorry, Ancaladar, but I am not a dragon.”

“I take no offense, Cilarnen,” the dragon said kindly. “Many people do not like to fly.”

“I am so glad you’re all right, Kellen,” Vestakia said, getting to her feet and brushing snow from her knees. She walked over to Kellen. “And I’m glad you won’t have to fight the Shadowed Elves anymore. I tried so hard to find out what you needed to know in time!”

“Well I think they’re all gone now,” he said soothingly. “But I won’t mind having a second opinion. Maybe tomorrow you can go down and look around. The caves are safe in most areas.”

He’d spoken without really looking at her, as he’d trained himself to do. But there was something … different … in her voice, and without thinking he took a good look at her face.

She looked … old.

No, not old. Haggard. Worn, feverish, her cat-gold eyes with their slitted pupils blazing bright with fever—or the edge of madness.

For an instant he forgot his Mageprice, the battle, everything but taking her away somewhere where she’d be safe—

Shalkan cleared his throat.

Kellen stepped back.

No.

“We’d better get back to camp,” he said.

VESTAKIA rode behind Cilarnen, helping him stay in the saddle. Jermayan had remained behind to oversee the unpacking—Cilarnen had refused to leave until he had been told that his precious baskets would be removed just as they were and transported to his tent untouched.

“I think I would rather travel with an entire Ladies’ Academy than one High Mage,” Idalia scolded him, once the three of them were heading in the direction of camp.

“Wildmage Idalia, you would rather not travel with a High Mage at all,” Cilarnen corrected her grandly. “We are most inconvenient.”

“But sometimes useful,” Idalia said. “As long as you don’t try to do too much.”

Cilarnen waved that aside.

Kellen thought that Cilarnen must have been doing far too much, Elemental power-source or not. He looked to be as exhausted as Vestakia did, and his condition could not be entirely accounted for by the effects of whatever Idalia had dosed him with.

He’d said the magick he was working with was dangerous—to him.

How dangerous?

And would it matter? They needed all the help they could get right now.

No matter the cost.

With a day’s warning of their arrival—and the knowledge that, on drag-onback, they would of necessity be traveling light—Kellen had been able to assemble accommodations that provided not only shelter, but clothing and other basic necessities as well. He’d set aside an entire tent for Cilarnen’s use, and helped Idalia and Vestakia settle him in. Cilarnen refused everything but a cup of heavily-sweetened tea.

“I promise you, Idalia, I’ll eat an entire roast ox in the morning, so long as Kellen doesn’t need any spells cast.”

“Not tomorrow,” Kellen said. He thought Idalia might slay him on the spot if he said anything else.

“Fine,” Cilarnen said, thrusting the empty mug back at her, and throwing himself down in his blankets. “Now go away.”

“Ah, the courtly manners of Armethalieh,” Idalia said mockingly. But her voice was gentle.

“He seems very tired,” Kellen said, when the three of them stood outside Cilarnen’s tent.

“You don’t look that much better,” Idalia said tartly. “But yes. He’s been wearing himself to a frazzle doing all that Redhelwar asks of him—and more. But let’s go somewhere warm where we can talk. I think you need to know about Nerendale.”

When the three of them were gathered together in Kellen’s tent, she told him about the night Cilarnen had seen the massacre at Nerendale.

“The Bounds stop our scrying, but they cannot keep a High Mage out. Cilarnen has been able to look into Armethalieh, and tell us what goes on there. They are raiding freely within the Bounds—after what happened at Nerendale, you may be certain Cilarnen stays away from Them, but it’s not hard to figure out from listening to the Council sessions—and he’s been doing quite a bit of that. ‘Lord’ Anigrel has convinced the Arch-Mage that Wildmages are responsible for every single death.”

“How close is Anigrel to taking down the City Wards?” Kellen asked.

“Cilarnen says they’re more complicated than Anigrel thought. He thinks they’ve been seriously tampered with, but that the Demons still can’t cross the City walls physically. He says something about the Light Itself working to Heal the wards.”

Kellen shook his head. “Maybe he can explain it to me, but I doubt it. It would be nice if it were true. If They can’t get in, They can’t get their hands on the High Mages. Or the rest of the people.”

“Unless They make them come out,” Idalia said.

“Or someone orders them to come out, the way they were ordered to go to Nerendale,” Kellen said. “But I don’t think They’ll risk doing anything in sight of the walls. As much as I loathe them, the High Mages do remember … Them. If the High Mages knew who Anigrel really served, who their real enemy was, I don’t think they’d sit by tamely and let him hand them over to Them.”

“So they’re safe—or almost safe—for now,” Idalia said. “I never thought I’d be glad of that.”

There was a jingle of bells outside the tent.

“Enter and be welcome,” Kellen said automatically.

Jermayan walked in, shaking the snow from his cloak, and settled himself beside Idalia.

“Cilarnen’s baskets reside with Cilarnen. You will have to await the morning to retrieve your medicines, Idalia, for I fear I would rather face an Enclave of Shadowed Elves than hear what I would hear did I tamper with his spellbooks.”

Despite the gravity of the situation, Kellen smiled. He could imagine as well as Jermayan could what Cilarnen’s reaction would be, though it baffled Kellen what possible harm could come of just touching the volumes. It was not, after all, as if they had any innate magic—unlike, say, a Wildmage’s Three Books.

“And now,” Idalia said, breaking into his thoughts, “maybe you’d like to tell us why we’re here? Vestakia’s here because of the caverns, and she needed Jermayan to get her here, but Cilarnen isn’t going to be that much use to you as far as I can imagine here, and do you really need another Healer?”

“No,” Kellen said. “I need you to go to Sentarshadeen, and tell me if there’s anything that Cilarnen can do there. So that means you and Jermayan and Ancaladar. Of your courtesy, Jermayan.”

“It is my pleasure,” Jermayan said. He paused for a moment, sipping tea. “Redhelwar has told me all that you gave Keirasti to tell him.”

Kellen nodded, understanding the oblique remark. Idalia and Vestakia looked puzzled. Obviously Jermayan had not shared the news with them.

“I think that’s enough plain speaking for now,” Kellen said slowly. If they spoke of the matter any further here, it would be all over the camp in a matter of minutes. Tent walls were thin, and Elven ears were sharp. Even if nobody spoke of the matter openly—and the rituals of Elven politeness would ensure that—they’d still all know.

“Then let it remain so,” Jermayan agreed.

“I suppose you’ll explain things eventually,” Idalia muttered darkly.

“Tomorrow,” Jermayan promised. “Upon the wing.”

“But aren’t you going with them, Kellen?” Vestakia asked, obviously puzzled.

“Ancaladar can only carry one passenger,” Jermayan said. “And Kellen must remain to give orders to the army. If there is true need of his presence, or Cilarnen’s, in Sentarshadeen, I will leave Idalia there and return.”

It was a hard choice, but Kellen knew it was the right one for him to have made.

“There’s just one thing I’d like you to do for me before you go,” Kellen said.

“It would be interesting to discover what that thing might be, should you wish to tell it,” Jermayan answered, both his tone and his words overly-formal to the point of subtle Elven humor.

“Build me a bridge, of your courtesy,” Kellen responded in the same vein.

Chapter Twelve

To Build a Bridge

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Kellen, Jermayan, and Ancaladar stood at the edge of the Angarussa.

Kellen had explained what he needed: a stone bridge, suitable for cavalry and heavy carts. By the time Keirasti got here, the bridge would be covered with snow and probably ice as well, so the sledgewagons should pass over it easily enough.

He’d almost thought Jermayan would refuse flat out.

“Kellen, there has never been a bridge over the Angarussa here,” the Elven Knight said, shaking his head.

Idalia had made a small sound of exasperation, throwing up her hands. “Perhaps you will tell Keirasti that, when she arrives, Jermayan. I’m sure that will impress her.”

“A bridge of ice—” Jermayan had suggested.

“Isn’t strong enough. Will melt in the spring. Won’t handle the traffic to the caverns once they’ve been turned into a fortress,” Kellen had pointed out, sounding exasperated.

“Beloved, it is time to try new things,” Ancaladar had said gently, settling the matter. “I am sure it will be a fine bridge.”

“Very well,” Jermayan said, acknowledging defeat. “I should know better than to argue with a dragon.”

“Indeed you should,” Ancaladar agreed. “Riddles are far more effective.”

THERE was an interested party of observers standing a little distance away, including Vestakia, Idalia, and Cilarnen. Jermayan walked to the very edge of the river, gazing down into the water.

The edges had begun to freeze, though it would be moonturns yet before the whole river froze again. As Kellen and Ancaladar watched, Jermayan paced back and forth through the snow, his eyes half-closed, until Kellen began to wonder if anything were ever going to happen at all.

Suddenly the air began to shimmer.

Beneath their feet, the ice creaked and groaned as it split. Kellen jumped back out of the way. The mantle of snow and ice had been pushed upward several inches in a wide fan extending several dozen yards in every direction on this side of the river, as if by something suddenly appearing beneath.

Stone began to form in the air.

At first it was like fog, and Kellen doubted his eyes. But no, it was truly there, growing outward from this side of the river, low and wide enough for two ox-carts to cross side-by-side. As the fog drifted out over the river, the parts at the near bank became solid; Kellen could see that Jermayan’s bridge was made of granite.

There was a subtle pattern of river currents etched into the stone, mimicking the currents beneath. The texturing of the stone would also keep the granite from becoming too slippery in the rain, of course; the Elves were nothing if not practical.

More fog swirled up, forming a railing along the sides of the bridge. Tall river rushes, a leaping fish silhouetted against them, here an angular river-bird—Kellen knew without being told that its long beak was meant to hold a lantern to light the bridge in the dark—there an otter, jumping up in play to snatch at a hovering dragonfly …

In moments, the fog-turned-stone had reached the far side of the river. There was another crackling and buckling of ice as it sunk stone roots deep into the earth on the far side.

Kellen regarded the result in awe.

It was a bridge that looked like … water.

But the more he gazed at it, the less it looked as though it belonged here. Unlike every other creation of the Elves’, it did not fit. It seemed as if it intruded on the landscape, instead of growing out of it. It demanded the attention immediately, instead of revealing itself slowly, in a series of unexpected yet pleasant surprises.

It was… intrusive.

Jermayan took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

Kellen turned to him and bowed, very deeply.

“I think you’ve won the argument,” he said. “A bridge does not belong here. But we need one. And it is beautiful.”

Jermayan regarded the bridge, obviously still unreconciled to it.

“Perhaps, some day, it can be swept away again,” he said.

“I believe it is time to go,” Ancaladar said.

THE flight to Sentarshadeen was short—a good thing, as the heavy weather that the Wildmages had predicted was already starting to set in. This far to the south and west, the snow was wetter and heavier than what they had been used to north of the Mystrals; even on the short flight, it caked both Idalia and Jermayan’s flying-furs, until they resembled snow-figures.

On the journey, Jermayan at last told her the contents of the message that Keirasti had brought to Redhelwar.

“Leaf and Star,” Idalia groaned, after sitting a long time in silence. “Jermayan, this is… This is the worst possible time… .”

“Yes,” Jermayan answered simply.

There was no need to say anything more.

ANCALADAR landed near the house of Leaf and Star. A curious herd of unicorns, their coats fluffed out against the cold and caked with falling snow, quickly gathered at a safe distance to observe this interesting sight.

Once they had dismounted, Jermayan quickly unbuckled the straps of Ancaladar’s flying harness. There was no point in making his friend wear the saddle any more than he had to, and there was no way of telling how long they would be staying.

“I shall go off to my den,” Ancaladar said once that had been accomplished. “Perhaps there will be … food … soon,” he added hopefully.

“I shall bring you bullocks from my herd as soon as I can,” Jermayan promised. He hefted the saddle to his shoulder; though it was comparatively light, it was bulky, and he was glad it was only a short walk to the House of Leaf and Star.

“Then I shall leave you now,” Ancaladar said. He rose to his feet and trotted away. The unicorns followed, pacing him until he took off.

Jermayan and Idalia gazed up at the House of Leaf and Star.

“At the very least, I’d say they know we’re coming,” Idalia said, hefting the strap of her medicine chest higher onto her shoulder.

THE door was opened by an Elf that Idalia could not remember having seen at the House of Leaf and Star before. Taranarya was a textile weaver—some of her designs covered the cushions and pillows in the guesthouse that had been given to Idalia and Kellen when they had first come to Sentarshadeen.

It seemed like a very long time ago.

“I See you, Taranarya,” Idalia said.

Taranarya regarded the two of them as if they had just sprouted directly out of the ground.

“We have come to see Andoreniel,” Idalia added, when Taranarya did not say anything.

It was, of course, perfectly possible—and within the scope of the complex code of Elven Manners—for Taranarya not to “see” Idalia, and simply close the door in her face. But though technically that was permissible, it very rarely happened in practice.

“I See you, Idalia,” Taranarya said at last. “I See you, Jermayan,” she added. There was a pause. “Be welcome in this house and find comfort at our hearth.” She opened the door wider and stepped back.

It was quite the most grudging welcome Idalia had ever received among the Elves, but Taranarya probably did not wish to admit there was sickness in the House of Leaf and Star—though anyone who could not guess why she was here instead of her cousin Talminonil was thick-witted at best. Talminonil had served in the House of Leaf and Star since before any of Idalia’s grandparents had met. She hoped that Talminonil was … well, that things weren’t as bad with Talminonil as they could possibly be.

Taranarya conducted them to the Room of Fire and Water. By the time they’d reached it, two more servants had arrived to take their heavy outer clothing and Ancaladar’s saddle.

The Room of Fire and Water was one of the formal receiving chambers of the House of Leaf and Star, and as such, had been designed to be as much to be a work of art as simply a place where guests were welcomed. As the name implied, the room was designed to be a marriage of fire and water. At one end of the room was an enormous fireplace in the shape of a red-gold dragon, whose enormous tile wings covered the entire wall of the room. At this season, the dragon-hearth naturally contained a well-built fire, and the flames leaped and danced in the dragon’s belly.

Of course, the dragon did not bear a great deal of resemblance to an actual dragon. It was much too round and cheerful—something the Elven artisan who had designed the room was undoubtedly aware of. And real dragons certainly didn’t breathe fire, or carry furnaces in their bellies. But dragons certainly did radiate heat, just as this dragon-hearth was doing, so in that sense, the symbolism was quite accurate.

At the opposite end of the room there was a fountain, and here the room’s colors were deep vivid turquoise and violet, the intense saturated hues a perfect complement to the red-golds and vermilions that surrounded the dragon. Here, a column of water bubbled high into the air, falling back into itself and down into its catchbasin. The glittering motes of color caught within the water were tiny fish-shapes, all made of glass, for living fish would not have been at all happy living in that turbulent water.

The walls between the fountain and the hearth were covered with a mosaic—Elvenware seashells mixed with natural ones at the fountain end, glass tiles at the hearth end—in which the two sets of opposite colors reached out and blended together in perfect harmony, like a vibrant sunset.

“I shall bring tea,” Taranarya said. It was obvious that she felt that the room’s elaborate beauty would occupy them for some time.

“We have come on the wings of the wind,” Jermayan said urgently. “And so our words enter the realms of suitable discourse like summer storms into an orchard, tossing the boughs about and shaking loose the fruit. Yet I believe it is with cause, for I know that which you do not wish to relate. Kellen has told me what he has learned from Rochinuviel, and so you must understand that we already know much of what has happened within these walls. I beg you, do not delay us.”

Taranarya regarded him as if he had shouted curses at her. It might not seem so on the battlefield, but to the ears of a gently-bred Elven artisan, this was plain speaking indeed, and it was obvious Taranarya had never heard anything like it in all the years of her long life. She stared at Jermayan for a long moment in shock, then curtseyed deeply and rushed as quickly as she could—without seeming to—from the room.

Jermayan and Idalia looked at each other.

“That certainly went well,” Idalia said, after a moment.

“Perhaps we should have brought Kellen with us, to apply his courtly manners,” Jermayan said ironically. “But I would truly feel more serene were I to know at once of the health of Andoreniel’s Counselors, and have speech of them, and that is a thing neither cups of tea nor sweet cakes can provide.”

“I see that Kellen’s influence has been pervasive indeed,” Idalia said, though she shared his feelings.

If Andoreniel was as ill as Kellen had implied, in Ashaniel’s absence the Elven Council was all that was left to govern the Nine Cities. Tyendimarquen, Morusil, Ainalundore, Dargainon, and Sorvare had advised Andoreniel for centuries. Morusil and Ainalundore, at least, had advised Andorieniel’s father Ari-naldariel before him.

If all of them were sick, or dead …

But to Idalia’s immense relief, before she and Jermayan actually came to the point of searching the House of Leaf and Star themselves for answers, Taranarya returned, bringing Morusil—and, inevitably, a large wheeled cart covered with savory dishes—with her.

The oldest of Andoreniel’s Counselors leaned heavily upon a carved wooden staff as he walked into the room, and his steps were slow and hesitant. He seemed to have aged several centuries since Idalia had seen him last, though it had only been a handful of moonturns, and his ivory-pale skin was now marred with the ugly purple scars of plague.

“You should not be out of bed!” Idalia gasped, rising to her feet to help him to a chair near the fire.

Morusil chuckled faintly. “My dear Idalia, the Shadow’s Kiss rested on me very lightly indeed, and that some sennights ago. Indeed, I was considering participating in the Winter Running Dance this year, for the first time in quite some time. But come. I am sure that you have news for me, and I will tell you what I can. Meanwhile, surely there is time to eat and drink.” He raised a hand—though he was dressed in Council robes, he wore no rings, for they would have fit him far too loosely now—and Taranarya curtseyed once more and departed, closing the door to the Room of Fire and Water behind her.

They settled beside him around the fire, and Idalia laid out the tea-things upon the table, for despite his protests, Morusil looked far from well. Out of respect for his years, Idalia poured tea while Jermayan prepared them all plates from the—rather hearty—selection of delicacies.

Nevertheless, Morusil came quickly enough to the point.

“You come in a good hour, Idalia, for the Shadow’s Kiss lies heavily upon us here. My old comrade Ainalundore has gone to the trees, and Sorvare with her. Only Tyendimarquen, Dargainon, and I remain, and … we do not know if Dargainon will recover. As yet, Tyendimarquen has not fallen ill, thanks be to the grace of Leaf and Star. But Andoreniel has not been so fortunate.”

“That much Kellen has told us,” Jermayan said. “He sent us here from Halacira, where he has destroyed the last of the Enclaves of the Shadowed Elves. Redhelwar follows, to await orders at Ondoladeshiron. Artenel prepares the caverns to become a fortress, for if we are to shelter the women and children of the Wild Lands, we must have shelter to offer them.”

Morusil nodded. “It is a plan that contains both good and ill within it, yet I do not see how we can abandon our friends and Allies. Still, I would give much to know how Kellen intends them to reach this shelter. The unicorns tell us that travel will be impossible in the Wildlands until after Kindling, at best; in the High Reaches, it may be late spring, or later. And that is only without considering fear of attack. Yet I know that Their creatures already roam the Elven Lands and fill the Lost Lands.”

“And Tyendimarquen believes the best course of action is to sit and do nothing,” Idalia guessed, “and let everyone who isn’t an Elf fend for themself. Well, it’s too late for that. Lerkelpoldara has been completely destroyed. Deskethomaynel and Windalorianan have been evacuated, and the survivors have regrouped at Ysterialpoerin. The Shadowed Elves may have brought Coldwarg, Deathwings, and a few other things in through their caves and past the wards, but if the wards in the north haven’t already fallen, they’re going to fall soon, and then you’ll have Ice Trolls and Frost Giants here. They move slowly, and they have a mountain range or two to cross, but they’ll reach Ysterialpoerin eventually, and then they’ll destroy it just as the Coldwarg and serpentmarae did Lerkelpoldara. Only they’ll wipe out three cities, not one.”

“And should you tell him so, Tyendimarquen will insist the army return to defend Ysterialpoerin to the last Knight,” Morusil said, seemingly undaunted by the catalogue of disasters that Idalia related to him. “Yet Redhelwar already knows the threat they face, and he has left them.”

“There is plague at Ysterialpoerin, just as there is here,” Jermayan said. “So far, by the Grace of Leaf and Star, it has not spread to the army, and Redhelwar wishes to preserve his force. Further, Kindolhinadetil can only feed so many, and the refugees are a great tax upon his reserves. It was thought wise to bring the army to the War City instead.”

“It would please me greatly were I to be allowed to know why it was Redhelwar chose to do such a thing,” Morusil said mildly.

“Kellen suggested it,” Idalia said bluntly.

“Then it is the Wild Magic which guides Redhelwar. I find no fault in that, though no doubt Tyendimarquen will try hard to raise some objection. It troubles me that Ysterialpoerin is left undefended, however.”

“Kellen believes—and it has been shown to be the truth—that They are attempting to draw our forces in many directions at once, scattering us so that we may be more easily destroyed, while They gain the power They need to launch Their final attack upon us. Though we now know what They mean to do, without Andoreniel…” Idalia shrugged helplessly.

“The King must live, so that he can rule,” Morusil said. “There is no one in Sentarshadeen—indeed, in all the Elven Lands—who would not give up their life for his. All our arts have only held the Shadow’s Kiss at bay, for it rests as heavily upon him as it has upon anyone I have seen. Can you, with your powers of healing, do more, Idalia?”

“I can try, Morusil. Fond as I am of Tyendimarquen’s optimism and good cheer, I do not think he should speak for the Elves this year,” Idalia said.

“Nor do I. In times of peace, his good counsel provides excellent balance. But a balance is composed of many sides.”

“I have brought several remedies with me,” Idalia said. “We have had some success with them at Ysterialpoerin. And perhaps there will be more that I can do.”

For all our sakes, I hope there is.

ANDORENIEL’S bedchamber was draped in green silk, giving the room the shadowy likeness of a summer forest. A small stove kept the air warm.

If one had survived the plague, Idalia knew, it was still possible to get it—or the other disease—again, though surviving it once seemed to grant a certain resistance to it.

No one who got it a second time survived.

Idalia asked Morusil to wait outside Andoreniel’s bedchamber, something the aged Elf seemed ready to do in any event, out of simple common sense. Two Elves in the simple leaf-green robes of Elven Healers sat by Andoreniel’s bedside. Idalia recognized both of them from her own stay in the Elven House of Healing. Their names were Volcilintra and Nelirtil, and they were both Master Healers, with centuries of practice at their craft.

“Idalia,” Volcilintra said, rising to her feet and coming toward the door. “By the grace of Leaf and Star, you come in a good hour!”

Idalia bowed. The Healers could be nearly as direct as Elven Knights when it suited their purposes. “I wish I did not see you again under such circumstances, Volcilintra.”

“Ah, Idalia, we all wish circumstances were other than they were.” She glanced at the box Idalia carried beneath her arm. “Perhaps your medicines will have more effect than mine.”

“How long has he lain ill?” Idalia asked.

“The fever came ten sennights ago,” Volcilintra said. “The Shadow’s Kiss had already descended upon Sentarshadeen, though at first we did not see many cases. Now more than half the people are ill, though as yet few have died. We dare not use the House of Healing to treat the cases any longer, for fear of the Quick Plague that sometimes follows. We have taken a district of the city and made it into our healing place, and keep those who are ill as far apart from one another as we can.”

“Yes. We found that to work in Ysterialpoerin,” Idalia agreed.

“At first Andoreniel thought nothing of his fever, for there was much to do, and few hands to do it. But a fortnight later the bruising began to appear, and then we knew the nature of his illness. Since then, all we can do has only kept him in life.”

They kept their voices low, but Idalia did not worry about wakening Andoreniel. He was far too ill to be awakened, even if she had shouted at the top of her lungs.

Two moonturns since the bruising had appeared. Yet in all the other cases Idalia had seen, the plague ran its course—for good or ill—in less than one. Sometimes much less.

The Healers were very skilled. And Andoreniel was very strong.

Idalia approached the bed and turned back the light coverlet gently.

Andoreniel looked as if he had been severely beaten. His body was wasted; veins and tendons stood out clearly against the bone, and his ribs could be seen plainly. His chest rose and fell with slow, effortful breaths.

Along his neck and arms, spreading along the jaw and extending over his body in the pattern she had come to recognize, the livid purple weals of the plague stood out sharply against his pale skin in winged patterns. No wonder the Elves had named it Shadow’s Kiss.

She set down her box beside the bed and opened it.

“Will he drink?” she asked, taking out a vial of brown liquid.

“It is difficult,” Volcilintra said. “But we manage,” she added simply.

“You must give him this. One vial every six—no, four hours. And there is a salve. Rub it into his skin where you can.” The bruised areas were delicate, and the skin there could quickly rupture and bleed at a rough touch. Death followed quickly when that happened. “I will prepare an infusion of herbs. You must wash him with it.” She emptied her box. She had brought all of the plague medicine they could spare from Ysterialpoerin, but she wasn’t sure it was enough. “I will need a place to prepare more.”

“Nelirtil will conduct you,” Volcilintra said, drawing the coverlet back up over Andoreniel. “I had thought, perhaps, a spell of the Wild Magic …”

“Each of these is infused with the power of the Wild Magic,” Idalia told the Elven Healer. “We have tried direct Healing on the plague victims at Ysterialpoerin. It does not work.”

THE time had nearly come.

Once again Savilla descended to the Black Chamber.

With each passing day in the World Above, the veil between it and the majesty of He Who Is thinned further. For the first time in uncounted centuries, her creatures, her subject races, walked openly through the Elven Lands, searing the very ground beneath their feet to sterile stone.

The nursery of her creations—that place which the Wildmages had called the Lost Lands—was truly lost once more. Nothing remained but rock and ice and darkness. Zyperis had enjoyed a fine hunt, scouring the land of those fools who had chosen to remain behind, paving the way for her creatures to claim, once again, lands they had lost a thousand years before.

It was good, but it was not enough.

Only a few sacrifices remained, until the bounds were broken, and He Who Is could walk the world once more. This was one of the last.

It would be painful beyond words for her, but it was necessary. Already his power grew, adding strength to the blights and torments she had released upon the Children of the Light, rendering the Wild Magic weak and ineffectual. When He Who Is walked the world once more in truth, the power of the Wild Magic would be gone forever.

Behind her, two of the Lesser Endarkened followed, dragging a unicorn in a sack. Its legs had been broken, and its eyes and tongue had been gouged from its head—these things done by one of the Mage-men that Zyperis had brought her. The Mage-man had acted in exchange for clemency and freedom, but Savilla had no intention of granting either.

The unicorn’s whimpers of agony soothed her nerves as she contemplated what lay ahead. This was a delicate time, for after this sacrifice she would be weak. It was good, then, that she had sent Zyperis to the High Reaches to enjoy himself. Her son was young, and—as yet—easily distracted. She did not intend to take him fully into her confidence just yet.

Perhaps not ever.

The Lesser Endarkened gazed curiously about themselves as they entered the Black Chamber. They were the lesser children of He Who Is: wingless, where Savilla and her kind had great ribbed wings; tailless, or with short stubby tails, where those of the Greater Endarkened were long and barbed; hooved where their brethren had long elegant feet with talon-tipped toes. Their skin was often rough or scaled as well, usually ebony instead of the clear pulsing ruby usually found among the Greater Endarkened, and they often had barbed crests and dorsal ridges instead of exquisite curling horns.

Still, they were Savilla’s children as well, and had their own place in her dominion.

And today they would serve her to the ultimate of their ability.

The cavern hummed with the power of the many sacrifices she had offered to it in the past hundred cycles of her Rising, and they could sense that.

It would be the last thing either of them ever sensed.

They opened the sack and dumped its contents on the floor. The unicorn writhed weakly upon the stone, blood marring its pale fur.

“Take it and place it upon the spire,” Savilla ordered.

The Demons cringed. A living unicorn’s horn would kill their kind. To touch one would bring agony. But Savilla knew they would not dare disobey her.

Gasping and whimpering as their flesh bubbled away, the two Lesser Endarkened dragged the screaming, flailing unicorn upright, then lifted it higher. It took all their strength, and the chamber was filled with the burned scent of their flesh by the time they had it poised over the spire.

They let go.

The unicorn screamed as the black glass spire slid through its body. But it was not dead. Not yet.

Waves of its delicious pain washed over Savilla, and the entire chamber vibrated with satisfaction.

The two servants crouched at her feet, mewling with agony.

Savilla reached down and tore their throats out with her hands. Black blood welled over their skin, and they fell to the floor, twitching weakly.

They were not dead, even now. But they would be soon, once she had done what she had come here to do. And their deaths would go to feed the power that would liberate He Who Is.

She bent down and picked up one of the large round stones that littered the floor of the chamber. Dipped it in the blood of one of the writhing Demons.

And struck the spire with all her might.

The spire vibrated, sending forth a high sweet tone that made the entire chamber ring like crystal. The screams of the two Lesser Endarkened and the unicorn blended with the sound, making it richer, fuller.

The Endarkened died first, their bodies turning to liquid in the crystal cry, spreading across the stone and sinking into it.

The unicorn was not so fortunate.

Any creature to die in the vibrations of the Crystal Spire died a death more agonizing than any even the Endarkened themselves, with all their arts, could contrive. The one who struck the spire—and caused the death—shared in every moment of the pain.

That was the price of the spell.

And the death of a unicorn, ultimate embodiment of the Light, whose very body it was agony for one of the Endarkened to touch …

Savilla endured as long as she could, but at last the torment drove her to her knees, then upon her face. She groveled in the liquefied bodies of her servants, weeping the thick golden tears of her kind. It was as if she were being unmade. Reduced to humanity. Worse. The agony tore her mind from her, until she no longer understood why she suffered. She did not remember the pain’s beginning, and could not believe it would have an end.

But at last—as with all things, save the Endarkened—it was over.

She lay upon the floor of the Black Chamber, too weak to move.

It thrummed with power.

Except for Savilla, the power was the only thing that remained within the walls of living rock. Everything else was gone.

Scoured.

Empty.

Pure.

A great distance up the narrow path that led to the Black Chamber, Zyperis pressed himself against the wall, shuddering in pain from the echoes of magic. He jerked his head to the side and sunk his fangs into his arm until the blood flowed, but not even that could ease his distress.

He knew what was down here. That was why he had come.

Oh, it was not that he had ever known precisely. But he had known that it was something powerful. Something that his Dearest Mama wished to conceal. Something that required sacrifices, and many of them—he had spies in her household, and even in such a time of plenty as had not been seen in a thousand years, when every Endarkened torture chamber was filled to overflowing and the flesh of slaves graced the tables of even the Lesser Endarkened, the disappearances from Savilla’s slave-pens were too great to account for by anything other than the working of great and secret spells.

He had set himself to discover what she was doing.

The capture of a unicorn was a great prize, and he had expected to be invited to witness its torture and destruction. The Mage-men they had taken at Nerendale would be of assistance there—Mama had decreed that they were to be kept alive, and in reasonable health, in case another dragon might be found.

But when the unicorn had not been offered up—and when he had been sent on such a purely transparent errand, an entertaining one, but one that any of the nobles of the Court could have as easily accomplished—Zyperis had grown suspicious. What magic could his mother and Queen be working that would involve the death of a unicorn? That her plans neared fruition went without saying, for she could not hope to conceal the creature’s disappearance for long.

So he had returned early—disobeying her—and followed her when she slipped away.

He had marked the beginning of the path she took many times, but had never before dared follow her so far along it. Should he be discovered, he would surely be her next sacrifice.

But here the unicorn’s magic was his ally, for not only did it mask his own presence, its hateful taint provided a beacon for him to follow.

Never before had he penetrated so deeply into The World Without Sun, and Zyperis had been certain he knew every twist and turn of their vast and beautiful world. Following Savilla, it seemed to him as if he entered another realm entirely—one that promised power, but at a price so high that, even though he did not know what it was, it woke fear in his very bones.

When he heard her speak, he stopped.

And then pain had come. Pain—and terror—and knowledge.

She means to bring He Who Is to walk our world again!

He Who Is would grant them victory over the Children of the Light. His power was unstoppable. The knowledge of Savilla’s act should have brought Zyperis great joy.

Except for one thing.

To the one who freed him, He Who Is would grant great favor.

Savilla would be Queen of the Endarkened forever.

She would have no successor.

AFTER Jermayan and Idalia had left for Sentarshadeen, Kellen took Vestakia down into the caverns.

This time he took a great many more Knights.

It was not merely that he was concerned about her safety—though Vestakia was an invaluable resource, one they dared not lose—but by now, two days after the battle, the work of refitting Halacira must begin.

Much of the route from the main entrance to the river gallery shimmered with Coldfire now, for the Wildmages had been busy, and they were working quickly to light the lower levels as well. With so many of the side entrances blocked, and soon to be sealed permanently, the cavern air was much more still than it had been when Kellen had first brought his force through here, but Artenel had assured him that there were—or at least had been, before the earthshaking—many ventilation shafts to the surface, and that he would be able to unblock them within a few sennights.

Of course, each ventilation shaft would present a potential method for the Enemy to gain access to the future Fortress, if not in body, then by poisons, or by small Dark-tainted creatures of their breeding. And Goblins needed no door to enter, being able to pass through solid rock at will.

Artenel would simply have to do the best he could to make the place secure. Perhaps there was something Cilarnen could do to help as well.

“I am very tired of caves,” Vestakia said wistfully, as they descended the wide stairs into the first cavern.

“You will find that these caves are like no others you have ever seen,” Isinwen told her proudly. “It is a shame that their beauty must be destroyed, but Artenel will make them a fine home for those who must live beneath the earth.”

Kellen ignored both of them. He was concentrating on the caves themselves. And, if truth be told, he was trying not to think of Vestakia at all.

“I don’t feel anything yet,” she said, her voice bright with relief.

By now the caverns seemed almost as familiar to Kellen as Sentarshadeen or the Wildwoods had become. He and his Knights swept the entry level, carefully checking all the surviving side-galleries. Vestakia exclaimed in wonder at the wall carvings, though much of the finer detail on some of the reliefs was gone now, having simply crumbled away, and in the xaique cavern, many of the delicate carved figures lay upon the floor in pieces.

“No … nothing,” Vestakia said, when they stood upon the edge of the bridge, staring down at the Angarussa. Thanks to Wirance and the other Wildmages, the entire roof of the river-gallery glowed a pale azure now, giving it the odd illusion of being the open sky. For the first time, Kellen could see the details of the ceiling; it had been carefully worked to resemble something crafted of stone blocks and wooden beams, though the whole had been carved out of one piece of cavern rock. If he strained his eyes, he could see the individual blocks of stone, the bolts and plates that held the great rough-hewn beams of “wood” together, and even the subtle grain in the wood, just as if these were beams of ancient oak, worn and shrunken by Time.

Elves did nothing by halves.

“We should go down into the mines themselves, then,” Kellen said. “Unless you would rather do that tomorrow?”

“No,” Vestakia said with certainty. “I would much rather go to bed tonight knowing I never had to come down here again. It is the most beautiful cave I have ever been in … but it is still a cave.”

Kellen had only taken a quick tour of the lower levels the previous day, and was grateful he hadn’t had to fight down here, for in contrast to the main level, most of the open areas here were about the size of his bedroom back in Sentarshadeen, if that.

Some of them had been carved—apparently with whatever took the fancy of the unknown carver. Others had walls completely smooth, apparently still awaiting the inspiration of unknown hands. In a very few, the wall was rough, and an open vein could be seen within, from which the Coldfire roused faint glitterings, the only proof Kellen had yet come across that Halacira was, indeed, a jewel mine.

Without his Knight-Mage’s sense of direction—and the marks he had chalked upon the walls on an earlier visit—he might well have wandered down here forever, for each chamber led into the next with no pattern he could see.

At last they came to an opening in the floor.

Unlike the passage to this level, which had involved a staircase, there was only a wooden ladder leading down through the opening. The ladder was new—Artenel had just built it. The previous one—and Kellen had no doubt one had existed, and perhaps an entire wooden staircase—had been washed away in the flood, as well as whatever machines the Shadowed Elves had assembled.

“This leads to the deep mine,” Isinwen said apologetically, indicating the ladder.

“I’ve been down there,” Kellen said. “It’s pretty much one big cavern, and as far as I can tell, nothing can get in or out. We don’t have Coldlight down there yet, but the ladder’s stronger than it looks. Do you think you need to go down, or … ?”

Vestakia looked into the pit, and shuddered.

“How large is it?”

“You remember the village cavern at the first Enclave? The one at the bottom of the deep cavern? About that size. Maybe a little bigger.”

“Then I should be able to sense anything in it from here.”

Nevertheless, she got down on her hands and knees and peered down into the opening, as if she might be able to see something. Kellen shaped a small ball of Coldfire between his hands and sent it drifting past her, down into the cavern below.

Its light gave little illumination. Enough to show that water still lay in pools upon the unfinished rock here, for what Isinwen called the Deep Mine was Halacira as it must have been before the Elves began to improve the caverns. He sent the ball of light swooping and soaring through the darkness as Vestakia concentrated.

“There’s nothing,” she said at last, sitting back on her heels with a sigh of relief.

NOW that the caverns were cleared and guaranteed to be safe, Kellen could turn his mind to other matters. Providing Vestakia with a suitable escort—since she planned to seek out Shalkan—he went to see Cilarnen.

The young High Mage had recovered both from the effects of his first aerial journey, and from Idalia’s cordial. Kellen found him in his tent—one of the largest they had brought with them—unpacking his supplies and clucking over each one as if it were a newly-hatched chick.

“Kellen,” he said, in obvious pleasure. “Come to seek out the dreaded High Mage in his sanctum?”

“Come to talk,” Kellen said. “Providing we can do so privately.”

“That, at least, is simply managed,” Cilarnen said. “Though I am afraid more complex spells will take another day at least. It is as I feared: My apparatus has been detuned by the flight, and will all have to be reset. But my Wand, at least, is unscathed.”

He opened a long bone case—it had, Kellen suspected, originally been crafted as a scroll-case—and removed his wand. He’d done some work on the slender length of ash since Kellen had seen it last: It was now capped at each end with fine silver, and a narrow spiral of silver wrapped its entire length.

He raised it into the air and began to draw, murmuring under his breath. Glowing sigils, each in a dozen colors, appeared in the air and slowly faded. After he had drawn six of them in a circle around them both, he lowered his wand and replaced it in its case.

“There. No one will hear anything we say—or see our shadows, either. Though anyone who walks through the door of the tent will break the spell.”

“No one is likely to do that,” Kellen said. Anyone coming to the door of Cilarnen’s tent, and not receiving an invitation to enter, would simply go away again.

“Then we may speak privately. A useful spell, though a deal more useful, to my mind, in a place with doors that lock. Tea?”

“Since you offer so nicely.” Kellen smiled slightly. Apparently Cilarnen had picked up the Elves’ habit of accompanying every occasion with tea. “Cilarnen, do you know why you’re here?”

Cilarnen shrugged. “You needed me. We left in such a hurry, nobody had time to tell me anything else, and I was too busy packing to ask. But there’s something I must tell you, I think.

“You know that Anigrel meddled with my mind before I was Banished and made sure I escaped the Outlaw Hunt. We’d always wondered why. Well, I found out.”

Kellen tensed, ever-so-slightly. Cilarnen seemed oblivious.

“He wanted to find you. He knows you are his greatest enemy—or the greatest enemy of that which he serves. He knew that word would reach you, eventually, of a Banished ‘High Mage,’ alive in the Wild Lands, and we would meet. Perhaps he put a compulsion on me to find you, and the Demon raid just helped things along. Or maybe Kardus helped me because for some reason, your Wild Magic wanted it too. In any event, Anigrel left me my magick because he meant me to kill you with it. I think that’s the reason my headaches came back so strongly as soon as I saw you.”

“Cilarnen, why are you telling me this?” Kellen asked cautiously. His Knight-Mage powers gave him very little shielding against the sort of magical assault a High Mage could wield. On the other hand, he was physically stronger and faster than Cilarnen.

If it came to a fight.

“Because I looked for his tampering in my mind—and found it. He has no hold over me now,” Cilarnen said. “Of that I am certain.”

Could Kellen believe this? He wanted to. “Both Shalkan and Vestakia pronounced you free of Taint when you arrived,” Kellen pointed out.

“And so I was. And so I am,” Cilarnen said. “How do you think Anigrel moved undetected among the City Wards for all those years, yet still conspired with … Them? Until the very moment the spell saw its best chance of success, and woke into life, I would pass any test you set me. I did not know it myself—but I suspected. How not? Why else would I pass from Anigrel’s hands with my Gift intact—unless he foresaw a use for it later?”

Cilarnen’s words made sense. And Kellen was inclined to believe him. He would not have mentioned the matter at all—unless he were sure.

“So you are safe from him now?”

“I swear to it by the Light. And that will come as an unwelcome surprise for that upstart carrion-bird very soon, I hope. Kellen, I have scryed within the walls of the City, watched the Council at its deliberations. The Selken grain-ships will not come until spring. There is rationing in the City, and talk of sending the Militia out to seize the farmers’ stored provisions. Who knows how many—if any—will survive, if they are sent outside the walls? And Anigrel uses every death to fuel the terror of the Wildmages. I think he hopes to bring Lycaelon to consider … an alliance.”

“An alliance?” Kellen asked, temporarily diverted from the reason for which he had come. “With whom? He wouldn’t let the Elves into the City when Hyandur came; the Armethaliehans think the Centaurs are animals, and—”

“With Them,” Cilarnen said.

“He can’t,” Kellen said, aghast. “They can’t. They’d never consider it.”

“Frighten them enough, and they would,” Cilarnen said grimly. “They can change Their shape to look like anything—I’ve seen it. If Anigrel tampers with the Wards enough, the High Mages won’t have those to warn them. And anybody who disagrees with Anigrel or his Magewardens or Commons Wardens tends to just… vanish.”

Kellen emitted a low hiss of dismay. This was worse than he’d thought. “You’ve told Redhelwar all this?”

“Yes, of course, but I’m not sure he completely understands how bad the situation is,” Cilarnen said.

Elven emotions were hard for humans to read at the best of times. It was just as likely that Redhelwar understood exactly how bad the situation in Armethalieh was getting, and Cilarnen simply didn’t realize it.

But it made getting to Armethalieh more imperative than ever.

By now the kettle on the tea-brazier was bubbling violently. Cilarnen busied himself for a moment in preparing the pot, scooping in several measures of Armethaliehan Black and setting out two tall mugs that Kellen recognized as coming from his own supplies.

“It’s worse than you think,” Kellen said. “The reason you’re here is because Andoreniel is gravely ill with plague. Rochinuviel told me he’s too sick to give orders, and Ashaniel, who could rule in his place, is at the Fortress of the Crowned Horns and can’t return.”

“Can’t Redhelwar just take over?” Cilarnen asked.

“I don’t think so,” Kellen said cautiously. “If Andoreniel can’t make the decisions that affect the whole of the Elven Lands, his Council must do it—if any of them are still alive. Or, failing that, one of the other Viceroys, maybe. But I’m not sure.”

Cilarnen poured the water into the waiting pot, and stared at it as if he would find his answers there. When the tea was ready, he poured it, and spoke.

“So the army cannot—will not—act without orders from the King, or someone who speaks for him. And the King is ill. And you do not think that anyone but Andoreniel will do what needs to be done—which is go to Armethalieh as soon as we can, because from all you have told me, if They manage to make Their alliance with the City, we are all doomed. But Kellen, what do you want from me?”

“I know that the High Magick can heal. And you said yourself that you removed the geas Anigrel had placed upon you.”

Cilarnen flung his hands in the air in despair.

“Kellen, I am a half-trained High Mage, not the Eternal Light Itself! Andoreniel has plague—he is not—not a wall to blast down! I can do that! I barely undid what Anigrel had done to me without killing myself—I only tried because I was desperate. To Heal properly—that requires study of the body that I have not done, other High Mages working together to balance the spell-energies. I would be as likely to kill Andoreniel as cure him. Idalia is a great Wildmage Healer—Jermayan can do things with his magic that the entire College of High Mages could not imagine—this morning, he built a bridge across the Angarussa that looks now as if it has stood for a hundred years! And you’re asking me?”

“Yes,” Kellen said bluntly. “Because your magick, working with a Wildmage’s, can kill Them. And we all know that They have sent the plagues.”

“You’re a fool,” Cilarnen said.

“I have no choice,” Kellen answered. Though whether to be a fool, or to try anything he could think of, he wasn’t sure.

Cilarnen sighed. “I only hope it does not come to that. If it does, I shall try all I can. But I would rather not kill anyone. By accident,” he added.

Kellen realized then that Cilarnen had probably never killed anyone at all—unless you counted the Demon at Stonehearth that his spells had helped to destroy. Certainly, in the aftermath of the villages’ destruction, and in overseeing what the Demons had done to Nerendale, he had seen death in plenty, but it was not the same.

Even after all the deaths that had followed it, Kellen vividly remembered his reaction to the first death he had been personally responsible for. He would certainly be taking Cilarnen into the middle of battle. Would Cilarnen be able to do what was necessary when the time came?

“Cilarnen,” he said. “Idalia told me that you are drawing power off the Elven Land-Wards. If we did ride to Armethalieh—outside the Elven Lands—would you still be able to cast spells?”

Cilarnen looked thoughtful.

“I suppose I must see. There are … people … I can ask. Perhaps arrangements can be made. Certainly the ancient War Mages did not draw their power from the Elven Land-Wards.”

“See what you can find out. And one more thing. When the caverns are finished, there will be ventilation shafts. I need a way to keep … things from crawling down them. Things we don’t want.”

CILARNEN smiled, relieved that Kellen had finally set him a task within the scope of his abilities. “Now that is a simple matter, if you have stonecarvers with you. Simply carve as many cats, or rats, or ferrets as you like, even dogs—anything small enough to fit. I shall enchant them into golems, and they will watch over your airshafts forever.”

IDALIA and Jermayan did not return that evening, and Kellen hoped it was a good omen. He was certain that at least Jermayan and Ancaladar would have returned if the worst had happened.

As the camp settled into preparations for the evening meal, Kellen realized he had not seen Vestakia for several hours.

Not that he was looking for her, of course. And certainly, as far as the army had been able to determine, these woods were now safe. And Shalkan would not leave her alone.

Still, he would feel better knowing exactly where she was.

Great wet fluffy flakes of snow were falling as he wrapped his cloak around himself and set out in search of her. And Shalkan, of course. He barely noticed. Compared to the weather near Ysterialpoerin, it was almost warm.

As he’d expected, he found them in the Coldfire-lit grove. At least she wouldn’t freeze. Not with Shalkan to warm her.

He cleared his throat.

Both of them looked up.

“It’s dinnertime,” he said simply. “I’ve brought yours with me,” he added to Shalkan. Some fruit-stuffed buns, made with some of the dried fruit they’d gotten at Ondoladeshiron, and, of course, several bars of the eternal Elven journey-food.

“At least you don’t mean me to starve,” Shalkan said, switching his tail. “Vestakia has been telling me some very interesting things today. Things you should hear.”

“For that matter, I had an interesting conversation with Cilarnen,” Kellen said. “But we can leave that for another time. What is your news?”

He unslung the bag from his shoulder and removed the contents, starting with the fruit buns. Shalkan always preferred to eat his dessert first.

“While you were gone, I spent a very long time trying to talk to the Crystal Spiders,” Vestakia said. “And so I got very good at listening. And I think, now, that I am hearing … other things. Things I am not truly meant to hear. I think … Kellen, I think I can hear my father’s mind.”

Kellen nearly dropped the fruit bun he was holding. Vestakia’s father was the Prince of Shadow Mountain.

“Oh?” he said, hoping his voice sounded noncommittal. First Cilarnen told him that he had been bespelled to be a magickal assassin, and now this.

“When I was trying to locate the last Enclave of the Shadowed Elves, I kept feeling, very strongly, that it must be far to the south. But the Crystal Spiders could not know that—they have no sense of direction at all!” she added, with a stifled giggle. “I came to realize I felt that because he knew where the last Enclave was. If I had only realized it sooner, I’m sure I could have found it faster. You see, now that They are so active in the world again, I feel Them everywhere now, all the time,” she added sadly. She rubbed her arms beneath her cloak, as if her skin crawled. “I can still tell when They are coming close, or when I come near to something Tainted, but the other is like a noise that will not stop.”

“Vestakia, you must do something about this,” Kellen said urgently. “You can’t go on like this. Idalia has drugs to shut down the magical senses—”

“Kellen, no. If I really can tell what he’s thinking, even just a little, we can use that! I think, I sense—” She put her hands to her temples and closed her eyes. “There’s something we can use, I know there is. He ought to be happy. Shouldn’t he? But I don’t feel anything like that.”

Shalkan cleared his throat meaningfully.

Kellen forced himself not to think. He fed Shalkan another fruit bun, then a journey-bar.

Vestakia was right.

If he was willing to use Cilarnen, knowing what danger he placed the young High Mage in, he must use Vestakia as well.

There could be no difference between them in his mind. In his thoughts.

“What if he finds out what you’re doing?” he said at last.

“I don’t think he will,” Vestakia said slowly. “We have always been … linked. That is how he knew I was alive, and why he has searched for me all these years. I think the only difference is that I can hear him now, instead of just him hearing me. It is stronger when I sleep. I think it will keep getting stronger, as Their power grows stronger.”

Kellen nodded. “I will need to know all you can tell me.”

If the Prince of Shadow Mountain was unhappy about something, Vestakia was right. There might be something in that that they could use.

They just needed to find out what it was.

EVEN after sennights of fighting the plague, the House of Healing was far better equipped for her needs than the Healer’s Tents Idalia had left behind, and with the Flower Forest so close at hand—not to mention an entire herd of unicorns—every element of her remedies was easily available.

If only they could stop the plagues and blights at their source!

But that would require defeating Shadow Mountain, and they were already doing their best to do that.

With the help of several of the Elven Healers, she prepared large batches of the cordial, salve, and bath—enough to continue Andoreniel’s treatment when the supplies she had brought ran out, and to treat other victims as well. Each was normally used at a different stage of the plague, in hopes of keeping it from progressing further, but Andoreniel’s was the worst case she had ever seen, and if he were not Healed quickly, he would surely die.

While she was working—the remedies required careful preparation, but only after they were complete could she use the power of the Wild Magic to charge them—Jermayan entered.

He had gone to see to Ancaladar’s comfort, and to see if—perhaps—the power of an Elven Mage might prevail where the power of a Wildmage could not.

But one look at his face told her that he had failed.

“It is as you have said,” he told her, taking the long wooden spoon from her hand and slowly stirring the large cauldron of salve that heated over the low fire in the Healers’ Stillroom. The mixture required constant stirring if it was not to burn.

“I went to Dargainon’s bedside—he is not so ill as Andoreniel, and the Healers think he could recover. But all the Healing spells I know will not heal this plague.”

“I don’t understand it,” Idalia said in frustration. “A Healing spell will heal almost anything. It is almost as if there’s something else we need to do first—and I just can’t figure out what it is, though every one of us has done every form of divination there is to try to find out.”

“It is very much like the time that Petariel was wounded by the Shadowed Elf poison, when we did not yet know what it was,” Jermayan said. “The Healers treated the poison, to no effect, not realizing they must Banish the Taint from the wound with a powerful spell before their drugs would work.”

“Then there is something here we must figure out how to banish,” Idalia said. “But what—and how?”

THE cordial was ready first—the salve would take the longest, as it must cool and set—and as the Elven Healers began the preparations for the next batch, Idalia prepared to charge the cordial. Once it had been infused with her power, she could transfer it to the bottles from which it could be administered to the plague’s victims.

But before she could begin, Volcilintra came rushing into the chamber, so wildly agitated she did not even pause upon the threshold and wait to be noticed as Elven good manners required.

“Idalia! It is the King! Andoreniel wakes!”

AS if they were both children, Idalia raced after Volcilintra until they reached Andoreniel’s bedchamber. Nelirtil and another Elven Healer were with him.

But in contrast to the last time she had come here, hours before, Andoreniel lay propped up on several pillows, drinking from a cup that Nelirtil held to his lips. He still looked near death, but now his dark eyes were open and aware.

“Idalia,” he whispered, as she entered. “I owe you … more than my life.”

“Don’t talk,” Idalia said instantly. “You need all your strength to heal.”

She hoped that what she was seeing was healing in truth, and not the last surge of strength that sometimes came before death. But Volcilintra surely had enough experience with plague by now to tell the difference.

“He began to improve almost at once,” Volcilintra said, drawing her aside. “He fell into a natural sleep for the first time in days, and now, by the grace of Leaf and Star, he wakes.”

“I’m making more medicine as fast as I can,” Idalia said. “You will soon be able to treat everyone here. I have given the recipes to the Healers. All three remedies need to be charged with the Wild Magic, but Kellen has Wildmages at Halacira. I am sure he will send some.”

“Perhaps it would be better if you remained,” Volcilintra said, sounding truly alarmed.

“Be sure that I will remain as long as I can. And that we will not leave you without a way to fight this thing,” Idalia answered grimly.

JERMAYAN was waiting for her in the outer chamber, his expression a mixture of hope and wariness.

“It is true,” Idalia said, answering his unvoiced question. “It seems that my remedies are Healing Andoreniel—or at least they allow him to rally. But they will do nothing against the Quick Plague, if it comes. And there must be Wildmages here to make and charge the medicines—and we cannot be everywhere at once!” Her shoulders drooped.

“Yet you are here now—and as you told Volcilintra, Kellen will send Wildmages from Halacira to stay with Andoreniel, and to prepare enough of the salve and cordial to treat all of Sentarshadeen. It is little enough, but it is what can be done, and we must not scorn to do a thing simply because it seems inadequate. We are not given to know what action will turn the tide of battle, as Master Belesharon has told me many times. Now let us go and charge the medicines you have already prepared, and then Ancaladar and I will fly back to Halacira and tell Kellen what we now know. It is, you must admit, good news.”

Idalia nodded grudgingly. Good news as far as it went, but all Healers knew that so many things could go wrong when a patient was ill.

Chapter Thirteen

To Redeem an Ancient Pledge

TERMAYAN RETURNED TO Halacira at dawn, because Ancaladar had simply refused to fly without a good meal and a night’s sleep for both of them. And in fact, there was wisdom in the dragon’s stubbornness, for Jermayan’s news, while grave, was not so urgent that he must wear himself and Ancaladar to the bone delivering it, and it was always possible—in fact, likely—that something would happen soon that would require all of their strength and endurance.

He had made a wide circling pass over the land below as he approached Halacira, at least partly to search for creatures of the Shadow who might have escaped the recent battle. He saw no signs of any such, but he did see Keirasti’s troop. They were still four days away from Halacira, but moving in good order. When they came nearer, they would find trail-wands, directing them to the new bridge. They waved and saluted as he passed over them, and Ancaladar flew on.

The camp below him was already awake. He could hear the sound of axes in the forest, and the thin whine of a sawmill. Artenel’s artificers had indeed been busy in the scant days since the battle.

He landed in the grove—it, at least, had remained untouched, though elsewhere the forest had been much scarred by the removal of trees—and walked down to the camp. By now there was a wide smooth path cut into the snow from the grove to the camp; the whole area around Halacira was taking on the look of a well-tenanted campsite.

Kellen came up to meet him.

“The news from Sentarshadeen is better than it might be,” Jermayan said at once. “Idalia’s medicines have had some good effect on Andoreniel’s condition. But he remains very weak. She asks that you send Wildmages to Sentarshadeen.”

Kellen thought a moment, then nodded. “I can do that. One can go with you and Ancaladar immediately. I can send another two with the wagons—we need supplies, and Sentarshadeen has to supply us, or we’re going to starve. I have hunting parties out now, but they’re not having a lot of luck. But three is all I can spare.”

“The city is well-provisioned,” Jermayan said. “And three Wildmages should answer the city’s needs.”

“I’ll ask for volunteers, then,” Kellen said. “But come and have breakfast. I’ve got a lot to tell you. None of it really makes pleasant hearing, but at least it doesn’t involve immediate disaster… .”

VESTAKIA stood silently in a thicket to the side of the trail, watching the two Knights pass. She was certain that Kellen and Jermayan had marked her presence, but her hood was pulled down low over her face, and she was turned away. Obviously she did not wish to be Seen, as the Elves thought of it, so Jermayan would not “see” her, and as for Kellen …

He did his best to ignore her whenever he possibly could.

She knew the reason for it. No one could know about Mageprice better than a Wildmage’s daughter, who owed her very life to the paying of a hard Mageprice. But sometimes it still hurt. Nevertheless, she owed it to Kellen to make the paying of his Mageprice as easy for him as she possibly could.

Because she loved him.

When they were gone, she tucked her cloak up around her and followed the trail back up to Ancaladar’s clearing. She had a basket over her shoulder, and a sharp knife on her belt; the reason she was out in the forest, should anyone ask, was to do what she could to gather extra fodder for the horses and oxen; the tender inner bark of trees, the softest shoots of the greenneedle trees, even the buried grasses beneath the snow, if she found a place where she could dig down that far.

But she had really come to talk to Ancaladar.

Last night the dreams that let her see into her father’s mind had been more terrible and vivid than ever before. He was not only unhappy, but afraid.

What could frighten a Demon?

She needed to talk about it to someone, to try to understand what she’d learned. But Cilarnen knew even less than she did about Them—and after what he had seen at Nerendale, she thought it would be cruel to make him think about Them any more than he had to.

Ancaladar might know what she needed. He was old, and wise, and he had always been a good friend to her. He hated Them as she did, but he was not shocked by Them.

She reached the clearing.

Ancaladar was curled up, his head tucked under one wing. His saddle, neatly placed in its blue carrying-bag of waxed silk canvas, was hung from a treebranch, out of the way of the worst of the snow and damp.

He raised his head at her approach. His great golden eyes flashed with pleasure.

“Ah, Vestakia,” he said, in his soft deep voice. “Have you come to keep me company?”

“I have some questions,” she said. “And I really don’t have anyone else to ask. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I always enjoy talking to you,” Ancaladar answered. “You don’t look happy, though.”

For a moment Vestakia felt like bursting into tears. She’d never felt less happy in her life, even on the plain facing the Black Cairn.

“I’ve been having bad dreams,” she said, though the words seemed terribly inadequate, compared with the images in her mind.

“Come,” Ancaladar said, lifting his wing so she could settle beneath it. “Tell me about them. I, too, have had bad dreams in my time.”

Vestakia settled herself against Ancaladar’s massive scaled ribs. The dragon’s body felt like a sun-warmed cliff, and his calm solidity lent her strength. She wondered if any of them would ever see summer again. She would like to see a summer in the green and pleasant lands of the south. It must be a glorious sight.

In halting sentences she told Ancaladar what she had already told Kellen: that the increased Demonic presence in the world, combined with her sennights of straining to read the minds of the Crystal Spiders, seemed to have allowed her increased access to her father’s mind. That she now had glimpses of what he saw and felt—not large ones, fortunately for her sanity—and much of what she could see and understand still baffled her.

“But last night I heard something clearly, because he fears it so. The Queen of Shadow Mountain is calling … something from outside the world. Something that can only be called by terrible sacrifices. When it comes, she will have unstoppable power, and he is afraid that… something … will happen then. Something he does not like!” She shuddered, and wrapped her arms around herself.

“He is afraid that he will die, for she will not need him anymore,” Ancaladar said, after thinking for a moment. “They are immortal, and filled with treachery. If he wishes to become the King of Shadow Mountain, he must kill her in order to rule in her stead, and he cannot do that if she becomes as powerful as he fears. And she, knowing his intent—for it is the intention of any member of Their royal house—will certainly kill him, the moment she has no further use for him.”

“That,” Shalkan said, settling down beside her on the other side, “is typical both of Their kind and of a certain nasty sort of human that I hope you will never meet. No wonder the Prince is having nightmares.”

He nudged at her shamelessly until she began to rub behind his ears.

“Come to hear the gossip, have you, Shalkan?” Ancaladar asked.

“You can’t expect me to spend my time down there in the camp, can you?” the unicorn replied. “Besides, this is far more interesting. And useful. Do go on.”

The dragon heaved a gusty sigh, and after a moment, took up his tale again.

“As for what she summons, to give her such power … I am afraid I know. Jermayan has told me that the Wildmages’ spells seem weakened. I know how they were made strong. Long, very long ago, at the time of the First War, before I was alive, or my grandsire, or his grandsire, before the race of Men was as it is now, there was no Wild Magic as you now know it at all. Then, as now, the Elves fought against Them—and They nearly won, for in those days, Their Creator was able to reach into the World of Form to aid his creation. But Great Queen Vielissar Farcarinon made the ancient pact which brought the Wild Magic into the world and bound it to the use of humans as yet unborn, and sealed He Who Is out of the World of Form.”

“And a good thing, too,” Shalkan commented, twitching his tail.

“That binding came at a heavy price. The Elves gave up their magic. And we … we paid too, for Vielissar Farcarinon had bound us into her Price by our own consent. The magic which had once been the birthright of the Elves passed to humankind, and we waited together through the long centuries for your race to grow old and wise enough to take up the keeping of the Balance.”

“But we never did, did we?” Vestakia said softly. Shalkan rubbed his head against her cheek.

“I think you did well enough, when the Dark Times came again,” Ancaladar answered. “Little though any of us wished them to come at all. By then you had built cities, befriended the Elves and the Shining Peoples—”

“And the unicorns,” Shalkan interrupted.

“And the unicorns,” Ancaladar agreed, “and learned the truths of the Wild Magic. And when They struck again, Their Creator could not reach into this world to aid Them.”

“But now he can,” Vestakia said. Her voice shook slightly.

“Not yet,” Shalkan said firmly.

“But soon, if the Queen of Shadow Mountain has her way,” Ancaladar answered. “This is what you must tell the others. But I warn you now, they will not wish to hear it.”

“Tell them anyway,” Shalkan said.

Vestakia reached up and stroked the soft skin of the dragon’s jaw-hinge. “Is there anything we can do to stop it?”

“I hope so,” Ancaladar answered. “But I do not know.”

“They’ll think of something,” Shalkan said. “Humans always do.”

VESTAKIA only hoped Shalkan was right, but she suspected the unicorn might only have been trying to bolster her spirits. She suspected that Ancaladar was right, and the others would hardly wish to know that they had even more bad news to deal with than they had before.

She supposed it was better to know than not.

She found Jermayan and Kellen in the newly-constructed dining hall. Several pavilions had been taken apart and remade to form a canopy and sides over a frame of raw timber; it was crude by the standards of the Ysterialpoerin camp, but braziers heated it to a temperature several degrees above the air outside and storage chests—lined up in neat rows—provided a place to sit.

And, as always, there was tea.

“I must talk to you both,” she said, as soon as she approached them. “And to Cilarnen, too, I think. I have been talking to Ancaladar. He says that I have news for you that you will not like.”

Kellen sighed, and ran a hand through his hair.

“Let us go find Cilarnen, then. I have asked him to prepare to look for trouble from Them, and he says he must move away from the camp to do it, so I suppose he is packing again.”

CILARNEN was, indeed, packing, and using words over it that Kellen was willing to bet he had never learned at the Mage College of Armethalieh. He had to shake the bell-rope at the door of Cilarnen’s tent several times before he was rewarded with an irritable cry from within:

“Oh come in or go away—just leave off that accursed jangling!”

Kellen poked his head through the tent flap. “I assume you mean ‘enter and be welcome’?” he asked.

“Oh. It’s you. I can’t find my Lesser Goetia, and I’m sure I packed it. I have to have it—I haven’t memorized all the spells in it yet, and it’s important.”

“Is it this?” Kellen noticed a book half-buried in Cilarnen’s sleeping furs and picked it up.

Cilarnen’s face relaxed with relief as he took the book. “Yes. Thanks. It’s got the keys for the Ars Tabularum, you see, and—”

Kellen held up a hand. “You’ll never make a High Mage of me, Cilarnen, and I beg you not to try. Now. May we come in? Vestakia has something to say, and she says it’s important.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course. Enter and be welcome.”

Jermayan and Vestakia entered the tent, and Cilarnen found them all places to sit.

“We need to be private,” Kellen told him.

But instead of the series of elaborate sigils with his wand that Cilarnen had drawn before, he simply sketched one quick gesture in the air, and said a single word. There was a sudden flurry of light and color, spreading out in a ring around them and dissolving into the fabric of the tent itself before fading away. Kellen wasn’t quite sure, but he thought they were the same figures Cilarnen had drawn before.

“It’s the same spell,” Cilarnen said. “No one will see or hear us until the bounds are broken. But I thought you’d want it again, so I turned it into a cantrip. It’s faster that way.”

“Indeed it is,” Jermayan said, sounding impressed.

Cilarnen shrugged. “Nothing to what you can do,” he told Jermayan with a crooked smile. “But useful in its own way.”

Kellen glanced at Vestakia. She was sitting on one of Cilarnen’s chests, twisting her hands together nervously.

“What do you have to tell us, Vestakia?” he asked gently.

“Last night I … dreamed. And in that dream, I heard my father’s mind. What I heard confused me, so I went to talk to Ancaladar about it, and he explained it to me.”

She stopped, and seemed unable to bring herself to go on.

“You must tell us, Vestakia,” Cilarnen said gently. “It is better to talk about what you take from Their minds, no matter how horrible.” He spoke with the bleak voice of experience.

Vestakia took a deep breath.

“The Queen of Shadow Mountain is summoning Their Creator, the one the ancient Queen of the Elves banished from the world when the Elves first fought Them. Once he has returned, her power will be so great that the Prince of Shadow Mountain fears for his life. She is making sacrifices to allow him to return. That is what I dreamed.”

“No …” Jermayan whispered. “That He Who Is should walk the world again. It must not be!”

Apparently Cilarnen recognized the name as well. He looked at Kellen, and gestured, his hand shaking slightly, toward one of his trunks.

“These books … some of them are very old. The oldest ones … I don’t really understand them. I think they talk about the Black Days. Something you’re not supposed to know about, unless you’re on the High Council. A time when They were still … around. The books talk about the ultimate source of Their power. It’s the opposite of the Eternal Light. Anything you think of as the Light: the Good Goddess, the Herdsman, the Hunter and the Wife. Leaf and Star, I guess, or even the Wild Magic.

“They say that the reason the Light has won its battles is because He Who Is was banished from the world. He can only cast shadows here. But if he can come back … he won’t be casting shadows any longer. He’ll be here.”

“Well, he isn’t here yet,” Kellen said briskly. At the moment he had no idea how to fight this new enemy, but he did know that allowing his friends to think of it as unstoppable was putting additional weapons into the Enemy’s hands. And that was something they did not need.

“If the Queen of Shadow Mountain is attempting to thin the Veil, and free him,” Jermayan said slowly, “perhaps this answers a question that Idalia asked. Our Healing spells should turn back the plague and the blight, but they do not. If Their magic grows stronger—”

“Then we can still fight it,” Kellen said stubbornly. “If all They had to do to gain victory was work this spell, They wouldn’t have bothered with all the rest. They’d simply sit back, do that, then come and wipe us all out once they were invincible. So there has to be something we can do to stop it. If he was locked out of this world once, it can be done again. Jermayan, how did the Elves do it the last time?”

Jermayan shook his head. “Kellen, I do not know.”

“Well find out,” Kellen said. “Maybe the answer’s in Sentarshadeen. You need to go back there anyway. I’ll find a Wildmage to fly with you.”

WILDMAGE Catreg volunteered to return to Sentarshadeen with Jermayan and Ancaladar. Two other High Reaches Wildmages, Tadolad and Kannert, would follow with the supply sledges that Kellen had dispatched at the same time. The convoy would undoubtedly have to spend the night upon the road, due to the slowness of the oxen and the deep snow, but it was well-guarded, and Ancaladar had seen no dangers in his flight between the city and the camp.

Catreg weathered the new experience of flight with only a few exclamations of dismay. The High Reaches folk were a normally stoic lot, well-schooled by their mountainous homeland, but nothing in Catreg’s experience had prepared him to see the world from the back of a dragon. After the first few moments, when Ancaladar settled into high level flight, however, he seemed to enjoy himself, leaving Jermayan to his own thoughts.

Those thoughts were bleak indeed. Kellen seemed to think it would be a small matter to find a way to ban He Who Is from the world once more, yet the spell that Great Queen Vielissar Farcarinon had needed to work to manage it at the dawn of the world had redrawn the map of magic utterly, and such forces were not available to them any longer—at least, not that Jermayan knew of. To defeat the Endarkened was barely possible. How could they manage to defeat a power as great in its Darkness as the power of Leaf and Star was in the Light?

THEY landed, not in the Unicorn Meadow, but at Ancaladar’s cave, up beyond the House of Sword and Shield.

“You will wish time to settle your thoughts,” the dragon told him firmly. “And Catreg will wish to see something of the city on his way to the House of Leaf and Star.”

There was no point in arguing with Ancaladar when he took such a tone; Jermayan had long since given up trying. And in fact, he did want time to clear his head before he saw Idalia.

“Pretty place. A bit flat,” was Catreg’s comment on seeing the horse meadow.

They followed the trails the horses had broken in the snow down past the House of Sword and Shield. There, the snow-paths were well-dug, though the House itself stood empty.

A few minutes’ further walk took them into the city itself. Though the streets were swept clear, no snow-sculptures adorned their edges. Some houses were closed up entirely, and many others flew the yellow banners of plague.

“They tell me there is plague in the High Reaches as well,” Catreg said, looking around. “If it strikes here, behind your Elven magic, then it must be worse at home.”

“I do not know,” Jermayan said simply, not bothering to explain to Catreg that there was no Elven magic. “But I know that if They win, there will be no safety anywhere.”

“Everyone knows that,” Catreg said simply. “That is why I am here.”

AT last they reached the House of Leaf and Star. Jermayan had come to the main entrance, and not to the House of Healing, for he was not certain where Idalia might be found, but to Jermayan’s surprise, Idalia herself opened the door.

“Home and hearth,” she said briefly, swinging the door wide. “I sent Taranarya to her bed; if she is not coming down with plague, she is surely exhausted. Catreg; well met. You come in a good hour.”

“I come to do what I can, Idalia. Tadolad and Kannert are on the road behind me, and will arrive soon.”

“Come, then, there is much to do. Have you eaten? There is food and warmth in the Healer’s Stillrooms, and from the look of you, you have need of both.”

She led them through the hallways of the main house. Jermayan saw very few attendants, for most of the people of Sentarshadeen were either in sickbeds, attending to the sick, or with the army. They walked down a long hallway whose intricately-inlaid wooden floor was designed to mimic the floor of an autumn forest, down to the drifted leaves, scattered stones, and clumps of colorful mushrooms. Jermayan heard Catreg snort dismissively.

Truly, Jermayan cared not what the Mountainborn thought of the House of Leaf and Star so long as he would use his magic in aid of the sick.

The House of Healing was filled with familiar smells. There was the scent of simmering medicines, and that of good food: pies and bread kept hot in warming ovens, and soup and stew heating on top of a closed stove. Idalia helped Jermayan and Catreg remove the heavy furs and leathers they had worn for their flight, and then hung them to dry.

“Now here is a sorcery I can appreciate,” Catreg said, stretching out his hands to the stove’s heat.

The stillroom’s kitchen was filled with Elven Healers in their green robes, either passing through it to the stillroom itself, or pausing to snatch a quick meal on the way to or from their duties. All, young and old, had the same look of weariness that Jermayan had come to associate with warriors too long in battle.

“Andoreniel continues to improve,” Idalia said in a low voice, drawing Jermayan aside. “And the others we have been able to treat thus far are also doing well with the medicines. There have been no more deaths. Volcilintra believes Dargainon will recover.”

“That makes good hearing,” Jermayan said. “Yet I have come to bring you ill news indeed.”

“What, more?” Idalia said with a sigh. “Let it wait until we’ve eaten, at least.”

While they were eating, one of the Healers approached their table.

“I See you, Rumonadil,” Idalia said.

“I See you, Idalia. I do not wish to disturb you, but you wished to be told at once when the next batch of salve was ready to be charged.”

From the tone of Rumonadil’s voice, Jermayan surmised, Idalia had insisted upon that very firmly.

“And I shall do it,” Catreg said, getting to his feet and popping a last morsel of bread into his mouth. “From the look of you, girl, you’ve been wearing yourself to a wraith at this, and as I recall, the Mageprice for charging healing salves is a light one when it is assessed at all. Go and seek your bed, and leave me to the work I was brought here for. Or if you must make yourself useful, find some way to teach the Elder Brothers to brew a pot of proper tea, and find some butter to put in it, for this maudle would not keep a cat alive.”

He bowed to the Elven Healer. “Mistress Rumonadil, my name is Catreg, and I am here to serve you, as the Wild Magic wills.”

Rumonadil blinked slowly; the typical Elven gesture of surprise. “Come, then, Wildmage Catreg. Permit me to conduct you to the stillroom, and provide you with all that you may need.”

Catreg followed Rumonadil from the kitchen.

“Well, there’s plain speaking,” Idalia said ruefully.

“I see that our hospitality is not all that it should be,” Jermayan said, smiling gently.

“I’m sure that Tadolad and Kannert are bringing what Catreg considers ‘proper tea’ with them, and there’s certainly butter here. High Reaches tea, though they call it Smokeleaf, is not actually made from a leaf, but a kind of bark; I think the tree grows in the Flower Forest. He can certainly go look for some once he’s finished with his work. Or I could—”

“You could rest, as he’s suggested,” Jermayan said firmly. “Though I fear the news from Halacira must come first. Walk with me, if you will, in the gardens.”

BY now Jermayan’s heavy winter cloak was dry. As they reached the door, Idalia retrieved her own cloak from a peg. It was one Jermayan had not seen before. The cloak was made of heavy violet velvet, lined with soft deep brown fur. A gift, perhaps, from a grateful patient, for even in the depths of war and disaster, life still went on.

The garden at the House of Leaf and Star was designed to be beautiful at any hour of any season, and even now, at noon, a day or so before Midwinter, it was lovely. Tall hedges of evergreen sculpted the snow into pleasing patterns, and the holly bushes glittered with ice. Here, people had even taken the time to build the ornamental snow-sculptures of gentler times, for the House of Leaf and Star and its gardens were truly the heart of Sentarshadeen, to be tended and defended when nothing else could be. Here the paths were swept clean, and the ornamental benches stood invitingly in their stone bowers. The stone braziers beside the benches were filled and ready, inviting those who wished to sit and linger to kindle them and enjoy a pleasant warmth.

When they had come a good distance from the house, Jermayan kindled two of the braziers, and seated himself upon the bench. Idalia settled herself beside him.

“It must be ill news indeed,” she said quietly.

“Kellen asks the impossible, and I do not know how to answer him. Vestakia has had … perhaps it is as well to call it a vision.”

Quickly Jermayan told Idalia all that he and the others had spoken of at Halacira.

“And I know not what to do. Kellen is certain there is some magic to answer hers… .”

“There has to have been,” Idalia said in frustration. “We’re all still here, and you’ve fought the Endarkened twice before. Only … it would be good to know how you could have won.”

Jermayan sighed and smiled. “In the First War there were many Elven Mages, and Great Queen Vielissar Farcarinon made her pact with the dragons, so that they added their power to ours. In those days, the world was not as it is now, for Men had not yet come to be, and the Wild Magic was not as it is now. It was then that He Who Is was banished from the world. In the Great War, all the races of the Light fought together to defeat the Enemy, and though there were no Elven Mages, there were Wildmages, and Knight-Mages, and dragons, and even, from what Cilarnen tells us, High Mages, all blending their magics together. And so, once again, the Enemy was cast down—that time, so we thought, forever.”

“All very nice,” Idalia said absently, “but I’m more interested in the First War. If He Who Is was banished then, there must have been something around that was powerful enough to banish him.”

“Idalia,” Jermayan said gently, “it was a very long time ago. Before your race had truly taken form. Not even we, with our long memories, truly remember those days.”

“Someone must,” Idalia said stubbornly. “After all, you remembered He Who Is.”

“Perhaps, then, we should go talk to Ancaladar,” Jermayan said.

ONCE more Jermayan crossed the city, this time with Idalia at his side, and returned to Ancaladar’s comfortable refuge beyond the House of Sword and Shield.

The dragon looked as if he had only been waiting for them to arrive.

“Idalia, Jermayan,” Ancaladar greeted them in his soft deep voice.

“Hello, Ancaladar,” Idalia said. “I’ve come to ask you a question. How did Vielissar Farcarinon defeat He Who Is ?”

Ancaladar cocked his head. “She did not defeat him, Idalia. Vielissar Farcarinon riddled with dragons. Every Elven child knows that. If you would gain a prize from a dragon, that is what you must do. Bonding with a dragon to use its magic is quite another matter. And I must warn you, I am already Bonded.”

“Oh, can’t you just tell me?” Idalia demanded irritably. She was instantly contrite. If Ancaladar could tell her what she wanted to know, she was certain he already would have. Sometimes magic was simply … inconvenient.

“I’m sorry, Ancaladar.”

The dragon lowered his head. When he rested his chin on the ground, Idalia still had to reach up to give him a comforting rub along the soft skin of his jaw. It was odd how a creature so covered with hard scales everywhere else could have parts that were so soft. Quite silky, really. As she rubbed, he half-closed his pupilless golden eyes with pleasure, and she found herself staring into their golden surface.

“If you can’t tell us what we need to know, Ancaladar, can you show us?” she said at last.

Ancaladar sighed with relief.

“Here is a riddle, Idalia. If there is will, and desire, and memory, then you can see. What is the answer to that?”

“I really should kick you, Beloved,” Jermayan said conversationally.

“No,” Idalia said. “It’s a riddle—and a simple one. Three people. Desire, that’s me, because I need this answer. You’re memory, Jermayan, because the Elves are known for having the longest memories of all. And will—who has a stronger will than a Knight-Mage? So that has to be Kellen. The three of us together will be able to see the answer. Right, Ancaladar?”

“Correct, Idalia. You have solved the riddle. If Kellen will come, Jermayan will give you the answer you seek, though he does not know it yet.”

Idalia looked at Jermayan, who regarded her with a blank expression. Obviously Ancaladar’s words were as incomprehensible to him as they were to her.

“Then it seems I must send for Kellen with all due haste,” the Elven Knight said slowly. “And trust he will hold this mysterious task to be as urgent as we do.”

KELLEN and Shalkan arrived a few hours after dawn of the next day, having been sent word by unicorn messenger. They rode directly to Ancaladar’s paddock, where Jermayan had already erected an ice-pavilion for the spell to come.

“You look awful,” he told Idalia as he hugged her. “You should get more rest.”

“Pot to kettle,” she said simply. “When was the last time you slept in a bed?”

Kellen grinned tiredly. “I really can’t remember. Before we left for the Gathering Plain, I think—and don’t ask me when the last time was I was actually warm. Now, why am I here?”

“You said there must be something powerful enough to banish He Who Is from the world,” Idalia said. “We know there is, because he was banished once, a very long time ago. Ancaladar and Jermayan are going to help us find it.”

“This should be fun,” Shalkan said.

“Find it how?” Kellen asked.

Idalia shrugged. “By looking for it.”

THE four of them entered the ice-pavilion, while Ancaladar coiled himself around the outside, thrusting his large head into the opening. There were braziers set at the four corners of the pavilion, warming the enclosure considerably, and several thick fur rugs had been placed upon the ice floor for them to sit upon.

“Now what?” Kellen asked, when the three of them were seated in a ring facing each other in the center of the pavilion. Shalkan had taken up a position near the door, beside Ancaladar.

“Idalia must contemplate her desire for this answer,” Ancaladar said. “You, Kellen, must will her to succeed. And you, Jermayan, must remember a time before the light of the stars looked upon the face of your father a hundred generations gone.”

Kellen barely registered Jermayan’s startled sound of protest. He was gazing into Ancaladar’s eyes. They had always glowed, but now they seemed to swirl and dance, as though he was looking into the depths of a dancing fire… .

A ripple of magic passed from Ancaladar to Jermayan, and slowly the air between them began to … condense as Jermayan cast his spell.

The Mountainborn often joked about the temperature being cold enough to freeze fire. This was as if the air were freezing, though the temperature in the pavilion was no colder than it had been a moment before. But slowly, in the space between the three of them, the air itself darkened and solidified, until it had become a perfect egg-shaped piece of ice.

It was so cold that its surface smoked in the pavilion’s cool air; so dense that its color was the pale blue of a winter sky; so pure that Kellen could see right through it to the other side.

“Memory,” Jermayan said, staring at the ice-egg. “The most ancient memory of all.”

“Look,” Idalia said.

Kellen looked.

HE was no longer Kellen Tavadon, Knight-Mage.

He was Vielissar Farcarinon, Great Queen, victor of a thousand battles. Since she had been old enough to hold a sword, she had fought—against the Centaurs, against the Minotaurs, against the Bearwards. She had fought the warring Elven tribes who would attempt to take her crown from her, and united them beneath her banner. She had brought her rule to the land from the Forests of Ulayna to the Golden Isles, and united the Hundred Houses. All of them had acknowledged her right to rule, for she was wise, favoring no House over another.

Then, in the moment of her greatest victory, when all the land was at peace, a new enemy had come. Not just an enemy of the Elves, but an enemy of all who walked beneath the Light.

The Endarkened.

HE was no longer Jermayan, son of Malkirinath, Elven Knight, Ancaladar’s Bonded.

He was Vielissar Farcarinon, Great Queen, victor of a thousand battles, Elven Mage. Since she had been old enough to enter The Sanctuary of the Star, she had studied the mysteries of the Great Magic that bound the Children of Leaf and Star to the heartbeat of the world, and mastered all its secrets. With that power had come great wisdom, and so she had planned her battles carefully, knowing that the Elves must not forever expend their substance on petty wars between House and House, but must unite together beneath a strong ruler, and end their bickering forever. For there had been omens revealed in the stars at the moment of her birth that foretold that a great enemy was coming, and she knew that she must be there to meet it.

She labored long and bloodily, and at last there was peace. And then, as the prophecy foretold, the enemy came. Winged creatures of Shadow, with sorcerous powers greater than those of the greatest Elven Mage. Once more she rallied her armies beneath her banner, and found, to her horror, that all their power, all their magic was not enough.

But she had been planning for this day for a very long time, and she did not despair. She went into the deep earth, armed only with her wits, her magic, and her love, and found new allies.

The dragons.

There, she made a pact that would change the world forever. She made it willingly, knowingly, gladly, for the enemy they faced was worth any sacrifice.

But it was still not enough to save them.

SHE was no longer Idalia Wildmage, tool of the Wild Magic.

She was Vielissar Farcarinon, Great Queen, victor of a thousand battles, Elven Mage.

With all the limitless power of a dragon to draw upon, she was still not the equal of the enemy she fought. She could destroy them one by one upon the battlefield, but the Power They served walked the land beside them, and its power was as much greater than Theirs as Leaf and Star was greater than hers.

It was that Power that she must seal away from the world, if all who walked beneath the Light were to survive—and prevail.

There were yet Allies upon whom she might call. Those who loved her people well, who had answered their prayers upon a thousand battlefields, to whom offerings were made at the Nine Shrines in every season. Allies as bright and dangerous as a swordblade, as powerful as the lightning.

As powerful—perhaps—as He Who Is.

IDALIA opened her eyes. She couldn’t remember closing them, but obviously she had. The egg-shaped ice crystal was gone. Only a clear pool of water remained, slowly freezing into the ice beneath.

She remembered—as if she had done it herself—what Vielissar Farcarinon had done. It was a spell, but more than that. A Greater Summoning, a magic so old that, like the spells of the High Magick it required precision of place and timing. There were only eight times in the year, and thirteen places in the world where such a spell could be cast, and of those thirteen places, Idalia, even with the help of the spell Jermayan had just cast, knew the location of only six—and two of them were in places where no human could go and survive, no matter how great their magic.

The next time she could attempt the spell was Midwinter, just a day from now.

If she could not cast it then, she did not think they would all survive until Kindling, when she could try again.

Across the circle from her, Kellen and Jermayan were rousing from their trance. Both men looked dazed and only half-aware.

“You’ve remembered,” Ancaladar said with pleasure.

“Yes,” Idalia said. “Thank you, my friend.”

“I think we’ve all remembered,” Kellen said, still sounding slightly groggy. “I’m just not sure what we’ve remembered. I remember being a … an Elf. And doing a lot of fighting. And then, just when I’d gotten everything sorted out, They showed up to ruin everything. So I had to start over again.”

“And I,” Jermayan said, “I remember making the Great Pact, for I was, then as now, an Elven Mage. Yet even that was not enough to stop Them, for Their master was on the field of battle as well.”

“And I remember what I did to send He Who Is back where he came from. But I don’t see how I can make it work!” Idalia said.

“Idalia,” Jermayan said, his voice taut with frustration.

Idalia made a rueful noise, half laughter, half despair. “Tell me, if you can, then, how I am to gain the consent of every living creature in the land to cast a Greater Summoning—in less than a day.”

On the face of it, the question was absurd, but Jermayan gave it serious thought.

“We must ask Andoreniel.”

“Andoreniel! Jermayan, you saw him. He is too weak even to speak!”

“For this, he must find the strength. If anyone knows the answer, it is the King. There are secrets in the House of Leaf and Star held closely against the time of greatest need. And we are in great need now.”

There was no way for Idalia to argue with this assessment. All the Wildmages had felt the Shadow grow in strength over the past several sennights, without understanding how, or why. If there was anything she could do to keep He Who Is from granting the Endarkened ultimate power, she must do it at once.

“We’d better go and ask him, then,” she said, getting to her feet.

“YOU’LL be careful, right?” Kellen asked. “Whatever you end up doing?”

He was preparing to return to the camp at Halacira. As much as he wanted to stay and see this through to the end, Kellen knew that his place was there, not here. An army needed its commander, no matter how much his heart wanted to stay with his friend and his sister.

“I’ll be at least as careful as you would be in my place—and probably more so, little brother,” Idalia assured him gravely. “It’s a simple spell, really—assuming I can figure out some way to gain the consent of all the land in less than a day, of course. And assuming the Allies that Vielissar Farcarinon summoned up are still around after all this time. But if I can, and they are, I just need to go and call them, and see if they’re still willing to help.”

“Simple,” Kellen said, with a faint smile.

“As simple as anything ever gets,” Idalia said. “It worked once.”

“Then we’ll hope it works again, for all our sakes.”

“And if it does—and probably even if it doesn’t—I’ll see you soon,” Idalia said.

She gave him a quick hug. Kellen mounted Shalkan, and the unicorn trotted off across the snow. She watched after him until the two of them, unicorn and rider, had vanished.

“Well, come on then, Jermayan. Let’s go do the impossible.”

Jermayan bowed and offered her his arm in an exaggerated courtly gesture.

Idalia laughed briefly and strode off ahead of him.

IT was still several hours before Idalia and Jermayan could speak to Andoreniel, for when they reached his bedchamber, he was sleeping, and Nelirtil refused to waken him. Even though her errand was urgent, Idalia had to agree: Andoreniel’s life still hung by a thread, and what she had come to ask of him would severely tax what little strength he had regained.

What she needed, nothing short of a miracle could gain her, in any event. The spell of Kindolhinadetil’s Mirror, which had merely required the consent of the Allied Army, had taken most of a day to put into place, and the army had been relatively small, and all gathered into one convenient location. For this spell, everyone in the land must be asked, even those who would certainly say “no” such as the Armethaliehans. Even in summer, in peacetime, just the asking would take moonturns… .

At last, Nelirtil grudgingly admitted that Andoreniel was awake.

“I trust this is as important as you believe it is, Idalia,” the Elven Healer said, with a heavy sigh.

Idalia went in and seated herself beside the Elven King’s bedside. She took his hand in hers, very gently. The skin was papery and dry, the once-firm flesh wasted away, until the hand she now held was no more than a claw of bone and sinew. It was the drawn-out fever that had consumed him so; most of the plague victims died long before they reached this state.

It meant that his recovery would be a thing of many long sennights.

She spoke slowly, carefully, in a low even voice. Explaining what she must do, and what she needed. The part of her trained as a Healer rebelled against doing this to a patient under her care—what Andoreniel needed now was rest, and more rest. But the need of the land in his care—of the lands beyond his care—was greater even than that.

His dark eyes watched her face, but he gave no other sign of consciousness.

At last he took a deep breath, obviously summoning all his will in order to speak.

“Tokens … Council Chambers …”

His eyes closed again.

“Thank you, Andoreniel,” Idalia whispered. She could feel in her bones what the effort had cost him. She would ask nothing more.

“The King has answered my need,” she said to Nelirtil, as she rose to her feet.

Nelirtil inclined her head. “Do not come to him again, Idalia,” she said. The tone of her voice was all-but-pleading.

“I swear to you that I will not, Nelirtil,” Idalia answered.

JERMAYAN rose to his feet as Idalia entered the outer chamber. “More riddles,” she sighed.

“Maybe you can help solve this one.”

“I shall do all that is within my power,” Jermayan answered, puzzled.

THE Council Chamber was located at the center of the House of Leaf and Star. It was a high-ceilinged room, paneled and floored in smooth pale wood, completely circular, and unlike nearly every other room of Elven making, had no windows at all. It was illuminated by a large hanging chandelier of mirrored lamps that, when lit, rendered the chamber as bright as day.

As they entered, Jermayan lit the lamps with a wave of his hand. Light flooded the room, illuminating the familiar furnishings.

They closed the door behind them and looked around.

In the center of the room was the frostwood council table, with the Great Seal of Leaf and Star inlaid in its center in purest silver. Set around the table were the Council chairs. Two were draped in white, indicating that two of the Council were dead. One more was draped in green—Ashaniel’s seat—for she was absent. The colored glass mosaics set into the backs of the remaining chairs sparkled brightly in the lamplight.

Hung around the edge of the room were thirteen narrow banners of brightly colored silk, each bearing a single elaborate symbol worked upon it in shining silver. The green one duplicated the design inset into the table. There was a yellow one that oddly resembled the Great Seal of Armethalieh, but none of the rest were at all familiar to Idalia.

“I told Andoreniel what I meant to do, and what I needed. He said something about tokens, and the Council Chamber, but that was all he was able to tell me, and to say that much took all his strength,” Idalia said. She looked around again. “There’s nothing here but the furniture. And the banners. Is there?” she added unnecessarily.

“The banners are said to be the tokens of the Great Alliance among the Peoples of the Light,” Jermayan said slowly. “Perhaps they are … something more.”

“Only one way to find out,” Idalia said.

The next several minutes was spent climbing up on chairs and detaching the banners from the walls, until they lay in a multicolored pile in the center of the Council table. If they were indeed as old as Jermayan suggested, they were in very good condition. And not dusty at all.

She ran the silk through her fingers more carefully, closing her eyes. If she could put a name to what she was doing, it would be listening, in much the way she had once listened, using gan stones as markers, to find the source of the drought attacking the Elven Lands.

“There is magic here,” Idalia said slowly. “Jermayan, I’m pretty sure these are what we need. If they are … promises to help against Them if They come again, then the consent I need for a Greater Summoning has already been asked and given. But I need to test them, to see if that’s really what they are … and to see if they’re still good.”

She began rolling the banners up together into a tight bundle.

IT had been many moonturns since Idalia had seen her small house in Sentarshadeen, and so much had happened in the intervening sennights that it seemed as if the place belonged to a stranger. But she had left the dwelling in good order, and everything she needed to cast her spells of Seeking and Knowing was here.

Although the floor would be—perhaps—a bit the worse for her efforts.

She quickly brought a small brazier, a bowl, and a bottle of wine from the kitchen. The herbs she had ready in her beltpouch. With Jermayan’s help, Idalia spread the banners out on the living room floor, careful to keep them from touching each other, and settled herself in the midst of them.

Jermayan stood in the doorway of her bedroom, watching.

Quickly she kindled the charcoal. The bowl she would use for her scrying spell was already half-filled with water. Now she added wine to the water, floated fern leaf upon the water—for the scrying spell—and sprinkled other herbs onto the burning charcoal, finishing with three drops of her blood—to Find.

Then she waited.

WHEN I call, will you come?

Suddenly Idalia was … elsewhere.

“We will come, son of the House of Caerthalien. Who holds our token holds our pledge, for the aid of all our people, in whatever hour, for whatever purpose. This consent is given freely and without constraint, with our whole hearts and our whole spirits, for the good of all, and against the Shadow. Only the death of all our kind will release us from this pledge.”

She was standing in a place she had never seen, an enormous timbered hall. It was not of Elven make, but neither was it of any other design she could recognize. Before her stood a Centaur … King.

But the Centaurs had not had a King for uncounted centuries.

The Centaur held out something to her. A bundle of red silk. She felt her hands reach out to take it—only they weren’t her hands. They were slender, elegant, yet powerful and masculine, wearing rings she had often seen Andoreniel wear.

“In the name of Leaf and Star, Herdsman Reuden, Caerthalien thanks you for this pledge, and vows to hold it against a day darker than any we have yet seen.”

The Centaur inclined his head—equal to equal—and turned away.

“When I call you, will you come?”

“We will come, son of the House of Caerthalien.”

Once again the ritual was repeated. This time two stood before her—great shaggy creatures towering eight feet high, looking almost like bears.

No, not bears. Bearwards. A race long-vanished from the land. This time, the banner was orange.

Again and again the ritual was repeated.

It was like and unlike the vision she had experienced in the ice-egg. Then, she had been Vielissar Farcarinon. Now it was simply as if she were watching through another’s eyes, still herself, but seeing and hearing all that the other heard and saw.

The merfolk, clad in a shimmering veil of water and magic, presenting a banner the color of their own ocean.

The folk of the High Reaches—who were also, Idalia somehow knew with the insight of her vision, someday to be the Lostlanders and Wildlanders—with a banner the pale blue of their deepest winter snows.

The firesprites, also veiled in magic to protect the others there from their flame, with a banner of deep rose.

The Shining Folk, in forms too many to count, and a banner of shimmering gray.

The Fauns, and a banner of palest green.

The Minotaurs. A black banner.

The War Mages of Armethalieh, men and women together, in bright armor and gray robes, bringing a banner as golden as the sun.

We will come in whatever hour. Who holds our token holds our pledge. Our consent is freely given.

The vision faded.

As Idalia opened her eyes, she saw most of the banners crumble away to dust. The peoples who had given those pledges were not here to redeem them now. Only the Lostlanders, Wildlanders, and Mountainfolk; the Centaurs, the Fauns, the Shining Folk, the Elves, and the Armethaliehans remained of those who had pledged that day.

But the banner of Armethalieh burst into flame.

She jerked back from the flames with a startled cry, and grabbed the first thing that came to hand—the bowl of water she had used for scrying—to throw upon the flames. But it did no good. The banner continued burn, even in the pool of water, until every scrap of it was utterly consumed.

Armethalieh was Tainted.

Jermayan came forward, hauling her to her feet, pulling her away from the spreading mess of water, dust, and the still-burning banner. He looked as shaken as she felt, even though, she knew, he had not shared her vision. In a normal scrying spell, the vision could be shared, if two were standing over the bowl together. But Jermayan had been standing several feet away, and Idalia had combined the spell with another, changing the spell to a certain degree

“It would be good to know what you have seen,” Jermayan said, obviously striving to be calm as well.

She shook her head, struggling to clear her thoughts.

“I saw how these banners were created,” she said slowly. The Armethaliehan banner—the banner of the War Mages—had consumed itself utterly at last, leaving behind nothing more than scraps of greasy ash floating in the water on the floor. “They were meant to be used just as I intend to use them. They are pledges of aid against the Shadow. The ones that are … gone … belong to the races that They destroyed in the War, so what I saw must have happened a very long time ago.”

“Yet one burned,” Jermayan said.

“Armethalieh’s,” Idalia said.

She didn’t need to say anything else.

“So,” she added, a few moments later, carefully picking up the five banners that were left—Men, Elves, Centaurs, Fauns, and Shining Folk—and rolling them together. She set them aside and went to get a broom to sweep away the dust, ash, and water. “It appears we have what we need. And I know where I need to go. It’s a long way from here, and I need to be there by midnight tomorrow.”

“Midwinter,” Jermayan said. “Ancaladar and I can take you wherever you need to be—but I confess it would be helpful if we knew where it was.”

ONCE, the whole land had been starred with Places of Power where the binding strings that held the world together converged, nine for each of the races who had given the banners to Andoreniel’s ancestor.

Most of them were … gone. The conflict that had reduced most of the land and waters once inhabited by score of races to lifeless rock had erased them, as it had erased those who had once called upon them.

The ancient Shrines were largely forgotten, even by the Elves and the Wildmages. For a thousand years there had been no need of the great magics and Summonings that could only be done in such places. Even where the information about the locations of the Shrines survived, knowledge of what could be done at them was gone.

Idalia only knew of six that had survived the Great War. Two were inaccessible to humans: One was deep beneath the sea, another was buried in the heart of a volcano deep in the southern desert. Of the remaining four, at the one that had once been the Bearward Shrine, the Mountainfolk now offered to the Huntsman and the Forest Wife. Since it now resonated to their power, it was useless to her. The one in Centaur lands had been incorporated into the middle of a village; to do magic there would do too much damage. The third was in the Delfier Valley.

The fourth was her destination.

Places of Power were tools, as neutral in themselves as the Wild Magic. They could be used for good or ill—they were simply wellsprings of Power; as old as the Earth itself, taking on the characteristics of their surroundings. This was why she could not use the Mountainfolk Shrine; even though the Mountainfolk Wildmages no longer had any true notion of what it was, their Shrine had been shaped by centuries of intent into a focus for the energies of the Huntsman and the Forest Wife.

But the place to which Idalia and Jermayan flew now was the sole surviving Elven shrine. It had always been a place of power for the Elves, tuned by thousands of years of use to their particular perception of the world, always a force for Good. Essentially, the Elven Shrine, at least, functioned as a supremely powerful land-ward.

And so it would be perfect for what she needed.

She hoped.

It was far to the north of Lerkalpoldara, nearly at the border of the Elven Lands themselves. Beyond those borders lay nothing but a cold barren desert wasteland stretching to the end of the world. Yet this shrine, Idalia knew, had once marked the center of the Elven Lands, not their edge.

Normally they would be in great danger just being here. The north, so Cilarnen had assured them, was long since overrun by the creatures of Shadow. Frost Giants and Ice Trolls, long enemies of the Elves, walked the once-inviolate Elven Lands openly, destroying anything they choose. Fortunately, they were still hundreds of miles away from Ysterialpoerin.

For now.

And even though enemies were everywhere, because of the nature of the Shrine, they would come nowhere near it. They might not even know why they were avoiding it, or that they were. But they would.

And Idalia could use its power to fuel her Greater Summoning.

She had told Jermayan very little about what she intended to do here, in part because she did not know. To call Vielissar Farcarinon’s ancient Ally for help against He Who Is, absolutely. But how she would do it, and what form that help would take, Idalia was not entirely certain. She expected the Wild Magic to provide her inspiration when the time came.

As it always did.

And because all her Prices were all now paid, the cost of the spell would be nothing more than her own physical energy—and despite her wish—no, stronger than that, her need—to tend to the plague-afflicted of Sentarshadeen, she had forced herself to do little but sleep and eat for the last twenty-four hours. Kellen’s supply-wagon had arrived right on schedule, bringing Tadolad and Kannert, the other two Wildmages, and for the moment, Sentarshadeen had as much Charged medicine as it could possibly use, and three Wildmages to tend the sick.

And now she would strike at the root of the problem.

ANCALADAR landed, and simply slid. His great heavy claws made squealing noises against the thick sheet of wind-polished ice. It was scoured to glass-slickness by the unrelenting wind.

At last he managed to stop, fanning his wings wildly, and stood, feet splayed and claws dug in.

They had landed upon the center of a plain at the top of the world. They were so high that there were not even mountains to see, assuming they would even be visible at night. In all directions, the world was … flat. Water and cold and the eternal blowing wind had created a surface unnaturally flat from what Idalia guessed might well be a rolling grassy meadow at the height of summer. Now, at Midwinter, it was as flat and even as a stone floor. In places, it gleamed like a mirror, reflecting the veils of multicolored lights that danced through the sky.

“Pelashia’s Veils,” Jermayan said, looking up. “The unicorn’s valley is named for them.”

He dismounted with care, though once Idalia had told him where their destination was, he had taken care to wear spiked sabatons over his heavy leather flying boots, and she had done the same, so the icy surface presented little difficulty to them. Ancaladar folded himself, belly-down to the ice, and Idalia lifted down their panniers of supplies before dismounting.

Ancaladar raised himself up again, folding his wings tightly to keep from being blown about like a draconian ice-boat. “I won’t be going anywhere,” he assured them. “There’s nowhere to go.”

Idalia laughed briefly.

She looked around. Pelashia’s Veils stretched across the sky, a shimmering veil of orange and blue and red, spread across the cloudy scarf of stars that filled the heavens above it, a few brighter stars caught in its folds. The moon was near-ing midheaven, marking midnight, when her spell must be cast.

But down below, the gleaming level plain, blue-white with unblemished ice, extended flat and unmarked for a thousand leagues in every direction.

Or nearly so.

A few hundred yards away stood the shrine markers of their destination.

THEY would be easy enough to miss. Three standing stones, half-buried in ice at this season, set so as to mark the points of a triangle, and between them—completely covered in ice just now—a third flat stone.

That was all. The Shrines merely marked a place, after all, and what was done with it and its power by those to whom it belonged, for good or ill, did not seem to matter to the ancient Earth Power that welled forth here. In the echoes of her borrowed memories, Idalia seemed to remember some of the Shrines being enclosed in elaborate temples, their stones painted and ornamented; some venerated in simple woodland glades; some ignored entirely.

This one had simply been … forgotten.

She knew that the Elves continued to venerate the powers of Leaf and Star, but wherever they did it, they certainly didn’t do it here. And a good thing, too—if They had had any idea of the importance of this place, They would certainly have done Their best to find and desecrate it.

She had never been so cold in her life. The wind was like liquid ice. Every exposed inch of skin—and thank the gods of the Wild Magic there wasn’t much of it—seemed to not only freeze solid where it felt the touch of the wind, but to be able to transmit the cold through her blood to the rest of her that was warmly swathed in wool, fleece, leather, and furs. Heavy furs.

She picked up one of the two panniers that Ancaladar had carried, and began walking toward the Shrine. Jermayan lifted the other and followed.

When they reached the shrine, she dumped the contents of both baskets upon the ice and then began building a balefire at the center of the three posts.

Vilya—Alyon—Namarii—Oak—Ash—Blackthorn—Willow—Quince—Larudrall—nine woods of ancient virtue and power. When she was done, the mound nearly filled the space between the pillars, and stood as high as her chest.

So far Jermayan had not asked any questions—even of the indirect Elven sort, though Idalia could tell his curiosity was nearly killing him. Well, all his questions were about to be answered. It was nearly Midwinter Midnight.

“Now I summon the Starry Hunt,” she said. “I hope. If I’m right—and they’ll come—they should certainly be a match for He Who Is.” She turned back to her balefire.

JERMAYAN stared at Idalia’s back in astonishment not untinged with horror. He would turn her from her course if he could, save for the fact that their situation was too dire.

He understood, now, why she had not named the Ally she intended to summon.

The Starry Hunt! A legend barely remembered among the Elves, something from ancient days indeed, from before the founding of the Nine Cities, from before the Great Pact, when Elven Wars were not bloodless wars of flowers. The Endarkened had not been all the Elves had fought. In the morning of the world, before humans were ever born, the Elves had fought each other: House against House, family against family, sister against brother …

Perhaps so that when the Endarkened came, they would be the most perfect warriors the world had ever seen. A match for creatures of blood and pain and death.

In those days, the Powers the Elves cried out to as they lived and died were not powers of joy and harmony and balance.

But it was uncounted thousands of years since the First War.

Those Powers had slept long.

Had—must have—changed with the land and its inhabitants.

Idalia lit the balefire with a wave of her hand. The wood kindled with a great rush of flame. Fire washed over the tall white pillars of the marking stones, its warmth holding the bitterness of the wind at bay.

Then she began to speak.

It was as if she was talking to a friend, though her words were in no language Jermayan understood. It was the most ancient form of the speech of the Elves, the tongue that they had abandoned long ago to speak the speech of men.

Slowly her voice grew louder, more rhythmic. Now she no longer spoke, but chanted. Her voice rose and fell in a cadence as old as the wind and the stars, and as it did, Jermayan felt the first breath of Power wash over him.

He was the most powerful Mage to walk the world in a thousand years. The spells he could summon through his bond with Ancaladar were—nearly—the equal of the Endarkened’s. In single combat, spell to spell, he might even be the equal of the Prince of Shadow Mountain.

Yet the Power wakening here was so far beyond his own as to render him the merest child in comparison.

The Starry Hunt had slept. But it was not gone.

He was no coward. Since they had first discovered what it was they fought, Jermayan had expected to lay down his long years upon the battlefield against their monstrous foe, forfeiting all his future for the barest chance at even delaying Their victory.

But in the face of the Allies Idalia now summoned, he wanted nothing more than to turn and flee.

Her cries were wilder now, her words whipped away by the wind as soon as she uttered them. The flame of the balefire changed, its flame going from yellows and oranges to a clear blue-white. Idalia flung the bundle of banners into the flame.

Suddenly they were here.

It was as if the sky itself was torn open by their arrival. A host of gigantic Riders stood against it, their star-shod steeds ramping and jostling for position.

He could not look upon them.

Jermayan fell to his knees, bowing his head in utter submission.

THEY were crowned with stars.

Stars gleamed from their horses’ harnesses. Their horses’ bodies were the color of the night sky. Their armor was the gleaming silver of moonlight and midnight and the winter air itself.

There were hundreds of them. Thousands. As many as the stars in the sky.

Too many to count.

Too beautiful to look upon, and too terrible.

“Who summons me?” the Lord of the Starry Hunt demanded. His voice was voice of the stars themselves.

The power of the Shrine poured through her, making her whole body tremble. Idalia no longer felt the cold, nor anything she recognized as fear. It was if she had become nothing more than a voice for the Shrine, a tool to focus and channel its need through her own human desire.

“The Land calls you,” Idalia answered steadily. “The People call you. I call you. He Who Is would return to the world, and so we summon you.”

“And will you spill your own blood to save the land?”

In answer, Idalia pulled off her glove. She slashed the palm of her hand deeply with her knife and held it out to him. The blood welled up, and dripped to the ice at her feet.

The Lord of the Starry Hunt laughed. His laughter was the roaring of the wind.

He raised his warhorn, and blew a long wailing call. The sound of it shuddered through her body with a terrible sweetness verging upon pain, taking all her strength away with it.

“We ride!” she heard dimly, as consciousness left her. “We ride!”

WHEN she came to, Idalia was in a different place entirely. The light of earliest dawn streamed through the windows of a small house, and Jermayan was making tea.

The homely reality of such familiar surroundings anchored her to consciousness as nothing else could have. Nothing could have been more different from the last thing she remembered: the night, the frozen plain, the starry spectral riders. Those memories were already fading, as hard to hold on to as a dream. All that remained was the certainty that she had done what she had intended to. But the Power that she had summoned, though of the Light, was as inhuman in its way as the Endarkened were, and thoughts of it were as difficult for mortal minds to retain.

It was not hard to understand, now, why the Elves had let the memory of their Shrine slip away.

Her body was heavy with the weakness of utter exhaustion. Simply casting the spell of Summoning had exacted a high price. She could not imagine any way to have paid Mageprice for such magic, assuming one had been set.

“I was about to wake you. We are in Windalorianan, and I am preparing tea,” Jermayan told her, once he saw her move. “It was the nearest place I could think to bring you, but it is not safe to stay here long.”

“Not that I would wish to, in any event,” Idalia answered.

She sat up. Several hours’ sleep had given her the strength for that, at least.

Though Windalorianan had been abandoned in good order by its inhabitants, it had not been possible for the refugees to bring away every possession, and obviously Jermayan had spent some time scavenging the ghost-city as she slept. The stove of the little house—from the look of it, a guest-house, similar to the one she and Kellen shared in Sentarshadeen, if a little smaller—was stoked to warmth with charcoal disks, and she had slept before it wrapped not only in her own cloak, but in an assortment of furs and blankets.

“I am astonished to discover that they left tea behind,” Idalia said, stretching.

“Not the tea, but the teaservice,” Jermayan said, correcting her. “I always carry tea.”

His words were light, but his dark eyes looked haunted. The Elves were a supremely civilized folk—had been so before Idalia’s own distant ancestors had learned to clothe themselves. The Powers she had summoned up and set loose last night, the Powers Jermayan’s own ancestors had once sworn fealty to, were anything but civilized. No wonder he looked so haggard.

“So my Summoning worked,” she said. “And will do—I think, I hope—what I mean it to, and set a shield between the world and He Who Is, so that he cannot enter. But it would be good to know what you saw, as well.”

“I saw that which I wish never to see again,” Jermayan answered quietly. He poured the boiling water into the teapot, which stood ready. “Idalia, we are no longer a people of magic, nor of the High Gods. Our part in these things we set aside long ago, passing the custodianship of these arts to younger races. To command the Great Magics myself … this I accept, for our need is dire. And Ancaladar’s company gives me great joy. But to look upon the Starry Hunt … to know they once more ride the winds … to know that, were I to call out to them, the Star-Crowned might ride to my side on the field of battle … Idalia, it makes my heart wonder what place may be left for Men, Elves, and Centaurs upon such a battlefield.”

He bowed his head. Several strands of his long black hair had worked their way loose from the warrior’s braid coiled at the back of his neck, and fell across his face. Idalia leaned forward and brushed them back gently.

“It is our fight most of all, Jermayan,” she said softly. “They’ll only fight where we can’t. They certainly won’t do our work for us. The Wild Magic draws its power from us, and I think—no, I know—that strange as they are, the Starry Hunt is still a part of that. If we won’t fight—or aren’t willing to—they won’t, either.”

“Then we must each play our part, no matter how large or small,” Jermayan said, raising his head. “And not scorn to do the task we are set, even though it seems small and inconsequential in comparison to what others may do.”

“Fine talk coming from an Elven Mage,” Idalia said.

Jermayan smiled, and poured tea.

HE was right that they could not afford to stay in Windalorianan long. Although he had sealed the Gatekeeper’s Pass between the rest of the Northern Triad and Lerkalpoldara when he had brought Magarabeleniel and her people out, the Shadow creatures that had filled the Bazrahil Valley had long since found other ways over the mountains, and more had since come in over the borders of the Elven Lands. Even as they finished their tea, Jermayan and Idalia could hear Coldwarg howling in the distance.

“Time to go,” Idalia said, setting down her cup.

They dressed quickly, and walked outside.

The sky was black with the clouds of an oncoming storm, but no snow had fallen as yet. Ancaladar stood crouched in the street, his vast body filling the entire width of it.

Idalia was still exhausted from the Summoning—that and ravenous—but she was neither so hungry nor tired that she wished to remain in a city that was about to play host to a hunting-pack of Coldwarg, and whatever might be with them. Jermayan helped her to mount. She buckled the straps as tight as she could, only then noticing that the cut she had made in her hand the night before was gone. Not even a scar remained.

Jermayan’s magic. Or Theirs. She didn’t really care which at the moment.

As soon as they were both safely mounted, Ancaladar took off down the street at a dead run. The city had been deserted for moonturns; drifts of snow sprayed up around him as he galloped. Within moments they were outside the city, in the fields of Vardirvoshanon. Here the wind was nearly as brutal as it had been on the ice-plain, and Ancaladar took expert advantage of it, spreading and lifting his wings and allowing the blast to spin him up into the sky like a storm-tossed leaf.

Once he was airborne, they made a low sweeping pass over the city. In the gray light of dawn they could see how the snow had drifted up over most of the houses, giving Windalorianan a sad haunted aspect. The snow-dunes were crisscrossed by animal tracks, and in the distance, racing over the snow, their dappled white fur making them shimmer in the pale light, were a pack of Coldwarg over a hundred strong.

“It would be interesting to know what they’re finding to eat,” Idalia commented. Kellen had told her that one of the first things the Coldwarg did when they came into an area was despoil it of game, and they’d certainly been here long enough to eat everything edible.

“That will not be a problem for this pack any longer,” Jermayan said grimly.

Ancaladar tilted a wing, and began a low run directly over the Coldwarg.

As he reached them, Jermayan stretched out a hand, and the entire pack burst into flames.

For a moment, the blackening bodies danced in frenzied agony upon the snow before collapsing into ash.

Then Ancaladar turned south again, beating his wings in hard downward strokes to carry them up through the clouds.

IT was only a short while later before they began their descent once more.

“We can’t be at Sentarshadeen already,” Idalia said.

“No,” Jermayan agreed. “But the army is below us. I wish to speak to Redhelwar. There is an … idea I have.”

IT was madness.

Madness equal to the Summoning of the Starry Hunt.

But it would take two moonturns, three, even more, for the army to reach even Ondoladeshiron, and that was too long. Armethalieh would long since have fallen, and They would have won.

They needed the army south of the Mystrals now.

THEY were only half a sennight out of Ysterialpoerin, and such an enormous force could not move quickly. At four hours past dawn, the army had barely begun to move, and its line of march, from the Unicorn Knights at the head to the remount herd at the tail, covered two leagues.

Jermayan circled the army once—to warn Redhelwar of his presence—and landed.

“I’m hungry,” Ancaladar said plaintively.

“Come to that …” Idalia said.

“I believe matters can be arranged,” Jermayan said, with a small smile. “Though I fear—for us—the food will be cold.”

“I’ll settle,” Idalia said.

They unbuckled their flying harnesses and dismounted. Both of them sank into the snow to their thighs before it packed hard enough to give them purchase. Even Jermayan found it difficult to move gracefully through that. They began wading through it toward the army, Idalia following in Jermayan’s tracks.

Redhelwar met them halfway.

“I See you, Jermayan, Idalia.”

“We See you, Redhelwar,” Jermayan replied. “We come with fair news.”

“Then you come in a good hour indeed.”

He turned in his saddle and signaled to Ninolion, who rode up leading two destriers. Jermayan and Idalia mounted quickly, grateful to get out of the snow.

“It would please me were you to inform the army that we will be halting here for a short time,” Redhelwar informed Ninolion. The adjutant raised the horn he carried to his lips and blew a complicated series of notes. In moments the horn call echoed up and down the line, as other horn-bearers took up the signal and relayed it.

Redhelwar turned back to Jermayan expectantly.

“My news is long. And Ancaladar informs me he is exceptionally hungry. As, I fear, are we,” Jermayan said.

“Then Ancaladar’s needs must be met at once,” Redhelwar agreed promptly. “And you will take tea and breakfast as you give your news.”

BY the time Jermayan had returned from leading a pair of oxen out to Ancaladar, a shelter had been erected—one of the simple roof-and-sides on poles used to provide quick shelter at the edge of the battlefield. But with a carpet underfoot, and braziers to warm it, it seemed luxury indeed.

As promised, there was tea, and a selection of filled pastries as well. Idalia was sitting on a folding stool already eating when Jermayan stepped inside, having just returned from leading Ancaladar’s breakfast out to him.

“To begin,” Jermayan said, “in crossing the Mystrals, Kellen destroyed the Shadewalker that laired in the pass. Its presence goes far to explain why there had been no word from Sentarshadeen for so long; no message-riders could pass in either direction while it lived. The caverns at Halacira were indeed the last Enclave of the Shadowed Elves, so that blight upon our lands is ended; they have been cleansed, by Vestakia’s word. Kellen’s force sustained only minor losses, and Kellen himself is well. Even now Artenel and his Artificers prepare the caverns for their new use. Though the plague has struck heavily at Sentarshadeen, and two of the King’s Council, Sorvare and Ainalundore, have gone to the trees, An-doreniel himself recovers, with the help of the same medicines we have used to such good effect at Ysterialpoerin. Kellen has sent three Wildmages to the city, to ensure that there will be no shortage of potent medicine to treat plague-sufferers.”

“Leaf and Star,” Redhelwar breathed, making a quick gesture over his heart.

“Yet it was that we had wondered why it was that we could not Heal those afflicted with the Shadow’s Kiss directly, and why it was that the powers of the Wild Magic seemed to be in eclipse across the land, while Their powers grew stronger,” Jermayan went on, as calmly as if he were not telling of disastrous horror. “Vestakia had the answer for that as well, and Idalia had the solution. She has called up for us a great ally, one who has not walked our world since before Great Queen Vielissar Farcarinon riddled with dragons. Of this I shall say no more, save that our great Enemy shall be much surprised—and, I think, weakened.”

“Then we owe you a debt greater than we shall ever be able to repay, Idalia,” Redhelwar said, after a long pause.

“ ‘WHAT harms one harms all, beneath the canopy of Leaf and Star,’” Idalia quoted simply. She poured tea for Jermayan, and refilled her own mug and Redhelwar’s as well. Several pastries, and a couple of mugs of strong Elven Allheal tea had gone a long way to rebuilding her strength, though a nice long nap wouldn’t hurt.

“Now, in the time of Their weakness and confusion, would be the time to strike,” Redhelwar said, his voice even. “Perhaps even, as Kellen wishes, to deny Them Armethalieh. But it cannot be. Kellen’s force is too few to stand against what legions They might bring into the field. And mine is here. It will be spring by the time I have brought the army to Halacira, and our losses crossing the Mys-trals may be … not what I would choose.”

“Perhaps that need not be,” Jermayan said.

Idalia set down her mug and looked at him.

“You know that in ancient days, the Elven Mages could do many things that seem not like simple magic as we know it, but beyond the dreams of the possible,” Jermayan said. “I have been speaking to Ancaladar. He tells me that what I imagine can be done. It is not without cost,” he added quietly. “But the cost will be ours alone to bear. If it works, you need but take your army through a … door … we shall make, of four rods’ width. You will ride out the other side upon the Gathering Plain, having traveled but a few yards in seeming. You need not cross the Mystrals at all.”

“This must be a very great spell indeed,” Redhelwar said.

“It will take all the magic we have to cast it,” Jermayan said. “You must go as quickly as you can, for to hold the door open will take great effort.”

All the magic? Idalia thought, with a sudden sharp pang of suspicion. But Ancaladar was a creature of magic. If Jermayan poured all of Ancaladar’s magic into this one spell, Ancaladar would die. And if Ancaladar died, Jermayan would die as well. They were Bonded, linked by the strongest of ties.

Suddenly she realized what Jermayan intended, and what it would cost.

“Then we shall do so,” Redhelwar said. He was no Mage, but he knew as well as Idalia did what Jermayan intended. “I shall go now and give orders to the army. We must re-form, to take best advantage of your spell.” He paused. “You understand, Jermayan, that I can leave no one behind.”

“I understand,” Jermayan said. “I shall hold the door for as long as you need.”

Redhelwar left the shelter. A few moments later Idalia heard the horns begin to sound again, mixed with the babble of voices, as new orders were given.

“Jermayan!” she said.

“You must go with them, of course, Idalia,” he said calmly. They will need Healers. And you will not wish to be alone here, when the spell is run.”

She nodded.

Somehow she’d always thought they’d have more time, even if not much more. That she’d be the first to die. Something.

She took his hand, imagining the feel of flesh against flesh through the heavy gauntlets they both wore against the cold.

“I would not do this, were it not vital,” he said, answering words she could not bring herself to speak. “The army is useless here. Through luck and chance, They have accomplished what They have always wished to do—divided our forces while They work Their evils elsewhere. I can undo this foul mischance, and I will. Kellen would do as much, had he the power. So would you, or Cilarnen, or any of us.”

“I know,” she answered steadily.

She had already given up as much. That she had not yet been called to pay her Mageprice was luck, nothing more.

They sat together, quietly, drinking tea, until Redhelwar came to tell them that the army was in position.

INSTEAD of a narrow column of march, the army was now assembled into a broad—and much shorter—series of ranks. The Unicorn Knights were at the fore, as always, while behind them was the remount herd and the loose livestock with their handlers. Behind them stood the Centaurs.

But behind the Centaurs were the supply wagons.

Redhelwar was right. Without his supply train—the Healers and their medicines, the tents, the fodder for the animals, the food for the Men, Elves, and Centaurs, the equipment to repair tack and armor, the army was all-but-crippled. There were some things here that could not be replaced at all, and others that could not be replaced quickly. Redhelwar must have them all in order to fight.

But the supply train was the slowest-moving part of the army. For Jermayan to hold the door long enough for it to pass through might be a magic beyond his strength.

Behind the supply train stood the ranks of Elven Knights. Once the huge, slow-moving, ox-drawn sledges were through, the Knights would move fast enough. And if, by some terrible mischance, they were cut off, and marooned upon this side of the Mystrals, they, of all the elements of Redhelwar’s army, were best equipped to make their own way across the mountains alone and rejoin it.

“I have brought Cella for you, Idalia,” Ninolion said, leading Idalia’s cream palfrey up to the shelter. “I know you will wish to ride her.”

He had also brought Valdien, Jermayan’s warhorse, for Jermayan would need a mount that he could ride back to Ancaladar’s side—and one that he could command to return to the army without him.

“My thanks,” Idalia said briefly. She took the mare’s reins.

The shelter had not been packed. Redhelwar had done all that he could to make Jermayan’s task easier. He had lightened the sledges of everything that could possibly be left behind. It was not much, but the snow around the army’s stopping-place was starred with neat cairns of discarded material.

“Be well, Idalia,” Jermayan said.

Idalia took a deep breath. “Be sure I shall tell Kellen all you have done,” she said.

“Then I hold myself satisfied,” Jermayan answered simply.

He turned away, and mounted Valdien, and rode out to Ancaladar. Idalia mounted Cella, and rode to take her place in the line. The Healers and the Mountainfolk rode just ahead of the wagons, for they must be certain to reach the other side, of all the elements of the army.

A few moments later Valdien, riderless now, came galloping back.

That was the signal.

The army began to move forward.

Several hundred yards in advance of the army’s line, Idalia saw a faint sparkle on the snow. No, in the air above the snow. It danced and shimmered on the air like Pelashia’s Veils, until a curtain of light formed, strengthened.

The air was filled with magic. It prickled on her skin, lifted the loose tendrils of her hair. It was as if she could swim in it.

In the distance, she could see Jermayan, sitting on Ancaladar’s back.

The unicorns went from a trot, to a gallop, to a leaping, bounding run.

Passed through the veil of light.

Vanished.

Behind her she could hear the cries and the whip-cracks of the drovers, as they goaded their stolid charges into something faster than their normal ground-eating plod.

The ground shook as the remount herd thundered forward at a dead run, kicking up waves of snow that sparkled in the sun, clearing a path for those who followed after. Some of the animals tried to dodge aside at the last moment, and were expertly forced back into the herd by their mounted handlers. Behind the herd of horses came the slower-moving ox-herd, goaded to frenzy by a mob of howling Centaurs, waving hats and blankets. The oxen did not try to dodge the doorway. They simply put their heads down and ran, and woe betide anything that got in their way.

They, too, passed through the shimmering doorway of light and vanished.

The Centaurs that had not been with the ox-herd were the next to reach the door, their long ranks galloping in close formation. Sunlight sparkled off their armored flanks, and their long tails floated behind them as they galloped forward, arms pumping, heads down. As if they passed into a waterfall they vanished, rank by rank.

Behind them the Healers and the Mountainfolk galloped, too—the Elven Healers and Idalia on their palfreys, the Mountainfolk on their sturdy shaggy ponies. How long now had Jermayan held the spell? Less than half the army had passed through, and the fastest half had already gone.

With all her heart, she wanted to stop, to turn aside, and knew she could not.

She passed through the door.

There was a sudden sensation of darkness and falling. Not cold, but a shocking and entire absence of warmth. The transition seemed to take forever, and no time at all.

Then there was light again, and instead of brightness, the day was dark and gray, the air chill with a denseness that spoke of heavy snow to come—soon.

“Keep moving!” she heard. “Keep moving! There are others right behind you!”

Cella was normally the mildest and most easygoing of mounts, but the gentle mare had never in all her days experienced anything like the passage through the door. Idalia had no difficulty in obeying the unknown person’s orders, because Cella laid her ears flat back and bolted forward at a dead run.

When Idalia finally regained control of her mount several minutes later and was able to pay attention to something other than Cella, the scene that met her eyes was barely-controlled chaos.

In the distance—at least a mile behind her—she could see the shimmer of Jermayan’s door. Leading away from it, there was a wide swath of trampled snow. The herds had simply … fled. Their handlers had not tried to stop them, for the most vital thing at the moment was to clear the area around the door itself. And many of the handlers had been thrown from wildly shying mounts as they came through. The Centaurs had carried them to safety, but Idalia could see blood on the snow. There were injured.

The Centaur army was scattered in clumps over a great distance, in two wide arcs to each side of the doorway, a ragged line of warriors almost a mile in length. Some of the Centaurs were sprawled in the snow, others had Elves mounted on their backs—the injured horse-handlers, Idalia guessed.

Riderless horses—those that had not simply followed the herd—were running everywhere.

It looked like the aftermath of a battle.

Few of the other riders that had come through the door at the same time she had fared much better than she and Cella, though most of the Mountainborn had at least stayed in the saddle. The important thing, now, was to keep the doorway clear.

She rode up to the nearest Centaur she saw.

“That stand of trees! It should be far enough from the door! We must move the injured there and reorganize!”

He nodded. The Unicorn Knights were already regrouped in good order, but they could not approach the main army. The Centaurs were scattered.

The Centaur Captain raised his horn to his lips. Compared to the sound of the Elven horns, it was harsh and strident, but it performed its task just as well. The Centaurs began re-forming into units, converging on the thicket of trees in the distance, and the Mountainfolk and the Healers followed.

In the distance, three sledges came through the door, side-by-side.

The oxen bawled in terror. They had been moving at what passed for a swift trot among their kind before, but now they shifted into an all-out panicked gallop, lunging forward across the well-beaten snow as fast as they could go.

If they run into each other—if the traces break—if one of them breaks a leg—

Then there would be a barrier in front of the door that no one could shift.

And the rest of the Elven Army would ride right into it, with no way of knowing what they were about to encounter.

But the others had seen the danger as well as she had. The Mountainborn Wildmages turned and rode back.

“I will Speak to them as they come,” a Wildmage named Ardir said, as the first three sledges thundered past, miraculously unscathed. “You all must help me.”

“Consent freely given, as is our aid,” Hudirg answered.

“Of course,” Idalia said. Behind her, she heard murmurs as the other Mountainborn each offered up his or her own consent.

The next team was already coming through. Behind the Wildmages, some Centaurs rushed to the heads of the lead yokes of the other ox-teams, grabbing their headstalls and turning them away from each other and slowing their headlong flight.

She had no time to think of Jermayan now, only to offer up a quick prayer to the Gods of the Wild Magic that Ardir’s spell—and Jermayan’s—would hold for as long as they needed it to.

Ardir took a handful of herbs from a pouch on his belt, quickly pulling off his glove and slashing his hand, moistening them with his blood.

He raised both hands, bare and gloved together, stretching them out toward the oxen coming through the doorway. Idalia could see his lips move, but heard no words.

Suddenly her senses seemed both sharpened and dimmed—sight was nearly gone; the world was a dim place of dull confusing shadows, but scent was now keen: she could smell snow, and wind, and an oncoming storm; the bright verdant scent of distant trees, withered grass beneath the snow, the possibility of a buried stream, horses, Centaurs, Men, other things for which she had no name.

And there was more.

It seemed as if she could suddenly feel the blind animal terror of the beasts at having been wrenched so suddenly out of the familiar world they knew—and then felt, as well, waves of soothing calm and love wash over her, stilling that terror and replacing it with the assurance that all was still well.

Though they had begun by bolting forward at the same dead run as the first three teams, this set finished by trotting forward gently, and allowing themselves to be led off by the next set of waiting Centaurs.

Over and over the same performance was repeated. The ox-teams would appear through the veil of light, panic-stricken and frenzied, and Ardir would speak to them with his magic, causing them to trot calmly away.

But such magic came at a price. Though only Ardir would pay the Mageprice for this spell, they were all giving Power to it, and Idalia had been exhausted to begin with. She had not hesitated, for the very survival of the army depended on keeping the doorway clear, but as team after team of oxen came through and was lulled, she felt as if her own life’s blood was being poured out with the spell.

She hardly believed her eyes when ox-carts were at last replaced by horses. The Elven Knights were riding through, moving over the beaten snow in a swift glitter of lances and armor. Though the destriers danced and shied at their passage through the door, they did not break ranks, nor once slow their headlong pace. The wall of Elven Knights swept across the snow like a sword-stroke, following the beaten path in the snow, clearing the way for those who came behind as fast as they could.

Redhelwar rode in their midst.

And as the last of them rode through the doorway, the shimmering dance of light… vanished.

It is done, Idalia thought.

It was the last thing she remembered.

Chapter Fourteen

In the Room of Autumn Birches

THE WORLD WITHOUT Sun was the true center of the universe, and all knowledge, whether good or bad, resonated there. When the ancient Power came back into the world, Savilla knew it. It summoned her out of her deepest contemplation, that state which a mere human might mistake for death, as she felt the painful tides of Light dispelled some of the web of glorious Darkness she had so painstakingly wrapped around the World Above.

And thicken the Veils she had worked so hard and so long to thin.

She rose from her bed, veiling herself in magic to keep from summoning all her Court into consciousness, for in the World Without Sun, all time was measured by the Queen, and when she Rose, so did all the Endarkened. And it was not her wish, just now, that this should happen. Alone and unadorned, she padded through a dark and silent world, her only companions the breath of the Deep Earth, and the cries—faintly heard—of the mortal captives in their slave pens, whose bodies still measured time by the lights in a sky they would never see again.

Her senses were keen, honed by the spells she had cast Rising after Rising.

She knew what had summoned her out of contemplation.

The Starry Hunt rode the world once more.

The doorway by which she had meant to bring He Who Is into the world once more was… closed.

But not locked.

Great as their power was, it was not great enough for that.

She was old in power and pride. A lesser Endarkened would have raged against this setback, this unspeakable defeat when victory was so near she could nearly sink her fangs into it.

But Savilla had stood upon the battlefield and watched Uralesse utterly humbled, his power broken by creatures who were less than vermin, the glorious power of the Endarkened at the time of their greatest strength cast down. With the ragged remains of her father’s Court, she had retreated to the World Without Sun, to spend centuries in furious contemplation of their losses. She had not spent them in anguished yearning for what might have been, but in scheming to destroy her father, so that she might take his place and lead her people to a greater glory.

She had patience. She had vision.

She had eaten Uralesse’s flesh and ascended to the Throne of Night.

She would not allow another defeat, no matter how maddening, to turn her mind from the victory that must belong to the Endarkened.

The door she had made, in blood and pain and endless sacrifice, was still there.

She could open it.

But to do so now would take a sacrifice greater than any she had offered up yet. A sacrifice made not in a place of Darkness, but of Light.

With a more powerful offering than even a unicorn’s death.

Or the death of a hundred unicorns.

But when she had accomplished this, she would rip the door between the worlds open so wide that that no power the Light could invoke could seal it again. He Who Is would be free to aid His creation once more, just as it had been in the glorious days of their beginning.

Savilla dispelled the veil of magic that surrounded her, and felt her Court begin to rouse.

There were plans to make.

The time of the final battle was nearly at hand.

And she meant to win it.

Once and for all time.

“YOU should have told us you were already paying Mageprice,” Marocht said reprovingly.

Idalia opened her eyes. The familiar roof of the Healer’s tent lay above her.

“You had cast a great spell recently, had you not?” the Wildmage Healer repeated, her weather-seamed face crinkled in disapproval as she gazed down at Idalia.

“I … yes,” Idalia admitted sheepishly. “But your need was great.”

“That’s as may be,” Marocht answered. “Perhaps not so great that we needed to lose you, Idalia.”

“Which, as it turns out, you have not,” Idalia pointed out reasonably. She struggled to sit up, and was rewarded with a blinding headache.

“Ah, but for a few days yet, you may wish you had been lost,” Marocht said with satisfaction. Marocht always took great satisfaction from seeing the worst possible side of anything. “Now I shall bring you a nice bowl of broth. After fasting so long, you will not be able to keep aught else down.”

“So long?” Idalia said, puzzled. “How long have I slept?”

“Three days. We have had time to reach the Gathering Plain, and make our camp here, carrying you with us like a bundle of hides for market. And shall be here a sennight more, I fear, while we seek out the horses and the rest of the cattle—though no doubt the silly nags will all come drifting back when they’re hungry enough. If they haven’t run all the way to Sentarshadeen by now. At least the unicorns can earn their keep by looking for them.”

Idalia did have to smile at that. Trust Marocht to come up with the notion of the Unicorn Knights earning their keep by becoming horse wranglers.

She lay back against the pillows. Even so short a conversation had exhausted her.

A few minutes later, Marocht came back with a large bowl of broth. To her surprise—though it should not really have come as one—Idalia was too weak to feed herself.

“Told you,” Marocht said with satisfaction.

“Was anyone else injured coming through?” Idalia asked, between spoonfuls of broth.

“Eh,” Marocht said dismissively. “Sprained ankles, cracked skulls, a broken wrist or two. Easily mended. Our spells have not worked so well or so fast since last spring. There must be luck in that door of Jermayan’s.”

“I suppose so,” Idalia said. For a moment she had actually managed to forget the price of being here, but now the grief of her loss rose up in her like weariness.

“You’re tired,” Marocht said firmly. “And the soup is gone. Sleep again. We will talk more later.”

FOR the next several days, Idalia did little more than eat and sleep. News slowly trickled in to her—courtesy of Marocht, who was wise enough to know that her patient would recover more swiftly if her inquisitiveness were kept satisfied.

Redhelwar had sent messengers to Halacira to let Kellen know that the army was now at Ondoladeshiron, and would be moving south as soon as possible. Messengers coming north from Sentarshadeen had brought their news in turn: Andoreniel continued to recover.

Most of the horses and oxen had been recovered, though a few had fallen afoul of predators, or had broken legs or necks in their headlong flights.

The army was ready to march.

One full sennight after Jermayan had cast his spell, the army stood in marching order upon the Gathering Plain, perhaps four moonturns before they would otherwise have reached it. Another fortnight, at most, would see them at Halacira.

A heavy wet snow was falling, and visibility was poor, but if they waited for good weather, they would wait here until spring. The Wildmages were still recovering from the spells they had cast to ease the passage of the oxen through the doorway, and would not wish to shift the weather in any event, lest they make it worse elsewhere. They would all simply have to endure. They should be able to ride out of the worst of the storm in a day or so, once they passed off of the Plains of Ondoladeshiron and into the forests of the lowlands surrounding Sentarshadeen. That terrain would have its own hardships—most of all the thick forests, which would make the passage of the ox-drawn sledges difficult—but at least they would be different ones.

Idalia sat in Cella’s saddle, in her place beside the Healers’ wagons. The loss of Jermayan was a dull ache in her chest. No one had spoken of it to her, and for that much she was grateful. Everyone here had suffered losses in the moonturns past; hers was no different for having come quietly, in a moment freely chosen, rather than in the wild melee of a battlefield, at the edge of an enemy’s blade.

The column had just started to move when there was a clamor of horns. After so long, she could decode the signals without effort. Enemy sighted. In the sky.

The column halted again. The skirmishing units deployed. She couldn’t see them from where she sat, but she could imagine their movements, nearly as clearly as if she possessed Kellen’s battle-sight: the groups of twelve under their sub-commanders fanning out from the column on each side, forging through the heavy snow and turning to face the enemy coming from above.

She wondered what it was. She knew that the Deathwings hated to fly in snowstorms, and they hadn’t been sighted south of the Mystrals, but the chance to strike at a prize as tempting as the full Elven Army would surely lure them out of hiding… .

Suddenly the horns sounded again.

A friend! A friend!

Idalia stood in her stirrups, scanning the sky.

A great black winged shape was sweeping toward the Elven Army, flying just below the clouds.

She knew that form.

Ancaladar.

Jermayan was alive.

She forced Cella through the press of riders around her, working her way to the edge of the column. The dragon was circling now, coming in for a landing.

It was not one of Ancaladar’s better landings.

The dragon did what could only be described as a belly-flop into the snow. Instead of back-pedaling with his wings, as he usually did, he simply folded them in and allowed himself to slide, until the snow heaped up enough in front of him to bring him to a stop.

Idalia urged Cella onward through the snow. Ahead of her trotted two of the skirmishing units, Redhelwar, Adaerion, and their adjutants.

They reached Jermayan and Ancaladar.

Even though she could see little of Jermayan beneath his furs and armor, it was not hard to see that both he and Ancaladar looked exhausted. Dazed. Even the dragon’s scales had lost their iridescence, and were the dull black of soot.

But they were here.

“I See you, Jermayan,” Redhelwar said calmly, looking up at Jermayan. “It is a thing I confess I had not expected to do again. But you come in a good hour. We were about to embark for Halacira, to rejoin the rest of the army. We were delayed here longer than we expected. The passage through your door was not without its moments of interest, and it has taken us nearly a sennight to gather up the herds and put the army into marching order again. While your door is a useful tool, I do not think it is one I shall employ again.”

“I See you, Redhelwar. And I say to you that it is welcome news that you do not wish me to open that door once more, for that is something I shall never be able to do again. But that is a tale that can be told another time. I would not wish to delay the army’s march. Ancaladar and I will scout ahead for you, as always, but do not, I pray you, look to us for more than warning of any danger, for we can give you no more than that.”

“That is all we will need,” Redhelwar answered firmly.

“It would gladden my heart were you to ride with us, Idalia,” Jermayan said, looking to her at last.

“Ancaladar?” Idalia asked. The dragon didn’t look as if he could take off at all, let alone with two passengers.

The black dragon swiveled his head to look at her. The golden eyes glowed with faint mirth.

“Idalia, you weigh nothing at all. You will not tire me, I promise you.”

She scrambled from her saddle to the dragon’s back, and quickly cinched the flying straps tight.

ANCALADAR was as good as his word. Though his landing had been a cause for concern, the dragon’s leap into the sky had something of his usual verve, though his takeoff run was far longer than any Idalia could ever remember. But at last he spread his great wings with their familiar snap, and rose swiftly into the air.

In moments they were above the clouds, into the brilliant—and much colder—upper air.

“You’re still alive,” she said unnecessarily. She leaned her head against Jermayan’s fur-covered back, reassuring herself that it was true.

“Alive,” he agreed.

There was a long pause.

“Idalia. I do not know how to explain what I do not understand. To make and hold such a portal as Ancaladar and I made to send the army through to Ondoladeshiron … it is the Great Spell that was given, long ago, to any who are Bonded to a dragon to cast. Not to open a door, perhaps, but one single spell of such power for each such Mage to cast once in his life, and it should have consumed us utterly. But as the door closed … the Starry Hunt… came for us,” Jermayan said.

Idalia could not imagine it, though she tried very hard. She could barely retain the memory of Summoning them, so ancient and wild was their power. To see them, in the calm and normal light of day, was something so far beyond the realm of normal experience, even for a Wildmage who had once been a Silver Eagle, that even her imagination failed.

It was simply too much.

“And then what happened?” she asked.

“They came. They … went. After a little time, we flew back to Ysterialpoerin. Ancaladar had just enough strength for that. And fortunately for us, it was not far.”

There was another long pause, and Idalia knew that Jermayan was gathering himself to say something he did not wish to say.

“We … live. But we will cast no more spells.”

She had been prepared to hear far worse.

“You idiot! Do you think I care about that?” Idalia demanded. She hugged him fiercely. “I loved you when you were a simple Elven Knight, and I shall love you now that you are a simple Elven Knight once more.”

“With a dragon,” Ancaladar said.

“With a dragon,” Idalia agreed.

Had the Starry Hunt turned Ancaladar from a creature of magic to a creature of flesh-and-blood? Ancaladar himself might not know. It might simply be that his magic had been drained so far by the spell that only enough remained to keep himself and the Bond alive, thanks to the Hunt’s intervention.

In the end, it really didn’t matter.

He was back.

KELLEN had become used to riding out to what he had gotten used to calling “Ancaladar’s Grove” every morning at dawn to see if there was news from Sen-tarshadeen. Without a detachment of Unicorn Knights in the camp, it was simplest for him to check the grove for messages personally, since Unicorn Scouts were the fastest form of communication between the city and the camp.

And besides, it gave him private time with Shalkan.

The Halacira camp was quickly taking on the aspect of a small city. Tents were being replaced by buildings of wood and stone—the surrounding forest would never be the same, but that was a small price to pay, in Kellen’s opinion. They had kitchens and a sawmill, thanks to Artenel’s tireless labors, as well as a bathhouse.

And the news from Sentarshadeen was good.

The plague victims there continued to recover, and no new cases had been reported. Though Andoreniel’s name was not mentioned, Kellen knew that the King’s health must be continuing to improve as well.

He was puzzled at the continuing silence from Idalia and Jermayan. Midwinter had passed. She would have done her spell, if she had been able to, and he had heard nothing.

Obviously, that meant that she had done something, for if she had been able to do nothing at all, she would still have been in Sentarshadeen and would have written to him herself.

He wondered what it was that she had done.

Her continued silence worried him.

But he’d had little time to brood over it, because first the supply wagons had returned from Sentarshadeen—to everyone’s great relief, since with even the Wildmages to Call the sparse game out of the forest into hunting range, supplies were running short, and even the best-trained Elven destrier would not eat meat.

Next had come the matter of providing Cilarnen a place to work.

A tent would not do—the largest they had was too small for his needs, Cilarnen informed Kellen, and the spells of the High Magick used too much fire. Half his energy would be spent in keeping his workplace from burning down around him. And Cilarnen’s work was vital.

Even with the power he had to draw upon, Cilarnen lacked the ability to create an ice-pavilion such has he had used in the north. Besides, here, in the Avribalzar Forest, his surroundings lacked the same dry cold that was to be found west of Yste-rialpoerin. The ice of such a structure would surely have rotted within a sennight.

Cilarnen’s workspace must be wood. Or stone.

And the sooner it was in place, the sooner he could start working the spells they needed.

At least it turned out that they hadn’t had to build it. All that had been required was providing Cilarnen with enough cut lumber deposited at a place Cilarnen selected, a suitable distance from the main camp. Cilarnen’s magick had done the rest, creating a finished building the size of Redhelwar’s pavilion from a pile of lumber between sunset and dawn.

There had not been enough to finish the entire structure, so the roof was made of saplings that Artenel and his sawyers had not provided. They were of an eerily uniform thickness and length, and every single one of them had been stripped of their branches and bark by the same unknown forces that Cilarnen had called up to build his sanctum.

He’d looked very smug when Kellen had come out to see him the following morning, a little worried about Cilarnen having spent the night alone in the cold and the snow. There were certainly no Tainted creatures making their home in the Avribalzar Forest, but if there were Demons raiding in the Delfier Valley, and Ice Trolls and Frost Giants north of the Mystrals, anything at all might show up here without warning.

“Like it?” Cilarnen had called.

Kellen had stared in resigned envy at the snug-looking round structure where none had stood the day before. Resigned, because after such a spectacular success Cilarnen was going to be even more difficult to live with than before—oh, he did his best to be polite and to fit in, but when he became obsessed with working out the details of creating or adapting one of the spells of the High Magick to serve Kellen’s needs, nothing else but his work existed for him.

One of the reasons Cilarnen drove himself so hard and so dangerously, Kellen knew, was guilt. Guilt that he had not been able to save the folk at Neren-dale. Guilt that Anigrel had attempted to use him as a weapon.

Guilt that when every possible warrior was needed to battle on the side of Light, the High Mages had not only refused to fight, but had done everything they could to give aid to an Enemy that nothing living should help.

And envious, because the wooden building looked as if it would be much warmer and drier than Kellen’s own tent. And Cilarnen wasn’t even going to use it for sleeping. His tent—where he would sleep and take his meals—was pitched a few feet away from his new sanctum.

Last of all, in the middle of everything else, there was Vestakia to worry about, at least as much as Kellen dared. Her understanding of the images she received from her father’s mind seemed to grow clearer by the day, but such clarity did not come without a price. She looked as unwell as Cilarnen did, as if she, too, were yoked to energies nothing mortal should be allowed to bear.

And then, six days ago, when Kellen had gone to Ancaladar’s Grove to see what dispatches—or messengers—might be awaiting him from Sentarshadeen, and to drink his morning tea in peace, he saw something that had stunned him completely.

Riasen, Captain of the Unicorn Knights, and Elariagor were standing in the clearing. The pale golden unicorn stood regarding Kellen with faint amusement sparkling from her turquoise eyes.

“Did you miss us?” she asked, switching her long tufted tail.

“I—What—Who—” Kellen sputtered.

He neither spilled a drop of his tea, nor was in any way incapable of dealing with an enemy attack—should one happen to appear in that moment—but for just an instant, his mind was incapable of understanding what he saw. Riasen could not be here. Riasen was with the army, on the other side of the Mystrals, marching toward Ondoladeshiron, and Kellen would see him and the others sometime in late spring. Not now, three days after Midwinter.

“The army rests at Ondoladeshiron, Kellen,” Riasen said. “All of it. Now. Redhelwar directs me to inform you that we shall be with you as soon as we can—there is the small matter of the herds to gather back together and a few other insignificant trifles to take care of before we march. Yet it grieves me to tell you that our passage was bought with a life. Two lives. Jermayan and Ancaladar have given their lives for the spell that brought us here so quickly.”

The army was at Ondoladeshiron. If Riasen said it, Kellen had no doubt that it was true. And that Jermayan and Ancaladar were dead … that must be true also.

“What spell?” Kellen asked bluntly.

“Two days ago, Ancaladar joined us upon the march. It was a surprise to us, as last we had seen of him, Jermayan, or Idalia, they had gone to bear Cilarnen and Vestakia to you at Halacira. Idalia brought us the joyous news that Andoreniel gains in strength, and that They had been struck a grievous blow by a spell she had but lately done, and would now be cast down in disorder and confusion.”

So the Greater Summoning had worked. But…

“Redhelwar said that the time to strike was now, in Their hour of greatest weakness, but that by the time he had reached Ondoladeshiron, it would be too late, for They would have regained Their equilibrium. And Jermayan said that it was possible to make a door through which Redhelwar’s whole army could pass, stepping from the outskirts of Ysterialpoerin to the Gathering Plain in but an instant, but that the spell would require all of the magic that he and Ancaladar possessed.”

And that, Kellen knew, meant their deaths.

“And so they cast it, but passing through the veils was a great shock, and the animals did not like it overmuch. The herdsmen say we shall be collecting them for some days yet.”

“It is not a door that I want to go through twice,” Elariagor said feelingly. “Blackness and falling and cold—no wonder the oxen and the horses ran as if They Themselves were chasing them. If Ardir had not been there to cast his spell of Animal Speaking, the ox-teams would have done just the same thing, and they were hitched together in teams of twelve and had sledges attached to them besides. It would have been a great mess, with three thousand Elven Knights who could not see what they were riding into set to come just behind. Do imagine it, Kellen.”

Kellen could: the oxen crashing into each other in panic, creating a huge barrier of tangled traces and wounded animals to block this mysterious door. And then, crashing into it, the Elven Knights, who would be coming through at a dead run, because Jermayan could surely not have held the door open forever.

“It will be good to hear what you may say to me of my sister, Idalia,” Kellen said carefully.

“She is well,” Riasen said, sounding a little surprised that Kellen had asked. “She shared in the spellprice for Ardir’s spell, and of course, since it came so soon after the previous work she had done, she was greatly weakened. But she rests now in the Healers’ care. You will see her, once the army comes.”

“That makes good hearing,” Kellen answered automatically.

He doubted Idalia was doing much resting, knowing that Jermayan was dead.

BUT he did not have much time to dwell on this new loss. With the army south of the Mystrals, Andoreniel on the road to recovery, and He Who Is having been blocked from aiding the Endarkened—somehow—first thing Kellen wanted was more information about exactly what it was that Idalia had done.

For that there was only one place to go.

He provided Riasen and Elariagor with the camp’s hospitality—fortunately, tea had come with the supply wagons, and there was someone else to brew it—before they continued on to Sentarshadeen, to give a report to Morusil as well. Kellen had added his own reports—brief, as there was nothing to report—and sent them on their way.

“Well, that was entertaining in a quiet way,” Shalkan said, as they headed along a well-cleared snow path toward Cilarnen’s clearing. The path was well-cleared because Cilarnen had several ice-golems whose sole job, day and night, was to clear and maintain paths through the forest, which they did until they melted or fell to pieces. When he lost enough of them, Cilarnen simply made more and set the new ones to work.

Kellen found it more than a little unsettling, though it was nice to have the nice wide paths through the forest shoveled and swept down to scraped and textured ice.

“No,” Kellen said, after a moment’s thought. “Not really. It’s good to have the army here now, and not four months from now, though. I wish I knew what Idalia’s Greater Summoning actually … summoned. And … Jermayan was my first real friend. You’re my friend, too, Shalkan, but in some ways that’s different. We’re bound together by magic. Jermayan didn’t have to be my friend, didn’t have to have anything to do with me. He could have let someone else go with me to the Keystone. He was the first person—well, aside from you—to think that I might be something more than just a really bad Wildmage.”

“I know,” Shalkan said simply, leaning against him for a moment.

As they reached the clearing where Cilarnen now lived, they heard a sudden shout of anguish. The door to the wooden hut burst open, and something small and gray streaked out across the snow.

“Catch it! Catch it! I’m not finished with it yet!”

Kellen grabbed for it and missed. Shalkan stamped down with one cloven hoof, pinning it to the snow.

Kellen picked it up as Cilarnen—barefoot, in a long gray robe—came running over the snow toward him.

The thing Kellen had in his hands resembled a ferret—Kellen had seen pictures of the creatures by now—except for the fact that it was made of stone, its body a uniform gray color. It writhed and twisted in his grasp, striking and biting at his hands, but though its small stone teeth could penetrate his heavy gloves, they had no chance against the armored gauntlets beneath.

Cilarnen slipped a noose woven of thin strands of red silk around the creature’s neck and it instantly became what it had been in the beginning: a lifeless marble carving.

He took it back, and only then seemed to notice that he was standing barefoot on snow.

“Yah!” he announced inelegantly, and ran back the way he’d come, holding the stone ferret in one hand and holding up his robes with the other, hissing to himself at the cold.

Despite the sadness of the news he’d received this morning, Kellen did have to smile to himself. This was hardly the image of serene and perfect all-knowingness that the High Mages of Armethalieh would like to project, but it was a much more human one. When he thought of the High Magick, which had managed to free itself from Balances and Mageprices to become a weapon with nothing to hold it in check, Kellen would much rather think of Cilarnen hopping barefoot over the snow because he’d forgotten his boots in the excitement of working out a spell than of his last sight of the High Council on the day they had Banished him—bloated with smug arrogance, drunk with power, and certain that killing a seventeen-year-old boy would have absolutely no consequences.

There were always consequences.

A few moments later, Cilarnen came back, having added boots and a cloak to his robe.

“Thanks for catching that,” he said to Shalkan and Kellen. “I think I need to put the spells on in a different order, really, and that one got out of the box. I really think it’s better if they know who they’re supposed to serve, and how, before I wake them up.”

“Why are you having a problem?” Kellen asked. “You’ve made dozens of golems before.”

Cilarnen shrugged. “According to theory, the Enlivening Spell makes the statue take on the essential nature of its form. So hounds act like hounds; birds, birds; and so on. I was making servants. Maybe that made a difference. But a ferret’s essential nature is to … ferret. Which means I had better put any compulsions on its nature in place first, I think.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Kellen agreed.

“But you didn’t come to talk to me about the ferrets. I told Artenel he couldn’t have any of them—or the snakes either—until the end of the sennight.”

“No,” said Kellen. “I need something else. And I have bad news.”

“It’s about that thing that came a few days ago, isn’t it?” Cilarnen said.

“Tea,” he said next, regarding Kellen’s blank expression.

“YOU were raised in the City. You know we work at night,” Cilarnen said, handing Kellen a mug. He knew Shalkan’s tastes by now, and tipped several honey-disks onto a plate and held them out to the unicorn. Shalkan took them delicately, one by one.

“In fact, I was just finishing up with the latest batch of stone ferrets before going to bed now, as it’s simple work and doesn’t require much concentration, really. But Midwinter was a time of—oh, say it was as if everything was very clear and quiet, so that I could see a long way. So I wasn’t going to waste it on stone ferrets. I wanted to check as much of the Borders as I could, then see what was going on in Armethalieh.

“Well, as I’ve told you before, those big cities the Elves have up there are pretty well gone. I’ve only been as far north as Ysterialpoerin, and I’ve only been there once, but I tried looking for other things in the north that looked like that big house I was in—and felt like it, too—and I found two that were empty, and one looked like it had been burned. Since it had been looted, I could follow objects that had been taken from it, and a lot of them kept leading me back to Ysterialpoerin, but enough of them didn’t that I could start to trace the Frost Giants; figure out where they are, and where they’re going. I was in the middle of doing that—it’s very boring, so I don’t bother you with it unless there’s actually something interesting going on—when all of a sudden there was this … it was as if there were a fire, and somebody had thrown an enormous load of coals and oil onto it.”

“I don’t get it,” Kellen said, shaking his head.

“You really weren’t paying attention at College, were you?” Cilarnen said. “Well, they didn’t really want to teach us this stuff. We might have learned to think. Okay. Think of the world—everything you know—as a pond of fish. All the fish in the pond are Powers—what the College teaches us are Illusory Creatures and Imaginary Constructs, but are actually real, just like Shalkan.”

“Okay,” Kellen said. Shalkan snorted in amusement.

Cilarnen seemed so surprised by things that Kellen took for granted—that the Shining Folk were real, for example—but then, Kellen and Cilarnen had learned about magic and the world in two entirely different ways.

He supposed that meant that they saw the world in two entirely different ways, too.

“Now imagine I’m looking into that pond on Midwinter night, talking to some of the Powers—fish—and doing my best not to be seen by others, when suddenly, from nowhere I can see, a giant fish, bigger than all the other fish, appears in the pond.”

“Is it a good fish?” Kellen asked dubiously.

Cilarnen snorted. “A very good fish, I think, as it immediately started eating some of the fish I’d been trying to hide from. But still a very scary fish.”

Midwinter would have been when Idalia had done her spell.

“So where did this, er, ‘fish’ come from?” Kellen asked.

“I don’t know!” Cilarnen said in exasperation. “Somewhere that isn’t here. Where that is, and why it’s showed up just now, the Light only knows.”

“What else can you tell me about it?” Kellen asked.

“Is that what you came to ask me?” Cilarnen asked, sounding incredulous. “Do you want me to summon it up and ask it? Kellen, I’d rather summon up one of Them, believe me! It’s destroying our enemies, but that doesn’t mean … look. A candle is a good thing to have inside your house, right? A forest fire isn’t. But they’re both flame.”

“I guess,” Kellen said doubtfully. Any time Cilarnen tried to explain something to him about magic—or magick—he only confused Kellen further.

“You’re saying it’s one of the Old Powers,” Shalkan said helpfully.

“I have no idea,” Cilarnen answered fervently. “I don’t even know what an ‘Old Power’ is.”

“You know I went to Sentarshadeen a few days ago,” Kellen said. “Jermayan, well, needed help with a spell. We needed to figure out a way to keep He Who Is out of the world.”

“Oh, is that all?” Cilarnen said sarcastically.

“Well, Idalia—and Jermayan, and Ancaladar—figured out among them that Great Queen Vielassar Farcarinon had done it once before, so it ought to be possible to do it again. And apparently it involved something called a Greater Summoning.”

Cilarnen went very still.

“And she … did this… Greater Summoning. At Midwinter.”

It was not a question.

“She was supposed to. If she could gain the consent of all the land. I haven’t heard from her since I left Sentarshadeen, but since you say this ‘Big Fish’ has appeared, I suppose she managed to gain what she needed and did the spell. Redhelwar says it was something that threw Them into confusion.”

Cilarnen laughed shakily. “A Greater Power of the Light! Kellen, there are times when it’s a good thing that you have no idea of what you’re talking about! And to think I worried about calling up a mere Elemental! Yes, I would say that Idalia’s Summoning worked. But as for telling you precisely what it was she called … that I cannot do, save that it is old, and powerful, and on our side. But how could you have heard from Redhelwar so quickly?” Cilarnen asked. “Some new spell?”

Cilarnen’s innocent question reminded Kellen that despite their cause for rejoicing, there was also new cause for grief.

“Riasen was at Ancaladar’s Grove this morning. The army is at Ondoladesh-iron. Jermayan … brought them south through some kind of portal. He and Ancaladar died doing it.”

“Dear Light,” Cilarnen said quietly. “Kellen, I am so sorry. I know he was your friend. And Idalia’s.”

“We needed the army here,” Kellen said simply.

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Kellen,” Cilarnen said. “Your Wild Magic—it’s all about balancing things, isn’t it? So everything has an opposite?”

“I suppose so,” Kellen said. He’d never really thought about it. The Wild Magic was about doing, not about thinking about doing.

“So He Who Is has an opposite too?”

“I guess so.”

“So this Greater Power that Idalia has summoned must be that opposite. Or at least a part of it. Because if everything were really back in balance, we’d already have won.”

Kellen thought about it. It seemed right. If there was one thing he knew for sure about the Wild Magic, it was that it didn’t solve your problems for you. It helped, but you had to help yourself as well.

“Then Redhelwar’s right,” Kellen said at last. “They’re as weak now as They’re going to be. And if the Greater Power can keep He Who Is from getting through for at least a while, this is our best chance.”

“To do what?” Cilarnen asked.

“To deny Them Armethalieh,” Kellen said. “And—if possible—to convince the High Mages to fight on our side.”

Cilarnen laughed bitterly.

“Well, so long as you’re not planning to do that today, I’m going to bed. Unless there’s something else you need right now?”

“Not today,” Kellen assured him.

THAT had been almost a sennight ago.

Today…

Today he’d discovered that Jermayan was alive after all.

“I just thought you’d like to know,” Shalkan said casually, when Kellen came to the Grove that morning, “that when I was out for my morning canter, I saw a dragon in the sky.”

Kellen simply stared at him.

“A dragon,” Shalkan repeated patiently. “A black dragon. In the sky. Flying.”

“An-Ancaladar?” Kellen stammered.

“Do you know of any other dragons?” the unicorn answered. “They’re flying with the army. It should be here in a sennight or so.”

“I—But—How—? I mean … Jermayan couldn’t have been wrong about his spell. Could he?”

“No,” Shalkan said. “I think, when you talk to him, you may find him just as surprised by this turn of events as you are. But it’s just possible—with one of the Great Powers afoot in the world again after so long—that we should not expect everything to go as we have been used to. Just a thought.”

“Huh,” Kellen said. “Well, if they aren’t going to, we could use a few more of them going this way. I’m going to go find Keirasti. We’ll tell Vestakia.”

“And I suppose you’ll want me to tell Cilarnen,” Shalkan said, trying to sound cross, and failing.

“You know he’ll feed you honey-disks.”

“Honey-cakes,” Shalkan corrected eagerly, turning and trotting off.

KEIRASTI’S troop had made their way to the encampment a few days before. Kellen walked back down into the camp to share the good news with her.

She did not answer at her tent, and the flap was pinned back, indicating that she was not there. Maredhiel told him that Keirasti had gone down to the An-garussa, as she frequently did on her early morning rides. He saddled Firareth and found the Elven Knight, as he so often did, standing in the snow gazing out at the new bridge, Orata’s reins in her hand.

“I See you, Keirasti,” he said.

“I See you, Kellen,” she said, without turning around. “I promise you, if I see another four centuries, and spend all of them standing here, I shall never get used to this bridge, useful though it is.”

Was that how old she was? He’d never asked, of course. He didn’t know whether it was rude or not to ask Elves their ages. It had simply never come up.

Well, Idalia had once said that Keirasti was old enough to be his grandmother… .

And apparently more, by several hundred years.

“I have good news,” he said. “I’ve just spoken to Shalkan. He tells me that Jermayan is alive.”

“Alive!” She turned around. “Leaf and Star! This news comes in a good hour! It… would be good to know how such a thing can be, of course.”

“I’m not really sure, and neither is Shalkan. But he and Ancaladar are with the army, and they’ll be here soon. We can ask them then. I was hoping that you’d accompany me to let Vestakia know.”

“Now this is a duty I shall be happy to discharge,” Keirasti said, grinning broadly. She swung up into Orata’s saddle and the two of them turned back toward the camp.

VESTAKIA simply burst into tears when she heard, flinging herself into Keirasti’s arms.

It was one of the reasons Kellen hadn’t wanted to be alone with her when he gave her the news.

He knew that every night now, when she slept, Vestakia’s dreams took her to Shadow Mountain, into the mind of the Prince of Shadow Mountain. Closer, each night, to his innermost thoughts and plans.

It was a place nothing of the Light should have to go.

But the images—the impressions—Vestakia was able to relay to him were important than even Vestakia’s life.

They were changing Their tactics.

Vestakia wasn’t completely sure, but she had the idea that Shadow Mountain was calling its Allies back to it, out of the Elven Lands and the High Reaches. The Ice Trolls and the Frost Giants. Something They called Dwerro. Others she wasn’t quite sure of.

Every creature that owed fealty to Them, and could withstand sunlight, was being massed together.

I think They’re finally going to meet us on the battlefield, Kellen thought.

But by now Kellen was wise enough to know that the traditional battle the Elves had always hoped for could only end in disaster for the Allies. Even if their numbers were evenly matched—something he had no way of knowing—the En-darkened would have more powerful Mages at their beck, and far more of them, than the Allies could possibly hope to put into the field. Even with this new Ally that Idalia had summoned.

Unless they could take Armethalieh before the battle and turn it to their side.

He made up his mind.

When he left Vestakia in her tent, he sought out Isinwen.

EVEN in a camp with no prospect of imminent battle, there was much to do. Those who were not on patrol were hunting, or felling trees to feed Artenel’s seemingly-endless need of lumber. And anyone who was not doing that had armor and tack and weapons to care for, sword-drill to perform—for the army could not be allowed to grow slack in its temporary leisure—or the thousand small housekeeping tasks of an army in the field. In addition to all this, everything must be kept organized and running smoothly, and as Kellen’s Second, much of the work of seeing that everyone knew where they should be and what tasks fell to them in the particular hours of each particular day fell to Isinwen.

He rose to his feet as Kellen stepped into the large tent—made from three others—that had been designated the command center. It would be nice to have a more permanent structure, Kellen supposed—even six braziers were not enough to truly warm it—but it was only temporary. Most of the army would be moving onward soon, and with it the need for such a place would end. Only Artenel’s artificers, and a few hundred Knights left to guard them, would remain to continue the work on Fortress Halacira. It was one of the reasons Artenel was doing his best to get so much of the work done now, while he still had so many hands to aid him.

“I See you, Kellen. There is fresh tea made.”

“I See you, Isinwen. I come to begin the day with good news, lately received. The army marches south from Ondoladeshiron, and should join us in a sennight or so. And better: Jermayan and Ancaladar march—or rather, fly—with them.”

“I do not ask how such a miracle occurred,” Isinwen said firmly. “It is magic, and this is something I have never understood. But I am grateful for it.”

“So am I,” Kellen said. “And since this is so, I find I must go to Sentarshadeen after all, and that immediately. I shall leave Halacira in your charge, unless you counsel me against it.”

Isinwen paused to consider.

“I believe we are secure here. Vestakia can warn us of Their approach, and the caverns make a more secure fortress by the day. The forest—what there is left of it—is free both of any Tainted enemy and any merely mortal foe. The camp runs smoothly, and riding Shalkan, your journey will be a swift one. Besides, should there be grave need, I believe Cilarnen will be able to send word to Shalkan over a distance, if not to you.”

“You’re probably right.” While it was true that the Wild Magic seemed to be incompatible with the High Magick in some mysterious way—and so Cilarnen could not reach Kellen directly—no such difficulty existed between Cilarnen and Shalkan. Not only would Cilarnen be able to locate Shalkan by magick, he should also be able to talk to him.

“I’ll be back in a day, then. Two, perhaps.”

“And all will be just as you have left it. Leaf and Star go with you, Kellen.”

“And abide with you, Isinwen.”

SOON Kellen was riding over the snow on Shalkan’s back. Except for the snow, and the fact that he was riding to Sentarshadeen instead of away from it, the previous several moonturns could almost not have happened. He and Shalkan were off on their own, upon an adventure.

And what would happen when he reached his goal was as much a mystery as it had been on that other occasion.

Very soon they reached the edge of the area where his army had been logging, and the forest once more resumed its serene beauty. There had been several snows since the last time the supply sledges had traversed the road between Halacira and Sentarshadeen, and the road was only discernible as a wide space where the trees were not. But that didn’t matter to Shalkan. The unicorn ran across the top of the snow, not even leaving footprints behind.

“And may your humble steed ask what you’re going to do in Sentarshadeen?” Shalkan asked, as he covered the distance to the city in a ground-eating lope.

“If Firareth were here, I’m sure he wouldn’t be interested,” Kellen answered.

Shalkan bucked warningly.

“All right! I’m going to ask Morusil for the army. He’s the one who’s been signing the dispatches in Andoreniel’s name,” Kellen said quickly. He had no desire to end up on his back in the snow, and no doubt of Shalkan’s ability to put him there, Knight-Mage or not.

“So you’re going to take command?” Shalkan asked.

“I don’t want to. Maybe there’s another way. But we have to take Armethalieh now. Before They figure out just what’s going on with that ‘Big Fish’ Cilarnen told me about. And that means taking the army over the Border. Into the Wild Lands. All the way to Armethalieh.”

“It’s a long way,” Shalkan said.

“You did it in—what? A day and a half?”

“I took us from Armethalieh to Idalia’s cabin,” Shalkan corrected. “And I’m a unicorn, if you’ll kindly remember. It’s at least a moonturn from Idalia’s cabin to Sentarshadeen—in summer. So perhaps two, in winter, from Sentarshadeen to Armethalieh, if nothing goes wrong, and your army makes very good time.”

“At least most of it will be downhill,” Kellen said, remembering the terrain he and Shalkan—and, later, he and Shalkan and Idalia—had crossed.

“So you can slide all the way there,” the unicorn agreed, picking up his pace.

SENTARSHADEEN looked peaceful and untouched, though Kellen knew from the dispatches that the Shadow’s Kiss had struck here at least as hard as in any of the surviving Nine Cities. But plague was a quiet assault, and at least he had seen nothing of the forest blight that was ravaging the Wild Lands on his ride here. So far this part of the Elven Lands had been spared that, at least.

When Kellen reached the Unicorn Meadow, he unsaddled Shalkan—he knew that Shalkan would be eager to exchange gossip with the unicorn herd here, and he’d be sure to hear the choice bits of it later—and carried Shalkan’s saddle down to the House of Leaf and Star.

The door opened as he reached it.

“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage.”

Kellen regarded the woman standing there. “I See you,” he said politely. “I greet you in the name of Leaf and Star.”

“My name is Taranarya. Be welcome at our home and at our hearth.”

SHE conducted him to a room he’d never seen before—though Kellen suspected he’d have to be a great deal older than he was now before he saw all the rooms of the House of Leaf and Star—and asked that he accept the hospitality of the house. Kellen was resigned to a certain amount of formality; if someone didn’t come along in a reasonable time to ask him his business, well, he’d just go looking for them.

Meanwhile, there was plenty to look at here.

The waiting room Taranarya had conducted him to was designed to resemble a birch forest in autumn—without, however, slavishly copying it. Kellen wasn’t quite sure how the Elves managed to convey such a powerful suggestion of autumn forest, because whenever he looked directly at something—the pale cream wood paneling of the walls, the intricate geometric pattern of the black and yellow carpet, the four cylindrical stoves at the corners of the room—it didn’t look particularly sylvan. But when he looked at the room out of the corner of his eye, the forest was there: the tumble of yellow leaves underfoot; the tall slender birch trunks against a backdrop of more yellow leaves; it almost seemed as if he could hear the wind through the branches.

He was always amazed by what you could do without magic.

HE hadn’t been there very long before two more Elves appeared, bringing tea and a selection of pastries. He recognized one of them from one of his first visits to the House of Leaf and Star.

“I See you, Lamarethiel,” he said.

“I See you, Kellen,” Lamarethiel replied.

“It would please me greatly should you and your companion desire to stay and drink tea with me,” Kellen said cannily. “I have been long away from Sen-tarshadeen, and would know how the city fares.”

He had counted on the fact that Elves were constantly curious, and always willing to gossip—and that someone who served in the House of Leaf and Star would probably know almost as much about what was going on as, well, a unicorn.

Lamarethiel and his companion, Javondir, did not disappoint him. Kellen heard—after a discussion of the weather, which, since he was going to be taking an army through here soon, was actually something that interested him for a change—all the details of the arrival of the Wildmages Catreg, Tadolad, and Kannert and their strange ways—butter in their tea!—of the wonderful recovery of the Shadow-kissed over the last sennight—and particularly since Midwinter—of the fact that Dargainon was expected to recover fully, that Tyendimarquen still showed no signs of plague—by the grace of Leaf and Star, and that Morusil was still well. In fact, since Midwinter, there had been no new cases at all.

In turn, of course, Kellen was expected to provide news of his own, and so he did. He spoke of the final battle against the Shadowed Elves at Halacira, and their complete defeat. Of the building there of a new fortress where the families of the Allies could take refuge within the Elven Lands. Of the fact that Redhelwar’s army, even now, marched south from Ondoladeshiron to join him at Halacira.

“There is more, of course, but it is news best shared first with the King’s Counselors. I had hoped, of course, to speak to Morusil… .”

“I shall see if he is here,” Lamarethiel said, rising to his feet gracefully. “And I thank you for the news you have brought, Kellen. It has made … interesting hearing.”

“I have enjoyed the chance to tell it,” Kellen answered politely.

He was definitely getting better at dealing with Elves.

After Lamarethiel departed, Javondir excused himself, saying that he would bring fresh tea.

Kellen went back to admiring the room, trying to decide just how the illusion of a forest was created.

When Javondir returned, bringing fresh tea, Morusil was with him.

Idalia had said that Morusil had survived the plague, but Kellen had left Yste-rialpoerin before the first cases had appeared there, and he had never seen what the plague left behind in its aftermath. The livid bars of purple that marred Morusil’s face and neck came as a wrenching shock to him. He sprang to his feet as the aged Elven Counselor entered the room, leaning heavily on an ornate wooden staff.

“Morusil! I—That is, I hope I find you well.”

Morusil chuckled. “Extremely well, my brash young Knight-Mage. I shall tend my gardens for some years yet.” He lowered himself into a chair.

Thus rebuked, Kellen sat again as well. Javondir replaced the empty pot with a fresh one, and withdrew, this time closing the doors to the room behind him.

“And—so I hear—things have gone well for you at Halacira as well, and we shall be welcoming guests within our borders soon.”

“In spring, I think,” Kellen answered. “Travel simply isn’t possible in the winter.”

“Yes, the winter has been unusually hard. But it promises an excellent—if wet—spring. The fruit trees should flourish, if the orchards receive proper drainage.”

And they were back onto the topic of the weather.

After several more cups of tea—at least Kellen was able to turn the topic of the weather to conditions south of Sentarshadeen, which actually interested him—Morusil allowed Kellen to turn the conversation to more practical matters.

“But you will not have come to talk about the weather.”

“Actually, it is a matter of interest to me, for the reason that the weather always affects the army, especially when it must travel. And I—hope—that the army will soon be traveling a very great distance.”

“I am told that the army has already traveled a great distance. From Ysteri-alpoerin to Ondoladeshiron in one footstep is a great journey.”

“The Enemy is not at Ondoladeshiron, Morusil. And it isn’t Their goal. For moonturns we’ve known They mean to take Armethalieh. Now we know that Idalia has called up, well, Cilarnen isn’t really sure what. Shalkan calls it a ‘Great Power.’ But whatever it is, They don’t like it. And it seems to be interfering with Their plans to call up Their own Great Power: He Who Is. While They’re figuring out just what to do about it, They’re going to be about as disorganized as They’re going to get.”

He took a deep breath.

“But there’s bad news to go with the good. Vestakia can see into her father’s mind a little. What she’s seeing seems to say that They are finally massing an army for an all-out battle. If They do that—and have Armethalieh to draw on—we don’t stand a chance.”

“You would not have come here solely to tell me that we are doomed, Kellen. That is not in your nature,” Morusil observed.

“No. I have come here to tell you that we need to take the army to Armethalieh now. Get there before They do, and convince the Armethaliehans to fight on our side.”

“It would please me to know how you intend to do this, as they will listen to none of us.”

“They’ll listen to Cilarnen,” Kellen said grimly. “He’s one of them. It’s true he was Banished, but he was supposed to have been stripped of his Magegift before they turned him out, and he still has it. That will make them listen. He can tell them about Anigrel, and everything he’s done to betray them to the Enemy. The High Mages are powerful. I don’t think Anigrel can fight them openly and win—and if he tries, he’ll just be proving that Cilarnen’s right. Morusil, it’s the only chance I see for us. We can’t let Them take Armethalieh.”

“But to take the army out of the Elven Lands,” Morusil said slowly. “Under whose command?”

“Redhelwar is the commander of the army,” Kellen said, feeling his way. “If he is ordered to go west and prevent Them from taking Armethalieh, he will do that.”

“Taking the advice of his Knight-Mage as to the best way to proceed,” Morusil said.

“I hope Redhelwar will always listen to the counsel of the Wild Magic,” Kellen said honestly. “Mine, and Idalia’s, and Jermayan’s, and that of all the other Wildmages who ride with the army.”

“A good answer,” Morusil said. “Yet I can still not give you the answer you hope for. That answer must come from the King, and Andoreniel is yet too weak to give counsel.”

“Morusil, I must have an answer. Redhelwar will be at Halacira within a sennight,” Kellen said desperately.

“And Halacira lies two days’ ride from here. Yet I believe an army travels more slowly than a single rider, especially in winter. So it will be perhaps ten days before I see you again. Leaf and Star grant you can obtain an answer at that time.”

And Gods of the Wild Magic grant that it’s the one I need.

But there was nothing more he could do here, and Kellen knew it. If any of the surviving members of Andoreniel’s Council was willing to grant Kellen’s request, it was Morusil. Tyendimarquen would have refused out of hand, and Dar-gainon would simply have debated both sides of the matter until the Demons arrived in Sentarshadeen itself.

“I thank you for all your help—both that you have already given me, and that you have yet to give. And may Leaf and Star watch over us both.”

“That is a prayer I make daily, Kellen Knight-Mage.”

WALKING back out to the Unicorn Meadow through the snow, Kellen did his best to believe that his visit to Sentarshadeen had not been useless.

He knew he’d needed to go, to put his request before Morusil.

At least he’d gotten orders to bring the army as far as Sentarshadeen. What they were going to do with it here if they didn’t take it to Armethalieh, he didn’t know.

“I take it you didn’t get what you wanted?” Shalkan asked, apparently materializing out of a snowdrift.

Kellen produced a couple of iced cakes out of his tunic—when confronted with a plate full of pastry, he’d automatically tucked several away for the unicorn. Lamarethiel and Javondir might have thought his behavior a little odd, but they’d never been confronted with a greedy unicorn with a sweet tooth demanding to know why they hadn’t brought him back anything from an Elven tea.

“Yes and no. In other words, Morusil heard me out, and told me to come back with the whole army, when he’d let me know.”

“A little ambiguous,” Shalkan remarked, around a mouthful of cake.

“I suppose he can’t say much else,” Kellen said reluctantly. “He can’t give me—or Redhelwar, really—the army without Andoreniel’s permission, and Andoreniel is still too weak to be consulted. Morusil’s hoping he’ll be stronger ten days from now.”

“Let’s hope so,” Shalkan said.

KELLEN did not spend the time waiting for Redhelwar to arrive in leisure, however. Even though he only had a few thousand horses, there were preparations to make to leave Halacira, especially since he must provide for a permanent force to be left behind. As he was doing that, he also sent a dispatch to Redhelwar, so the General would know he was now to proceed directly to Sentarshadeen.

Kellen did not think at all about what he would do, or need to do, if he did not receive the answer he needed when he returned to Sentarshadeen. None of this, as Kellen had realized long ago, was about him and what he needed. It was all about the Wild Magic and its balance, and whatever was best for that was what was going to happen.

He only hoped his nerves could stand it.

Meanwhile, there was the far more mundane (but still important) matter of telling Cilarnen it was time to pack and move again—and this time, if Fortune favored them, Cilarnen would have no fixed workspace ever again.

But here Cilarnen had anticipated him.

“I shall need two oxen,” he said, when Kellen came to tell him the news. “Six draft horses would be better—faster—but I suppose they can’t be found. And at any rate, I shan’t need to travel any faster than the army does.”

“Would it be a great deal of trouble, o’ Exalted High Mage, if you told me just what you’re talking about?” Kellen asked.

In answer, Cilarnen pulled out one of his books and opened it. There was a drawing of a cart unlike anything Kellen had ever seen, though it looked a little like the wagons in which the Elven children had first been sent to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns: a little house on wheels, with a door, windows, and roof. Kellen even saw what looked like a hearth built into one side. The conveyance was drawn by four large horses.

“The drawing doesn’t show much, so I cast Knowing on the chapter. This is how the War Mages carried their equipment to war. I can store everything I really need here. I could even sleep in it, if I had to, but I’d really rather not.”

“Cilarnen,” Kellen said doubtfully, “I don’t think we have time to build something like that.”

“Did you have to build my last work area?” Cilarnen demanded scornfully. “I admit I’d need help if it were going to have wheels, and axles, but it’s going to be on sledges, like the heavy wagons—which is why I’d need six horses instead of four, if I were going to use horses at all. I’ll be fine. Artenel won’t even have to cut any more planks; I can just take apart my sanctum and re-use the wood from that.”

“Well, I’ll look forward to seeing it,” Kellen had answered.

“Don’t forget the oxen.”

Making the war-wagon had taken Cilarnen a little longer than constructing his round house, but three days later, after Kardus had led a yoke of oxen up to him, Cilarnen had driven it down into camp. It looked, Kellen had to admit, very much like the picture Cilarnen had shown him.

And by then it was time to leave.

JOINING up with an army on the march—especially such a comparatively large army—was a complex logistical problem, especially in an area like the Avribalzar Forest, where both forces must move along the War Road in long narrow columns, hemmed in by the trees.

In the end, Kellen simply distributed his forces along the line of march reformed into their traditional units—or what was left of them after Halacira. His own command was one of the hardest hit: Only six of his Twelve survived, and almost half of them had been new after the Second Battle of the Caverns.

Then, as their places appeared in the line of march—Healers, Knights, supply-wagons—each element of the army moved fluidly into the gaps Redhelwar left for them. Cilarnen and Vestakia rode with the Healers.

And once more Kellen and his command became a part of the main army.

Unfortunately—from Kellen’s point of view—this maneuver was all-too-easy to accomplish, even after all his warnings to Redhelwar. Even after a thousand years—and, for all he knew, after five thousand years—the elements of the Elven Army marched and fought in exactly the same position and order.

And that meant that when the Allies finally met the Enemy on the battlefield for the first time in a thousand years, the Enemy would know exactly where to strike for greatest effect.

Chapter Fifteen

The Road to Armethalieh

AT THE END of the day, when the army made camp, Kellen was at last reunited with Idalia and Jermayan.

He had seen Ancaladar flying back and forth above the trees several times that day, of course, but though the sight did much to reassure him that Jermayan was indeed alive, it did nothing to answer Kellen’s many questions.

But that night, after camp had been pitched and the simple housekeeping chores of life upon the road attended to, the five of them gathered together in Idalia’s tent.

Kellen was instantly struck by how changed Jermayan seemed. While both Cilarnen and Vestakia looked as if they were being consumed from within—by different but equally catastrophic fires—and so glowed far too brightly, Jermayan looked as if some natural illumination that he should properly possess had been extinguished.

The explanations—both Jermayan’s and Idalia’s—took several hours, starting with Idalia’s realization that the imminent arrival of He Who Is back in the world from which he had been banished uncounted millennia before was keeping the Wildmage magic from working properly, to the discovery of the ancient Tokens hanging in the Council Chamber of Sentarshadeen, to the summoning of the Starry Hunt.

At least now Kellen had a name for their new ally, though from the explanation he received, it was actually a very old one.

From there it became Jermayan’s story: his realization that the appearance of the Hunt in this world meant a period of unsureness and confusion for Them; his realization that by expending all of his and Ancaladar’s magic to open a door to Ondoladeshiron he could gain the army precious time so that they might meet the Enemy while it was still disorganized; their rescue by the Starry Hunt as they lay dying.

But at a price.

Happy and grateful as he was to have his friends restored to them—especially for Idalia’s sake—Kellen privately lamented the loss of Jermayan’s powers as an Elven Mage. Cilarnen’s abilities were not nearly as great, and the sort of things that Kellen, or Idalia—or any of the other Wildmages, for that matter—could do were entirely different than what he had seen Jermayan accomplish.

The loss of Jermayan’s magic might cost them dearly.

For one thing, Kellen had been counting on Jermayan to break the wards around Armethalieh—or at least bend them a little—so that they could get Cilarnen into the City to talk to the High Council. Assuming, of course, that they could get to Armethalieh in the first place.

He said as much to Cilarnen, much later that night.

They were alone. He had walked Cilarnen back to his fancy cart—Cilarnen didn’t actually sleep in it, but he pitched his tent beside it. In a camp on the move, there was no possibility of the privacy Cilarnen preferred, but the young High Mage had placed his tent and wagon at the edge of the camp, near the horse-lines.

Cilarnen made a small sound of amused surprise.

“I know Jermayan’s power is—was—vast, but I do not know if he could have broken the wards, Kellen, without destroying the City down to its foundation stones. Remember what they were designed to keep out in the first place. I’ve been thinking about the problem, though, and I think I have another solution to it. One They would never think of, because They couldn’t use it without destroying Themselves. But we can—if Redhelwar will give me the proper tools to work with.”

“I’m sure he will, if he can,” Kellen said cautiously. He already knew from experience that Cilarnen’s idea of “the proper tools” could be eccentric, to put it charitably.

“If he gives me the Unicorn Knights, I can breech the walls of Armethalieh,” Cilarnen said, with absolute certainty.

But would they reach the walls of Armethalieh?

FOUR days after Kellen’s force had rejoined the main army, the Allied Army—Men, Centaurs, Elves—gathered in the fields and orchards beyond the Unicorn Meadow at Sentarshadeen.

It had snowed every day since Kellen had returned from his last visit to Sentarshadeen, but Jermayan assured him that there was usually a break in the weather just after Midwinter, and it had finally come. The day of their arrival had dawned bright and clear and cold, and the Wildmages had assured Redhelwar that the clear weather should hold for at least the next fortnight.

Kellen had spoken extensively to Redhelwar, both about Vestakia’s “visions”—there was really no other good word to describe the information she relayed to him and Idalia—and also of what Cilarnen saw when he looked into Armethalieh. Though Redhelwar was just as dismayed as Morusil had been by the prospect of taking the Allied Army outside the Elven Lands, he agreed that there might be no better chance to deny Them something They seemed to want very much.

And it was not simply the fact that Armethalieh might be the key to defeating Them. By taking the army outside the borders of the Elven Lands, they would draw the Enemy’s attention to themselves and away from everything else.

And at the moment, that was vital, too.

Not all the Wildmages were with the army. Some of them had remained with their families in the High Reaches, and were in frequent communication with their partners who had joined the army. They passed news of Demonic raids of increasing ferocity, of spreading plague and blight, of the encroachment of monstrous creatures beyond the experience of any but the Lostlanders.

If the army could occupy the Enemy’s full attention, perhaps it could gain the non-combatants a breathing space.

THE army reached the edge of the Unicorn Meadow at noon.

Kellen and his troop were escorting Redhelwar, riding at the front of the column. Cilarnen, Idalia, and Vestakia rode with Redhelwar as well; Cilarnen had pointed out cheerfully that there was no point in having a destrier if you weren’t going to ride him, and it was perfectly true that Anganil sulked if he didn’t get what the black stallion believed was his proper due.

Behind them, the army was spread in a wide column. They’d left the forest that morning and changed formation to one more suited to open country; the unicorns moving off to the left and ahead; the Knights organizing in ranks behind their Commanders and Sub-Commanders; the Centaurs and Mountainfolk behind them behind their own commanders; then the Healers and Wildmages, the supply wagons, the herds, and the rear guard.

All very impressive.

When they reached the edge of the Unicorn Meadow—it still managed to look manicured, even covered in well-trampled snow—Kellen could see there was a pavilion set up in the middle of the meadow.

It looked very much like the one he’d been greeted by when he’d returned from the Black Cairn, except for the fact that this one was green and silver instead of yellow and red.

Redhelwar gave the order for the army to halt.

Dionan raised his horn to his lips and blew the signal. In seconds it passed back down the line, echoing and doubling through the crisp winter air.

“It would please me if you accompanied me, Kellen,” Redhelwar said.

“It would give me great joy,” Kellen answered politely.

Side by side, they rode forward toward the pavilion.

THE interior of the pavilion was set up in what Kellen considered to be pretty much traditional style by now for this sort of thing—a wooden floor laid down on the snow, with carpets over that. Braziers to heat the tent almost to the temperature of an indoor room. A table laid out with a tea-brazier and service, as well as several plates of delicacies.

Both Morusil and Tyendimarquen were there, as well as several other Elves whose names Kellen did not know. Several of the Elves bore the same livid purple scars that Morusil did, indicating that they had caught—and survived—the plague.

Andoreniel was not there. Kellen had not really expected that he would be.

“Enter and be welcome,” Morusil said. “I know that your stay must be brief, for you will not wish to leave your army standing in the cold without direction.”

“That is so,” Redhelwar agreed, “and we are all grateful for your kindness.”

He seated himself at the table, and Kellen, without much choice in the matter, seated himself beside him. Redhelwar removed his fur mitts, gloves, and armored gauntlets, setting them on the table beside him, and accepted the cup of tea that one of the courtiers poured. Kellen was glad to see that it was one of the small cups, indicating that this was just going to be a brief tea-drinking before they got down to business.

He did the same with his own gloves and gauntlets, and accepted his own cup. He settled his mind, breathing in the fragrance of the tea. Whatever was to come, the decision had already been made. There was nothing to do about that.

The tea smelled of cherries and mint. A kind he had not tasted before. He savored it, letting go of worry.

The Wild Magic might want him to die—well actually, the Wild Magic probably didn’t care whether he, as a person, died or not. As far as he could tell, the Wild Magic didn’t care a lot about Kellen Tavadon. But the Wild Magic didn’t want the world to die. The Wild Magic wanted the Balance to be kept. The Wild Magic was all about Balance, and he was an instrument of the Wild Magic. It was his job to be the best instrument of its balance that he could be. And so far, as far as he knew, he’d done everything he could to be a good instrument, and act in accordance with what it wanted him to do.

So whatever happened here today would be—would have to be—another part of the Wild Magic’s mysterious balancing.

So he should stop worrying.

They drank tea.

Redhelwar and Morusil—and even Tyendimarquen—talked of the weather. It was going much as it had in other years. The Winter Running Dance, alas, would not be held this year, though the weather would have been exceptionally fine for it. But perhaps the snow would have been too heavy. The orchards looked to bear well in spring. It was possible they could look to see the vilya fruit next year.

At last the tea was finished, and they set aside their cups.

“Andoreniel continues to grow in strength, as I have promised you,” Morusil said, “and I have laid your problem before him. He has bade me give this to Redhelwar.”

There was a box upon the table, made of the same pale wood as the conference table in the Council Chamber. Morusil opened it.

Inside it was a ring.

It was large—it would cover the wearer’s finger from knuckle to knuckle. The stone was a huge green oval, of the deep yellow-green of forest moss. Kellen had seen Ashaniel wearing gems of the same color.

He’d seen Kindolhinadetil wearing a ring like it. And Rochinuviel.

Morusil took the ring from the box and handed it to Redhelwar.

“Who wears this ring acts in Andoreniel’s name,” Morusil said. “He bids you go and do as you think best, even to the walls of Armethalieh, for the good of all who walk in the Light. And may Leaf and Star go with you.”

Redhelwar slipped the ring onto his finger.

Paired with the scarlet of Redhelwar’s chosen color, the green of the gem glowed even more brightly, as if it were lit from within.

The meeting seemed to be over.

Redhelwar rose to his feet. “I thank Andoreniel for his trust. I vow to you all that I shall not fail it, so long as the trees grow and the stars burn. Leaf and Star abide with you all.”

“IT is perhaps more freedom than I would have wished,” Redhelwar said quietly, as they rode back to the army.

The ring was tucked down inside his glove now, since he could not wear it beneath his gauntlet.

“I am not entirely sure what just happened,” Kellen confessed. “The ring Morusil gave you from Andoreniel … it looks like the rings I have seen the Viceroys wear.”

“Yes,” Redhelwar said. “The army has become … a city. The Tenth City. And so, now, Andoreniel can command. But I can also … refuse.”

Kellen’s eyes went wide with surprise. He hadn’t known the Viceroys had that kind of power.

And now Redhelwar was—in all the ways that mattered—a Viceroy.

“We need this,” he said.

“Yes,” Redhelwar said. “But I look forward to the day when I can surrender this power again.”

WHEN they returned to the army, Redhelwar gave the order for the army to advance once more. They swung to the right, their path leading them in a broad arc around the city, to a place where they could cross the river that was Sentarshadeen’s western border easily.

“So?” Idalia asked, riding up beside Kellen. “I assume we’re going to Armethalieh.”

“Yes,” Kellen agreed. “Andoreniel has given Redhelwar a Viceroy’s ring. Redhelwar says we’re a city now.”

“Convenient,” Idalia said. “He won’t have to wait for Andoreniel’s orders, and can do pretty much whatever he deems right for the safety of the Elven Lands. It’s been done before, but…”

“Not in a thousand years or so?” Kellen said, guessing.

Idalia grinned at him, silently confirming his guess.

THAT night they made camp at the edge of the Elven Lands. Tomorrow morning they would cross the Border into the Wild Lands, leaving the protection of the Elven land-wards behind.

Both Kellen and Cilarnen had spoken to Redhelwar of Cilarnen’s plan for breeching the walls of Armethalieh using the Unicorn Knights, and Cilarnen had obtained both Redhelwar’s approval and the Unicorn Knights’ agreement. Kellen still wasn’t entirely sure what the plan consisted of, though Cilarnen had explained it: It wasn’t that Cilarnen was ever intentionally mysterious, it was simply that when he was speaking about the High Magick, he might as well be speaking in some utterly foreign language. All of the words seemed simple and commonplace, but all put together they didn’t make any sense that Kellen could see. All he got out of the explanation was something about dancing.

But the unicorns themselves seemed to approve of the plan, and Cilarnen thought it had a good chance of working.

So from now on, Cilarnen camped with the Unicorn Knights, and drilled them in the part they were to play in the few hours they could spare from other duties. Fortunately, unicorns could see in the dark, and there was always Magelight.

“DO you think this will work?” Kellen asked Shalkan.

The two of them were standing at the edge of the field, watching Cilarnen with the unicorns. He rode ahead of them on Anganil, the black stallion’s body invisible in the winter darkness. Only the crown of Magelight he wore made him visible.

Behind him the unicorns followed, their horns and bodies glowing faintly. They looked like living Elven lanterns: gold, silver, russet, and the deep midnight blue that the coat of the black unicorns gave off at night.

“Maybe,” Shalkan said consideringly.

“No, no, no! Menerchel, you and Hindulo need to go left, not right! Nelarussa, that’s too slow: you and Rochovoth must keep the space between you and Orchel precisely. And Araveth, you’re going too fast. It’s a pattern, not a race. Back to the beginning.”

The ball of Magelight trotted off. The unicorns followed.

“And whatever it is they’re going to be doing,” Kellen said, “they won’t be doing it in an open field in peace and quiet. Well, relative peace and quiet anyway. They’ll be doing it in the middle of a battle. With Leaf and Star alone knows what trying to stop them.”

“Then we’d just better hope that Cilarnen’s a good teacher,” Shalkan said. “And that he has enough time before we get there.”

THE following day they crossed over into the Wild Lands.

Almost instantly Kellen could sense a change in the landscape.

Everything seemed … diminished … as if the life had been sucked out of it. Though the countryside was winter-barren, it managed to look as if nothing ever had grown there, not only since the Great Drought, but in living memory.

Around midday, they saw the first refugees.

From his previous trip to the Elven Lands, Kellen knew that there were no villages, Centaur or human, within a fortnight’s travel of the Border. They were traveling through open country now, and would be for some time; Redhelwar’s maps weren’t as detailed here, but they showed only one range of high hills (Kellen recalled them vividly; it was where he and Shalkan had fought off the Outlaw Hunt) and a forest beyond it which marked the far edge of the Delfier Valley. Those should be the only real impediments to the army’s march.

Aside from whatever the Enemy chose to do.

The unicorns, as always, were the far-forward scouts. Riding between them and the rest of the army was another troop of knights led by Nithariel. She and her Knights could receive their reports and bring them back to Redhelwar without causing distress to the unicorns.

The army forged forward steadily, covering the leagues that separated them from Armethalieh at a steady, ground-eating pace. Overhead, Ancaladar soared and wheeled through the clear empty sky. Since Jermayan could no longer communicate with the forces on the ground by magic, he now carried one of the Elven war-horns. The various calls would provide nearly as much advance information as magical speech.

Kellen’s troop had been made up to full strength once again, and as a skirmishing unit, his Twelve was riding on the flank of the army, ready to break away immediately to deal with any danger that might present itself. The position gave him a good view of the road ahead, and so he was able to see when Riasen rode back to Nithariel, and Nithariel in turn rode back to Redhelwar.

“Something’s up,” he said to Isinwen.

“I do not doubt we shall soon discover what it is,” Isinwen said placidly. “As always, I await any order you choose to give.”

“If I ordered you to go and ask Redhelwar what was going on, he’d have both our heads, and send us off to horse-duty for the rest of the campaign,” Kellen said.

“Why so I had believed. But I did not like to put my own opinions before those of so worthy a Knight-Mage and battle-commander,” Isinwen said blandly.

“You know, I really think you’re wasted here,” Kellen said. “You should be off amusing the unicorns.”

“Alas,” Isinwen said. “My wife would hardly approve. Nor, I think, would the unicorns take pleasure in my company. Ah, here is news.”

Dionan rode back down the line.

“Nithariel and Riasen report a band of travelers on the road ahead. Refugees from Greenpoint, Riasen believes, and without Taint, Elariagor says. Ride up to them and discover their condition. They may take sanctuary beyond the Border.”

Kellen raised a hand in salute and pulled his troop out of line. In moments they were cantering up past the head of the column.

THE band of travelers were a ragged collection. Kellen counted a dozen humans and six Centaurs. Four of the humans were women. One was carrying a baby, well muffled-up against the cold. All of the Centaurs were carrying heavy packs, and one of the men was leading a shaggy pack-pony as well. The beast looked exhausted, as did the people.

“We mean you no harm,” Kellen said, dismounting from Firareth’s saddle. “I’m Kellen. We’ve come to offer the sanctuary of the Elven Lands. The Border is just a few miles up the road, and the Elven city of Sentarshadeen is just beyond it. They’ll take care of you there.”

“Huntsman be praised!” one of the Centaurs said. “Is it true … the Elves will open their borders to any who come?”

“Any who are of the Light,” Kellen said firmly. “But what are you doing here? Riasen—the unicorn rider—said you were from Greenpoint.”

“Greenpoint isn’t there anymore.” It was one of the men who spoke. “My name is Jasson. I was a blacksmith at Greenpoint. We have heard that the Shadowkin rise again, but thought they would not come to us here in the west. When the hunting began to fail just after Second Harvest, we thought it was simple misfortune, but…”

To Kellen’s dismay and horror, Jasson began to weep, covering his face with his hands.

“We were in the woods, searching for wildgather,” one of the women said. “Something … came.”

“We are all that is left,” another of the Centaurs said. “We have been on the road this past moonturn. My brother Sarick and I fish for Greenpoint. We were out on the ice when we saw the smoke. By the time we returned, the village was gone. No one was left. Only those who were away, like Sietta, or whose shops are far from the village, like Jasson. The village had burned. Even the stone had burned. There were not even bodies.”

Demons. It must be Demons.

Demons had raided Greenpoint a moonturn ago, and taken everyone there as slaves … or food.

“I am sorry for your loss,” Kellen said quietly. “But the Shadowkin have not yet crossed the Borders of the Elven Lands. Beyond Sentarshadeen we are building a place for you to live, where you can be safe. In Sentarshadeen they will show you how to get there.”

“But what of you?” Sietta asked. “Can you not take us there yourselves? Won’t you protect us?”

“I’m sorry,” Kellen said. “We’re going the other way. We have to go to fight the ones who destroyed your village.”

Quickly he emptied his saddlebags of all the food he was carrying, and the rest of his troop did the same. A few trail-bars, some dried fruit—it wasn’t much, but it would be enough to get them over the Border, and Halacira was being provisioned from Sentarshadeen. They’d be safe at Halacira.

But how many more victims of Their cruelty would the army encounter on the road to Armethalieh?

The refugees moved wearily up the road. Kellen rode back to make his report to Redhelwar.

“WE will not be able to feed them all, Kellen,” the Army’s General said. “If we encounter more, you must think of the army first.”

“I know,” Kellen said.

It was a bitter truth. But there would be no chance to reprovision the army between here and Armethalieh—and probably not even then, unless they raided some of the Delfier Valley farms and took what they needed by force. The army would need everything it had to feed itself.

LATER that day, they fought off their first Demon attack.

They saw no more refugees, but the unicorns ranged farther from the column now, and brought back reports of the tracks of both Coldwarg and serpentmarae. The monsters that were Their most efficient tools ranged freely here in the Wild Lands, and Redhelwar ordered the army to be especially alert.

Suddenly he heard an outcry from farther back in the column. Vestakia.

There was an urgent cascade of hornsong from the sky.

Something coming from the sky.

The column stopped. The skirmishers deployed. The Unicorn Knights came riding back toward the main body of the army, stopping less than half a mile away. Shalkan was with them. Nithariel’s troop passed Kellen’s as she rode down the line toward her place in the formation, her Knights galloping all-out through the snow.

Kellen heard Ancaladar shriek with anger—a sound he could not ever remember hearing the dragon make before.

There were Demons in the sky.

Only two, but from all Cilarnen had told them, one could destroy a village. Two might well be able to slay half the army.

For a moment, the two-bat-winged forms swooped and danced around Ancaladar as the dragon lashed out at Them with claws and tail. But without Jermayan’s magic, he and Ancaladar were powerless to affect the creatures, and the Demons knew it. With one powerful blow—not even a spell—one of the Demons knocked Ancaladar out of the sky, but the dragon and his rider were not their main target.

The army was.

Suddenly Cilarnen and Anganil came bolting out of the column past Kellen. The destrier’s reins were looped around the saddlehorn; Cilarnen had both hands raised to the sky.

Lightning.

By now Kellen had seen more wild weather than he actually cared to. He’d seen storms, and he’d seen lightning. But only lightning up in the sky—great flashes of light that turned the night to day, or jagged bolts of light crossing the sky, as if the night were cracking to let the morning in.

Not like this.

This was lightning coming out of a clear blue sky. Coming without warning. A jagged column of blinding white fire lanced down out of the sky with an ear-numbing crack—once, twice—and when it was done, the Demons in the sky had been slammed to earth in the center of a huge lake of charred grass and mud, their bodies nothing more than twisted, still-smoking embers. Though the bolts had struck almost half a mile away, a ripple of unease moved through the army, as startled animals reacted to the sudden blast of light and noise.

And, horribly, the Demons were still moving.

“They aren’t dead!” Cilarnen cried.

Shalkan was the first to reach them, slipping and skidding in the ice and mud, followed by the rest of the Unicorn Knights. By the time he had, the Demons were already beginning to heal. But they were still weak enough that the unicorns, trampling and goring, reduced them quickly to inanimate ash.

It was all over very quickly.

Kellen rode up to Cilarnen as the Unicorn Knights retreated. Cilarnen swung down awkwardly from Anganil’s back, dropped to his knees, and plunged his hands into the snow.

“Aaah—! By the Light, that hurts,” Cilarnen gasped. He raised his hands out of the snow after a moment, and Kellen could see that they were red. Burned. Blisters had formed and already broken, and thin trickles of blood, mixed with melted snow, were running down his wrists. Cilarnen inspected the damage and plunged his hands back into the snow again.

“What did you do?” Kellen demanded, swinging down out of his saddle.

“Lightning,” Cilarnen said succinctly. “It’s a complicated spell, but I have it as a cantrip. I’ve only prepared a few more, though, so I hope there won’t be many more visitors. It won’t kill Them, of course. But it slows Them down.”

Despite the cold—Kellen felt it even through layers of armor and padding, and Cilarnen was only wearing a robe—Cilarnen was sweating heavily. Drops of perspiration fell from his forehead to the snow, melting small pockmarks in it.

“I’m going to need leather armor,” Cilarnen said meditatively. “Something made without any metal at all. I think I would have fried myself if I’d been wearing my chain shirt.”

“Cilarnen,” Kellen said again. “What did you do? You burned your hands. And you’re outside the Elven Lands. You can’t be drawing on the Land-wards now.”

“Always asking useless questions,” Cilarnen said with a shaky laugh. He scooped up a handful of snow and held it to his face. “You might actually have made a decent High Mage, Kellen, if you’d had decent teachers. Not that—I suspect—there are many left in Armethalieh. Or maybe the High Magick and the Wild Magic really have more in common than I think, if you go back to their roots. Yes, we’re outside the Elven Lands. That’s blindingly obvious. I’m using wild elemental energy now. The same thing my ancestors used. It’s … stronger. I didn’t compensate for that. But I talked to the Fair Ones while I was still back in Halacira, and they agreed to lend me their strength. Because if They win, the Fair Ones will all be gone, too. It just hurts, a little. You’re supposed to start when you’re a child, with the simplest Forces, and I can’t.”

Cilarnen’s teeth were chattering with cold now.

“Well, you’ve done enough for one day,” Kellen said. He heard no further horn-calls. The two Demons must have been acting alone.

He bent down and scooped Cilarnen up into his arms. Cilarnen was heavy, but proper Mageborn were slightly-built, and Kellen had the muscles that came from wearing armor day in and day out, and swinging a heavy sword on top of it. He wouldn’t want to do this as a regular thing, but it was certainly possible for him to lift the smaller man. With Cilarnen in his arms, he stepped up into Firareth’s stirrup, swinging his leg over into the saddle. The buckskin destrier stood rock-steady as he mounted.

“Hey!” Cilarnen protested.

“You are going off to see Idalia,” Kellen told him, turning Firareth back toward the column. “Burned hands are no joke, and you’ll need to change into something warm and dry. We can’t afford to lose you.”

THE Golden City of Armethalieh, City of a Thousand Bells, had once held spell-bound beneath its rule all the land from the edge of the Western Sea to the farthest reaches of the Delfier Hills.

Now it did not even rule itself.

Fear ruled Armethalieh.

High Mage Astranis of House Nerawell was the son and grandson of Mages, and could trace his exalted and unblemished Mageborn lineage all the way back to the ancient days of the City, in a peaceful and unbroken record of privilege and service. The sons of House Nerawell had all led lives of duty to the City and service to the Light. The daughters had all married well, and presented their husbands, in due time, with proper Mageborn sons and daughters to continue the great name of Armethalieh, unchanged and unchanging.

But now there was change.

Nerawell was one of the High Houses—the Nerawell lineage was closely connected with the High Council itself, by marriage if not by the felicity of actually possessing a seat on the Council. Astranis knew nearly as much about what went on in Armethalieh as Lycaelon Tavadon himself.

And none of it was good.

In the last half year had come, first, the Banishment of the Arch-Mage’s own mongrel son. Of course there was bad blood there, and the matter should have been dealt with—quietly—long before. But now both children were gone, and Light knew it was for the best. Perhaps Lycaelon might marry again; a suitable girl this time.

But then—so it appeared—the Wildmage taint that had surfaced with the boy had not been entirely rooted out of the City. The Council had acted rashly, restricting the Bounds back to the City walls, leading to, of all ridiculous things, a revolt among the farmers. The famine that had bred among the Commons had at least had one useful result: it had forced the rest of the Wildmages hiding in the City out into the open, leading to a purge of the Council, and the Banishment of several of the ringleaders, the young sons of several of the Council members and their families.

That Lord Volpiril had been involved in any way had been a surprise, though. Astranis had always thought the man had been sound.

Astranis had looked for things to return to normal, then. The Bounds were being expanded once more. Lycaelon had adopted a new Heir—still Commons blood there, of course, but Mageborn on his mother’s side, and raised in a good home. And at least both parents were Citizens.

But then Lycaelon had put the boy on the Council. And now the Council was seven, not thirteen. It had been eight until a moonturn ago, but Lord Meron had resigned unexpectedly, giving reasons of ill-health and a desire to put his personal affairs in order.

Astranis was unconvinced. He suspected a visit from the Magewardens, rather than ill-health, was behind Lord Meron’s decision.

The Magewardens! There was something that should be a bitter tea in every Mageborn’s cup. The Mageborn ruled Armethalieh. They always had. Now, suddenly, there was a ruling council set over the Mageborn—a gaggle of low-rank, Low House, social-climbers whom no one knew, and no one could control.

Save Lycaelon’s whelp, Anigrel Tavadon.

It was he who was the true power in the City now, not the Arch-Mage. Anigrel said that the Wildmages were still among them, seducing their sons and daughters just as they had Lycaelon’s and Volpiril’s and so many others. Anigrel said that only the Magewardens could be trusted to seek out the Wildmage corruption among the ranks of the Mageborn and keep it from spreading so disastrously again.

Oh, Astranis had to admit that the boy did have a few good ideas. The extra taxes on magick, for example. That had been an excellent notion. And the formation of the Commons Wardens. That kept the people out of trouble. The passes that kept them in their homes at night were a good notion as well. He did admit that.

But being spied upon, as if he were one of them, his own actions called into account… ?

Intolerable!

But there was nothing to be done about it.

He already knew that.

He had learned from the lesson of Master Undermage Hendassar.

He had known Ulfeson Hendassar for nearly forty years. He lectured at the College—on History of the City—and they had played shamat at the Teahouse of the Thousand Towers each Light-Day, over many cups of the Thousand Towers’ finest brewings.

When the Magewardens had first been formed, Master Hendassar had spoken out, strongly and publicly, against them. He had said there was no precedent for such a body. That it infringed upon the inviolate sovereignty that was every Mageborn’s right, as embodied in the City Charter itself.

All these things were, as Astranis knew himself, perfectly true. But he also knew that when the Magewardens had the backing of the Arch-Mage and the Arch-Mage’s new son and heir, it was perhaps more prudent not to say them aloud. He had said as much to Ulfeson. But Ulfeson would not take the hint.

And then, one Light-day, Astranis’s shamat-partner was not there.

No one knew where he’d gone. No one wished to know. Astranis had stopped by his rooms at the College—Ulfeson had never married, and did not keep a house—only to find them gone as if they had never existed at all.

No one ever explained why Ulfeson Hendassar had vanished, or what it was he was supposed to have done. Everyone assumed he was part of the Wildmage conspiracy that later tragically claimed the lives of two of the members of the High Council itself.

Astranis knew better.

He kept that knowledge to himself.

For his sons’ sake, and their sons’ sake. For the good name of House Ner-awell. Even for the sake of his wife and daughters.

Anyone in Armethalieh who disagreed with the Magewardens—with Lord Anigrel—simply vanished.

He didn’t know why.

It wasn’t good to wonder why.

“I fear the Wildmages are becoming more powerful, Father,” Anigrel said quietly.

The Nocturne Bells—the first ring after Midnight Bells—had just rung, heralding the deepest part of the night.

The two High Mages stood in Lycaelon’s study in the Council House at Armethalieh. The air thrummed with Power, for each night the Council Chamber which was the true heart of Armethalieh became the workplace for the High Mages to cast the spells that kept the City running so efficiently.

Tonight was not one of Anigrel’s nights to stand in the Circle, though as always these days, his Magewardens were present. Tonight, the spell being cast was merely one to strengthen the timing-spells on the bell-towers, so that all of the carillons of the City struck when and as they were supposed to, and the weight and vibration of the great bells they held did not weaken the fragile and beautiful bell-towers.

Anigrel’s personal attention was reserved for other matters, such as the City Wards.

The work was going far more slowly than he had hoped, and often over the past several sennights he had felt the lash of his Dark Lady’s impatience. But he dared move no faster. Armethalieh was a city of law and custom—oh, the ancient immemorial custom!—and to work the spells that checked and cleansed and strengthened the Wards of the City Walls outside their proper time would draw attention he could not afford.

He had gained access to nearly all of the secret—and largely proscribed—Council archives during his tenure as Lycaelon’s confidential secretary, and so he knew that the highest levels of the Mageborn remembered his Dark Lady and her kindred very well. Had not Lycaelon attempted to turn young Kellen Tavadon from his ill-advised dabbling in the Wild Magic by warning him it would lead him into the Dark Lady’s embrace?

As if such a thing were likely.

Still, it was more than enough warning for Anigrel. The High Mages—or enough of them—remembered the days of the Shadow War and the enemy they had fought. If they truly understood what it was that he did here on those nights when he tampered—oh, so carefully!—with the City Wards, they would rise up in a body and destroy him.

Meanwhile, he must content himself with the small victories he had gained. No longer did he need to fear that his own Darkmage spells could be detected by the City Wards. Their ability to detect his work had been the first thing he destroyed, in accordance with a plan set down long ago.

Next, he had opened a thousand tiny cracks in the City’s magical defenses. It was not enough to allow the Dark Ones to enter, or even to work their greater spells, but they could … influence … events in the City now, albeit subtly.

So long as he continued to work upon the Wards.

For Anigrel had quickly discovered, to his and his Dark Lady’s great dismay, that somehow the complex, centuries-old spell had a life of its own, almost as if it were a living thing. Time and again he would return to the Circle to continue his work, only to discover that work he had done before must be redone, for damage he had done to the City Wards, changes he had made to suit them to his own purposes, had somehow been undone.

He had set his Magewardens the task of seeing who might be tampering with the Great Seals upon the City against his will, but they had found nothing.

And if his Magewardens could find nothing, well, then, there was nothing to find.

He could only conclude that the spell was repairing itself. But he dared not make more and greater changes each time. He was already working upon the Wards as quickly as he dared—unless, of course, he could gain absolute control of the Council.

Meron’s departure had helped. High Mage Meron had always been a strong voice for caution and moderation, even now. With Meron gone, it would be far easier to convince the remaining Council members of the necessity of accepting the new proposal he was about to put before them.

Armethalieh must have allies.

The continuing raids in the Delfier Valley had helped. The force Lycaelon had sent to Nerendale several moonturns ago had simply vanished, along with—so the Council presumed, since no one had ever been sent to check—the entire village. Other troops of Militia, other villages, had followed in Nerendale’s wake, until the Council had simply stopped answering the increasingly desperate pleas for help from the villagers.

The petitions, of course, continued to arrive. Proof, so Anigrel assured the High Council, that a vast and terrible army of Wildmages even now infested the Delfier Valley, and had set its sights on nothing less than the destruction of Armethalieh herself.

“We must defeat them,” Lycaelon answered somberly. “We cannot allow this hallowed citadel of the Light to be defiled by their kind. We are all that remains of those that the Light created in Its Own Image.”

“Your words are wise, Father,” Anigrel said. “And I am certain the Council will heed them, when you present your plan. But I wonder if we must truly fight alone? You know that long ago, there were others who stood against the Wildmages. Others who thought, as we do, that the chaos and misrule of the Wild Magic must not be allowed to spread.”

Once, before he had weakened the Wards and allowed his Dark Lady’s influence to enter the City, Lycaelon would have instantly greeted Anigrel’s words with horror. Now the Arch-Mage merely looked hopeful. And interested.

The sennights since Anigrel’s accession to the High Council had taken a fearful toll on Lycaelon Tavadon. Only last spring he had seemed to be a man in the vigor of his late middle years; incorruptible, indestructible, a mighty pillar of magick who would endure forever.

Now it was as if everything Anigrel did to weaken the City Wards weakened Lycaelon as well. The Arch-Mage’s skin had the translucence of age, and his hair, once raven-black with distinguished wings of gray, was now entirely white. The staff of office he bore was no longer merely an ornament of rank, but needed for support as well.

He had grown old.

Soon there would be a new head of House Tavadon, and another vacancy on the High Council.

The Arch-Mageship itself.

And then, at last, Anigrel could claim outright what he had sought for so long: absolute dominion over Armethalieh. As its new Arch-Mage.

“What are you saying, my son?”

“Since I became a member of the High Council, I have delved deep into our ancient archives, searching for any knowledge that might help us in this, our time of greatest peril. I have read much of the days of the Founding of our City, when—rightfully!—we sequestered ourselves from the Taint of the Wild Magic and the blandishments of the Other Races. But we were not the only ones who did. There were … others. Others who suffered just as terribly at the hands of the Wildmages, the Elves, and the Beast-creatures. They withdrew to a secret citadel far to the north, hiding themselves from the sight of all. They, too, believe in Purity above all things, and understand the need to destroy our enemies, for those enemies threaten them as well. Long have they hidden from their ancient foes, fearing to be destroyed completely. But now … I think they might aid us.”

Lycaelon hesitated. “You say they believe as we do?”

Anigrel smiled. “Their enemies are ours, and have been since before the first stones of these walls were laid. What more proof can we ask?”

Lycaelon sighed deeply. “And yet… an alliance.”

“Of two peoples with a common enemy, and a common goal,” Anigrel said subserviently. “But of course, it is only a thought. You are so much wiser than I, and will know what is best for the City. But I think they would aid us, if we asked. You know that there have been … rumors … of great battles far to the east. I think they already stand against our enemies there.”

“You have given me much to think about, my son,” Lycaelon said. “Perhaps we must consider this matter further. For the good of the City.”

Oh yes, “Father,” Anigrel thought. For the good of the City. Lycaelon might dismiss the idea of an alliance the first time he heard it, but word of more atrocities would soon reach his ears. He would not forget that his beloved son and heir had told him that there were others who might fight Armethalieh’s battles for her.

Soon he would tell Anigrel to invite them in.

THOUGH they saw no more Demons as they headed west and south, by the end of the first sennight of march, the Allied Army had seen just about everything else that the Enemy could field, and the constant clashes were beginning to take their toll.

They never saw the creatures in any great numbers. Vestakia’s dream-visions continued to send the same chilling message—the Enemy was calling all its creatures to itself, now, preparing for one final strike at Armethalieh. And it intended to arrive there in force.

Vestakia could even tell them where the Demon army was. Its course paralleled their own, several hundred miles to the south, since They had been forced to detour around the Elven Lands instead of fighting Their way through the reborn Land-wards after the arrival of the Starry Hunt. Its presence was a constant source of misery for her, and at first Kellen had feared that the Demons would attempt to raid the army to kidnap her, since they had been hunting her to return her to her father all her life.

But when days passed without an attack, he realized They were holding off from a combination of cowardice and arrogance. Cowardice, because the army had so swiftly killed the last two of Their kind that had come. Arrogance, because They knew they would face the Allied Army at Armethalieh, and They were certain of victory then.

Still, what the army did encounter was daunting enough.

Coldwarg—not the gigantic packs that Jermayan had reported seeing in the northern Elven Lands, but small groups of a dozen or so. Dangerous enough, but they could be killed, especially with enough defenders.

The serpentmarae were easier to destroy than the Coldwarg. Not nearly as hardy as the Coldwarg, they could often be run down by the Centaurs and speared to death.

The army had also been attacked one night as it was making camp by a band of what Isinwen had later told Kellen were Ice Trolls—squat blue-skinned creatures that went naked even in the cold. They used a kind of throwing-stick to launch arrows. They were fast as a running horse, and deadly foes, far stronger than Elves, their skin as tough as boiled leather. They had accounted for more than a few casualties in the camp, but again, they were only a few dozen against a force of thousands, and it was impossible for their small band to defeat Redhelwar’s army.

But each pinprick attack, each delay, sapped the army’s spirit.

Far more disheartening was the growing stream of refugees—more each day—that the army on its march encountered heading in the opposite direction. Winter—especially this winter—was no time for travel—yet with the Demon Army on the move, every village and smallholding within miles of its path had but one thought: Get away. They had packed everything they could—sometimes it was no more than the clothes on their backs—and were heading eastward toward the Elven Lands, hoping for refuge there.

Many of them did not make it. Riasen and Nithariel and the other scouting parties reported the discovery of body after frozen body in the snow.

Fear is doing the Demons’ work for Them, Kellen thought in anger. If this goes on much longer, there will be no one left alive to save.

But it was the living who truly tore his heart out, for there was nothing the army could do for them. They had no supplies to spare—not food, nor blankets, nor medicine, nor even heating charcoal. These were not fighters who could be absorbed into the Army’s ranks—even if there were weapons and armor to be found for them, not to mention supplies to feed them. These were cowed terrified farmers and laborers. There was nothing at all the Army could do but promise them that there was refuge farther east. They could have stripped their supplies train bare and not made a dent in the needs of the ragged, starving people they encountered, only destroyed themselves before they met the Enemy they were going to fight.

And They know it, Kellen brooded.

It was one more aspect of the War of the Spirit that was the real battlefield upon which this conflict was being fought. The Enemy wanted them to give up—to despair—long before the time came to raise their swords upon the battlefield. Each bloody meaningless death in a minor pointless skirmish, each child left to freeze in a snowbank, fueled the Demons’ power and sapped the Allies’ will to fight, and both sides knew it.

And there was nothing the Allied Army could do about it.

They could not split the army to go to the aid of the refugees, giving them safe escort back to the Elven Borders.

They could not give up their supplies to feed them.

From the very beginning Their strategy had been to fragment the Allies and the army, to reduce the Forces of the Light to a scattered handful of tiny, easily-disposed-of groups. No matter how subtle the trap, the Allies could not afford to let that happen. Not now, when their greatest—perhaps their last—battle lay just ahead.

But it was the hardest thing Kellen had ever done, or helped to do. Not only to ride past people in need, day by day, but to watch his friends wasting away before his eyes.

Cilarnen was the worst, because Kellen dared not think about Vestakia at all. She spent much of her time with Shalkan, guarded by the Unicorn Knights, drawing strength from Shalkan’s presence and steadfast love.

He hoped Shalkan was telling her how wise and brave and beautiful she was.

Cilarnen …

He only hoped that Cilarnen would die.

Not because he hated Cilarnen. In the past weeks, he had come to like him very much—admire him, in fact. Cilarnen had given up far more than Kellen had in Armethalieh to fight for what he believed was right. And Cilarnen still loved Armethalieh and the High Magick—so much that he was willing to fight them, for them.

If Cilarnen—one of the most privileged of Armethalieh’s citizens, with the most to lose by thinking for himself—could throw off the City’s brainwashing, that meant there was hope for everyone who still lived there.

But what Cilarnen was doing to work the High Magick now was horribly dangerous. He was the first to admit that he didn’t entirely understand it, and that what he did understand of it he was doing entirely wrong, without the years of training and preparation he should have had. The High Magick was not a toy to be played with, and in the end, what Cilarnen was doing could do worse than kill him.

It could burn out his Magegift forever, beyond any hope of repair.

For someone like Cilarnen, to live without magick would be worse than death.

And so they rode onward, each day bringing them closer to the City.

SHE could hardly tell the difference between waking and sleeping any longer.

The only time she was truly certain she was in the world any longer was in the early evening and morning, when she watched Cilarnen and the Unicorn Knights dancing over the snow.

They were beautiful, floating like stars.

She could feel their love.

“Tell him that I love him,” she had begged Shalkan, crying because she was so very tired.

“You know that I can’t,” the unicorn had answered, gently nuzzling his soft muzzle against her cheek. “Dry your tears, Vestakia. He mustn’t see you like this.”

She knew that. She was the daughter of a Wildmage. Her mother had paid the ultimate price so that Vestakia could live. So that the Prince of Shadow Mountain could not claim his prize.

He would not have her now.

She would not destroy the weapon the Wild Magic had forged against him.

And so, each day, she soothed her burning eyes with snow compresses, and went with Idalia to Redhelwar’s tent before the army began to move for the day. And there she told them what she had dreamed in the night.

Troop strengths. Dispositions. The details of raids on the surrounding countryside, if she knew them. Where They were, what They were doing, what They planned.

Always now, when she moved, she seemed to feel the rustle of great wings at her back.

“WE shall dispense with the regular order of business today,” Lycaelon Tavadon said. He glanced around the Council Chamber, at the six High Mages seated with him.

Lorins, Ganaret, Nagid, Dagan, Harith. All that remained of the old Council.

And Anigrel. His beloved son. The man who would save them all.

Harith, as always, his ally. Ganaret, always willing to endorse any project that involved exalting the Mageborn. Nagid, only interested in his own comfort at any expense. Lorins, a clever and ambitious man, had become one of Anigrel’s strongest supporters. Dagan … well, Dagan was on the verge of becoming Unsound. Anigrel had said so.

It might well be time for Dagan to retire into private life. The Council had never functioned so effectively as it had these past few moonturns. It would function even more efficiently with six than with seven.

“Lord High Mage?” Anigrel said. “What is your will?”

Lycaelon liked that. No argument about the proper forms. Perizel had always argued.

“You will all have seen the latest report from Barrowmede. Another of our villages lost to the work of the Wildmage menace. We dare not allow them to continue their destruction of our lands.”

Ganaret raised his hand for permission to speak.

“Lord Ganaret?” Lycaelon said graciously.

“With respect, Lord Arch-Mage, what spells are we to set to stop them? No Mage who has gone forth from the walls has ever returned.”

Lycaelon smiled. “An excellent point, Lord Ganaret. I do not propose to send our Mages against this devious foe. I propose an alliance, between Armethalieh and another ancient foe of the Wildmages. Even now this enemy fights them on their own ground. With the Council’s gracious approval, I shall invite them to come here, so that a formal treaty can be sealed between us, and together we can destroy our mutual foe.”

“But who are these people?” Lord Harith asked. “Why have we not heard of them before now?”

“With your permission, Lord Harith, I will tell you all I have learned,” Anigrel said modestly. For the next several minutes he told the High Council very much the same things he had told Lord Lycaelon—of a hidden race, strong in Magery, who, seeing Armethalieh about to go down to defeat at the hands of their ancient, hated enemy, had ended their millennia of cloistered isolation to attack their mutual foe.

“And now they will come here, to join their power to ours, if we will only ask them. Together we will have the strength to defeat the Wildmages for all time. I ask you, Mages of the High Council. Will you do it—for Armethalieh, and the Light?”

“I call the vote,” Lycaelon said.

It was unanimous, of course.

It always was, these days.

Their new allies were to be asked to come.

Lord Anigrel said that they called themselves The Enlightened.

Chapter Sixteen

The Battle for Armethalieh

THEY MOVED OVER the land like a plague of darkness, and in their wake, nothing lived, and nothing grew.

They moved slowly, but Savilla did not mind. After the recent setback in the Room of the Obsidian Spire, the destruction around her was balm to her senses. Soon every slight, every humiliation of the last thousand—ten thousand—years would be repaid a hundredfold.

From every corner of her shadowy empire, she had recalled her ancient servants—the Ice Trolls, the Frost Giants, the bestial dwerro. They marched now beneath her banners, just as it had been in the days of old, protected by the shimmering veils of Darkmagery through which the army moved. Far above the army, the giant white forms of Deathwings soared. Around them, Coldwarg darted in and out, searching for anything they might devour, and the towering Shadewalk-ers ranged farther still, herding terrified victims into the army’s path.

It was a glorious sight.

Far afield, the Elves, too, marched toward Armethalieh, thinking they would save it.

They did not know that even now, their pathetic attempts at succor were a part of her plan.

Let them reach Armethalieh.

Let them show themselves to the Mage-men of the Golden City.

Her pet had already sent word that the Mage-men intended to offer an alliance, but an alliance was no part of her plan. She wanted an utter capitulation. The sight of an army of their most hated foes ringing their treasured city should provide that. They would rush to open their gates to her then, doing whatever they had to, to make it possible for her to enter.

Or … better yet.

Let them come out to her.

Since the Starry Hunt had come back into the world, her darkest enchantments had lost much of their potency. It was only temporary, but it was one more insult that she intended to repay in full measure as soon as she had brought He Who Is into the world.

As soon as she had obtained a suitable sacrifice. A sacrifice of ultimate purity and power, offered up at a time and place that would not simply open a door between the worlds.

But would rend the veil between them asunder forever.

And then …

She could devote herself entirely to pleasure.

Her gaze fell upon the form of Prince Zyperis, where he soared over the marching column of subject races and Lesser Endarkened that marched beneath her banners.

Yes.

One of her greatest pleasures—soon, and for thousands of years to come—would be in schooling her son and lover to ultimate obedience. She had been forced to allow him far too much freedom while she was occupied with other, far more pressing matters.

Soon it would be time to call him to heel.

“THEY intend to make a Great Sacrifice at Kindling.”

Vestakia’s words were no more than a whisper.

It was the morning strategy meeting in Redhelwar’s tent.

Redhelwar’s tent was always the last thing to be packed, being bundled onto its wagon when the rest of the army was already starting to move. The meeting was the last thing held each morning—after Cilarnen had gotten in his hour or so of practice with the Unicorn Knights.

Cilarnen no longer spent his nights in spellcraft and meditation; in an army on the move, it was simply impossible, and he was devoting every minute he had to perfecting the spell that he and the Unicorn Knights would cast at Armethalieh. The only one who was not a part of that spell was Shalkan; once again, Shalkan’s own Mageprice set him apart.

In the moments Cilarnen could spare from working with the Unicorn Knights, he assembled the cantrips that would serve him best in the field, and—Kellen supposed—snatched an hour or two of sleep here and there, in Anganil’s saddle as often as not.

He looked as if he were dying of fever.

TODAY they had reached the edge of the Delfier Valley.

Armethalieh itself was only a few days away. Less, really, for the edge of the High Mage’s weather-spells was just ahead. They would cross them in a mile or so.

Behind them, the landscape still labored under deep winter and heavy snow. Ahead, at the valley’s westernmost entrance, there was less than a foot of snow upon the ground. Ancaladar had flown over the Delfier Valley yesterday—the Bounds did not keep anyone out as the Elven Landwards or the City-Wards did; they simply marked the edge of where spells of the High Magick could be cast—and said that everywhere he flew it was the same. Only the lightest dusting of snow covered the ground.

Here, the course of the Demons’ raids could be plainly seen. Ancaladar and Jermayan had reported seeing the burnt-out remains of several villages on their overflight. They could not name the villages that had been destroyed. Even Cilarnen could not do that. A proper young High Mage’s knowledge of geography stopped at the City Walls, and Cilarnen knew more of the geography of the Elven Lands than he did of the Delfier Valley just a few miles from the city where he had been born and raised.

Without Jermayan’s magic to shield them, he and Ancaladar had not dared approach Armethalieh closely, though Ancaladar was willing to risk such a flight tonight. The High Mages would be awake, and active, but their attention would be elsewhere. A black dragon against a black sky, flying quickly, would not be seen. And Ancaladar was still capable of seeing far more things than a human could.

“‘A Great Sacrifice,’” Idalia echoed, puzzled.

“He has just learned of it,” Vestakia said. “He is very … I am not sure what. She means to make it at a Place of Power somewhere near Armethalieh. He spies on Her. When She has made this Sacrifice She has spoken of, not even the Starry Hunt can keep He Who Is out of the world.”

Kellen looked at the others—Idalia, Jermayan, Cilarnen—inquiringly. Among them they represented—or had represented, in Jermayan’s case—all the forms of magic that existed in the world, and so represented a sort of informal Council-Within-a-Council in Redhelwar’s army. Everyone knew that the battle that would be joined—in only a few days, now at most—would be fought more with magic than with swords and lances, and High Mages and Wildmages had the best idea of the form a battle of magic would take.

“Well,” Idalia said slowly, “I suppose it isn’t hard to guess where She means to do it. There’s one of the old Places of Power in the Delfier Valley—a Shrine, like the one in the north where I summoned the Starry Hunt. The one in the Delfier Valley belongs to Men, but unfortunately for us, all the Shrines are completely neutral. Anyone can use them, and for any purpose, even a bad one. I’m not entirely certain where it is exactly, though I could find it if I had to; it’s been forgotten for longer than the walls of the City have stood.”

“Kindling is only a day or two away,” Kellen said slowly. “That doesn’t give us much time. But what’s a ‘Great Sacrifice’? Is it something you do? Or something you have?”

“It’s—I’m not sure,” Cilarnen said. “But if I had to guess from what’s in my old books—and from the look on your face, I’d better—it would be a person. Someone who symbolizes the Land Itself. And considering what we know about Them and how Their magic works, I’d say it would be a blood sacrifice.”

“A King would be the only one who could symbolize the Land,” Kellen said. “But Andoreniel is safe in the Elven Lands. And Sandalon is safe in the Fortress of the Crowned Horns. So is Ashaniel, for that matter. And there aren’t any other kings.”

Idalia frowned. “The Centaurs don’t have Kings. Not any more. No Centaur She could sacrifice at the Delfier Shrine would symbolize the Land. The same holds for the Mountainfolk, because whoever She tried to sacrifice at the Delfier Shrine at Kindling, She’d have to find someone the Shrine itself would recognize as a King of Men—isn’t that right, Cilarnen?”

“Magic has rules,” Cilarnen said firmly. “Well, the High Magick does. And what I read about the Great Sacrifice was in a book about the High Magick—or its ancestor, anyway. So I’d say that this old form follows a lot of the same rules as what I do. The Sacrifice can’t be just anybody. It has to be a specific somebody. At a specific time. The best and most powerful sacrifices—the only kind my book talks about, actually—went willingly, joining their personal power to the Land’s power for the good of all, but I really don’t think that’s going to happen. And I think … She doesn’t have Her sacrifice yet. Or She’d already have taken the shrine and just be waiting on top of it for the right time.”

“She doesn’t want Him to know,” Vestakia said softly. Her voice was dreamlike, as if she were still asleep. “And … I don’t know who the sacrifice is, but… I know that what She does will give Her a lot of power. And I think it frightens Him.”

“It would frighten anyone,” Kellen said quietly. “We’ll stop it.” He spoke with more certainty than he felt, but he could not bear the sight of her pinched, haunted, face.

Suddenly she gasped and doubled over.

“They’re coming!” she said. “They’re approaching from the south.”

“To horse,” Redhelwar said quietly. “We must reach Armethalieh before Them.”

LESS than an hour later they crossed over into the Delfier Valley, and the army’s speed increased.

Their army was still too far away too see—at the far end of the valley, coming up the southern road, the one Cilarnen had taken toward Stonehearth many moonturns ago—but everyone in the army, whether they had magic or not, now could sense Their approach. It was as if the air were filled with a constant irritating whine, and there were a shadow over the face of the sun. Half the outriders had dropped back simply to keep the horse herds from bolting, and even the normally stolid oxen, the last creatures to be affected by anything, were on the verge of panic.

But Idalia and the other Wildmage Healers had been preparing for this all the way here. At the first stop of the day, they moved through the army and the herds, distributing doses of the same bright green cordial Kellen had been dosed with by Shalkan when he began his climb to the Black Cairn. It shut down the magical senses—even in the nonmagical—and made the presence of the Demons easier to bear.

“How much is there?” Kellen asked.

Idalia had brought a large bucket of faintly green-tinged water to where he and his troop were resting. After all of the Elves had drunk a cup—Kellen, of course, did not—the destriers were each encouraged to drink a bowlful. As Kellen recalled from Shalkan’s explanation, it would taste good to them, and calm their nerves.

“Enough to dose the worst cases at full strength for three days, and to take the edge off the entire army for the same time. We’ve put it in the drinking water, by Redhelwar’s command. Don’t worry. There are a few barrels of pure water left for the Wildmages. Or you can melt snow.”

“If I can find any,” Kellen said, looking around. After the landscape he’d been riding through most of the winter, this looked like high summer. “Did you give some to Vestakia?”

“She refused.”

“Make her take it. Or I’ll come and pour it down her throat myself.”

Idalia opened her mouth to protest. Kellen cut her off.

“We need what she can still tell us. And she needs rest. We already know that They’re there, and where They’re going. If They attack us in the next few hours, I’m sure we’ll notice without any extra warning.”

Idalia smiled. “I’ll tell her you said so.”

“Just tell her she has to take it.”

“I will.” Idalia picked up the empty bucket and moved on.

AS they rode deeper into the Delfier Valley, it became apparent to the Allies that the Demons did not mean to engage. Everyone knew how fast They could move—especially the Endarkened themselves, covering miles in seconds. Yet They held back, allowing the Allies to push on down the Western Road toward Armethalieh without opposition.

“What are They planning?” Kellen demanded.

He was riding beside Redhelwar, at the front of the Allied Army. Soon they would have to stop to make camp. It was possible the attack would come then. Though the Demons marched—and flew—in the day, many of those who marched beneath Their banner were creatures of the night.

And tomorrow—if they survived the night—the army would reach Armethalieh.

“Perhaps to have all of Their enemies in one place before They destroy them,” Redhelwar answered, falling easily into the informality of War Manners.

“But They don’t want to destroy Armethalieh. They want to devour it. It’s us They want to destroy,” Kellen said.

“Does the Wild Magic not counsel you?” Redhelwar asked. There was an undertone of worry in his voice.

“It doesn’t suggest I’m doing anything I shouldn’t be doing—or that you aren’t,” Kellen said. “So I suppose we’re both doing what we ought to be right now by going straight ahead. If Ancaladar can make a flight over the City tonight, we’ll have fresher news. And Cilarnen intends to scry, to see what’s going on with the Council. They have to know that there are two armies out here. They’ll be meeting in an Emergency Session tonight, more than likely. He’ll be able to find out what they’re talking about.”

“And perhaps tomorrow he can speak to them in person, and bring them to their senses,” Redhelwar said.

“I hope so,” Kellen said grimly.

THEY set up camp in expectation of being attacked at any moment, with a third of the camp on watch at all times. It was all they could do; they dared not march through the night. The Demon army was more than human. They were only flesh and bone. Even if Coldfire would allow them to see in the night, they dared not arrive at the sight of the battle unfed and exhausted.

Kellen was up at the Unicorn Camp. Not only did being there allow him to spend time with Shalkan, he would be nearby when Cilarnen finished doing … whatever it was that Cilarnen did. He wasn’t really in the mood to sleep, anyway. And his troop had the second watch, the hardest of the night. He’d sleep for a few hours after that, he promised himself.

Every now and again he glanced over at Cilarnen’s wagon. It seemed to glow faintly, though there was no actual light showing.

“You’ll wear yourself out with all that staring,” Shalkan told him.

The closeness of the Demons affected everyone. It was as if Their mere presence was a beacon, radiating despair. But the unicorns, of course, were the hardest hit by Their nearness. Shalkan’s fur twitched constantly, as if invisible flies were stinging him, and his tufted tail was in constant motion, though he made no reference to the cause.

“I know,” Kellen said, sighing. “I just wonder what he’s doing.”

“If you’d stayed in the City, you’d know, of course,” the unicorn reminded him.

Kellen shuddered faintly, and not from the cold. Shalkan snickered, but his ears twitched, raising and flattening, as if he were trying to find relief from an itch he couldn’t reach.

Cilarnen obviously adored the High Magick, every single finicking rule and regulation of it.

Kellen would rather be wrapped in chains and drowned.

“I can tell exactly what you’re thinking, you know,” Shalkan said.

“Is it that obvious?” Kellen asked ruefully. He was willing to endure more than usual of his friend’s teasing tonight, if it could distract Shalkan from his own discomfort.

“Be glad that the requirements of Knight-Magery do not include concealing your feelings, or you’d never manage it.”

“If it was something Master Belesharon wanted me to learn, believe me, I’d learn it,” Kellen said feelingly. “I can still feel the bruises I got in the House of Sword and Shield.”

He sighed again, and looked upward. The night was clear—the High Mage’s weather-spells saw to that—and it almost seemed as if he could see the Starry Hunt riding across the sky. The air here swirled with Power, and not all of it was Dark. When they did face the Demon Army, they would have powerful allies.

But… powerful enough?

“Light blast and curse them all!”

Cilarnen came stamping down out of his Mage-wagon, wearing nothing but a thin woolen shift.

He regarded Kellen sourly—looking like the oldest and crankiest High Mage in all of Armethalieh—and continued across the camp—barefoot—to his tent.

When he emerged, several minutes later, he was dressed, but in no better humor. He accepted a mug of tea from Menerchel, and came over to Kellen.

“Nothing,” he said succinctly.

“They weren’t meeting?” Kellen asked.

“I mean I could see nothing,” Cilarnen said. “Not even the surrounding countryside!” He drank tea, obviously extremely frustrated. “I don’t think it’s because They are doing anything to Shield Themselves. And I really hope They can’t be shielding the City. I just think there’s too much Power around. It makes it impossible to see. You’ll have to hope Ancaladar can give you better information.”

“You did all you could,” Kellen said.

“What good is that if I couldn’t do what you need?” Cilarnen demanded. He took a deep breath and drained his mug. “I need to go check my spellbooks. There are some other things I need to prepare for the morning.”

“Charming company, High Mages,” Shalkan said, when Cilarnen had gone.

“He’s working too hard,” Kellen said, as if that were something they didn’t both already know. “He’s trying to do the impossible. And he thinks it’s his fault that the High Mages are all idiots. I don’t think it’s his fault.”

“So you forgive him?” Shalkan asked. He raised a hind hoof, and set it down again, carefully.

“I never blamed him,” Kellen said.

He was surprised to discover, when he said it, that it was the truth.

And always had been.

ANCALADAR returned from his overflight of Armethalieh just before Kellen was about to go on watch. He and Jermayan had even more bad news.

The only good news Ancaladar brought was that he could—even now—see the Wards around the City.

They had been changed. Even if the army reached the City walls unopposed, it could never enter, even if the gates were opened to them.

The Wards now blocked the entry of Elves, Wildmages, Centaurs, Other-folk … of all who rode with the Allied Army, only a few of the Mountainfolk and Wildlanders would be able to enter, and they would probably be killed by the City Guard and the Militia.

If the Allied Army actually reached the City, it would be trapped against its walls as if they were a high cliff.

And beyond Armethalieh was the sea.

THE army marched before first light. There was no time this morning for Cilarnen’s practice—if the unicorns weren’t ready now to do what he was going to ask of them, they never would be. Kellen only hoped they would be able to do what Cilarnen asked of them even with the Demon Army right in front of them. None of them had considered the effect the Demons would have on the unicorns.

Because no one has faced a Demon army in a thousand years. And no matter how good the records are that the Elves have kept of the Last War, information—vital information—has been lost.

Perhaps War Mages could have Shielded the unicorns.

If they’d had enough of them.

It was too late to worry about that now.

The only encouraging news—though it was more than a bit puzzling, and right now none of them was in a mood for mysteries—was that the Demon Army had not attacked in the night. Every mile they rode today would bring them closer to Armethalieh, and after a certain point, there would be no way the sounds and sight of a battle could fail to reach the attention of the High Mages—and, probably, everyone else inside the City, considering the tactics the Demons would undoubtedly use on the battlefield.

If it was still the Demons’ intention to take Armethalieh through trickery and misdirection, They would not dare attack the Allied Army where the Armethaliehans had any chance of seeing the battle while the City Wards were even partially in place. If the High Mages, even cowed and befuddled as Cilarnen had reported them to be, figured out that there were Demons outside their walls, they would probably join forces even with Elves to fight Them, and that would put an end to the Demons’ plans to subvert the City through deception.

“THEY’RE gone!”

Vestakia’s scream was a wail of pure terror, rousing Idalia from an uneasy sleep inside the Healer’s wagon. She’d been awake all night, ministering to the army with the senses-dampening cordial. She’d persuaded Vestakia to take an initial dose of the pure cordial—in the name of getting a few hours’ sleep; Kellen was right about that—but after that Vestakia had refused to take any more. She was right about that, too.

“Vestakia? Who’s gone?”

“Them. Their army. Idalia, I can’t sense Them anywhere.”

Idalia was suddenly completely awake. “I’ll go tell Redhelwar.”

THEY had moved through the night, her pets, her children, her slaves. All of those who could not disguise their true nature she had sent to wait at the Place of Sacrifice, under the command of her son and lover. Tomorrow night she would make the Great Sacrifice that would rend the Veil forever.

In company of the rest of her Court—some in the form of humans, some in the form of horses—Savilla had ridden at last to the walls of her greatest prize. It was nearly within her grasp at last.

And before she had gone, she had done one last thing.

It was a powerful spell. It had required the sacrifice of all of the captives they had collected along their march. But for a few brief hours—as the Brightworlders reckoned time—their very essence would be masked from any who might sense them for what they truly were.

Time enough and more to take into her hands the last of her pawns and playing pieces.

“MY Lord Arch-Mage.”

Lycaelon smiled. “You are very formal with me this morning, Anigrel.”

“It is a day for the greatest of formality, Lord Arch-Mage, for it is a day that will change the future of Armethalieh forever. The delegation of the Enlightened has arrived. They await us outside the walls. Let us ride forth and escort them into the City.”

He had spent last night in communion with his Dark Lady, preparing for this moment. She was very near now. Soon he would behold her face, flesh to flesh, for the first time in his life.

He would give her Lycaelon.

Then he would return to the City, alone, to tell the High Council that the Wildmages had captured and killed the Arch-Mage. He would tell them that an emergency Working must be done to strengthen the Wards upon the walls.

But he would not strengthen them. He would destroy them completely.

The time for subtlety was nearly past.

But just now, a little subtlety was still needed. Enough to overshadow Lycaelon’s will, to convince the Arch-Mage that it was, indeed, a very good idea to ride out with Anigrel to meet these new allies…

IDALIA rode up to Redhelwar and Kellen. It was two hours before noon. The walls of Armethalieh were already visible in the distance.

“They’re not going to attack,” she heard Kellen saying, as she approached.

“In fact, Vestakia can’t sense Them at all any longer all of a sudden,” Idalia said. “Though somehow I doubt that They’ve left. And the dose of potion I gave her wore off hours ago.”

“They haven’t,” Kellen said concisely. “Jermayan may not be able to speak from Ancaladar’s back any longer, but he can still talk.” He pointed up toward the sky where, high above, Ancaladar’s black form circled. Intermittently, flashes of light appeared, as if Jermayan were holding … a mirror?

“Jermayan knows the mirror code,” Kellen explained, “and here, where the skies are clear all day and the air is always calm, he can use it. I can’t read it, but Dionan and Redhelwar can. Jermayan says that They have split the army. Most of Them are about twenty miles off in that direction—” He pointed.

Idalia groaned faintly. “That’s about where I think the Delfier Shrine is. Too bad we couldn’t afford to put part of the army on top of it to defend it.”

“They’d have been slaughtered where they stood,” Kellen said simply. “It’s more important to take the City, and keep Them from getting Their hands on the Great Sacrifice—whatever it is—and taking it to the Shrine, than to try to hold the Shrine. Especially since that’s something we couldn’t do anyway.”

“Kellen,” Redhelwar said suddenly. “They’re opening the City Gates.”

In the distance, Kellen could just make out the Delfier Gates beginning to move. Not the Lesser Gates, the ones that were opened for the Farm Caravans—and to cast out Outlaws—but the Great Gates themselves, the ones that stood as high as the City Walls.

“They’re going to ride outside the walls?” Kellen demanded in disbelief. “Somebody get Cilarnen.”

BY the time Cilarnen had ridden to the top of the column, the gates were almost completely open. Cilarnen stared, as disbelieving of the sight as Kellen.

“The Great Gate hasn’t been opened in … even Master Hendassar wasn’t sure of the last time it had been opened,” Cilarnen said in awe. “They must have seen us, and be planning to attack us. I think—I hope—I can Shield well enough to stop the first attack; once they recognize they’re facing High Magick, they might break off,” he added. But he didn’t sound certain.

“And if Ancaladar makes a pass over them, their horses certainly won’t stand.”

“That’s true enough,” Kellen agreed. Fortunately, they didn’t have to try to figure out a way to tell Jermayan to try that. Jermayan had been trained in the House of Sword and Shield for far longer than Kellen had; if Cilarnen could think of something like that, certainly Jermayan would, too.

“Line halt. Skirimishers to the fore,” Redhelwar said.

The horns echoed back down the column.

“Here they come,” Cilarnen said nervously, as the first horses came through the gates—still miles away—at a slow walk. “City Militia. Wait. They’re carrying the Arch-Mage’s banner. I recognize House Tavadon’s colors. And Lord Anigrel is with him—see the cadet pennon? They shouldn’t be here.”

“Oh, Gods of the Wild Magic,” Idalia groaned. “Who symbolizes the Land in Armethalieh but the Arch-Mage of the City? Lycaelon is to be the Great Sacrifice! Anigrel must have told him some tale to convince him to come outside the walls where They could get at him!”

“Look,” Kellen said, pointing. “There They are.”

Another group of riders had just come out of the forest, directly opposite the City gates and the emerging High Mages.

There were perhaps twenty of Them. Once They had taken Their position, They stopped and sat perfectly still. Their horses were whiter than snow, as were Their flowing garments. Even Their hair was white. They wore no armor, carried no weapons. They radiated beauty and calm purity.

“Stop the Armethaliehans before they reach Them,” Redhelwar said.

Dionan blew the order. Skirmishers to the charge.

KELLEN and the other skirmishing units galloped across the snow at a dead run, the only thought on anyone’s mind to reach the Armethaliehan party before it could reach the White Riders.

Kellen knew what this must look like to those watching from the walls: an attack—by the Elves—on the Arch-Mage and his escort.

He couldn’t allow that to matter to him. There would be time later to explain. Right now, they had to stop the Demons from getting Their hands on the one thing They needed to win.

EVEN though the skirmishing units were farther from the Armethaliehans than the Armethaliehans were from the White Riders, for a few moments it actually looked as if they would reach them first. The Armethaliehan party was moving forward at a slow ceremonial walk, and the White Riders were not moving at all.

Kellen’s first hope was that the sight of sixty Elven Knights bearing down on them at a thundering gallop would simply cause the Armethaliehans to turn and dash back inside their walls. It would have been the smartest thing to do.

But the City Militia that formed Lycaelon’s honor guard had no concept of warfare or proper tactics. When they saw the enemy approaching they stopped, milled uncertainly for a moment, then formed a protective barricade around Lycaelon and Anigrel, stopping dead where they were. He saw Lycaelon raise his staff of office.

“Scatter!” Kellen shouted. He urged Firareth to an even faster pace as the riders around him broke ranks in every direction.

The lightning bolt struck just where he’d been a moment before. He saw Lycaelon reel back with the effort of casting so powerful a spell, and consoled himself with the knowledge that Lycaelon—unlike Cilarnen—probably did not have more lightning bolts in reserve.

Now the White Riders spurred Their mounts forward.

IF They had dared to take on Their true forms, it would have been a slaughter instead of merely a battle, but here, so close to the walls, They must continue to seem to be human.

Kellen dropped instantly into Battle-mind.

It was unlike any of his previous experiences. This time the double-sight did not come, overlaying his vision of the enemy with a map of their potential attacks and his. This time, it was as if he simply surrendered himself completely to the Wild Magic, becoming a tool for it to move as it willed. He felt fully alive, fully aware, fully present—but his volition had become a part of a force far greater than himself.

He could see—could feel—every one of his own people around him, as much a part of himself as his sword, or the fingers of his own hand. He shouted orders, moving them into position for the attack. Far behind him, he sensed that Redhelwar, seeing that the first assault had failed, was sending reinforcements. Kellen noted their kind and number, and when they would arrive, and returned to solving the puzzle of the battle. The proper solution would lead to victory.

This enemy could not be killed.

But it must pretend to be killed, hurt, driven back.

Because the Armethaliehans were watching from the walls of the City, and there was still a need for deception.

The Elven Knights drove into the middle of the White Riders, slashing at them frantically. If they could only reach Lycaelon’s Militia …

But even now, beyond the press of the shining white horses, Kellen could see that a few of the White Riders had refrained from joining battle with the Elves. They were urging Lycaelon and his guard onward, into the forest.

Fifteen against sixty. And despite those odds, the Elven Knights were taking the worst of it. The white horses fought as viciously as their riders, kicking and snapping and rearing. It was only the fact that the two forces were so thoroughly intermingled by now that kept any of the High Mages watching the battle from the walls from using spells of their own, Kellen was sure. And cantrips such as Cilarnen possessed took time to prepare. The one that Lycaelon had used must be the only one he had. Anigrel might not have any at all.

All around him he could hear the shouts of battle and the screams of the dying.

He closed with a White Rider. Light At The Heart Of The Mountain rang as it slid up the enemy’s blade. The two stallions jockeyed for position, their bodies slamming bruisingly against each other as they circled and snapped.

Suddenly there was an earth-shattering roar as the air split; a blinding flash of light. Lightning struck the ground—once, twice—between the retreating Militia and the forest.

Kellen did not need to turn his head to see. He already knew—had known from the moment he had given his first orders—that help was coming. Cilarnen and the Wildmages had arrived.

The Militia turned and broke, then—not even the White Riders accompanying them could prevent it. Their horses—Anigrel and Lycaelon were still with them—turned and bolted for the still-open City gates.

But by now the tide of battle had swept through that area, and the panicked animals were running directly into a tangle of Elven cavalry that was being cut to pieces by a cluster of White Riders. They had been forced so close to the City walls by their foes that they were under attack from the guards on the walls as well, and their losses were heavy.

Suddenly there was another flash—not of lightning this time.

And now Kellen faced, not a White Rider and his moon-pale stallion, but two Demons with glowing yellow eyes and great scarlet wings.

Firareth gathered himself on his haunches and sprang backward. Kellen slashed downward with his sword. The Demon lashed out—

And Shalkan was suddenly between him and the blow.

Every hair on the unicorn’s body was fluffed out like a cat’s. A sound Kellen had never heard the unicorn make came from Shalkan’s throat. He hissed.

The Demons—both of them—leaped back.

The Unicorn Knights had arrived.

Now they had a chance, because the Demons dared not allow the Unicorn Knights anywhere near them.

The Elven Knights were desperately trying to disengage, attempting to clear the way for the Armethaliehans to get back into the City. But now that they had seen the true face of the enemy, the Militia was attempting—in a gesture as gallant as it was hopeless—to stand and fight.

The Demons cut them down in seconds. Kellen saw two of the towering winged creatures grab Anigrel and Lycaelon and launch Themselves into the air.

There was another flicker as the spell the Wildmages had cast ebbed and died, and the Demons were gone. The White Riders appeared in their place once more. Kellen looked for the two in the sky, and could not find them—then saw, far in the distance, two white horses running at top speed into the trees, each bearing on its back a rider in the robes of an Armethaliehan High Mage.

The Allies had lost.

The Demons had gained Their sacrifice.

The remaining White Riders weren’t attacking any longer, but now allowing the Unicorn Knights to drive them off. In fact, they were fleeing the battlefield.

He realized he was still shouting orders as the Battle-mind ebbed and left him. Retreat—regroup—rescue the wounded. Shalkan and the Unicorn Knights had already retreated from the battlefield. Now it was up to the survivors of the rescue attempt to escape the killing ground before they were attacked by the High Mages.

Of those who had ridden out against the White Riders, two-thirds were dead.

“WE have to get into the City and talk sense into these people,” Idalia said grimly, when Kellen had returned with the remains of his force. “The Sacrifice will be tonight—at midnight; Kindling Eve—but we can stop it if we can get enough of the High Mages to help. And for that, we have to get into the City.”

“Then it’s up to the Unicorn Knights and me,” Cilarnen said. “We’ll take the Wards down, and then Ancaladar can open the Gates.”

“They’ll shoot at you from the walls,” Kellen said. “They can’t be sure of what they saw, but they’re sure of one thing. We’re the enemy. And the Arch-Mage has just been kidnapped—and as far as they know, killed.”

“Then we’ll have to dodge,” Cilarnen said simply.

“How will we know when your spell has run its course?” Redhelwar asked.

“Oh, you’ll know,” Cilarnen said. “Believe me, you’ll know.”

“We had best move the rest of the army up into position outside the City,” Redhelwar said. “Perhaps it will dismay them.”

Cilarnen went to prepare the Unicorn Knights.

Redhelwar gave the Elven Army the order to deploy itself for battle.

THIS is it, Kellen thought. Not the final battle itself, but surely the beginning of it. The army made its dispositions: infantry, light cavalry, heavy cavalry, the remains of its skirmishing units. All deployed around Armethalieh, a city they must both protect, and defend themselves from, in the event the High Mages chose to attack.

Redhelwar did not plan a line of retreat. There would be no retreat from this battle.

There was nowhere to go.

“LEAF and Star—and the Light—go with you,” Redhelwar said to Cilarnen.

The young High Mage sat on Anganil’s back. The black stallion danced in place, eager to be gone. A few hundred yards away the Unicorn Knights stood, waiting.

“Good luck,” Kellen said quietly.

Cilarnen nodded, saying nothing.

Then he turned, spurring Anganil forward.

Kellen rode out to stand with Shalkan. And to wait.

THE unicorns spread out behind Cilarnen, running single-file at first. Any of them could easily have outpaced Anganil, but they didn’t.

“It’s a dance, not a race.”

Kellen remembered Cilarnen saying that. Now he was dancing for the lives of everyone in the land.

They ran down toward the walls of Armethalieh. Suddenly Anganil turned and pivoted in his tracks, turning back the other way. The twenty unicorns gave way before him, and in moments he was followed by a double column of ten.

Turned again.

Circled.

Turned back toward the walls, the unicorns following in single file once more. And now their coats seemed to be glowing more brightly than they had been a moment before.

Pivot, stop, circle, turn … it was like watching a flock of birds in flight, and with each figure, the unicorns glowed brighter. Soon Anganil was glowing, too, and finally Kellen began to have an idea of what it was he was seeing.

They were a wand. Cilarnen and the unicorns were a wand. He was using them all to draw an enormous glyph—on the land, instead of in the air. They were dancing it.

And when it was complete, the spell would be cast.

They reached the walls of the City, but they still didn’t run in a straight line. Backward, forward, spinning and turning; if Anganil had not been an Elven-bred destrier trained for war, he would already have foundered.

How long could they keep that up?

How long did they have to keep that up?

The line of unicorns—and one destrier—disappeared around the curve of the wall.

“Wait. Where are they going?” Kellen asked.

“To ride three times around the City walls,” Shalkan replied quietly.

“But… the docks are on the seaside of the City,” Kellen said. He knew the docks well. They’d been his favorite place in the City. A unicorn could navigate them easily; he’d never yet seen the terrain a unicorn couldn’t get over. But he couldn’t imagine riding even an Elven destrier over the docks.

“Cilarnen will manage,” Shalkan said. “He has to.”

Even with them out of sight, Kellen could feel the spell build. It was an odd sensation. He knew what he was feeling had to be High Magick, since the spell was Cilarnen’s, and Cilarnen was a High Mage. Normally—at least since he’d become a Wildmage—Kellen couldn’t sense the workings of the High Magick any more than Cilarnen could sense the Wild Magic. The one time he’d been in contact with High Magick and had sensed it—in the spell of Kindolhinadetil’s Mirror—it had just hurt.

This was different.

It was as if there were something important, and maybe interesting, and not all that bad, just out of reach.

If Cilarnen was right, a long time ago—a very long time ago—High Mages and Wildmages had worked closely together. Hard as it was to believe, Idalia said that their magic had all once come from the same place.

“Where are they?” Kellen muttered.

“It’s a big place, your City. Give them time,” Shalkan said.

Suddenly Cilarnen and his dancers burst out on the other side of the City, all of them running side-by-side.

Kellen saw archers run to the walls. The High Mages who had been there during the battle with the White Riders had long since departed—probably to discuss what it could possibly mean in great detail somewhere much safer.

And then Ancaladar plummeted down out of the sky.

The City Wards would keep him from descending to the walls themselves, but the City Guard didn’t know that. The great black dragon made a pass over the City, as low as he could.

Kellen heard screaming. The archers fled from the walls.

“Won’t do a lot for our position as their saviors, but it will keep Cilarnen from getting shot,” Shalkan commented.

“Right now that’s all I’m worried about,” Kellen said fervently. “Let’s just hope they don’t figure out there’s nothing Ancaladar can actually do.”

“Hard to figure out anything when you’re hiding under a bed,” Shalkan replied.

SECOND circuit. Now trails of colored light followed the unicorns, hanging in the air behind them as they ran. Somehow Kellen had expected them to make the same moves this time as before, but they didn’t. The passages were more elaborate, different, conducted at a faster pace. They moved as if they were sets of human dancers, tracing elaborate figures across the trampled ground.

And once more they vanished around the curve of the wall.

Ancaladar was still wheeling and swooping over the City, like an enormous and terrifying bird of prey. It would be someone very brave—or very foolish—who dared to go up on the walls to shoot at the unicorns.

Or a High Mage.

Why don’t the High Mages attack? Kellen wondered. In their place, he would have given such an order long ago.

But without the Arch-Mage—or Anigrel—he suspected there was no one left in the City willing to take the risk of doing so. From everything Cilarnen had told him about what had happened in Armethalieh in recent moonturns, the place was even more hidebound than it had been when he left. Now nobody dared to do anything without the High Council’s express permission. And the High Council didn’t dare to do anything without the Arch-Mage and the Mage-wardens’ approval. And Anigrel controlled the Magewardens.

So at the moment, nobody in Armethalieh probably dared to do anything at all.

Again Cilarnen and the unicorns appeared, this time enmeshed in a web of colored light. It trailed behind them, the streamers taking longer now to fade away, and the unicorns’ bodies glowed so brightly that they cast shadows against the pale stone walls of Armethalieh, even in the winter sunlight. Anganil was covered in foam—Kellen could see that much from where he stood, and he could imagine the rest; how the black stallion’s lungs labored for air, his sides heaving with exertion as he fought for breath.

“This is the last circuit,” Shalkan said.

“If Anganil should fall …” Kellen said.

“It will all have been for nothing,” Shalkan said, “if they cannot complete the last circuit of the spell.”

Now the unicorns turned and spun in the most elaborate set of figures yet, with Cilarnen and Anganil at their center. The black stallion ran in a straight line now, parallel to the walls, just far enough from them that the Unicorn Knights could weave back and forth around him.

“Someone’s going up on the walls,” Kellen said.

In the distance, he saw three figures ascend the walls, their upper bodies just visible over the top. Robed Mages. Over their gray robes, they wore the black tabards of Magewardens.

He heard Redhelwar call out to the archers to prepare to loose, but at this distance, the shot was an almost impossible one, and any arrow that fell short might hit one of the unicorns.

Suddenly one of the standing figures fell, an arrow through his shoulder. The others looked skyward, pointing.

Jermayan.

Ancaladar could not penetrate the City Wards, but an Elven arrow could.

And Jermayan was an expert marksman.

The two remaining Magewardens hesitated. Jermayan fired again—apparently a warning shot, as neither fell. Ancaladar swooped as low as he could.

They fled, carrying their wounded comrade.

Cilarnen and the unicorns passed around the curve of the City walls for the last time.

“They will try to stop him at the docks,” Kellen guessed.

“If they dare,” Shalkan said. “Ancaladar can be … very persuasive when he tries.”

“Then we’ve got to assume he’ll succeed. And we must prepare to enter the City.”

“Good luck,” Shalkan said. “I’ll see you when the battle is over.”

Kellen hugged his friend—it might be for the last time, but he had to believe that it wouldn’t be—burying his face for a moment in the soft fur of Shalkan’s neck. Just for a moment, he inhaled the spicy cinnamon scent of unicorn. Then he took his helmet from Firareth’s saddle and settled it into place, mounted Firareth, and rode back to take his position with the Elven Army.

Shalkan trotted away.

AS he rode back toward the army, it felt as if he rode through water. All around him he could feel Cilarnen’s spell building to its climax. It made his skin itch, made the air he drew into his lungs feel thicker than fog. He wondered if the other Wildmages could sense it as well.

Idalia and Vestakia were waiting with Redhelwar. Vestakia was barely able to stay in her saddle. She was nearly doubled-over in pain and weakness, though Kellen doubted that she sensed the High Magick at all. Kellen did his best to ignore her distress, knowing that his indifference was the only help he could give her now.

“You’ll need to see me to the gates, brother dear. Then, I expect, your place is here.” Idalia shook her head, as if flies buzzed around her. “Not long,” she said, sounding hopeful.

Kellen nodded. Soon Cilarnen’s spell would work or it wouldn’t—and either way, this wave of High Magick that surrounded them would crest and break.

They’d talked about having him accompany Idalia into the City to talk to the High Mages, but his battle skills were too vital to the army. Jermayan would go with her, and Cilarnen. If Cilarnen of House Volpiril could not convince the Mages of Armethalieh to ally themselves with the Allied Army against the Demons after what they’d seen today, then no one could.

“Vestakia?”

The fact that she was here—rather than back with the Healers—must mean that she had something that needed to be said. She was stubborn—it was what had kept her alive all these years—but she wasn’t foolish. She wouldn’t take risks that didn’t need to be taken.

“He will attack soon. She is keeping most of Them with Her. At the Shrine. But there are others He can call upon. I cannot sense Them, but… She does not want Him to attack, but He will, I think.” Vestakia forced the words out in effortful gasps, as beads of sweat ran down her face.

“Then it is time for me to give you this,” Redhelwar said, holding out his hand to Kellen.

On Redhelwar’s palm rested the green-stoned ring he had gotten from Andoreniel.

“This is your time, Kellen,” Redhelwar said. “Use us all well, in the name of Leaf and Star.”

He had never meant for this to happen, but as Kellen stared at the ring, a sense of rightness, of inevitability, settled over him.

This was the moment he had been training for, had been shaped for, from the moment he had been born. Every person he had ever known, everything he had ever done, had led him to this day, this hour.

He took the ring, and with it the command of the entire Elven Army.

“The gods of the Wild Magic guide us all, Redhelwar,” he said softly. He slipped the ring into his belt pouch.

“Vestakia, go and wait with the Healers. Redhelwar, you must see Idalia to the City gates. Isinwen, my compliments to Nithariel, and it would please me greatly if she would see if the Enemy is indeed moving up to prepare for battle. Dionan and Ninolion, I wish to change the dispositions of the troops; you will oblige me by telling the Centaurs they are to take the center, Wildmages in their center. The Knights will flank; split them evenly by commands. I will send further orders once you have begun. Adaerion, please bring me Belepheriel at once.”

“I see them,” Idalia said, looking behind him. “Cilarnen’s riders.”

Kellen barely glanced up; he was still giving orders. If they were about to be hit, they were not, by Leaf and Star, going to be in the same positions they’d been in a thousand years ago. With the heavy cavalry-infantry—the Centaurs—as their center, they could absorb the first assault of the Enemy and hammer it with the fast-moving flanking wings of Elven cavalry, rather than having the cavalry hemmed in by the slower-moving Centaurs.

But suddenly the wave of magick … broke.

Kellen reined Firareth around.

The Unicorn Knights had swirled to a stop in front of the Gates of Armethalieh. And for a moment, the City Walls themselves glowed brighter than the sun in the sky.

Then the light faded.

The Unicorn Knights turned away. Anganil began to walk, very slowly, back toward the Allied lines. His head was hanging and his sides heaved. Cilarnen dismounted and led him as the Unicorn Knights formed a protective honor guard. The stallion had truly given his all for the spell.

And there was a creaking, crackling, crashing sound from within the walls of the City itself.

“The towers are falling,” Idalia said, very quietly.

Armethalieh was known as the City of a Thousand Bells, and most of those bells were suspended high in lacy decorative spires.

Set by magick. Worked by magick. Held in place by magick.

Cilarnen hadn’t just taken down the Wards of the City Gates.

His spell had removed the Mage-spells from the entire City.

And now the towers that were sustained by magick were crumbling to earth.

With the Wards gone at last, Ancaladar settled on the wall and leaned over the edge of the Gate.

“Time to go,” Idalia said.

“You’d better take Cilarnen another horse,” Kellen said.

“We’ll ride double,” Idalia said. “Not much use for horses in the City, as I recall.”

“Good luck,” Kellen said.

“Leaf and Star,” Idalia answered.

She and Redhelwar rode out to meet Cilarnen.

“Go and take Anganil,” Kellen said to Reyezeyt. “The unicorns won’t be able to approach the army.”

He returned to giving orders.

PRINCE Zyperis stood in the midst of his army. His beloved Queen and Mama had given him command of all but the Dark Guard itself. Them she had taken with her to winnow the remaining villages in the Delfier Valley, for the sacrifice to come must be prepared in blood, and the last of their previous captives had gone to fuel the Concealment Spell that had allowed her to approach the City walls and steal away the Great Sacrifice.

When the hateful sun had left the sky, it would not rise again, for tonight, Time would stop forever. The blood of the Great Sacrifice would be spilled upon the Standing Stones, and He Who Is would enter the world once more.

And grant to she who had given him his return, power and favor above all the rest of his creation. She would see all, know all.

Know how her son had plotted against her.

And would punish him.

Forever.

There must—there must!—be a way out of the trap that Zyperis saw closing so inexorably around him. But he could not see it. If he destroyed the Great Sacrifice now, sabotaging Savilla’s spell, he doomed himself, for her wrath would be inventive and lingering.

If her spell succeeded …

He was doomed as well.

He could feel some sort of Magery building in the distance, at Armethalieh, but his Queen had told him that Armethalieh was no longer a matter for their concern, now that the Sacrifice was theirs. Once He Who Is walked the world again, the Endarkened would have more than enough power to smash them all: Elves, Wildmages, High Mages: all. All he need do was remain here in case the Elven Army attempted a futile rescue attempt of the Sacrifice. Then he could amuse himself by destroying them.

Amuse himself. As if he were still a child, to be distracted with toys. She still underestimated him.

As he had underestimated her.

The time that he could safely have slain her had passed.

The Magery he felt was a creation of great power, disturbingly so. Yet it was not directed at them—the Enemy—but at Armethalieh. Foolish Lightborn! Was it possible that—even now—they did not know who their true enemy was?

Then the spell reached its peak.

Zyperis felt the wave of magic crest over him. It was painful, as all spells of the High Magick were to his kind, but it could not truly harm him. Only a blending of High Magick and the Wild Magic could do that, as they had learned to their cost. But the pain brought with it knowledge, as the dying ebb of the spell told Zyperis everything about its construction and its purpose.

The Wards were down. The City was open.

Cloaking himself in invisibility, he flew to the edge of the forest to see what had transpired. But he did not see what he expected to see.

There was a dragon—a dragon!—crouched upon the City walls. Instead of the radiant wellspring of Power that he had expected to see, that he had yearned to capture for himself, its magic was dim and flickering, nearly extinguished.

Beneath its watchful gaze, the gates stood open. A troop of Elves rode forward, into the City.

But the attack that Zyperis expected did not come.

No gray-robed High Mages strode forward to cast them out with savage spells.

If the Wildmages and the High Mages make an alliance …

Even now—oh, surely, they could not win! But it might cost more of the precious lives of the children of He Who Is.

If he could prevent that, his Mama might be pleased.

He might save his own life.

She had told him not to attack the City for any reason.

But she did not know about this. Surely she would wish him to prevent this if she did know.

It would be far simpler for him to ask her for forgiveness later.

He could certainly fly down into the City by himself. He was the Prince of the Endarkened, and the City lay helpless and unWarded before him.

But… he had just seen a Wildmage enter. And he knew there were High Mages there. He had no intention of being killed when there were easier, safer ways of accomplishing his goal.

Zyperis flew back to his army and gave the order to attack.

Chapter Seventeen

Sealed to the Light

YOU HAVE DONE well, my sweet slave.”

Lycaelon Tavadon heard the words only dimly. His mind was filled with horror. So much, so many impossibilities, had happened in so short a time, that he could not think.

He felt ill, feverish, as if he had drunk poison.

Every time he opened his eyes, all he saw was the monsters that had walked the land in the Black Days of ancient memory, the legend of their existence preserved in texts permitted to the study of only the highest ranks of the Mageborn—and then, only when they had proven themselves both sincere in devotion to the City and truly possessed of a need to know.

And his son, his beautiful son, was laughing.

“My Dark Lady, my glorious Queen,” Anigrel said. “You are more beautiful than I could have dreamed. But… why am I here? I must return to the City, to take down the Wards so you can enter.”

“No. The time for that has passed.”

“Anigrel …” Lycaelon moaned.

He realized he was lying on the forest floor. Dim memories of a nightmare ride through trees came back to him. They had been riding out of the City to greet their new allies, and then … and then …

He struggled to his knees, forced himself to open his eyes.

Anigrel stood beside one of those … creatures. Her wings were spread, mantling his body. His face wore a look of radiant triumph.

“The Arch-Mage looks confused,” she said.

A thrill of sick horror coursed through Lycaelon to hear human speech coming from such a creature. Bile rose in his throat.

“Perhaps you should explain yourself to him. It would please me very much.”

“Dear Father,” Anigrel said fondly. “Here is my true and only mistress. I have served her all my life, from the time I was a child. Everything I have ever done has been to her glory. There have never been any plots among the Mageborn, nor was House Volpiril guilty of anything, save, perhaps, ambition. I created young Cilarnen’s cabal myself. I murdered Lords Vilmos, Arance, and Perizel. The information brought to the Council through the Magewardens is all lies. For moonturns we have tampered with the City Wards, allowing the influence of the Endarkened to spread throughout the City, and now they will claim their ultimate victory. Today.”

The Demon standing behind Anigrel gasped, as if in ecstasy.

“Lies… ?” Lycaelon said. “You… lied to me?”

“I did not lie. I told you I acted for the good of the City, and so I have. It is good that Men serve their proper masters. The Endarkened. We have been a blight upon the land for too long. No longer.”

“You have learned all your lessons well,” the Demon told Anigrel. “Now you will serve me in the best way you can, and have the reward I promised you so long ago.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Anigrel whispered.

She put her arms around him from behind, running her hands over the heavy silk of his Magerobes. The rank-tabbard he wore, embroidered both with House Tavadon’s colors of black and white and with Anigrel’s own chosen colors of gold and red, covered with the elaborate heraldry of his rank and honors, slipped from his shoulders and fell to the muck of the forest floor.

Anigrel tilted his head back, exposing his throat, as he sighed in ecstacy and utter submission.

Delicately the Demon Queen parted the gray robes and the fine linen tunic beneath, until Anigrel’s bare chest was exposed. The Talisman of the Light that he wore glinted against his pale skin on its fine golden chain.

And then, before Anigrel could move or protest, she tore open his ribs and plucked out his heart.

Blood sprayed over Lycaelon as Anigrel’s body dropped to the ground. The Arch-Mage scrabbled backward through the cold wet leaves with a despairing cry.

The Demon bit into the still-pulsing heart as if it were a choice piece of fruit. Chewed. Swallowed.

“Perhaps too quick,” she commented. “But he has annoyed me for a very long time with his protestations of soft human love. Do not hope that you may join him, Mage-man. I have something special planned for you. Something rich and rare. I shall enjoy it very much. Perhaps you can bring yourself to enjoy it, too.”

“I do not wish to leave you here,” Redhelwar said uneasily, as Idalia and Cilarnen dismounted at the City gates.

“You are needed with the army,” Idalia said. “You must go. Besides, we have Jermayan and Ancaladar.”

“Be sure that I will defend both Idalia and Cilarnen with my life,” Jermayan said, stepping out through the open gates.

“And I,” said Ancaladar, craning his long neck down so that his head was on a level with them. “I think they might not wish to upset me, you know.”

Behind Jermayan, the Delfier Plaza stood as empty as if Cilarnen had obliterated all of the inhabitants of Armethalieh along with its magick.

“Come on,” Cilarnen said. “We have to get to the Council House. The first thing that has to be done is to re-cast the Wards. Properly, this time. The way they should be.”

“And I will close the gates,” Ancaladar said, as they stepped inside.

SHE had been gone from this city almost half her life, and certainly for the best part. As she heard the bronze panels of the Great Gate bang closed behind her with Ancaladar’s enthusiastic help, all she could think of was that this city that the High Mages were so proud of was much cruder and shabbier than she remembered it being.

Not smaller, of course. It was larger than all of the Elven Cities—probably put together. But then, no Elf would consider, even for an instant, living in the ugliness and squalor of the poorer quarters of Armethalieh. Nor would they be willing to live so closely packed together. It would not even be possible, without magic. A lot of magic.

“Cilarnen, did you take all the magick off of the City?”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “No. I haven’t got that much power, even with the help of the Shining Ones. But the Wards seem to be linked to a lot more spells than I thought. It isn’t as if I ever really had a chance to study the spell, or I could have done a much more elegant job. The bell-towers, though … I think they must have been linked to the Wards, somehow. I hope no one was hurt when the towers collapsed, but it was only the tallest spires that fell, and all of those would have been in the Mage-quarter, or near it—the Temple of the Light, the Mage College, the Great Library, the Garden Park. The Council House itself will be safe. It does not have a tower. The other carillons—in the Merchants’ Quarter and the Garden Market—are all fairly sturdy. They will be dis-timed, and will no longer ring, but I do not think they will have fallen. The carillons in the Nobles Quarter will all have shattered, but they are not heavy ones, and the Nobles will complain, but they are always complaining, and here we are.”

Before them stood the bronze doors of the Council House. They were flanked on each side by a row of Stone Golems. Cilarnen reached out, cautiously, and tapped the nearest one. It did not move.

“Perhaps they, too, have been disenchanted,” Jermayan said musingly.

“I think so,” Cilarnen said cautiously. “I’ve been Banished, Idalia’s a Wildmage, and you, well, you’re an Elf. They shouldn’t let any of the three of us within a hundred yards of these doors without trying to tear us into pieces.”

“That’s comforting, I don’t think,” Idalia said.

“Well it is,” Cilarnen insisted. “If they aren’t attacking, it means my spell took down not only the City Wards, but every piece of defensive magick Armethalieh has, at least in the Mage Quarter, where most of the spells would be. Not so good when you consider that there’s a whole Enemy army outside right now trying to get in, but since we’re trying to get in, too—without being killed—it’s a good thing for us.”

“Lead on, then,” Idalia said.

Cilarnen mounted the steps and pushed at one of the great bronze doors. Since the doors normally opened and closed by magick, it took the three of them to move it, but at last they got it open.

“NO—no—no!” A gray-robed Council Page stood in the center of the hallway, eyes wide with terror at the sight of the three strangely-garbed intruders. “Get back!”

The boy was a few years younger than Cilarnen was, and obviously half-mad with fear. Cilarnen had never served as a Council House Page because of his rank, but he knew the duties that the Pages performed. This young man would have been supposed to wait in the hall and watch over the doors, but—especially today—he would never have expected them to open.

And Cilarnen well knew what a horrifying sight he and his two companions presented in their furs and armor.

“I am Lord Cilarnen of House Volpiril, and I must see the High Council at once,” Cilarnen said. “You must conduct us to them immediately.”

“I—I—I—Wait here.” The Page turned and fled, his soft boots scuffling across the black and white marble floor.

“Do we wait?” Idalia asked.

“No,” Cilarnen said. “I think I know the way.”

BUT they had not gone more than a few steps toward the Council Chamber before their path was blocked by six Magewardens.

“I am here to see the High Council,” Cilarnen repeated.

There was a sudden flare as the Magewardens’ Spells raged and died against the violet glow of Cilarnen’s Mage-Shield. One moment Cilarnen had been standing, apparently defenseless. The next, the air between him and the Magewardens was filled with the shimmering light of his spell.

“Do you think I am an idiot?” Cilarnen demanded angrily. “The Arch-Mage has been kidnapped by Demons—Demons whom you serve, because Lord Anigrel is your master! You all saw Them today, if you aren’t blind. Now get out of my way, before I do to you what my friends are going to do to Them.”

“Cilarnen?” one of the Magewardens said, stepping forward. “Cilarnen Volpiril?”

“Geont?”

Geont Pentres had been one of his fellow conspirators—in a conspiracy, Cilarnen knew now, that had been created entirely by Anigrel to gain himself a Council seat and remove those members of the High Council—like Lord Volpiril—who could interfere in his plans to hand Armethalieh over to the Demons.

“You were Banished. Stripped of your Gift. What are you doing here? How do you know me?” The young Magewarden stared at Cilarnen, frowning in confusion.

“Once we were close friends, Geont. Anigrel lied to us both. I was Banished—but not stripped of my Magegift. Your memories were changed, if you do not know me. I am sorry to see you have become Anigrel’s hound. Once you would have given anything to save Armethalieh from the same enemy you now serve.”

“I still will. Do you swear by the Light that you come here in peace?”

“I swear it, Geont. And these who are with me come in peace as well. They’re my friends.”

Geont Pentres stared past Cilarnen, now looking not only confused, but appalled.

“An Elf. And … a woman.”

Cilarnen smiled. “She’s Lord Lycaelon’s daughter, Geont, so I’d take that look off my face if I were you. Don’t bother saying that you don’t remember her, either. You don’t remember me, after all. Yes, they are my friends and comrades. And there is a Demon Army outside the City. And we need to see whatever is left of the High Council. Right now.”

“Dyvel, go and tell the High Council that Lord Cilarnen Volpiril… Lady Idalia of House Tavadon, and …”

“Jermayan of Sentarshadeen,” Idalia supplied helpfully.

“—Jermayan of Sentarshadeen, Elf, wish to see the High Council,” Geont said.

“You can’t do that!” Dyvel gasped in shock.

“Is Lord Anigrel here to stop me? Is the Arch-Mage?” Geont demanded. “No. They were both carried off this morning by monsters. And even if House Volpiril is a forcing-house of treason, I for one would like to know what Lord Cilarnen is doing here with his Magegift intact, and strong enough to hold off the six of us. He was only an Entered Apprentice when he was Banished.”

Dyvel bowed and retreated.

“And the rest of you,” Geont said. “I am certain you have somewhere else to be. Go there. Lord Cilarnen has given me his word that he comes in peace.”

The other four Magewardens didn’t look very much as if they liked being dismissed, but they went.

“Now, Lord Cilarnen, if you would dismiss your Mage-Shield, it would ease my mind very much,” Geont said. “I swear by the Light I will attempt no spells against you. I do not think I could prevail, in any event.”

The purple glow of Mage-Shield shimmered and died.

“And now?” Idalia asked.

Geont ignored her. Cilarnen sighed. “Do, please, Geont, answer the Lady Idalia’s question, in the name of the Light and the peace between us.”

“We must await Dyvel’s return. The High Council is in sealed conference. There is much to do. If you wish a fair hearing, you must wait to be summoned.”

“There certainly is much to do, since the City Wards have been brought down,” Idalia said tartly.

Geont opened his mouth to deliver a stinging rebuke.

“Geont,” Cilarnen said quickly. “Our other friends—what happened to them? Jorade Isas? Kermis Lalkmair? Margon Ogregance? Tiedor Rolfort? Do you know?”

Geont looked at him. “They are not my friends. I do not know them. One hears gossip, of course. Rolfort is a Commons name. Of him I know nothing. But there was some scandal with the Lalkmair heir some moonturns ago. His father stripped him of his Gift, and he killed himself soon after. Young Ogregance is apprenticed to his father; he was supposed to test for advancement in the fall, but did not. I see Jorade Isas at the Golden Bells now and then, but I swear to you, we do not know each other.”

Cilarnen bowed his head. “Thank you, Geont. You have told me what I wished to know. If not what I wished to hear.”

Dyvel returned a moment later, almost running. “They will see them!”

“Come with me,” Geont said.

THE three of them stood in the center of the black and white marble floor of the Council Chamber, staring up at the black marble bench at the High Council.

Only five seats were filled now: Lorins, Ganaret, Nagid, Dagan, and Harith.

The High Mages had suffered a series of nasty shocks today, starting with the kidnapping of their Arch-Mage, and continuing with the “attack” on their city by a large black dragon and Cilarnen’s unicorn-cast spell. Yet they merely looked cross and bored.

“Well?” Ganaret demanded.

“We have come to tell you how to save yourselves,” Cilarnen said. “And to save Lord Lycaelon, too. And to tell you of a plot that has been brewing here in the City for many moonturns, though it is not the one you believe.”

“Will you speak of this under Truthspell, boy?” Nagid demanded.

“You will address me properly, by my rank and House,” Cilarnen said evenly. “I was Banished unjustly, for crimes I did not commit, and so I claim all that was taken from me.”

“You committed treason, as I recall,” Harith said.

“At Anigrel’s instigation,” Cilarnen said. “Yet—I believe—the charge for which I was Banished was Wildmagery, and I am no Wildmage. Now and always, my devotion is to the High Magick, and my loyalty is to the Golden City.”

IDALIA ground her teeth in frustration, listening to Cilarnen’s calm demand for an empty title. Yet she knew it was necessary. If he could not get the High Council to treat him—all of them—with respect, they would not listen. And if they would not listen to them …

None of this would work.

She needed their help.

The time was drawing near to pay her final Price.

All the time they had been riding toward Armethalieh, she had felt it, without understanding quite what it was she was feeling. And then—when the Demons had taken Lycaelon—everything had become completely clear in her mind, just as it always did for a Wildmage at the moment when Mageprice came due.

Paying this one was just going to be a little more complicated than most. And require a lot more outside help.

“IT is true,” Ganaret said. “Lord Cilarnen is no Wildmage. Nor, apparently, is he without the Magegift that should have been Burned from his mind at his Banishing. How can this be?”

“Cast your Truthspell and ask me,” Cilarnen said, smiling calmly.

A Journeyman Mage was summoned to the Council Chamber, and the spell was cast.

Cilarnen spoke then, carefully, persuasively. Of the days of famine in Armethalieh. Of the cabal he had formed. Of “Master Raellan”—Anigrel in disguise—who had brought them all together and set their feet on the path to treason, carefully shaping their plans and causing them to do things they would not otherwise have done.

Anigrel, who had been supposed to Burn the Magegift from his mind on the eve of his Banishment, and who had not.

He spoke at length of Anigrel, whom the Allies knew to be a pawn of the Demons. How Anigrel had lied to the High Council, telling them that the Elves and the Wildmages were attempting to destroy them, when it had been Anigrel and the Demons all along. Of how the Demons had raided the villages in the Delfier Valley, slaughtering both the farmers and the Militia and Mages sent to save them. He had seen Their attack on Nerendale himself: As a witness, under Truthspell, his testimony constituted proof under the Law of the City.

He spoke of how the Elves and their ancient Allies had been fighting against Them to save them all.

“And now—tonight—the Demon Queen will sacrifice the Arch-Mage to bring He Who Is back into the world, if we cannot stop him,” Cilarnen said, finishing his explanation at last. “To do this, you must help them—the Elves, the Wildmages—just as your ancestors did a thousand years ago. You must do this in the name of the Eternal Light.”

“This cannot be true,” Harith said in a shaking voice.

“My son does not lie.”

“Father!”

Setarion Volpiril stood in the doorway of the Council Chamber, wearing the gray robes and rank tabard of a High Mage of the Golden City.

“Lord Volpiril, you should not be here,” Lord Ganaret said quietly. “You have given your oath.”

“‘I shall work no treason—against the High Council, against the City … or against the Arch-Mage,’” Volpiril agreed, quoting the oath he had been forced to swear, his deep voice resonant and steady. “Yet tell me, Lord Ganaret, how is it treason to come here and tell you what you all know: that my son speaks the truth?”

He stepped further into the chamber.

“We have all seen our friends and colleagues … vanish. In the past moon-turns we have been told that they conspire with Wildmages, or Commons, or Selken Traders, or we have been told nothing at all. This day we have seen with our own eyes the creatures from the Black Days seize Lord Lycaelon. Lord Cilarnen tells you that they mean to use him to end our world. Do you wish to do their work for them? Today I have seen unicorns, and dragons, and creatures my masters in the Art Magickal have told me were only illusion, as real as my own flesh. If we do not believe this truth, we will not live to see another sunrise. And by the spells that bind me still, if this were treason I would be dead before you now.”

“We must vote,” Lorins said, a whimper in his voice.

“Vote?” Idalia demanded. “What in the name of Leaf and Star can you possibly have to vote on?”

“Nevertheless,” Lord Ganaret said, “everything must be done in the proper form. If you wish our help, madame, all must be done by the will of the Council as a whole. Now, I pray you, withdraw and leave us to our deliberations.”

Ganaret waved a hand dismissively, indicating that the three of them should step back to the center of the room.

RELUCTANTLY, Idalia and Jermayan did as they were bid. Rather than join them, Cilarnen crossed the room to where his father stood.

“My Lord Father,” he said, bowing his head.

“You dress the part of a mountebank,” Volpiril said, smiling faintly.

“It is cold outside the City walls,” Cilarnen said.

“I have misjudged you,” Volpiril said.

“No, Father, I think you judged me well enough. Let me remove the spells that bind you. We will need all your gifts.”

“You will need me, you think, to bring the Council to heel,” Lord Volpiril said.

“If you can,” Cilarnen answered steadily.

He knew, from the brief viewings he had done of the Council and the City—and what Idalia had told him of her own scrying while it had still been possible for Wildmages to see into City lands and the City itself—that things had been very strange and difficult here since he had left. His father had always been an ambitious man, placing his ambition before everything, even his own son. But among the High Mages, ambition and the good of the City were one, at least among the best of them.

In this moment of greatest danger, after seeing the City suffer around him for so long, having seen their ancient Enemy in the flesh at last, Volpiril would do what needed to be done so that Armethalieh might live.

“Lycaelon’s whelp is a Wildmage,” Volpiril pointed out, nodding toward Idalia.

Cilarnen smiled. “Both of them are, Father. And Kellen is my closest friend.”

Volpiril raised his eyebrows. “Ah. Well. House Volpiril has always had a talent for advantageous alliances. If you can unbind the spells of the Arch-Mage of Armethalieh, I suppose I must learn to trust your judgment.”

Cilarnen withdrew his wand from inside his robe. The spells binding his father were not so much complex as powerful. They fed into the very structure of the City itself. But his power was greater, fed by the Land.

Cilarnen traced a glyph in the air, and whispered a quiet word.

Green fire raced over Volpiril’s body, and the High Mage gasped.

“I am free,” he said.

“I am afraid the Council can come to no determination regarding your petition,” Lord Harith said. “We must, therefore, request that you leave us to deliberate further before we may call the vote. Be certain that we will—”

Before Harith could finish speaking, Volpiril strode up the steps and seated himself in Lycaelon’s seat.

“I take, once again, my seat on the Council,” he announced. “As my son is no traitor, I see no reason to forgo my place. Harith, stop making those unpleasant faces. As you know perfectly well, the Lady Idalia is Lord Lycaelon’s daughter, and irregular as it is for a woman to speak in Council, this is a day of many irregularities. Next, I believe that having heard Cilarnen Volpiril’s Truthspelled testimony, no further deliberation is necessary: What he has said beneath the compulsion of the High Magick and the Eternal Light is certainly truth beyond all disputation. Is there any among you that wishes to argue this point?”

None of the members of the High Council said a single word. A look of satisfaction settled over Lord Volpiril’s features.

“Excellent. I am pleased to see that none of you would wish to shame your tutors by forgetting your first lessons in the Art Magickal. Having settled to all of our satisfactions that Cilarnen Volpiril has spoken truth, it is equally undeniable that it is a truth that requires immediate action—not further debate. Is there anyone here who feels that the fact that the world will end at Midnight Bells is not an urgent matter?”

Again, there was silence.

“I shall take your continued silence for agreement, my Lord Mages. Therefore, I call the vote now, and not at what future time it would best please you to delay it to, my Lords Ganaret and Harith. The matter upon which we will vote, first, is whether to render all aid to Cilarnen Volpiril and Idalia Tavadon as they ask for it, against our ancient enemy. I remind you all that to vote against this is to doom the world to the rule of He Who Is. I now call the vote.”

The vote, needless to say, was unanimously in favor.

“Now,” Volpiril said, looking down at his son. “I presume the … three … of you came here with some plan?”

KELLEN heard the bronze gates of the City close with a resounding crash, and banished Idalia, Jermayan, and Cilarnen from his mind. He could not afford to think about them.

He rode among the elements of the army, speaking to the commanders, giving encouragement where it was needed, explaining his plan. They were to hold the plain before the City, keeping the Demons from reaching Armethalieh. They must give the High Mages time to re-cast the City Wards that would keep the Demons out of the City, and discover a way to rescue Lycaelon, if they could. The rest—perhaps even Lycaelon’s rescue—was up to the others.

He’d thought there might be some uncertainty, even some resentment, at the abrupt change of command. Even though the Elven Army had never actually been in battle before this season, most of the Elven Knights on the field today had served with Redhelwar for centuries, and they and the Centaurs had been under his leadership in all of the battles they’d fought together.

But Kellen sensed no resentment among them. Only approval and acceptance. He had earned it, he realized. Everything he had done, fighting beside them, leading ever-larger commands into battle, had gone to building their trust in him. Kellen Knight-Mage.

Nithariel reported movement in the distance, and Kellen sent the unicorns on an extended sortie for detailed information. Their speed—and the fact that most of the Enemy couldn’t approach them closely—would protect them.

He had his army positioned as well as possible now, considering the fact that their backs were to the Golden City and they could not retreat into it—or into the sea.

He held Belepheriel’s troop back as a reserve. They would be needed in order to relieve the cavalry wings, give them time to disengage and—if they were incredibly lucky—get to their remounts.

The Centaurs would simply have to stand. But Kellen did not mean them to stand for long. Hold against the first charge, then collapse and fall back, drawing the Enemy in with them to where the two cavalry wings could swing in on Them and hack them to pieces.

If the battle went the way he hoped.

And no battle ever did. He already knew that.

In the distance, he heard the silvery sound of the Unicorn Knights’ war horn. Enemy sighted.

“Sound the horns,” Kellen said to Dionan. One thing, at least, can go just the way it has gone for the last thousand years.

All around him, from every part of the army, the war horns sounded the call to battle.

In moments they saw the first outliers of the Demon Army: Deathwings and Coldwarg. But the Elves knew how to fight the Deathwings now. They launched flaming arrows into the sky, and for each one that found its target, a Deathwing burned.

Behind them ran an undulating wave of Coldwarg, and among them, ten times their size, enormous black creatures similar to the one Kellen had killed in the mountain pass. Shadewalkers.

They could be killed.

He felt as if he stood above the battlefield now. He could see the enemy moving through the trees. Goblins and Frost Giants. Ice Trolls. Dwerro mounted on the backs of serpentmarae. And behind them all, their leader. Kellen could not see him clearly, even with the battle-sight, only a shining blackness where he was.

But he was the one Kellen needed to kill.

Somehow.

He called out orders, making final dispositions of his troops now that he could see the enemy they faced. The first of the Frost Giants broke through the trees. They hesitated, confused; they had expected to face a line of Elven Cavalry and saw only Centaurs.

The Centaurs roared a battle cry and charged forward.

The battle was joined.

“A proclamation?” Lorins said.

“It must be done,” Cilarnen said. “You must tell the people of the City—at once—where the power of your spells comes from, and what part they play in aiding you. Their aid must be freely given.”

“This is heresy,” Ganaret said.

“Do it,” Volpiril said. “It seems nonsense to me, and I am certain it will cause riots. But there is rioting already, Ganaret, or have your servants not informed you? It will be done within the hour. Now come. This chamber is needed for other matters.”

The six members of the High Council—and the three envoys from the Allied Army—walked from the Council Chamber. Standing outside in the hallway were a hastily-summoned Circle of High Mages. Not one Magewarden stood among them.

“My lords of the Council. For what purpose have we been summoned here at such an unreasonable hour?” the eldest of them demanded.

“The Wards have been breeched,” Ganaret said. “You must rebuild them. At once.”

“But—But—But—It is not the proper Hour for such a Working! Our preparations … it will take Bells …”

“Then begin at once,” Ganaret snapped. “Or do you wish this City to be undefended?”

“I can help them,” Cilarnen said. “I think it can be done more quickly. But there is much to do. If I am to work here, you must do as Idalia and Jermayan ask you to do. For the good of the City.”

“I will not work in a Circle with this … barbarian!” the elderly High Mage said.

“You will stand in the Great Circle with my son, Lord Kerwin, or none of us will stand anywhere at all,” Volpiril said. “Have both your wits and your knowledge of the Art both deserted you, that you do not recognize what he is? See that he has what he requires. Come, Lord Ganaret. You have a proclamation to write.”

Suddenly there was a sound of horns, audible even within the halls of the Council House itself. A moment later, the roar of a dragon—Ancaladar—shook the walls themselves.

Lord Kerwin flinched. “What—What—What was that?”

Volpiril smiled. “Our Allies. And if you do not wish to meet them, I suggest you work well and quickly.”

He turned away.

IDALIA and Jermayan followed the others to another room. Like the Council Chamber, it was crafted all in black and white marble, but this room had a large round ebonywood table in its center. Thirteen chairs ringed it. One, of course, was more elaborate than the rest, and Volpiril seated himself in this one. Apparently he had decided to declare himself Arch-Mage in Lycaelon’s absence.

Idalia disliked him completely—he was a High Mage, after all, and had done much to ruin Cilarnen’s life—but she certainly admired—if that was the right word—his ruthless single-mindedness. A lesser man—such as any of the rest of the High Mages—would still be sitting in the Council Chamber, arguing about whether or not Cilarnen was telling the truth under a spell that not only compelled him to tell the truth, but enabled all of them to tell whether he was telling the truth or not.

A Page entered at Volpiril’s summons.

“Bring tea and food. Send for Lord Lycaelon’s secretary. A proclamation must be drafted, and we will require the Arch-Mage’s seal. If there are any who have urgent business with the Council, send them here.”

“I …” the Page was about to protest, and obviously thought better of it. A lifetime in the Golden City taught nothing, if not obedience to those who wore the gray robes of Magehood.

“Yes, Lord Volpiril. At once, Lord Volpiril.”

“SO you now think you have all you would once have reached for, eh, Volpiril?” Lorins said.

“I have the distinction of not having served under a Darkmage these past moonturns, if that’s what you mean, Lord Lorins,” Volpiril said silkily. “Unlike all the rest I see here at this table.”

“We have work to do, and not much time—in case none of you have noticed,” Idalia said tightly.

Volpiril inclined his head condescendingly.

“I beg your pardon, my lady Wildmage,” he answered smoothly.

“Wildmage?” Harith said in horror. He began to rise from the table.

“Sit down!” Volpiril thundered. “If we must ally ourselves with Wildmages to save ourselves from Demons, then that is what we shall do. Lord Anigrel has told us time and again that the Wildmages are evil—I believe that is reason enough to think kindly of them. It need not leave this room.”

“But… but… the Wild Magic is Tainted. It leads to Congress with the Dark,” Lord Dagan sputtered.

Volpiril regarded him balefully. “Perhaps in time. None of us will argue that it is not a sorcery of anarchy and disorder. But if it does lead to Congress with the Dark, it will not do so today. And it is today that is my concern. Were Lady Idalia a cesspit of foulness, Lord Cilarnen would not ally himself with her. Nor would our ancient Enemy be working so hard to destroy the Wildmages. Now, if we may continue?”

“Thank you—I think,” Idalia said sourly. “In fact, if you kept accurate records, you would know that the Wild Magic is the older form of magic. Cilarnen believes that what you call High Magick was created during the Last War specifically to fight against Them. We have found that the spells of the Wild Magic, and the High Magick, working together, can kill Them. And nothing else can. This may be why it was invented in the first place.”

Volpiril, Leaf and Star blight him, actually looked interested. He summoned a Page.

“Send for Dyren Lalkmair,” he told the boy. “If we are to speak of ancient magicks, he must be present. And by the Light, Lord Ganaret, if you tell me one more time that this is either irregular or unseemly, I shall take you to the walls and feed you to that Light-blasted dragon that sits there myself.”

Idalia glanced sideways. Jermayan looked amused—not that anyone at the table but she would be able to tell.

THE Frost Giants, just as Kellen had hoped, charged. The Centaurs fell back. The wings of the Elven Cavalry swept sideways to give them room—and to deal with their own enemies. Kellen’s reorganization of the army bore useful results almost at once: the Frost Giants were not used to dealing with an enemy who used tactics so similar to their own, yet were so much smaller than a mounted Elven Knight. Their comparative slowness was costing them as they faced the Centaurs.

On the wings, the cavalry formed squares, protecting the archers, both mounted and foot, who fired on the Deathwings and Coldwarg. Square was the safest and most effective method of repulsing the attacks of the giant white wolflike creatures; though there were casualties, the Elves were not losing as many as they could be. And the Coldwargs were dying.

The Shadewalkers presented a more difficult problem with their ability to heal their wounds so rapidly, one that cost all who faced them dearly. But arrows and cast lances could weaken them, and they, too, could be killed.

Suddenly the wind rose. There was always a steady wind coming in off the ocean, but now that wind increased tenfold. Kellen felt a ripple of Wild Magic over his skin. The Wildmages were working the weather, and he wondered why.

Suddenly he smelled smoke, and understood.

One of the burning Deathwings must have set the forest on fire.

It would have been winter-dry to begin with—not much snow here—and he suspected that Demon magic had simply killed all the trees where they stood. If there were fire, the Delfier forest was going to go up like a torch, and if they didn’t want to be caught in a firestorm, somebody was going to have to do something about it.

The fire spread.

It began to rain.

He saw—sensed—a break in the line, and spurred Firareth forward, shouting orders.

BY the time Lord Lalkmair had arrived, tea and food had also arrived, and Cilarnen’s proclamation had been drafted and sent to be copied and distributed over the Arch-Mage’s seal, though Lycaelon’s secretary, Journeyman Nircan, had bleated and whimpered and had to be threatened severely before he would comply. The proclamation was simple and blunt, stating simply that the spells of the Mages of Armethalieh were fueled by the energy granted them by the people of Armethalieh, drawn from their bodies by the Tokens of Citizenship which every Citizen of Armethalieh wore.

“And henceforward they may choose to wear them—or not,” Idalia said firmly.

She knew this was what Cilarnen would have wanted. What the basis of the High Magick had to be in Armethalieh, from now on. Power—participation in any spell of the High Magick—must be a gift freely given, just as it was for the Wild Magic.

“Preposterous!” Nagid said, pounding his fist on the table.

“If they don’t choose to wear them, they can leave,” she said.

“Leave?” Ganaret said. “Where in the name of the Light will they go?”

“Anywhere they wish,” Idalia said. “There is more to the world than just one city.”

“Write it down as she wishes,” Volpiril said, interrupting what promised to be another long drawn-out argument. The High Mages might despise women, but they seemed to be more than willing to argue with her. “There is reservoir enough at the Temple of the Light for a sennight at least. We must survive today before we worry about the future. Light knows, half of them won’t see it and the other half won’t believe it.” He smiled wolfishly at Idalia. “And any who do will blame Lord Lycaelon for this decree, not me.”

She smiled back. “And all of you will have a lot of explaining to do, when we win.”

DYREN Lalkmair was the very image of a befuddled scholar-Mage, but even Idalia had heard of him, for he had been famous—or infamous—among the Mageborn in the City since long before she had been born. There was nothing he did not know about the history of the High Magick. Which meant, of course, that his studies had veered very close to the edges of the Proscribed Arts even at the best of times.

Frankly, considering the way things had been going in the City lately, she was surprised he was still alive.

He entered the room and stopped, staring at Jermayan.

“One of the Elvenborn,” he said in disbelief. “Here?”

He looked at Idalia. “And Lord Lycaelon’s Wildmage daughter?”

He regarded Lord Ganaret sternly. “And Lord Volpiril, sitting in conclave among you once more? You have much to explain, Lord Ganaret. For years you have forbidden me the slightest freedom in my studies, saying that such license would lead to unsoundness, chaos, and anarchy. And yet, I find that you have taken far more liberties than I would ever have considered.”

“Perhaps you have noticed that the City is on the verge of being overwhelmed by Demons, and that there is a dragon sitting on the walls?” Lord Volpiril asked.

“No, no, I have no time for such things,” Lord Lalkmair said. He stopped, seeming to suddenly take notice of what Volpiril had said. “Demons? A dragon? No, not possible. The Great Dragons were all killed in the Darkmage Wars. And the Demons were destroyed at that time as well.”

“They’re sitting right outside the walls,” Idalia said. “Do you want to go look?”

“Certainly not, Lady Idalia,” Lord Lalkmair told her acerbically. “It would undoubtedly all be Wildmage illusion.”

“It is not Wildmage illusion,” Jermayan said firmly. “Nor were They all destroyed. They have returned. They have kidnapped the Arch-Mage Lycaelon Tavadon to use as a sacrifice to summon He Who Is back into the world, and we must stop him.”

“Well, that’s very interesting. There must be an ancient Land-Shrine around here somewhere. I always thought there might be. But the Council would never approve my petition to go outside the walls to look for it.” Lord Lalkmair didn’t sound in the least worried by the possibility of the imminent destruction of the entire world.

At least Idalia now knew why Dyren Lalkmair was still alive. Anigrel hadn’t bothered to kill him because the man never took his nose out of a book long enough to notice what was going on around him.

“Sit down, Lord Lalkmair,” Volpiril said. “We must know all you know of Wildmagery, and how our Art began.”

Lord Lalkmair seated himself, with some hesitation, at the ebony table. “If you wish to know such things, Lord Volpiril, why not ask the Elf? Or the Wildmage? By the Light, either of them know more than I—and do not risk Banishment for speaking of them!”

There was a faint chuckle from a few of the High Mages seated around the table.

“We don’t really have time for this,” Idalia said. “Though we do need Lord Lalkmair’s help. As Jermayan has said, They intend to sacrifice Lord Lycaelon at the Delfier Land-Shrine tonight at midnight. We must stop Them—by taking Their sacrifice from Them before They can use it.”

Volpiril frowned. “You cannot mean us to fight our way to the Shrine?”

Idalia shook her head. “If the entire Allied Army can’t do it, Lord Volpiril, you certainly can’t. I’m talking about magick. Pure High Magick. With some Wild Magic mixed in.”

Lalkmair looked interested at last. “Certainly we have enough of Lord Lycaelon’s personal items to create a Bond of Sympathy. The difficulty would be in raising enough Power to penetrate the Darkmage spells that will already have been cast. But adding the Forbidden Magic as well … that might very well disrupt the Etheric Currents to such an extent to allow a spell of lesser force to slip through the interstices in the Darkmage Working. It will still require an enormous amount of Power, but I believe it can be done. An adaptation, in a way, of an Apportation Spell—oh, I know, Lord Volpiril, that such an adaptation requires months of review by the appropriate committee, but …”

“Just this once, Lord Lalkmair, we will bypass the review,” Lord Volpiril said, with a long-suffering sigh. “Please determine precisely what items you will need for this spell, and what Mages you will require for the Circle, and assemble them here.”

“I’ll help him,” Idalia said firmly. She was very much afraid that if Lord Lalkmair went wandering off, he’d become caught up in some obscure byway of research and forget to come back at all.

“Oh, please,” said Lord Lorins ironically. “Do feel free to treat this City as your own.”

“We shall,” Jermayan said, getting to his feet and placing a hand on his sword. “Since we are saving it for you.”

“And while we’re gone,” Idalia said, “it might be a nice idea to see if you can round up any of your precious Mages who might actually be willing to poke their noses outside the walls and fight for it, instead of leaving Kellen and your so-called ‘Lesser Races’ to do all the work.”

CILARNEN had never thought—even before his Banishment—that he would ever be standing here, in the Grand Circle of the Council House, preparing to cast the most important and most sacred spell of the City.

Seventeen others stood with him, all men far older and—he would once have thought—wiser than he. All of them were of the highest rank of Mage-hood, High Mages all.

The last rank Cilarnen had formally attained was that of Entered Apprentice.

Yet he would be leading the ritual. He had claimed that right, and no one had argued.

It should have been Lord Kerwin’s position—of all the Mages gathered here, Lord Kerwin of House Festalen was the most senior Mage. Yet when Cilarnen had claimed the position of Keystone, Lord Kerwin had not said a word.

If Lord Kerwin had not been thoroughly cowed by Cilarnen’s father, he was doing a good imitation.

Of course, the fact that the Council House was only a few yards from the Delfier Gate, and that—in the absence of the wards—the sounds of the battle outside the walls were clearly audible inside the Council House might well have had something to do with it. Cilarnen had been in a few skirmishes, though not in a battle on this scale. And he’d seen more death and destruction than he really wanted to, through the Glyph of Far-Seeing. But for people like Lord Kerwin, the sounds he was hearing now were entirely new, and it was obvious that the venerable High Mage didn’t care for what he was hearing at all.

Proper Mage-robes had been brought for Cilarnen to dress himself in—they lacked the tabard that showed his house colors, rank, and magickal honors, but they would do—and the Master Spellbook had been brought from the Council Archives, so he could read over a spell he had never expected to see, let alone cast.

It was long and complicated.

But he was a quick study. He’d had to learn to be.

And it wasn’t as if he was going to be the only one casting this spell for the first time. Of the seventeen of them gathered here in the Council Chamber, only Lord Kerwin had ever participated in the Casting of the Wards before, and that only as a Journeyman, assisting the Mages. Until Anigrel had come to the Council, the High Council itself had re-cast the Wards each moonturn. Now, they dared not trust the work to any of those whom Anigrel had chosen to take their places.

There would be thirteen of them doing the actual Casting. The other five—High Mages all—would prompt them through the ritual, doing the work of Journeymen to keep the braziers stoked, and, if disaster struck and someone could not go on, hope to take his place in the Casting before the ritual unwound itself.

“You wear no City Talisman, Lord Cilarnen,” Lord Kerwin said.

“No. I do not need one.”

It was why he was taking the key position in the ritual, bearing the Great Sword of the City. With the Elemental Energy at his command—he hoped—the Casting would go faster. The wards would be stronger than before.

They needed to be.

“How is that possible?” Lord Kerwin asked. He did not seem angry, only puzzled.

And more than a little terrified by the sounds coming from outside.

Cilarnen only wished he could be there as well as here. He was needed in the battle. His spells could make a difference. But there were many battles to fight. This was another. Perhaps, when the City Wards were up again, he could go out and join them.

“Once, long ago, the High Mages drew their power, not from the people, but from an alliance with those whom you now call Illusory Creatures: the Great Elementals. I have made this pact again—one that I look forward to ending. But not yet. Come. We have much to do.”

IT had been hard enough to persuade them to work in daylight. Harder still to convince them that the spell could be done outside of the proper ritual Hour. But Cilarnen’s studies had convinced him that it could. It was easier to do it at the proper time, of course. And of course the most subtle and delicate spells were impossible to do outside of the proper ritual Hours. But the spell for the City Wards had been cast and overlaid so many times over the centuries that it must be burned into the stones of the City by now. It would be harder to do during the day, in the middle of a battle, at the wrong Hour, but it could be done.

All it would require was more Power.

He could provide that.

If it doesn’t kill me.

When he had been Student-Apprentice, in his first years at the College, Cilarnen and the other boys had terrorized themselves deliciously with tales of spells that required a life to feed the casting. Such things were unknown in the High Magick, of course, though occasionally, as he had found out later, accidents did occur in ritual, when a spell went awry.

It was a different thing than the Wild Magic, when a Wildmage might be asked to offer up his or her life as the Price of the spell.

But the two forms of magic had, so Cilarnen now believed, once been one.

And if that Old Magic now asked for his life in exchange for the restoration of the true and proper wards to Armethalieh’s walls, well, he was willing to give it. It didn’t matter if the people were ungrateful, or had no idea what he was doing. You didn’t do the right thing because people thanked you for it. You did it because it was right.

He stepped to his place in the Great Circle. Kerwin handed him the Sword of the City.

The other twelve High Mages took their places on the working keys.

“We will need Mage-Shield cast around the Council Chamber before we begin, because the Wards are down,” he said. “Lords Henius, Vacion, if you would?”

A violet shimmer wrapped itself around the walls and ceiling, dimming the light.

Chadure and Segnant placed the first measures of incense upon the braziers, working their way sunwise around the room, until all eight braziers were wreathed in smoke. They stepped back to the walls.

Cilarnen raised his sword and drew the first Sign upon the air.

The twelve Mages surrounding him mirrored his actions with their wands.

It was begun.

KELLEN thinks I cannot handle a sword.

The thought came to him briefly, randomly, as he paused for a moment, panting for breath.

The room was so filled with smoke he could barely see.

The Sword of the City … glowed.

His robe was plastered to his body with sweat. The room was like a furnace. There was nothing to be done about it. The High Magick was an art of self-control and privation. Mages were trained to endure hardships that would destroy lesser men.

He moved quickly to the next figure.

Astrelus had collapsed. Chadure had taken his place.

They had been working for—he estimated—a Bell. The full ritual took three Bells as the High Mages worked it. Time for the Power to rise and settle. But with the Elemental Energy at his command, Cilarnen did not need to wait, nor would he. The army outside their gates did not have Bells—or hours, as the Elves reckoned time. The Wards must be restored as quickly as possible.

And somehow, the Wards themselves were helping.

The High Magick was an inert machine, a thing. He had always been taught that. It had no life beyond what a High Mage gave to it—certainly no consciousness, no will. Yet when Cilarnen had begun the ritual, drawn the first Glyph, he had sensed … something … rousing itself to meet his own intent. Something of the Light.

No High Mage would have accepted that touch. But Cilarnen had learned much in his travels outside the City. He had bonded with Elementals, wild and tame. And so he had reached out eagerly to that slumbering life he sensed, trying to draw it toward consciousness, feeding it not only the scripted power of the spell, but the raw Elemental force that he carried within his own body.

Slowly, it began to wake.

The Wards of the City were complex, formed of layers of intention. To protect, to guard, to make of the walls and the very air above Armethalieh a defense against anything that was not, ultimately, of the Light. To do this they must be filled with an ultimate understanding of the Light, its nature and its purpose, laid down from the very beginning of the City. An ability to see into the very souls of any creature who might presume to pass through the Gates, to breech the City’s walls by any means.

To know …

To see …

To understand …

The air was thick, as if he moved so fast it could not part before him. The sword flashed each time he moved it, so brightly that he could not see the shapes of the glyphs he drew in the air. When he had begun, it had been heavy. Now it seemed to move of itself, drawing him with it.

His heart pounded in his chest.

His hair was plastered to his scalp. Sweat rolled down his face, into his eyes, blinding him. But he no longer needed to see.

Five glyphs left. The most important ones.

The Seals of the Four Quarters. And the Binding Seal.

First, to the north. He stumbled as the sword seemed to haul him in that direction, but righted himself in time. He could not fail now. No one else could take his part.

Down. The tip of the sword rang from the floor. Up. Around. The complicated tracery of the North Gate, glowing in every shade of blue that there was.

Finished. Sealed.

He swept the blade sideways.

East. The blade rang against marble.

The Seal glowed in every shade of gold, from deep amber to palest yellow. Sealed.

South. Down. Up. Heartsblood scarlet, violet, palest pink, ruby. The sword shook in his hands. He clutched the hilt tighter.

All my will, all my strength, everything I am, I give to this Working …

Done. Finished. Sealed.

West. A green so dark it was nearly black, the pale green of new leaves, the dusty green of the ocean, the bright green of new grass. All the shades of green that the Demons would take from the world if They won.

Finished. Sealed.

He swept the sword back through the North Gate, linking them all.

The four Seals burned in the air.

Now the Great Seal to link them all and set the spell. Without it, all that had come before was useless. He stepped back to his first position.

He was cold.

He raised the sword in salute. Suddenly it was a dragging weight in his hands, where moments before it had been light. He could barely lift it.

He gritted his teeth, and flung it up into the first line of the Great Seal.

Blinding white light followed the tip of the sword, cascaded back down the length of the blade, over his hands. It should have been hot, but it was cold, cold, it seemed to be draining all his strength.

He would finish this. He must.

The Great Seal was the most complicated of all. He worked quickly, desperately, forcing the sword through the complicated arcs. Smaller and smaller, and each loop and whorl must be exact, just as Master Tocsel had taught him.

He was hot. He was cold. He could not tell which. The smooth marble floor beneath his feet had become a thousand knives, and his sweat had turned to blood. He could taste it. Each beat of his heart was slower.

One … more …

He raised the Sword of the City in the final salute.

All five Seals vanished.

The spell was cast.

He … felt … the Wards reform. He felt the City awaken, the spell that rendered it, in some sense, a living thing remade at last. Felt it reach out, eagerly, for the power he had promised it, the power it needed to do its work.

And then Cilarnen Volpiril knew nothing more.

THE fighting had been going on for hours. The sun was setting. The Allies were holding their own, though their losses had been heavy. It was a consolation that the Enemy’s losses seemed to match theirs.

No more Deathwings prowled the sky, and they hadn’t seen either a Coldwarg or a Shadewalker in hours. The Frost Giants had tried a flanking attack, but had been stopped by Belepheriel’s Knights. The Elven Commander had fought them all the way to the water’s edge; many of Belepherial’s command would have their names entered in the Great Book at the House of Sword and Shield for their work this day. But Belepheriel still lived, and the Frost Giants had been stopped.

And the High Mages of Armethalieh had joined the fight.

Not many. Kellen didn’t think the City had many to spare. But the Lesser Gate had opened, and ten young men in gray robes with ill-fitting breastplates over them had come riding out toward the army.

They’d looked terrified.

Dionan had brought them to Kellen.

“I—You—You’re Kellen Tavadon,” their leader said.

“Yes. You?”

“Geont Pentres. Of House Pentres. I—”

“Do you know any spells?”

Pentres looked affronted. “Of course I do! I am a Journeyman Mage!”

“Will you work with Wildmages?”

From the look on his face, Kellen might have been asking him if he’d work with Demons, but he nodded, swallowing hard. “Yes. We all will. That’s why we came.”

“Good. Dionan. Find the Wildmages and take these to them. Tell them we have High Mages now and have them tell them what to do.”

VOLPIRIL had said there were riots going on in the City, but Idalia saw no sign of them as she and Jermayan followed Lord Lalkmair back to his house. The Mage Quarter looked very much as she remembered it from her girlhood; a series of nearly-identical imposing (pretentious) mansions set widely apart. Except for a few servants here and there, the streets were deserted.

It might have been any ordinary day in Armethalieh.

“They seem to be exceptionally calm,” Jermayan commented.

“Exceptionally stupid,” Idalia said waspishly. “Until one of Them is actually here in person, I doubt most of them will either know—or care—what is going on outside the walls.” She sighed bitterly.

“Yet Lord Volpiril seems to be … helpful,” Jermayan said cautiously.

“That’s a little odd, I’ll admit. I think partly he’s out for revenge on the rest of the Council—and Lycaelon—for what they did to him. Not that I’m complaining, since it works to our advantage right now. But the moment we don’t have a common enemy, we’d better watch our backs.”

“May that day come swiftly,” Jermayan said.

“Yes,” Idalia agreed, realizing what she’d said. “I hope, for all our sakes, that it does.”

It was about half an hour’s walk—two chimes, by City reckoning—to Lord Lalkmair’s mansion, and Idalia supposed they were being watched from every house they passed. But the City Watch didn’t come into the Mage Quarter unless it was specifically summoned, nor did the Militia, and today both bodies had plenty to occupy them elsewhere.

The Magewardens might have been a problem: From what Idalia knew of them, they went everywhere and did pretty much as they pleased. But they were unlikely to ignore a summons from the Arch-Mage himself, and Volpiril had taken the precaution of ordering all the Magewardens brought to the Council House, by a decree sent out over Lycaelon’s personal seal. She didn’t know how many of them there were, but six High Mages ought to be able to keep them in line, and she knew from her own youthful experience that there were prison cells beneath the Council House. They might all be there already.

If so, good.

They stopped on the paving in front of Lord Lalkmair’s mansion. Like most of the High Mage’s houses, the front doors were flanked by a pair of stone statues; in this case, a pair of large marble eagles, each holding a torch in one uplifted claw.

“Perhaps I should go first,” Lord Lalkmair said, nodding toward the eagles. “They are bespelled, you know, to attack strangers. I am not sure they would harm the Elf—Jermayan, did you say? Such a foreign name—but they would not like a Wildmage at all. No, indeed. However did you come to find the Forbidden Books, Lady Idalia? You must tell me.”

Idalia sighed. “There will be time for study later, Lord Lalkmair—after we have the spell and have cast it. And I do not believe your guardians will be bothering anyone today.”

She strode up the walkway and tapped one of the eagles on the chest.

It didn’t stir.

“How odd,” Lord Lalkmair said, following her and peering over her shoulder. “Yes, indeed, you are quite right. The spell has been completely distempered. Most peculiar. I should have noticed myself. Thank you, dear child. Pray, come inside.”

The three of them entered the house.

Chapter Eighteen

The Light at the Heart of the Mountain

A BUTLER STOOD at the door, ready to receive guests, of course: No matter how eccentric Lord Lalkmair might be, he was still a High Mage of Armethalieh. The man was dressed in the House Lalkmair livery; Lord Lalkmair’s colors were rust and ochre. His eyes widened when he saw Jermayan and Idalia.

“Well, Parland, don’t just stand there like an Imaginary Creature! My cloak, and those of our guests. Tell Cook to have tea and cakes sent to the library. And be quick; I do not like to leave the door open. And I do not wish to discover any of you skulking in doorways, either.”

Parland bowed. “Yes, Lord Lalkmair. Ah, my lord is aware that one of his guests is … an Elf?”

Lord Lalkmair turned to regard Jermayan. Jermayan had removed his helmet—he had not worn it in the Council Chamber, but he had replaced it for the walk to the house, in case there was any need to defend them—and his Elven features were plainly visible. Lord Lalkmair sighed.

“Indeed, Parland, your acuity has not diminished with the passing of years. My guest is indeed an Elf. His name is, is …” Lord Lalkmair seemed to have forgotten it again.

“Jermayan,” Jermayan supplied.

“And were his presence not known and welcomed by the High Council, he would not be here. Now, have I satisfied your curiosity thoroughly?”

Parland bowed, saying nothing.

“Indeed,” Lord Lalkmair grumbled. “My servants are a great trial to me. Kermis could keep them in line, but … but …” His face clouded and he fell silent.

Kermis Lalkmair. That was one of the names Cilarnen had mentioned. Dyren Lalkmair’s son. When Anigrel had framed him for treason, the man before her had stripped his son of his Magegift, and Kermis Lalkmair had killed himself.

In the Council Chamber, Idalia had thought of him as a kindly, befuddled, bumbling old eccentric, but suddenly Dyren Lalkmair didn’t seem so much like that after all. He was a man who could destroy his own son’s life for the sake of his own pride.

Like Lycaelon. Like Volpiril.

“Come,” Lord Lalkmair said. “Let us go to my library, Lady Idalia. We shall search for what you need.”

AS a child, Idalia had spent many illicit hours in her father’s library—as, she had later learned, her brother had also done.

Lord Lalkmair’s library was nothing like it.

Just to begin with, it was much larger. And messier.

Bookshelves filled every wall. Books were crammed in on top of books, and when that space was filled, they were stacked upon the floor. The center of the enormous room was filled with the longest table she had ever seen, and it, too, was stacked with books, scrolls, and various small objects. The entire ceiling was lit with Magelight, which was fortunate, as shelves obscured the room’s large windows, blocking off all natural light.

The room was entered, of course, through a Mage-door, which opened at a touch from Lord Lalkmair. Since the servants were to follow, he left it open, but when he closed it again, there would be no way out until he opened it again.

Of course, Idalia thought with mordant humor, all the sealed doors in a High Mages’ house were said to open upon the Mage’s death, so they did still have one way out.

Lord Lalkmair scooped books onto books and moved armfuls of scrolls out of the way, clearing himself a place to work. He opened one of the boxes on the table and drew out a sheaf of blank parchment and a thin silver rod: writing implements.

“Now, Lady Idalia. Let us speak of this spell.”

“WHERE is my son?”

In the makeshift Council Chamber, the High Mages had been in the midst of dealing with a report from the City Watch when they felt the Wards rebuild themselves.

Every Mageborn in the City, down to the lowliest Student Apprentice, must have felt it. The very stones rang with a power Volpiril had never felt before in his life, as if the Pure Light itself had burst forth from the Sanctuary of the Temple. Not since the days of Camorin Andralan, First Arch-Mage, had a power so pure and strong been unleashed in the Great Circle.

Such power could not be summoned forth without … sacrifice.

Interrupting the report of Guard-Captain Madus in midsentence—fires were burning in Bending Square and all across the Low Market, and due to the disruptions caused by the fall of the bell-towers, many of the wells were dry, and there were not enough Journeymen available to combat every fire in the City by magick—Volpiril leaped to his feet and ran for the Council Chamber, his gray robes belling out behind him.

The spell had run its course. The golden doors, sealed by magick for the duration of the Working, opened at a touch. Clouds of incense rolled out into the hall. The Mages who had performed the Working stood—or sat, or lay—upon the marble floor, dazed. Volpiril had eyes for none of them.

In the center of the pattern, the Great Sword of the City still clutched in his outflung hand, lay Cilarnen.

His son. The jewel, the crowning pride of House Volpiril.

No Mage lived forever. What any man built, he built for the future, for his sons. All that Lord Volpiril had done, he had done for two things: for Armethalieh, and so that Cilarnen might rise to greater heights than he himself would ever reach.

He had seen all that snatched away when Lycaelon—Light curse and blast his name!—had told him that Cilarnen was a traitor. Had gloated over him, as though Lycaelon’s two mongrel whelps had not both been Banished as Wildmages.

Volpiril had cared about nothing after that.

When Cilarnen had returned, he had not cared that the boy had obviously been driven to the verge of madness by his unjust Banishment. Madness itself stalked the land, in the form of Demons. Destroy them, and there would be time to repair every harm the world had done to Volpiril’s only heir. His Gift was intact, and he was still loyal to the City. Nothing else mattered, save surviving the day. To that end, Volpiril would conspire with Elves and even Wildmages, to save Armethalieh and his son.

But now …

He was so still.

He knelt beside Cilarnen. Stiffly. Old bones. Mageborn did not marry early, and Cilarnen was his youngest child.

The only one who truly mattered.

Then the boy’s lips parted in a sigh, and Volpiril knew that he still lived. He straightened.

“Send for the Healers!”

A few hours before sunset, the City opened her gates to their wounded.

During a lull in the fighting the City Militia rode out.

The battle ebbed and flowed like the tide of a great ocean. Not every unit was engaged at once. The line stretched for miles; the thousands of Elves, Centaurs, and Men of the Allied Army slowly being winnowed by the onslaught of the Enemy. At least the forces in the field against them could be killed, and Kellen’s troops killed them. But each death came at a high price.

The Allies gained ground, forcing the line forward, into the forest. Yet they dared not advance as far as the Demons might allow them to. Their purpose was to protect Armethalieh, not to follow the retreating Demon army. And so Kellen held his forces back, kept them on the killing ground hour after hour, as monsters for which he had no name threw themselves against his lines.

The Militia who rode out through the Lesser Gate were only a few hundred men. Toy soldiers in toy armor, on horses that looked like scrubs next to the Elven-bred beasts. But their captain, Amrun, had brought fresh news from the City.

The Wards were back in place, and the High Council was working closely with Cilarnen, Jermayan, and Idalia. Amrun knew nothing more, save that Lord Volpiril had ordered them to aid the army—and he had brought a message from Idalia.

Somehow, she had convinced the High Council to open the City to the Allied Army’s wounded.

When had Lord Volpiril been returned to the Council?

Kellen didn’t care. All that mattered was that he could shelter the injured in a place where the Enemy couldn’t reach them. What the City would make of the influx of Centaurs, Elves, and Mountainborn he neither knew nor—at the moment—cared.

But Vestakia could not join them. The Wards would permit it, but the people within …

He sent word to the Healers, sent what was left of Belepherial’s command to escort them and the wagons into the City.

Sent Amrun and his men to fight beside the Mountainborn. Safer than putting them where they would be distracted by fighting beside people no one born in the City had ever expected to see in the flesh. But they would see enough on the battlefield to distract them, perhaps fatally.

Kellen knew he was sending them to die, and tried to shut the thought from his mind.

There was a break in the line.

He rode toward it.

IF Armethalieh had not sent High Mages, they would all be dead now.

Scattered pockets of Magelight and Coldfire—two names for what must be an identical spell—illuminated portions of the army, and turned the roiling black pall that hung above the battlefield to a deep indigo. Fortunately, the Elves’ night vision was good.

Not that anybody could see much of anything in the smoke.

And Kellen needed no sight to see at all.

Firareth had exhausted the last of even his great resources at sundown; Kellen was riding Valdien now. The Elven destrier seemed to know Kellen’s need was great; Jermayan’s mount had accepted him unquestioningly.

There was a flash of light as a column of fire arced down from the heavens, followed by the red-gold flare of Fire. Kellen smiled grimly.

The Allied Army was—impossibly—holding its own upon the field, and—because of that—the Demons Themselves had come at last to the battlefield, only to find that They had waited too long.

The Allies were ready for Them.

High Magick and Wild Magic—together—could slay Demons. And every single one of the Mages Armethalieh had sent was acceptable to the unicorns.

There were, in fact, more unicorns on the field now than when the battle had started. Kellen didn’t know where the rest of them had come from, but he was glad they were here. They protected the High Mages far better than anything else could; the Demons dared not approach them.

Some of the High Mages were even mounted by now, taking the places of fallen Unicorn Knights.

Another flash—more lightning. A spell the Wildmages could not cast, but—apparently—a simple spell of the High Magick. He saw, with eyes that saw everything, the Demon pinned to earth by the column of white fire. Saw the swarm of dwerro move up to protect their fallen lord, trying to buy It time to Heal Itself. Saw the Elven cavalry slam forward, clashing with the misshapen creatures on their hideous mounts, trying to force them back so that the Wildmages behind them could make the final kill. Both sides slipped and slid in the slurry of mud and blood beneath their animals’ hooves.

In the sky above, the Starry Hunt’s forces mirrored the actions of the troops on the ground below. A thousand times, since the Demons Themselves had taken to the field, the Allied forces would have been annihilated in a heartbeat, save for the ghostly star-crowned cavalry that rode above them, hunting down the Demons’ spells as if they were living foes.

Kellen’s sword was slicked with blood, his surcoat and armor was sodden with it, but Kellen’s own true battle was yet to come. At the rear of the Dark Army stood the Demon General, waiting. It was He whom Kellen had to destroy.

But it was not yet time.

They were fighting in the forest itself now.

Each lightning strike—each Fire spell—rekindled the trees around them, though they were hardly more than columns of charcoal now. But even charcoal could burn.

And so, despite all other calls upon their energy, the Wildmages continued to duel with the Demons over the weather, forcing it to rain, and rain hard. Steam and smoke boiled up out of the trees and the ground, veiling the whole landscape in a choking fog. If Kellen had not been able to see with his battle-sight, to give orders constantly and clearly, the Allied Army would have been lost in confusion long ago.

The City Wards might be in place, but the walls of Armethalieh were only stone, and stone could be destroyed … if it could be reached.

They didn’t need the City if They could perform Their Great Sacrifice.

But They would certainly want to destroy anyone who could possibly stop Them.

The hours passed.

The battle continued.

ZYPERIS had expected a quick and definitive victory to lay at his Queen and mother’s perfumed and gilded feet.

But it did not happen.

Every attack he made was countered. The beautiful children his glorious Mama had bred and nurtured were slaughtered, brushed aside, as if they were not terrifying. The Deathwings fell from the sky in flames.

True, the ground ran red with blood. Coldwarg tore unicorns limb from limb. Frost Giants battered Elven Knights to death with their iron clubs. Shade-walkers ripped Centaurs apart as if they were gutting rabbits.

But it was not enough. Never enough.

They could not reach the City.

Time passed. The hateful glowing orb by which the Lightborn reckoned time moved across the sky. The mortals died by the thousands, but the creatures Prince Zyperis commanded died, too. And he was no closer to entering the City than he had been when he had begun. Somehow, no matter what he did, no matter what orders he gave, the troops of the hated Lightborn were there before him, spending their foolish lives recklessly to keep him from his rightful prize.

Then—suddenly—he felt a sudden upwelling of the High Magick and knew that he had miscalculated. Disastrously.

The City was Sealed against him once more.

Properly sealed, in a way it had not been since Queen Savilla’s Mage-man had begun his tampering. No breath of Dark Magic could cross its walls now to touch the minds inside.

And as the human city was sealed, so he, too, had sealed his fate.

But … there was yet one thing he might do to redeem himself in the eyes of his mother, his love, his glorious Crown of Pain. He understood, now, why the Lightborn enemy had reacted as if it were the fingers of one fist. Why, even though individually they were so weak and powerless, they were such a formidable enemy.

A Knight-Mage was their commander.

Zyperis had not yet been born in the time of the Last War, but his mother had spoken to him of Knight-Mages, and he knew that this one had resisted her at the Black Cairn. Better that she had killed Kellen Tavadon then, instead of trying to make him her pawn.

If Zyperis killed him now, his mother would forgive him everything. With Kellen dead, he would destroy the army, obliterate the city, leave nothing behind but a wasteland in celebration of Queen Savilla’s glorious victory.

And so he had waited for a lull in the fighting, and gone to summon his own personal guard to join him upon the battlefield. The preliminary sacrifices at the Place of Power were nearly done; his Mama would not miss them. It was only a few dozen of the Endarkened—and Lesser Endarkened at that—out of the hundreds gathered there. The Lightborn would be defenseless against their strength and magic.

But they weren’t.

They, too, died.

He called the rest of them back. He must save them, now, for the moment when he took the battlefield himself.

And destroyed Kellen Tavadon.

Personally.

EVERY chamber within the Council House that could be used for the casting of spells was occupied by Mages.

Now, at last, Armethalieh had entered the fight.

Rain lashed and battered the City itself, a storm such as had not been seen within the City walls since the first stones were laid.

The Apprentices watched the battle from the walls, and brought back word of the battle’s progress, though they barely understood what they saw. When they had reported that the forest was burning, Idalia had demanded that the Mages remove the weather-shields from the valley, and bring rain to quench the fires. The Council had had to go to the walls themselves and gaze out at the carnage below before they would agree, but after they had seen it, they made no more trouble.

As far as the eye could see—for mile upon mile—there was nothing but fire and burnt and dismembered bodies. The forest was in flames, all the way to the horizon.

The Mage College had become a hospital for the army’s wounded. The students had all been sent to their homes, the Mages who normally occupied its grounds had been called away to Workings. Binding spells wreathed the Mages own defenses, so they would not attack the Allies, and the tents and wagons of the Healers now filled every open space.

There were few wounded.

NO bells rang in Armethalieh tonight. The City of a Thousand Bells lay mute beneath the fury of the magic-and-magick-called storm. But the High Mages did not need the City’s bells to reckon time.

It was nearly midnight. Their spell would be timed to match that of the Demon Queen. They had spent precious hours as the day drew on preparing and adapting it from the old records in Lord Lalkmair’s archives, and then rehearsing it, because they could afford no mistakes. It would work precisely as the Wild Magic had promised Idalia that it would.

In the Council Chamber, Idalia prepared to begin.

She wore nothing but a light gray Mage-robe, her hair loose and unbraided down her back, and of all the things that had happened in the City today—dragons, Elves, Wildmages, spells, an entire Demon army right outside their walls—it was this that had stunned the Mages of Armethalieh nearly to the point of frothing catatonia.

A woman dressed as a High Mage.

A woman in a Mage Circle.

At least she knew now where Cilarnen got his stubbornness from. Lord Volpiril had done everything up to and including threatening the High Mages with death and immediate Banishment to get them to work with her, and it was as much an acknowledgment of their desperate situation as it was a tribute to the force of his personality that he had succeeded.

Thirty-six Mages stood with her, Setarion Volpiril and Dyren Lalkmair among them. In a moment, she would step into the center of the Circle, and they would begin.

She had not told Jermayan the truth.

He believed—everyone here believed—that the spell they were about to cast would bring Lycaelon Tavadon here from the Spellstones, whisking him out from beneath the Demon Queen’s hand to join her at the moment her spell was cast.

It wouldn’t. No human magic—not even a Triple Circle—was that powerful. But the spell surrounding the Demon Queen’s altar would permit a substitution, so long as what was substituted was closely enough related in blood and magic.

A daughter for a father.

A Wildmage for a High Mage.

Tonight she would die.

But this was the Mageprice asked of her—and that she had consented to—long ago. To give her life. And because she was a willing sacrifice—not one ripped unconsenting from life in blood and fear, but a death hallowed by the Wild Magic—her death could not be used to break the bonds that would allow He Who Is to return to the world.

“It is nearly time,” Jermayan said to her.

“Yes,” Idalia said. She reached into the pocket of her robe, and drew out her Three Books. She took Jermayan’s hand, and placed them into it. “I want you to keep these for me. I do not think they would … do well within a Mage Circle.”

“Perhaps not.” Jermayan smiled, but his dark eyes were worried.

“Perhaps there is something you would wish to give me in return?” she asked.

It would not matter now.

He smiled, and reached up to unclasp the chain from about his neck. “I have waited long to give this to you, Idalia. I had thought this day would not come.”

He clasped the silver eight-pointed star around her neck. An Elven Betrothal Pendant. It settled in the hollow of her throat, still warm from his skin. She reached up and touched it with the tips of her fingers.

She could not say goodbye. If she did, he would know what she meant to do. It was possible he might even try to stop her, offer himself up in her stead, and there was no time to explain why that could not be. He would know soon enough. She had kept the truth from him—selfishly—because every moment in these days that could be spent without pain was a gift from the Gods, and she would give up none of them. Instead she smiled, saying nothing at all.

“Come, Lady Idalia,” Lord Volpiril said.

She turned away and stepped into the Circle.

JERMAYAN watched from the edge of the room as Idalia stepped away and took her place at the center of the gray-robed High Mages. The room began to fill with smoke, making him wish to cough, but he schooled himself against it sternly. Only a few moments. Midnight would come, and Lycaelon Tavadon would join her in the Circle.

And they could leave.

He did not like the human city.

It was too crowded, too filled with ugliness and hate. There was nothing here of appropriateness and harmony; no respect for the natural world that was the gift of Leaf and Star. No wonder they had fallen so easily to Anigrel’s plots; these humans were already half in love with Darkness. It made him sad. Far better to face that Darkness openly upon a battlefield than to pretend it did not exist, dulling your own senses until you saw nothing at all, not beauty or ugliness, truth or lies.

Perhaps they could take Cilarnen with them when they went.

He knew the boy rested now in the care of the High Mage Healers. The spell that had raised the Wards of the City had cost him dearly, though his father swore that he would live and heal. Cilarnen had spoken of the High Mages as great Healers, and even Idalia did not have many ill things to say of them, save that they were reckless and arrogant. In Jermayan’s opinion, those were bad enough things to say of any Healer, save that she said one thing more.

That they took away inconvenient memories.

The Elves lived long, longer than any of the other Children of the Light. More than any, they were the sum of their memories. To destroy—to remove—a person’s memories, yet leave them alive, not knowing what they had lost, was a transgression so black that Jermayan could barely imagine it. Yet it was an act the Mageborn of Armethalieh performed as a matter of course. Both Kellen and Cilarnen had lost memories—their past—beyond recovery, changing the people they might have been.

Jermayan only prayed that the High Mages would not meddle so again with Cilarnen while he lay helpless in their hands.

Idalia stood quietly in the center of the High Mages as they moved about her, casting their spell. Jermayan felt nothing. He did not expect to. Perhaps he was still an Elven Mage, though he lacked all ability to work any magic, but it did not matter: Elven Magery would be as blind to the High Magick as any High Mage was to the workings of the Wild Magic. The spell being raised before him, no matter how powerful it was, was something he could neither sense nor feel. All he could sense was the passage of time, moving inexorably toward midnight, and the sound of the storm that battered the City. Even the sound of the battle he knew to be raging outside the City walls was muted, hushed to silence by the restored City Wards.

Suddenly there was a flare of light, startling him.

The Mages reeled back, staggering and falling.

He pushed through them.

Idalia was gone. In her place, crouched upon the floor, lay the naked form of a haggard old man. He was filthy and disheveled, his mad eyes staring about him in terror. He drooled in fear.

Suddenly Jermayan realized what she had done.

She had not called her father to her.

She had substituted herself for him.

He ran from the chamber, shouting for Ancaladar.

IT was nearly midnight.

He was tired.

He could not afford to be tired.

Lightning crackled across the sky in a nearly-constant display now, more of it natural than belonging to any High Mage spell.

He had sensed the High Mages die, one by one.

Less than a third of the Allied Army remained alive.

Above the battlefield, the Starry Hunt rode, lending their strength to the battle. The eldritch Riders struck down as many of the foe as did their mortal comrades in arms, and still it was not enough.

The Endarkened were coming in force.

But now it was time.

The Demon Prince himself was taking the field at last.

“Shalkan!” Kellen shouted. He vaulted from Valdien’s back, slipped as he found himself thigh-deep in mud. Staggered.

Saw radiance come galloping toward him across the battlefield.

His first friend. His comrade.

With him now, at the end.

He threw himself into Shalkan’s saddle—sometime, during the past hours, someone had helped Shalkan into his gear.

He drew Light At The Heart of the Mountain and Shalkan leaped forward.

There was no need for words.

ZYPERIS saw the Knight-Mage come riding toward him on the white unicorn. He snarled in anger and lust. A unicorn! But the pain would be worth it. He would kill them both, do what his Queen, mother, and lover had been too shortsighted to do.

Then he would destroy the City.

He spread his wings and launched himself forward.

THE Demon towered above them, nearly eight feet tall in its glittering black armor. Its scarlet wings were spread wide, and Its sword flared with black light.

It threw back its head and howled.

Water Mind.

The most dangerous gift of a Knight-Mage. To move through the currents of a battle like a fish through water, to be able to fight beyond exhaustion.

To fight at the top of his strength until he died.

Kellen leaped from Shalkan’s saddle. The unicorn spun away, moving as if he were Kellen’s reflection. The Demon hesitated, seeing two targets where there had been only one a moment before.

Kellen feinted, drawing the Demon’s attention. It attacked him. Kellen slipped away.

The utter calm of Water Mind enfolded him. He was no longer Kellen. Shalkan was no longer Shalkan. The Demon was no longer a Demon. The three of them were partners in a dance, all moving as the Wild Magic willed.

Kellen was at peace. Utter peace.

All was as it was meant to be.

This was the moment he had been reaching toward from the moment he first drew breath.

Shalkan struck. The Demon howled in fury and in pain.

Kellen did not know why he was here. His sword could not slay the Demon. Any cuts his blade made would instantly heal.

He only knew that this was where he must be. Here. Now.

The Demon Prince turned on Shalkan. Kellen struck. His blade sliced deep.

He could not kill, but he could wound, and the wounds were painful ones, angering the Demon Prince.

Turn and cut.

There were only seconds before It chose to ignore one of them and kill the other.

It did not matter.

IDALIA opened her eyes.

The blade flashed down.

Struck.

Savilla’s mouth opened in a scream of horror and despair.

SUDDENLY the sky was filled with light. Light everywhere, and Kellen was filled with an uprush of Power so great it made him scream, ripping him from Water Mind with the force of a sudden drench of ice water. It was the power he had felt at the Black Cairn, but a hundred, a thousand, times stronger, and this power held nothing of the Dark. Only Light. It filled him, filled the blade in his hands, filled Shalkan, filled everything he could sense save the black Void before him.

He struck, plunging the radiance in his hands into the Darkness before him. He felt the Light fountain through him, filling the Darkness, filling the Void, obliterating it as utterly as sunlight destroys shadow.

Blinding him.

There was a scream. He heard it with more than his ears. He seemed to hear it with every sinew of his body. It stopped his breath; it seemed to stop his heart, just for a moment.

And in the midst of that light, he heard the echoing thunder of celestial hooves, as the Starry Hunt, the work for which it had been summoned complete, swept across the battlefield one last time …

And was gone.

When he could see again, when he could breathe …

The Demon Prince was gone as well.

Gone.

“Dead,” Shalkan said. “Get up. We have a chance now.”

Kellen dragged himself to his feet, using Shalkan’s saddle as a brace. He’d been on his hands and knees in the mud; by the time he was on his feet, the unicorn was coated liberally—even more liberally—with mud as well.

But he hadn’t dropped his sword.

Kellen flung his leg over Shalkan’s back.

“Come on,” Kellen said. “I need to find a horse.”

“You’re welcome,” Shalkan said.

JERMAYAN flung himself onto Ancaladar’s back and the great dragon leaped from the walls into the storm.

“The stones!” Jermayan shouted. “We must get to the stones!”

He clung tightly to the saddle. He had not used the straps. There was no time.

Idalia had substituted herself for the sacrifice.

In midair Jermayan felt the tide of magic reach him, as vast and overwhelming as a crashing ocean wave. It filled him, filled Ancaladar, restoring all that had been taken from them, and more.

He had the power to destroy those who had taken his love, his life, from him, and he used it.

VESTAKIA had been beneath the walls of the City, among the supply wagons. The proximity of so many Demons was constant agony, but like everyone else among the Allies, she had a job to do.

She and several others—cooks and wagon drivers, laundresses and carpenters—those who could neither fight nor heal—took charge of getting the Allied wounded into the City. If they could make it to the rear of their own lines, Vestakia and the others would bring them the rest of the way. Carrying them if they had to. Guiding them through the rain-lashed night to the safety of Armethalieh’s walls if they could still walk.

Often someone went inside with one of the injured.

Vestakia never did. She did not dare. Just as she had not dared to take her rightful place among the Healers within the City walls.

The Armethaliehans would only see her appearance, not who she was.

But this, too, was vital work, for many wounded would have died at the edge of the battlefield without the help of Vestakia and the others to get them to safe haven.

She was certain that this wasn’t what Kellen had intended for her to be doing. Kellen had expected her to find someplace safe to hide until the battle was over, Vestakia suspected. She knew he thought she had already done more than enough.

Well, so had everyone here. Jermayan. Idalia. Cilarnen. Kellen himself. Not to mention hundreds of people whose names she didn’t even know. She would not ask for special treatment, though right now all she wanted to do was lie right down in the cold mud and sleep until everything was decided, one way or the other.

In her mind Vestakia could feel her father—so close now!—and feel his certainty of victory. The fear he had felt before was gone, replaced by lust. Not even to kill, but to destroy, to obliterate.

To taint.

Suddenly there was a rush of air above her head.

She looked up.

Ancaladar leaped from the walls of the City in a rush of wings.

She was staring after him in confusion when the world dissolved in light.

It was as if in that one brief moment Vestakia was a child again, warm and safe and loved. Held in her mother’s arms, too young to understand the curse of her Demon appearance, too young to understand the tragic price Virgivet had paid to win Vestakia her human soul. All her pain and weariness was gone, washed away by the light.

And when it faded, the touch of her father’s mind was gone as well.

Gone.

Vestakia stood in the cold mud, gasping in surprise and wonder. She touched her own face with trembling fingers, as if to assure herself she was still real.

He was gone.

She was certain of it.

It was as if a poison-filled wound had suddenly been healed. Even the memories of what she had gained from the Demon Prince’s thoughts were dim and fading quickly, as if it had suddenly become impossible even to think of him.

Then a sudden gust of cold wind sprayed her face with rain, and a shout from the battlefield recalled her to herself.

There was still work to do.

There would be time later for joy.

SAVILLA stood over the Stone of Sacrifice, the broken blade in her hands. She looked down at the body of the small mortal female.

All her plans, ruined.

All around her the proud Endarkened groveled upon the ground, writhing and whimpering in pain. The bolt of pure Light that had been released when she had plunged the knife down had killed half of them where they stood, and weakened the rest nearly to the point of death, draining them of power and magic. They moaned and cried like lost children, their howls of agony rising above the howling of the storm.

Only she stood unscathed.

He Who Is had been sealed away from the world more thoroughly than ever before. Any who dared attempt to call him across the Veil again would be met with the fury of a cheated god.

Even his beloved perfect children.

She shrieked her anger and despair to the sky, her body vibrating with the agony of the backlash of the spell. But she would not yield. How could this have happened? How?

“Kill them all!” she howled.

Her Court, not understanding—yet—what had happened, cowered back from her wrath. She reached for the nearest body, dragging the Endarkened to his feet. His yellow eyes were clouded with pain; his wings drooped limply. She dug her talons into his throat, wishing it was Zyperis’s. Black blood oozed around her fingers, and the Endarkened whined.

“Go,” she growled, her yellow eyes burning into his with the force of her rage. “Kill the Lightborn.”

A few of them moved—too slowly!—to obey.

“Queen Savilla!”

She looked up.

There was a dragon in the sky.

Something to kill.

She spread her wings.

JERMAYAN saw the Demon Queen below him, saw Idalia’s lifeless body spread upon the flat stone.

A bolt of golden fire leaped from his hand toward the Demon Queen.

Shields flared around her as she countered his attack, and he saw her smile, anticipating victory.

But he did not falter.

Change and change, as the Demon Queen’s shield passed up and down the harmonics of magic, attempting to turn itself from a defense to an attack. But each time she changed her shield, Jermayan changed his attack, occupying all her energy with countering him. She had to devote all of her power to her defense;there was nothing left over for her to mount an attack in turn. She spread her wings and vaulted into the sky; to attack, to evade; it did not matter. Ancaladar danced upon the storm like a hawk. Wherever she went, he followed.

And at last—very quickly, in the end—her defenses fell.

The Demon Queen, Leader of the Endarkened, ignited in a flare of light. She was consumed utterly, beyond any possibility of rebirth.

When her acolytes upon the ground saw that, they began to run.

Jermayan and Ancaladar followed.

HE didn’t even know the name of his horse. He’d found it running loose on the battlefield, and he’d needed a horse.

But the tide of battle was turning.

His Command Staff was dead or scattered. Redhelwar was on his left flank, pulling the remains of the Centaurs together, trying to get them into some kind of order. He’d ordered Belepherial to look for the unicorns. Some of the Enemy was running, and he wanted the unicorns to follow.

If any of them were left.

A Coldwarg—alone, wounded, but still dangerous—staggered toward him. Its back was stickered with Elven arrows, and foam drooled from its jaws, but it gathered itself to leap. His mare swung sideways, staggering a little with exhaustion, and Kellen struck, ending the beast’s life.

They’d held.

It was after midnight. The world was still here.

The Wards were back in place around Armethalieh.

It was time now to take the Delfier Shrine.

IT was dawn by the time Kellen and his force reached the Standing Stones.

The storm had passed. The sun had risen. The sky was bright and clear.

He’d left two-thirds of the surviving army under Redhelwar to guard the City and gone on toward the Place of Sacrifice. All they were doing now was hunting down what remained of the Demon Prince’s army. They’d seen very few of the Enemy, and only in small groups; easy to kill. They took no prisoners, left no one alive.

Vestakia was still alive, safe among the supply wagons. He’d had a report.

The Elven Knights moved at a slow walk. They had been fighting since noon of the previous day, and both Elves and horses were exhausted.

The long heavy rain had washed away all trace of snow. There’d been a ground fog earlier, but as the sun had risen it had lifted, and now only a thin mist remained. Visibility was limited, but not too bad. The mist leeched color from the world—not that there had been much to begin with. The ground was black with mud and ash. The trees were black with char. The air was white. Only the sky was blue.

But it was a blue sky Kellen had not been certain he would live to see yesterday.

They had met the Demon Army and broken it completely.

Their own force had been nearly destroyed. Less than a quarter of those who had begun the fight still lived. But they had faced an army twice their size—Demons, Coldwarg, Deathwings, creatures out of Kellen’s darkest nightmares—and held. Had killed everything that came at them until the few—the very few—survivors had run.

They had kept He Who Is from entering the world.

Armethalieh was safe.

He hoped they’d be grateful, and wondered if they would be. Or if they’d still think this was some sort of complicated Wildmage plot. Probably, Kellen thought tiredly, since everyone Armethalieh had sent to the battle was dead.

Well, my friends are dead, too.

Riasen. Menecherel. None of the Unicorn Knights had survived the night’s battle.

He’d finally gotten a report.

Keirasti. He would miss her calm wisdom, her rough humor.

Isinwen. Reyezeyt. None of his own troop had survived the battle. He had been in command of all, and had made the Enemy pay as high a price for every life he had been forced to spend as he could, but they had still died.

Wirance. Catreg. The Demons had known that the Wildmages posed the greatest threat to them. They had fought savagely to reach them across the battlefield. And for their part, the Wildmages had spent their lives—not recklessly, but with full intention and a kind of joy, knowing that their lives were a gift they gave to their comrades in arms, a gift to the future, a gift to hope.

But they were still dead, and he would miss them.

He would miss them all. No victory could sweeten the bitterness of that loss, only soften its horror.

As they came closer to the Standing Stones, Kellen smelled … flowers?

The ground was covered in flowers.

He dismounted.

“Wait here,” he said.

He walked forward.

Before the battle, this had been the heart of the Delfier Forest, and like the rest of the forest, it had been reduced to burnt trees and ash.

But here, new life was beginning. He could see the shoots of new growth springing up out of the forest floor, among the flowers. Vines twined around the dead husks of trees, unfolding even as he watched. There were flowers everywhere.

When he got closer, he saw Ancaladar.

The black dragon’s scales glittered in the morning light, as radiant as they had been the first time Kellen had seen him.

Ancaladar lifted his head.

Kellen stopped.

Jermayan was kneeling at the center of the Standing Stones. They were wreathed in flowers, overgrown with them.

He held Idalia in his arms.

She was dead.

“No,” Kellen whispered.

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. Idalia had been going to do a spell in the City. That was what she’d told him. She hadn’t been supposed to be here.

At the sound of his voice, Jermayan looked up at him. For a moment their eyes met. Then Jermayan set Idalia down among the flowers, very gently, and got to his feet.

“Jermayan,” Kellen said.

But Jermayan turned away, toward Ancaladar, setting his foot into the stirrup and mounting Ancaladar’s saddle.

“Jermayan!”

But the dragon had spread his great wings and leaped into the sky.

The last sound Kellen heard was the howl of grief, two voices mingled together.

KELLEN’S Knights returned slowly to the City walls, passing across the battlefield once more. Idalia’s body, wrapped in Kellen’s cloak, lay across his saddle. He led his horse.

All around them, the forest was filling with flowers. They spread at a more-than-natural rate, a living carpet growing outward from the Delfier Shrine, covering the burnt ugliness of the long night’s battle with a victory carpet of living green. Everywhere Kellen looked, new life was beginning; tiny white flowers raised their heads through the ash of the forest floor, tendrils of palest green appeared from seeming nowhere to twine themselves around the burnt husks of the trees.

He tried to care. Surely such a powerful sign meant that their victory was a true one, and that the power of the Endarkened had been broken once again.

Perhaps, this time, forever.

But as they walked across the battlefield, picking their way with care among the shattered dead, their feet and the horses’ hooves splashing through the pools of water and blood, what Kellen saw was the cost.

No cost would have been too high to save the world—the Light—from the Demons. He had been prepared to spend himself, his friends, everything he held dear to gain that victory. But the one price he had never thought to pay was to stand alive in the aftermath and count his dead.

It was hard. It was very hard.

But it was his Price, Kellen realized. The price of all the Wild Magic he had taken up and used, not counting the cost at the time, knowing that payment would someday come due but knowing he must have the spells at the time.

Well, now payment was due.

He must forgive. Himself most of all.

For being alive.

As they approached the City walls, he saw that Redhelwar had been busy in his absence. The Enemy had never managed to reach the rear guard, so they’d successfully held on to some of their supply wagons, sheltering them beneath the City walls when they’d moved the wounded inside the City. In the mile or so of clear bare untouched ground between the edge of the battlefield and the City walls, Redhelwar had put up the pavilions. Against the austere pale stone of the City walls, the colorful silk canvas of the Elven pavilions looked strange and alien; the two halves of Kellen’s heritage, brought together at last.

Redhelwar rode out to meet him. He looked, questioningly, toward the shrouded bundle on Kellen’s saddle.

Kellen took a deep breath. “Idalia was at the stones,” he said. “I don’t … I don’t understand what happened. Jermayan and Ancaladar were there with her. But they … left. I couldn’t stop them.”

Redhelwar bowed his head. “We have won a great victory, by her sacrifice, and the sacrifice of many others. It would be good to hear what orders you give now, Kellen.”

Kellen considered for a moment. He pulled off his gloves, then his gauntlets, and dropped them into the mud. He reached for the pouch on his belt, and fumbled at it until he got it open. The ring was still there. He pulled it out, and held it out to Redhelwar.

“I have no orders, Redhelwar, Army’s General. I return to you Andoreniel’s ring, and with it, his army. The task set me by the Wild Magic is done.”

Redhelwar took the ring, closing his fingers over it.

“Then see to your horse, Kellen, then find a bed, and sleep. By the grace of Leaf and Star, we have won the battle. And perhaps, some day, we shall rejoice in it.”

Chapter Nineteen

In the Temple of the Light

CILARNEN AWOKE WITH a shudder.

He’d had the most amazing dream. He’d been …

He looked around.

He was in his rooms. His old rooms. In House Volpiril.

He flung himself out of bed, his mind reeling. It couldn’t all have been a dream! He remembered …

He ran to his windows and looked out. The garden looked just the same as he remembered. It was daylight.

They were all still alive.

Idalia’s spell must have worked.

There was an unfamiliar weight around his neck. He reached beneath his nightrobe and touched it. A City-Talisman, on a gold and sapphire chain, the same sort he’d always worn it on. He drew upon its stored power, feeling, beneath it, the link to a greater wellspring of stored power, and touched the City Wards beyond.

They were intact. Everything was as it should be.

He remembered now. Standing in the Circle, the Great Sword of the City in his hands, Elemental Energy surging through him as he fought to complete the spell, feeling a link with a dreaming half-conscious force much greater than himself that had taken and taken and taken, using everything he had to rebuild the Wards. Purging him of his link to the wild Elemental energies he had wielded for so long, draining him utterly.

He remembered the harsh caress of the Elemental as they released each other, their bond—and the need for it—ended.

Felt the spell continue to drain him for an instant more, sucking forth the tiny reservoir of personal Power he possessed.

And then … ?

And then his father had brought him back … here?

How long had he slept? What had they done to him as he slept?

Nothing, Cilarnen realized with a pang of relief. His mind, his memories, were his own; he knew that with a bone-deep certainty. If they weren’t, how could he remember Kellen, Idalia, Jermayan, Kardus, every day of his Banishment? If they had tampered with his mind, surely he would not think of them—Elves, Wildmages, Centaurs—as his friends?

He must have news.

He went to his closet and dressed quickly, and went downstairs.

HIS father was sitting in the Morning Room, a pile of papers at his elbow.

“Cilarnen,” he said. “I confess I had not expected to see you rise from your bed so soon.”

“My Lord Father,” Cilarnen said, making a formal bow. His City-manners returned to him easily, as if he had never left. He had the odd feeling he hadn’t left, even though his memory told him otherwise.

“Sit. I shall ring for breakfast. You will, I am certain, wish to know all that has transpired in recent hours.”

“I … of course.” Cilarnen seated himself in his accustomed place. It was hard to imagine doing otherwise.

Lord Volpiril raised a hand and sketched a sign in the air. There was a distant sound of ringing. In a moment, a servant appeared and was given his orders, and disappeared again. Out of long custom, father and son sat silently until the food was brought and served, and the servants had departed once more.

“I suppose they did not feed you so well outside the walls?” Lord Volpiril said, once Cilarnen had begin to eat.

“The food was well enough, my Lord Father,” Cilarnen answered. “I did miss the tea. But tell me, my friends—are they well?”

Lord Volpiril sighed. “The Lady Idalia’s spell went, perhaps, differently than we had expected. She is gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

Lord Volpiril frowned, reminding Cilarnen that no matter how much things had changed, this was not a tone he might take with his father.

“She vanished from the Circle just as Lord Lycaelon appeared. The Elf who was with her seemed to take it somewhat amiss. Beyond that, I know nothing, for he took his dragon and left the City. Soon after that, there was a great flux of the Light. It refilled the reservoir in the Temple of the Light to overflowing and recharged every Talisman in the City. Though the battle outside the walls continued, it moved into the forest. Now it is over, and the Elves have made themselves a tent city outside our gates.”

Lord Volpiril’s tone was faintly disapproving.

“I must go and see if they’re all right,” Cilarnen said.

“You must eat your breakfast,” Lord Volpiril answered firmly. “After that, there is much to do.”

“Yes,” Cilarnen said levelly. “We must welcome our allies into the City and see to their needs.”

Father and son gazed at each other for a moment in silence.

“Things must change in Armethalieh, Father,” Cilarnen added. “What happened here cannot be allowed to happen again. Ever.”

“You cannot understand what you ask,” Lord Volpiril said. “Yesterday—last night—we did what we had to in order to save ourselves from immediate annihilation. But now the threat is over. We can return to our own ways, as the Elves can return to theirs.”

“No we can’t,” Cilarnen said stubbornly. “It was just those ‘own ways’ that got us into all this trouble in the first place. You—me—everyone here—cutting ourselves off from the world. The High Mages taking from the people without telling them. All magic has a price that must be freely paid, and all help freely given. It is the first and highest rule, the one the Wildmages live by. We have to live by it, too, we High Mages. And if the people don’t want to give up their power for what we have to offer them, we have to let them go—not tell them there’s nothing outside of Armethalieh’s walls that anyone could want.”

“So that Light-blasted woman said,” Volpiril growled.

“Well, she was right.”

“She had the unmitigated gall to force the High Council to issue a proclamation to that effect.”

Cilarnen laughed. “And I suppose you did it because you were sure that nobody would see it?”

Volpiril smiled unwillingly. “And I am quite certain that no one did.”

“Well, you shall have to issue it again,” Cilarnen said simply.

“That will hardly be possible,” Volpiril answered.

Cilarnen gazed at him levelly, and Volpiril went on.

“Only the Arch-Mage could issue such a proclamation. Lord Lycaelon … he will never be well enough again to resume his duties. Though I am certain you well know I bear no love for him, believe that I am telling you the truth. He is broken in body and spirit—if not in mind—by his ordeal among the Demons. Worse, to know that Lord Anigrel, his heir, had been—so Lord Lycaelon has told us—the catspaw of the Demon Queen since earliest childhood, and conspired from the very beginning to give Armethalieh over to her completely … it has nearly destroyed him. He has resigned from the Council. At the moment, the High Council acts in a body to handle what business it may. But there are eight vacant seats, and it will be a year, at least, before they can all be filled, as no one will wish to come to another hasty decision about who may be added to its ranks. One of the five who are now on the Council must, inevitably, be the new Arch-Mage. But I like none of them. All of them truckled to Anigrel—as I have told them. And none of them will approve of … change.”

“You must retake your seat, Father. The oath you swore to Lycaelon no longer binds you.”

“It does not, of course. But it forced me to resign. And I while I could constrain them to accept me among them once more while there were Demons at the gates and they were mad with panic, they will not do so now that the threat has passed. Perhaps I shall regain my seat on the Council in time. But I shall never rule Armethalieh as I once hoped to do.” Volpiril sounded faintly regretful.

“There has to be a way to save them from themselves,” Cilarnen said fervently. “There must.”

“Perhaps there is,” Lord Volpiril answered thoughtfully.

THE aftermath of any battle was neither quick nor clean, even if the victory was decisive.

When Kellen awoke a few hours later, he joined the work-parties who were clearing the battlefield.

At home, the Centaurs took their dead to special fields miles from their home villages and left them on the surface of the earth, there to become one with the earth once more over the course of seasons. The human farmers who lived in the Wildlands buried their dead in the same fields. The Elves hung their dead in the trees. The Mountainborn and the Wildlanders built stone houses for theirs, where their bodies could rest undisturbed.

None of these things could be done here, for the thousands of fallen upon the battlefield. And there were horses, and the enemy dead as well. All must be disposed of—or at least moved far from the City walls before they attracted predators.

All across what had once been the battlefield, there were pyres of burning bodies. They had separated the Enemy dead from their own, burning them first. Some of the Tainted bodies were already turning to a sort of stinking jelly where they lay—those, the Allies had found, ignited swiftly and burned as if they were soaked in oil.

Those that had fallen in the forest, Ally and Enemy alike, were already covered by the carpet of living green. They left those alone.

But that left many more.

The Elves had simply refused to burn their dead. They were carried deep into the forest and laid, naked, upon the carpet of thick green life that had grown up there. Wagon upon wagon, piled high with bodies, made their slow journey into the woodland—by now nearly every tree was wreathed in green, and some were even sprouting new leaves—to return, empty, and be filled again. Even the Healers had returned from within the City to lend their aid.

The Great Gates stood open now.

Kellen stood at the head of one of the oxen, dragging a dead horse from the field. It was heavy work; the churned ground was still muddy, and the beast might be sure-footed, but he tended to slip. Still, the work had to be done.

And it kept him from thinking.

Armethaliehans moved across the battlefield as well, performing the lighter, simpler tasks of retrieving swords, weapons, and gear and bringing it to the camp. It, too, must be sorted, so that nothing Tainted would be saved to cause further potential harm.

Redhelwar had said, when Kellen had seen him earlier, that the Armethaliehans were helping as much as they could. They had sent food to the army, and were allowing them to enter the City—though not to go outside the area close to Delfier Square, the Council House, and the Mage College, where their wounded still recuperated. It was honestly more than Kellen had expected of them. One did not overthrow a thousand years of indoctrination and prejudice in a single night, even if it were a night unlike any that had come to Armethalieh in a thousand years.

Still, the sooner the army could leave here, the better Kellen would like it. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t trust the High Mages … well, to be fair, he didn’t. He was just wondering when—or if—they were going to realize that all they had to do to create that perfect world they’d dreamed of, without “Lesser Races” in it, was to turn on the remains of the Allied Army as it sat beneath their walls. Because right now, there was very little the Allies could do about the High Mages, if the High Mages chose to attack.

He only hoped they’d remember that those so-called “Lesser Races” had just saved all of their lives.

Kellen patted the ox on the shoulder, urging it to move on.

The air was filled with the scent of green growing things, overlaying the smell of blood and death. Amid the shouts and cries of the workers, Kellen caught a snatch of birdsong.

He wondered just how long it was going to take to wipe away all trace of the battle.

WHEN he got back to his tent—not his own pavilion, but the one he was using now—Cilarnen was waiting for him.

It was a shock to see him. Cilarnen looked every inch a Mageborn. He was dressed head to foot in Armethaliehan garb, wearing what Kellen supposed must be House Volpiril’s colors, copper and green. Only his heavy fur-lined cloak and sturdy—though elegant—calf-high boots made any concession to his present surroundings.

But he looked far better than he had when Kellen had seen him last. The drawn, pinched, feverish look was gone from his face, and color had returned to his cheeks.

“You’re alive!” Cilarnen said, grinning with relief.

“Redhelwar told me you were, but it’s good to see it for myself.”

“Idalia isn’t.”

Kellen hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that. She’d been Cilarnen’s friend as well. And it was unfair for that single death to hurt so much more than all the rest, but there were moments when it seemed to Kellen that Idalia’s death summed up for him every loss he had suffered in this war.

Cilarnen looked away. “I’d hoped … Lord Volpiril told me she vanished from the Circle, and Lord Lycaelon took her place.”

“We found her body at the Stones.”

Cilarnen reached out and put a hand on Kellen’s arm. “I am so very sorry for your loss, Kellen. I know—if you could you would have died in her place.”

“Any of us would,” Kellen said quietly.

“Jermayan?” Cilarnen asked.

“He was with her when we … found her. Alive, but I do not know where he and Ancaladar are now.”

Cilarnen sighed. He looked around. “So many dead. In the City … our losses were light by comparison, but much was destroyed. And as soon as we can, we must send to see what is left of the Delfier villages and the Home Farms. If anything. We shall need those Selken grain-ships that are coming, and more besides. I do not think that anyone will be planting anything this spring.”

Kellen shook his head. “The fields may come up by themselves, though. Look at the forest. It is green already.”

“Thank the Light for that.”

“Leaf and Star.”

“The Wild Magic,” Cilarnen said.

The two of them smiled at each other, and Kellen felt some of his heartsickness ease.

“What will you do now?” Cilarnen asked.

Kellen hadn’t really thought about it. “I suppose, eventually, I’ll go home. Back to Sentarshadeen.”

“But Kellen, this is your home. Armethalieh.”

Kellen shook his head, as certain of that as he’d ever been of anything in his life. “Cilarnen, whatever has happened, I’m still a Knight-Mage. There’s no place for me in Armethalieh, and there never will be.”

“Don’t be so certain of that,” Cilarnen said, smiling faintly.

“Oh?” Kellen said. “I suppose you’re going to change things around here?”

“I might,” Cilarnen answered. “They’re going to make me Arch-Mage.”

IT was an ancient Law of the City, and one that had only been invoked once before in all Armethalieh’s thousand-year history. Yet it was a Law of the City—and as such, it could be brought before the Council as a petition.

Volpiril had done so, early that very morning.

“My lords, I come before you today not as a member of this so-august and so-worthy body, but as a humble petitioner,” Volpiril said.

If the towers had been functioning, it would barely have been halfway through Morning Bells, but the High Council had been sitting since Second Dawn Bells. Between Cilarnen’s spell of the day before, and the storm the Mages themselves had allowed to lash the City, Armethalieh was in ruin and chaos. Work-parties must be assigned, Mages must be set to the task of repairs and spell-casting, the Commons must be advised and soothed.

Normally, none of these tasks and decisions ever reached as high as the High Council, for Armethalieh was run by a complicated—and very efficient—bureaucracy of many interlocking Councils. But after the events of the previous night, too many of the Mageborn who formed the links in that chain were absent—or dead on the Allied battlefield. The entire Militia, who should have been able to support the City Watch in keeping the Commons in their place, was dead. Much of the Watch’s functions had been taken over moonturns ago by the Commons Wardens, and the Commons Wardens were not to be trusted. They were being held under guard in one of the warehouses until their memories could be thoroughly gone over and edited. The Magewardens filled the cells below the Council House, and were being similarly—though more immediately—dealt with.

Meanwhile, the High Council floundered, bogged down in petty details it had never been meant to deal with.

“Oh, make your petition and have done, Lord Volpiril,” Ganaret said irritably. “What is one more petition on a day like today?”

“My lords, it has not escaped my notice—as I am certain it has not escaped your own—that Armethalieh is at present without an Arch-Mage to rule her.”

“This is no news,” Lord Dagan said. “I suppose you wish to put yourself forward for the position, Lord Volpiril? You have always wished to take Lycaelon’s place.”

Lord Volpiril bowed. “Acute as always, Lord Dagan, but no. Perhaps it has escaped your notice that I am not a member of the High Council at this present. No, I have another candidate in mind. But first, I would pose a question to you all: If you were to vote at this moment, for whom would you vote as Arch-Mage? The vote, as you know, must be unanimous—among so small a Council as this.”

There was silence from the five men above him upon the black stone bench. Lord Volpiril smiled.

“I see what you have already seen yourselves: None of you will support the accession of the others. Yet there must be an Arch-Mage. And in these times, more than ever before, he must be one with a wider knowledge of the world than any of us has. One who is not mired in the past, in the empty traditions that have already nearly doomed us all. One who can make Armethalieh truly a golden city, a city of the Light, once more.

“Consider, my lords. The harbor has been swept free of ships, many of them destroyed. The Delfier Valley has been scoured. We shall have to rely upon the Selkens—foreign trade—to feed us in the coming seasons. We dare not alienate them. We must resettle the Delfier Valley, and the folk to farm it must come from somewhere. We must—somehow—explain to our people not only what has happened this night past, but what has happened in all the moonturns of Lord Anigrel’s poisonous influence that preceded it. Who shall do these things? You, Harith? You, Lorins? Ganaret? Nagid? Dagan? Which of you shall embrace this troublesome future with an open mind and willing heart?”

There was silence from the High Mages.

“Oh, do tell us your amazing plan, Lord Volpiril—since you so obviously have one,” Harith said pettishly.

Lord Volpiril bowed mockingly. “Lord Cilarnen has the necessary qualities to do all these things. He is a friend to the Elves and the Wildmages. He has saved the City. Elect him Arch-Mage—let him rule with your guidance, and the guidance of those others who will join the High Council in the moonturns to come. That is my petition.”

“Impossible!” Ganaret roared. “He is but an Entered Apprentice! A child!”

“He has cast a spell at Master level,” Volpiril said. “You know that perfectly well. Waive the tests.”

“It can’t be done,” Nagid said. “He was Banished.”

“Unjustly. By a Creature of the Dark,” Volpiril said inexorably. “And by his actions, both in the world beyond our gates and here, he has proven himself not a child, but a man.”

“It is … irregular,” Lorins said. “People will say he is Anigrel come again.”

“That is a valid consideration,” Volpiril said. “And so, to avoid it, I suggest that he be appointed by not this Council alone, but by all Mages of Magister rank within the City. There is precedent, my lords. It was done once before. Thus did Camorin Andralan become Arch-Mage over Armethalieh, by the proclamation of all his peers.”

“And if they fail to acclaim him?” Ganaret asked suspiciously.

“Then you may return to your wrangling as the City falls to dust around you,” Volpiril said. “If you are so foolish and so blind as to wish that for Armethalieh, then I do not think she deserves to survive.”

For long moments the five Council members conferred among themselves, behind a spell-barrier that made their words inaudible to Lord Volpiril. At last Ganaret leaned forward again.

“Very well, Lord Volpiril. Your petition is granted. The High Mages of the City will be summoned together to vote as to whether to accept Cilarnen Volpiril as the new Arch-Mage of Armethalieh—if you, yourself, agree never to seek a seat upon this Council again.”

Lord Volpiril smiled sadly, bowing his head in submission. “My lords, you are all as aware of my ambition as you are of your own. But Cilarnen tells me there is a price and a cost for all things of worth, my Lord Mages. If that is to be mine, then I hold it a light one.”

THE conclave took place at the Great Temple of the Light at the center of the City. Every place was filled.

Cilarnen stood before the Altar of the Light, flanked by Lord Volpiril and the Chief Priest of the Light.

When his father had come to him a few hours before, after leaving the Council House, and told him that the Mages of Armethalieh were to vote on whether or not to appoint him Arch-Mage, he’d thought his father was joking—except for the fact that Volpiril never joked.

“You wanted to save them from themselves,” Volpiril said. “This is the only way.”

“But… Arch-Mage?” Cilarnen said. “I know nothing of being Arch-Mage.”

“Nor is your election certain. And if you are elected, I promise you a life of frustration and heartache, dealing with fools and greedy imbeciles—and those are only the ones I know. You will have seven new self-seeking idiots to block your every act, once the Council returns to full strength. You will have to lie, flatter, bribe, and threaten them to get them to do what you want, and if it goes on for long enough, you may not remember what, in fact, you originally wanted of them.”

“Oh, I shall remember,” Cilarnen said. He thought of what he had seen at Nerendale; the Demons slaughtering the farmers, the Militia, Thekinalo and Juvalira. Those days must never come again. “I will always remember. And perhaps good people can be found for the Council posts. That is always a possibility, my Lord Father.”

“First, you must achieve the appointment. Now come. We must be at the Temple of the Light at noon.”

“Noon? Today? But… we will hardly have time to speak to everyone. How will they … ?”

“Armethalieh is still the City of Mages. There is a spell.”

AND so here Cilarnen stood before the High Altar, awaiting the spell that would be cast over him, allowing everyone in the room to see, not his mind, but his heart.

If such a spell had been cast over Anigrel, he wondered, would things have worked out differently? Or would Anigrel’s Darkmagery have allowed him to twist the spell, and allow him to show them only what he wanted them to see?

His father spoke first, briefly, telling the assembled Mages what most of them already knew: that Lord Lycaelon had resigned, that the Council could come to no agreement upon who should be the next Arch-Mage from among their numbers. He reminded them all that an Arch-Mage could be chosen from any of sufficient rank by the vote of all the Masters in the City, as it had been done in Camorin Andralan’s time—a precedent that was still Law, though it had never since been invoked. He told those who did not know it that Cilarnen, having cast the spell to restore the Wards around the City, was indeed of Master rank, having cast, not only a Master Spell, but the most complex Master Spell of all.

A simple spell of Knowing placed all of Volpiril’s complex arguments in favor of Cilarnen’s candidacy into all of their minds at once, and Cilarnen blinked, stunned at the depth and breadth of his father’s trust in him. He only prayed he could do half the things Lord Volpiril hoped he could—not only for the good of the City, but for the good of everyone in the Land.

Now the time came when he must, himself, be judged.

Together, Volpiril and the Priest of the Light lifted their wands and began to draw glyphs about him. As each one settled over him, Cilarnen felt a tingling sensation as the spell began to settle, and he began to hear a whispering sound, as if he stood beside the ocean, instead of in the Temple of the Light. The room blurred, becoming brighter.

He wasn’t good enough. They’d reject him.

He was vain. He had a terrible temper. He liked to show off. He was … arrogant. Much too proud of being a High Mage—he knew it. He’d never understand the Wild Magic, and deep down, he really didn’t want to try. Though, actually, it was fascinating, because he knew that it and the High Magick had been one magic once, long ago. Maybe Dyren Lalkmair could teach him more.

He really saw no reason why Lord Lalkmair should not be allowed to conduct his researches as he pleased.

He thought Elven tea tasted terrible. He’d missed the food from home, although he’d tried to be polite. His feelings got hurt much too easily, and when they did, all he thought about was getting back at the person who hurt him. Of course, that passed very quickly, and he was ashamed afterward, but…

He liked fashionable clothes. And being comfortable. He liked jewelry, and scent. He’d missed the rings and jeweled chains he now wore. He didn’t like living in a tent in the cold. But he loved Anganil, and riding at a gallop through the snow. And Shalkan … oh, it had been worth everything, even Banishment, to see Shalkan and the other unicorns!

But to be home, home, home again. Armethalieh was where he belonged. He had been homesick every minute he was gone, and when he’d discovered how much danger his beloved City was in, he’d been terrified. When he’d first met Kellen—and been afraid that Kellen wouldn’t help—he’d been so afraid and angry that he would have done anything to force Kellen to help them, because Armethalieh was in danger and the thought that she might be destroyed terrified him more than the thought of his own death.

He thought of Stonehearth. Grandur and Sarlin and all his Centaur friends there. They’d been so kind to him when he had not deserved it.

They’d taught him, he realized now, to be human. To see past surfaces. To see people, no matter how they were shaped.

It was a lesson Armethalieh desperately needed to learn.

Finding out back in Stonehearth that his Gift wasn’t gone—that he could do something to help, to fight—was a moment of both terror and joy. Because he could do so little by himself. And because his Gift was supposed to be gone—Anigrel had been supposed to destroy it—and that meant that things were even worse in the City than he thought.

But he was here now, home now, and no matter what happened here today there would be something he could do to help Armethalieh.

The spell faded. The chamber darkened, and he could see properly again. Cilarnen swayed a little, blinking in confusion. Lord Volpiril put a hand on his arm, steadying him.

“My lord Mages,” Volpiril said. “It is time to vote. Do you accept Cilarnen Volpiril of House Volpiril as Arch-Mage of Armethalieh … or no?”

His father had told him in advance how the votes would be signified. Blue Magelight for “yes.” Red for “no.” Unlike a vote of the High Council alone, only a simple majority would be needed here.

But when the lights began to rise up in the Temple of the Light, every one of them was blue.

THE ceremony itself—the formal investiture—would not occur for a sennight, as—this time—the High Council was determined to do everything in the traditional fashion. Though Cilarnen was technically a member of the Mage Council, he would not join it until then.

He did not mind. Let them have their small victory. He had won the greater war.

At last, released, he had gone outside the walls to find Kellen and seek news of his friends.

And to tell them his.

“ARCH-MAGE?” Kellen’s jaw dropped gratifyingly. That gawky farmboy look was back.

Cilarnen found it rather endearing, actually. If—after all Kellen had seen and done—he could stand there and gawp at Cilarnen like a rustic fresh from the villages, well, perhaps Cilarnen need not worry too much about becoming cold and distant and proud once he was given the ring and staff of the Arch-Mage’s office.

“Apparently nobody else wanted the job,” Cilarnen said, though that wasn’t exactly true. “Do you want to come to my investiture? Kardus will be there.”

“Kardus is a Centaur,” Kellen said, nearly sputtering.

“I know Kardus is a Centaur,” Cilarnen said patiently. “But he’s my friend. And since I’m going to be making a lot of changes in Armethalieh, I thought I’d give everyone fair warning of what to expect. I’ve asked him to stay and help me settle in. And he’s agreed.”

Kellen shook his head. “ ‘Know what to expect.’ They’ll never expect you.”

“I know. But they’re stuck with me now. The appointment of an Arch-Mage is for life—or until I resign. And I intend to live a very long life, and make a lot of changes. You’ll see.”

“I suppose we all will,” Kellen said.

THAT evening Kellen dined in Redhelwar’s tent. It was a melancholy occasion, with so many familiar faces absent, but Vestakia was there.

With the death of the Prince of Shadow Mountain—her father—and the routing of the Demon Army, Vestakia, too, had recovered much of her health and former vitality, though she was still too thin. But the wellspring of life that surged outward from the Standing Stones had affected her as much as anyone else.

“The Healers say that the wounded are recovering much faster than normal,” she said. “And the Wildmages—” those who are left, Kellen mentally supplied, “well, they say their Healing Spells are working far better than even they expect. So it is a very good thing for everyone!”

“A very good thing indeed,” Redhelwar agreed. “The army should be ready to return to Sentarshadeen within a sennight. The Centaurs, the Wild-landers, and the Mountainborn wish to go directly home, of course, and I see no reason why they should not. Which is why I have another task for you, Kellen.”

“As always, I am at your disposal,” Kellen said automatically.

“Good,” Redhelwar said. “I wish you to take a strong force, five thousand horse, and follow the trail of those creatures who fled the battle. I do not think—now that Their power has been broken—that they will be able to enter the Elven Lands, but I will not have them settle in anywhere to cause trouble. Take any who will volunteer to go with you—by now you know the quality of this army as well as I. It would please me greatly did you report upon your progress when you can.”

“I will leave at once,” Kellen said. He’d be just as glad to be gone from Armethalieh, all things considered.

Redhelwar hesitated. “Do all that you can, but join us in Sentarshadeen in three moonturns. We shall … say goodbye to Idalia then. You will wish to be there. Andoreniel will wish it also.”

Kellen bowed his head. “I’ll be there.”

HE spent the next day assembling his force and getting together his supplies—all from Armethalieh, this time. Early the next morning, they rode out. No trace of fire damage was visible in the forest now.

Though Vestakia would have been useful in tracking the Tainted creatures, Kellen left her behind with Redhelwar’s force. Her presence was not absolutely vital to the success of his mission, and she was still recovering from the effects of her long linkage to the Demon Prince’s mind. It was better that she travel with the slower-moving army, in relative safety.

After so much death, so many losses, he could no longer bear to risk her life.

Scouts ranged ahead of the column of Elven Knights and light mule-drawn wagons, searching for signs of the Enemy, whether its monsters, or the vassalraces that had fought beneath the Endarkened banner. Kellen doubted they’d find many of either here in the Delfier Valley; it was far too warm, and the creatures of the Endarkened were creatures of darkness and cold. Without the magic of their masters to protect them, this would not be a comfortable place for them. Still, it didn’t hurt to be careful.

And vigilance took his mind off other things.

Idalia had not been laid to rest here in the forest. Redhelwar had told him that she was being taken back to Sentarshadeen. The Wildmages had bespelled her body until it could be hung in the Flower Forest itself. It was, Kellen knew, a very great honor.

He’d rather have had his sister back.

They spent three days in the Delfier Valley, crisscrossing it, looking for signs of the Enemy. They found none. But they did find a number of villages that had been hastily destroyed by Demon magic, their inhabitants taken to fuel the Demon Queen’s spell, and a few terrified surviving refugees who told grief-stricken tales of Demon raids. They fed them, did what they could for them, promised them that the Demons were gone, and sent them to Armethalieh, promising them that more help would be provided to them there.

Now, at last, it was true.

On the morning of the fourth day, they reached the edge of the bounds.

Here they stopped to convert their wagons to sledges, though even beyond the edge of the Mages’ weather-workings, the snow was beginning to melt and soften. Despite that—and though the Wildmages who still traveled with them said that the time of heavy storms were past—True Spring was sennights away.

Kellen held himself fortunate that he did have Wildmages. Though the Mountainborn were returning home, several of the surviving Lostlander Wildmages had agreed to accompany Kellen’s army—at least as far as their own settlements at the western edge of the Elven Lands.

They journeyed onward.

THEIR first destination was Stonehearth.

The Centaur village was the closest settlement outside the Delfier Valley, south and east of Armethalieh. It was where Hyandur had taken Cilarnen, and Sumaraldiel, one of Kellen’s trackers, reported that something had passed this way ahead of them, a day or so before, though the wind had blurred the tracks in the snow so much that he could not tell what it might be.

Whatever it was, Kellen was sure it must be something bad. The Delfier Valley refugees would have headed for the City, and Wildlanders in this area would not have dared to move at all—at least not in the last few days.

He was right.

They caught up to them just outside Stonehearth; a mixed force of Frost Giants and dwerro traveling together. Less than fifty of them, but certainly enough to destroy Stonehearth, if they managed to reach it. They were quickly and efficiently overwhelmed by a tiny portion of Kellen’s force, without injury to the Elven Knights.

But the battle made Kellen think, and think hard.

The remains of the Enemy forces would be straggling across the Wild Lands in small clumps such as these—all across the Wild Lands. If he kept his own force together—large, comparatively slow-moving—he would never be able to search out all their hiding places before they dug in. Or raided and moved on. He wasn’t sure where the Enemy stragglers were going—probably they didn’t know themselves, but it was a good bet they were trying to either get back to the Demon stronghold—wherever it was—or at least back to the mountains beyond the Elven Lands before summer.

That evening he called all his Commanders together.

“I have a proposal to make to you,” he said. “You saw the battle we fought today—not much of one, compared to the Battle of Armethalieh. You know the orders Redhelwar has given us. Given me. I believe that the enemy that we follow will be scattered and disorganized, fleeing—as this one did—in small groups. Easy to kill. I propose, therefore, that we seek him out in the same fashion. In small groups, no more than fifty horse each. In that fashion, we can cover much more territory, find the places they are most likely to seek out. I believe they will attempt to raid the villages and farms of the Wildlands first, and then head around the edge of the Elven Lands into the High Reaches if they can. Just as we do, they will need food and supplies. They may have other needs as well. But whatever they want, we can’t let them have it.”

“You propose, yet you do not order,” Calundil observed quietly.

“Today we won our battle without injury,” Kellen said. “If we do what I propose, we will face our Enemy perhaps on equal terms, perhaps at a disadvantage. Thus, I would hear your words—all of you—before I considered giving orders.”

“It would be good to know how we will provision such smaller commands,” Laurindiel said. “We do not have the capacity to send provision trains with as many forces as you propose to create. I speak without disrespect; even had you decided upon this course before we left, neither we nor the human city could have provided the wagons and the draft animals that would be needed.”

“I have considered that,” Kellen said. “We have enough wagons to equip perhaps half our force. For the rest—the Wild Lands are well-settled. I believe the villages will provision us. I do not expect you to go so far as to be completely out-of-touch with one another, and … the power that began at the Standing Stones in the Delfier Valley is spreading, I think. Meriec, we would welcome your counsel.”

Meriec was one of the Lostlander Wildmages who traveled with the army. Even now he wore the traditional Lostlander garb of high sheepskin boots over thick full breeches, heavy knee-length tunic, and long goatskin coat, though, as many had, he had taken the opportunity on the journey south from Sentarshadeen to add a heavy cloak of Coldwarg fur to his outfit. There was one thing good about the hellbeasts, Kellen thought. If you could manage to kill and skin them, they did provide nice warm fur.

Meriec stood and bowed.

“I and my brothers and sisters agree, Kellen Knight-Mage. The power that Idalia Wildmage called forth at the Standing Stones continues to pour forth over the land, healing all that was blighted. We all feel it, as must you. The Springtide will be more than fruitful—and there is more. Those beasts not slain by the Tainted creatures will be returning to their old places, and the creatures of byre and pasture will bring forth young in great numbers, come the day.”

“Still,” Kellen said, “I suppose that still means ‘no hunting.’ So many animals have been killed off that we’d better not touch the rest. So we’ll have to rely on our supplies, and on what the villages can give us. If you all agree to my plan.”

“Indeed, Kellen, it would be foolish of us to doubt this plan. It seems a sound one. And you have led us to one great victory already,” Vorendel said chidingly. “So I believe I speak for all here when I say that we will do as you ask.”

Kellen looked around the tent. The Elves all nodded.

“Then we take a day here to make our dispositions. Tametormo, bring your Twelves and ride with me on to Stonehearth. From there I shall head south and east into the High Reaches. Any of you may find me along that route.”

DID I do the right thing? Kellen wondered.

He rode Firareth a little away from the camp, out beyond the pickets. It was already dark, and he conjured a ball of Coldfire. The ball of azure light turned the snow around him a brilliant blue.

Above him the sky was bright with stars. Meriec was probably right. Winter must be almost over.

It was going to be a glorious spring.

He was actually surprised when Shalkan came trotting up to him. He hadn’t seen Shalkan for several days—since the two of them had slain the Prince of Shadow Mountain, in fact—and he certainly hadn’t seen him lurking around the edges of Kellen’s makeshift army as they’d ridden through the Delfier Valley. But still, here he was. The unicorn looked, as always, composed and imperturbable.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Kellen said.

“We aren’t finished with each other yet,” Shalkan replied.

“I guess we aren’t,” Kellen said. “So … Cilarnen is going to be Arch-Mage of Armethalieh.”

“So I heard,” Shalkan said. “Nice of you to tell me.”

“I haven’t seen much of you lately.”

Shalkan snorted rudely. Kellen sighed. The unicorn wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. But it wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t really been that accessible. Not to a unicorn, anyway.

“I’m sorry,” he said penitently. “I’ll try harder to make myself available.”

“You’d better,” Shalkan said meaningfully. “I still have to keep an eye on you, you know.”

“It’s not like I can get into that much trouble out here,” Kellen pointed out. How was it that Shalkan could manage in only a couple of words to make him feel as if he’d never been anywhere or done anything—and still needed looking out for?

“You’re going to Stonehearth tomorrow. And trust me, Sarlin will bear watching.”

Sarlin? Oh. “The Lady of Stonehearth. Cilarnen mentioned her. Don’t worry. I won’t get into trouble.” No point in wondering how Shalkan knew something he’d only decided a few minutes ago. Kellen had long since realized that unicorns had their own sources of information.

“See that you don’t.”

“So … do you want all the details?”

“It would be a nice gesture on your part,” Shalkan said grumpily.

Quickly Kellen told the unicorn all that he’d discussed with the Elves under his command, about splitting the army up into a number of small mobile units, in order to cover the whole of the Wild Lands more swiftly and efficiently.

“Thought that up all by yourself, did you?” Shalkan said, when he’d finished.

Kellen sighed. Shalkan snickered.

“It needs to be done,” Kellen said.

“It does,” the unicorn agreed. “And afterward. What then?”

After Sentarshadeen. After the funeral.

“I don’t suppose I’ve thought that far ahead,” Kellen said.

“You’ll have to eventually,” Shalkan said.

“I know,” Kellen said.

“Go to bed,” Shalkan said. “You’ll have a busy day tomorrow.”

TWO days later, Kellen and his troop rode up to the gates of Stonehearth.

He was relieved to see that the village appeared to be in good shape. Cilarnen had told them of the devastation the Demons had caused here several moonturns before, and the southern route had been the main line of march for the Demon Army on its path to Armethalieh. But Stonehearth seemed to have escaped.

The gates were already open as he and his Knights approached. Several Centaurs trotted out through the snow toward them, a young blonde Centauress in the lead. She must be Sarlin, the Lady of Stonehearth.

Kellen reined in Firareth and waited for them to approach.

“I greet you in the name of Andoreniel, King of the Elves,” he said, when she reached them. “And I bring you good news: They have been defeated.”

“ ‘They’?” Sarlin only looked puzzled. And worried.

Despite himself, Kellen smiled. No need not to speak Their name anymore, lest it draw Their attention.

“The Demons. They have been defeated. You are safe now.”

Now a look of joy suffused Sarlin’s features.

“Herdsman be praised! Then … you are Elves?”

Kellen reached up and pulled off his helmet. “My Knights are Elves. My name is Kellen Tavadon. I—”

“You are from the human city! You’re the one Cilarnen went to look for! Did he find you? Is he—”

“Cilarnen is safe and well,” Kellen said. “And he is a great hero. And a friend of mine.”

“Oh, I knew he would be!” Sarlin gasped, rearing up on her hind legs in her excitement. “Can you—Will you come in? All of you? Will you tell me about him?” “Gladly,” Kellen said.

“We need your help, as well.”

“We will do anything,” Sarlin said fervently.

THEY stayed three days at Stonehearth, using it as a base as they swept the surrounding area, looking for signs of the Enemy.

They found one or two, wounded stragglers from the party they had slain. They also found a pack of Ice Trolls, dead of sunlight when their magic failed them. They burned all the bodies.

Kellen found himself glad of Shalkan’s warning. Sarlin—whether because Kellen was Cilarnen’s friend, or because she was simply relieved that the Demons were gone—was just a bit… fervent. Kellen found himself rather uncomfortable in her presence. But there was little to be done about it, save make certain that he was never alone with her, and that was easy to arrange, as the addition of fifty Elven Knights—and their mounts—crowded the Centaur Village almost to bursting.

One thing Kellen did find very useful in his time at Stonehearth was that Sarlin—and the rest of the village elders—were able to provide him with detailed information about other villages in the area, something the Elven maps he had brought with him sorely lacked. As Kellen had hoped and expected, they were little more than a day’s ride apart—at least for Elven destriers—and Sarlin assured him that every village and farming community in the area would be as happy as Stonehearth had been to host them, out of gratitude for the news they brought.

On the third day, Kellen and his Knights moved on.

FOR sennight after sennight, the Elven Knights rode across the Wild Lands. After the first few villages, Kellen left the others to their work and rode out with Mirsil and his Twelve to find one of the other bands of riders. His plan had evolved; now fast-riding skirmishing units criss-crossed the Wild Lands, rarely more than half a day’s ride from one or another of Kellen’s bands of searchers.

It was a method of solving the problem of cleansing the Wild Lands that the Elves would never have considered for themselves. Kellen had come up with it almost without thought; another gift of his Knight-Mage skills.

And everywhere they went, they brought with them the news that the Demon Army had been utterly routed.

Sometimes it seemed that they did not need to bring the news at all. As the sennights passed, even though they moved farther east and north, spring was rapidly approaching. Even the enormous blanket of snow that had fallen over the past hard winter was melting away—now the ground was visible in places, with the first shoots of spring grass pushing up through the dead growth of the year before—and the trees were setting their first leaves.

They encountered stragglers from the Demon Army constantly, of course. Hundreds of them, overall. But their enemies had only had a few days’ head start, and had wandered, disoriented, with no clear plan. Kellen’s strike forces dealt with them quickly and efficiently, and while there were a few casualties—both in villages, and to the Elven Knights—not one of the Enemy that they faced survived, nor got as far east as the High Reaches.

And at last, Kellen and his Knights reached the Border of the Elven Lands.

Chapter Twenty

To Honor the Fallen

IT WAS THREE moonturns, almost to the day, since they had left Armethalieh, and winter was over. It was hard, now, to believe that the ground had ever been covered in snow, and that Kellen had ever spent his days and nights worrying about freezing to death.

There was no longer any need to worry about fodder for the horses and mules. Grain would have been better, of course, but the ground was covered with lush thick grass, and after an entire winter of dry fodder, the animals took to it greedily. With the little grain they had left—and the fact that they took the last part of the journey east by easy stages, having, so far as the Wildmages could tell them before they left, scoured the Wild Lands of the Enemy—they did well enough.

As Redhelwar had asked, Kellen had sent him regular reports. And in fact, he had much to report.

Every sign of the blight the Demons had spread—both to the land and the people—was gone. As Meriec had prophesied back at Stonehearth, the wild creatures had indeed returned to their old ranges—Kellen had seen several herds of deer already, as well as birds of every description—and the farmers reported that the flocks and herds were all being, well, fruitful. The births of twin lambs and calves had become the rule instead of the exception. And apparently the crops were going to do well, too—though Kellen wasn’t sure how anyone could tell this early in the season. But that was what everyone told him, so he dutifully wrote it all down and sent the information along to Redhelwar.

Idalia would have been so happy to know all these things.

“YOU should dismiss us, you know,” Tametormo said, as they reached the boundary of the Elven Lands.

“I … er, it would be good to know your thoughts, of your courtesy,” Kellen said.

In the days and nights of their journey north, he had come to rely upon Tametormo as his Second. Their relationship lacked the easy familiarity of the one he had had with Isinwen, or the close rapport he had shared with Ciltesse, but he trusted Tametormo to advise him on the things a commander needed to know.

He’d been lost in thought—not thinking of very much, aside from being alert (as he always was) for possible danger on the road ahead, and wondering what he would do with himself once he got to Sentarshadeen. He rode at the head of the column of Knights; in less than an hour they would cross the Border, and be back in Elven Lands again.

At last.

“We will enter the Elven Lands, and go beyond Sentarshadeen, to the place where Redhelwar gathered us together to await Andoreniel’s word. There, I am certain, he awaits us now. But the time for the army is past. I do not believe that any of us here calls Sentarshadeen home. For my part, I long to see the plains of Ondoladeshiron again. So, when we arrive there, Commander, dismiss us, that we may go home,” Tametormo said.

“I … yes. Of course. I thank you for your courtesy in telling me that which I did not know,” Kellen said.

“You are a great leader, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Tametormo answered. “And I and my House shall honor you for that until the end of our days. Your name will never be forgotten, so long as the trees grow and the stars burn. But you will never be an Elf.”

And I will never understand Elves, either.

IT took them another half day to reach the place that Tametormo had spoken of, and just as he had said, there was a camp waiting there for them.

It was small. There were no Healers’ pavilions, no row of tents for the Engineers, Armorers, and Artificers. No separate camp for the Centaurs and the Mountainfolk. There were only a few animals waiting in the horselines, though Kellen saw wagons of fodder and a proper herd of remounts grazing out in the meadow.

Most of the Elven Army, it was obvious, was already gone.

Kellen led his troops around the edge of the camp, to the flat plain beyond. Redhelwar rode out to meet them.

He looked at Kellen expectantly, and Kellen was suddenly very grateful for Tametormo’s words of advice. He turned Firareth about to face his command. There was a momentary flurry as the Elven Knights elegantly re-ordered their ranks, regarding him expectantly.

What should he say?

“It has been my honor to command you,” Kellen told them, standing in his stirrups and pitching his voice so that his words could be heard clearly. “You have done all I have asked of you, and done it well. I dismiss you now. Leaf and Star go with you.”

There was a moment of stillness. And then, as simply as that, they were no longer an army. The Elves broke ranks, heading quietly for the horselines to unsaddle their mounts.

Kellen turned to Redhelwar.

“And I dismiss you, Kellen Knight-Mage. Our work here is over. In a day or two, those you have commanded will go to their homes, when they and their horses have rested. These tents will be struck, and in time, there will be no sign that there was ever an encampment here. Which is as it should be.

“But you have a home to go to now. And you should seek it.”

Kellen sighed. “I will. But… It would please me greatly to hear whether you have had any news that I have not heard.”

Redhelwar met his gaze steadily. “Vestakia has returned to her home in Sentarshadeen. She is well, and spends much time assisting the Healers. We know not where Jermayan may be. I am sorry.”

Kellen bowed his head, turned Firareth, and rode away.

HIS destination was the stables at the House of Sword and Shield.

It seemed like an eternity ago that Jermayan had first brought him here to study with Master Belesharon. He had destroyed the Black Cairn, discovered his own Gift, battled Master Belesharon’s Knights in the Teaching Circle and won. He had thought himself well-versed in the ways of the world, a seasoned warrior already.

He’d had no idea.

Kellen found an empty stall and untacked Firareth, brought him a bucket of oats and then brushed him while the destrier ate. Firareth had shed much of his winter coat in the past sennights, but the floor of the stall was still covered with fluffy puffs of tawny horsehair by the time Kellen was finished with his work. When they were both done, he put a hand on Firareth’s shoulder and urged the old warrior out into the sunlight. Time for Firareth to take a well-deserved rest, and idle in the sunlight and green grass, turned out to pasture among the other warhorses.

Firareth regarded him curiously.

“Well, go on,” Kellen said. “I’ll call you if I need you.”

Firareth tossed his head and trotted off toward a group of other destriers standing nearby. Kellen wasn’t at all surprised to see Valdien among them.

“Well, here we are,” Shalkan said.

“Here we are,” Kellen echoed.

“You really ought to go home and have a bath,” the unicorn observed. “That armor’s much too hot for the season. When’s the last time you had it off, anyway?”

“I can’t remember,” Kellen said. Probably at the last village they’d visited, and that had been over a moonturn ago. Well, he took it off at night. Most of it, anyway.

And it was hot.

He reached out a hand—he’d taken off his gauntlets in order to groom Firareth. Shalkan slipped his neck beneath Kellen’s palm, and Kellen stroked his fingers through the unicorn’s downy coat.

“Do unicorns ever shed?”

Shalkan just snorted, not answering. “Go home,” he repeated. “Assuming, of course, that you still know the way. And try not to be surprised if you see unfamiliar faces in the streets. Armethalieh—among others—has sent a delegation of honor to the ceremony.”

“Armethalieh?”

Kellen could not have been more stunned if Shalkan had told him that the Demons had sent a delegation.

“The look on your face is priceless.”

Kellen had to smile. “Well, Cilarnen did say he was going to change things.”

“And he is. And for the better.”

“When is… ?”

“The day after tomorrow. If you hadn’t gotten back when you did, they were going to send someone out to look for you.”

Kellen sighed. “I suppose I’ll see you around?”

“I certainly won’t leave without telling you, after all we’ve been through together.”

“Thanks.”

Kellen turned and started walking up toward the city.

BY the time he reached his house, it was dusk. He saw a few people along the way—only Elves—and he’d never been more grateful for Elven politeness, for nobody stopped him or tried to speak to him. He had, he realized, absolutely no idea of what to do with himself. Oh, there was the ceremony to honor Idalia. He hated the idea of it, but he knew he had to attend, because it was important. But after that?

His Naming Day anniversary would be in a few months, he realized—not that the Elves celebrated such events, he suspected.

He’d be eighteen.

It was the beginning of most people’s lives, and … not that his was over, but …

He just felt as if he’d already done everything he was supposed to do with his life, and that there was nothing left to do.

He reached the door of his house. To his surprise, there were lanterns outside, and they were lit. He stopped, frowning in confusion.

This was his house. He was certain of it. The Elves certainly wouldn’t have given it to someone else.

As he paused on the doorstep, hesitating, the door opened.

A slender elegant Elven man stood there. He looked familiar. As he saw Kellen, his face took on a pleased expression.

“I See you, Kellen. I had expected you long ago. Come, enter. You will be hungry, and weary from the road. All awaits you, just as you would wish it.”

Suddenly Kellen realized who this was.

Vertai.

Many moonturns ago, when Idalia had left their house to go and live with Jermayan, Kellen had somehow, suddenly and mysteriously, acquired a sort of servant—or assistant, he had never quite been able to figure out Vertai’s relationship to him, and Vertai had been expert at not answering that question. But since—at that time, and probably still—Kellen had possessed no ability to keep his wardrobe in order, his larder stocked, or even cook and clean, Vertai had taken on all of those tasks, generally performing them while Kellen was away receiving his lessons at the House of Sword and Shield.

“I See you, Vertai. And thank you,” he added, bowing. “I am grateful for your aid.”

He walked inside.

“Your robe is laid out, and I shall prepare tea. Perhaps you would care to suggest a suitable blend.”

“I am sure that you will know a tea appropriate to the season.”

He walked into his room, surprised at how small it seemed. And not surprised to find several things from his packs already neatly laid out in the appropriate places. Apparently his luggage had preceded him and already been unpacked.

He removed his armor and set it aside. Cleaning it could wait until he bathed. He unbraided his hair—it had gotten very long over the past moonturns—and combed it out. Then he put on the robe that was laid out for him on the bed—relieved to see that for once it wasn’t green, but a pleasing fawn color—and matching house-boots and went out into the main room.

The tea—thanks to the Elven “small magics”—was already waiting for him. Kellen picked up the cup and sipped gratefully. The taste was unfamiliar, yet soothing. He remembered a conversation he had once had—it seemed so long ago!—with Dionan and Redhelwar about brewing and blending tea. They’d said the teas of springtime were subtle. This must be one of them.

“I thank you for this, Vertai,” he said.

“I shall prepare your evening meal, and then I shall depart to my own home. Tomorrow, you must expect a visit from Tengitir. Your robes for the ceremony are prepared, but they will need a final fitting.”

Kellen tried not to sigh. If he’d needed anything to convince him that the war was over and everything was swiftly returning to normal, a visit from the Elven seamstress who specialized in clothing for the non-Elven was definitely it.

“I shall attempt to conduct myself properly,” he said.

“You will rejoice to know, as we all do, that Andoreniel is in the fullness of health—indeed, that all who suffered the Shadow’s Kiss have recovered completely. He has asked after you, and hopes you will come to see him when you may.”

That was certainly good news. Kellen had to think a moment before he could frame his next question politely—which was to say, in a form that was not a question. After so many moonturns of free-and-easy War Manners, it would take some time to settle fully back into formal Elven politeness again.

“There are many people living at the Fortress of the Crowned Horns,” he said at last.

“The snow is still deep in the mountains, so I have heard. Andoreniel intends to send a convoy to them within the sennight, bringing news of our victory, and conveying all within back to their own homes.”

And undoubtedly, Kellen thought, they would all be very grateful to go there.

TWO days later, the nobility and the aristocracy of every race in the land gathered together to bid their last farewell to Idalia.

Andoreniel and the Viceroys of the Nine Cities were there: Vanantiriel, Viceroy of Windalorianan; Kindolhinadetil, Viceroy of Ysterialpoerin; Magarabeleniel, Vicereign of Lerkalpoldara; Rochinuviel, Vicereign of Ondoladeshiron; Arelin, Viceroy of Deskethomaynel; Attindorande, Viceroy of Valwendigorean; Falmielandiel, Vicereign of Realthataladon; and Sildonaure, Viceroy of Thulta-foniseen.

Though several of their cities lay now in Dark-blasted ruins that would take years to rebuild, and too many Elves to count lay dead, the Elves showed no sign that this was anything but a great victory, in their manner or their bearing. For the third time in their long history, they had faced the power of Shadow Mountain and broken it—perhaps, this time, forever.

Several High Chiefs of the Mountainborn were also here to pay their respects. The Mountainborn had no King, but in his time with the army, Kellen had learned a little of their ways. The families were organized into clans, and the clans gave their allegiance to chiefs, whose ultimate purpose was to settle those disputes which could not be settled by any other means. Six Chiefs of the Mountainborn stood here today—all who could be spared from the work of rebuilding their land that the Mountainborn had before them. They were dressed in their finest garments, soft embroidered woolen tunics and trousers, long coats, wide-brimmed hats trimmed with bright feathers.

Kellen remembered wearing Mountainborn clothing. Shalkan had particularly hated the hat.

The Lostlanders did not organize into clans as the Mountainborn did; in the harsh northern land where they had lived until Atroist had brought them south, the Wildmages had been, not only their sole defense against the nearly-constant Demon raids, but the final authority in all matters. To this final ceremony they had sent Feyrt, their Belrix—War King—with his surviving council of Wildmages.

The Lostlanders stood with the Centaurs—which made sense, since the Lostlanders intended to remain in the Wildlands and live among the Centaurs and the human farmers. Kellen recognized Kreylmedd, who had been warchief of all the centaurs in Redhelwar’s camp. The grizzled old veteran had lost an arm in the fighting, and many new scars made white streaks across his chestnut hide, but he had survived. There were about a dozen Centaurs present, men and women both: some who had served in the army, some who were leaders of their home villages.

And, as Shalkan had warned him, there was a delegation of High Mages from Armethalieh, including not only the current Arch-Mage …

But the former Arch-Mage.

Lycaelon Tavadon.

His father.

Kellen did not know what he expected to feel when he gazed on his father’s face again. Shock? Anger? Triumph? In fact, he felt nothing, not even relief that he felt nothing. Lycaelon looked terribly ravaged; his hair had gone quite white, and a young man in gray Mage-robes stayed beside him at all times to offer support.

The ceremony itself took place at the edge of the Flower Forest. It looked more vibrant than Kellen could remember ever having seen it.

In fact, it looked … larger.

Yes, there was definitely new growth there at the edges.

The Flower Forest was expanding. Another good sign that their victory had been decisive.

He had not yet spoken to Andoreniel, a lapse in manners he knew he’d have to take care of as soon as the ceremony was over. He had sent a message to the House of Leaf and Star yesterday, requesting to be excused from any active participation in the ceremony today.

He couldn’t think of anything he wanted to say.

He was glad they were all alive. He was glad the Demons were gone. He knew—he knew—that Idalia’s death was not too high a price to pay for that.

He just couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.

ANDORENIEL had given his permission, of course, though naturally Kellen still had to attend. So now here Kellen stood, among all the other dignitaries, wearing elaborate robes of green and silver—fortunately, Vertai had been there at his house this morning to help him dress, or he’d still be trying to figure out how to get into them—standing beside Redhelwar, who was equally magnificent in red and gold.

One good thing about all this was that Lycaelon probably wouldn’t even recognize him.

Beyond the ranks of those who had a formal place in the ceremony stood those who had come just to be there. Most of them were the citizens of Sentarshadeen—all dressed in white—but at the edges of the crowd, Kellen saw some distinctly human faces, and a few Centaurs as well. Probably there were even some Otherfolk here, if he took the care to look closely.

Everyone had loved Idalia.

He turned his attention to the table set just outside the Flower Forest. It stood upon a pure white carpet—the first he had seen anywhere in the Elven Lands—and the table was covered in a white drape. Upon the table stood a green glass lantern, similar to the ones the Elves hung outside their homes at night.

Andoreniel came and stood behind the table. He placed his hands upon the lantern, and suddenly it was lit—somehow without magic, Kellen knew.

The people gathered in witness, already quiet, stilled even further.

“We have come to say our last farewell to Idalia Wildmage, Beloved of the Elves and of all, who stood between us and the Shadow, and through her will, her courage, and her grace, allowed the Light to prevail once more,” Andoreniel said.

THERE was a brief ceremony, silently conducted by Andoreniel and Rochinuviel. It almost seemed like a dance. It reminded Kellen, just a little, of what Cilarnen had done with the unicorns outside the walls of Armethalieh, though he felt no magic in it, only a faint sense of peace. At the end of it, the two of them carried the lantern into the Flower Forest.

Is that it? Kellen wondered. But nobody seemed to be moving.

When they returned, a new air of expectancy suffused the gathering.

“Now let us recall her life,” Andoreniel said.

KELLEN realized he had subconsciously been expecting something like this—and dreading it. One by one, representatives from the gathered dignitaries advanced to the now-empty table to speak of Idalia, and what she had meant to them. Kearn was there—he spoke of his long friendship with Idalia, of how she had always traded with him sharply but fairly.

An ancient Lostlander Wildmage—a white-haired woman, quite blind—spoke on behalf of Atroist, sharing his memories of Idalia. Atroist, Kellen discovered, had been her grandson.

Vestakia spoke, telling them all of the first time she had met Idalia, how Idalia had taken her into this very Flower Forest to discover whether her half-Demon heritage would be a threat to them. She spoke of Idalia’s unfailing—and unflinching—kindness and friendship to her, from the first moment she had seen her.

Though Vestakia’s appearance caused some consternation among those who had never seen her before, there was no fear. Everyone knew that the Demons were defeated and gone.

Others spoke, though briefly.

Cilarnen spoke, telling not only of the kindness he had received from Idalia, but of how much he had learned from her.

“—for she was the first true Wildmage I had ever known. I am a High Mage of Armethalieh, a Master of the Art of High Magick. All my life I had been raised to think of the Wild Magic as something little different than the Dark-magery itself, and Wildmages as little better than Demonspawn. Idalia did not even bother to tell me it wasn’t so. She simply showed me it wasn’t, by everything she was and did.”

And then, to Kellen’s vast and unsettled surprise, Lycaelon Tavadon came forward to speak. The young gray-robed Mage by his side assisted him to the table; when he stepped away, Lycaelon leaned upon it heavily.

“Idalia was my daughter. But I do not come today to praise her as a daughter. I never valued her as a daughter, and never knew her. For her entire life—every hour and day of it—I was her unswerving enemy, and when I discovered that she still lived, I sought her death with all the power at my command. But she … transcended all that she had been as a child of the City. All that she might have been as my daughter. She died, not as an Armethaliehan, but as a hero to all the land. And it is for that which I praise her to you here today.”

He bowed his head, and the young Mage came to help him away.

No more speakers came forward. The ceremony was finally over.

It had been a moving and honest speech, and Kellen was mildly surprised that Lycaelon had made it—though he was actually more surprised that Lycaelon had made the journey all the way here to the Elven Lands at all.

Did it make a difference to his feelings about his father?

Kellen wondered.

No. It had been something of a shock to see his father here today, but, seeing him again, Kellen realized that all feelings for the man who had given him life—whether they were feelings of hatred or love—were simply gone. Lycaelon had never given him a chance to love him, and all hatred had been burned away by the intense self-knowledge required of a Knight-Mage.

If Lycaelon had not been who he was, Kellen would not have become who he was.

And if Kellen had not been who he was, the Demons would have won.

All went as the Wild Magic willed—and as Idalia had told him once, the Wild Magic wasn’t a tame magic, and its workings weren’t always comfortable. In a way, it had needed Kellen and Idalia, so it had created them, by sending their mother Alance to Armethalieh in the first place.

He could live with that.

They truly had sent Idalia to rest, Kellen realized suddenly. For the first time since he had seen her body at the Standing Stones, he felt at peace. The ache of her loss was still there—and would be with him for a long time to come, he knew—but it no longer felt like a wound that would never heal.

Suddenly he felt a sense of Presence.

“When the time comes, you must… let go.”

In the Caverns at Halacira, a Price had been asked and granted. He had thought it would be a heavy one, as so many of the Prices of the Wild Magic were.

Now, here, today, he realized that paying it would free him, not burden him.

And that he had been paying it ever since the end of the Battle of Armethalieh.

Let go.

It was time to let go of all that the Wild Magic had made of him.

Not to let go of being a Knight-Mage … that was something he would be until the day he died. But to let go of being a Commander of Armies. A General. Someone who had learned to see other people as tools and weapons.

He must let go of war, and battles, and death.

Let go of the deaths of his friends and loved ones, and keep their lives instead.

Let go.

Yes, Kellen thought, with a sigh. I can do that.

The sense of Presence lifted.

He looked around, feeling, as he always did afterward, as if he’d just awakened from sleep. The world seemed somehow fresh-washed and new, as if it were a place he’d just now come back to.

He sought out Andoreniel.

“I See you, Andoreniel,” he said politely, when Andoreniel noticed him.

All around them, the people were returning to their homes, in the quiet graceful way that Elven ceremonies ended.

“I See you, Kellen,” Andoreniel said. “It pleases me to speak with you once more.”

“And I with you,” Kellen said. “It occurs to me that I have been … too long away from civilized things.”

“That is often the case, when one must do battle to keep those things safe,” Andoreniel said. “It would please me greatly were you to consent to dine with me tonight. It will be a quiet meal, and there are matters I would speak of with you afterward.”

A quiet dinner sounded just about right to Kellen. “It will be my pleasure,” he said, bowing.

HE moved out around the edges of the crowd that was still assembled there, thinking of nothing so much as going home and brewing up a nice pot of tea. He didn’t trust himself to make a drinkable pot of Elven Tea—well, not one he’d offer to one of the Elves, anyway—but Vertai had somehow seen to it that the larder was stocked with a fine assortment of Armethaliehan teas as well, and a large pot of Armethaliehan Black would be just the thing. Along with a good slice of the breakfast pie he hadn’t had any appetite for this morning.

“Kellen! Hey!”

There was just about only one person in the entire Elven Lands who would hail him in that fashion. He stopped and turned.

Cilarnen was running after him, clutching his Staff of Office in one hand and attempting to hold onto his high-crowned Arch-Mage hat with the other. His long gray robes and ornately-embroidered tabard flapped wildly about his ankles as he ran.

Kellen grinned despite himself. That was a sight he’d never expected to see—a High Mage of Armethalieh—and not just any High Mage, but the Arch-Mage—running like a common servant.

Things had indeed changed.

“Kellen,” Cilarnen said, catching up to him. “Were you just going to leave without saying goodbye?”

“You looked busy,” Kellen said. Actually, Cilarnen had looked surrounded by High Mages, and that was somewhere Kellen didn’t really want to be. “I thought I might see you later.” Certainly Vertai would know where to find Cilarnen. The Elven penchant for gossip was one thing that the war hadn’t changed.

“See me now,” Cilarnen suggested. “We’ll be leaving in the morning. I can’t stay away from Armethalieh very long. Light alone knows what the Council will have done while I’m gone, even with Kardus there to tell them not to. I left him my seal.”

“In that case,” Kellen said, “they’re probably still paralyzed with shock. Come and drink tea with me.”

The two friends walked in silence for a while.

“I’ve never seen you dressed like this,” Cilarnen said doubtfully, regarding Kellen’s formal Elven finery.

“And I’ve never seen you dressed like that,” Kellen said.

“You just look—”

“Appropriate,” they finished together.

“It isn’t exactly the way I thought it would be,” Cilarnen said. “Being, well, Arch-Mage.”

“Worse?” Kellen asked.

“And better,” Cilarnen said. “Now that the people know that they’re a part of the High Magick—really a part, because we couldn’t cast our spells without what they give us—things are different in the City. They can choose to wear the Talisman and stay … or leave. Nearly everyone has decided to stay. Those who haven’t, well, they can go anywhere they want. Or that will have them. There’s an amnesty—they have until the end of the sailing season to make their arrangements to leave; I’m not just going to throw anyone out, no matter what the Council is urging. Next year … well, I’m going to start trying to get the Council to ease the restrictions on new goods. We’ll have to, because of the trade we need to do. But Father was right. I can’t do everything at once. I only wish I could.”

“You’ve made more changes in the last few moonturns than the City has seen in the last thousand years,” Kellen reminded him. “The rest will come in time.”

“It would come faster if you were there to help. Won’t you come back to Armethalieh, Kellen? We could use you there. And … you heard what Lord Lycaelon said today. Can’t you forgive him? He’s suffered greatly, you know.”

Kellen stopped walking, honestly stunned that Cilarnen couldn’t see what he himself saw so clearly.

“Truly, Cilarnen, there is nothing to forgive. You know Lycaelon’s wife—my mother, and Idalia’s—was Mountainborn. I think, you know, that she may have been a Wildmage as well. And the Wild Magic moves as it wills. I think that everything that happened between us was all part of that, to make me what I needed to be.”

Cilarnen stared at him, obviously accepting Kellen’s truth but not understanding it. He shook his head ruefully. “I will never understand Wildmages. The Wild Magic is just too … messy.”

“But effective.”

“Oh yes. I do grant you that. But… will you come back?”

“No. I told you that already. Wherever I belong—and I don’t know where that is yet—it isn’t Armethalieh.”

They reached Kellen’s house, and went inside, and spoke of other things.

THAT night Kellen ate dinner at the House of Leaf and Star. As Andoreniel had promised, the evening was quiet and intimate. Besides Kellen and Andoreniel, the only others present were Morusil and Redhelwar.

The plague-scars on Morusil’s and Andoreniel’s faces had faded nearly to invisibility, though both Elves would carry the mark of the Shadow’s Kiss to the end of their lives, as would so many others throughout the land. But from the moment the power of Shadow Mountain had been broken, there had been no more deaths, and all who had been afflicted had recovered rapidly and well.

Talk during the meal was idle, and mostly of inconsequential matters—crops to be planted, festivals to be held, new artworks planned by this Elven master or that. Redhelwar spoke of his desire to return to Windalorianan, to help with the rebuilding of the city, and to return to the care and breeding of his beloved horses. Morusil spoke of his garden, and how very well it was doing already. He confirmed what Kellen had suspected—that the Flower Forest was, indeed, expanding.

After the meal, they retired to Andoreniel’s private study, a place Kellen had never been. Like Ashaniel’s solar, the walls were made of many tiny panes of glass, and through them, Kellen could see the garden that surrounded the House of Leaf and Star filled, at this hour, with its hundreds of multicolored lanterns.

The study was filled with lanterns as well, tiny copies of the ones outside. It gave the effect of bringing the garden inside in an unbroken sweep of flickering rainbow light. The effect was deliberate, Kellen knew. The Elves rarely did anything by accident.

“There is only one last thing to be done to set all to rights,” Andoreniel said, once all of them were seated. “And it would ease my heart greatly to know that I might set this task into the hands of a friend.”

There was a moment of silence before Kellen realized that they were waiting for him to speak.

“It would please me greatly to know what this task might be,” he said.

“A convoy goes to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns to bear the glad tidings of their liberation to the Crowned Horns’ defenders, to tell Master Tyrvin his long task is at an end, and to begin to bear the inhabitants away to their homes. It has been much delayed by weather—something of which you and Redhelwar know as much as any, Kellen, for you have fought many battles through those mountains. And I know that you are weary and long for rest. Yet I would be grateful could you bring yourself to go into the north once more and bring my Queen and my son home to me.”

“Yes, I… of course. I would be honored to lead such a convoy,” Kellen said, after a short pause.

When Andoreniel had begun speaking, he’d thought it would be something difficult.

“I hope that Vestakia will accompany you on your journey. I know that the Enemy has been defeated, but…”

“It is still good to be sure,” Kellen finished. “I cannot speak for Vestakia, but I’ll ask her.” I’m sure that she’s really looking forward to spending another moonturn camping in the snow.

But to his surprise, she agreed.

THE preparations for the convoy had all been made while Kellen had still been leading his troops toward Sentarshadeen. Kellen suspected that Andoreniel had hoped all along that Kellen would be the one to lead it north.

He really didn’t mind. It was a simple easy task, after all that had gone before it. The land was at peace, and in the full bloom of Springtide. Though he rode armed and armored—but in a much lighter cloak and surcoat than he had worn for the winter fighting—he really didn’t expect trouble.

Though, as always, he rode prepared for it.

THE journey took them a fortnight. At the end of the first sennight, they reached the village of Girizethiel and reprovisioned. Girizethiel marked the point at which the convoy left the rolling open country and began to ascend into the mountains themselves. Another sennight would see them at the Fortress.

Though the Unicorn Knights themselves were gone, the party was not without unicorn companions, for a small band of unicorns had apparently decided to accompany Kellen’s party.

Including, of course, Shalkan.

“Why not?” Shalkan had said, when Kellen asked him about it on the first night of their journey. “Spring is a good time for traveling.”

Knowing he would get no better answer, Kellen had left it at that.

And spring was a good time for traveling, especially this spring. The mountain air was crisp and clean, the forest they rode through once they left Girizethiel was filled with radiant new life. There were times when Kellen could almost convince himself that the past several moonturns had been some horrible dream.

He was not the only Knight with the convoy, of course. Four Twelves rode with him, Elves with family members at the Crowned Horns, who would be escorting them back to their homes. It would take time to empty the Fortress completely, but Sentarshadeen was not the only Elven city that would be sending wagons, only the first.

On the fourteenth day of their journey, they left the forest and rode out onto the plain below the Fortress. It was no longer the ice-covered plain that it had been the last time Kellen had seen it, but a meadow; with spring, the snows had retreated to the mountain slopes. All sign of the terrible battle that had once taken place here was gone, ice and snow had been replaced by a field of flowers, pink and white and blue, stretching as far as the eye could see.

Kellen and Vestakia were riding at the head of the convoy. It was peaceful to ride beside Vestakia. She was the last of his comrades who remained, the one who had been with him almost from the beginning. And while Kellen knew that she missed Idalia as much as he did, he also took delight in her constant wonder in everything new—and everything about the lushness of spring in the Elven Lands was new to Vestakia, since she had grown up in the harsh and nearly-barren Lost-lands.

Suddenly she stiffened and leaned forward in her saddle.

Kellen put a hand on his sword.

“No! Kellen—look! It’s Ancaladar!”

Kellen stared where she was pointing.

At the foot of the causeway that led up to the entrance to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns, there was a familiar black shape.

Ancaladar.

Kellen turned to Ornentuile, one of the Elven Knights who rode just behind them. “We’re riding on ahead. You have command.”

He spurred Firareth forward, racing across the meadow.

Vestakia followed.

“IT is good to see you again, Kellen, Vestakia,” Ancaladar said politely.

The dragon lay basking in the sunlight, his great wings spread.

“What are you doing here?” Kellen demanded. “Didn’t you know we were all worried about you?”

“We’ve been busy,” Ancaladar said calmly, not at all distressed by Kellen’s exasperation and anger. “You should go and see Jermayan. You’ll understand.”

Kellen glanced up the causeway. Master Tyrvin stood at the bronze gates that guarded the entrance to the Fortress—open now—waiting for them.

Kellen gestured to Vestakia.

“Oh, I’ll go,” she said, sounding exasperated, “but be sure that when I come back, Ancaladar, I’m going to give you the scolding of your life!”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” the dragon said, sounding amused.

“WELL met,” Master Tyrvin said, when Kellen and Vestakia reached the top of the causeway.

“We’ve come to bring you news,” Kellen said. “But I think you may already have gotten it.” He nodded back to where Ancaladar lay.

“That Their power has been swept from the land is word that has perhaps come to us indeed.” Tyrvin smiled. “But come. There is news you will wish to have as well, perhaps equally joyous, and I shall bring you to Ashaniel so that she may deliver it to you.”

He led Kellen and Vestakia inside, and through a maze of corridors down a path Kellen had not taken on his previous visit to the Fortress. Though he heard the sound of scurrying feet many times—indicating that the corridor was being hastily vacated—Kellen saw none of what must, by now, be the many inhabitants of the Fortress.

Tyrvin paused before a door and knocked.

Sandalon opened it.

The boy seemed to have grown at least a head taller in the moonturns that had passed since Kellen had seen him last. He flung himself into Kellen’s arms with a glad cry of joy.

“Kellen! You’ve come back for us! And Vestakia is here, too! Mother! Kellen and Vestakia are here! Oh!” Suddenly the boy remembered his manners. He stepped back and bowed. “Please be welcome—in our home and at our hearth, Kellen Wildmage, Lady Vestakia.”

Kellen reached down and ruffled the boy’s hair. “And I See you too, Sandalon,” he teased, stepping inside.

The first thing his eyes went to in the room was Jermayan.

The Elven Knight was sitting beneath a window—it wasn’t a real window, for there were no windows anywhere in the Fortress of the Crowned Horns—but Ashaniel’s chamber had been painted in the likeness of a tower room, with mock paintings of windows upon all four walls.

He was sitting beside a cradle, a look of utter peace upon his face.

Ashaniel sat at the other side of the cradle, gazing down into it with a fond smile upon her face.

“I have a new sister,” Sandalon announced importantly. “She is very special.”

Kellen and Vestakia walked over to the cradle and looked down.

The baby was very tiny indeed. She lay beneath her blankets, regarding the world with calm curiosity.

Her eyes were not Elven black, but violet.

And she had a birthmark—a silvery eight-pointed star in the hollow of her throat.

“By the Good Goddess!” Vestakia gasped. “It’s Idalia!”

The baby gurgled with laughter, waving her tiny fists. Jermayan reached out a hand, and she grabbed his finger, clutching strongly.

No wonder Ancaladar sounded so … smug, Kellen thought.

“But…” he said.

Jermayan looked up, met his eyes, and smiled.

“I can wait,” he said serenely. “I have centuries—what is a mere eighteen years to that? I think—should I begin to grow impatient—that Ancaladar and I shall go in search of other dragons, to tell them that their need to hide from the world has passed. That is a task of years that will keep me from too much impatience. But when I return …”

He looked meaningfully at Ashaniel, who simply smiled.

“It will not be the first time a child has been betrothed in her cradle, Jermayan. And I can see already how stubborn she is. Not for all the treasure of the Nine Cities—or a dragon’s magic—would I do anything to keep the two of you apart.”

“So she is not dead,” Vestakia said joyfully.

“No,” Kellen said, still stunned by what he was seeing. Nor would Idalia’s greatest fear—that Jermayan would be forced to live out long centuries of his life without her—ever come to pass. Not now. For as a last gift of the Wild Magic, in payment for her ultimate sacrifice, Idalia had been reborn among the Elves, possessed, now, of the gift of their long years.

Suddenly Vestakia put her arms around him. He hugged her back without thinking—and as he did, he realized that it was almost summer.

His bond with Shalkan—a bond of chastity and celibacy—had been formed in early spring, to run for a year and a day.

That time was over now. Well over.

He was free.

He could look at Vestakia now. He could think about Vestakia now.

“I—” he said, suddenly feeling terribly awkward.

“I always knew,” she said gravely. Suddenly she smiled, and an irrepressible dimple appeared at the corner of her mouth. “Kellen, you worked so hard to avoid me!”

Kellen laughed with sheer relief. It was true.

But no longer.

THERE were formalities, of course. He had to speak to Tyrvin, and formally relieve him of his duties at the Fortress, something Jermayan had not been able to do. With that, the preparations for leave-taking could at last begin.

Once they were underway, Kellen and Vestakia went back down the causeway, this time walking hand-in-hand. For the first time in nearly a year, the children of the Elves were out in the fresh air once more, laughing and playing in the meadow among the watchful unicorns. He saw Sandalon among them, running in circles among the meadow flowers for sheer joy at being able to do so.

Where was Shalkan?

He’d said he wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.

Kellen located him at last, at the edge of the ring of unicorns that was watching the children. He was standing next to another unicorn, rubbing his neck against hers. Kellen recognized her at once—Calmeren, the only survivor from the first Crowned Horns convoy.

As he started to approach, Shalkan raised his head. His nostrils flared warningly. Kellen stopped.

Still celibate. But no longer chaste, I guess.

“I suppose this is goodbye, then,” Kellen said.

“You knew the time would come,” Shalkan said, sounding more than a little cross at having been interrupted. “Some of it was fun. All of it was necessary. But now it’s time for you to get on with your own life and let others tend to theirs. Goodbye, Kellen.”

“Goodbye, Shalkan.” Kellen turned away.

“And one last piece of advice,” Shalkan called after him.

Kellen stopped and turned back. “What is it?”

“Kiss the girl.”

Kellen grinned in spite of himself. Trust Shalkan to get in the last word.

Kellen turned to Vestakia. “Shalkan’s advice is usually pretty good,” he said.

“I think we should follow it,” she agreed.

And so they did.

About the Authors

MERCEDES LACKEY is the author of the Heralds of Valdemar and Elemental Masters series from DAW books, the Bardic Voices (in collaboration), the SER-RAted Edge, and Bedlam Bards series from Baen Books, and the Halfblood Chronicles from Tor Books, along with many other solo and collaborative works. Her hobbies include needlework, jewelry design, beadwork, and dollmaking. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband, coauthor and artist Larry Dixon, and far too many parrots for a peaceful household.

JAMES MALLORY is a professional ghostwriter with several books to his credit. Under his own name, he wrote the three-part novelization of the Hallmark Merlin miniseries: The Old Magic, The King’s Wizard, and The End of Magic. Born in San Francisco, Mallory attended schools in California and the Midwest before moving to New York to pursue a career in writing. From an early age Mallory has been fascinated both with the Arthurian legends and their historical evolution, an avocation that triggered a lifelong interest in fantasy literature. Mallory’s interests include hiking, comparative religion, and cinema.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE OUTSTRETCHED SHADOW: THE OBSIDIAN TRILOGY: BOOK ONE Copyright © 2003

TO LIGHT A CANDLE: THE OBSIDIAN TRILOGY: BOOK TWO Copyright © 2004

WHEN DARKNESS FALLS: THE OBSIDIAN TRILOGY: BOOK 3 Copyright © 2006

by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form.

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