1 The Outstretched Shadow.3 (67 page)

 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 abqut 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 stopes 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.