2 To Light A Candle.13 (64 page)

"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 serpentmarae, 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 cheer-fully, 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," Shalkan 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 with-ered 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.