When Darkness Falls Read online

  When

  Darkness

  Falls

  THE OBSIDIAN TRILOGY

  BY MERCEDES LACKEY AND JAMES MALLORY

  The Outstretched Shadow

  To Light a Candle

  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

  When Darkness Falls

  The Obsidian Trilogy,

  Book 3

  Mercedes Lackey

  and James Mallory

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  When

  Darkness

  Falls

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Halftitle

  Copyright

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  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.”