To Light A Candle ou(tom-2 Read online

  “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 entirely—but feeling just the same way about her. Then he imagined her doing something awful.

  “I g
uess 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 ou
t 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 re-oiled, armor looked to, ice-boots fitted, provisions sorted out.