To Light A Candle ou(tom-2 Read online

  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 now-bloody 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 a 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.

  “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 eno
rmous 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 ask
ed. 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—”