To Light a Candle

by Mercedes Lackey

  “You can ask them about that when we see them,” Idalia said, trying to sound as if this was the sort of thing she and he did every day.

  She replaced the tea-things in Cella’s packs, emptied the brazier into the snow, cooled it, and packed it as well, then took out the two tarnkappa she’d brought. She handed one to Kellen, along with a piece of blue chalk.

  “We won’t be able to see or hear each other while we have these on. But I’ll be able to see the marks you make on the cave walls, and follow those,” she said. “And I’ll leave my own—in yellow—so if we get separated for some reason, you can use them to find me.”

  “Try not to do that,” Kellen urged. “I really don’t want to have to try to explain how and why I lost you to Jermayan.”

  “Come to that, I don’t want to have to explain the reverse,” Idalia said. “Well, go ahead. I can follow your footprints in the snow as far as the entrance.”

  “Enjoy yourselves,” Shalkan said, with a shake of his head. “We’ll be right here.”

  KELLEN put on his helmet, then shook out the tarnkappa and flung it around himself. As soon as the hood dropped over his helm, the darkness became eerily bright. Making sure he could reach his sword and dagger easily, Kellen started off.

  The tarnkappa muted the sound his footsteps made in the snow, but it could not erase his tracks. He walked in a weaving pattern toward the cavern’s entrance—a straight line would draw the eye of any watcher, as there were few straight lines in Nature. He reached the entrance and peered inside, but there was nothing to be discerned by either the tarnkappa’s darksight or his own Knight-Mage-enhanced senses.

  He stepped inside, chalked a small blue arrow just inside the entrance, and went on, moving slowly and carefully.

  The entrance passage was low and narrow—the Shadowed Elves might have been able to walk upright in it, but Kellen found himself crouching reflexively.

  Up ahead he could see the corridor broaden. He was about to quicken his pace when a thread of green fire at his feet stopped him. He froze, looking down.

  A few inches above the floor, stretching across the whole width of the corridor, was a shining strand of greyish material. It glistened to his battle-sight with baleful intent.

  He flung off his cloak and spread his arms wide, feeling something bump into one of them. “Stop,” he whispered hoarsely. The cavern was pitch-black to his vision now, all but the thread of green fire.

  “What?” Idalia whispered after a moment, having removed her own tarnkappa.

  “There’s a trip-wire here. Low to the ground. Do you see it?”

  There was a long pause, while Idalia put on her tarnkappa and then took it off again so she could talk. “Yes.”

  “I need to see what it does. I hope I won’t trigger it. Step back.”

  Kellen pulled his cloak back down. Once more the cavern was bright. He knelt down in front of the trip-wire and studied it carefully, willing himself to See it deeply, to Know it.

  Suddenly, in his mind, he could See the trip-wire breaking, and as it did, the section of floor on which he and Idalia were standing pivoted and fell away, leaving a deep pit where the floor had been. How deep, he wasn’t sure; but the fall would kill all who were standing in this length of corridor when the wire was broken.

  Kellen got to his feet and backed away. He pulled off the cloak again.

  “If we’d broken that wire, the floor would have fallen away, and we’d both have been killed,” he whispered into the darkness.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Kellen, if we’re attacked by a horde of poison-flinging Shadowed Elves, you can protect me, right?” Idalia said, a strangled note in her voice.

  “Yes,” Kellen said with certainty.

  “Then let’s use lanterns. Because I really don’t want to miss you warning me about the next trap because I can’t hear you. And they’re easier to put out quickly than Coldfire.”

  They lit their lanterns and went on, stepping carefully over the trip-wire after marking its position with chalkmarks on the floor to either side of it.

  The corridor opened out into a small chamber. Long thin poles were stuck into the rock at intervals, jutting out into the room. The only way through them was a narrow corridor down the middle.

  Disturbing one of those would bring a jar of acid pouring down.

  “Don’t touch any of those unless you want a faceful of something bad,” Kellen said grimly.

  They went on.

  Each of those traps—the pit-trap and the acid-trap, would have caused losses. But they could have built a bridge across the pit—or even jumped it—and once the acid jars were empty, that trap would be harmless, too.

  Neither was bad enough to make the army turn back. And from there on, they’d be alert for more traps.

  But if the Shadowed Elves were attacking at the same time, they wouldn’t have the chance to spot them. They’d be forced into them.

  The next trap was a patch of corridor that looked like stone to the unaided eye, but when Kellen threw a coin into it, it sank beneath the surface instantly. He chalked a mark at the near edge, Saw where the far side was, and jumped it. Idalia did the same, chalking a mark to indicate the far boundary.

  “It must have taken them a long time to make all of these traps,” Idalia said consideringly, looking back at the pool of artfully-disguised quicksand. “Moonturns, maybe.”

  “There weren’t any of these in the first cavern. Did they build these just for us? And if they did, how did they know we were coming?” Kellen wondered aloud. He was glad of the breathing space. The need to be constantly alert—and the knowledge of the penalty if he wasn’t—was draining.

  “And where are they?” Idalia asked, putting into words what Kellen had been wondering since they’d begun to descend into the cavern.

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” Kellen said grimly. “These traps—bad as they are—aren’t enough to stop the army—only to make it pay dearly for every foot of tunnel it takes. Let’s keep going. We need to find the village.”

  It seemed they could not go more than a few steps without encountering another trap. Some were as simple as poisoned spikes jutting out of the walls, or a rain of stones set to fall from the ceiling when a trip-wire was broken. Some were as complicated as the jet of air rushing between two low holes in the walls—they crawled beneath that one, and didn’t stop to find out what would have happened if they’d interrupted the flow of air. Some trip-wires seemed to have no purpose at all that Kellen could see—that probably meant they triggered more distant traps, perhaps to seal the whole army into the cave system, so it could be dealt with at leisure.

  And no matter how far they went, they saw no sign of the cavern’s inhabitants.

  Several side caverns had been hastily filled-in with rubble, as if the Shadowed Elves did not wish the invaders to get lost—or to find shelter.

  “They’re leading us right to them,” Idalia said. “Or to the village, at least.”

  Kellen had no doubt of that. And the army, having gotten this far, having sustained horrific losses, would be thinking of nothing but closing with its enemy.

  The corridor they were following made a sharp left turn, and suddenly they were there.

  The last village had been at the bottom of an enormous cavern. This time, the corridor opened directly onto the village floor. Though their lanterns cast very little light, Kellen had a sense of vast open space stretching off in all directions—all directions but overhead, because the ceiling was still only a few inches above his head.

  The lanterns did give them enough light to see the same cluster of stone huts as before, and in the distance, the banked embers of the communal firepit glowed redly.

  But to Kellen’s battle-sight, the whole of the low ceiling glowed with the evil green of a Shadowed Elf trap.

  He swallowed hard, realizing what he was seeing. Here—somewhere—was the trigger that would bring the whole ceiling down, crushing everyone beneath
it as a man might crush an insect between his two palms.

  “Idalia—” he said, turning.

  And stopped.

  Idalia wasn’t there.

  OH, good, now we can go home, was Idalia’s first exhausted thought when they reached the edge of the Shadowed Elf village and she saw the cluster of stone huts. Following Kellen into this chamber of horrors had been nerve-wracking; at times only the thought of the lives they would save had given her the energy to push herself on. She knew she hadn’t seen all the traps that Kellen had; it had been bad enough seeing the ones he’d pointed out. For a while tonight she’d begun to think that the time had come to pay her Mageprice, the one she had offered up to save Sentarshadeen.

  But dying down here would serve no greater good, and she had the faint suspicion—no more than that—that when the time came to pay her Price, the Gods would see to it that her death counted for something.

  At least so she hoped. Accidents—if anything in war could be called an accident—were still possible. But when she died, she hoped it would be in the light and air, and not buried beneath tons of rock …

  Someone was calling her.

  Idalia heard it clearly. A voice, off to her right, a voice that claimed every bit of her attention, and made her weariness vanish as if it had never been. Without thought, she set her lantern aside and moved toward it. She didn’t need light to see where she was going.

  KELLEN looked down. Idalia’s lantern rested on an outcropping of rock at his shoulder.

  “Idalia!” he shouted.

  The echoes almost masked the scrabble of claws against stone.

  Kellen whirled back, tossing the lantern he held at the first of the creatures emerging from the rock and the darkness. It broke against the creature’s skin, engulfing it in flame.

  He recognized them from Jermayan’s description. Goblins.

  They were less than half the size of the Shadowed Elves, but bore a horrible resemblance to them. Their frog-wide mouths gaped as they sprang toward Kellen, exposing multiple rows of glistening, needle-sharp teeth, and their skins were bruise-dark. They squinted their bulging pale eyes against the light of the remaining lantern as they bounded toward him, running on hands and feet both. They seemed to rise up out of the stone itself, as if it were like water to them.

  And they could spit poison. A unicorn could heal it, but Shalkan wasn’t here.

  And this was not the time to think of any of that.

  Kellen let all thoughts and questions drop from his mind, slipping into battle-trance now without even realizing he had done so. The goblins ceased to be goblins, and became targets for his sword.

  In the back of his mind, where some part of him made cold calculations and plans, was the knowledge that he dared not move very far from where he stood, for to enter the village might be to bring the entire roof down. No matter how his attackers came at him he spun and pivoted, backing and turning only in his own footsteps—he knew that was safe—and hacked away at the goblins.

  For every one he killed, three more took its place. There seemed to be an unending supply of the creatures, but for all their vaguely manlike shape, they didn’t seem to be even as intelligent as the coldwarg, and they kept interrupting their attack to devour their own dead and fight with each other.

  But no matter how many were diverted, there were always more than enough to take their place.

  In his brief breathing spells, Kellen grudged every moment he had to spend on them, but he dared not leave any of them alive. They were creatures of the Dark, and if he broke off the attack, they might have been given orders to trigger the collapse of the cavern roof.

  He dared not stand too close to the cavern walls, either. As far as he was able to tell in the midst of fighting them back, they could move through rock, hiding themselves within stone as easily as Elves could hide within a forest. Time and again Kellen felt hands reach up out of the stone on which he stood to clutch at his ankles, trying to pull him down so that the goblin horde could devour him. He could feel their teeth grate against his armor, searching for any way through its defense, even as he cut and kicked at them.

  There were spells he could use to make the fight end sooner. Fire was easy to summon, and he’d already seen how well they burned. But he didn’t dare. Every moment of the fight, a part of his mind was focused on the cavern roof, so precariously balanced. He did not know what would bring it down—perhaps even a Wildmage’s spell—but he knew that if it collapsed, neither he nor Idalia—wherever she was—would survive.

  And so he fought on, grimly, killing the goblins by ones and twos. He had no choice.

  And then, at last, he cut the last three down—and no more came. Kellen lowered his sword. The goblin bodies were already starting to dissolve, and the acrid stench of their decay made Kellen’s eyes water. He stepped hastily away from them, along the edge of the cavern, toward cleaner air, and came out of his battle-trance.

  And the first thing that leaped into his mind was Idalia.

  Where was Idalia?

  Suddenly he became aware of an odd desire to go deeper into the caverns. He was sure he’d find …

  What?

  Kellen stopped, realizing he’d taken several steps into the darkness without noticing.

  And that something deep inside him had jerked him to a halt with a thrill of alarm.

  He probed his own feelings, the way he would probe a wound. The yearning sensation was still there, but suddenly Kellen felt no desire at all to yield to it. It was like the revulsion he’d experienced at the Black Cairn turned inside-out, but he had no doubt its source was just as Tainted.

  It’s what would lure the army deep into the caves, Kellen realized in horror. If it worked on Elves—and he had no reason to think it didn’t—the Knights would have followed it to their doom.

  As Idalia had followed it.

  But why wasn’t he affected? Certainly he felt the call, and could follow it, but he could resist it, too.

  He remembered what Jermayan had said, when the Elven Knight had first discovered what Kellen was.

  “A Knight-Mage’s gifts turn inward, refining himself, so he cannot be turned away from his path once he has chosen it. A Knight-Mage can withstand forces that would destroy a Wildmage, for his power lies in endurance and the alliance of his knightly skills with his Wildmagery.”

  In other words, he was stubborn. Well, everyone had always said so. Kellen bared his teeth wolfishly. Whatever was calling was going to find out it had called up more than it could handle.

  He looked at the lantern, still burning undisturbed on the outcropping of rock. Should he take it?

  No. Idalia had gone into the dark without it, and he would follow her the same way.

  He fumbled in his belt for the tarnkappa and pulled it on. At once the cavern was sharply lit. He could see the vast sweep of it—far more than the lantern light had shown him—an enormous area, stretching at least a mile.

  And all of it carefully arranged to collapse, as soon as the proper trigger was tripped.

  He turned in the direction of the Call.

  THE way was long, but her steps were made smooth. Idalia hurried forward impatiently, anxious to reach her destination.

  Which was … what?

  She stopped, frowning. Where was she going? Where was Kellen? And why was it so dark?

  She fumbled at her belt for her tarnkappa, but before she could complete the gesture, the call reached out to her again, washing over her in a warm wave. Her hands dropped to her sides and she continued walking.

  THOUGH there were no traps that Kellen Saw past the village cavern, once he reached the edge of the village there were several tunnels. For a moment he wasn’t sure which of them Idalia had taken, but then the Call lured him toward the centermost one.

  It was smooth as glass and perfectly round, as if made by the passage of some rock-eating worm. At the far end, it opened out into what Kellen had come to think of as a more “traditional” underground cave—a hig
h vaulted cavern filled with tall spikes and pillars of rock. Here he could hear the breath of the mountain, and realized that sound had been absent from the labyrinth of tunnels he and Idalia had just passed through.

  He had the sense that this part of the cave system was one that the Shadowed Elves rarely used. But there was something here—these caverns were filled with life. He could sense it—and what he sensed was mixed. Some was Tainted, but some was not. He moved forward slowly, sword ready.

  And then he saw Idalia.

  She was walking forward, as easily as if she could see, directly toward a monster such as Kellen had never seen before.

  It squatted on its haunches, its arms clasped across its stomach, crouched upon a hummock of stone. Its body was squat and wide, and it did not seem to be very large, perhaps the size of a Shadowed Elf, but much wider. Its skin seemed to be a dull black. It was covered, not with fur or feathers or scales, but with little fleshy polyps of skin that gave it a nauseatingly shaggy appearance. If it had any eyes at all, they were so tiny as to be lost in the nest of facial polyps, and it seemed to have neither nose nor ears. Its mouth was slightly open, forked tongue lolling over curved fangs as it radiated the Call that had lured Idalia to it. And by the time Kellen saw her, she was nearly within arm’s reach of it.

  Fast as he was, Kellen couldn’t reach Idalia in time.

  He drew his dagger. He could put it through her leg, even at this distance. The wound would stop her without killing her.

  But then, he realized with a sudden feeling of horror, the creature would know someone was here. And it could spring up and rip her throat out before Kellen could reach it. He could stab the creature, but he didn’t know if that would kill it—or what stabbing it would do to Idalia’s mind.