The Outstretched Shadow ou(tom-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  Which has its own prices, and is paid for with stolen energy.

  So that wasn't an answer, either.

  He performed his part of the chores of setting up camp in a haze compounded of equal parts of exhaustion and preoccupation. Jermayan helped him dig out and collect several melon-sized stones to build a fire-ring, both to protect their fire and to conserve its heat.

  "No practice tonight, I think. We're both tired. And I think you'll know what to do when the time comes."

  The Elven-Knight's words were an unintentional echo of the message Kellen had received from the Wild Magic during the last spell he'd cast, the message he still didn't understand. Remembering that unfulfilled obligation only worried him more. What would the true cost of Jermayan's healing end up being? Would it turn out in the end to have been better for Sentarshadeen if Kellen had let Jermayan die? But how could he ever have faced them—Idalia—Shalkan—himself—if he had?

  "Ah—all right, if you think that's best," Kellen muttered. "I think I'm going to take a look around. Stretch my legs while there's still light."

  "Be careful," Jermayan warned, but Kellen could tell from his tone that the Elven Knight wasn't really worried. Nothing could approach them unseen up here.

  Kellen changed out of his armor into the spare set of clothes and boots he'd brought. Wrapping his cloak tightly around him and belting on his sword—an act that seemed like second nature to him by now—he walked off.

  He didn't plan to go far—not even out of sight of the camp—but he'd been telling the truth about wanting to stretch his legs. Spending a day on horseback—or on unicorn-back—was still a kind of sitting, and not the restful kind, either. His legs ached with something that was not quite a cramp, and felt restless, as if they would twitch nervously if he didn't given them the exercise they craved. Strange, how you could be so tired and yet parts of you still needed more activity to settle down…

  The hilltop was covered with the same sort of dry scanty grass that they'd seen elsewhere; both Valdien and the mule were grazing meditatively. In places the granite beneath showed through, and if that weren't enough, there were occasional horse-sized (and larger) boulders strewn about, as if someone had been using the hilltop for a target a long time ago.

  Considering what Jermayan had told him about what sort of thing had gone on around here, maybe someone had. This would be a natural place to make a stand.

  He was keeping one eye on the camp, intending to walk a wide circle around it, when he saw the stele.

  At first he thought it was just another boulder, albeit a tall and narrow one. Perhaps snow and rain had sheered part of it away, giving it that tall and narrow shape.

  But no. When he got closer, he realized that it had been carved into that shape deliberately, and centuries of wind and weather had softened its shape until it looked like one of the natural boulders.

  He came closer. There was writing on it—at least, he thought it must be writing, though the even rows of symbols were wholly unfamiliar.

  There was one thing about the stele that was all-too understandable, however, though seeing it came as a complete and utter shock. Carved near the bottom was the glowering, horned, and fanged countenance of a Demon.

  "Jermayan!"

  Kellen's shout brought the Elven Knight at a run, sword drawn, with Shalkan close behind. Kellen pointed; he was very proud when his hand didn't shake.

  Too much.

  "Ah." The confusion and alarm eased from Jermayan's face. He peered at the inscription on the stone. "It is a marker, commemorating a great battle fought here, of an Allied triumph over the Demons."

  Kellen stared around. Suddenly the empty hilltop seemed somehow populated, as if the armies that had once engaged here had not left.

  Maybe they haven't. If any place should be haunted, it ought to be a place like this one.

  "Of course, in those days this place had a different aspect," Jermayan reminded him, as if guessing the direction of Kellen's thoughts. "But come.

  We will eat, and consider what route we may take on the morrow."

  Jermayan turned and walked away. Kellen gazed after him. Jermayan seemed awfully calm about standing in the middle of an ancient battlefield, a place where Demons had actually set foot. He glanced at Shalkan, but for once the unicorn's expression was unreadable.

  Grand. Making camp among the ghosts. I hope at least some of them are friendly.

  "I guess we'd better go back," Kellen muttered. He cast a last look at the stele, and followed Jermayan.

  Though there was not to be a sparring match that evening, that didn't save Kellen from a long lecture on the theory of combat, which was, in its way, just as helpful as actual physical practice. There was more to battle than hitting the enemy with a sword, he was coming to discover, just as there was more to magic than casting the most powerful spell you could manage. Just as knowing what spell would produce the best result with the least expenditure of personal power was important for a Wildmage, so, for a Knight (or a Knight-Mage), was being able to make your foe do what you wanted—flee or die—with the least risk to yourself and your allies.

  "Glory and honor are important," Jermayan said sternly, "but they are not the most important things in the life of a knight. He must always keep his ultimate goal in his mind, and be prepared to sacrifice all other things to that goal. Perhaps even his honor, should such a choice be forced upon him."

  Kellen nodded, but he knew his own choices weren't so simple. A Wildmage's personal honor involved always paying the price of his magic, no matter what that price might be. And to refuse to pay that price, as he had learned from Jermayan, would lead a Wildmage down the path of corruption, and into the service of the Demons of Shadow Mountain.

  Kellen had the horrible suspicion that what that meant was that eventually a Wildmage would inevitably be called upon to betray one loyalty for another, and he didn't like that thought very much at all. Betray a friend who trusted you for the greater good? Betray a trust to keep a greater one? Betray a secret to save another? But try as he might, he couldn't see any way around it… if the need to do so ever came up.

  Maybe it wouldn't.

  He hoped it wouldn't.

  How could he do that and ever feel clean again?

  But the unpaid price of Jermayan's healing hung over his head, like a sharp sword suspended by the thinnest of threads, and all Kellen could do was worry about a potential disaster he could see no way to avert.

  How did Idalia live with this sort of thing hanging over her all the time? How did other Knight-Mages?

  How would he? Or would trying to resolve all the conflicts someday drive him mad?

  Eventually their small fire burned low, and it was time for sleep. Despite the whirl of worries and fears chasing each other around and around inside his head, when Kellen laid himself down, weariness had its own way with him.

  Will-he, will-he, he slept.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Visions of the past

  HE WAS AWAKENED by the ring of swords against armor. Kellen threw himself out of his bedroll, staring around himself wildly. Beside the fire, Valdien and Jermayan still slept, undisturbed. Even Shalkan dozed unconcernedly.

  "Kellen! They're breaking through!"

  Someone was shouting his name. But even as Kellen looked in the direction of the call, he realized it was not him they were summoning. Or at least not the Kellen of here-and-now.

  He saw with the strange doubling of Othersight, but instead of single objects, or a simple overlay of lines and symbols, as it usually was, this time it was as if he saw into a whole other world. All around him an army was gathered, beautiful and terrifying, and as in a dream, somehow the moment he saw a thing, he understood everything about it, as if he were seeing it and reading about it in a book at the same time. Part of him knew he hadn't moved at all, that he still lay asleep in his blankets, and did not stand upon the hillside, gazing into the sun.

  There was a booming sound in the sky, as loud
as a sudden crack of thunder, and when Kellen looked up, he saw that one of the dragons had launched itself into the sky.

  Dragons?

  He'd wanted to see a dragon. Now he had that wish.

  It bore as much resemblance to the lizards of the forest as Shalkan did to a horse, and as little. Long sinuous neck, tail twice the length of its body, ending in a broad flat barb to help it to steer in the currents of the upper air.

  As he watched, its spread wings caught and held the light, glowing like colored glass, for somehow Kellen was aware that even though it was still night where his body truly was, what he was seeing was taking place in the day. The plates of its underbelly—all he could see at this angle, as it caught an updraft and began circling higher—glowed like burnished metal.

  And on its back rode the other-Kellen, the one to whom the summons had gone.

  All around him the tide of battle surged. Though a part of his mind knew that this was dream or vision, nothing that could touch him now, it was so real that it was easy to forget and be swept up in the urgency that surrounded him, the screams and cries of embattled men and creatures.

  All thought of Reality faded away as he looked around himself for familiar forms—for humans, Elves, unicorns—and saw none. To his left, a phalanx of towering figures in faceless red armor, twice as tall as a man, waded slowly into battle, swinging thick black clubs slowly before them and chanting rhythmically in deep rumbling voices. On his right, he heard a rumble of hooves, and turned to see a horde of bizarre cavalry rush forward, overtaking the giants. The animals were ponylike, but squatter and stockier, with cloven hooves, yellow eyes, and hairless skin and tails. They snapped and squealed at one another as they ran, like pigs or rats.

  Their riders matched their mounts in a chilling way; just as stomach-churning, as bestial, and as terrifying. They were the size of children, but their bodies were thick and apelike with muscle, and their skins were the dark purple-grey of an old bruise. Protruding yellow teeth, like a forest boar's, deformed their mouths, giving their faces a brutish aspect, and their fingers ended in long hooked claws like a badger's. They were dressed in rough animal skins, with what looked like animal bones braided into their coarse black hair, and they howled maniacally as they rode. Each carried an iron hammer and a long hooked knife thrust through his belt, the weapons dark with old blood.

  Were these the Allies of whom Jermayan had spoken so proudly? Kellen wondered in horror. He looked behind them, to where their General stood before his bright silken tent, its banners flowing proudly against the sky.

  Saw the glorious ornamented armor—

  Saw the wings—

  And realized, with a disappointment too deep for despair, that the Kellen who fought here today, the Kellen who rode his dragon high above the battle, the dragonrider who shared his name…

  Fought at the side of the Endarkened.

  But he lost. Jermayan said they lost! Kellen told himself desperately.

  Across the field, another dragon, then another, launched into the sky.

  Fervently, Kellen urged himself to wake up. He didn't want to see any more. But all he seemed to be able to do was move himself from the hilltop—for so it had been, a thousand years ago—down onto the plain of battle itself.

  It was horrible.

  Here humans and Elves—and other creatures for whom he had no name—fought and bled and died. It was his own battle with the hill-bandits, magnified a thousand, a million times. He couldn't imagine how anyone could plan something like this—or direct it—or be willing to go through it twice. He stood it for only a moment before he began to run. He didn't care what this was—dream, nightmare, vision—he couldn't stand it. If he couldn't wake up, he had to get away.

  Above him, the two dragons wheeled and screamed, attacking the third that the other-Kellen rode. Their wings cast flashes of blinding light down onto the battlefield, as though someone overhead were holding a giant reflecting mirror over an anthill.

  Suddenly, there was a great ripple of magic across the field, and the light became brighter. With the sudden intuition of dreams, Kellen realized that up until now both armies had been fighting in a sort of spell-cast gloom that the Allied Wildmages had been able to break. He stopped and looked back.

  The Endarkened forces were burning.

  Not all of them, but enough. The horrible dwarves on their misshapen ponies had burst into flame and were running in circles, screaming, to be easily slain by the nearest Elf or human. The giants had stopped where they stood, toppling to the ground like disenchanted stone golems. Elsewhere on the field, other smoky pillars of flame indicated that there were other creatures of the Endarkened's forces that could not bear the touch of true sunlight either—and whose end was far more spectacular. As Kellen stared, sickened and fascinated, the Allied army began to surge forward, across the battlefield toward the enemy position, regrouping and slaughtering as it went.

  It was a great victory.

  It was sickening.

  It was too much.

  "No! Make it stop! No! No—"

  "Kellen!"

  HE awoke—for real, this time—to find Jermayan shaking him, a hand over his mouth to muffle his shouts, and Shalkan standing over him anxiously.

  "Are you all right?" Jermayan said when he was sure Kellen was really awake.

  "I… sure. It was just a bad dream," Kellen said, sitting up. But the details of the dream didn't fade, the way dreams did with waking. If anything, they seemed to become clearer, sharper, as if they were an old memory that had just been waiting to be summoned to life.

  Had that been him—some ancient version of him? Or had the coincidence of names been no more than that—a coincidence? Lycaelon had always taken pains to remind him that he'd been named for a revered ancestor, that generations of Kellen Tavadons had upheld the honor and traditions of House Tavadon in Armethalieh. He wondered how proud his father would be of the name if he knew…

  "It must have been some dream," Shalkan commented sourly.

  Kellen looked around. It was still full dark, sometime after moonset but long before dawn. Jermayan had lit the lantern, and was making up the fire to brew tea, the Elven panacea for all ills.

  "It was," Kellen said in a low voice. He hesitated, not wanting to make things more real by speaking about them. But hadn't keeping secrets caused enough trouble already?

  Enough of secrets. If there is something wrong with me, I want Jermayan to know about it, before —

  Before it was too late? But what if it already was too late?

  But perhaps it wasn't. All he could do was to tell the dream, and let events play out as they would. "I dreamed about the battle… the one Jermayan said was fought here. I don't know if it was real, or just my imagination, but…" He stopped, reliving the horror of the moment when he realized that the other-Kellen was fighting for the enemy, had actually embraced the fate that Kellen himself feared so greatly.

  "Probably a little of both," Shalkan said. "You'd have to be blind and deaf not to feel a little of what happened here, but we didn't have a lot of choice about where to stop, really. So what did you see?"

  "Monsters," Kellen said bitterly. "Monsters, and dragons… they always talk about war like it's such a grand adventure, but if real battles are anything like what I saw, why would anybody ever do that twice?"

  "Because the alternative to fighting is worse," the unicorn said somberly. "Or people think it is. And in this case, we know it was. But that isn't what's bothering you, is it?"

  "No." Kellen glanced past Shalkan's shoulder. Jermayan was staying politely on the other side of the campfire, keeping busy with the tea-things and pretending not to hear, but Kellen already knew that he wasn't out of earshot. Never mind. At the moment, he valued even the illusion of privacy for what he had to say.

  "There was someone there. A Wildmage, I guess—an evil one. With my name. I didn't see him clearly. He had a dragon. And he was fighting for the Endarkened." The words came quick and harsh, and hav
ing said them, Kellen felt better and worse, as if he'd managed to gag up a meal of bad meat.

  "That's bad," Shalkan agreed, lowering his head to rub his cheek against Kellen's in a quick caress. "But it could be nothing more than your own fears talking, you know."

  "I know," Kellen said, trying to convince himself.

  "No one knows the names of all the Mages who were corrupted," Jermayan said, coming to kneel beside Kellen and place a cup of tea in his hand. "When we return, I can go to the Hall of Memory and discover what I can, if you wish. But no matter what I find: that man is not you. That you share a name, even a lineage, means nothing. A man is not his bloodline; a man is what he is."