And Marlen seemed determined to spend every moment he wasn’t training to go with them, cramming every possible detail of what to do for the horses in any conceivable emergency into Cilarnen’s head.
Because Cilarnen wasn’t going.
It wasn’t that he wanted to go. It was just that he hated being dismissed as if he were useless. And… not that a bunch of talking animals were his friends of course, but he’d gotten used to Marlen and Grander. And to all of the others who were leaving. After they were gone, things would be different. And all of the changes Cilarnen had experienced recently had not been good ones.
There was almost enough work to keep him from thinking of things like that, though, until the day when Stonehearth’s gates were thrown open to the visitors.
A messenger—a Centaur this time—had arrived the day before to bring word of their arrival, and so by the time the troop cantered up, the great feast was nearly ready. Every house had been cooking and baking since the night before, and the entire village smelled like a cookshop. This afternoon there would be a great feast in the village square—he’d heard the hammering all morning as the trestle tables were knocked together—and tonight every home would hold visitors, for Stonehearth would be hosting fifty guests.
And tomorrow they would all be gone.
Maybe I’ll just stay here until it’s all over, Cilarnen thought, leaning his head against the flank of a grey mare. She’d been out in the paddock all morning, and her thick winter coat was clotted with ice. It needed careful brushing—but he had been at Stonehearth nearly two moonturns now, and in that time he had become an excellent ostler.
He still wondered why the Centaurs didn’t just hitch themselves to the plows.
Maybe they did. Maybe they used the horses for something else. He’d undoubtedly get the chance to find out, if this Light-blasted snow ever melted.
He hadn’t thought it was possible to be so cold. And even if his Gift hadn’t been excised, there wouldn’t be much he could do about the weather. He’d been an Entered Apprentice. You had to be a Master Undermage to do something about the weather.
He finished with the mare and looked about for something else to do, shaking his head at the Centaurs’ foolishness. An outdoor banquet, in winter, without Mages to work the weather.
They’d all freeze.
“Cilarnen!” Sarlin came trotting into the stable, her cheeks flushed pink with the cold. “Come and see! The troop has arrived—and it’s nearly noon! You’ll want to have a wash before the banquet. And I made you a new tunic. A gift.”
He was unreasonably touched. He knew that Sarlin saved much of the money she earned from the sale of her cloth and finished clothing—she owned, Cilarnen had been surprised to discover, her own flock of sheep—to go toward her bride-money, which she would use to help set up her own household when she married.
“Well, I’d better not wear it then,” he said gruffly, to hide his feelings. “It will only be ruined by the snow that will undoubtedly fall today. Whoever heard of eating outdoors in winter?”
But Sarlin only laughed merrily. “Oh, don’t be foolish, City-man! They have brought a Wildmage with them, and he has done magic so that the weather will be fine!”
“A… Wildmage?” She might have said, “A Demon of the Dark” and Cilarnen would not have been less stunned. Except he didn’t believe in Demons, and he did believe in Wildmages. He’d heard rumors that Farmer Kellen’s disappearance had had something to do with Wildmagery. He hadn’t believed them at the time, but… what if they were true? And what if Kellen had escaped the City, just as he had?
If Kellen was here, he was definitely the last person Cilarnen wanted to see. And he certainly didn’t want to see a Wildmage, whether it was Kellen or not.
But Sarlin had him by the arm, and was tugging him determinedly toward the house, so it was follow gracefully or be stepped on by great lumping Centaur hooves. And they had to pass through the village square on the way to Grander’s house.
Despite himself, he looked for the Wildmage. And saw him, too. He was easy to spot—the only human in the great jostling press of Centaurs. To Cilarnen’s relief, it wasn’t Kellen, but a muscular fellow with a great black beard, wearing a large broad-brimmed hat and a fur cloak, looking more barbaric than the talking beasts surrounding him.
“Do you want to meet him?” Sarlin asked eagerly, slowing down. “His name is Wirance. He comes from High Reaches, in the mountains. We trade with the High Reaches at Midsummer Fair—they’re all humans there. Do you think you’d like to live in the High Hills? I hear it snows all the time there—”
“Come on!” Cilarnen demanded, and this time it was he who dragged Sarlin away.
—«♦»—
THE new tunic was very fine. Cilarnen regarded it with a dull anger that he had not felt since he had first come to Stonehearth. It was of the softest, thickest lambswool, tightly woven and dyed a deep russet red, a cloth that would have fetched a premium price even in Armethalieh.
Sarlin had said that the Centaurs traded with the Mountain Folk. Armethalieh traded with the Mountain Folk as well. He wondered how many times before in his life he’d worn cloth woven by Centaurs and not known it.
The front and sleeves were covered with delicate, painstaking embroidery: Sarlin’s finest work. This, he knew, would never have been permitted in the City—the colors were too exotic, the pattern of fruits and flowers and birds like nothing he’d ever seen before.
It was beautiful.
He hated…
He didn’t know what he hated, but right now Cilarnen desperately wanted to hate something. There just didn’t seem to be any suitable candidates. He thought he could manage to hate the Elves, if he worked at it for a while, since Hyandur was an Elf, and it was Hyandur’s fault he was here. And now King Andoreniel— another Elf—was taking away most of the male Centaurs from the village, and it was Andoreniel’s fault a Wildmage was here as well.
But Hyandur had saved Cilarnen’s life, risking not only his, but Roiry’s and Pearl’s lives as well. And you couldn’t expect Elves to know that the Wild Magic was, well, wrong.
Or is it just wrong in the City? a small voice inside him asked. Cilarnen shook his head. Wasn’t wrong in one place wrong everywhere?
He wished there was someone he could ask.
He stripped down and washed quickly, then put on his new tunic. Sarlin would want to know how he liked it.
It is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned.
Why did the truth seem like a betrayal of something to which he no longer felt any loyalty?
—«♦»—
TO Cilarnen’s great relief, he was placed far away from Wirance at the banquet, among younger sons and apprentices, where he suffered—in silence—much good-hearted teasing about his new tunic. His head was starting to ache—as it hadn’t in longer than he could remember—and he took great advantage of the pitchers of mulled ale that were kept constantly filled. He still hated the taste, but he’d come to like its effect.
He had no idea whether Stonehearth was large for a Centaur village or not. It was tiny by the standards of Armethalieh, and maybe even by the standards of the Delfier Valley farming villages, and so the Square was completely filled with the banquet tables. The village gates had even been left open to make more room—which was just as well, or else the apprentices would have been crammed against the walls. As it was, Cilarnen was in a certain amount of danger of being kicked and jostled by his fellows, but Centaurs were much smaller than the draft horses he tended daily, and he could hardly remember when he’d stopped worrying about it.
He was intent upon his food—and wondering if he could slip away to the stables without anyone noticing—when a stranger appeared at the gates.
Even for one of the talking beasts, his appearance was outlandish.
He wore armor, but not the simple steel that the other Centaurs wore. Over a heavy woolen tunic, he wore a shirt that seemed to be made of disks of metal sewn together
. It dangled down almost to his knees in front, and spread across his withers behind. He wore a sword as well, hung parallel along his body, in the way that Cilarnen had seen other Centaurs carry swords. About his hips he wore a wide belt to which was affixed a number of small pouches, as well as a host of other ornaments that flashed and jingled. Around his neck, over the armor, was a necklace containing more such ornaments, and still more were braided into his waist-length hair. His hair was black, with a broad white streak in it, and despite the weather, he wore no cloak against the cold, though Cilarnen could see one— along with a small pack—lashed upon his back. Three of his feet were white, and one was black. He carried a long staff in one hand, although Cilarnen couldn’t imagine why a Centaur would need one.
Seeing that Cilarnen was staring in the direction of the snow-covered fields, one of the other apprentices looked up.
“It is Kardus Wildmage!” he said. “Kardus Wildmage has come to join us!”
There was a great bustle as two of the apprentices—Tolin and Barcis—trotted forward to greet Kardus. Cilarnen hunched down in his seat, hoping they would escort the new arrival to the High Table where the esteemed guests were being feted. If he was a Wildmage—impossible as that seemed—undoubtedly they would want to honor him.
But to Cilarnen’s dismay, Kardus seemed to wish to sit with the apprentices. And worse, next to the only human among them.
Him.
In Armethalieh, Mages were treated with dignity and proper respect. Apparently no one here had ever heard of that notion. Before Kardus had even removed his winter gauntlets and had a place laid for him—or gotten a mug of ale—the apprentices were pelting him with questions like the rowdy colts and fillies that they were. Where had he come from? Who had he seen? What was the news? Was he going to the Elven Lands with Captain Kindrius and Master Grander?
“How can you be a Wildmage? I thought Centaurs couldn’t do magic,” Cilarnen said, goaded out of his silence.
“And so I cannot, young human,” Kardus said good-naturedly. “But I study the Three Books, and the Great Herdsman has given me the ability to know things unseen, and so I go where I am needed and do what I am given to set my hand to. And just as with my greater brethren, with each Knowing comes a Task.”
“And do you have an, er, Knowing and a Task now?” Cilarnen asked. The others all stared at him, as if shocked by his presumption. But it was what they all wanted to know, wasn’t it?
“Perhaps it would be best not to pluck that fruit before it ripens,” Kardus answered calmly, reaching for the platter of roast meat in front of him. “And now. The news from Merryvale. The village flourishes, and Jenna has accepted Alfrin, so you may look for a great festival at Midsummer Fair. A new dozen of skeps have been put up, and Miele has split her swarm, so there will be more honey soon for you greedy ones, if you have sugar to trade—”
—«♦»—
AS he spoke of the news from Merryvale—where he had meant to winter— Kardus saw the City-human slip away from the feast, thinking himself unobserved. He spoke on, though his mind was far from the gossip of the villages.
Since his Books had come to him as a young colt, he had followed the pattern of Tasks and Knowings set out for him by the Wild Magic. Though his race did not have the power to cast spells, the Great Herdsman taught that each had its place in the Great Cycle. And so his Knowings came to him, and he went where he was needed, doing what he could to set things into harmony with the Great Cycle. He had wide knowledge of the world, gained through years of travel, and if he did not have spellcraft to aid him, his knowledge of herb-craft—and the charms and potions given him by other Wildmages—were his to use.
And—just as his greater brethren did—he paid the price of each Knowing with a Task.
He had received his Knowing in Merryvale: to come to Stonehearth and be here to aid the human boy that he would find here. Perhaps the Knowing would unfold itself further once he had spent more time here. That the boy was unhappy it did not take a Wildmage to ken, but how a human boy had come to be so far from his own folk—and what Kardus’s part in taking the Herdsman’s Path might be—that he could not yet see.
But one did not herd ducks by chasing them, that much Kardus did know.
—«♦»—
IT was no use. He was surrounded by them—Centaurs, Wildmages, and now something that managed to be an unholy combination of both. Excusing himself from the table as politely as he could—he no longer really had any appetite— Cilarnen left the feast.
Everyone in Stonehearth—down to the foals born that spring—was in the square, so Cilarnen had the rest of the village to himself. All he really wanted was the chance to be by himself for a while, but it seemed he was to be denied even that, because he hadn’t wandered for very long before he saw someone else.
It was another human, a silver-haired man, dressed all in white. His garments were fine, and if they were not familiar in style to Cilarnen’s eye, they were certainly more well cut and stylish than anything he’d seen on either the Centaurs or the human Wildmage. He must have come in with the Centaurs and found he had as little taste for the rustic feast as Cilarnen did.
The stranger smiled mockingly, seeing Cilarnen. “So, Arch-Mage’s son Kellen, what a surprise to see you here. Have you tired of the Children of Leaf and Star and think to make your way back to the Golden City? You have nothing to return to now. Your father claims another as his son. He has given him the seat on the High Council that was to have been yours. And daily our foothold in the City grows stronger…”
Cilarnen stared at the man in shock. The stranger thought he was Farmer Kellen. As if he looked anything like the Mad Farmboy!
His shock—and denial—must have showed plainly on his face, for suddenly the stranger’s face contorted in a snarl of furious realization.
And kept on twisting—
It—abruptly Cilarnen could no longer think of the stranger as “he”—began to grow, its white clothes vanishing like smoke. Its skin turned as red as if blood had blossomed from every pore, and great curving horns sprouted from its fore-head at the same time enormous bat-wings shot out from its back. It growled and lunged at him, as fast as a cat might pounce upon a mouse.
If Cilarnen had not been Mageborn, he might have died in that instant. But if he did not have his Gift, he was at least used to seeing the impossible. He did not stand staring in disbelieving amazement. He turned and ran.
He felt a stabbing pain behind his eyes—worse than any pain that had ever preceded it. It made him reel blindly into a wall—the second thing that saved him—but before he could catch his breath, the pain was gone, taking even the memory of pain with it.
Fool! That thing isn’t done with you yet!
He sensed the next attack seconds before it arrived, and in panic he acted without thinking, summoning up Mageshield to protect him.
And it was there.
Cilarnen and the Demon both stared at the dull violet shimmer that hung in the air between them in equal amazement. Then the monster smiled, showing Cilarnen a mouth full of long sharp white fangs.
“Oh, Mage-man, I do so enjoy a challenge. Prepare your best spells. I’ll be back for you.”
Spreading its hideous scarlet wings, it leaped into the air and vanished.
Cilarnen slumped against the wall, panting as though he’d run at least a league. His Gift was back! He could feel it. And—maybe—the monster was gone. He could tell Grander—ask him what to do, what it had been…
No. He knew what it had been.
But that was impossible.
Demons did not exist.
His nurse had used to frighten him with tales of Demons. The walls of Armethalieh kept them out, but children—very bad children—called them in. And then they took bad children away into the Dark… and ate them. Demons had claws, and fangs, and long sharp teeth, and the horns and tails of beasts, and great bat-wings to fly over the walls with, and they were red with the blood of all the bad children they’d
eaten.
Cilarnen slumped against the wall in despair. He hadn’t thought about Demons in years. They weren’t mentioned in the Cosmology of the Light, though it mentioned the Lesser Races. They hadn’t been mentioned in his magickal studies, though those studies had covered the Elementals, the Lesser Races, the Embodiments of Magick, and the Illusory Creatures.
Demons are a nursery tale, he told himself desperately. A Myth of Error.
Then he heard the first screams. And over them, the Demon’s shrieks of laughter.
—«♦»—
“I wonder why he’s come?” Grander mused, looking down the table to where Kardus sat at the center of a group of rowdy apprentices. It was a great honor to host two Wildmages—and one of them the only Centaur Wildmage anyone had ever heard of, besides!—but he did wonder.
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