To Light A Candle ou(tom-2

by Mercedes Lackey

  The tents of the Mountainfolk were designed to withstand the heaviest of snows, being low domes constructed of waxed canvas with thin rods sewn into the fabric to stiffen it. Once unfolded and staked into place, no amount of snow could collapse them, nor wind overset them. In fact—Idalia could see as she approached their encampment—all of the dun-colored tents had been edged around with high-packed snow for added warmth and stability, so that only the very tops protruded from the mounds of glistening white.

  “Hail, stranger.” A man anonymous in winter furs greeted her as she approached. “Are you lost?”

  “Looking for old friends,” Idalia answered, pushing back the hood of her cloak so he could see her face.

  “By the First Frost—Idalia! Come to give me my mule back, have you?”

  To Idalia’s surprise and delight it was Kearn, one of her closest friends among the Mountain Traders.

  “No more than you’re here to give me my tarnkappa back, Kearn,” she responded with a grin. “I’m fond of that mule, and I traded for her fair and square. Besides, she’s back in Sentarshadeen, and I’m not going all the way there just to fetch her to you.”

  “Well met nevertheless,” Kearn said. “I’m glad you made it away from the Wildwood safely. There’s many that didn’t, so I hear.”

  “What have you heard?” Idalia asked, more sharply than she’d intended. If not for the discovery of the presence of the Shadowed Elves, she’d intended to head south into the Wild Lands this winter, to try to discover more about the aftereffects of Armethalieh’s ill-advised expansion of its Borders.

  “Come along, and I’ll tell you, then. It’s not so very cold out here, but the wind on the flat makes my bones ache. Resel, come and keep watch. The Elves are good folk, to be sure,” he said in an aside to Idalia, “but I think we understand them as little as they understand us, and a man can grow old waiting for them to come to the point when they want something. So it’s best to have someone waiting at the entrance of the camp for when they show up, so we can try to find out what they want and give it to them as quickly as possible.”

  He led Idalia deeper into the camp, back to his tent. Idalia negotiated the low entryway with ease. The space inside was roomy enough, though of course it wasn’t possible to stand upright, and dimly, though adequately, lit by a candle in a glass lantern. The sides of the lantern were thick, double-paned, and filled with water to magnify the flame—and for added safety, should the lantern break.

  Idalia sat cross-legged in a corner while Kearn lit a small spirit-stove and quickly boiled tea.

  It was nothing any Elf would have been willing to drink: black as kaffeyah, twice-boiled, and served with a generous dollop of frozen goat’s butter for seasoning. But the extra calories were welcome in the cold mountain environment that was the Traderfolk’s natural home, and the bitter salty taste was oddly refreshing. Idalia wrapped her hands around the wooden mug to warm them.

  Kearn squatted down on his heels, holding his own cup, and gazed down at the pot as if seeking inspiration for his tale. At last, when Idalia was almost afraid she’d have to prompt him, he began.

  “Last autumn, when you gave me the warning of what the City planned, I went home as swiftly as my girls would go, passing the word of Armethalieh’s encroachment everywhere I stopped. We expected that we would see Lowlander folk coming into our mountains from the Wild Lands—aye, and Otherfolk too. I cannot say that we were happy at the thought, but neither would any of us choose to turn them away, and leave them to the mercies of the City-folk. So we did what we could to prepare, and hoped that the winter would be kind.

  “At first they came in numbers. No one knew how far the City’s thievery would go, so there was much confusion. We made all welcome who came—Centaurs whose homes lay closest to the old border, it was at first, and Lowlander humans who had no taste for City rule. Fauns came too—I did not see them myself, but they spoke to those who serve the Wife, and they said that all the Lowland Otherfolk were coming to us, creatures of air and earth, of river and lake and tree.”

  Kearn stopped, staring broodingly into his cup.

  “But something went wrong,” Idalia prompted at last.

  “Oh, aye,” Kearn said. “It did that. Many that we expected—that the Centaurs expected, that the humans expected, that the fauns told the Children of the Wife to expect… they never came.

  “We did look for them, Idalia. We went down the trails—even into the new so-called City lands, for we have free passage as far as Nerendale, you know, for the trade caravans, and the City magistrates would not trouble us overmuch if they encountered us upon the road. We found a few Wildlanders still heading for the Reaches, and heard that some had decided to stay where they were and fight, though in the end the City pulled its borders back before it had even knocked upon the gates of half the villages in the Wild Lands. But the rest… ? I know no more than that. When word reached us that the City had tucked its tail between its legs and run craven, the farmers that had come to us returned home for the most part, since the children of the plow do not find our mountains hospitable. The rest are with us here, come to fight since they cannot farm. As for the Shining Ones, who can say? I think they would wish to return to their own lands if they could, and perhaps they have.”

  Idalia nodded. Kearn’s story made little more sense to her than it did to Kearn, but what was certain was that it wasn’t good news. There was no way to tell now how many folk—human, Centaurs, and Otherfolk—had simply vanished, but she could make a pretty good guess at how they had vanished.

  Demons.

  Demons needed blood and pain and death to fuel their magic, and while the raids they conducted on Atroist’s people could have provided enough victims to do something like build the Black Cairn, they would have needed to replenish their store of power afterward. Armethalieh’s attempt to annex the Wild Lands had provided the Demons with a perfect opportunity to conduct secret raids among the refugees, harvesting hundreds—perhaps—of victims, all unnoticed. In all of the confusion and chaos, who would have thought to look for Demon raids?

  “You’ve thought of something,” Kearn observed.

  “Nothing encouraging,” Idalia said, taking a swallow of her bitter black tea. “And it’s not even a theory, really. Just a supposition.”

  Just then Resel poked his head into the tent’s opening. “The Elves,” he announced in long-suffering tones, “are looking for the sister of the Knight-Mage. I promised I’d look, else they’d have set the place on its horns. Do we have such an item as a sister anywhere about the camp, Kearn?”

  “That,” Idalia announced, setting down her mug, “would be me. I’d better go find out what they want. I thank you for your news, Kearn—though I’m not sure thanks is really the right word.”

  “It so rarely is these days. So much of the news is bad,” Kearn agreed somberly. “Fare you well, then, Idalia.”

  He escorted her to the edge of the Mountainfolk camp, and Idalia, tucking her cloak tightly around her against the eternal winter wind, went off to find out who wanted to see her.

  —«♦»—

  SHE caught up with Dionan fairly quickly. He had Vestakia with him, and they were searching among the Healers’ tents, obviously looking for her.

  “Idalia!” Vestakia cried, sounding breathless with relief. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

  “So I discover,” Idalia said dryly. “Here I am. I See you, Dionan.”

  “I See you, Idalia Wildmage,” Dionan answered, bowing respectfully. “Redhelwar asks, if you would find it convenient, if perhaps it would please you to join him in his tent.”

  No wonder the Elves drive the Mountainfolk crazy, Idalia thought wryly. From her long experience with the Elves, she had no difficulty understanding that she had been bidden to come to the Elven General at once—whether it “pleased” her or not. But few humans without equivalent experience of the Elves would find Dionan’s words as easy to decode.

  “Of course,” I
dalia said. “It would please me greatly,” she added for good measure.

  Dionan led her—and Vestakia as well—through the milling and confusion of the camp. Redhelwar’s scarlet pavilion was an oasis of serenity in the midst of all the apparent disorder—though nothing in an Elven camp was ever really disorganized.

  When they reached the tent, Dionan bowed them in ahead of him. Idalia entered first, and found that the pavilion was filled with people.

  Kellen was there, and Jermayan, as well as a number of the high-ranking Elven war leaders. More surprising—for this seemed to be a strategy meeting— Rochinuviel, the Vicereign of Ondoladeshiron, was there, and Atroist as well.

  Naturally, tea must be served and drunk before the business of the meeting could be discussed, though things went swiftly by Elven standards. When the delicate Elvenware cups had been collected and set aside, Redhelwar spoke.

  “We have been blooded by the foe, and he will be a difficult enemy to master,” Redhelwar said. “Yet by the grace of Leaf and Star, and with Vestakia’s aid and that of our Wildmages, we shall find the dark places in which he bides and scour his presence from the land, so that They have no foothold here, and the poor tortured spirits of our cousins can find rest at last.”

  There was a profound moment of silence, and Idalia remembered what Kellen had told her: even while they devoted every fiber of their being to killing the Shadowed Elves, their Elves never stopped thinking of them as Elves, and hating the necessity that drove them to slaughter what they considered to be their own kind.

  “Yet this is a fight that cannot be won with sword and spear alone,” Redhelwar said, continuing. “We must once more take up our alliance with those who wield the Wild Magic, as it was in the time of the Great War. To that end, Rochinuviel brings word from Andoreniel.”

  Rochinuviel bowed, stepping forward. The Vicereign was gowned as elaborately as she had been on the day that she had greeted the Unicorn Knights on the Gathering Plain. Diamonds and moonstones glowed and glittered in her long black hair, and she wore a cloak of thick white fur over a gown of white velvet banded in ermine and satin as bright as ice. But despite the fact that she was dressed for Court in a pavilion full of men and women wearing armor and coarser furs, she did not look out of place. She was simply Rochinuviel, as inviolate as the snowcapped peaks.

  “Your words honor me, Redhelwar. The words of Andoreniel will bring change to the Elven Lands. It is, as I am sure you expect, a hard counsel, but wise, and in time of danger, new ideas must not be set aside merely because they are new. Andoreniel’s words are these: the Lostlanders must come south, every man, woman, and child of them, every goat and sheep, every household chattel. No living thing which they value is to be left behind. They will be granted safe passage through the Elven Lands, escorted by our own people, all the way to the lands of Men. Then shall their Wildmages fight among us against the Shadowed Elves, and those of their young men who are willing as well. All of the Lostlanders who take up arms in honor of the ancient treaties shall be our valued allies, and all the rest shall be safe in the Lands of Men, and all who aid them there shall have the gratitude of the Elves. So says Andoreniel, Lord of the Nine Cities.”

  Atroist let out a deep sigh of relief, bowing his head.

  “I shall tell them this at once, Lady. You are more than generous.”

  “It is not I who am generous,” Rochinuviel said, rebuking him gently, “but Andoreniel, who speaks through me. I have given his words, and now I will go, and leave you to see to the matters of war. You will tell Andoreniel when he may expect your people to arrive.”

  She drew her white cloak more firmly around her and walked from the tent. Her escort—another Elf, dressed almost identically, but in shades of palest grey—followed silently.

  “To know this thing will make good hearing,” Redhelwar observed, in the silence that followed.

  “I can speak to Drothi today,” Atroist said. “With help it will be easier, but—”

  “Of course we’ll help,” Idalia said firmly, glancing at Jermayan and Kellen. “Just tell us what you need.”

  “Ah.” Atroist smiled. “Then when Drothi tells me how soon the folk can be ready to move, I can tell you, Lord.”

  “Useful,” Redhelwar observed, to no one in particular. “Now. We will discuss the Battle of the Cavern, and what we may learn from it in order to be able to fight more efficiently in future battles.”

  —«♦»—

  FOR the next several hours there was a brisk discussion—both among those who had been at the battle at the cavern in the Mystral Mountains and those who had just arrived on the Gathering Plain—about the sort of fight the Shadowed Elves had put up, and whether they could expect the same sort of battle the next time. Kellen found himself having to tell the story of what he had done and what he had faced over and over again. There were things he wished Vestakia didn’t have to hear, but there was no help for it. It was no consolation to hear the others who had also been in the caves echo his story from their own perspectives. The memories were still hard and painful ones.

  What was clear to Kellen was that they dared not risk another such battle as the one they had just fought. Though their losses had been comparatively small, they’d been far too high when one remembered that this was only the start of the campaign against the Shadowed Elves—and that they had the Endarkened still to fight.

  “Perhaps that was the only enclave of the creatures,” an Elven Knight named Belepheriel suggested, when the battle had been gone over from every possible aspect.

  “It is true that we do not yet know the location of other enclaves—or, indeed, if they exist at all,” Redhelwar agreed reluctantly. “Therefore, we must wait until Vestakia has discovered another nest of the creatures to see what we must do. But it is best to be prepared, for I do not think that They would lead us so easily to the only infestation of our enemy. They are not in the habit of bestowing such rich gifts upon Their foes.”

  And with that grim assessment, everyone present had to agree.

  —«♦»—

  REDHELWAR dismissed his commanders soon thereafter: the meeting had been for the purpose of providing everyone there with information; soon, he told them, he would want to hear strategies for dealing with the special problems of invading the Shadowed Elves’ underground lairs.

  The four Wildmages and Vestakia left together, intent upon their more immediate concerns.

  “What is it that we have to do to help you send your message to Drothi?” Idalia asked.

  “There must be a Speaking Circle,” Atroist answered. “We use them to pass messages over long distances in the Lost Lands. Drothi will be awaiting a Sending from me, though she knows not when one may come. It is a thing best done with”—he glanced around at the bustle of the camp—“perhaps some privacy.”

  “Well, if Jermayan’s going to help, it needs to be someplace where Ancaladar can be close by anyway,” Idalia said in practical tones. “There’s an old orchard out behind the Flower Forest—you remember the place, Jermayan. We can meet there.”

  “Sounds cold,” Kellen muttered. It was hard to remember at the moment the last time he’d been really warm.

  “It won’t be when I’m done with it,” Jermayan said with a smile. “Perhaps you will tell me, Atroist, what you require for this Speaking Circle.”

  “A place to build a fire—a small one—where we can gather around,” Atroist said simply. “I have brought all else I need with me.”

  “Then let us meet there at dusk. Ancaladar and I can go now to prepare the place, and Idalia can bring the two of you, if that is amenable to all of you.”

  “I thank you for your aid, Wildmage,” Atroist said, bowing.

  Jermayan nodded and walked away, leaving the others behind.

  “I’d better go check back with Petariel to see what else needs to be done at the Unicorn Camp,” Kellen said. He glanced at the sky. The day was overcast, but it was still possible to mark the position of the sun through
the clouds. “We have a few hours yet.”

  “And Vestakia and I will have a few things to do among the Healers,” Idalia agreed. “Meet us at the Healers’ tents an hour before sunset. It’s a bit of a walk to the orchard.”

  Chapter Sixteen Ghosts upon the Wind

  JUST AT DUSK they arrived at the old orchard. The trees were bare and black with winter, but Kellen barely noticed them. Jermayan had indeed been busy. A pavilion of ice stood at the spot where they would need to do their work. It was all of a piece, as seamless as Mage-crafted stone and as transparent as glass. The light of lanterns gleamed from within, making the whole structure glow softly in the fading twilight.