He didn’t know if she heard.
He cut a few strands of his hair, and a few from the base of Gesade’s mane, below the ointment-soaked cloths. Then he reached for the bandage at her neck. Already others—Elven Knights, unicorns, even one or two of the Healers—were gathering around to share the price, just as Shalkan had promised.
But Shalkan was nowhere in sight.
“No—don’t,” Menerchel begged, seeing what Kellen was doing.
“I need her blood for the spell,” Kellen said gently. “And I need to know how she’s hurt.”
“Acid,” Menerchel said starkly. “They threw acid in her face.”
Kellen closed his eyes for an instant, fighting back the images Menerchel’s words evoked. Acid was a favored weapon of the Shadowed Elves. He’d seen the wounds they caused. Armor was no defense—acid ate metal, slipped through every crack.
And the unicorns went into battle only lightly armored.
Kellen peeled back the edge of the bandage, exposing raw burned flesh slick with numbing ointment. Gritting his teeth, he wiped a small patch of skin clear. Blood beaded to the surface. He soaked the hairs—his and hers together—then quickly replaced the bandages.
He picked up the knife—a small Healer’s knife, wickedly sharp—to cut himself, then realized he’d almost forgotten to ask the vital question. No Wildmage could ever assume that help would be offered. It must always be asked for.
“Who will share the price of this healing with me?”
“We will—all of us,” Menerchel said.
Kellen looked up at those waiting, making sure that all agreed. Then he cut his hand, mingling his blood with Gesade’s.
Quickly now, he summoned the brazier alight, and added the proper leaves: willow, ash, yew. A thin coil of blue smoke began to spiral upward.
Leaf and Star, let this work!
He motioned for Menerchel and the others to move back—Gesade’s struggles were weaker now—and gently dropped the knot of bloody hairs onto the coals. Then he laid his hands on Gesade’s exposed neck and shoulder.
She quieted at last beneath his touch, and for a terrible instant Kellen thought she was dead, until he saw the slow steady rise of her ribs. The peace that filled her gave him a moment of calm as well; when he saw the shimmering dome of protection form around them all, he felt a spark of hope. The Gods of the Wild Magic had heard.
“Forgive. Forgive and forget”
The words filled his mind, and Kellen knew that this was the price They set upon Gesade’s healing—and that it was twice now that the Wild Magic had commanded him to forgive. His previous Mageprice was still unpaid, but that wouldn’t matter. Idalia had told him that prices could run unpaid for years; all that mattered was that you paid them willingly when the time came. He did know that you knew when the time had come to pay a Mageprice, although figuring out how to pay it was left up to the individual. But none of that was important now. He would have accepted the price if it had been far higher. I will, he promised.
The sense of listening departed. All that was left was the work of healing.
It was the hardest yet, as if he tried to lift the weight of the earth itself from beneath his feet. Again and again he struggled to become a conduit for the Healing Magic, feeling as if he tried to touch something just out of reach.
And every moment he struggled, he felt Gesade growing weaker.
“Don’t try. Be!”
Master Belesharon said that in the practice circle. Only when you could step aside from your thoughts of what you should be doing, and do the thing itself, was the thing accomplished.
He stopped trying.
He thought of Gesade, whole.
He remembered her looking down at him in the snow, the night he’d tried to escape from camp to scout the nearer cavern.
He remembered her—yes, and Petariel—running at the head of the Unicorn Knights on a day that was bright and clear. Powdery snow had sprayed up from beneath her hooves as she ran, and the sunlight had sparkled off their armor…
He realized he was lying curled around her body, his face pressed against her stomach, breathing in her warm scent. It was an awkward position, and Kellen straightened with a stifled groan. He didn’t remember moving, or closing his eyes.
He blinked. He felt as if he’d been asleep, though he was sure he hadn’t. The protective shield was gone, so whatever was going to happen, had happened. He felt hollow and light-headed, but that was normal after a healing, for Healer and Healed alike.
“You… glowed,” Menerchel said.
That was encouraging, Kellen decided, but he was still reluctant to lift the bandages and see what lay beneath. At least Gesade was sleeping now, not writhing in heavily-drugged agony.
He lifted the lower edge of the bandage again.
White fur. Thickly soaked in ointment, but there was no trace of burn or scar. Eagerly now, Kellen lifted away the rest of the cloths—they had not truly bandaged her, only wrapped soft cloths loosely over the terrible burns. The flesh beneath was perfect. Whole.
Then he reached her head.
It took him a few seconds to understand why what he was seeing looked so wrong. Her horn was unblemished. Her soft muzzle was whole.
But her eyelid was sunken into its socket. Frantically, Kellen lifted her head. The other side matched exactly, the eyelid sunken over an empty socket.
She had no eyes.
—«♦»—
SHALKAN found him several hundred yards from the unicorn’s clearing. He was kneeling beside a tree, gagging up what felt like every meal he’d ever eaten in his life.
“Kellen—”
“Go away!” He couldn’t bear to see anyone right now. Especially Shalkan. Not after what he’d done.
“Kellen—”
“I hurt her! I blinded her!”
How could a healing have gone so wrong? Was it because he’d come here straight from the caverns? What had he done to her? It was all his fault—
“I saw her before the Healers got to her.” Shalkan’s voice came to him, harsh and rasping, as if the unicorn had been weeping until his throat was raw. “You didn’t. She was already blind. Shall I tell you what a bucket of acid in the face does to a person—or a unicorn? I could describe it in great detail, if you’d like.” Shalkan’s words were cruel, but they penetrated Kellen’s own grief and horror.
“Stop it,” Kellen said wearily. “I already know. I’ve seen it too.” He sat back, scrubbing his face with snow. “But… I healed her. Or I could have. If I’d been good enough.” And that was what was so horrible. He hadn’t been good enough, not nearly good enough, and he had been her only hope.
“No.” An Elven Healer Kellen didn’t know came and knelt in the snow beside him. “I am no Wildmage, but I have aided them in their healings, and I have heard them speak among themselves. The power of the Wild Magic to heal is indeed great, but it cannot create that which is not there. That which will—or might—grow with time will grow at a Wildmage’s touch. But that which is lost is lost forever.” The Healer took his shoulder in one hand and shook it. “Look at me, Kellen Knight-Mage. See the truth in me!”
Kellen studied the Healer’s face. She regarded him with grave compassion and faint puzzlement, as if she had never seen anything like him before. Kellen knew without having to ask that she was from Ysterialpoerin.
She’s right. The storm of rage and grief—and guilt—that had filled him a moment before was gone, leaving only aching numbness.
It isn’t fair! he thought wearily. Would Gesade want to live without sight?”
But that’s her decision to make, isn’t it? Today you’ve given her the power to make her own choices again.
“Now, if you’ll accept the Lady Arquelle’s word that you did all you could do, perhaps you’ll be sensible, come inside, and rest,” Shalkan said crossly, his voice still sounding hoarse. “Or perhaps you’d like to give the Healers even more to do?”
“No,” Kellen said, getting stiff
ly to his feet. His bare hands were numb and aching with cold. “I’m coming.”
He felt battered, both physically and emotionally, and he wasn’t quite sure whether Shalkan was really angry with him, or simply knew that the last thing Kellen could take right now was his sympathy.
“No one rejoices to see the Star-begotten in pain,” Arquelle said softly as Kellen walked back through the snow. “It has overset stronger hearts than yours, Kellen Knight-Mage.”
And that, perhaps, was the truest thing he had heard in a day of terrible truths.
—«♦»—
CILARNEN, Wirance, and the small party of Centaurs traveled west and north. As Luermai had promised, each time their supplies began to dwindle, Nemermet led them to a fresh cache—tea, salt, charcoal, grain, honey, spices, and the blocks of compressed rations that Nemermet simply called journey-food.
It never seemed to stop snowing.
He ought to be used to it by now, Cilarnen told himself. He’d never seen snow actually falling before this winter—the little snow allowed to alight within the City walls came at night, and certainly wasn’t allowed to fall where it would inconvenience anyone—but this journey seemed determined to repair the lack of every day of those eighteen winters.
Snow, in addition to being cold, painful, inconvenient, and sometimes actively dangerous, Cilarnen decided, was boring. But there was nothing else to look at. There was Snow With Trees, and Snow Without Trees. There were cloudy days when it snowed, and (fewer) cloudy days when it didn’t snow, and (very infrequently) clear days when you had a dazzling vista of… snow.
Kardus, who was the only one of them who had traveled in Elven Lands before, said that the snow was unusually heavy this year. Nemermet had no comment to make on this—but then, as Cilarnen had quickly discovered, their guide apparently had no desire to engage in conversation with them at all. His only interest seemed to be to hurry them along as quickly as possible, pushing them to the limits of their endurance every day.
After the first sennight, it became obvious that Tinsin was slowing the party’s pace. The draft mare obeyed Cilarnen’s orders willingly, but no amount of willingness could make her as fast as a mule or a Centaur—let alone as fast as Nemermet’s ice-grey stallion. She was meant for plowing fields and pulling wagons, not gallivanting cross-country.
The next time they stopped at one of the trail huts for supplies, there was a mule waiting there.
The mule was obviously of Elven breeding; it looked very much like the one Hyandur had loaned him. It was a russet color, with a cream mane, belly, and tail-tuft, and quite elegant… for a mule.
“In the morning, you will take Oakleaf,” Nemermet said as he unsaddled his mount, speaking directly to Cilarnen for the first time. “Leave Tinsin here.”
“No,” Cilarnen said, surprising himself. “I’m responsible for her. I won’t abandon her. What will she eat?” A hundred dangers ran through his mind. “What if there are wolves? Or bears? Or—something?” he ended, lamely.
Nemermet regarded him expressionlessly. “She will be cared for.” His task finished, he began to turn away.
“That isn’t good enough,” Cilarnen said. All his anger and frustration at days of following orders he didn’t quite understand came boiling to the surface, but he did his best to keep his voice low and even. “Sarlin of Stonehearth gave Tinsin to me. I promised I’d bring her back safe. Everyone says we’re not supposed to ask you questions. If you don’t want me to ask you questions, then give me answers.”
For a moment, he didn’t think Nemermet would answer him. Then the Elf seemed to reach a decision.
“Tomorrow, when we are gone, a rider will come. He will take her to winter with our own stock, cared for as if she were our own. In the spring, we will see her to Stonehearth if you cannot.”
Nemermet turned away, indicating the conversation was finished.
“I will say this for you, boy—you’ve got more courage than sense,” Comild said, coming up to him.
Cilarnen leaned his head against Tinsin’s shoulder. “I just don’t like being pushed around.” Elves, or—or High Mages. I don’t like being pushed around.
Had he really hated life in Armethalieh that much?
No. He’d loved living there, and the thought that he could never go back hurt so much that he didn’t dare think about it.
But…
Mageborn keeping secrets—saying things were “for the good of the City” when that was a lie—plotting against the City and moving other Mageborn around as if they had no more worth than pieces on a shamat board… no, Cilarnen didn’t like that at all.
If they will do that to their fellow Mageborn, they will do that to anyone. Citizens. The Delfier Valley farmers. The Mountain Traders. The Selkens. The Wildlanders—like Sarlin and Comild and Kardus.
And he wasn’t sure anyone could stop them. Not if what the Demon had told him at Stonehearth was true.
He sighed, and began the awkward business of removing Tinsin’s saddle and bridle.
—«♦»—
ONCE Cilarnen had been remounted, their journey went faster, and in another sennight they began to see faint signs that another—much larger—party was traveling in the same direction. Now Nemermet’s insistent haste began to make sense: Luermai had said that “others preceded them,” and Nemermet was obviously trying to catch up with the other party.
By now they were well into the mountains—Kardus said that beyond this lay high plains, but further than that into the Elven Lands he had not been. Though Cilarnen missed Tinsin—and despite Kardus’s assurances, wasn’t entirely certain he trusted Nemermet’s word that she’d be cared for and returned to Stonehearth—he had to admit that Oakleaf was much easier and more comfortable to ride. And the Elven-bred mule was certainly better-suited to the terrain they had to cross.
In the middle of their third sennight of travel, they finally caught sight of the other Centaurs. They’d crossed the last of the mountain passes and were starting down into the valley.
“Look!” Comild said, pointing.
Cilarnen peered through the falling snow. Dimly, he could make out a blot of darkness in the distance, moving slowly over the plain below.
“There are your fellows,” Nemermet said. “You will join them tomorrow, if we hurry now.”
—«♦»—
THEY lost sight of the Centaur army when they reached the plain—the rest of the levies would have crossed the Elven border together, Cilarnen realized;
Comild’s people had been delayed by the Demon attack upon Stonehearth—but they were only half a day behind them now, and the wide deep track the others had made with their passage made travel for Comild’s party both easy and fast. They pressed on that day until well beyond their usual stopping time, until Wirance finally called a halt.
“It’s as dark as the inside of a goat’s stomach now,” the Wildmage said bluntly, “and I’m not minded to spend tomorrow healing the fool that lames himself on the ice tonight. We’ll stop here. You may be able to see in the dark, my Elven friend, but we can’t and neither can these poor mules.”
Reluctantly, the others agreed.
There were no sheltering trees on the High Plains, but by now all of them carried pieces of heavy canvas designed to be joined together by collapsible hollow tubes—a gift of the Elves, left for them at one of the trail huts many days ago. Each piece alone could serve as a windbreak. When they were all joined together, they formed a shelter large enough for humans and Centaurs both to take refuge together from the worst of the storms.
Assembling it was a tricky matter, however, and something they’d never done in the dark.
Cilarnen hadn’t worked any High Magick since Nemermet had joined them—even so simple a thing as lighting a fire. He wasn’t sure why; he didn’t think Nemermet would try to throw him out of the Elven Lands just for being a High Mage. But there was no longer any point in wondering. They needed light. And Mage-light was a simple spell, one that every Student-App
rentice knew.
He concentrated. The ball of blue light grew between his hands. When it was as large as he wanted, he spread his hands. It hovered above them, a small full moon.
“You’re full of tricks,” Wirance said approvingly. He swung down from his mule’s back and began to unpack his piece of the shelter. Cilarnen dismounted as well. The sooner the shelter was assembled, the sooner they could begin to get warm. He thought longingly of tea—though the hot water Nemermet called “tea” was a poor substitute for the real thing.
“You did not name yourself a Wildmage when you stood upon the Border.” If Nemermet’s voice held any expression at all, Cilarnen would have said it sounded faintly accusing. But of course it didn’t. He wasn’t entirely sure Elves had emotions.
To Light A Candle ou(tom-2 Page 79