When Darkness Falls

by Mercedes Lackey

In those seasons, the Elves of Lerkalpoldara roamed the plains with their vast herds of horses and livestock—for Lerkalpoldara was a city only by courtesy. When the snows came, the Elves retreated to their Flower Forest, pitched their tents one last time, and constructed, as the winter deepened, elaborate walls of ice behind which to live until the spring thaws came.

  The drought that had lain heavy on Sentarshadeen had taken an even more brutal toll upon Lerkalpoldara. When the snows had melted, and the spring rains had not come, Chalaseniel and Magarabeleniel, Vicereigns of Lerkalpoldara, had driven the vast majority of their livestock south, hoping to find water for the animals there, for they knew that without the rains, it was only a matter of time before the streams and springs of Lerkalpoldara failed and the animals would be too weak to make the journey over the mountains.

  They had not even kept horses for riding. As Magarabeleniel had said when she reached Windalorianan and had been able to pass the task of driving the herds on to others, horses, as the riders of Windalorianan knew best of any in the Nine Cities, drank a great deal. If the Lerkalpoldarans could not even be sure of providing water for their goats, their cattle, and their talldeer, how much less could they expect to water horses?

  And so, after leaving the herds in the south, Magarabeleniel had gone back across the mountains with her people on foot.

  When the drought had broken and the rains had come, Gaiscawenorel of Windalorianan, the Viceroy’s son, had gone himself over the mountain pass, returning Lerkalpoldara’s horses and her herds. The herd had been gathered from across half the Elven Land, for while much of the livestock had been sacrificed when there had been no water to keep it alive, to the Elves, their horses were as precious as their children, and to keep them alive in the drought-time they had taken them to wherever there was water to keep them.

  When he had reached the top of the pass that led down into Bazrahil, Gaiscawenorel had seen that the lands belonging to the City-Without-Walls had been terribly injured. The plains had gone tinder-dry with the lack of rain, and somehow they had been set ablaze. As he had looked down from the pass, he saw a black scar of burning that stretched a thousand miles. It was only by the mercy of Leaf and Star that Lerkalpoldara’s Flower Forest had been spared from the fire.

  THE spring to come would have given Chalaseniel and Magarabeleniel a chance to rebuild the herds and the flocks, Jermayan thought grimly, as he and Ancaladar flew through the mountain pass on their way to Lerkalpoldara. But almost as soon as Gaiscawenorel had delivered the horses, and the sibling rulers had gathered up what they could of their scattered and winnowed herds in the teeth of the autumn storms to drive them home again, Andoreniel’s summonses had come, and they must send, first their children to refuge at the Fortress of the Crowned Horns, and then their warriors forth to face the malice of Shadow Mountain.

  A sudden gust of wind flipped Ancaladar over and spun him around like a child’s toy. Jermayan had never been so grateful for the straps that bound him to his Bonded’s saddle. Without them, he would have been dashed to the ice and rocks below a thousand times since they’d begun their flight: The winds were so strong and so unpredictable here in the east that he didn’t think that even a combination of his spells (assuming he could actually manage to cast any yet, though the prospect of imminent death was a great incentive) and Ancaladar’s speed and strength could save his life if he fell.

  The dragon could read weather as well as Jermayan could read the pages of a scroll. Better, in fact, as Ancaladar could see not only what was, and for hundreds of miles around, but tell what was to be for several days’ distance. They had left on Andoreniel’s errand in the middle of the night (skulking out of the camp like thieves, as Jermayan thought of it) because Ancaladar said it was the time that the air would be most quiet for hours to come. But if this was quiet, Jermayan would hate to see turbulent.

  They had flown above the clouds, and dawn had come as they flew. Normally, the high sky was quiet, but this time the rivers of air were not going where Ancaladar wished to go, and the dragon had been forced to leap from one to the next like a salmon in spring, sometimes dropping hundreds of feet with a bone-rattling thump, sometimes being swept a thousand feet into the sky so swiftly it took Jermayan’s breath away. And though they crossed the land below faster than the fastest running unicorn, Ancaladar had been forced to fight for every mile of distance.

  “Fear not,” Ancaladar said aloud, sensing Jermayan’s unease through their Bond. “The journey to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns will be far easier—for us, and for our passengers. The wind-rivers run more comfortably in that direction.”

  “For their sake, I hope so,” Jermayan said feelingly.

  ANDORENIEL’S decree should already have been passed to all of the Nine Cities by the signaling towers, and in case that had failed, Jermayan’s own word would certainly be enough, especially with Ancaladar to back it up. But if they were not already expecting him at his various destinations, he suspected valuable time might be wasted—especially at Lerkalpoldara.

  The journey into the east itself had been bad enough, but when it came time to descend into the valley that was their goal, the passage down into the more turbulent air made all the flying Jermayan had ever before done a-dragon-back seem like the most gentle excursion he had ever taken with Vestakia. The mountains did the same for the winds that rocks would have done to the waters in a rushing stream—and finally, in a desperate attempt to seek shelter from at least some of the winds, Ancaladar flew so low that he was below the mountain-tops.

  Here the winds were fierce and cold, carrying a brutal burden of snow and ice. But they were funneled by the towering granite peaks surrounding them, and they only blew one way.

  Three times Ancaladar aimed himself at the pass into Bazrahil that the Elves called the Gatekeeper, only to pull up at the last moment, beating desperately at the air as he drove himself up, away from the sheer granite cliffs that flanked each side of the western side of the pass. The pass was sealed to ground travel this deep into the winter—especially a hard winter like this one—and the only way in or out of Lerkalpoldara’s valley until the spring thaw was either for a few Mountain Scouts on foot, which would be wildly dangerous, or for someone like Ancaladar.

  The fourth time, as Ancaladar prepared to dive at the pass, Jermayan felt the great black dragon summon all his skill and determination. Ancaladar forced himself higher into the churning air than on the previous three attempts, and this time thrust himself down through the winds with the fury of a striking thunderbolt.

  There would be no turning aside this time, Jermayan realized. They would either make it through the pass, or he would discover which was harder—frozen granite or a dragon’s head.

  The wind whistled over armor, harness, and dragonhide with a sound Jermayan had not known it could make. It was louder than a whistle; it was a scream such as the Stone Golems Kellen had told him about might make, assuming such creatures had voices: wholly inhuman, wholly unalive, utterly dispassionate, yet somehow filled with intent and purpose. It made a stabbing ache in Jermayan’s jaw and made his eyes water; the tears were instantly turned to ice, and crumbled as he blinked them away.

  The mountains appeared as they shot through the clouds; drew closer. The gap between them, its size difficult to judge, appeared from among a hundred scattered mountains, and in an instant was less than a hundred yards away. Then the granite wall filled the world.

  Their force and speed was all that saved them. Suddenly they were through. The scream became a muffled boom—Jermayan winced, as air with nowhere to go pressed against his ears—and he heard a shrill painful grating sound like sword-upon-sword that he identified, after a moment, as the grating of Ancaladar’s belly-scales over pack-ice. There was nothing to be done about it: The pass was too narrow for Ancaladar to spread his wings.

  Despite that, they shot forward at a speed nearly as fast as Ancaladar’s fastest flight. The walls of the pass, crusted in ice, sped by above them, so fast the
y were no more than a blur of white.

  Then they reached the top of the pass, and Ancaladar shot off into space.

  It had not, perhaps, been the dragon’s intention. He began to tumble, his wings flapping as he desperately strained once more for height. They had left the pass behind, but not the mountains, and at any moment the wind might sweep them back against the rock and ice once more.

  At last Ancaladar found the air-current he sought, and veered off and up into the sky.

  “It will be easier next time, Bonded,” he said, a faint note of amusement in his voice.

  “It would be … interesting to learn how it is that you have come to such a conclusion, should it please you to share such information,” Jermayan said, after a very long pause. By the time he had found his voice, they were away from the walls of the mountains, and could dare to fly above the clouds again.

  “Of course,” Ancaladar replied. “You wingless ones make trails upon the ground, and having once made them, can follow them easily, though the creation of them is a difficult matter, needing much thought. So it is with finding a path through the air. It is true that these change, with the day and the season, but that means only that more of them need be learned to a single destination. Yet all the sky-paths to one destination are but variations upon a single theme, as it is in music. You are a musician, Bonded. You will understand this well. I have now written my theme—and a difficult one it was—and now I can create variations upon it.”

  “As you say,” Jermayan said, not entirely convinced. Knowing where to go was one thing. Being able to go there was quite another.

  After a few more minutes’ flight—and compared to what had gone before, it was actually quite smooth—Ancaladar began his descent to the Flower Forest of Lerkalpoldara.

  They landed in a snowstorm. The wind blew with such stunning force that even Ancaladar—who had been prepared for it—skidded several feet before he dug his claws into the ice beneath the drifting snow and anchored himself.

  Jermayan knew it could not be truly cold—the coldest days of all were too arid to allow snow to fall from the sky, and on those nearly as cold, what rained down from the heavens was not snow, but a sort of ice dust. But even so, he felt as cold as if he were still in the upper air.

  Ahead was the Winter City of Lerkalpoldara, nearly invisible in the snow.

  Its walls towered higher than the roof of the House of Leaf and Star. Were the weather better, Jermayan knew he would see breathtaking beauty, for all life among the Elves was art, even the building of a city of ice that would be swept away with the flowers of spring. As it was, centuries of experience had allowed the Elves to sculpt the snow around the city into structures to direct the wind so that it kept a path leading up to the walls clear.

  “Go,” Ancaladar said. “I shall be fine here.”

  Stiffly, Jermayan dismounted from the saddle. Fortunately, they had not needed to recreate an entire pack-harness for this mission, as Ancaladar’s original harness had taken a fortnight to make: Artenel had simply needed to come up with some way of attaching new carry-baskets to Ancaladar’s existing harness, a quick and simple matter. As for the baskets themselves, they could be provided at the departure point. Which was just as well, Jermayan reflected, as he walked toward the city, as the baskets would surely not have survived the journey here… .

  As he drew closer to the walls of the Winter City, he could see them clearly, and he frowned in confusion. The wind-cleared path led forward, but to a stark and utterly featureless wall of ice that looked as if it owed its sculpture less to Elven hands, and more to wind and snow. It was crude, perhaps even ungraceful in places, and Jermayan’s heart ached with sudden fear: Had the Enemy’s agents penetrated the Elven Lands as far as Lerkalpoldara?

  But the head that appeared over the top of the ice wall was reassuringly Elven, cloaked in the white furs and artfully-tattered silks of a Scout-sentry.

  “It is a strange bird that flies in winter,” the woman observed, “yet we would recognize Ancaladar and his rider anywhere. I See you, Jermayan, Elven Mage and Knight.”

  “I See you, Magarabeleniel, Vicereign of Lerkalpoldara,” Jermayan responded, gazing up. “We are grateful that you recognized us, for I have no doubt that if you had not, our welcome would have been colder than the snow.”

  “Maiden Winter is more than playful this year,” Magarabeleniel agreed wryly. “But come. Be welcome in our city and at our hearth.”

  For a moment Jermayan wondered how that was to be possible, for he saw no sign of a doorway in the wall, but a second head appeared beside hers, and a ladder of rope and bone was lowered down to him.

  He expected to climb up it, but as soon as his hands and feet were securely in place upon its rungs, unseen hands within Lerkalpoldara pulled him quickly up the wall, and guided him over the side, until he was standing on a ledge a few feet below the top. From here he could look out over the valley—just now, though it was near midday, the twisting veils of hard-driven snow obscured everything. Even Ancaladar was invisible, though Jermayan knew the dragon must be where he had left him, and something of Ancaladar’s size and color would be difficult to miss.

  He glanced around. Below him stood Lerkalpoldara’s Flower Forest. Even in winter he could smell the life of the forest, and it warmed him as no fire could. Surrounding the forest were the tents of the Elves of Lerkalpoldara. They were made of heavy wool, dyed and woven in elaborate patterns—heavier and sturdier than the campaigning tents of the Elven Knights, for these were not a temporary accommodation, but the only home of the Elves of the Plains City.

  Lerkalpoldara had sent many of her young men and women to Andoreniel’s army to fight—and many more had gone to tend the cows and horses, the sheep and pigs and goats, to repair armor and harness, to mend old tents and to make new ones, and to cook—for Lerkalpoldara’s people lived all the year in tents and under sky, and no one in all the Nine Cities was more expert in making and holding camp tidily and well.

  Of those that had not gone to war, not all would be here within walls at this time, for the herds that were the life of the Plains Elves must be husbanded, even in winter, and her people took turns to care for the central herd.

  But only a handful of the people did this, and even accounting for those who were riding herd, and those who were away at war, Jermayan saw too few tents erected here within the Winter City, and too many sentries standing upon the walls, even in the midst of a storm.

  This was a city at war.

  But with what, or whom ? And why had word not come to Redhelwar, or Andoreniel?

  Questions it would have been the height of rudeness to ask—even if Maga-rabeleniel had not far outranked him—crowded Jermayan’s thoughts, but the Elven Knight held his tongue. There was yet time.

  Magarabeleniel led him down from the walls and into the streets of the Winter City. Here the air was comparatively still, the winds blocked by the walls of the city.

  Together they walked among the tents to The House of Sky and Grass. Jermayan saw no one else as he passed between the tents, not even the street-sweepers who would normally be about in this weather, for even though the ice-walls blocked most of the falling snow, it did not block all of it. But word of his arrival had obviously gone ahead, and the inhabitants of the Winter City were doing him the courtesy of ignoring his presence entirely.

  The House of Sky and Grass was no larger than the largest of the other tents they passed—perhaps the size of Redhelwar’s pavilion—and there was nothing to mark it as the Vicereign’s House save an elaborate braided knot of dried summer grass that hung beside the door. Magarabeleniel stopped beneath the canopy.

  “Be welcome in my home and at my hearth, Jermayan son of Malkirinath, Elven Knight, Ancaladar’s Bondmate. Stay as long as you will, and when you go, go with joy.”

  “To be welcomed at the hearth of a friend is to be made doubly welcome,” Jermayan answered formally. “I accept with thanks.” He followed her into the tent.

&nbs
p; The floor of the tent was covered with rugs that matched the weaving of the tent’s walls, and here the air was so warm that the ice on Jermayan’s heavy stormcloak actually began to melt. There was a rack near the doorway to hang outdoor garments, and after Magarabeleniel had pulled the door curtains snug against the outside air, they both removed their outer layers—and Jermayan his armor—and spread them to dry, Jermayan accepting a houserobe and boots from his hostess.

  Though there seemed to be no one else present, someone had obviously been here recently, for the braziers and the lanterns were lit, and someone had prepared the tea things. The kettle was boiling, and a low table was prepared with what looked to be a rather more substantial meal than Jermayan was used to taking with his tea.

  “You will discover that you do not hunger, here in the Great Cold,” Magara-beleniel said. “But one must eat, all the same.”

  She seated herself upon a cushion upon the floor, and motioned for him to do the same. She filled the teapot, and as the tea steeped, they began with a thick soup, and talk of the weather.

  They did not speak of the sentries upon the walls, or why those walls were so stark and plain.

  Over several small courses—all very rich—and several pots of tea—they discussed many things, though never, of course, the reason Jermayan had come. The weavers had produced some truly splendid work recently. The autumn flowers had been less extravagant than usual, but some beautiful specimens had still been seen. The herds were as well as could be expected, and in ten years or so would have been restored to their former size. The burn which Gaiscawenorel had remarked upon the Plain, of course, would be gone long before that; in a growing season, or perhaps two, no trace of it would remain. Grass fires were a fact of life, and easily dealt with; it was only the Great Drought that had made this one so very difficult.

  At last Magarabeleniel allowed the conversation to turn to the progress of the war—though still, of course, not to the reason that Jermayan had come.