When Darkness Falls

by Mercedes Lackey

  It was quite a lovely color, really. And it certainly stood out against all this snow.

  But since the Elves did things very thoroughly, and very single-mindedly, it turned out that nearly all of her clothes were red as well. And that made them rather hard to find, sometimes, in a red tent.

  Yes, Kellen would definitely laugh.

  Making certain that the braziers were filled for night, Vestakia got out of her armor and into a sleeping tunic and leggings. Curling up beneath several layers of blanket and fur coverlet, she pulled the one remaining lantern over to her and blew it out, then lay shivering in her bed as she waited for her covers to warm. Her muscles were filled with tiny tremors, and there was a nauseated, metallic taste in her mouth; she knew she was far too exhausted for sleep to come easily, no matter how badly she needed it.

  Tomorrow she would think of something that would work. She had to.

  The army can do nothing until it knows where the last Enclave of the Shadowed Elves is. In the dark, her mind returned to the problem that obsessed her. It did not help matters to know how much they were all depending on her to find the key. Like the other Healers, Vestakia had dealt with the Allied wounded after the two battles for the caverns, and the horrific Battle for the Heart Forest. She knew what a terrible enemy the Shadowed Elves could be. And if that weren’t bad enough, the Shadowed Elves could bring other Allies of the Endarkened into the center of the Elven Lands without breaching the land-wards, as well as causing monsters such as the Deathwings and Coldwarg to do their bidding. If they were not stopped, they might attack Ysterialpoerin again—or one of the southern cities.

  South.

  Vestakia felt a faint spark of recognition. She felt that the last Enclave must be somewhere south of here, but she couldn’t say why she felt that, and she could ask no one to act upon such a vague disorganized feeling. Certainly the Crystal Spiders had no sense of direction that she’d ever figured out. So the feeling couldn’t come from them.

  And if it didn’t, it couldn’t be allowed to count.

  She sighed in frustration, pulling the blankets up higher. Jermayan and Ancaladar would be rejoining them soon—a sennight or two at most, Idalia had said—and if nothing else, the three of them could try flying a search-grid again, though in the winter storms it would be almost impossible for Ancaladar to fly low enough for her to sense a Shadowed Elf Enclave.

  But they had to do something!

  SLEEP came at last, and with it, vivid disjointed dreams that verged on nightmares.

  Caverns … but caverns so much vaster and deeper than the ones Vestakia had spent so many hours in that it was impossible to compare them. She sensed that these caverns were utterly without light, yet somehow she could see, and all around her were the creations of a civilization far older and far more inhuman than that of the Crystal Spiders, one whose works made her dream-self shudder as she glimpsed them.

  Thoughts that were not her own crowded her mind. For now they were still distant and indistinct as faint whispers in a noisy room, yet they terrified her with the possibility that she might come to hear and understand them clearly. As if the whispered thoughts represented a physical danger that she could escape, Vestakia tried to run, but only succeeded in entangling herself deeper in the dream-stuff clouding her mind.

  SHE was in a garden, but this was no garden that had ever flourished beneath the rays of the sun. Everything here was cold unliving stone, yet she could sense that each stone cried out in pain, as if it were a living suffering thing whose torment would continue forever.

  There was someone standing beside her, someone whose face she dared not raise her eyes to see, for if she looked, it would shatter her mind forever. She heard a voice:

  “Do you love me, my own?”

  And she heard her own voice reply:

  “As I love power and pain, my mother, my heart …”

  WITH a choked scream, Vestakia awoke. She was sitting bolt upright, her fists crammed into her mouth, heart hammering so hard her whole body shuddered with its force. Her whole body was covered in clammy, greasy sweat, and before she was quite awake, violent nausea overcame her. She barely made it to the slops bowl in time to deliver up her evening meal—and, it seemed, everything she’d ever eaten—in a foul-smelling rush of bile. She gagged and heaved over the vessel long after there was anything in her stomach to void, knowing as she did that what she really wanted to rid herself of—her dream—would not be so easily banished.

  At last she sat back on her heels, panting and gasping, and reached for her water jug. The water was ice-cold, but she relished the shock, rinsing and spitting until she’d cleared her mouth.

  She had a blinding headache, and she felt weak and ill. Her tunic and leggings were clammy with sweat, and she hardly had the strength to change them. But the thought of summoning Khirethil to help her—she was sure the Elven Knight was awake; Khirethil’s pavilion was pitched right next to hers, and Vestakia knew from experience that Elves slept lightly—galvanized her, at least as far as dragging the sodden items from her body and wrapping herself in her fur-lined cloak.

  That would have to do for the moment.

  Blessed Goddess, what is happening to me? Is it plague? The bruising that was one of the earliest symptoms probably wouldn’t show on her cherry-red skin. But she had no sign of fever, which was one of the next symptoms. And Idalia had been fairly sure that her half-Demon heritage would protect her from catching it at all.

  She forced herself to take several deep breaths. You know it isn’t plague. She’d only been hoping it was. Plague would have been a kinder answer than what Vestakia suspected to be the truth.

  Ever since she had begun to become a woman, she had known she was linked to the Demons—she could sense Them, and Their magic, and use that gift to hide from Them. Lately, the scope of her power had grown, so that she could sense not only Them, but what They had touched. It was a fortunate gift, for it had allowed Vestakia and her friends to track the Shadowed Elves in the first place, and rescue Sandalon and the other children they had captured, as well as finding their other Enclaves.

  But it wasn’t something she could just turn off when she didn’t want it. And she didn’t need to hear the reports from Redhelwar’s scouts and patrols to know that Their Allies were broaching the boundaries of the Elven Lands to the north. Even though it was hundreds of miles away, Vestakia could feel it like a sore tooth—even more so when she was linked with the Crystal Spiders.

  The work she was doing with them—concentrating so hard, sennight after sennight, on seeing things unseen—had opened up her Gift in a way it had never been opened before.

  And now I can feel my father’s mind as well.

  Tears sprang to Vestakia’s mind, and she hugged herself tightly. It was the very last thing she wanted. Her father was the Prince of Shadow Mountain, and he had doomed her mother and her aunt to a life of exile and caused them both to die years before their time. He had hunted Vestakia her entire life, and—until Kellen had rescued her and she had come to live in the Elven Lands—every waking moment of her life had been lived in fear either that her father would find her, or that one of the Lostlanders would accidentally see her face and kill her for the Demon she appeared to be. When Kellen had brought her into the Elven Lands, she’d thought she was safe from that forever.

  But now that temporary sanctuary was gone—or nearly so. Tonight’s bad dream wasn’t the first she’d had, Vestakia sensed; simply the first one she managed to remember. There would be more, and worse ones, and if—when—if—the power of the Demons grew, the nightmares would invade her waking mind as well.

  There were things she could do to stop that; potions that blocked Gift and allowed the minds of Mages and Healers to rest. She had taken one of them before. It would block her ability to sense Them—and probably her ability to link her mind with the Crystal Spiders, as well.

  No.

  The Allies needed to find the last Enclave of the Shadowed Elves.

 
And any possibility, however faint, that she might be able to give the Allies insight into what the Enemy thought and planned was something too valuable to throw away, no matter what it cost her.

  South. The Crystal Spiders do not know where the last Enclave of the Shadowed Elves is, but he does. It is from him that my belief comes, not what I take from their minds.

  Vestakia blinked back tears of acceptance and relief. It was not much, but it was something. If they must search for the last Enclave upon the wing, at least the area they had to search would be that much smaller.

  Moving slowly and painfully, she crept to her clothes-chest and began to rummage through it for something dry and warm to wear. She thought she had slept only a few hours, and she was sure sleep would not return tonight, nor did she really want it to. Far better to let the images from her nightmare fade than risk renewing them—and at any rate, the slops-bowl certainly needed emptying.

  Besides, her head throbbed, and her bones ached, and she was thirsty. At least in an Elven camp, one could always be sure of getting a hot cup of Allheal tea.

  AT last Jermayan returned to the war-camp outside Ysterialpoerin, after nearly three moonturns of absence. And he saw why there were no refugees in Ondoladeshiron.

  They had all come here.

  Though it was counted as one of the Heart Triad, Ysterialpoerin was nearly as far north as Deskethomaynel. It only made sense that instead of risking a dangerous mountain journey in the depths of winter, the refugees of the Northern Triad would head for the only remaining city north of the Mystrals: Ysterialpoerin.

  Lerkelpoldara had fallen, and left behind only a handful of survivors, but Windalorianan and Deskethomaynel had been fully inhabited, save for those they had sent to war, and the women and children who were now at the Fortress of the Crowned Horns. Both cities had evacuated in good order, bringing all that they could safely carry—and Windalorianan had brought every single mare, stallion, yearling, and foal from the Plains of Vardirvoshanon, as well—for to leave the Elven horses behind would be as unthinkable as leaving Windalorianan itself behind.

  All were here.

  As Jermayan and Ancaladar circled the Heart Forest on their way toward the camp, they could see that a vast second city, many times the size of Ysteri-alpoerin, had now spread around it, filling the Heart Forest and spreading out onto the plain beyond. The Windalorianan herds were dark clusters against the snow, and riders circled them on constant guard. Prowling over the snow at a safe distance beyond, Jermayan could see the dark shapes of wolves.

  We will have to move, Jermayan thought, considering the army. Even if Windalorianan and Deskethomaynel had been able to bring every scrap of stored food in their winter larders with them—and he doubted that had been possible—Ysterialpoerin’s resources would still be stretched to the utmost feeding the population not of one city, but of three, and there was no hunting to be had. To ask them to feed the army as well would be … impractical.

  ANCALADAR landed just outside the Unicorn Camp. No one walked farther than they had to in winter, and while Jermayan was certainly no fit company for unicorns, there was no place closer he dared land, and Valdien would be down at the horselines, not stabled up at Ancaladar’s ice-pavilion. The Windalorianan herds were not at all familiar with dragons, and no one would thank him for causing the stock to bolt.

  “I will come to you as soon as I can, my friend,” Jermayan said, dismounting and unbuckling Ancaladar’s saddle. For all its size, it was surprisingly light.

  “Bring Idalia,” Ancaladar said. “I have missed her.”

  “So have I,” Jermayan answered.

  He left Ancaladar’s saddle with Riasen, who promised to see it taken into the main camp, and began his long walk.

  Idalia met him just inside the main camp.

  “I See you, Jermayan. You look cold,” she said, offering him a flask.

  “I See you, Idalia. It is good to look upon you again,” he answered, taking it. The warm cider it contained was highly-spiced, banishing some of the cold in his limbs. “Ancaladar sends his regards, and hopes for your company tonight.”

  “I trust he is not the only one,” she answered, smiling.

  “He is not,” Jermayan said. “It cheers me to find the army in such good order, but I confess myself also … puzzled.”

  Idalia sighed. “Well, it’s not as if we haven’t had plenty to do here, with all the refugees arriving. And I can’t say I’m unhappy not to have been dealing with casualties. The plague cases are bad enough.”

  “They had hoped, in Ondoladeshiron, that it had not crossed the mountains,” Jermayan said.

  “Jermayan, it came from the north,” Idalia said. “And—” She stopped. “Never mind. Redhelwar wants to see you as soon as you arrive. It’s his bad news to tell. Don’t worry—Kellen’s all right. At least, we haven’t heard from him since he left.”

  “And we must assume that he would have sent word—or the Wild Magic would have—if ill fortune had befallen his mission,” Jermayan said, finishing her unvoiced thought.

  Idalia nodded. “I’d know if something happened to him,” she said. “I know I would.”

  “As would I, should harm come to you,” Jermayan said quietly.

  NINOLION quickly admitted him to Redhelwar’s tent. Over tea, Jermayan told the Army’s General all that he had seen and heard in the sennights he had been away from the army.

  “It surprises me to see the army still here,” Jermayan said cautiously. “All was well when I left Sentarshadeen, though it was one of the first cities to which we flew. Ashaniel was well when last I saw her, though she is anxious to leave the Crowned Horns and rejoin Andoreniel.”

  “There has been no word from Sentarshadeen,” Redhelwar said bluntly. “No word—and no orders. Nor has any messenger that I have yet sent returned from there.

  “I have done all I can, save act without orders,” Redhelwar continued. “The Wildmages cannot advise me. Even Cilarnen cannot, though he has found a way to use his power. Though the High Magick can see things that the Wild Magic cannot, it has its own limitations, and as Cilarnen has neither been to Sentarshadeen nor seen a Shadowed Elf, he can neither See Andoreniel nor where the last of the Shadowed Elves may be hiding.”

  “Then it is plain that I must go to Sentarshadeen, and seek out Andoreniel at once,” Jermayan said.

  “As much as I would wish this, I cannot counsel you to act against the last orders Andoreniel did give you,” Redhelwar said heavily. “The women of Ysteri-alpoerin have yet to be transported to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns. That task must come first.”

  Jermayan shook his head in frustration, though he knew Redhelwar was right. “It will be a matter of but half a day, and then we will fly for Sentarshadeen, and end this troubling silence. And, further, I am moved to speak as Kellen would, in his absence.”

  Redhelwar smiled faintly. “I admit, I have missed his bold counsel. It has been … quiet… since he left.”

  Jermayan inclined his head in agreement. “It is true that, as Idalia tells me, we are needed here, and I am troubled at the thought that our absence might invite an attack upon Ysterialpoerin by those whom we oppose. Yet it is also true that our presence is a great drain upon the resources of the Forest City, especially now that she has so many other calls upon her substance. It is in my mind that Kellen would say that you must prepare the army to move south to Ondoladeshiron, even though Andoreniel has sent no word, lest the army become too great a drain upon Ysterialpoerin. I wish I could say that the Wild Magic speaks in this, but I cannot.”

  “We are not humans, to depend upon magic for everything,” Redhelwar answered slowly. “It is good counsel—yet I fear, as you do, to leave them undefended.”

  “I have no resolution for you,” Jermayan said unhappily.

  “And so it must be my decision. Go. Rest, for both you and Ancaladar are to weary to fly again before morning, even if you would. I shall see you again when you have returned from the Crowned Horns. Ther
e are messages that must go to Sentarshadeen.”

  Jermayan left Redhelwar’s pavilion, his steps heavy. Idalia was waiting for him.

  “And now you know everything I do,” she said, tucking her arm through his.

  “Tomorrow I make my last flight to the Crowned Horns—and then Ancaladar and I must go to Sentarshadeen, to discover the reason for Andoreniel’s silence,” Jermayan said.

  “I’d go with you,” Idalia said wistfully, “but there’s so much work to do here. Vestakia’s been wearing herself to a frazzle trying to be in two places at once. She had such high hopes of getting information from the Crystal Spiders. They want to help, Jermayan, but Vestakia says she just can’t understand what they’re telling her.”

  Jermayan regarded her quizzically. Idalia sighed heavily.

  “She says they’re trying to communicate symbolically. Showing her pictures of a cave filled with water. And jewels. The same image, over and over, for sennights. But that doesn’t mean anything to her, and she can’t get them to make it any clearer.”

  They had been walking in the direction of Healer’s Row, where Idalia’s pavilion was. When she said those last words Jermayan stopped in mid-step.

  “A cave marked out by water and jewels. It would be good to think that there were two such places in our land. I know of only one, and in it these things are not symbols, but reality.”

  “Jermayan! You know where it is?” Idalia demanded.

  “Perhaps I am wrong,” Jermayan answered, though not as if he thought he were. “But a cavern with water, and jewels … that sounds as if the Crystal Spiders speak of the Caverns of Halacira, through which runs Angarussa the Undying.”