“Redhelwar sent Kellen there,” Idalia said, her voice emotionless. “He might already be there.”
“Perhaps,” Jermayan said gently, “you might ask Vestakia to come to us, to see if she has more to tell.”
THAT morning, Vestakia had entered the caverns filled with a grim determination. She would have an answer she could use this time no matter what she had to do to get it, Vestakia vowed. After a mostly-sleepless night, she and Khirethil and Khirethil’s troop went down into the caverns once more. After so many sennights, the preparation for communicating with the Crystal Spiders had become almost a ritual. They came down into the caverns, she laid a heavy fur robe on the floor to protect her as much as possible from the chill of the stone floor, lay down upon it, and waited.
Soon the Crystal Spiders appeared, moving over the floor in a softly-glowing wave of many-legged bodies. They looked very much like the lanterns the Elves lighted outside their homes back in Sentarshadeen—assuming, of course, that those lanterns could walk.
The Crystal Spiders settled over her body, touching her face and hands with their stiff feathery bristles.
:Once more you come to us,: she heard in her mind.
“Yes. I still haven’t found what I need. You have to show me … show me something about this place that makes it special to the Elves.”
There was a long pause, during which she felt the pressure of the Crystal Spiders’ thoughts like a background chorus of whispers in her mind. Though it was nothing like the experience of her dream, it reminded her of it, and she could not help shuddering, just a little.
:You touch the Dark?: came the question, clear and strong in her mind.
“Yes,” she answered without hesitation. “I think I am beginning to see into my father’s mind. I think it can be a weapon to help in our fight.”
:Darkness swallows Light. Be wary.:
There was silence then—not even the whispers—and Vestakia began to believe the Crystal Spiders might have nothing to tell her. She was shaping another question for them when the images began.
Fast—too fast for her to “see” any of them clearly—they appeared inside her mind in quick flashes, changing so swiftly she began to grow sick and dizzy. She closed her eyes tightly, willing herself to endure. She sensed that whatever was taking place, the Crystal Spiders were making a greater effort to communicate in a way she could understand than they ever had before.
On and on the dizzying kaleidoscope of images went, until at last one held. Steadied.
She was looking at a vast cavern, like one she had seen here with her own eyes. The same conical pillars of stone extended from ceiling and floor, except here, some of them had been carved into familiar shapes.
Xaique-pieces.
The images withdrew from her mind, and Vestakia blinked, forcing herself to breathe normally. Her head pounded, as if it had been forced to hold far more than it ought. But her sense of triumph was so strong she almost didn’t care.
A cavern filled with giant xaique-pieces? Surely someone would recognize that description!
“Thank you,” she said to the spiders. “I think this is what we need.”
:We thank you for battling the Dark Minds. We hope we did not damage you, but we sensed your need was great.:
“Oh yes,” Vestakia said. “Yes, it was.”
WHEN the Crystal Spiders had retreated, and she tried to get to her feet, she discovered that she was as weak as if she’d lain long abed with a high fever. Khirethil had to help her to her feet.
“It would be good to hear that your work has prospered. It is nearly noon.”
“So long?” Vestakia gasped. They’d come down to the caves just after dawn, and she’d thought only a few minutes had passed.
“I … think I have the answer now. We need to ride back to the Main Camp and find somebody who will know.”
“We need to ride back to the Main Camp,” Khirethil agreed. “But to place you beneath the eye of the Healers, were I to be consulted.”
“There’s no time for that!” Vestakia said impatiently. “Though I suppose Idalia would be a good place to start.” Idalia knew as much about the Elven Lands as anyone Vestakia knew. If she didn’t recognize Vestakia’s description of the caverns, she might know someone who did.
JERMAYAN and Idalia were just preparing to send a messenger up to the Further Cavern when Khirethil’s troop rode down to Healer’s Alley with Vestakia—chilled, shivering, and wrapped in several fur cloaks in addition to her own.
Khirethil and Idalia both insisted on putting Vestakia into a warm bed at once, while Vestakia was equally adamant that she must deliver her news: The Crystal Spiders had finally provided her with a landmark that someone would be able to use to identify the last of the Shadowed Elf Enclaves.
“Tell me, then, of your courtesy,” Jermayan said, bowing slightly. “I do admit, that while Idalia is an admirable woman, there are times when she does not listen as well as she might, especially when one is attempting to tell her something important.” There was a faintly teasing note in his voice.
“This news will wait,” Idalia snapped. “The fact that Vestakia is freezing will not.”
“But I am not freezing now,” Vestakia said pleadingly. “I am perfectly warm, truly I am, Idalia. And I have worked so hard to find this out, and I am so tired. I want to tell someone. And I am sure that Jermayan must know.”
“Very well then,” Idalia said grudgingly. Her gruffness, both Vestakia and Jermayan knew, was caused by very real worry over Vestakia’s health. “You may talk to Jermayan. I shall go to prepare you a sleeping cordial. And when I come back, you will drink it.”
“I see our speech is to be brief,” Jermayan said. “Then let us begin.”
Vestakia drew a deep breath. “From the first, the Crystal Spiders have been showing me pictures of water and jewels—it is their way of making names, I think, because they do not talk in words. Sometimes they would show me actual pictures, but they were just the same: water and jewels. It made no sense to me!”
“It makes sense to me,” Jermayan said. “But you have said that today they showed you a different thing.”
“Yes!” Vestakia said, her voice vibrant with relief. “Today they showed me a great cavern carved to look like a giant xaique board, with all of the pieces in place, and the floor inlaid as well. Surely someone must know of such a place, Jermayan!”
“Indeed, and this confirms my deepest fears, for you have just told me that the Crystal Spiders say that the last lair of the Shadowed Elves is at the Jeweled Caverns of Halacira.”
“But… Kellen is going to Halacira,” Vestakia said numbly.
“He is,” Jermayan said. “But he will not reach the caverns for some time yet, I am certain. When I return from the Crowned Horns, I will take your warning to Kellen, and he will be grateful to receive it, you may be sure.”
“But—” Vestakia said.
“No buts—” Idalia said implacably, returning with a large steaming mug. “We now know where the last Enclave is, which is a lot more than we knew this morning. Kellen has been fighting these things all winter and doing just fine. And he certainly wouldn’t thank me if I let you wear yourself to a frazzle worrying about him after you’d done your part. Now drink, and get a good rest. You’ve spent far too much time in those damp caverns.”
Meekly, Vestakia did as she was told.
JERMAYAN and Idalia waited until Vestakia was asleep, then left the Healer’s Tent. Khirethil would stand guard over Vestakia, making certain she remained where she was supposed to even if she woke up. A nice warm sleep would be the best thing for her.
WHILE they waited, Jermayan wrote out the details of what Vestakia had learned and gave them to a runner to deliver to Redhelwar, so that the Army’s General would have the latest information—though there was little more that Redhelwar could do about it than what—as it turned out—he had already done.
No one knew better than Jermayan how well Kellen fought. And Kellen had
as much experience as any of them against the Shadowed Elves. Further, Kellen was a Knight-Mage, the first in a thousand years. The Wild Magic often worked with great subtlety; it was not impossible that Kellen’s being sent to Halacira was part of the unfolding of a pattern of the Wild Magic too vast and enigmatic for either Elves or Men to see. If there was one thing Jermayan was certain of about his young human friend, it was that Kellen would not go charging blindly into anything without making certain that it wasn’t a trap.
And yet…
“It would be reassuring if we could warn Kellen immediately,” Jermayan said aloud, when he and Idalia left the pavilion. He had told Vestakia that Kellen was days away from reaching Halacira, but in truth he was not certain of that at all. Distance was a variable thing in winter, depending much upon weather conditions. It was possible that Kellen was already there—or if not actually there, then certainly close enough that the Shadowed Elves might venture out of their stronghold to attack him.
Idalia made a rude noise. “If your magic can’t reach him, mine certainly won’t. But we can try Cilarnen. It’s a lovely day for a ride, I think.”
They turned and headed back in the direction of the horse-lines.
VALDIEN was delighted to see his master after such a long absence, and Cella had not gotten as much exercise as Idalia would have liked, with all the work she’d had to do in both camps. The two animals were quickly saddled, and Idalia and Jermayan set out.
“Cilarnen is living up at the pavilion you built for the mirror-spell now,” Idalia told him as they rode. “He says he needs the quiet to work. Kardus visits him—daily, since a problem we ran into earlier—and I think the unicorns are fascinated by the High Magick, but otherwise he pretty much keeps to himself.”
“I do not know that I would think that entirely wise,” Jermayan said slowly.
“He says it’s safer,” Idalia said. “I’m not sure for whom. There’s a lot he isn’t telling us, but it’s only common sense that you can’t cram a lifetime of training and study into a few moonturns without serious side-effects. And I don’t know much about the High Magick, but I do know it isn’t meant to be worked by just one person alone, even if he does have … help.”
“Redhelwar said that he has found a source of power for his spells,” Jermayan said doubtfully.
Idalia made a face. “He’s gained the consent of the Elementals to draw on them directly. Don’t even ask me to explain how that works.”
SOMEONE was coming, but he would be finished long before they were close enough to be a nuisance.
It had taken him a long time to build up this most dangerous of spells, but it was vital. He had told Kardus what he must do; the Centaur Wildmage, understanding the necessity, had promised to cease his visits until Cilarnen was finished. Cilarnen understood why Idalia thought they were necessary, and Kardus was his friend, but the constant fussing and interruptions annoyed him. To do what he must do, to learn what he must know, he needed privacy and solitude. A lot of it.
If he could not do it, there was always the possibility that he would be the traitor within, the Endarkened’s weapon to use against the forces of the Light at the moment of their greatest weakness.
He knew that Anigrel had tampered with his mind.
He knew part of what the Tainted Darkmage had done: He had suppressed Cilarnen’s Magegift when he should have Burned it from his mind.
Why?
And what else had he done?
How did it aid Anigrel—and the Demons—to have Cilarnen—whole, and in possession of his Magegift, alive and among Anigrel’s enemies?
He must know.
He had told the Elves truly that he was no Mindhealer, and even now, with infinite power to draw on, and a High Mage’s library at his disposal, he could not claim such skills, for those healing arts took a lifetime of practice to master.
But to find a compulsion set in his mind …
Perhaps he had the skill for that.
For the past three days he had been sitting in the center of the ice-pavilion, his sword across his knees.
Sifting through things that had no name in words.
All of his early training was there, laid down like layers of rock in the earth, or the densely-colorful weavings of a fine tapestry.
He touched each piece. Each was as it should be. Harmless. Innocent. He left them alone.
It took time—days—to work through all the years of his training. It took a lifetime to make a High Mage, or it should. What he was now, what he was making of himself in sennights instead of years, was something different, as different from a High Mage, he imagined, as Kellen Tavadon was from a Wild Mage. Something created to burn brightly in time of war.
At last he reached the place where things … stopped.
There it was. Alien magic, twined through his own. No wonder he’d been having headaches, Cilarnen realized. The only wonder was that he’d been having so few of them.
It lay dormant, glowing an ugly blackish-red to his spell-sight. It took him hours to work it free, setting layer upon layer of wards around it as he went. It was the most delicate and painstaking magick Cilarnen had ever performed—in a sense, in that moment he took and passed the test for Master Mage.
Once he had removed it from his mind, he was able to trigger it harmlessly, examining it in the moment that it expended itself fruitlessly against the wards he had created around it.
As if in a dream, he saw what might have been. Himself and Kellen, standing beside each other. There was no magick involved in the two of them seeking each other out: That had been inevitable from the moment Cilarnen had been Banished—and lived. Even without the Demons’raid on Stonehearth, it would have happened eventually.
And Anigrel’s spell, lying dormant—not even a spell, as such, for the unicorns andVestakia could have detected that—but a receiver for a spell, waiting for the moment when Anigrel would be invested with his full power as a Darkmage, and trigger it… .
And Cilarnen would strike at Kellen with all a High Mage’s power.
Killing them both.
Cilarnen smiled grimly as the spell-construct fizzled away in a tiny flash of light. He carefully banished the wards he had constructed to contain it, and got stiffly to his feet, rubbing his head.
No more headaches around Kellen. Maybe no more headaches around Wildmages in general, although that might be too much to hope for. Their magics were as different as fire and water.
Which was why, together, they could slay Demons.
Cilarnen stretched, groaning as muscles too long unused protested. He was light-headed from long fasting, and dizzy from lack of sleep.
But company was coming, and it was time to go and greet them.
THEY were within sight of the ice-pavilion when the snow rose up to bar their way.
Valdien stopped dead. Cella shied, and danced nervously.
The snow fell away, revealing the form of a man, carved entirely in ice.
“Very pretty,” Idalia said dryly, patting her palfrey’s neck soothingly.
The creature stood motionless in the snow.
“I wonder what would happen if we just rode around it?” Idalia said to no one in particular.
“I’m afraid it would try to stop you,” Cilarnen called, walking toward them.
The young High Mage was unkempt and unshaven. His short red-gold hair was as rumpled and disheveled as if he’d been running his fingers through it in lieu of a comb, and he didn’t look as if he’d slept for days.
He’d obviously dressed in haste to greet them. The pale-blue tunic and trousers he’d dragged on were meant for sleeping, not for a walk in the snow, and he was holding his heavy fur cloak closed with bare hands. But whatever he’d been doing, it seemed to have gone well, for despite his obvious exhaustion, he looked triumphant.
He paused a short distance away and sketched a quick glyph with his wand. “I’m sorry—you got here sooner than I thought you would. It’s all right now. I’ve put it to sleep.�
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Valdien regarded the ice-statue—which looked no different now than it had a moment before—suspiciously, then took a step forward and nosed it. It remained unmoving. The destrier flicked his ears and apparently dismissed the strange object from further consideration.
“You didn’t come all this way just to admire my ice-golems,” Cilarnen said, walking the rest of the way up to them. “Though I do admit I’m proud of them.” He rubbed his forehead.
“Are you still having headaches?” Idalia asked.
“I think that was the last of them,” Cilarnen answered cryptically. “But if you’d like to stable your horses, I’m sure Anganil won’t mind sharing. And even if it is the servants’ day off, I can certainly offer you tea.”
SINCE the last time Idalia had been here, Cilarnen had constructed a stabling area for Anganil—not as elegant as Jermayan’s ice-pavilion, but sturdy and warm. They left Cella and Valdien there, and shortly the three of them were seated in Cilarnen’s painted pavilion, waiting for the tea to brew.
He’d lost weight, Idalia judged critically. And he reminded her, oddly, of Kellen. It wasn’t so much that he’d gained in self-confidence—Cilarnen Volpiril of Armethalieh had always had that—as that in the last few sennights he’d acquired a kind of certainty. He knew what he had to do, and how he had to do it.
No matter how high the cost.
“We’ve come because we need you to do something,” Idalia said, bypassing the courtly Elven dance of politeness. Cilarnen wouldn’t expect it, and they didn’t have time for it anyway.
She hated to ask him for anything at all right now—especially now that she saw how tired he was—but this matter was beyond urgent.
“Of course,” Cilarnen agreed. He glanced at Jermayan. “But with the most powerful Mage in the Elven Lands sitting beside you, you’ll forgive me for being … worried.”
Idalia smiled faintly. “We’ve discovered that the last of the Shadowed Elf Enclaves that Vestakia was searching for is Halacira. Kellen is going there. We need to warn him at once. Can you do it?”
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