When Darkness Falls

by Mercedes Lackey

  Vestakia was right.

  If he was willing to use Cilarnen, knowing what danger he placed the young High Mage in, he must use Vestakia as well.

  There could be no difference between them in his mind. In his thoughts.

  “What if he finds out what you’re doing?” he said at last.

  “I don’t think he will,” Vestakia said slowly. “We have always been … linked. That is how he knew I was alive, and why he has searched for me all these years. I think the only difference is that I can hear him now, instead of just him hearing me. It is stronger when I sleep. I think it will keep getting stronger, as Their power grows stronger.”

  Kellen nodded. “I will need to know all you can tell me.”

  If the Prince of Shadow Mountain was unhappy about something, Vestakia was right. There might be something in that that they could use.

  They just needed to find out what it was.

  EVEN after sennights of fighting the plague, the House of Healing was far better equipped for her needs than the Healer’s Tents Idalia had left behind, and with the Flower Forest so close at hand—not to mention an entire herd of unicorns—every element of her remedies was easily available.

  If only they could stop the plagues and blights at their source!

  But that would require defeating Shadow Mountain, and they were already doing their best to do that.

  With the help of several of the Elven Healers, she prepared large batches of the cordial, salve, and bath—enough to continue Andoreniel’s treatment when the supplies she had brought ran out, and to treat other victims as well. Each was normally used at a different stage of the plague, in hopes of keeping it from progressing further, but Andoreniel’s was the worst case she had ever seen, and if he were not Healed quickly, he would surely die.

  While she was working—the remedies required careful preparation, but only after they were complete could she use the power of the Wild Magic to charge them—Jermayan entered.

  He had gone to see to Ancaladar’s comfort, and to see if—perhaps—the power of an Elven Mage might prevail where the power of a Wildmage could not.

  But one look at his face told her that he had failed.

  “It is as you have said,” he told her, taking the long wooden spoon from her hand and slowly stirring the large cauldron of salve that heated over the low fire in the Healers’ Stillroom. The mixture required constant stirring if it was not to burn.

  “I went to Dargainon’s bedside—he is not so ill as Andoreniel, and the Healers think he could recover. But all the Healing spells I know will not heal this plague.”

  “I don’t understand it,” Idalia said in frustration. “A Healing spell will heal almost anything. It is almost as if there’s something else we need to do first—and I just can’t figure out what it is, though every one of us has done every form of divination there is to try to find out.”

  “It is very much like the time that Petariel was wounded by the Shadowed Elf poison, when we did not yet know what it was,” Jermayan said. “The Healers treated the poison, to no effect, not realizing they must Banish the Taint from the wound with a powerful spell before their drugs would work.”

  “Then there is something here we must figure out how to banish,” Idalia said. “But what—and how?”

  THE cordial was ready first—the salve would take the longest, as it must cool and set—and as the Elven Healers began the preparations for the next batch, Idalia prepared to charge the cordial. Once it had been infused with her power, she could transfer it to the bottles from which it could be administered to the plague’s victims.

  But before she could begin, Volcilintra came rushing into the chamber, so wildly agitated she did not even pause upon the threshold and wait to be noticed as Elven good manners required.

  “Idalia! It is the King! Andoreniel wakes!”

  AS if they were both children, Idalia raced after Volcilintra until they reached Andoreniel’s bedchamber. Nelirtil and another Elven Healer were with him.

  But in contrast to the last time she had come here, hours before, Andoreniel lay propped up on several pillows, drinking from a cup that Nelirtil held to his lips. He still looked near death, but now his dark eyes were open and aware.

  “Idalia,” he whispered, as she entered. “I owe you … more than my life.”

  “Don’t talk,” Idalia said instantly. “You need all your strength to heal.”

  She hoped that what she was seeing was healing in truth, and not the last surge of strength that sometimes came before death. But Volcilintra surely had enough experience with plague by now to tell the difference.

  “He began to improve almost at once,” Volcilintra said, drawing her aside. “He fell into a natural sleep for the first time in days, and now, by the grace of Leaf and Star, he wakes.”

  “I’m making more medicine as fast as I can,” Idalia said. “You will soon be able to treat everyone here. I have given the recipes to the Healers. All three remedies need to be charged with the Wild Magic, but Kellen has Wildmages at Halacira. I am sure he will send some.”

  “Perhaps it would be better if you remained,” Volcilintra said, sounding truly alarmed.

  “Be sure that I will remain as long as I can. And that we will not leave you without a way to fight this thing,” Idalia answered grimly.

  JERMAYAN was waiting for her in the outer chamber, his expression a mixture of hope and wariness.

  “It is true,” Idalia said, answering his unvoiced question. “It seems that my remedies are Healing Andoreniel—or at least they allow him to rally. But they will do nothing against the Quick Plague, if it comes. And there must be Wildmages here to make and charge the medicines—and we cannot be everywhere at once!” Her shoulders drooped.

  “Yet you are here now—and as you told Volcilintra, Kellen will send Wildmages from Halacira to stay with Andoreniel, and to prepare enough of the salve and cordial to treat all of Sentarshadeen. It is little enough, but it is what can be done, and we must not scorn to do a thing simply because it seems inadequate. We are not given to know what action will turn the tide of battle, as Master Belesharon has told me many times. Now let us go and charge the medicines you have already prepared, and then Ancaladar and I will fly back to Halacira and tell Kellen what we now know. It is, you must admit, good news.”

  Idalia nodded grudgingly. Good news as far as it went, but all Healers knew that so many things could go wrong when a patient was ill.

  Thirteen

  To Redeem an Ancient Pledge

  TERMAYAN RETURNED TO Halacira at dawn, because Ancaladar had simply refused to fly without a good meal and a night’s sleep for both of them. And in fact, there was wisdom in the dragon’s stubbornness, for Jermayan’s news, while grave, was not so urgent that he must wear himself and Ancaladar to the bone delivering it, and it was always possible—in fact, likely—that something would happen soon that would require all of their strength and endurance.

  He had made a wide circling pass over the land below as he approached Halacira, at least partly to search for creatures of the Shadow who might have escaped the recent battle. He saw no signs of any such, but he did see Keirasti’s troop. They were still four days away from Halacira, but moving in good order. When they came nearer, they would find trail-wands, directing them to the new bridge. They waved and saluted as he passed over them, and Ancaladar flew on.

  The camp below him was already awake. He could hear the sound of axes in the forest, and the thin whine of a sawmill. Artenel’s artificers had indeed been busy in the scant days since the battle.

  He landed in the grove—it, at least, had remained untouched, though elsewhere the forest had been much scarred by the removal of trees—and walked down to the camp. By now there was a wide smooth path cut into the snow from the grove to the camp; the whole area around Halacira was taking on the look of a well-tenanted campsite.

  Kellen came up to meet him.

  “The news from Sentarshadeen is better than it might be,” J
ermayan said at once. “Idalia’s medicines have had some good effect on Andoreniel’s condition. But he remains very weak. She asks that you send Wildmages to Sentarshadeen.”

  Kellen thought a moment, then nodded. “I can do that. One can go with you and Ancaladar immediately. I can send another two with the wagons—we need supplies, and Sentarshadeen has to supply us, or we’re going to starve. I have hunting parties out now, but they’re not having a lot of luck. But three is all I can spare.”

  “The city is well-provisioned,” Jermayan said. “And three Wildmages should answer the city’s needs.”

  “I’ll ask for volunteers, then,” Kellen said. “But come and have breakfast. I’ve got a lot to tell you. None of it really makes pleasant hearing, but at least it doesn’t involve immediate disaster… .”

  VESTAKIA stood silently in a thicket to the side of the trail, watching the two Knights pass. She was certain that Kellen and Jermayan had marked her presence, but her hood was pulled down low over her face, and she was turned away. Obviously she did not wish to be Seen, as the Elves thought of it, so Jermayan would not “see” her, and as for Kellen …

  He did his best to ignore her whenever he possibly could.

  She knew the reason for it. No one could know about Mageprice better than a Wildmage’s daughter, who owed her very life to the paying of a hard Mageprice. But sometimes it still hurt. Nevertheless, she owed it to Kellen to make the paying of his Mageprice as easy for him as she possibly could.

  Because she loved him.

  When they were gone, she tucked her cloak up around her and followed the trail back up to Ancaladar’s clearing. She had a basket over her shoulder, and a sharp knife on her belt; the reason she was out in the forest, should anyone ask, was to do what she could to gather extra fodder for the horses and oxen; the tender inner bark of trees, the softest shoots of the greenneedle trees, even the buried grasses beneath the snow, if she found a place where she could dig down that far.

  But she had really come to talk to Ancaladar.

  Last night the dreams that let her see into her father’s mind had been more terrible and vivid than ever before. He was not only unhappy, but afraid.

  What could frighten a Demon?

  She needed to talk about it to someone, to try to understand what she’d learned. But Cilarnen knew even less than she did about Them—and after what he had seen at Nerendale, she thought it would be cruel to make him think about Them any more than he had to.

  Ancaladar might know what she needed. He was old, and wise, and he had always been a good friend to her. He hated Them as she did, but he was not shocked by Them.

  She reached the clearing.

  Ancaladar was curled up, his head tucked under one wing. His saddle, neatly placed in its blue carrying-bag of waxed silk canvas, was hung from a treebranch, out of the way of the worst of the snow and damp.

  He raised his head at her approach. His great golden eyes flashed with pleasure.

  “Ah, Vestakia,” he said, in his soft deep voice. “Have you come to keep me company?”

  “I have some questions,” she said. “And I really don’t have anyone else to ask. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I always enjoy talking to you,” Ancaladar answered. “You don’t look happy, though.”

  For a moment Vestakia felt like bursting into tears. She’d never felt less happy in her life, even on the plain facing the Black Cairn.

  “I’ve been having bad dreams,” she said, though the words seemed terribly inadequate, compared with the images in her mind.

  “Come,” Ancaladar said, lifting his wing so she could settle beneath it. “Tell me about them. I, too, have had bad dreams in my time.”

  Vestakia settled herself against Ancaladar’s massive scaled ribs. The dragon’s body felt like a sun-warmed cliff, and his calm solidity lent her strength. She wondered if any of them would ever see summer again. She would like to see a summer in the green and pleasant lands of the south. It must be a glorious sight.

  In halting sentences she told Ancaladar what she had already told Kellen: that the increased Demonic presence in the world, combined with her sennights of straining to read the minds of the Crystal Spiders, seemed to have allowed her increased access to her father’s mind. That she now had glimpses of what he saw and felt—not large ones, fortunately for her sanity—and much of what she could see and understand still baffled her.

  “But last night I heard something clearly, because he fears it so. The Queen of Shadow Mountain is calling … something from outside the world. Something that can only be called by terrible sacrifices. When it comes, she will have unstoppable power, and he is afraid that… something … will happen then. Something he does not like!” She shuddered, and wrapped her arms around herself.

  “He is afraid that he will die, for she will not need him anymore,” Ancaladar said, after thinking for a moment. “They are immortal, and filled with treachery. If he wishes to become the King of Shadow Mountain, he must kill her in order to rule in her stead, and he cannot do that if she becomes as powerful as he fears. And she, knowing his intent—for it is the intention of any member of Their royal house—will certainly kill him, the moment she has no further use for him.”

  “That,” Shalkan said, settling down beside her on the other side, “is typical both of Their kind and of a certain nasty sort of human that I hope you will never meet. No wonder the Prince is having nightmares.”

  He nudged at her shamelessly until she began to rub behind his ears.

  “Come to hear the gossip, have you, Shalkan?” Ancaladar asked.

  “You can’t expect me to spend my time down there in the camp, can you?” the unicorn replied. “Besides, this is far more interesting. And useful. Do go on.”

  The dragon heaved a gusty sigh, and after a moment, took up his tale again.

  “As for what she summons, to give her such power … I am afraid I know. Jermayan has told me that the Wildmages’ spells seem weakened. I know how they were made strong. Long, very long ago, at the time of the First War, before I was alive, or my grandsire, or his grandsire, before the race of Men was as it is now, there was no Wild Magic as you now know it at all. Then, as now, the Elves fought against Them—and They nearly won, for in those days, Their Creator was able to reach into the World of Form to aid his creation. But Great Queen Vielissar Farcarinon made the ancient pact which brought the Wild Magic into the world and bound it to the use of humans as yet unborn, and sealed He Who Is out of the World of Form.”

  “And a good thing, too,” Shalkan commented, twitching his tail.

  “That binding came at a heavy price. The Elves gave up their magic. And we … we paid too, for Vielissar Farcarinon had bound us into her Price by our own consent. The magic which had once been the birthright of the Elves passed to humankind, and we waited together through the long centuries for your race to grow old and wise enough to take up the keeping of the Balance.”

  “But we never did, did we?” Vestakia said softly. Shalkan rubbed his head against her cheek.

  “I think you did well enough, when the Dark Times came again,” Ancaladar answered. “Little though any of us wished them to come at all. By then you had built cities, befriended the Elves and the Shining Peoples—”

  “And the unicorns,” Shalkan interrupted.

  “And the unicorns,” Ancaladar agreed, “and learned the truths of the Wild Magic. And when They struck again, Their Creator could not reach into this world to aid Them.”

  “But now he can,” Vestakia said. Her voice shook slightly.

  “Not yet,” Shalkan said firmly.

  “But soon, if the Queen of Shadow Mountain has her way,” Ancaladar answered. “This is what you must tell the others. But I warn you now, they will not wish to hear it.”

  “Tell them anyway,” Shalkan said.

  Vestakia reached up and stroked the soft skin of the dragon’s jaw-hinge. “Is there anything we can do to stop it?”

  “I hope so,” An
caladar answered. “But I do not know.”

  “They’ll think of something,” Shalkan said. “Humans always do.”

  VESTAKIA only hoped Shalkan was right, but she suspected the unicorn might only have been trying to bolster her spirits. She suspected that Ancaladar was right, and the others would hardly wish to know that they had even more bad news to deal with than they had before.

  She supposed it was better to know than not.

  She found Jermayan and Kellen in the newly-constructed dining hall. Several pavilions had been taken apart and remade to form a canopy and sides over a frame of raw timber; it was crude by the standards of the Ysterialpoerin camp, but braziers heated it to a temperature several degrees above the air outside and storage chests—lined up in neat rows—provided a place to sit.

  And, as always, there was tea.

  “I must talk to you both,” she said, as soon as she approached them. “And to Cilarnen, too, I think. I have been talking to Ancaladar. He says that I have news for you that you will not like.”

  Kellen sighed, and ran a hand through his hair.

  “Let us go find Cilarnen, then. I have asked him to prepare to look for trouble from Them, and he says he must move away from the camp to do it, so I suppose he is packing again.”

  CILARNEN was, indeed, packing, and using words over it that Kellen was willing to bet he had never learned at the Mage College of Armethalieh. He had to shake the bell-rope at the door of Cilarnen’s tent several times before he was rewarded with an irritable cry from within:

  “Oh come in or go away—just leave off that accursed jangling!”

  Kellen poked his head through the tent flap. “I assume you mean ‘enter and be welcome’?” he asked.

  “Oh. It’s you. I can’t find my Lesser Goetia, and I’m sure I packed it. I have to have it—I haven’t memorized all the spells in it yet, and it’s important.”