When Darkness Falls

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Is it this?” Kellen noticed a book half-buried in Cilarnen’s sleeping furs and picked it up.

  Cilarnen’s face relaxed with relief as he took the book. “Yes. Thanks. It’s got the keys for the Ars Tabularum, you see, and—”

  Kellen held up a hand. “You’ll never make a High Mage of me, Cilarnen, and I beg you not to try. Now. May we come in? Vestakia has something to say, and she says it’s important.”

  “Oh. Yes. Of course. Enter and be welcome.”

  Jermayan and Vestakia entered the tent, and Cilarnen found them all places to sit.

  “We need to be private,” Kellen told him.

  But instead of the series of elaborate sigils with his wand that Cilarnen had drawn before, he simply sketched one quick gesture in the air, and said a single word. There was a sudden flurry of light and color, spreading out in a ring around them and dissolving into the fabric of the tent itself before fading away. Kellen wasn’t quite sure, but he thought they were the same figures Cilarnen had drawn before.

  “It’s the same spell,” Cilarnen said. “No one will see or hear us until the bounds are broken. But I thought you’d want it again, so I turned it into a cantrip. It’s faster that way.”

  “Indeed it is,” Jermayan said, sounding impressed.

  Cilarnen shrugged. “Nothing to what you can do,” he told Jermayan with a crooked smile. “But useful in its own way.”

  Kellen glanced at Vestakia. She was sitting on one of Cilarnen’s chests, twisting her hands together nervously.

  “What do you have to tell us, Vestakia?” he asked gently.

  “Last night I … dreamed. And in that dream, I heard my father’s mind. What I heard confused me, so I went to talk to Ancaladar about it, and he explained it to me.”

  She stopped, and seemed unable to bring herself to go on.

  “You must tell us, Vestakia,” Cilarnen said gently. “It is better to talk about what you take from Their minds, no matter how horrible.” He spoke with the bleak voice of experience.

  Vestakia took a deep breath.

  “The Queen of Shadow Mountain is summoning Their Creator, the one the ancient Queen of the Elves banished from the world when the Elves first fought Them. Once he has returned, her power will be so great that the Prince of Shadow Mountain fears for his life. She is making sacrifices to allow him to return. That is what I dreamed.”

  “No …” Jermayan whispered. “That He Who Is should walk the world again. It must not be!”

  Apparently Cilarnen recognized the name as well. He looked at Kellen, and gestured, his hand shaking slightly, toward one of his trunks.

  “These books … some of them are very old. The oldest ones … I don’t really understand them. I think they talk about the Black Days. Something you’re not supposed to know about, unless you’re on the High Council. A time when They were still … around. The books talk about the ultimate source of Their power. It’s the opposite of the Eternal Light. Anything you think of as the Light: the Good Goddess, the Herdsman, the Hunter and the Wife. Leaf and Star, I guess, or even the Wild Magic.

  “They say that the reason the Light has won its battles is because He Who Is was banished from the world. He can only cast shadows here. But if he can come back … he won’t be casting shadows any longer. He’ll be here.”

  “Well, he isn’t here yet,” Kellen said briskly. At the moment he had no idea how to fight this new enemy, but he did know that allowing his friends to think of it as unstoppable was putting additional weapons into the Enemy’s hands. And that was something they did not need.

  “If the Queen of Shadow Mountain is attempting to thin the Veil, and free him,” Jermayan said slowly, “perhaps this answers a question that Idalia asked. Our Healing spells should turn back the plague and the blight, but they do not. If Their magic grows stronger—”

  “Then we can still fight it,” Kellen said stubbornly. “If all They had to do to gain victory was work this spell, They wouldn’t have bothered with all the rest. They’d simply sit back, do that, then come and wipe us all out once they were invincible. So there has to be something we can do to stop it. If he was locked out of this world once, it can be done again. Jermayan, how did the Elves do it the last time?”

  Jermayan shook his head. “Kellen, I do not know.”

  “Well find out,” Kellen said. “Maybe the answer’s in Sentarshadeen. You need to go back there anyway. I’ll find a Wildmage to fly with you.”

  WILDMAGE Catreg volunteered to return to Sentarshadeen with Jermayan and Ancaladar. Two other High Reaches Wildmages, Tadolad and Kannert, would follow with the supply sledges that Kellen had dispatched at the same time. The convoy would undoubtedly have to spend the night upon the road, due to the slowness of the oxen and the deep snow, but it was well-guarded, and Ancaladar had seen no dangers in his flight between the city and the camp.

  Catreg weathered the new experience of flight with only a few exclamations of dismay. The High Reaches folk were a normally stoic lot, well-schooled by their mountainous homeland, but nothing in Catreg’s experience had prepared him to see the world from the back of a dragon. After the first few moments, when Ancaladar settled into high level flight, however, he seemed to enjoy himself, leaving Jermayan to his own thoughts.

  Those thoughts were bleak indeed. Kellen seemed to think it would be a small matter to find a way to ban He Who Is from the world once more, yet the spell that Great Queen Vielissar Farcarinon had needed to work to manage it at the dawn of the world had redrawn the map of magic utterly, and such forces were not available to them any longer—at least, not that Jermayan knew of. To defeat the Endarkened was barely possible. How could they manage to defeat a power as great in its Darkness as the power of Leaf and Star was in the Light?

  THEY landed, not in the Unicorn Meadow, but at Ancaladar’s cave, up beyond the House of Sword and Shield.

  “You will wish time to settle your thoughts,” the dragon told him firmly. “And Catreg will wish to see something of the city on his way to the House of Leaf and Star.”

  There was no point in arguing with Ancaladar when he took such a tone; Jermayan had long since given up trying. And in fact, he did want time to clear his head before he saw Idalia.

  “Pretty place. A bit flat,” was Catreg’s comment on seeing the horse meadow.

  They followed the trails the horses had broken in the snow down past the House of Sword and Shield. There, the snow-paths were well-dug, though the House itself stood empty.

  A few minutes’ further walk took them into the city itself. Though the streets were swept clear, no snow-sculptures adorned their edges. Some houses were closed up entirely, and many others flew the yellow banners of plague.

  “They tell me there is plague in the High Reaches as well,” Catreg said, looking around. “If it strikes here, behind your Elven magic, then it must be worse at home.”

  “I do not know,” Jermayan said simply, not bothering to explain to Catreg that there was no Elven magic. “But I know that if They win, there will be no safety anywhere.”

  “Everyone knows that,” Catreg said simply. “That is why I am here.”

  AT last they reached the House of Leaf and Star. Jermayan had come to the main entrance, and not to the House of Healing, for he was not certain where Idalia might be found, but to Jermayan’s surprise, Idalia herself opened the door.

  “Home and hearth,” she said briefly, swinging the door wide. “I sent Taranarya to her bed; if she is not coming down with plague, she is surely exhausted. Catreg; well met. You come in a good hour.”

  “I come to do what I can, Idalia. Tadolad and Kannert are on the road behind me, and will arrive soon.”

  “Come, then, there is much to do. Have you eaten? There is food and warmth in the Healer’s Stillrooms, and from the look of you, you have need of both.”

  She led them through the hallways of the main house. Jermayan saw very few attendants, for most of the people of Sentarshadeen were either in sickbeds, attending
to the sick, or with the army. They walked down a long hallway whose intricately-inlaid wooden floor was designed to mimic the floor of an autumn forest, down to the drifted leaves, scattered stones, and clumps of colorful mushrooms. Jermayan heard Catreg snort dismissively.

  Truly, Jermayan cared not what the Mountainborn thought of the House of Leaf and Star so long as he would use his magic in aid of the sick.

  The House of Healing was filled with familiar smells. There was the scent of simmering medicines, and that of good food: pies and bread kept hot in warming ovens, and soup and stew heating on top of a closed stove. Idalia helped Jermayan and Catreg remove the heavy furs and leathers they had worn for their flight, and then hung them to dry.

  “Now here is a sorcery I can appreciate,” Catreg said, stretching out his hands to the stove’s heat.

  The stillroom’s kitchen was filled with Elven Healers in their green robes, either passing through it to the stillroom itself, or pausing to snatch a quick meal on the way to or from their duties. All, young and old, had the same look of weariness that Jermayan had come to associate with warriors too long in battle.

  “Andoreniel continues to improve,” Idalia said in a low voice, drawing Jermayan aside. “And the others we have been able to treat thus far are also doing well with the medicines. There have been no more deaths. Volcilintra believes Dargainon will recover.”

  “That makes good hearing,” Jermayan said. “Yet I have come to bring you ill news indeed.”

  “What, more?” Idalia said with a sigh. “Let it wait until we’ve eaten, at least.”

  While they were eating, one of the Healers approached their table.

  “I See you, Rumonadil,” Idalia said.

  “I See you, Idalia. I do not wish to disturb you, but you wished to be told at once when the next batch of salve was ready to be charged.”

  From the tone of Rumonadil’s voice, Jermayan surmised, Idalia had insisted upon that very firmly.

  “And I shall do it,” Catreg said, getting to his feet and popping a last morsel of bread into his mouth. “From the look of you, girl, you’ve been wearing yourself to a wraith at this, and as I recall, the Mageprice for charging healing salves is a light one when it is assessed at all. Go and seek your bed, and leave me to the work I was brought here for. Or if you must make yourself useful, find some way to teach the Elder Brothers to brew a pot of proper tea, and find some butter to put in it, for this maudle would not keep a cat alive.”

  He bowed to the Elven Healer. “Mistress Rumonadil, my name is Catreg, and I am here to serve you, as the Wild Magic wills.”

  Rumonadil blinked slowly; the typical Elven gesture of surprise. “Come, then, Wildmage Catreg. Permit me to conduct you to the stillroom, and provide you with all that you may need.”

  Catreg followed Rumonadil from the kitchen.

  “Well, there’s plain speaking,” Idalia said ruefully.

  “I see that our hospitality is not all that it should be,” Jermayan said, smiling gently.

  “I’m sure that Tadolad and Kannert are bringing what Catreg considers ‘proper tea’ with them, and there’s certainly butter here. High Reaches tea, though they call it Smokeleaf, is not actually made from a leaf, but a kind of bark; I think the tree grows in the Flower Forest. He can certainly go look for some once he’s finished with his work. Or I could—”

  “You could rest, as he’s suggested,” Jermayan said firmly. “Though I fear the news from Halacira must come first. Walk with me, if you will, in the gardens.”

  BY now Jermayan’s heavy winter cloak was dry. As they reached the door, Idalia retrieved her own cloak from a peg. It was one Jermayan had not seen before. The cloak was made of heavy violet velvet, lined with soft deep brown fur. A gift, perhaps, from a grateful patient, for even in the depths of war and disaster, life still went on.

  The garden at the House of Leaf and Star was designed to be beautiful at any hour of any season, and even now, at noon, a day or so before Midwinter, it was lovely. Tall hedges of evergreen sculpted the snow into pleasing patterns, and the holly bushes glittered with ice. Here, people had even taken the time to build the ornamental snow-sculptures of gentler times, for the House of Leaf and Star and its gardens were truly the heart of Sentarshadeen, to be tended and defended when nothing else could be. Here the paths were swept clean, and the ornamental benches stood invitingly in their stone bowers. The stone braziers beside the benches were filled and ready, inviting those who wished to sit and linger to kindle them and enjoy a pleasant warmth.

  When they had come a good distance from the house, Jermayan kindled two of the braziers, and seated himself upon the bench. Idalia settled herself beside him.

  “It must be ill news indeed,” she said quietly.

  “Kellen asks the impossible, and I do not know how to answer him. Vestakia has had … perhaps it is as well to call it a vision.”

  Quickly Jermayan told Idalia all that he and the others had spoken of at Halacira.

  “And I know not what to do. Kellen is certain there is some magic to answer hers… .”

  “There has to have been,” Idalia said in frustration. “We’re all still here, and you’ve fought the Endarkened twice before. Only … it would be good to know how you could have won.”

  Jermayan sighed and smiled. “In the First War there were many Elven Mages, and Great Queen Vielissar Farcarinon made her pact with the dragons, so that they added their power to ours. In those days, the world was not as it is now, for Men had not yet come to be, and the Wild Magic was not as it is now. It was then that He Who Is was banished from the world. In the Great War, all the races of the Light fought together to defeat the Enemy, and though there were no Elven Mages, there were Wildmages, and Knight-Mages, and dragons, and even, from what Cilarnen tells us, High Mages, all blending their magics together. And so, once again, the Enemy was cast down—that time, so we thought, forever.”

  “All very nice,” Idalia said absently, “but I’m more interested in the First War. If He Who Is was banished then, there must have been something around that was powerful enough to banish him.”

  “Idalia,” Jermayan said gently, “it was a very long time ago. Before your race had truly taken form. Not even we, with our long memories, truly remember those days.”

  “Someone must,” Idalia said stubbornly. “After all, you remembered He Who Is.”

  “Perhaps, then, we should go talk to Ancaladar,” Jermayan said.

  ONCE more Jermayan crossed the city, this time with Idalia at his side, and returned to Ancaladar’s comfortable refuge beyond the House of Sword and Shield.

  The dragon looked as if he had only been waiting for them to arrive.

  “Idalia, Jermayan,” Ancaladar greeted them in his soft deep voice.

  “Hello, Ancaladar,” Idalia said. “I’ve come to ask you a question. How did Vielissar Farcarinon defeat He Who Is ?”

  Ancaladar cocked his head. “She did not defeat him, Idalia. Vielissar Farcarinon riddled with dragons. Every Elven child knows that. If you would gain a prize from a dragon, that is what you must do. Bonding with a dragon to use its magic is quite another matter. And I must warn you, I am already Bonded.”

  “Oh, can’t you just tell me?” Idalia demanded irritably. She was instantly contrite. If Ancaladar could tell her what she wanted to know, she was certain he already would have. Sometimes magic was simply … inconvenient.

  “I’m sorry, Ancaladar.”

  The dragon lowered his head. When he rested his chin on the ground, Idalia still had to reach up to give him a comforting rub along the soft skin of his jaw. It was odd how a creature so covered with hard scales everywhere else could have parts that were so soft. Quite silky, really. As she rubbed, he half-closed his pupilless golden eyes with pleasure, and she found herself staring into their golden surface.

  “If you can’t tell us what we need to know, Ancaladar, can you show us?” she said at last.

  Ancaladar sighed with relief.

 
; “Here is a riddle, Idalia. If there is will, and desire, and memory, then you can see. What is the answer to that?”

  “I really should kick you, Beloved,” Jermayan said conversationally.

  “No,” Idalia said. “It’s a riddle—and a simple one. Three people. Desire, that’s me, because I need this answer. You’re memory, Jermayan, because the Elves are known for having the longest memories of all. And will—who has a stronger will than a Knight-Mage? So that has to be Kellen. The three of us together will be able to see the answer. Right, Ancaladar?”

  “Correct, Idalia. You have solved the riddle. If Kellen will come, Jermayan will give you the answer you seek, though he does not know it yet.”

  Idalia looked at Jermayan, who regarded her with a blank expression. Obviously Ancaladar’s words were as incomprehensible to him as they were to her.

  “Then it seems I must send for Kellen with all due haste,” the Elven Knight said slowly. “And trust he will hold this mysterious task to be as urgent as we do.”

  KELLEN and Shalkan arrived a few hours after dawn of the next day, having been sent word by unicorn messenger. They rode directly to Ancaladar’s paddock, where Jermayan had already erected an ice-pavilion for the spell to come.

  “You look awful,” he told Idalia as he hugged her. “You should get more rest.”

  “Pot to kettle,” she said simply. “When was the last time you slept in a bed?”

  Kellen grinned tiredly. “I really can’t remember. Before we left for the Gathering Plain, I think—and don’t ask me when the last time was I was actually warm. Now, why am I here?”

  “You said there must be something powerful enough to banish He Who Is from the world,” Idalia said. “We know there is, because he was banished once, a very long time ago. Ancaladar and Jermayan are going to help us find it.”

  “This should be fun,” Shalkan said.

  “Find it how?” Kellen asked.

  Idalia shrugged. “By looking for it.”

  THE four of them entered the ice-pavilion, while Ancaladar coiled himself around the outside, thrusting his large head into the opening. There were braziers set at the four corners of the pavilion, warming the enclosure considerably, and several thick fur rugs had been placed upon the ice floor for them to sit upon.