When Darkness Falls

by Mercedes Lackey

  Suddenly Cilarnen and Anganil came bolting out of the column past Kellen. The destrier’s reins were looped around the saddlehorn; Cilarnen had both hands raised to the sky.

  Lightning.

  By now Kellen had seen more wild weather than he actually cared to. He’d seen storms, and he’d seen lightning. But only lightning up in the sky—great flashes of light that turned the night to day, or jagged bolts of light crossing the sky, as if the night were cracking to let the morning in.

  Not like this.

  This was lightning coming out of a clear blue sky. Coming without warning. A jagged column of blinding white fire lanced down out of the sky with an ear-numbing crack—once, twice—and when it was done, the Demons in the sky had been slammed to earth in the center of a huge lake of charred grass and mud, their bodies nothing more than twisted, still-smoking embers. Though the bolts had struck almost half a mile away, a ripple of unease moved through the army, as startled animals reacted to the sudden blast of light and noise.

  And, horribly, the Demons were still moving.

  “They aren’t dead!” Cilarnen cried.

  Shalkan was the first to reach them, slipping and skidding in the ice and mud, followed by the rest of the Unicorn Knights. By the time he had, the Demons were already beginning to heal. But they were still weak enough that the unicorns, trampling and goring, reduced them quickly to inanimate ash.

  It was all over very quickly.

  Kellen rode up to Cilarnen as the Unicorn Knights retreated. Cilarnen swung down awkwardly from Anganil’s back, dropped to his knees, and plunged his hands into the snow.

  “Aaah—! By the Light, that hurts,” Cilarnen gasped. He raised his hands out of the snow after a moment, and Kellen could see that they were red. Burned. Blisters had formed and already broken, and thin trickles of blood, mixed with melted snow, were running down his wrists. Cilarnen inspected the damage and plunged his hands back into the snow again.

  “What did you do?” Kellen demanded, swinging down out of his saddle.

  “Lightning,” Cilarnen said succinctly. “It’s a complicated spell, but I have it as a cantrip. I’ve only prepared a few more, though, so I hope there won’t be many more visitors. It won’t kill Them, of course. But it slows Them down.”

  Despite the cold—Kellen felt it even through layers of armor and padding, and Cilarnen was only wearing a robe—Cilarnen was sweating heavily. Drops of perspiration fell from his forehead to the snow, melting small pockmarks in it.

  “I’m going to need leather armor,” Cilarnen said meditatively. “Something made without any metal at all. I think I would have fried myself if I’d been wearing my chain shirt.”

  “Cilarnen,” Kellen said again. “What did you do? You burned your hands. And you’re outside the Elven Lands. You can’t be drawing on the Land-wards now.”

  “Always asking useless questions,” Cilarnen said with a shaky laugh. He scooped up a handful of snow and held it to his face. “You might actually have made a decent High Mage, Kellen, if you’d had decent teachers. Not that—I suspect—there are many left in Armethalieh. Or maybe the High Magick and the Wild Magic really have more in common than I think, if you go back to their roots. Yes, we’re outside the Elven Lands. That’s blindingly obvious. I’m using wild elemental energy now. The same thing my ancestors used. It’s … stronger. I didn’t compensate for that. But I talked to the Fair Ones while I was still back in Halacira, and they agreed to lend me their strength. Because if They win, the Fair Ones will all be gone, too. It just hurts, a little. You’re supposed to start when you’re a child, with the simplest Forces, and I can’t.”

  Cilarnen’s teeth were chattering with cold now.

  “Well, you’ve done enough for one day,” Kellen said. He heard no further horn-calls. The two Demons must have been acting alone.

  He bent down and scooped Cilarnen up into his arms. Cilarnen was heavy, but proper Mageborn were slightly-built, and Kellen had the muscles that came from wearing armor day in and day out, and swinging a heavy sword on top of it. He wouldn’t want to do this as a regular thing, but it was certainly possible for him to lift the smaller man. With Cilarnen in his arms, he stepped up into Firareth’s stirrup, swinging his leg over into the saddle. The buckskin destrier stood rock-steady as he mounted.

  “Hey!” Cilarnen protested.

  “You are going off to see Idalia,” Kellen told him, turning Firareth back toward the column. “Burned hands are no joke, and you’ll need to change into something warm and dry. We can’t afford to lose you.”

  THE Golden City of Armethalieh, City of a Thousand Bells, had once held spell-bound beneath its rule all the land from the edge of the Western Sea to the farthest reaches of the Delfier Hills.

  Now it did not even rule itself.

  Fear ruled Armethalieh.

  High Mage Astranis of House Nerawell was the son and grandson of Mages, and could trace his exalted and unblemished Mageborn lineage all the way back to the ancient days of the City, in a peaceful and unbroken record of privilege and service. The sons of House Nerawell had all led lives of duty to the City and service to the Light. The daughters had all married well, and presented their husbands, in due time, with proper Mageborn sons and daughters to continue the great name of Armethalieh, unchanged and unchanging.

  But now there was change.

  Nerawell was one of the High Houses—the Nerawell lineage was closely connected with the High Council itself, by marriage if not by the felicity of actually possessing a seat on the Council. Astranis knew nearly as much about what went on in Armethalieh as Lycaelon Tavadon himself.

  And none of it was good.

  In the last half year had come, first, the Banishment of the Arch-Mage’s own mongrel son. Of course there was bad blood there, and the matter should have been dealt with—quietly—long before. But now both children were gone, and Light knew it was for the best. Perhaps Lycaelon might marry again; a suitable girl this time.

  But then—so it appeared—the Wildmage taint that had surfaced with the boy had not been entirely rooted out of the City. The Council had acted rashly, restricting the Bounds back to the City walls, leading to, of all ridiculous things, a revolt among the farmers. The famine that had bred among the Commons had at least had one useful result: it had forced the rest of the Wildmages hiding in the City out into the open, leading to a purge of the Council, and the Banishment of several of the ringleaders, the young sons of several of the Council members and their families.

  That Lord Volpiril had been involved in any way had been a surprise, though. Astranis had always thought the man had been sound.

  Astranis had looked for things to return to normal, then. The Bounds were being expanded once more. Lycaelon had adopted a new Heir—still Commons blood there, of course, but Mageborn on his mother’s side, and raised in a good home. And at least both parents were Citizens.

  But then Lycaelon had put the boy on the Council. And now the Council was seven, not thirteen. It had been eight until a moonturn ago, but Lord Meron had resigned unexpectedly, giving reasons of ill-health and a desire to put his personal affairs in order.

  Astranis was unconvinced. He suspected a visit from the Magewardens, rather than ill-health, was behind Lord Meron’s decision.

  The Magewardens! There was something that should be a bitter tea in every Mageborn’s cup. The Mageborn ruled Armethalieh. They always had. Now, suddenly, there was a ruling council set over the Mageborn—a gaggle of low-rank, Low House, social-climbers whom no one knew, and no one could control.

  Save Lycaelon’s whelp, Anigrel Tavadon.

  It was he who was the true power in the City now, not the Arch-Mage. Anigrel said that the Wildmages were still among them, seducing their sons and daughters just as they had Lycaelon’s and Volpiril’s and so many others. Anigrel said that only the Magewardens could be trusted to seek out the Wildmage corruption among the ranks of the Mageborn and keep it from spreading so disastrously again.

  Oh,
Astranis had to admit that the boy did have a few good ideas. The extra taxes on magick, for example. That had been an excellent notion. And the formation of the Commons Wardens. That kept the people out of trouble. The passes that kept them in their homes at night were a good notion as well. He did admit that.

  But being spied upon, as if he were one of them, his own actions called into account… ?

  Intolerable!

  But there was nothing to be done about it.

  He already knew that.

  He had learned from the lesson of Master Undermage Hendassar.

  He had known Ulfeson Hendassar for nearly forty years. He lectured at the College—on History of the City—and they had played shamat at the Teahouse of the Thousand Towers each Light-Day, over many cups of the Thousand Towers’ finest brewings.

  When the Magewardens had first been formed, Master Hendassar had spoken out, strongly and publicly, against them. He had said there was no precedent for such a body. That it infringed upon the inviolate sovereignty that was every Mageborn’s right, as embodied in the City Charter itself.

  All these things were, as Astranis knew himself, perfectly true. But he also knew that when the Magewardens had the backing of the Arch-Mage and the Arch-Mage’s new son and heir, it was perhaps more prudent not to say them aloud. He had said as much to Ulfeson. But Ulfeson would not take the hint.

  And then, one Light-day, Astranis’s shamat-partner was not there.

  No one knew where he’d gone. No one wished to know. Astranis had stopped by his rooms at the College—Ulfeson had never married, and did not keep a house—only to find them gone as if they had never existed at all.

  No one ever explained why Ulfeson Hendassar had vanished, or what it was he was supposed to have done. Everyone assumed he was part of the Wildmage conspiracy that later tragically claimed the lives of two of the members of the High Council itself.

  Astranis knew better.

  He kept that knowledge to himself.

  For his sons’ sake, and their sons’ sake. For the good name of House Ner-awell. Even for the sake of his wife and daughters.

  Anyone in Armethalieh who disagreed with the Magewardens—with Lord Anigrel—simply vanished.

  He didn’t know why.

  It wasn’t good to wonder why.

  “I fear the Wildmages are becoming more powerful, Father,” Anigrel said quietly.

  The Nocturne Bells—the first ring after Midnight Bells—had just rung, heralding the deepest part of the night.

  The two High Mages stood in Lycaelon’s study in the Council House at Armethalieh. The air thrummed with Power, for each night the Council Chamber which was the true heart of Armethalieh became the workplace for the High Mages to cast the spells that kept the City running so efficiently.

  Tonight was not one of Anigrel’s nights to stand in the Circle, though as always these days, his Magewardens were present. Tonight, the spell being cast was merely one to strengthen the timing-spells on the bell-towers, so that all of the carillons of the City struck when and as they were supposed to, and the weight and vibration of the great bells they held did not weaken the fragile and beautiful bell-towers.

  Anigrel’s personal attention was reserved for other matters, such as the City Wards.

  The work was going far more slowly than he had hoped, and often over the past several sennights he had felt the lash of his Dark Lady’s impatience. But he dared move no faster. Armethalieh was a city of law and custom—oh, the ancient immemorial custom!—and to work the spells that checked and cleansed and strengthened the Wards of the City Walls outside their proper time would draw attention he could not afford.

  He had gained access to nearly all of the secret—and largely proscribed—Council archives during his tenure as Lycaelon’s confidential secretary, and so he knew that the highest levels of the Mageborn remembered his Dark Lady and her kindred very well. Had not Lycaelon attempted to turn young Kellen Tavadon from his ill-advised dabbling in the Wild Magic by warning him it would lead him into the Dark Lady’s embrace?

  As if such a thing were likely.

  Still, it was more than enough warning for Anigrel. The High Mages—or enough of them—remembered the days of the Shadow War and the enemy they had fought. If they truly understood what it was that he did here on those nights when he tampered—oh, so carefully!—with the City Wards, they would rise up in a body and destroy him.

  Meanwhile, he must content himself with the small victories he had gained. No longer did he need to fear that his own Darkmage spells could be detected by the City Wards. Their ability to detect his work had been the first thing he destroyed, in accordance with a plan set down long ago.

  Next, he had opened a thousand tiny cracks in the City’s magical defenses. It was not enough to allow the Dark Ones to enter, or even to work their greater spells, but they could … influence … events in the City now, albeit subtly.

  So long as he continued to work upon the Wards.

  For Anigrel had quickly discovered, to his and his Dark Lady’s great dismay, that somehow the complex, centuries-old spell had a life of its own, almost as if it were a living thing. Time and again he would return to the Circle to continue his work, only to discover that work he had done before must be redone, for damage he had done to the City Wards, changes he had made to suit them to his own purposes, had somehow been undone.

  He had set his Magewardens the task of seeing who might be tampering with the Great Seals upon the City against his will, but they had found nothing.

  And if his Magewardens could find nothing, well, then, there was nothing to find.

  He could only conclude that the spell was repairing itself. But he dared not make more and greater changes each time. He was already working upon the Wards as quickly as he dared—unless, of course, he could gain absolute control of the Council.

  Meron’s departure had helped. High Mage Meron had always been a strong voice for caution and moderation, even now. With Meron gone, it would be far easier to convince the remaining Council members of the necessity of accepting the new proposal he was about to put before them.

  Armethalieh must have allies.

  The continuing raids in the Delfier Valley had helped. The force Lycaelon had sent to Nerendale several moonturns ago had simply vanished, along with—so the Council presumed, since no one had ever been sent to check—the entire village. Other troops of Militia, other villages, had followed in Nerendale’s wake, until the Council had simply stopped answering the increasingly desperate pleas for help from the villagers.

  The petitions, of course, continued to arrive. Proof, so Anigrel assured the High Council, that a vast and terrible army of Wildmages even now infested the Delfier Valley, and had set its sights on nothing less than the destruction of Armethalieh herself.

  “We must defeat them,” Lycaelon answered somberly. “We cannot allow this hallowed citadel of the Light to be defiled by their kind. We are all that remains of those that the Light created in Its Own Image.”

  “Your words are wise, Father,” Anigrel said. “And I am certain the Council will heed them, when you present your plan. But I wonder if we must truly fight alone? You know that long ago, there were others who stood against the Wildmages. Others who thought, as we do, that the chaos and misrule of the Wild Magic must not be allowed to spread.”

  Once, before he had weakened the Wards and allowed his Dark Lady’s influence to enter the City, Lycaelon would have instantly greeted Anigrel’s words with horror. Now the Arch-Mage merely looked hopeful. And interested.

  The sennights since Anigrel’s accession to the High Council had taken a fearful toll on Lycaelon Tavadon. Only last spring he had seemed to be a man in the vigor of his late middle years; incorruptible, indestructible, a mighty pillar of magick who would endure forever.

  Now it was as if everything Anigrel did to weaken the City Wards weakened Lycaelon as well. The Arch-Mage’s skin had the translucence of age, and his hair, once raven-black with distinguished wi
ngs of gray, was now entirely white. The staff of office he bore was no longer merely an ornament of rank, but needed for support as well.

  He had grown old.

  Soon there would be a new head of House Tavadon, and another vacancy on the High Council.

  The Arch-Mageship itself.

  And then, at last, Anigrel could claim outright what he had sought for so long: absolute dominion over Armethalieh. As its new Arch-Mage.

  “What are you saying, my son?”

  “Since I became a member of the High Council, I have delved deep into our ancient archives, searching for any knowledge that might help us in this, our time of greatest peril. I have read much of the days of the Founding of our City, when—rightfully!—we sequestered ourselves from the Taint of the Wild Magic and the blandishments of the Other Races. But we were not the only ones who did. There were … others. Others who suffered just as terribly at the hands of the Wildmages, the Elves, and the Beast-creatures. They withdrew to a secret citadel far to the north, hiding themselves from the sight of all. They, too, believe in Purity above all things, and understand the need to destroy our enemies, for those enemies threaten them as well. Long have they hidden from their ancient foes, fearing to be destroyed completely. But now … I think they might aid us.”

  Lycaelon hesitated. “You say they believe as we do?”

  Anigrel smiled. “Their enemies are ours, and have been since before the first stones of these walls were laid. What more proof can we ask?”

  Lycaelon sighed deeply. “And yet… an alliance.”

  “Of two peoples with a common enemy, and a common goal,” Anigrel said subserviently. “But of course, it is only a thought. You are so much wiser than I, and will know what is best for the City. But I think they would aid us, if we asked. You know that there have been … rumors … of great battles far to the east. I think they already stand against our enemies there.”

  “You have given me much to think about, my son,” Lycaelon said. “Perhaps we must consider this matter further. For the good of the City.”