When Darkness Falls

by Mercedes Lackey

  As they came closer to the Standing Stones, Kellen smelled … flowers?

  The ground was covered in flowers.

  He dismounted.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  He walked forward.

  Before the battle, this had been the heart of the Delfier Forest, and like the rest of the forest, it had been reduced to burnt trees and ash.

  But here, new life was beginning. He could see the shoots of new growth springing up out of the forest floor, among the flowers. Vines twined around the dead husks of trees, unfolding even as he watched. There were flowers everywhere.

  When he got closer, he saw Ancaladar.

  The black dragon’s scales glittered in the morning light, as radiant as they had been the first time Kellen had seen him.

  Ancaladar lifted his head.

  Kellen stopped.

  Jermayan was kneeling at the center of the Standing Stones. They were wreathed in flowers, overgrown with them.

  He held Idalia in his arms.

  She was dead.

  “No,” Kellen whispered.

  This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. Idalia had been going to do a spell in the City. That was what she’d told him. She hadn’t been supposed to be here.

  At the sound of his voice, Jermayan looked up at him. For a moment their eyes met. Then Jermayan set Idalia down among the flowers, very gently, and got to his feet.

  “Jermayan,” Kellen said.

  But Jermayan turned away, toward Ancaladar, setting his foot into the stirrup and mounting Ancaladar’s saddle.

  “Jermayan!”

  But the dragon had spread his great wings and leaped into the sky.

  The last sound Kellen heard was the howl of grief, two voices mingled together.

  KELLEN’S Knights returned slowly to the City walls, passing across the battlefield once more. Idalia’s body, wrapped in Kellen’s cloak, lay across his saddle. He led his horse.

  All around them, the forest was filling with flowers. They spread at a more-than-natural rate, a living carpet growing outward from the Delfier Shrine, covering the burnt ugliness of the long night’s battle with a victory carpet of living green. Everywhere Kellen looked, new life was beginning; tiny white flowers raised their heads through the ash of the forest floor, tendrils of palest green appeared from seeming nowhere to twine themselves around the burnt husks of the trees.

  He tried to care. Surely such a powerful sign meant that their victory was a true one, and that the power of the Endarkened had been broken once again.

  Perhaps, this time, forever.

  But as they walked across the battlefield, picking their way with care among the shattered dead, their feet and the horses’ hooves splashing through the pools of water and blood, what Kellen saw was the cost.

  No cost would have been too high to save the world—the Light—from the Demons. He had been prepared to spend himself, his friends, everything he held dear to gain that victory. But the one price he had never thought to pay was to stand alive in the aftermath and count his dead.

  It was hard. It was very hard.

  But it was his Price, Kellen realized. The price of all the Wild Magic he had taken up and used, not counting the cost at the time, knowing that payment would someday come due but knowing he must have the spells at the time.

  Well, now payment was due.

  He must forgive. Himself most of all.

  For being alive.

  As they approached the City walls, he saw that Redhelwar had been busy in his absence. The Enemy had never managed to reach the rear guard, so they’d successfully held on to some of their supply wagons, sheltering them beneath the City walls when they’d moved the wounded inside the City. In the mile or so of clear bare untouched ground between the edge of the battlefield and the City walls, Redhelwar had put up the pavilions. Against the austere pale stone of the City walls, the colorful silk canvas of the Elven pavilions looked strange and alien; the two halves of Kellen’s heritage, brought together at last.

  Redhelwar rode out to meet him. He looked, questioningly, toward the shrouded bundle on Kellen’s saddle.

  Kellen took a deep breath. “Idalia was at the stones,” he said. “I don’t … I don’t understand what happened. Jermayan and Ancaladar were there with her. But they … left. I couldn’t stop them.”

  Redhelwar bowed his head. “We have won a great victory, by her sacrifice, and the sacrifice of many others. It would be good to hear what orders you give now, Kellen.”

  Kellen considered for a moment. He pulled off his gloves, then his gauntlets, and dropped them into the mud. He reached for the pouch on his belt, and fumbled at it until he got it open. The ring was still there. He pulled it out, and held it out to Redhelwar.

  “I have no orders, Redhelwar, Army’s General. I return to you Andoreniel’s ring, and with it, his army. The task set me by the Wild Magic is done.”

  Redhelwar took the ring, closing his fingers over it.

  “Then see to your horse, Kellen, then find a bed, and sleep. By the grace of Leaf and Star, we have won the battle. And perhaps, some day, we shall rejoice in it.”

  Nineteen

  In the Temple of the Light

  CILARNEN AWOKE WITH a shudder.

  He’d had the most amazing dream. He’d been …

  He looked around.

  He was in his rooms. His old rooms. In House Volpiril.

  He flung himself out of bed, his mind reeling. It couldn’t all have been a dream! He remembered …

  He ran to his windows and looked out. The garden looked just the same as he remembered. It was daylight.

  They were all still alive.

  Idalia’s spell must have worked.

  There was an unfamiliar weight around his neck. He reached beneath his nightrobe and touched it. A City-Talisman, on a gold and sapphire chain, the same sort he’d always worn it on. He drew upon its stored power, feeling, beneath it, the link to a greater wellspring of stored power, and touched the City Wards beyond.

  They were intact. Everything was as it should be.

  He remembered now. Standing in the Circle, the Great Sword of the City in his hands, Elemental Energy surging through him as he fought to complete the spell, feeling a link with a dreaming half-conscious force much greater than himself that had taken and taken and taken, using everything he had to rebuild the Wards. Purging him of his link to the wild Elemental energies he had wielded for so long, draining him utterly.

  He remembered the harsh caress of the Elemental as they released each other, their bond—and the need for it—ended.

  Felt the spell continue to drain him for an instant more, sucking forth the tiny reservoir of personal Power he possessed.

  And then … ?

  And then his father had brought him back … here?

  How long had he slept? What had they done to him as he slept?

  Nothing, Cilarnen realized with a pang of relief. His mind, his memories, were his own; he knew that with a bone-deep certainty. If they weren’t, how could he remember Kellen, Idalia, Jermayan, Kardus, every day of his Banishment? If they had tampered with his mind, surely he would not think of them—Elves, Wildmages, Centaurs—as his friends?

  He must have news.

  He went to his closet and dressed quickly, and went downstairs.

  HIS father was sitting in the Morning Room, a pile of papers at his elbow.

  “Cilarnen,” he said. “I confess I had not expected to see you rise from your bed so soon.”

  “My Lord Father,” Cilarnen said, making a formal bow. His City-manners returned to him easily, as if he had never left. He had the odd feeling he hadn’t left, even though his memory told him otherwise.

  “Sit. I shall ring for breakfast. You will, I am certain, wish to know all that has transpired in recent hours.”

  “I … of course.” Cilarnen seated himself in his accustomed place. It was hard to imagine doing otherwise.

  Lord Volpiril raised a hand and ske
tched a sign in the air. There was a distant sound of ringing. In a moment, a servant appeared and was given his orders, and disappeared again. Out of long custom, father and son sat silently until the food was brought and served, and the servants had departed once more.

  “I suppose they did not feed you so well outside the walls?” Lord Volpiril said, once Cilarnen had begin to eat.

  “The food was well enough, my Lord Father,” Cilarnen answered. “I did miss the tea. But tell me, my friends—are they well?”

  Lord Volpiril sighed. “The Lady Idalia’s spell went, perhaps, differently than we had expected. She is gone.”

  “Gone? Gone where?”

  Lord Volpiril frowned, reminding Cilarnen that no matter how much things had changed, this was not a tone he might take with his father.

  “She vanished from the Circle just as Lord Lycaelon appeared. The Elf who was with her seemed to take it somewhat amiss. Beyond that, I know nothing, for he took his dragon and left the City. Soon after that, there was a great flux of the Light. It refilled the reservoir in the Temple of the Light to overflowing and recharged every Talisman in the City. Though the battle outside the walls continued, it moved into the forest. Now it is over, and the Elves have made themselves a tent city outside our gates.”

  Lord Volpiril’s tone was faintly disapproving.

  “I must go and see if they’re all right,” Cilarnen said.

  “You must eat your breakfast,” Lord Volpiril answered firmly. “After that, there is much to do.”

  “Yes,” Cilarnen said levelly. “We must welcome our allies into the City and see to their needs.”

  Father and son gazed at each other for a moment in silence.

  “Things must change in Armethalieh, Father,” Cilarnen added. “What happened here cannot be allowed to happen again. Ever.”

  “You cannot understand what you ask,” Lord Volpiril said. “Yesterday—last night—we did what we had to in order to save ourselves from immediate annihilation. But now the threat is over. We can return to our own ways, as the Elves can return to theirs.”

  “No we can’t,” Cilarnen said stubbornly. “It was just those ‘own ways’ that got us into all this trouble in the first place. You—me—everyone here—cutting ourselves off from the world. The High Mages taking from the people without telling them. All magic has a price that must be freely paid, and all help freely given. It is the first and highest rule, the one the Wildmages live by. We have to live by it, too, we High Mages. And if the people don’t want to give up their power for what we have to offer them, we have to let them go—not tell them there’s nothing outside of Armethalieh’s walls that anyone could want.”

  “So that Light-blasted woman said,” Volpiril growled.

  “Well, she was right.”

  “She had the unmitigated gall to force the High Council to issue a proclamation to that effect.”

  Cilarnen laughed. “And I suppose you did it because you were sure that nobody would see it?”

  Volpiril smiled unwillingly. “And I am quite certain that no one did.”

  “Well, you shall have to issue it again,” Cilarnen said simply.

  “That will hardly be possible,” Volpiril answered.

  Cilarnen gazed at him levelly, and Volpiril went on.

  “Only the Arch-Mage could issue such a proclamation. Lord Lycaelon … he will never be well enough again to resume his duties. Though I am certain you well know I bear no love for him, believe that I am telling you the truth. He is broken in body and spirit—if not in mind—by his ordeal among the Demons. Worse, to know that Lord Anigrel, his heir, had been—so Lord Lycaelon has told us—the catspaw of the Demon Queen since earliest childhood, and conspired from the very beginning to give Armethalieh over to her completely … it has nearly destroyed him. He has resigned from the Council. At the moment, the High Council acts in a body to handle what business it may. But there are eight vacant seats, and it will be a year, at least, before they can all be filled, as no one will wish to come to another hasty decision about who may be added to its ranks. One of the five who are now on the Council must, inevitably, be the new Arch-Mage. But I like none of them. All of them truckled to Anigrel—as I have told them. And none of them will approve of … change.”

  “You must retake your seat, Father. The oath you swore to Lycaelon no longer binds you.”

  “It does not, of course. But it forced me to resign. And I while I could constrain them to accept me among them once more while there were Demons at the gates and they were mad with panic, they will not do so now that the threat has passed. Perhaps I shall regain my seat on the Council in time. But I shall never rule Armethalieh as I once hoped to do.” Volpiril sounded faintly regretful.

  “There has to be a way to save them from themselves,” Cilarnen said fervently. “There must.”

  “Perhaps there is,” Lord Volpiril answered thoughtfully.

  THE aftermath of any battle was neither quick nor clean, even if the victory was decisive.

  When Kellen awoke a few hours later, he joined the work-parties who were clearing the battlefield.

  At home, the Centaurs took their dead to special fields miles from their home villages and left them on the surface of the earth, there to become one with the earth once more over the course of seasons. The human farmers who lived in the Wildlands buried their dead in the same fields. The Elves hung their dead in the trees. The Mountainborn and the Wildlanders built stone houses for theirs, where their bodies could rest undisturbed.

  None of these things could be done here, for the thousands of fallen upon the battlefield. And there were horses, and the enemy dead as well. All must be disposed of—or at least moved far from the City walls before they attracted predators.

  All across what had once been the battlefield, there were pyres of burning bodies. They had separated the Enemy dead from their own, burning them first. Some of the Tainted bodies were already turning to a sort of stinking jelly where they lay—those, the Allies had found, ignited swiftly and burned as if they were soaked in oil.

  Those that had fallen in the forest, Ally and Enemy alike, were already covered by the carpet of living green. They left those alone.

  But that left many more.

  The Elves had simply refused to burn their dead. They were carried deep into the forest and laid, naked, upon the carpet of thick green life that had grown up there. Wagon upon wagon, piled high with bodies, made their slow journey into the woodland—by now nearly every tree was wreathed in green, and some were even sprouting new leaves—to return, empty, and be filled again. Even the Healers had returned from within the City to lend their aid.

  The Great Gates stood open now.

  Kellen stood at the head of one of the oxen, dragging a dead horse from the field. It was heavy work; the churned ground was still muddy, and the beast might be sure-footed, but he tended to slip. Still, the work had to be done.

  And it kept him from thinking.

  Armethaliehans moved across the battlefield as well, performing the lighter, simpler tasks of retrieving swords, weapons, and gear and bringing it to the camp. It, too, must be sorted, so that nothing Tainted would be saved to cause further potential harm.

  Redhelwar had said, when Kellen had seen him earlier, that the Armethaliehans were helping as much as they could. They had sent food to the army, and were allowing them to enter the City—though not to go outside the area close to Delfier Square, the Council House, and the Mage College, where their wounded still recuperated. It was honestly more than Kellen had expected of them. One did not overthrow a thousand years of indoctrination and prejudice in a single night, even if it were a night unlike any that had come to Armethalieh in a thousand years.

  Still, the sooner the army could leave here, the better Kellen would like it. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t trust the High Mages … well, to be fair, he didn’t. He was just wondering when—or if—they were going to realize that all they had to do to create that perfect world they�
��d dreamed of, without “Lesser Races” in it, was to turn on the remains of the Allied Army as it sat beneath their walls. Because right now, there was very little the Allies could do about the High Mages, if the High Mages chose to attack.

  He only hoped they’d remember that those so-called “Lesser Races” had just saved all of their lives.

  Kellen patted the ox on the shoulder, urging it to move on.

  The air was filled with the scent of green growing things, overlaying the smell of blood and death. Amid the shouts and cries of the workers, Kellen caught a snatch of birdsong.

  He wondered just how long it was going to take to wipe away all trace of the battle.

  WHEN he got back to his tent—not his own pavilion, but the one he was using now—Cilarnen was waiting for him.

  It was a shock to see him. Cilarnen looked every inch a Mageborn. He was dressed head to foot in Armethaliehan garb, wearing what Kellen supposed must be House Volpiril’s colors, copper and green. Only his heavy fur-lined cloak and sturdy—though elegant—calf-high boots made any concession to his present surroundings.

  But he looked far better than he had when Kellen had seen him last. The drawn, pinched, feverish look was gone from his face, and color had returned to his cheeks.

  “You’re alive!” Cilarnen said, grinning with relief.

  “Redhelwar told me you were, but it’s good to see it for myself.”

  “Idalia isn’t.”

  Kellen hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that. She’d been Cilarnen’s friend as well. And it was unfair for that single death to hurt so much more than all the rest, but there were moments when it seemed to Kellen that Idalia’s death summed up for him every loss he had suffered in this war.

  Cilarnen looked away. “I’d hoped … Lord Volpiril told me she vanished from the Circle, and Lord Lycaelon took her place.”

  “We found her body at the Stones.”

  Cilarnen reached out and put a hand on Kellen’s arm. “I am so very sorry for your loss, Kellen. I know—if you could you would have died in her place.”