The Outstretched Shadow

by Mercedes Lackey

  Lycaelon’s face was so suffused with anger it had become a mask indistinguishable from the golems’ carved faces. “Light save me, would that I had never had a child at all, would that you had died with your mother, would that she had died in infancy, rather than spawn you!”

  Kellen could hardly recognize his own father in this rigid, unyielding, intolerant demagogue, thundering down judgment as if he thought he was a god—

  Right, then, Kellen thought furiously. You wish I’d never been born, well so do I! I’d rather starve to death in the forest than eat another bite of food at your table!

  “Kiss my foot,” Kellen sneered, in a voice he hardly recognized as his own. “You don’t want me? Well, I don’t want you, old man. I’d rather have a wolf for a father.” He thrust out his chin, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Go ahead. Banish me.”

  Lycaelon barked a single word in the tongue of the High Magick, and before Kellen could wonder what it meant, his arms were seized from behind. And in the next moment, he was pulled off his feet and dragged out of the Council chamber by two of the stone golems.

  And behind him, as the doors closed, he could hear the chamber erupt into a tumult of noise as all the members of the Council began to shout at once.

  KELLEN staggered forward, thrown off-balance as the golems thrust him through the open doorway. He’d thought the room beyond would be larger, for some reason, and as he fumbled against the far wall of the cell, too stunned to quite understand where he was, he heard the door of the cell close behind him with an awful finality, cutting off most of the light.

  There was no point in crying out in protest. The golems lacked the power to answer him.

  In fury and outrage—the only things keeping his growing despair at bay—Kellen whirled and stared at the six-inch square opening in the door. Its grill admitted the unwavering pale blue Magelight of the corridor, providing the only light in his cell.

  He stood as rigidly still as if he were made of stone himself, listening to the clatter of the golem’s footsteps as they walked away, slowly rubbing his arms where they had gripped him. Hard enough to bruise, not hard enough to break bone. Not quite. But it had hurt, and the pain had shocked him in a way that nothing else had, not even hearing about Perulan’s death. No one had ever manhandled him before; not even his father. Punishment had always meant being confined to his room on a diet of nourishing gruel and water. The implied violence in the golems’ treatment of him caught him right in the gut.

  The footsteps faded away, and slowly Kellen became aware that the only sound was his own shallow frightened breathing. He forced himself to move, to take a step, to breathe deeply, and to see what he could of his surroundings.

  The cell was even smaller than he’d thought. Smooth grey stone, a cubicle a bit less than eight feet square, a stone bench at one end, all with the perfect seamlessness of Magecrafting. When Kellen looked up, the ceiling was lost in darkness, too far away to see. A cell—and not a Mage’s meditation cell, either!

  This was a prison cell. So there were cells beneath the Council House to house people the Council deemed inconvenient. Another thing to mar the pretty picture the High Council painted for the people of Armethalieh of how things worked. How many people before him had stood in this very spot? Kellen wondered. What had been their crimes—and what had happened to them?

  Reflexively, his hand sought his golden City Talisman for comfort, but when he touched it, he recoiled as if he’d been burned. No. Not after what Anigrel had told him about the Talismans and their real purpose.

  He forced himself to take a step, to turn his back on the door. The Council—his father—wanted him to recant, to humiliate himself in public, to help them destroy the first breath of fresh air the City had seen in a thousand years, to say he’d been wrong to study the three Books of the Wild Magic. To go back to them and be a good little Kellen-golem and do whatever he was told, and believe whatever they told him to believe.

  But he hadn’t been wrong in what he’d done. Kellen knew he hadn’t. And he wouldn’t say he had. Lycaelon searched my room. He used a spell to find those Books—he had to have! If anyone’s done something wrong, it’s him! Wasn’t he, wasn’t everyone entitled to privacy? Wasn’t he old enough to make up his own mind about the world? Everyone says that Armethalieh is a city of Law—but where’s the Law in the things that the Council’s done lately? The Mages live off the citizens like leeches, they destroyed Perulan, and even if they didn’t kill him they put him into a state where he went where he would get into trouble and they probably knew he would! How many other people have they destroyed? They do what they want to because they can, that’s all. That’s the way it’s always been.

  Let them Banish me if that’s what they want now. I won’t play their games anymore.

  It was an easy vow to make, and a harder one to keep in the forefront of his mind as the time stretched on, seamlessly, and with no way to mark its passing, down here in the dark. Did the Council mean just to leave him down here and forget about him? He couldn’t even hear the City bells, and he hadn’t thought there was anywhere in the City where you couldn’t hear the bells of Armethalieh.

  He paced until he got tired, then he sat down in a corner with his back against the wall. How long had he been here? Did the Council mean just to leave him down here and forget about him so that he could just vanish quietly? Somehow that frightened him more than the idea of Banishment. The cell was just chilly enough to be uncomfortable, and Kellen could stand and think, or sit and think, but either way he was as much a prisoner of his own thoughts as of the stone around him.

  If he had wanted a demonstration of the absolute power the Council could wield when it chose, he was receiving it now. Everyone at the College had seen him receive the summons. No one would be surprised if he simply disappeared, not really.

  And nobody would talk about it, either, at least not openly. That wasn’t the way the citizens of the City did things. After all, the Council knew best, didn’t they? They only acted for the good of all citizens. If there was no announcement that he had been Banished—and Kellen suddenly realized just how embarrassing such an announcement would be for his father—well, everyone knew how rebellious he was, and what a poor Student he was. There might be some idle speculation, but most of it would be around the suggestion that Lycaelon had sent him away to someplace where he’d “learn proper discipline.” And in time, people would forget about him.

  He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts and fears—with very little sense of how much time had passed since the golems had shoved him roughly into this dark, chilly stone box—that at first the renewed sound of footsteps didn’t penetrate Kellen’s gloom and self-absorption. But he was quickly summoned to full awareness by the sound as it came nearer: not the heavy impact of stone-on-stone, but the softer sound of leather City-boots on stone floors.

  Someone—a person—was coming.

  Despite his best intentions of standing up to his captors and showing a defiant face, Kellen backed away from the door as far as he could, his heart beating faster.

  The door swung open, filling the cell with light from the corridor, and a robed Mage, accompanied by a hovering ball of Magelight, stepped into the cell.

  “Kellen,” Arch-Mage Lycaelon said, inclining his head. He made a small gesture, and the blue ball of Magelight soared up to hover several feet above their heads, bathing the whole cell in its even unchanging brightness. Somehow that made the cell seem both larger and smaller, all at the same time. The height of it made Kellen feel insignificant; the length and width so small as to give him a feeling of claustrophobia.

  “Father,” Kellen answered evenly. Too many emotions to sort out filled him all at once. Relief that someone had come—anger, at the Mages and at Lycaelon personally—a sense of betrayal so intense that it made his whole body tremble.

  “I trust you’re as well as possible under the circumstances? The golems were not intended to injure you. But they are, when all is said
and done … stone,” Lycaelon said.

  Kellen recognized his father’s “public” voice, smooth and confident. Why was Lycaelon here? Surely his father had said everything to his wilding son he intended to say back in the Council chamber? Why this display of parental devotion now, when nobody was here to witness it?

  Or maybe what had gone before had been the public act … and this was to be the private truth?

  “I’m fine,” Kellen said crossly. He rubbed his arms, wincing again as he touched the developing bruises. He saw Lycaelon sigh, watching the gesture.

  “In a way, Kellen, it is … unfortunate that you were halted in your studies when you were.”

  Kellen stared at his father. He’d expected more threats, more denunciations. Not this. Despite everything, he felt a tiny spark of hope.

  Lycaelon smiled thinly. “You accused us of never having read the Books of the Wild Magic, Kellen—and it is true that no Mage of this generation has done so, but do you think that no student of the High Art ever has fallen afoul of them, in all the years since the founding of the Golden City? Why in the name of the Light would Wildmagery then be so grave an offense? No, Kellen. The Council isn’t as arbitrary as it seems to you. Our ancient brothers in the High Art studied the Books of the Wild Magic in full, to their peril and their cost, and discovered what I believe you would have discovered yourself with only a little more time.”

  “Then why can’t I have that time?” Kellen burst out. “If—”

  Lycaelon raised a hand. “Please, my son. Hear me out. The risk is too great—not only to you alone, but to all those you might endanger through studies that seem innocent now. Think hard, and answer honestly: In all the time you have studied and worked with those Books, have you never felt even a little uneasy about what you do?”

  Kellen blushed angrily, hanging his head. He thought of every time he’d vowed to set The Book of Moon, The Book of Sun, and The Book of Stars aside forever. Hadn’t both the spells he’d done spiraled out of control, involving him in things he never would have gotten into if he hadn’t cast them?

  “You need not speak aloud,” Lycaelon said soothingly. “Nor are you to blame. It is the very nature of the Books of the Wild Magic to seem—at first—nothing more than an innocent and powerful tool, capable of being used for good. But the Wild Magic is as seductive as the Elvenkind, using the Wildmage for its own secret purposes, luring him slowly away from his own path, and into convoluted schemes of its own, plans of darkest Evil. There are Mages who recognized them for what they were and rejected their lure in time to save themselves … from what you do not say, I pride myself that you would have soon realized that what they purport to teach are not lessons, but tainted fantasies, foul sorcery that is the enemy of the Light, and rejected their false teachings before it was too late. But now, I must burden you with knowledge normally given only to those far above your rank.”

  Really. How … privileged I feel, Kellen thought sardonically.

  Lycaelon, of course, read a willingness to listen into his silence.

  “For centuries we of the City attempted to tame the power of the Wild Magic … and failed. In time, the High Mages realized Wildmagery could not be practiced safely, even by Master Mages—not even by the Arch-Mage himself. If you had gotten further in your legitimate studies, you would have been taught to recognize the Books, and taught why they must be destroyed wherever they are found.”

  So just how is it, then, that they keep popping up? Kellen wondered silently.

  “You see, Kellen, every single Mage who worked with the Wild Magic without rejecting it not only went to the bad, but lost his mind into the bargain, ultimately destroying not only his own life but the lives of those around him. You have already seen that the Wild Magic seems to have an ultimate purpose of its own, one that it hides from you. In ancient days, we discovered to our sorrow what that purpose is. Practice of the Wild Magic leads to conversation with Demons, monstrous creatures who are the enemy of all Light and Life, and any Mage who deals with Demonfolk is inevitably corrupted and seduced by the Darkness, in the end betraying his own kind to the Demons’ embrace. The High Magick is an alliance with the Light, and the Wild Magic is its opposite, an exaltation of Darkness. And so, in the end, the Wildmage becomes the tool of Darkness.”

  Demons? Kellen fought to keep his face expressionless. He had thought his father might bring any number of arguments to bear on him, but he never would have dreamed that Lycaelon would use the terror of the nursery as a serious ploy.

  “Nursie” had terrified Kellen with tales of Demons as a child … to scare him into behaving. They were supposed to belong to the Darkness that was the opposite of the Light, but the Priests of the Eternal Light actually tended to discourage belief in them, saying that Demons were only a children’s tale, that the Light, which was all-powerful, would certainly not permit something as dark and twisted as Demons to exist, and in fact, they weren’t even discussed in his magickal studies or his Natural Philosophy courses. Kellen had read far deeper in the Art Magickal than either Lycaelon or Anigrel suspected—and there was nothing there about Demons, either!

  But Lycaelon continued speaking, oblivious to Kellen’s expression—if he’d even noticed it.

  “And so the Council was formed, to cast out the Wildmages forever, to banish the Demon-taint from Armethalieh, and to let the Light shine free and unfettered over the Golden City and all her people. And the greatest gift of all the gifts we have given them is freedom from the memory of those terrible ancient days. Only we of the High Council retain any access to the histories of so long ago, and because of that we know that the Black Days when Demons walked the land were so terrible that any risk, no matter how slight, of the Demons’ return is too great. Wildmagery opens a door to that return, and for that reason, the Council cannot tolerate the taint of Wild Magic, the barest possibility that Demons could get a toehold in this City again. No mercy can be shown, not even when the Mage in question is my own son.” Lycaelon bowed his head for a moment, and drew a deep breath.

  “I know this is terribly hard for you to believe now, when the Wild Magic is helping you find lost objects and light candles, and other seemingly innocent pastimes, but even the most treacherous mountain has soft and pleasant foothills. You do not know what your future holds if you do not renounce your present course, Kellen. I beg you, my son. Turn back. There is still time. If you will not do it for your own sake, then, please—do it for the sake of the City, for your honor here as a Tavadon, for the glory of our ancient name—”

  KELLEN grimaced in self-disgust, shaking off the spell of his father’s words. For a moment he’d almost believed Lycaelon, and he hated himself for it, and for hoping, even for a moment, that his father had come down here to talk because his father cared for him. But no. It was more of the same practiced tricks that Lycaelon used on everyone to get what he wanted—and at the end, the Arch-Mage hadn’t been able to resist throwing in that last turn of the knife, about doing it for House Tavadon, and that proved all the rest was a lie, didn’t it? Lycaelon would do anything rather than suffer the humiliation of having a Wildmage for a son, including coming down here to try to feed Kellen a pack of lies as if he were seven instead of seventeen!

  Demons—why hadn’t his father just said “bogeymen” and had done with it? Kellen should have recognized the plot line of this particular story a little sooner—it was right out of the Ars Perfidorum, after all—with the addition of “Demons” to make it more interesting.

  So. His father hadn’t even bothered trying to talk to him as an adult. He’d come down here with this wondertale to try to scare Kellen into doing what he wanted, and it wasn’t going to work. If there were such things as Demons, wouldn’t there be at least some sign of defenses against them? I wouldn’t imagine that mere walls would keep them out. You’d think that someone, somewhere, in all the books in Father’s library would have let something slip about how to protect yourself from them!

  But no. And that was
because nobody created a counterspell against something that didn’t exist. His father had come down here with this nonsense to try to scare Kellen into doing what he wanted, just so Lycaelon could look good for the Council. The mighty Arch-Mage, so persuasive he even managed to turn a budding Wildmage back to the paths of order and obedience and Law! Well, Kellen was tired of performing that particular function in his father’s life, thank you very much. The Wild Magic had never really hurt anybody, which was more than Kellen could say for the Council and its tricks. In fact, everything it had made him do had helped other people! Even Perulan: it wasn’t Kellen’s fault that Perulan had decided to flee the City—from what Perulan himself had said, the writer might very well have decided to try to escape the City long before Kellen ever came on the scene.

  He stood silent, head down, no longer meeting his father’s gaze. Kellen thought he’d been angry in the Council chamber; now he knew he’d only been disgusted. He was furious now, and more. Emotions he did not want to name boiled up within him, and with all his strength, Kellen fought to keep from letting any of them show on his face. All his concentration was focused on one thing—to keep from lashing out at his father with words and fists, to keep from giving back one iota of the pain his father had given him with his contempt.

  Contempt. Yes. That was the word. Long, long ago, Kellen had learned never to expect love or even kindness from his father. But the realization of the utter contempt in which Lycaelon held him was a sharp new blow, more painful than any bone-bruise given by unliving stone golems ever could be. Only a man who truly despised his fellows would attempt to manipulate them the way Lycaelon was trying to manipulate his son.