The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy

by Mercedes Lackey

  If there wasn’t anything really suitable for working in, his Wildwood buckskins would do just as well. He might not be able to hold his own in any discussion of Elven art, history, or fashion, but he could pump water and carry buckets as well as anyone. And it wasn’t as if he could disguise the fact that he was human, so there wasn’t really a lot of point in trying.

  But in fact, as far as he could tell, his humanity really didn’t seem to bother the Elves overmuch—or if it did, the Elves were far more polite about it than a bunch of humans would have been if the situation had been reversed, Kellen thought gloomily.

  He didn’t expect to see the new clothing anytime soon, but in fact, the first of the replacement items for his everyday wardrobe was waiting at his lodging when he arrived back there again that same evening. All that really mattered to Kellen was that the pieces were not (to his great relief) the skintight clothing he saw the Elves wearing, though he guessed they were pretty enough. He did wonder how Tengitir had gotten them done so fast, though.

  The next morning, Kellen—who, with Idalia’s help, had found something suitable among the clothes Tengitir had sent after all—joined a work party, and was assigned to a work detail in the Rim Forest to the west.

  AT the canyon rim, a system of wind-driven pumps forced the water from Sentarshadeen’s five springs up above the canyon wall into reservoirs and holding tanks. The tanks had not been built for this emergency, Kellen discovered, though the method of filling them had. Normally they were filled naturally by the rains, and kept as an emergency reserve against fires. From there, the water was pumped by hand into smaller barrels and taken out into the forest … when the pump system worked.

  Kellen gathered that it had been built in a hurry, on a much larger scale than the Elves’ usual projects. What he did know was that it was breaking down more and more frequently as parts wore out. And if it stopped working altogether, there would be no way to get enough water from the five springs of the canyon floor to the rim.

  Watering a forest by hand. It’s insane. It’s impossible.

  But they had to try.

  Kellen spent most of his time in the days that followed with the various watering parties, working to save the forest around Sentarshadeen. It was important, necessary work, and since he couldn’t help Idalia with what she was doing, he might as well do what he could. His labor was appreciated, too, and if Elves weren’t as fulsome in their verbal thanks as some humans might be, he found tokens of their appreciation whenever he got back to the house, in the form of blister salves, liniments, and bath salts to ease the aches of one who had hauled more than his share of heavy buckets.

  Today—it was now the fourth day after his arrival in Sentarshadeen—he was working with Canderil and Llylance in Coral Section. By now, every tree in the forest was marked with a small patch of color on the trunk, so that no one watered a tree twice in any given term. Yesterday Kellen had gone around his circuit alone, refilling the watering troughs for the few forest animals that remained in the area. The Elves had tried keeping the forest pools full, but by now the drought had gone on so long that the water simply sank away into the parched ground, so now there were wooden troughs scattered through the forest for the animals to drink from.

  It wasn’t enough. Nothing was. The wild animals were so parched that they were drinking at the troughs in full daylight, ignoring the presence of Elves and human about them, predator even drinking side by side with prey.

  “THIS one,” Canderil said, stopping the cart.

  Kellen stopped—it was his turn to pull the cart—and sighed in dismay. Even to his untutored eyes, the tree didn’t look all that healthy, and by now he supposed the Elves knew every tree in the forest personally. He straightened, easing his shoulders as Llylance knelt and carefully scraped away the sheltering cover of fallen leaves from the roots of the tree, then dipped a bucket of water from the cart and poured it out, conscientiously working his way all around the tree’s roots. Kellen could see the Elvenborn’s lips moving, and supposed Llylance was saying a prayer for the forest. The earth beneath the leaves was so dry it was almost white; the water pooled on the surface for a moment, then sank away as fast as if it had been poured into sand.

  When he was done, Llylance carefully replaced the covering of leaves again, and they went on.

  Kellen didn’t know how many colors the Elves could distinguish, but he knew that none of the trees was being watered very often. The Flower Forest in the canyon below was being irrigated with a series of trenches and canals, the water to fill them being pumped directly from whichever spring was nearest, but you couldn’t do that with thousands of acres of wild forest. They weren’t even really keeping the outer forest alive, Kellen knew—if anything, all the best efforts of the Elves could manage was to help it die more slowly.

  But just because that was all they could do was no reason to stop doing it. After all, Idalia might find out how to bring the rains back. Or something else might happen. They had to keep trying.

  It usually took several barrels of water to irrigate a section. They’d emptied the first one, and were returning to the Rim for more water when Kellen spotted a familiar figure running toward him.

  Sandalon.

  Despite his work schedule, Kellen tried to spend as much time as possible with the Elven Prince—the kid was as curious about humans and the outside world as Kellen was about Sentarshadeen and the Elves, and besides, Kellen liked him, and knew the youngster was lonely—but it was barely midmorning, and right now Sandalon should be busy with his lessons.

  “You’ve been running,” Kellen said, barely turning the obvious question into a statement at the last minute for Canderil’s and Llylance’s benefit. He might be a scapegrace, rag-mannered round-ear, but there was no reason to give anybody the idea he was a bad influence on the Prince, Kellen thought with an inward grin.

  Though who was a bad influence on whom might be a matter of opinion …

  “They want you—at the House—of Leaf and Star—” Sandalon said, getting his message out between gasps for breath. From the look of things, he’d been running since he left there, and his face was a mixture of apprehension, a little fear, and pride at being entrusted with so important a message.

  “Whoa!” Kellen said, reaching out a hand to steady the child. “Start from the beginning.”

  “They want you there,” Sandalon repeated impatiently. “Father’s home. And Idalia’s there. And Ainalundore, and Tyendimarquen, and everybody. There’s going to be a big meeting and they want you because there’s something important. And I looked all over for you!”

  The names meant nothing to Kellen, but they obviously meant something to his companions from the looks the two adult Elves exchanged.

  “You had better go,” Canderil said. “Ainalundore and Tyendimarquen are two of the Advisors of Leaf and Star.”

  “Fast,” Llylance added. “And as you are,” he added as an afterthought, in case Kellen had harbored any notions of going home and changing his clothes.

  Kellen winced, just a little. He was hot and sweaty and dusty after a morning spent hauling water for the trees, and even Elven-made work clothes probably weren’t suitable for this occasion. But if they said to hurry …

  Maybe he could wash up when he got there before he saw anybody. He picked up Sandalon, to the boy’s great delight, set the child on his shoulders, and strode off.

  BUT when he arrived at the Palace, rather out of breath himself after hurrying most of the way across the city—fortunately Sandalon had gotten tired of riding and wanted to run on ahead—he was met at the front door of the House of Leaf and Star by someone he didn’t recognize and hustled quickly along passageways he hadn’t seen before into a chamber somewhere in the center of the Palace.

  Unlike every other Elven room he’d ever seen, this one had no windows at all, even in the ceiling. It was completely circular, and hanging from the walls were thirteen narrow banners of brightly colored silk, each bearing a single elaborate
symbol worked upon it in shining silver. Most of them were completely unfamiliar to Kellen, but one almost seemed to be a version of the Great Seal of Armethalieh. A complex chandelier of mirrored lamps suspended overhead rendered the windowless chamber as bright as day.

  In the center of the room was a large round table. If it was made of wood, it was no wood Kellen had ever seen—pale as snow and gleaming like shell. Inlaid in its center, of some shining material so bright it seemed to be lit from within, was a symbol Kellen had seen elsewhere here in the House of Leaf and Star, and on one of the banners here; he supposed it was the symbol of the royal house.

  There were nine tall, thronelike chairs with mosaics of colored glass set into their backs arranged in a semicircle around the far side of the table. Eight of them were filled.

  Ashaniel was there, and so was Idalia. To Kellen’s great surprise, so was Morusil, though Kellen barely recognized him in the elaborate robes and jewels he now wore. Kellen didn’t recognize anyone else, though the man sitting next to Ashaniel was undoubtedly Sandalon’s father, the Elven king Andoreniel Caerthalien, and two of the other five Elves had to be Ainalundore and Tyendimarquen.

  Andoreniel was, well, kingly, and Kellen instinctively recoiled from that air of authority before realizing that there was no cruelty or malice in it. Andoreniel might be a powerful ruler, but there all resemblance to the Arch-Mage Lycaelon ended. This was a man who ruled his subjects through love, law, and unwavering justice, not through fear, malice, and subtle treachery.

  My father could have been like this man, Kellen thought. But the realization brought only a faint regretful sadness, before that too was swept away by curiosity as to why he had been summoned.

  As he stood there, Kellen heard the doors close behind him. One of the gorgeously robed counselors rose from her seat—by now Kellen was getting fairly good at telling male Elves from female, at least most of the time—and came to the door, sliding several bolts into place. As she did, the King raised his hand, drawing a small shape upon the air, and the symbol in the center of the table flared even more brightly for a moment. Kellen felt a sense of pressure. Something—something magical—had just happened. He glanced toward Idalia, who smiled reassuringly.

  “Now we are all present. The chamber is locked and sealed, proof against all intrusion and spies,” Andoreniel said. “We may begin.”

  “Come and sit down, Kellen,” Idalia said in a low voice, indicating the empty chair beside her. Reluctantly, Kellen took his seat. He still wasn’t entirely sure why he was here, and he felt incredibly grubby and out of place. They were probably all staring at him, wondering what the gardener was doing here. He and Idalia were the only ones wearing ordinary clothing, and she wasn’t sweaty and filthy from work in the forest.

  For a moment all of them regarded one another without speaking.

  “I have found the source of your problem,” Idalia said at last. “I know why nothing the Elves have done has broken the drought.”

  There was a stir of consternation from the Elves, and Kellen wondered why Idalia didn’t just come out and say it, if she had the answer. But she almost seemed to be hesitating, as if when she gave that answer, it would change everything, and not for the better.

  “Someone has created a kind of magical dam or diversion in the mountains to the north, forcing the natural weather patterns to shift. To the north of here, the high desert is getting soaked with what ought to be Sentarshadeen’s rainfall, as the clouds pile against an ethereal barrier created by baneful magic. This does as little good to the desert and its inhabitants as the drought does to the Elvenkind. And while that barrier remains, no drop of rain will reach Sentarshadeen.”

  Suddenly it seemed as if all of the Elves wanted to talk at once. Andoreniel held up his hand for silence.

  “If you know who is causing this, Idalia, you must tell us,” he said gently.

  “I’d hoped I was wrong, but I’m not,” Idalia said, still unwilling to come to the point. “I made very sure of my facts before I came to you, Andoreniel. But there can be no possible doubt. Shadow Mountain wakens again. It is they who have caused your drought.”

  The name meant nothing to Kellen, but the Elves all recoiled as if Idalia had just emptied a basket of poisonous snakes onto the center of the table.

  “Now that I know what’s wrong, I can craft a spell to fix it,” she said, hurrying on, before any of them could break their shocked silence. “It will be tricky work and demand a very high price—”

  “Of course we will pay it, Idalia!” Andoreniel interrupted staunchly. “All the price, if we can, yours and our own. Only show us how.”

  Idalia smiled wanly. She looked exhausted, Kellen thought, more so than he had ever seen her, and if there was still spellcasting to be done, her work had hardly begun.

  “I will,” she promised. “If I could not count on the cooperation of all of you, the task would be doomed to failure before it began. But I told you this wouldn’t be a simple matter, and it isn’t. I can craft the spell here, but it can’t be cast here. It will have to be placed in a keystone which will have to be formed by magic. That much I can do, with your help. Then the keystone has to be carried to the place where the Barrier is, and triggered there to release the counterspell—by a second Wildmage.” She glanced toward Kellen for a moment. “Naturally, it will be Kellen who goes into the mountains with the keystone.”

  Me? Kellen did his best not to look as stunned as he felt, and hoped he succeeded.

  “But surely you should go instead, Idalia.” One of the Elven councilors seated beside Morusil spoke up for the first time. “Kellen is barely more than a child.”

  “Perhaps in Elven terms, Tyendimarquen,” Idalia answered—rather sharply, Kellen thought. “But he is equal to this challenge and I would gladly trust my life to him. And you will have to, because I will be needed here. Once Shadow Mountain’s spell is broken there will be storms across the land such as perhaps even you have never seen. And when the spell-dam is broken and the rains come, I will have to be here in Sentarshadeen to call the weather back into its normal patterns once more, and shelter the city from flood and wind. Unless you want Sentarshadeen to drown instead of wither away, you’ll need me to guide the weather from the moment the Barrier breaks, and I do not know when that will be. Or you can start building boats.”

  Kellen barely heard the rest of what Idalia was saying. He’d been stunned at first at the notion that he’d been chosen to perform this vital task. He’d gotten used to following Idalia around for so long that it was a shock to think of going off alone to do something so important. What if he failed?

  But now that it was starting to sink in, he was excited. And proud. And relieved, in a way, because there finally was something he could do, something constructive, something more than carrying buckets.

  And something that Elves can’t …

  He couldn’t help that thought, but there it was. Elves couldn’t do this; Elves couldn’t be Wildmages. Of all of the folk here in Sentarshadeen, only he and Idalia could do this. And Idalia was needed here. She’d said so. And that left him.

  He could do this—he knew he could. Idalia wouldn’t have chosen him if she didn’t think he could. At last, here was something he could do because he was a Wildmage, something he could do that no one else could!

  “True enough,” Ashaniel said gravely, inclining her head and regarding Kellen for a moment. She glanced around the table at the other counselors, seeming to reach some sort of silent consensus.

  “You cannot mean to send him off alone,” Tyendimarquen said in disbelieving tones. “One blow from an Endarkened claw, and our hopes would lie in ruin.”

  “It is in my mind that perhaps we would be overhasty in sending Kellen off into the mountains entirely alone,” Morusil said slowly, speaking for the first time. “But a large escort would only draw the same attention that—as you rightly point out, Tyendimarquen, my esteemed friend and colleague—we very much wish to avoid. So perhaps the escor
t of a single Elven Knight would be the best compromise between recklessness and caution.”

  “A foolish compromise, if the barrier itself is guarded by Endarkened warriors,” another counselor said.

  “I do not believe it is so guarded,” Idalia said thoughtfully. “The Endarkened have counted perhaps too much on the fact that you would not discover the source of your trouble. Why waste their resources guarding something they think is perfectly safe? What is more, the Endarkened, for all their evil, are not stupid. I believe they would know better than to draw attention to the source-point of their barrier by heavily guarding it. The faster we—and Kellen—can move against them, the less likely it is that they will figure things out in time to mount such a defense as you fear, Ainalundore.”

  “Very well,” the King said, reaching a decision. “Kellen will go, with a single Knight to accompany him. Tomorrow he rides, and now, let every hand be turned to help him on his journey. It is decided.”

  The King rose to his feet, and sketched the same symbol in the air as before. There was a change in the air of the room, as though they’d all been in a sealed jar, and somebody had just opened it. One of the Elves—Kellen realized he never had found out all their names—went to unbolt the door again.

  It was all over so fast. I thought they’d be talking for hours …

  Evidently Elves could decide things quickly, when a fast decision was what was needed.

  It seemed as if he’d barely sat down, and now, suddenly, he was being sent off alone, the deliverance of Sentarshadeen in his keeping. He was going to rescue the Elves by magic—him, Kellen Tavadon.

  Unbelievable.