The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Oh? And you a Wildmage,” Other-Kellen said mockingly. “I should think you would have learned better the moment you opened the Books.”

  Kellen snapped his mouth shut abruptly. If this was a fight, he’d just lost the first battle. He did serve the Wild Magic, and so far he’d done exactly what it told him to do, no matter what that was. How free did that make him?

  “You’ve made some bad choices in the past,” Other-Kellen continued smoothly. “Even you’re willing to admit that. Wouldn’t you like the chance to just undo them? To go back and start over, knowing what you know now? To make it right? You can have that. Erase the bad choices but keep the wisdom you’ve gained. Few people get that opportunity.”

  Other-Kellen smiled, and for the first time, Kellen could see his father’s face mirrored in this stranger’s that was his own. The sight shocked and distracted him, even in this moment and in this place. Assurance … competence … or just corruption?

  No. Temptation—there it was. Even if he’d never put it into just those words, wasn’t it exactly what he himself had thought so many times of doing?

  “You left Armethalieh because you rebelled against Arch-Mage Lycaelon’s plans for you, but you know better now, don’t you? The life of a High Mage has its compensations—and the High Mages were right to want to build safeguards against the prices and bargains the Wild Magic required,” his doppelganger said, his voice as silken and sweet as honey, reasonable and logical. Kellen himself had never sounded like that. “What’s so wrong with trying to improve something? They still practice magic, and they still give their citizens a good life—and if life in the Golden City is too restrictive, well, when you’re Arch-Mage, Kellen, you’ll be able to make all the changes you’ve dreamed of, and make the City an even better place to live, one where the citizens have choices.”

  That shocked Kellen so much that he almost dropped the keystone. Of all of the things he had imagined and fantasized about, that was never one that had occurred to him!

  “And you can be Arch-Mage,” the double said, persuasively. “You have the gift and the talent; your father isn’t wrong about that! If everyone must serve, then choose your service. Serve the City. Go back now, beg your father’s forgiveness—it won’t be that hard; he needs you to shore up his own failing prestige. He’ll be grateful when you turn up again, full of repentance! Give up the Wild Magic. That won’t be hard, either, will it? Step back into the life you should have had, and work for the good of Armethalieh. You’ll have everything you wanted. All you have to know is where to look for it. And you know that now, don’t you? You’ve learned. You’ve gained wisdom. Wouldn’t it be a shame not to be able to apply it, to be able to give others the benefit of your experience? To help them? You’ll be able to keep your memories, of course—what good is experience if you don’t remember it? And you won’t be wholly without resources. Or allies. Just think of all you can do for the City when you return …”

  Kellen stared in horrified fascination at his doppelganger. Was this really him? The person he could have been—or could still be? If Lycaelon had been able to create the perfect heir by magick—If, a year and more ago, someone had asked Kellen what he wanted to be, and he hadn’t thought clearly enough—

  To help them. Even against the Demons? If he did this, could he even turn the City to help the Elves, and forge a new Alliance as in the old days?

  But Jermayan would know what had happened—

  Shalkan surely would—

  “Your companions are already dead. You have no one to consider but yourself. No one will know what happened here but you. Isn’t it time you did what you want, for a change? Here is your future, Kellen. You have but to reach out and seize it. Power—glory—mastery—fame—everything you can imagine, even love. It can all be yours. And you will receive nothing but praise for your actions.”

  Now Kellen looked away, down toward the plain below, but he could see nothing at all of the battle that might still be raging there. Everything below the top of the cairn was covered with a thick layer of yellow-green fog. It was as if the rest of the world had vanished. Quickly he looked back at his doppelganger, suspecting a trick, but Other-Kellen had not moved. His doppelganger smiled at Kellen sympathetically, as if guessing the direction of Kellen’s thoughts.

  “But if you go through with this foolish adventure that you have undertaken at the behest of others, your future will be set. If you think you have troubles now, you can’t even begin to imagine what your life is going to be like afterward—assuming you don’t die right here. Think of the Demons. They know your name, Kellen. The Queen and Prince of the Endarkened know who you are.” The double’s voice caressed the names. “They know all about you, and they’ll find you wherever you go. You won’t have an easy death, or a quick one. They love Wildmages. They love to play with them and their power. Torment—oh, for them, it is the highest form of Art, and they have had millennia to perfect it. You won’t die, but you will long for death with all of your being. For years, Kellen, for years …”

  Other-Kellen shuddered in mock-sympathy, his eyes never leaving Kellen’s face. Kellen trembled, remembering his nightmares, knowing they must have fallen far short of the truth.

  “Oh, you might survive triggering the keystone. You might even manage to get back to Sentarshadeen alive, I’ll grant you that. And I’m sure your friends the Elves will do their best for you. But it hasn’t really been much of a best so far, has it? They couldn’t even manage to save themselves without a Wildmage or two to help. And when it comes right down to it, they’re going to take care of themselves and their families first once the trouble starts, aren’t they? So it’s just going to be you and Idalia, all alone with no one to help you, and how long do you think the two of you will survive? After all, you two are only humans, and blood is, as the saying goes, thicker than water. If anyone is protected, it will be other Elves, not a couple of barbaric, mayfly humans who can’t even manage a conversation without being rude and uncouth.”

  The doppelganger snickered, and Kellen flushed, remembering his stumbling attempts to converse with anyone in Sentarshadeen other than the child Sandalon.

  “I wouldn’t say we’re friends, exactly, but I would say I’m the closest thing to a friend you’ve got. Right here. Right now. Think about it, Kellen. This is your last chance. After this, you have no choices left. Think. Use what you’ve learned. They’ve all tried to keep the truth from you—even Idalia—so you wouldn’t know what the stakes are. Think how hard you’ve had to work to find out what little you have. Why is that? So you wouldn’t know enough to make a fair choice,” Other-Kellen said.

  Fair, Kellen thought bitterly. Nothing about this is fair. Nothing had ever been fair and out in the open, from the moment he’d found the three Books in the Low Market, and hearing all his secret fears and unworthy hopes in the mouth of this manicured popinjay was the least fair thing of all.

  He remembered Jermayan telling him about The Seven—how when they’d faced down the Endarkened army at the pass of Vel-al-Amion and first beaten them back, the Endarkened had tried to seduce them to the Dark.

  As one of the Endarkened was trying to seduce him now. This, then, was their last line of defense, and the most compelling of all.

  “Well …” Kellen said, walking closer and lifting the keystone in his hands as if he were about to hand it over. “I guess I really ought to be smart and do what you say.”

  The Other-Kellen smiled triumphantly and relaxed, certain of its victory.

  “But I’m not going to!” Kellen shouted.

  He brought the keystone down—hard—on the doppelganger’s hands. It howled and recoiled as if it had been burned, jerking its hands back from the point of the obelisk.

  And in that moment, it … changed.

  The Other-Kellen was gone. In its place stood a Demon.

  It—she!—towered over Kellen, her wings spread wide. He caught a confused glimpse of bloodred skin, of horns and claws, but she was barely there
for an instant, for in the moment that the Demon had released her hold on the obelisk, Kellen slammed the keystone down over the tip of the stone.

  The instant Idalia’s keystone touched the obelisk, the Demon howled in fury and vanished, her cheated rage a whiplash across his senses. For a moment he was blind and deaf in a paroxysm of pain. He cringed, but kept his hands on the stone.

  They had not counted on his experience with being lied to. And perhaps that was the greatest weapon Lycaelon Tavadon had given to him.

  I know a lie when I hear it, you bastards.

  Kellen trembled all over, realizing in that moment how close the Demon had come to winning. But it hadn’t.

  Now it was up to him. Despite everything he had already gone through, the hardest part was still to come. He took a deep breath and reached down into the keystone with his Wildmage senses, touching the power waiting within. The power leaped toward him eagerly, but Kellen knew that he was not to be its destination. Gently he turned it toward the obelisk.

  He felt the obelisk’s resistance, and pushed harder, adding the last of his strength and all of his will to the keystone’s power, forcing the link into being. It was like healing an unwilling subject, if such a thing were conceivable.

  One by one, the obelisk’s defenses gave way. Kellen felt the triggering force begin to rush through him and into the obelisk. He kept his palms pressed against the keystone’s sides; without him to maintain the link, the spell would be broken before the Barrier was breached. And all of it—the journey, the others’ sacrifice—would all have been for nothing.

  Then, breakthrough. And his body spasmed, convulsed, his mouth going open in a silent scream. It was nearly impossible to keep his feet; he wouldn’t have been able to if his muscles hadn’t all locked at once, freezing him in place; head flung back, back arched. He felt as if he were being struck by lightning, a bolt of energy that somehow went on and on and on, searing its way through him.

  His hands were burning. He stood the pain as long as he could in silence, but then he had to scream. Holding the keystone was like clutching red-hot metal fresh from the forge, and there was no respite, no mercy. He could smell the pork-like scent of his cooking flesh, could feel blood running down his wrists as blisters swelled up and burst, and then, in a thunderclap of agony, the fire was everywhere, coursing through his veins with every beat of his heart.

  Kellen howled unashamedly, great wracking sobs of hopeless agony. And he held on. Perhaps it was stubbornness, but he had always been stubborn. And he would not give the Demons this victory.

  I’m going to die.

  Suddenly he realized that was the price of the spell, the rest of the cost. It must be. A Wildmage’s life. Idalia must have known when she created the spell that the price of casting it would be the life of the one who triggered it. His life. Kellen felt a flash of pride in his sister at keeping the painful secret so well.

  But he would have to consent. No Wildmage could give up that which belonged to another—not without turning to the Dark.

  She had known the price of the magic, but she could only have hoped he would pay it.

  If that’s the price, he shouted silently to the Powers, then I will pay it! I wish I didn’t have to, but I swear I pay it willingly and without reservation!

  But more than ever, having surrendered his life, he yearned to keep it. To see the sun again, to feel the gentle summer wind, to walk through the forest or drink a cup of morning tea. But all those things had their price, and so did keeping them. And some prices were too high to pay. The price of his life would be the destruction of all those things, soon or late. The price of keeping his life would be victory for the Endarkened.

  No. Never.

  My life for the destruction of the Barrier. A fair bargain. Done. Done!

  Then the pain was too great for thought.

  As if it were made of flesh, not stone, the obelisk began to warm. Beneath his hands, seen even through his closed eyelids, it glowed an unhealthy green. The ground started to tremble beneath Kellen’s feet, and a low rumbling sound filled the air, growing louder, becoming a roar, then a wail.

  Abruptly the obelisk began to swell, its stark lines distorting as if the malign power it contained was backing up inside it, filling it beyond its capacity. Its swelling carried him upward; he collapsed against its surface, clinging to the keystone, and still it swelled. Now the stone was a baneful pus-yellow color, nearly spherical. Kellen lay upon its surface, unable to preserve the thought of anything beyond the need to maintain the link.

  The whole cairn shook like a tree in a windstorm.

  The wail rose to a scream. The toxic light flared lightning-bright.

  And for Kellen, there was sudden darkness and a release from all pain.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Storm Wind and Silver Feather

  WAITING WAS THE hardest thing.

  No matter how many times Idalia told herself that Kellen had the more difficult and dangerous task, her own part—waiting for the Barrier to fall—ate at her self-control.

  There was nothing she could do until the Barrier did fall, and the fact that she spent her days in comfort and safety while the two men she loved most in all the world—Kellen and Jermayan—rode off into danger did nothing to soothe either her nerves or her temper. And if Shadow Mountain should capture them, Idalia knew very well that the Endarkened would account both an Elf and a Wildmage—not to mention a unicorn—very great prizes. Jermayan and Shalkan would certainly die horribly. As for Kellen … death by torture would be the kindest of the things the Endarkened would do to a Wildmage who fell into their hands.

  She thought about Jermayan often as the days passed. It was safe enough now, she thought bitterly. He was probably going to die making sure Kellen reached the Barrier alive. Why had she been so stubborn, so proud, so arrogant?

  Stubborn as an Elf … When you came right down to it, everyone, Elf and human, had the same life span. They lived until they died, that was all—and with Shadow Mountain moving against the Bright World again, the lives of Elven Knights would be measured in years, not centuries.

  A few days, a few hours, of happiness would have been something—a gift to him, a gift to herself, something they could have shared, a moment of sweet fulfillment with which to defy the monstrous Darkness that Jermayan was even now laying down his life to destroy.

  Her thoughts were bleak, anguished, and the passing of the days only increased her despair.

  Even if they succeeded, she would probably never see either of them again. The energy released when the spell was triggered would be … well, she did not know enough even to guess at the effects. Add to that the power of the unbound weather patterns, unleashed from their unnatural binding … lightning, hurricane, gale-force winds, and there, high in the mountains, in winter, snow. Heavy snow.

  How could two men and a unicorn, probably wounded, battered, definitely alone, ever hope to survive even a single night in a blizzard?

  Even success would not guarantee their safety, or their lives.

  And so Idalia took care to keep entirely to herself in the days that followed Kellen’s departure, lest her unhappiness contaminate the hope that was growing in Sentarshadeen with each passing day.

  IT was over a sennight since they’d been gone. Idalia had been restless all day, wandering far beyond the city, into the Flower Forest beyond the House of Leaf and Star. There were no flowers now. She could feel the sorrow of the trees and plants, their slow withering starvation and death, and her helplessness in the face of their need was like a fresh grief. The narrow canals the Elves had dug to bring water to the forest held only dampness, for the five springs were not inexhaustible, nor were there enough Elves in Sentarshadeen to man the pumps to fill the canals every day.

  Who shall live and who shall die? They have had to make so many choices already, and if my spell does not succeed, if Kellen and Jermayan do not succeed, they will have to make more …

  Sick at heart, Idalia turned
away from the slowly dying forest and crossed the unicorn meadow again. It was nearly lantern-lighting time, the bright, ever-cloudless sky dimming as the sun set. She should go home, and rest. Tomorrow morning she would come back here, to the spring called Songmairie and do as she did every morning. She would cast her Seeking Spell to see if the Barrier was down. Perhaps tomorrow she would scry as well, but she had been afraid to do that for fear of what her spell would show her. Like the Elves, Idalia wanted to hope until all hope of hope was gone.

  Suddenly there came a pulse of magic so strong it staggered her; a lightless flash perceptible only to her Wildmage senses, but it blinded and deafened her to all else for one incredulous moment.

  Kellen has triggered the keystone!

  Wild hope and sudden fierce joy filled her. He’s gotten through!

  She stood, staring northward, fists clenched, willing him to hold out, to keep the link true until the spell was complete. She hadn’t known she’d be able to sense it, but the keystone was part of her, formed of her magic and linked to her, and so she’d felt that first fierce uprush of energy as the keystone began to give up its spell. But now … nothing.

  Nothing but hope, and her faith in all she knew Kellen to be.

  Idalia turned and began to run.

  She was back in less than half an hour with her tools and a full bag of charged keystones. Heart hammering, hands shaking, she dipped each in the spring and began to lay them out in a circle around her. There was a bag of crystallized honey-disks in her tool-bag as well, used for sweetening tea, and as she worked she pulled one out and popped it into her mouth. She’d need the energy, now and for the rest of the night. If the spell had worked.

  Please, you Gods who shape the world. Let it be so!

  She paused for a moment, waiting. But the spell would run fast once it was triggered. If it had worked, she would be able to sense the results now. Or the failure.

  Once more—as she had done so many days ago—she dipped water from the Elven spring and scattered it around herself, touched water to her lips, raised her dripping hands to the sky, and called to the rain.