The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy

by Mercedes Lackey

  Hesitation. Confusion. And then …

  Haste. Urgency. Frenzy. Need. Long-penned forces boiling across a barrier that had suddenly been cast down, roaring through the parched and empty halls of air with the force of a landslide, carrying a tidal wave’s worth of water with them, shedding it indiscriminately and violently on the desert-dry land below …

  Kellen had won! The spell was cast. The Barrier was down. And all the pent-up rain that belonged to Sentarshadeen and the Elven lands was coming this way.

  Fast.

  She needed to slow it. Holding the clouds back would mean heavy snows for the mountains—that couldn’t be helped. She must hold cloud-packs over lakes and rivers as much as possible, and let them gently into the Elven lands to provide the gentle soaking rain the forests needed, or else the rain would do as much damage as the drought had done. Keep storm systems from forming to minimize as much as possible the devastating winds and lightning storms that could still set tinder-dry woods ablaze even through the rain …

  She had time to think carefully. Even the fastest-moving storm system would normally take several days to reach here from the mountains. This storm was coming as if sucked through a vacuum—the abnormally dry air saw to that—but she had time—barely, but enough—to be sure she made the right decisions.

  This was not the sort of weather-working Idalia usually did, giving a gentle nudge to normal weather patterns. These weather patterns were abnormal to begin with, and she was trying to set them back into their normal ones. If she simply dissipated the force of the storm when it reached here, and broke up as much of it as she could as far away as she could reach, the pattern of the weather should quickly return back to normal, and Sentarshadeen wouldn’t be drowned by flooding in the process.

  She took out another honey-disk and crunched it between her teeth with nervous need. There weren’t enough keystones in the entire world to provide energy for the work she had in mind. And it wasn’t much more than a sennight since she’d called upon the Elves to lend power to the forging of the keystone she’d sent off with Kellen. She couldn’t call upon them to share in a spell-price twice in so short a time. Many of them were still recuperating from the last Working. She knew they would help her willingly—and if they did, this time there would be deaths. She would not have that on her conscience.

  It’s all up to me, then.

  She ate another honey-disk, thinking about what she needed and what she would pay. She would not set a price—it was always safest, and if she refused the bargain, she would be free to try again. But she must think carefully about what was needed before she began.

  What was the most important thing? The Book of Stars said that all true magic came from the heart, and after she had thought about that for a long time, she had realized that one of the things it meant was that in every request a Wildmage made, there was one thing that was most important, the central element from which the rest of the request came. Focus on that, and see what else you could leave out. That was the most elegant way of working magic. Simplicity.

  The weather patterns needed to be returned to normal. That was the most important thing. But in this case, it wasn’t the only thing, because the Elven lands had to be protected from the damage that the weather would do while it was settling back into its normal patterns. She couldn’t ask for either one without asking for the other, not and be certain of getting both.

  So what was the best way to ask for both?

  To ask for the strength to do it yourself. She knew she had the skill. All she lacked was the power. The Wild Magic would grant her that—if she was willing to pay the price it asked.

  It would be a high price. She knew that already, even before the spell. The more specific you were, the higher the price.

  Would it be worth it? Mageprices could be bitterly hard.

  She looked around. How could she even ask? The flooding would drown everything in the canyon. It would destroy the city. And the forests and grasslands for hundreds of miles around were still tinder-dry. When lightning struck them, they’d burn. It wouldn’t matter how hard it was raining. They’d burn.

  She’d promised to protect the people of Sentarshadeen from that. She’d sent Kellen to the Barrier to end the drought, knowing how dangerous it was, knowing that the journey would probably take his life, knowing that if he lived to reach the Barrier, the spell would almost certainly ask for his life—and that Kellen, being Kellen, would give it freely, even joyfully. What was one more sacrifice? With power came responsibility.

  With great power, greater responsibility.

  She opened her work-bag and took out a tiny brazier and a bag of herbs. She set the small cake of charcoal into the brazier’s pan and called it alight with a snap of her fingers, then burned her herbs. As she did, she formed her intention clearly in her mind, and asked her boon of the Gods.

  To give me the strength to help the rains come gently and safely, and to return the weather to its rightful pattern, repairing the damage done to it by the Barrier. She did not specify the price she was willing to pay.

  When she heard the Mageprice that was her magic’s cost, Idalia took a deep breath and lowered her head for a moment, closing her eyes tightly. For a moment she was tempted to refuse. Surely there was another way, a different spell she might cast!

  But now the choice was hers. After a moment, she raised her head.

  “I accept,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

  She felt the heavy sense of listening depart—the sensation Idalia always associated with the making of the bargains associated with Wildmagery—and then there was only the sense of competence and ability,

  the deep ever-filling well of Wildmage power, hers for use.

  She got to work, putting the thought of the bargain aside.

  She reached out with her heightened senses, touching the storm.

  It was as if she were in Silver Eagle form once more, riding through the air on great, long-feathered wings. But now she was larger than any Silver Eagle ever hatched, her body so vast that she could sweep thunderheads aside with one beat of her great wings. She flew into the heart of the storm itself, shepherding the clouds where she wished them to go, spreading them across the landscape, slowing their eastward rush.

  Again and again she dove into the heart of the storm, feathered shepherd to her dark woolly sheep, but instead of bunching them, she kept them well separated, and instead of hurrying them, she slowed them—though, also like sheep, they resisted her efforts, trying always to return to their own ways despite her best efforts.

  Idalia lost all track of time. There was only the glory of flight, and the necessity of the task. The storm wind buffeted her, flinging her thousands of feet toward the sky in one instant and tumbling her toward the ground in the next moment as if she’d suddenly lost her wings. Each time she recovered and doggedly returned to her work, though her phantom muscles began to ache with exhaustion. It must be done. There was no one else to do it.

  And she had made her bargain.

  THE first fat drops of rain on her face woke her from her trance. It was day, but heavily overcast.

  Idalia opened her eyes slowly, blinking against the light. She was cold, and ravenously hungry. The first drops of rain were joined by more until it was raining steadily, and in moments Idalia was soaked to the skin. Rain! She’d never felt anything so wonderful.

  ALIVE … ? she thought in confusion. But—

  Ashaniel was standing over her, in the middle of a half circle of Elven courtiers. All of them were gazing down at her with expressions of identical worry.

  Idalia stared up at the sky. Day. But it had been night when she began.

  “I must—” her voice came out in a hoarse croak. She coughed, and licked rain from her upper lip, and tried again. “I must have been here all night.”

  “Idalia,” Ashaniel said, very gently, “you have been sitting here for three days.”

  HE smelled wet earth. The scent puzzled Kellen, drawing him slowly toward
consciousness. How could earth be wet? It had been dry for as long as he could remember.

  Wondering drew him back into his body, and he became aware of the sensation of cool hands bathing his face with a damp cloth. His raw skin stung, but the motion of the soft cloth felt good, and he smelled the faint spicy scent of allheal tea. He opened his eyes.

  “He’s awake!” Vestakia cried. “Jermayan! He’s awake!”

  Kellen tried to sit up. The effort produced the sensation that someone had lashed his back with a bundle of hot wires. He could not feel his hands at all, and in a distant foggy part of his mind, he knew that was a good thing. He groaned faintly, and relaxed again, only then realizing that his head was in Vestakia’s lap. He blinked. It was a great effort.

  He and Vestakia were in a cave. Not very far in—he could see the entrance from where he was. Outside, he could see that it was raining, a hard, steady, soaking rain.

  Rain!

  Jermayan appeared in the doorway, ducking his head to clear the entrance. The Elven Knight was stripped to the waist, his hair tied back with a length of rag. He smiled in relief when he saw Kellen, and quickly came to kneel at his side.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “I’m alive,” Kellen said, sounding baffled, even to himself. “But … I thought …” The Other-Kellen said you were dead. But that was a lie, just like all the rest of it, just a lie to get me to give in.

  And I thought I was supposed to die. Wasn’t that the price of the spell?

  Or was just being willing to die enough?

  I don’t understand …

  “You thought we were dead,” Jermayan said. “And I must say, without this young lady and her skill with a bow, we might very well have been.” Jermayan paused to exchange a look of warm comradeship with Vestakia that left Kellen gaping in shock. Things had certainly changed while he’d been unconscious!

  “But once you destroyed the cairn, the goblin army fled, and your healing regained its power. Once we found you, we got out of there as fast as we could. Fortunately Shalkan was able to light our way back to Valdien and Lily, and praise the powers of Leaf and Star they’d stayed where they were left,” Jermayan said. Kellen could hear the relief in his friend’s voice.

  “We bandaged you up as well as we could,” Vestakia added. “Your poor hands! And I thought of bringing you here—this is one of the places where I hide from the Demons. And at least it’s dry.”

  “And there’s plenty of fresh meat—if you like goat,” Jermayan added, smiling as if at a private joke. Vestakia giggled.

  “Do you think you can sit up?” Jermayan asked.

  “No,” Vestakia said firmly. “I’ll lift him up.” Gently she cradled Kellen in her arms and raised him into a half-sitting position. Abused muscles shrieked in protest, but he managed to keep from crying out.

  Jermayan produced the inevitable cup of tea and held it to his lips. Kellen drained it thirstily, and then another, and then a large bowl of broth. He felt better after that—not well enough to try moving on his own for anything short of a Demon attack, but better.

  “My hands,” he said, once Vestakia had returned him to a supine position once more. “You said they were burned. I can’t even feel them. Can I … do you think … will I be able to hold a sword again?”

  “You are a Knight-Mage and a Wildmage,” Jermayan answered with a smile. “The healers in Sentarshadeen are very good—and Idalia is there. I believe you will. But now, let us savor our victory. It hasn’t stopped raining once in the last three days,” Jermayan said, sounding satisfied. “And if it rains so out of season here in the Lost Lands, then the drought must be truly broken in the Elven lands as well. And as for Demons, my girl, your days of hiding from them in caves and under rocks are over. You’re coming back to Sentarshadeen with us, and any Demon who comes after you will have to answer to me. As will anyone else,” he added meaningfully.

  “To all of us, I think,” Shalkan said, stepping into the cave. The unicorn was covered in mud, but looking very pleased with himself.

  Kellen sighed with relief, feeling himself relax completely. The Barrier was down, his friends were friends with each other, and he was alive. He couldn’t stop grinning, even though it made his sand-abraded face hurt a great deal.

  “We did it!” he said. It was finally starting to seem real to him.

  “Yes, we did,” Shalkan said approvingly. “And once you’re well enough to travel, we can bring the good news to Sentarshadeen … although I suspect they already know, somehow,” the unicorn mused, switching his sopping tail back and forth.

  “It will be a wet trip back,” Jermayan said cheerfully. “And I’m sure there will be floods and mudslides and—well, it doesn’t matter. We did it, all of us. The Barrier is down, the drought is ended. We’ve broken the power of Shadow Mountain.”

  Vestakia dipped the cloth in the bowl beside her and began to bathe Kellen’s face again with the allheal tincture.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, bending over him. She kissed him, light as a butterfly wing, upon the forehead, then replaced her lips with the soothing cloth.

  And suddenly, Kellen was anything but soothed. Suddenly he felt a peculiar unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach, and was utterly conscious of Vestakia’s presence, her nearness, in a way he hadn’t been even a moment before.

  Now that he realized he was going to live after all, there was the matter of the future to deal with. And he was starting to get the feeling that his vow of celibacy and chastity was really going to be a lot harder to keep than he’d thought.

  A whole lot harder.

  QUEEN Savilla was angry.

  In the Heart of Darkness, her anger was more dangerous than sunlight, more deadly than the touch of a unicorn’s horn. All who lived in the World Without Sun feared her fury.

  Save one.

  PRINCE Zyperis entered the private pleasure chamber of his Queen. The mosaic floor of gold and polished skull-ivory was red and wet, for Queen Savilla had been about her Art for many hours now, slaking her disappointment upon the bodies of those captives who could not be broken or subverted. There were a dozen creatures in various elaborate and ingenious forms of restraint scattered about the chamber, so that Savilla could move from one to the next as her fancy struck her. Most were still capable of screaming, the Prince noted with a connoisseur’s eye, though naturally none dared. To make the slightest sound would be to draw Savilla’s attention to them once more. There was only a faint pleasing background music of gasps and whimpers, stifled sobs, and the steady beat of the barbed lash that the Queen was using on the current object of her attention, a once-unruly Centaur.

  The creature was far beyond standing under its own power, but all six limbs were held fast by a seemingly delicate cage that could be adjusted almost infinitely to provide the Queen full access to any part of its body she wished to torment, without protecting it from her attentions in the slightest.

  Prince Zyperis noted, with interest, that Queen Savilla was so thoroughly engaged in her amusement that she hadn’t noticed his arrival. That must be rectified. The Barrier was down, the rain had returned to the Elven lands, the Endarkened’s plans had been utterly ruined, and even the blood and pain of several of the captives in his own dungeons had not been enough to take the edge off his anger and despair. He needed more. He needed danger.

  “One weak and uncertain Knight-Mage, dearest Mama, yet you could not convince him to cast aside his pretty pebble and join his fortunes to ours? How droll.”

  QUEEN Savilla turned away from her victim. Only one creature in all her kingdom would dare to speak to her like that. With a snarl of rage on her lips, she turned to face her arrogant son. For a moment her eyes burned white-yellow with the force of her passion. Then, with a change of expression so sudden it came as a shock, she licked blood from her claws, and smiled.

  “Ah, Prince Zyperis. And your own plans on that day went so well, of course? When may I greet my dear granddaughter Vestakia, and w
elcome her to our Court?”

  PRINCE Zyperis growled. His great wings trembled as he fought his temper. Tweaking the Queen’s tail was one thing. A true battle for dominance was something he did not want.

  Yet.

  “They will pay,” he whispered in a low, shaking voice. “The Elves—the accursed Wildmages—my love, we were so close … !”

  He could not help himself. To have the one thing he longed for with a longing that was torment snatched out of his claws in the moment of victory! He felt tears of rage burning his eyes.

  “And now we must begin again,” Savilla said firmly. With a gesture, she banished her servants from the chamber, then went to him and drew his head down against her bosom, stroking his hair and his wings as he wept tears of outrage and fury against her blood-red skin. “But come, let us think of more soothing things for a time.”

  She recalled her servants, and together they dispatched Savilla’s victims one by one.

  IT was good to do things together, Queen Savilla reflected. It gave you insight into those who might one day become your enemies, against the day when you might need to destroy them. Meanwhile, the cheated rage that burned in Zyperis’s soul was balm to her own. Let others grieve as she sorrowed, for the victory that had been taken from them by the arrogance and pride of a young Knight-Mage. She had spoken no more than the truth when she had told Kellen Tavadon that he had doomed himself. She would make sure of it. Everything and everyone the Knight-Mage loved would die, and he would die with them. Slowly. But only after he had watched her extract the last drop of pain from the ones he cherished.

  At last the two of them reclined together, taking refreshment as they watched human servants clean away the disorder. In some ways, this was the sweetest pleasure of all, for Savilla took care that the servants chosen for this task were the newest ones, those it was still possible to shock, and their reactions—oh, but they tried so hard to hide them, knowing their masters were watching!—thrilled across her senses like harp-song.