They moved through a series of interconnected caverns. All of them weren’t as large as the first one, but Kellen quickly realized that since they were following Ancaladar’s preferred route in and out of the caves there weren’t going to be any small passages. The only real problem that Kellen encountered—other than having to hide from the Shadowed Elves—was that terrain that Ancaladar could cross with ease presented towering obstacles for Kellen to climb over or detour around. Occasionally Ancaladar would grow impatient with the delay and pluck him into the air, setting him down somewhere several hundred yards distant. Kellen hadn’t quite made up his mind yet, but he thought he preferred scrabbling over slabs of basalt to being whisked through the air in the claws of an impatient dragon.
Not that he was feeling terribly patient himself, with Idalia somewhere ahead, trapped and hurt. He didn’t know, of course, but he had the sense that Ancaladar was being forced to detour by the Shadowed Elf patrols. That wasn’t good.
Finally Ancaladar stopped. He lowered his head, so it was right beside Kellen’s.
“This is the last of the ways we can go to reach your sister,” the dragon said, in a whisper so low that Kellen barely heard it. “It could be the safest of the ways we can go, or the most dangerous—it’s very narrow, and there’s nowhere to hide, but they may not have thought to look this way yet.”
Narrow. Terrific, Kellen thought, following the dragon as he moved forward again.
But “narrow” was a relative term. The passage was narrow for Ancaladar—the dragon had to fold his wings tightly and crouch down on his belly—but there was enough room for Kellen and the entire rescue party that had started out from Sentarshadeen (if they’d been there) to ride down the tunnel.
Suddenly the dragon stopped, stretching out his neck, his nostrils flaring.
“Oh, no—” he said in dismay. “We’re trapped—”
For the first time, Kellen fell into battle-trance immediately, without having to invoke it; it fell over him as he cast off the tarnkappa, as if it were somehow taking the place of the cloak.
In a way, it was; the dual-sight allowed him to see in the dark as the cloak spell did. He saw the Shadowed creatures as they stalked forward out of the darkness just as clearly as if he were still wrapped in its folds. He did not, however, charge.
Instead, he drew his sword, and waited. Waited for his doubled-sight to show him that they saw him for what he was. The aura of threat that surrounded him was unmistakable—that he knew from his lessons in the House of Sword and Shield. He was armed, and he was waiting for their attack. Now it became their choice to fight or flee.
They saw him for what he was—and they charged. One of them threw the net it carried. As if it were floating like a puff of down, Kellen watched it drift toward him, and in that odd slowed-time, he cut it in half as it started to fly past his head, aimed at Ancaladar, evidently, and not him.
The moment that the steel of his sword touched it, the two halves of the net withered and dropped to the ground. Kellen continued the stroke with a sideways twist of his wrist, to take off the head of the unwary creature that was nearest him.
They were frail, these Shadowed Elves; he killed it, and the one behind it, then let the momentum of his blade carry him around in a spin to cleave another across the spine. He made a recovery move, blocked the sword of a fourth as he kicked a fifth in the stomach, cut under the blocked blade to eviscerate the fourth one and as the fifth staggered backward, followed, and gutted it as well. The sixth and seventh were no real challenge; he took them out as they stared at him, dumbfounded.
He whirled. Ancaladar was frozen in place, eyes wide. “Move!” he snapped.
Ancaladar managed to compress himself against the wall of the tunnel enough to let him squeeze by.
This time he did charge, catching the much larger party that thought it was sneaking up in the rear entirely by surprise. For all of the weapons that they carried, for all of their superior ability to see in the dark, they might just as well have had no defensive ability at all. They were absolutely no match for the special advantages of a Knight-Mage, not even at fourteen-to-one.
The battle-trance faded, and the world was utterly black once more. Kellen stood in the darkness, feeling a faint regret.
But nothing more. When he’d drawn his sword, they could have run. When he’d begun to kill the others, they could have run. They chose not to. If he had not fought, he and Ancaladar would have been killed or taken prisoner, and Idalia would die. Because he had refused to accept that, he had chosen to kill. That was the way of the Knight-Mage, the agent of the active principle of the Wild Magic.
He forgave them for attacking him, and he forgave himself for killing them, just as Jermayan had taught him.
Absently he wiped his sword blade dry on his cloak—there’d be time to give the blade a thorough cleaning later—and worked his way back up to Ancaladar’s front.
“Any more of them?” Kellen asked, stooping to grope for the discarded tarnkappa and don it once more.
“No. You eliminated all of them … Knight-Mage.” The dragon moved forward, stepping fastidiously over the corpses. They moved faster now. There didn’t seem to be any need to try to conceal their presence any longer. Not only had the Shadowed Elves found them, but Kellen seemed to have killed most of the ones searching for them.
“They must want you really badly,” Kellen said after a few moments.
“Has your world wholly forgotten my kind? I’m a dragon,” Ancaladar said, with a note of bitterness in his voice. “And no doubt the Endarkened have a Mage or two in thrall, and an arsenal of spells to try to force a Bonding that they ache to try.”
“Dragons Bond with Mages,” Kellen said, half-remembered scraps of what Jermayan had told him about the Great War coming back to his mind.
“Almost correct. Each dragon is fated to Bond with one Mage—his Bondmate. After which that Mage becomes incredibly powerful—having an endless supply of spell-energy to draw on—and the dragon’s life becomes incredibly short, for when his Bondmate dies, he dies as well.”
“Oh.” It didn’t seem fair. All the advantage seemed to go to the Mage. All the dragon got out of the deal was dead. “What about Mageprices?”
“Bonded Mages don’t pay them. Not with our power to draw on,” Ancaladar said simply.
“Why would a dragon … ?”
“I don’t know,” Ancaladar said curtly, ending the discussion firmly. “We’re nearly there, thank Sky and Fair Wind.”
Up ahead, the tunnel opened out. Ancaladar stretched his neck out, extending it through the opening. Kellen followed along until he reached the edge of the tunnel.
He’d moved cautiously, and was glad he had. There was only a narrow ledge at the cave mouth, and it extended for only a few feet in either direction before vanishing entirely. The tunnel had opened out into another of the huge caverns Kellen was growing used to, but this one was different from any of the previous ones. Its floor was criss-crossed with other deep fissures—as though something very hot had cooled here—and littered with enormous boulders, as though there had been an explosion as well. He could hear a distinct sighing sound, as if something even bigger than Ancaladar was breathing, but it seemed to come from the cave itself.
He moved quickly to one side as Ancaladar flowed past him and down to the floor of the cave, then looked around in frustration. He couldn’t climb down, it was much too far to jump, and as far as he knew, his Knight-Mage abilities didn’t include the power of flight.
After a few seconds Ancaladar noticed his plight. The dragon turned back and plucked him from the ledge, depositing him on the cave floor.
“Not far now,” Ancaladar said.
Was it Kellen’s imagination, or was there a note of worry in the dragon’s voice?
IDALIA was lying at the foot of a cliff at the far side of the cavern.
Kellen’s heart twisted in his chest when he saw her. He knew the look of broken bones. He could see—and smell�
�the blood.
How long had she been lying here? Was she dead?
Then he saw the faint movement of her chest and knew that she was still alive.
He ran forward and knelt beside her. His first impulse was to waken her, but he knew that would be no kindness. She must be in agony.
He had to get her out of here. But even if Ancaladar would consent to carry her, he didn’t dare move her while she was in this condition. Broken legs, broken arm and collarbone … undoubtedly a concussion … probably internal bleeding as well.
“I’ll have to heal her before we can move her,” Kellen said aloud.
Healing was not his strongest skill in the Wild Magic, and he’d never tried this major a healing, especially without someone around to share the Mageprice. He looked hopefully at Ancaladar.
But the dragon cringed away. “You go ahead,” he said, taking a step backward. “I’ll wait over here until you’re done.”
Kellen sighed. I guess it’s all up to me. I just hope I’m good enough.
He had to be. For Idalia’s sake.
These days, he always carried the components for the simplest of the Wild Magic spells with him, and healing was a very simple spell. Here where everything was stone, he didn’t even need a brazier: he simply unwrapped his disk of charcoal and set it directly on the stone floor, and set it alight with a simple word. He pulled out the few herbs he’d need, and set them beside the burning charcoal.
His stomach twisted as he thought of the only other healing involving broken bones he’d ever witnessed. When Idalia had healed a unicorn colt’s fractured leg, she’d worked all the pieces of the break into alignment first. He should do that here, to give the healing the best chance. But the colt had been dosed with a sleeping potion, and he had nothing to give his sister.
If you don’t do it, she’ll die. Do you want your squeamishness to kill her?
Kellen pulled off his armored gauntlets, then drew his dagger and cut a few strands of Idalia’s hair, then a few of his own. He moistened the bundle with Idalia’s blood, then pricked his finger and squeezed out a few drops of blood onto the dried leaves of willow, ash, and yew.
Then he tossed the bundle of herbs and hair onto the coals.
Heal Idalia—please! I swear I will pay the price! Kellen thought fervently. He knew he should be centered in a Wildmage’s dispassionate trance, but that was something he couldn’t manage right now. He cared too much—and if that was something really wrong, then he supposed the Gods wouldn’t have let him become a Knight-Mage in the first place.
The bundle should have smelled horrible while it was burning, but it didn’t. It smelled like spring flowers and fresh-cut hay. Kellen saw the shimmer of the protective shields all around him, and hoped that protection would extend to keeping Idalia from feeling what he was doing.
First he straightened her legs. Feeling the bones move and shift under his hands made sweat run down his face in greasy droplets, but once he’d begun, he knew he couldn’t stop.
Everything was glowing green.
Next, her arm. It seemed to him that it ought to be straightened, so he did that, as gently as he could. That led him to her collarbone—broken, as he suspected. There wasn’t a lot he could do about it, but he prodded at it until he’d shifted the bones about into more-or-less the right places, and left it at that.
Everything was fire. Green fire.
He ran his hands over her head. They came away wet with blood, though Kellen knew that might not mean much. Even the smallest scalp wounds could bleed a great deal. Or it might be a concussion. Without being able to see her eyes, he didn’t know.
Green … all green …
Her breathing was better now, which reminded him to check for broken ribs and broken pelvis. He ran his hands down over her ribs, pressing gently, but everything felt solid. He found her hip bones, and pressed gently, relieved to find that everything was solid there, too.
Abruptly Kellen sat back on his haunches and stared down at his hands. They were trailing greenness as if he’d dipped them in a vat of liquid emeralds. Idalia, too, was green, as if she’d been soaked in the stuff.
When he’d healed Jermayan, the Healing Power had hit him like a hammer-blow, leaving him in no doubt of when the healing began and ended. This time it had snuck up on him; apparently he’d been healing Idalia while he thought he’d just been checking the extent of her injuries.
He wondered why the two healings had been so different. Perhaps because Idalia was such an expert Wildmage, and had been able to direct the healing in some fashion? Or was it for some other reason? Did the Wild Magic itself want her healed?
Slowly the green fire faded away, and Kellen waited to hear the price he would have to pay for this healing.
But to his surprise—and faint alarm—there was nothing. No inner voice setting his Mageprice. Only a certainty that somehow the price—even for this—had been paid in advance.
Kellen shook his head. He wasn’t going to argue, and he wasn’t going to complain.
The dome of protection vanished—Kellen was always surprised there wasn’t an audible “pop” when it vanished—its work done. He felt a sudden rush of dizziness and exhaustion, as the price of the Casting caught up with him. He wasn’t going to be good for much for a while—though he could fight if he absolutely had to—and Idalia would be utterly exhausted.
And they still had to get out of here.
He put his gauntlets back on, picked up the burning charcoal, and crushed it quickly into dust. Brushing the mess from his hands, he got to his feet. Idalia was still unconscious, but it was a natural sleep now, not a deathly coma. He’d like to wait here for her to wake—he didn’t relish carrying her out, especially if they ran into more of those creatures on the way—but he didn’t want to stay here one moment more than he had to.
He got to his feet, staggering a little with weakness. He stood for a moment, breathing carefully until his head cleared.
Ancaladar approached carefully.
“Is it over?” the dragon asked cautiously.
“She’s going to be all right,” Kellen said. He wondered if the odd way the healing had gone had anything to do with the dragon’s nearness, and decided not to ask. Ancaladar seemed to be a little touchy about being a living storage battery for Mages, and Kellen didn’t want to suggest he’d tapped the dragon’s power, even accidentally. “Now all we have to do is get out of here.”
“Do you think …” the dragon seemed almost hesitant “ … do you think I could come back with you? I’m tired of living in a cave and chasing deer. And they’ll never stop looking for me now.”
“You’ll have to ask Andoreniel and Ashaniel if you can live in Sentarshadeen,” Kellen said. “I can’t promise that. But I don’t see why you shouldn’t come south with us and see; they’ve added some … unusual citizens to Sentarshadeen lately.”
And if we’re going to have to beware of Deathwings, it would be a good idea to have someone else around who flies.
“Fair enough,” Ancaladar agreed.
The dragon headed off across the cavern, its enormous sable body moving over the boulders like a pool of midnight.
Kellen bent down, scooped up Idalia, and followed.
Halfway across the cavern, she began to rouse.
She reached up and felt his face—or rather, the hood of the tarnkappa—just as if she couldn’t see. Kellen realized with a shock that she couldn’t. He could see, but everything must be pitch-dark to her. He’d gotten so used to Ancaladar being able to see and hear him through the tarnkappa that he’d forgotten he was wearing it. But Idalia wouldn’t be able to either hear or see him—not while he wore the tarnkappa—not that she could see anything down here, at any rate.
“Kellen?” she whispered. He nodded, knowing she could feel the movement.
She relaxed with a sigh, and Kellen knew she was figuring everything out—that he’d found her somehow and healed her with the Wild Magic.
“Put me down,” she
said a minute later. “I can walk—and you might need to fight.”
She was right. It was only common sense, even though Kellen knew how tired she must be after such a major healing.
He set her carefully on her feet and led her the rest of the way to where Ancaladar was waiting for them. Their progress was a little slower, now that he had to lead Idalia, but Kellen was tired himself, and didn’t want to risk a fall.
At the foot of the cliff that led to the tunnels, he stopped and pushed back the tarnkappa’s cowl so that he could speak to Idalia.
Instantly the darkness of the cave rushed in. It was like no darkness Kellen had ever experienced in his life: thick and absolute. There was no possibility of seeing anything, no matter how hard you strained your eyes.
For a moment he felt a bolt of panic, then he realized it didn’t matter.
He didn’t need to see.
He knew.
At the House of Sword and Shield, the Knights practiced blind-fighting, for it was always possible that you would be forced to defend or attack at night, in fog, or under other adverse conditions. You learned to have an awareness of where your targets were, to memorize the positions of your own people and keep them in mind. Kellen had learned then that he could not only remember where all the people on his own side were in a fight, but know where they were going to be. In practice sessions, he’d never hit any of his own side. Master Belesharon had said this was a manifestation of the Knight-Mage gift.
So was this, it seemed.
It wasn’t that he could see in the dark. But he’d come this way once, and apparently part of the Knight-Mage gift was to remember terrain perfectly. He wasn’t going to need the tarnkappa to get out of here.
That was going to make things a little easier.
“There’s an, um, dragon here,” he whispered to Idalia. “He’s going to lift both of us up to a tunnel a few yards up the cliff face.”
“I remember the dragon,” Idalia said dryly.
Before Kellen could raise the hood again, he felt Ancaladar’s talons close around his middle, and heard Idalia give a startled squeak. He felt himself swept into the air and deposited, very gently, just inside the cave. He could see Ancaladar’s eyes glowing like dim Elven lanterns, and could tell from their size that the dragon’s head must be very close. He could even feel the dragon’s warm breath. But he could see absolutely nothing.
The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy Page 107