The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy

by Mercedes Lackey

  Idalia was standing in the tent where the Healers kept their stores. Trunks and baskets of supplies stood everywhere, with half-empty shelves a mute testimony to what she had been doing when Vestakia interrupted her.

  She hugged Vestakia in return, then placed her hands on her hips and regarded Jermayan.

  “He must have had some excellent reason for shaving half a sennight off the time between Ondoladeshiron to Halacira—and in this season,” she said.

  “And he looks forward to telling you what it is,” Jermayan agreed. He had no intention of spreading the news about Andoreniel about the camp here, even if it had been his secret to tell. “He has asked me to bring you—and Vestakia, and Cilarnen—to the camp at Halacira as soon as I can. Mirqualirel is having carrying-baskets made, so you will be able to bring more than your clothes, though not a great deal, apparently. Vestakia tells me that the High Magick requires many … objects.”

  IDALIA shook her head, torn between the vast burden of work she would have to leave undone here, and the certain knowledge that Kellen would not have asked her to come if his need of her were not great. It was plain that Jermayan now knew the full content of whatever message Keirasti had brought—but Elves’ ears were sharp, and he certainly wouldn’t blurt it out in the middle of the camp. Not when Keirasti had gone to such agonizing lengths to keep it secret.

  “He has not yet told Cilarnen that he must leave his precious library and all his toys and fly over the mountain, has he?” she said to Vestakia, nodding toward Jermayan.

  She saw Vestakia’s face light with a flash of inner mischief, and rejoiced inwardly. Since Kellen had left, and Vestakia had taken on the burden of trying to discover the location of the Shadowed Elves, Vestakia had been wearing herself down to nothing but a haggard shadow of her normal self. Now, at least, that was over.

  Though apparently they now faced an even more appalling problem.

  “He has not,” Vestakia agreed. “I think he hoped you would help.”

  “I suppose I must,” Idalia said, with an exaggerated and very theatrical sigh, the behavior assumed for Vestakia’s benefit. “Elves are very timid creatures, you know. Timid, and … shy.”

  CILARNEN stared at the three of them as if they’d all gone mad.

  The ice-golem had not appeared this time as they rode up to the mirror-pavilion, and Idalia could only assume that he’d already disenchanted it. If he’d had more than one, disenchanting all of them might take a lot of work, nor could he leave his protective wards standing in place. Those without any trace of magic might never notice them, but for Elementals and the many Brightfolk races that made their homes in the Elvenlands, Cilarnen’s wards might as well have been stone walls. Depending on how they were constructed, innocent creatures of magic might become trapped within them and die. So he must remove them all, and Idalia suspected it might be a long process.

  It certainly explained why he was not farther along in his packing.

  An entire half-wagon had been reserved for Cilarnen’s use. He would need all of it, between his pavilion itself and all of the equipment he had collected. So far it stood completely empty, though with Kardus and the driver’s help he’d gotten as far as removing all of the trunks from its bed.

  “Leave?” he said. “Now? With Ancaladar? But… Ancaladar can’t carry all this!”

  “Kellen wouldn’t have asked for you if it wasn’t important,” Idalia said gently. Vestakia had gotten another good night’s rest, but it was clear that Cilarnen hadn’t. He’d told her he’d rest better behind his own wards and shields, but it was plain that the moment he’d heard that the army was to move, he’d begin dismantling his temple, working through the night.

  He ran a hand through his hair. “How much can I take?”

  Vestakia looked at Idalia.

  “I’m sure Kellen has nearly everything I need,” Idalia said. “I’ll want to take a chest or two of medicines. Nothing more.”

  “And I don’t need anything,” Vestakia said. “I already have more than I ever had in my life, right now.”

  Cilarnen smiled. “I’m sorry, but… I’m sure Kellen doesn’t want to see me just so he’ll have someone to beat at gan. So I’ll need my spellbooks. My workbooks. My robe. My sword, my wand, my staff. My scrying-crystal. All my incenses and herbs. I imagine he can provide braziers and candles, so I suppose I can leave those.” He groaned. “I won’t be able to take my tabulum. I might not be able to take my floor-cloth, either.”

  He ran a hand through his hair again, causing it to stand up in short auburn tufts. “I suppose it’s just as well I hadn’t really started packing yet.”

  “I can help,” Vestakia offered. “I would have come earlier, but…”

  “I’ll need your help—and Kardus’s, too,” Cilarnen said simply.

  WHILE Vestakia and the Centaur Wildmage helped Cilarnen separate those items of his Art that were absolutely vital from those that were merely desirable to bring along, Idalia and Jermayan occupied themselves in preparing soup and tea to keep everyone going, and in packing those items of a nonmagickal nature that would have to be sent with the army.

  “I must say,” Idalia said, bundling and tying a roll of blankets, “being a Wildmage seems much easier somehow. Cilarnen has said that he thinks the High Mages fought in the Great War—but frankly, I can’t see how they would have managed it.”

  “Perhaps their spells were less elaborate then,” Jermayan answered. “Or perhaps they had the luxury of preparing them in advance. I have heard all my life of what grim and terrible days those were—but at least that war was fought openly, against an enemy willing to challenge us upon an honest battlefield.”

  “Yes,” Idalia answered tartly, dropping the bundle atop several others and kneeling to roll the first of the carpets beneath. “And we all know how well that worked out. Most of the land scoured to bare rock where nothing still grows a thousand years later. Half the races of the Light destroyed completely, and the rest slaughtered to a tenth of their populations. The Great Flower Forest of Ulanya, burned to ash. And we still didn’t win.”

  “Idalia, my heart,” Jermayan said, dropping an armful of Cilarnen’s clothes into a open chest and coming to kneel beside her. “It is only simple truth that our circumstances are worse now than ever before. We do not know what the future may hold, save that we may only hope that we may all stand together to welcome victory. And I would be greatly honored, in such uncertain times, were you to consent to wear my betrothal pendant now.”

  Once before Jermayan had offered her his betrothal pendant. And Idalia had refused, because to accept it would form a link between them that might allow him to see into her mind, and know the secret she dared not let him guess.

  The magic she had used to keep the rains from destroying Sentarshadeen had come at a very high Price.

  Her life.

  The Price was yet to be paid, but Mageprices always came due. Idalia did not know when it would be, but the knowledge of it was a burden she would not add to the ones Jermayan already carried.

  “At the proper time,” she said. “That time will come, and we will both know when it is. That much I promise you.”

  “Then I will take your promise,” Jermayan said. “And only remind you of it on those occasions when you say to me that it is the Elves who delay when matters could profitably proceed with more … swiftness.”

  BY the time everything was ready, it had been dark for several hours, but by now Ancaladar had made this flight several times, and he assured Jermayan that even with the additional burden, he did not mind flying at night.

  “Besides,” the dragon told Cilarnen, “you won’t be able to see the ground that way.”

  “I think that’s probably best,” the young High Mage said nervously. He didn’t look at all pleased with the idea of going up into the sky, though the others knew he had gotten a dragon’s eye view of the ground many times with his magick.

  Of course, it was different if you were actually there.
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  “I am afraid the flight will be neither smooth nor short,” Ancaladar went on, sounding concerned for his young passenger’s nerves, “yet the weather will get no better over the next several days.”

  “I’m not complaining,” Cilarnen said, with stubborn bravery. “I’m just not going to enjoy it. But I’m sure you’ll get me there alive and safe. Just don’t expect me to be of any use to anybody for a few hours after we land.”

  “Well in that case,” said Idalia, who had come prepared, “you might as well drink this. It’s a sleeping cordial. I don’t think you’ll actually sleep, of course, but it might take the edge off. Don’t worry, there’s not a drop of magic in it, just herbs and a touch of dream-honey.”

  She held out the tiny glass vial to him. Cilarnen drained it quickly, without a single word of complaint.

  Mirqualirel had provided six baskets, as many as Ancaladar could carry attached to his flying harness. The other four had already been packed with what they were taking with them, most of it Cilarnen’s supplies, all of the pieces thickly-wrapped, most of them first in bespelled silk, and then in leather. Now Vestakia helped Cilarnen into one of the two remaining baskets and assisted him as he pulled the straps tight. Once he was secure, she climbed quickly into her own.

  “I feel like a basket of cheeses set to go to market,” she commented as Jermayan checked her straps.

  Idalia was settling into the saddle behind Jermayan’s, pulling her own belts tight. If the journey was to be as cold and bumpy as Ancaladar claimed, she wanted to run no risk of falling out.

  AFTER Jermayan left that morning, Kellen turned to the work he had come here to do.

  The secondary entrances to Halacira must be sealed. Later, the passages could be filled in from within by quarried stone, but for now, wooden doors would serve. He set Artenel to the task of designing them, and sent work-parties into the forest to fell the trees that would be needed, with others to guard them. Felling trees was hard work in winter, but it must be done.

  Still other parties were sent out as scouts, to make sure the area was clear of enemies. After his experience in Halacira, Kellen took nothing for granted.

  They would need a bridge to cross the Angarussa as well, as soon as Artenel could build one, for the Wildmages’ work beneath the earth had shattered the river’s thick covering of ice, and the river ran freely in its bed. There was no safe passage across it now. The only bridge across the river lay several miles closer to Sentarshadeen, and it was a narrow one, unsuitable for cavalry or wagons. To get to Sentarshadeen from Halacira now, he would have to take the forest road—or fly.

  Which meant, Kellen realized with an inward sigh, that when Keirasti arrived with her troops in a sennight, they would be trapped on the other side of the river.

  Maybe Jermayan could build them a bridge.

  He thought of the power Jermayan could command as an Elven Mage—magic bordering on the unbelievable. Surely there had been Elven Mages in the Great War?

  If there had been, why had the Demons ever gotten as far as They had?

  He had no idea.

  He did his best to delegate as much as he could, wishing with all his heart that Adaerion were here—or Belepheriel. As soon as Vestakia arrived and the caverns were pronounced clean of Taint, he had to go on to Sentarshadeen to see Andoreniel, and that meant leaving someone else in charge here—but who? Redhelwar had sent him out with a force of sub-commanders of his own rank; though all of them were decades, many of them centuries, older than he was, none of them had a Knight-Mage’s intuitive ability to command an army in the field. If they were attacked …

  If there is any possibility of that, you cannot go.

  He could not abandon his command to danger simply because he thought he had something better to do.

  Then Idalia will have to do it for me, he thought grimly. And Vestakia. And Jermayan. And Cilarnen.

  It was why he’d called for them, after all.

  WHEN he’d given every order he could think of to give, Kellen took Isinwen and twenty others and went down into the caverns again. Of his own twelve, Ambanire, Nironoshan, Seheimith, and Sihemand had perished in the caverns; he would have to go over the rolls and reorganize several commands. He wanted to talk to Shalkan about that—not because he thought the unicorn would have any particular ideas about troop formation, but just because talking to his friend always helped to clear his head. When they had been on the march, it had not often been possible to find the time—or the place—to talk safely with Shalkan, but here at Halacira, things were different, and Kellen intended to take full advantage of that, for what small comfort it could give him.

  One of Master Belesharon’s favorite sayings had always been that a commander of armies lived in a city of distance, and more and more these days Kellen was starting to understand what that meant. He was the one who had to make the decisions. There was no one else who could. And nobody he could share them with. He could ask for advice, and even take it, but the final responsibility for every decision was his.

  As much as he hated the comparison, he supposed it was a little like being High Mage of Armethalieh.

  THE caves were still very damp, and in places there were pools of water on the floors, but now that the series of dams and pumps that the Shadowed Elves had built had been smashed, most of the water had drained back into the bed of the Angarussa. Much of the Coldfire that the Wildmages had cast on the walls of the main galleries still glowed, and Kellen added more where he could, though he still felt the aftereffects of the spell he’d cast the day before to break down the dam-wall the Shadowed Elves had built. Still, Coldfire was a simple spell, one that asked little more than a payment of personal energy on the part of the Wildmage.

  They inspected as much of the cave as they could, cautiously exploring the lower levels. Those, too, were damp but free of standing water, and Kellen’s spell-sight enabled them to stay out of the areas where the rock was now dangerously unstable. He’d had the foresight to bring chalk, and marked those places when he came to them, as Artenel would certainly want to know.

  There was so much to do here.

  There was so much to do everywhere—and all of it vital.

  If they held off the Enemy until Planting—six moonturns from now, as Kellen reckoned the Elven calendar—Halacira would have to be ready to welcome refugees. The Allies wouldn’t fight if it meant abandoning their families to the Enemy, and even if Fortress Halacira were largely symbolic, it would keep them going now.

  A few moonturns ago you would have thought something like that was dishonest, Kellen realized. Building a fortress—holding out a hope of safety—that he thought would never be used.

  Now he only thought of it as a practical way to keep the army going.

  And they’d use it if they could.

  He just didn’t think they’d get the chance.

  What am I becoming?

  He knew what he was becoming.

  A Commander of Armies.

  BY the time Kellen had finished his preliminary survey of the caverns and returned to the surface, the sun was setting. Jermayan had not yet arrived. Kellen dismissed his men to a well-earned rest, heard brief reports from his commanders, stuffed his tunic with meat-pasties and honey-disks, and took a covered mug of tea out beyond the horse-lines to think.

  “Are we having fun yet?” Shalkan asked, joining him.

  Kellen drained his mug in a few gulps—it was almost cold, anyway—and sat down on a nearby pile of logs. It looked as if Artenel’s men had managed to fell a good part of the forest today, which was just as well. He knew the Elves hated to do it, preferring to harvest trees only according to a careful plan, but right now they needed a lot of timber in a hurry.

  He dug in his tunic for the honey-disks, and offered them to Shalkan.

  “Sure we are,” he said unconvincingly.

  “You did the best you could,” Shalkan reminded him.

  “I know,” Kellen said. “Jermayan says that Andoreniel’s �
� sick.”

  “So Ancaladar told me.”

  “All They have to do is take the City—finish taking the City. And sit back and wait while the plagues wipe us out. Even before I left, Redhelwar heard it was starting to take hold in the High Reaches. Not just among the Mountainfolk, but in the forests. That means it will reach the Wildlander granaries soon, if it hasn’t already. And the herds.”

  “I know,” Shalkan said.

  “And I’m sitting here thinking about how to reorganize the units that took losses at Halacira.”

  “That has to be done, too,” the unicorn said inarguably.

  “And building a fortress nobody will ever use.”

  Shalkan rested his chin on Kellen’s shoulder. “Are you sure?” The unicorn’s breath was warm in Kellen’s ear. It smelled of honey.

  “I’m sure it has to be done anyway,” Kellen said with a long sigh. He reached up to stroke Shalkan’s neck.

  “Then do it. No one can see all of the future. Only their own part in it. And … Wait.” Shalkan looked up, gazing at something Kellen couldn’t see.

  “They’re coming.”

  WHEN he’d left that morning, Jermayan had lit the landing-grove with Cold-fire. Beneath their coverings of snow, the trees at the edges of the clearing glowed an eerie spectral blue, as if they were not honest wood and greenneedle leaf, but some strange glass copy made by the Elves and set in their place.

  Which was not, considering what Kellen knew of the Elves, something he wasn’t entirely certain he’d never see.

  The Coldfire rendered the grove nearly as bright as day, and made the clearing easy for Ancaladar to find.

  By the time Kellen rode into the clearing on Firareth, leading a string of horses—he’d gone back to get mounts for the new arrivals, and tell Isinwen to make arrangements to send a baggage cart, as it would have been a long walk in the night cold otherwise—the four of them had already dismounted. Vestakia was on her knees in the snow, hugging Shalkan, while Jermayan and Idalia hung back, giving Shalkan the space he needed to approach Vestakia in comfort.