1 The Outstretched Shadow.3 (51 page)

 "I don't know if these are worth anything here…"

 "What were you looking to buy?" the Centaur asked amiably. From his girth, he was his own best customer. "Say, aren't you Kellen—Wild-mage Idalia's brother?"

 "That's right," Kellen said. "And I've got a friend with a sweet tooth. I think he'd enjoy some of the rock sugar, or maybe some of the sugar sticks."

 "And you wanted to pay in coin?" the Centaur asked, sounding baffled. "Idalia usually pays with weather, and all. Still…" He inspected the coins on Kellen's outstretched palm critically. "Never seen anything like them, but they look like good silver, right enough. I reckon one of those'll be enough to buy your friend a fine tummy-ache, if you think that's fair."

 "More than fair," Kellen agreed. He handed over the coin, and the sweets-seller took out a square of paper and made up a large packet of brightly colored sugar stick and glittering lumps of rock sugar. He tied the packet up with a length of twine and handed it over.

 "And this is for you. A treat for luck."

 He picked up a small wooden dish and held it out to Kellen. Resting in the middle of it was a round brown doughy object, its surface coated with powdered sugar.

 "What is it?" Kellen asked curiously.

 "New from Midsummer Fair. The Mountain Traders brought it. They say it came out of the Southern Deserts, a spice-bean called xocalatl. Try it."

 "Something new." Kellen hardly needed to hear anything more. He picked up the unprepossessing-looking object and popped it into his mouth.

 It began to dissolve immediately, and the rich taste filled his mouth, bitter and sweet and complex. Like kaffeyah, but not quite. He wasn't sure he liked it, but he was glad he'd tried it.

 " 'Xocalatl,' " Kellen said, trying the unfamiliar word. "Thank you. I'll remember it."

 "Come again," the sweets-seller said genially. "And remember me to your sister."

 Kellen nodded and moved on, tucking his package carefully into his basket and hurrying to catch up with his sister.

 IDALIA completed her trading in Merryvale by midmorning, and she and Kellen began the long walk back to her cabin.

 A lot of what she had traded for would be sent later—bags of flour, meal, and salt, too heavy for them to carry—and some things they would be returning for when they were ready. Kellen had been glad to find that they would be trading a quantity of smoked venison and wood-pigeon pickled in brine for an equal weight of salt-beef, preserved eggs, and dried fish (though Idalia warned him he'd be very tired of all of them by spring).

 But what they were carrying home with them was heavy enough, since it principally consisted of two large kegs of nails and some coils of thin thatching rope to be used for the construction of the addition to the cabin. He hoped that Idalia knew how to thatch, since he didn't, and from what he'd seen, it would be a difficult task to learn.

 If Idalia noticed his unusual silence, she did not break it with any comments of her own. The day was bright and clear—good weather for the ripening crops of the Merryvale farmers.

 He wished he could feel as cheerful as the weather warranted. He couldn't help thinking about Demons. Idalia still hadn't talked to him about them, and now he was hesitant to bring up the subject again. If she was falling prey to the influence of Demons, that might explain why she didn't want to live in the village, even for the winter. As long as she stayed away, she could keep her associations with Demons secret, but if she moved there and was around them, especially the old Healer, she would certainly be found out.

 Maybe the reason the old faun wouldn't let her near was that he knew she wasn't to be trusted. Idalia might not know what had happened to the aged creature, but so far as Kellen was concerned, it was as plain as a road-post. Demons—or if not Demons, certainly Demonic creatures—had gotten hold of him and his terrible injuries were the result.

 If the faun suspected Idalia of being Demon-tainted, he wouldn't let her get near him. But he might try and warn Kellen.

 Maybe his appearance at the pond had been an attempt to deliver that warning.

 Maybe Kellen's dreams of Demon Hounds were another warning.

 IDALIA made much of her payment for the supplies that would see the two of them through the winter in the form of spells to keep damaging weather away from the fields for these last crucial sennights. So long as there was not too much tampering, or too often, or over too large an area, a little weather magic did no harm to the greater balance of field and forest. It was when someone got greedy, wanting everything their own way with no thought to the harm that did to others, that balance was endangered. The spells were very specific; preventing rain (or worse, hail) from falling on those specific fields but permitting it to fall anywhere else in the area it cared to. This might mean that the forests surrounding Merryvale itself got all the rain that would have fallen on the village plus what would have fallen on the fields, but the point was it was all ending up in the same general area and percolating down into the waters underground. The spell was set to dissipate as soon as the harvest was gathered in, thus further limiting its effects.

 Though she'd been aware of Kellen's unsettled mood from the moment he'd awakened that morning, Idalia respected his attempt to keep it to himself. From the vantage point of her ten years' seniority, she well remembered the wild emotional storms of adolescence, and coming into the power of a Wildmage while at the same time being cast out of the only home you'd ever known hardly made coping with growing up any easier. Poor Kellen! He had a triple burden to labor under! That he managed to be cooperative and cheerful most of the time said a great deal for the essential goodness of his nature.

 Curse Lycaelon for a brute and a fool! She had loved her brother dearly as a child, and found the young man even more endearing as he bumbled his way toward maturity, but sometimes it was hard to believe he was Lycaelon's son. Subtlety simply was not in his nature. Even Idalia had to admit that Kellen was as easy to read as a page of print, and easier to manipulate.

 But Lycaelon had never bothered.

 The Arch-Mage simply had not been interested in anything outside of his own desires. If he had troubled to take the little time it would have taken to get to know Kellen personally, rather than relying on the reports of servants and underlings, if he had considered spending some part of the time he squandered in his endless power-games on his son instead of on City politics, Lycaelon could have had exactly the son he'd wanted. Kellen was so starved for affection he would have done anything for his father if Lycaelon had only bothered to love the boy. Kellen would have grown up to become a model son, a credit to his family name, a promising young High Mage.

 And the Books would never have come to him.

 Or would they?

 What if they had?

 Sooner or later Kellen would have started to see that what he was told and what really went on in the City didn't match. Especially for anyone who wasn't Mageborn.

 But if the Books had still come to him, Kellen would certainly never have studied them.

 Or would he?

 Idalia frowned, wondering.

 Kellen was curious. He was intelligent. Sooner or later, he would still have started wondering about the lands outside the City, and when his questions went unanswered, or were answered unsatisfactorily, would he have looked elsewhere?

 If Kellen had loved his father and that love had been returned—if Lycaelon had been someone else entirely, or if he had died, and Kellen been raised by another, kinder Mage family—might not the same thing have happened, only to a Kellen devoted to his family, to his studies, to the City? Wouldn't that have been an even worse disaster for him than what had actually happened? Only imagine a Kellen who had wanted to become a High Mage, who was trying to be the best son he could be, to please his father, or foster father… then coming upon the Books, tempted by them, called to experiment with them, to read them, terribly torn between the two paths, agonizing over his divided loyalties…

 "Even cruelty can be kindness, if we can only see it clearly." So said The Book of Moon. If Kellen had been fated to become a Wildmage, perhaps Lycaelon was the best of all possible fathers for him to have had.

 But Idalia knew it would be many years before she would ever dare to suggest such a possibility to him.

 AT last they reached the clearing and home. Kellen slid his heavy pack from his shoulders with a grateful sigh and stretched, working the stiffness from cramped muscles. He glanced toward his neatly stacked tools. They were tucked beneath the same weatherproof covering that kept the building logs from warping.

 "I'd better get back to work," he said curtly. "I've lost almost two days, and winter isn't going to come any later because I've had other things to do."

 Idalia shot him a considering glance, but she didn't answer him directly.

 "Master Eliron was right about one thing, you know—I should be spending more time teaching you Wildmagery than I have." She smiled and shrugged. "I hate to admit it, but that's my fault entirely; I've been selfish. Granted, it has been very good for you to do the work you've been doing here, both because it is turning you from a soft City-boy to a strong and resourceful fellow with many new skills. And I want you to finish the addition because I want my bedroom back—but what I want is not what you need and certainly not what you deserve. I should be teaching you both the skills of the hands and of the spirit. I apologize for neglecting the latter."

 He looked at her in surprise; never, in all of his life, had any of his teachers (or his father, for that matter) apologized for anything. He wasn't entirely certain what to make of this.

 Idalia seemed to take his silence for assent, though. "Come on. Help me get this stuff stowed away. We'll get some cider, and I'll show you how to do another one of my party tricks."

 Kellen hesitated, still staring off in the direction of the unfinished addition to the cabin. Idalia came and draped an arm around his shoulders.

 "Kellen… you don't think I expected you to build it all by yourself, did you? I know you could. I know you could do most of it, by now, but that's not the only thing you're here to do. The villagers helped me put up the original cabin, and once their harvest is in, they'll come to help us finish the work you've started here." She gave his shoulders a little squeeze. "For one thing, we'll need the help of the thatcher—I certainly can't thatch the roof, and I rather doubt that was one of your lessons under your tutor! Meanwhile, you have other things to learn that no one else can help you with."

 She might have told him. She might have let him know. Here he'd been worrying about it, and all along she'd had plans to get him some help. Or had she expected he would be able to build it, then discovered that he couldn't, and only then arranged for the help? That was probably it.

 "Like what?" Kellen asked, not caring just now that he sounded like a sulky child.

 "Come and see," Idalia urged with a mysterious smile.

 Kellen was really irritated now. Did she enjoy being so maddening? But—he thought back to the young City-men he knew who had sweethearts, and how they tormented and teased their willing captives. Maybe it wasn't just Idalia. Maybe all women were really like that.

 First they went into the cabin, where they emptied their packs—leaving the heavy kegs of nails outside. Idalia hung the coils of oiled flaxen thatching line on a hook from one of the rafters where they'd be out of the way until needed, then carefully unpacked the rest of their treasures.

 A new whetstone, and a set of small paring knives for cooking (Kellen had managed to break one of the others in his attempts to learn to peel root vegetables, and besides, frequent sharpening wore down the soft steel with time). Hairpins and straight pins and needles for Idalia, the sugar candy for Shalkan, several small paper packets of spices. Real tea for Kellen, who missed the taste, and a thick roll of velum, drawing charcoal, and a sponge. Cleaned carefully, the velum could be reused again and again.

 "I didn't know you'd bought that!" Kellen exclaimed, startled out of his blue funk by the discovery of the drawing material.

 "Winter is going to be long," Idalia warned once again, tucking everything carefully away into the cabinets and chests scattered around the room. "You need things to occupy yourself when the snow is halfway up the shutters. I do fancy beadwork and embroidery on shirts and ribbons and take it to trade in the village in the spring, but I don't think that method of passing the winter would suit you, little brother. I find that the hours can grow very long without something to keep you busy. It gets very quiet and lonely here once the snows close us in."

 Then why don't you go live in the village? Kellen wondered again, biting down hard on the thought for fear she might be able to hear what echoed in his thoughts so loudly.

 But Idalia was occupied with retrieving two tankards from the mantel and the cider-jug from the cold-cellar beneath the floor.

 "Now. Come and learn," she said, handing one to him once they were full.

 There was a tiny spring-fed pond behind the cabin that they used for their drinking and washing water. Kellen knew that Idalia also used it as a scrying pool—the bottom was littered with keystones, and for a while after he'd found out about that, he'd been a little nervous about drinking water charged with magic—but since nothing bad ever happened, and both Idalia and Shalkan drank the water too, he'd gotten over his case of nerves.