2 To Light A Candle.13 (12 page)

Ashaniel stopped Kellen as he was about to leave.

"Perhaps you do not think we act with sufficient haste, Kellen Knight-Mage," Ashaniel suggested, placing her hand upon his arm.

Kellen glanced wildly around for Idalia, trying to locate her without seeming rude. But she was nowhere to be seen.

"Lady Ashaniel, I'm really sorry if I offended anybody today," Kellen said. "It's just that I…" He tried to think of how to phrase his thought politely, and gave up. "If there's going to be a war, we should be preparing for it. That's all."

"Yet to say what form our preparations must take, when the Enemy has not yet declared the shape of his own intention, might be to doom us all," Ashaniel said gently. "We have met the Enemy upon the battlefield twice before, and by the grace of Leaf and Star, we prevailed. Fear not for your friends. They will be warned in good time." She turned away.

They're not my friends, Kellen thought with a sigh. He couldn't think of one person back in Armethalieh that he could reasonably call a friend… but that hardly meant he wanted the City to fall to a Demon attack. There were hundreds, thousands of perfectly innocent people there, people who were harming no one, leading contented lives, trying to be good to each other, and if they were unreasonably prejudiced about outsiders, well, those prejudices had been carefully taught and carefully nurtured…

He left the Council chamber. An Elf was waiting for him in the hallway, to conduct him back down the labyrinth of passageways that led to the front door of the House of Leaf and Star. Kellen was fairly good at not getting lost, but he was glad of the guide; he was willing to bet that he hadn't taken the same route to or from the Council chamber twice.

Idalia was waiting for him on the portico.

"Ready to head over to the House of Sword and Shield? You look like you could stand to hit something," she said.

Kellen groaned faintly. "Ashaniel was just telling me not to worry, because the Elves have everything under control, and the moment They make a move, the Elves will make the appropriate response. But what if it's something else like the Barrier? They already know that They are a threat, and out there: why don't they just gather up the biggest army they can and go get them?"

Idalia pulled up the hood of her raincape and stepped off the portico, unfurling her rainshade as she did. Kellen followed, copying her gestures. For a minute or two they walked down the wooden path through the rain in silence.

"Those are reasonable questions, considering how little you actually know about the Enemy—and the Elves don't really know all that much more. For in-stance, they don't really know how strong the Enemy is, either in terms of numbers or magic—but they do know that if They can call in as many allies and slaves as They could in the Last War, They can probably put a larger army into the field than the Nine Cities can, and this time the Elves can't count on having much in the way of human allies. Next, the Elves don't have any magic, while the Enemy are the strongest Mages there are. I'm not even sure that if we got all the Wild-mages, and all the High Mages, and all the Good Otherfolk to work together there'd be as much magic on our side as there is on the Enemy side. Not after the Great War and the death of the dragons."

"That's comforting—I don't think," Kellen said uneasily. "Especially since the High Mages won't fight on the same side as Wildmages. Or Elves."

Idalia shrugged. "They might, eventually. But it doesn't really matter. Because you can't attack what you can't find, and no one's exactly sure where Shadow Mountain is. It might not even be entirely in this world. North of here, that's all I know. That's all anyone knows. And well-enough shielded that all the Seeking spells in the world aren't going to find it. So… we can't find the Enemy stronghold, and if we could find it, we don't have the strength to attack it and win."

"So what are we going to do?" Kellen asked.

"What Ashaniel said. Wait… and hope," Idalia said. "I know it sounds like a recipe for disaster, but the Elves have fought the Enemy before, and won. And once we see what They are going to do, we might be able to think of something creative." Now she smiled a little. "That is one of the strongest weapons we have, actually. No creature of the Enemy can match our creativity and imagination— the ancient saying is, 'The Endarkened cannot make, they can only mar.' No matter what else has happened to the Endarkened, I doubt that has changed."

THE World Without Sun was changeless and eternal. Not for its inhabitants the ceaseless erosion and decay of the seasons of the Bright World: theirs was a world of stone and darkness, utterly suited to their nature.

The Endarkened did not change. Let the Elves dwindle and fade, becoming a mockery of what they once were. Let the humans pass from savagery to senescence without ever reaching true civilization. The Endarkened would remain just as they had been at the moment that He Who h had first created them, an unchanging tribute to His foresight and wisdom.

And in the end, they would triumph, because of their unchanging nature. Because in all the millennia of their existence, they had never forgotten that they had one goal, and one goal only.

The utter destruction of all who walked in the Light.

UPON her Rising—for though adult Endarkened did not sleep, they regularly entered a sort of deep trance—Queen Savilla summoned her slaves, and as they groomed her, she heard, as was her custom, the Petitions of the Grooming Chamber. These were usually—though not always—trivial matters of a personal nature, suited to the surroundings.

But today, though she was careful to give no sign of it to her courtiers and attendants, her thoughts were not upon the endless details of her Court, but elsewhere, for the news from the Bright World was good.

Things were going especially well in Armethalieh. Conditions were deteriorating in the City, even as her human agent moved upward in influence and position, and soon—very soon, as the Endarkened reckoned things—he would be in a position to influence, if not dictate, policy on the High Council itself. Then she could move on to the next step in her plans: to bring the Golden City over to the Endarkened side, its resources intact, its people ripe to feed the Endarkened need for ever more power.

Savilla smiled inwardly. In a thousand generations of the Endarkened, such an audacious coup had never been attempted. The single largest enclave of humans in the land; an inexhaustible supply of power, slaves, and food—allying itself with the Endarkened willingly because they would have convinced themselves that all the rest of the Brightworlders were their implacable foes and only the Endarkened—the poor, misunderstood, Endarkened!—could save them.

With Armethalieh as their vassal, the Endarkened would be invincible. And all it would require would be the subjugation of the High Council—a handful of foolish humans. The High Council had turned everyone else in the Golden City into witless sheep long ago. The Armethaliehans would do whatever their Mage-masters told them to, and ask no questions.

Once the business of the Grooming Chamber had been dealt with, Savilla dismissed her attendants and headed for her Stone Garden, a lovely private monument to her past triumphs in the Endarkened's greatest art, that of torture. The Stone Garden belonged to her alone, and her subjects knew that she was never to be disturbed there.

But today was different.

Prince Zyperis stood at the gateway to the garden, obviously waiting for her.

"I wondered if I might walk with you today," he said deferentially, furling his great scarlet wings tight to his body submissively.

"Of course," Savilla said graciously. So her son and lover wanted something, did he? She was not entirely displeased. It was the way of their kind. He was a promising youngster. But the greater the promise, the greater the threat.

She offered him her arm. He took it, and the two of them passed into the garden. For a while Zyperis made idle conversation, speaking with knowledgeable pleasure about the history of her trophies, for he had been present at the collection of some of them.

Within each colored crystal, Savilla had trapped some moment of agony of one of her special victims, so that she could treasure it forever. As she and Zyperis strolled along the paths where nothing grew, she would stop occasionally to waken a stone into life with a touch of her power.

—Here, the death of the last of the bearwards. They had been formidable enemies to many of Uralesse's slave-races; strong as giants, and utterly committed to the Light. Their inroads had weakened Uralesse to the point where it had been possible for her to destroy him and take the Shadow Throne. Yet flay them of their bearskins, strip them of their magic, and they were as weak and vulnerable as any human. She had killed his mate and his cubs before his eyes, savoring their blended agony…

—There, the death of a nest of firesprites. They were difficult to torture; it had required all her creativity. But water, or better yet ice … oh, yes, that had served her very well.

The minds and souls represented here were long expended, gone to fuel her magic. But the trophies of her past triumphs remained.

Zyperis was silent for some time, conscious of the honor of being invited into Savilla's private garden. But at last, as she had known he would, he raised the true reason for his visit.

"How goes the war, my sweet Crown of Pain? I know the destruction of the Barrier was only the merest and most minor of setbacks, but since the moment when it fell, you have told me nothing," he said, pouting prettily. "I languish in ignorance that only you can remove."

"You will be pleased," Savilla said, allowing her long ivory fangs to gleam in a smile of pleasure. "Our agent in Armethalieh rises higher in the confidence of the Arch-Mage, and will soon gain a seat on the High Council itself. From there it should be a simple task for him to convince Lycaelon and the rest that we are not the true enemy, and that someone else—it hardly matters who!—has misled them all these centuries for his own fell purposes. I suspect they will pounce upon some long-dead Arch-Mage whose progeny they wish to discredit as the source of their misinformation, and proceed to purge their own histories of anything they believe to be tainted by his hand and thoughts."

Zyperis preened with delight. "Then they shall—so they think—become our allies, when in fact they will become our slaves. I have an idea, my Liege-Mother. You must convince them that there is a vast conspiracy of Wildmages ready to destroy their city, allied with the Elves. They already loathe both the Elves and the Wild Magic, and the Arch-Mage will not soon forget that his own son was Banished for dabbling in it. The combination should drive them absolutely wild. That way, we can save them from the two things they hate and fear the most— Elves and Wildmages."

"I do not think my agent will find that very difficult," Savilla said, reluctant approval in her voice.

It was a good idea—a clever idea—one more proof, if she needed it, that inevitably Zyperis would someday make a try for the Shadow Throne. So the longer she could keep him off-balance, uncertain of his ability, the longer it would take for that day to come.

"But it will take time to get him onto the Council, and time for him to eliminate his rivals," she said, as if the idea had just occurred to her. "Until his position is secure, we have to keep the Elves securely occupied with their own problems. We must keep them from managing to warn Armethalieh. How do you propose to do that?"

She stopped strolling and gazed demandingly into his eyes.

Zyperis's wings unfurled and drooped slightly, and Savilla felt a hot spark of triumph. Obviously the boy hadn't thought that far ahead.

"We could carry off their messengers," he suggested doubtfully.

"But we don't want to act openly… yet," Savilla said. "And direct opposition only strengthens the foe's will to resist. No. The Elves have no real interest in warning Armethalieh, so we will make it easy for them to avoid it. We will provide a diversion that will occupy all their energy… the sacrifice of a pawn."

"Oh, don't tease me so!" Zyperis begged. "You've had a plan all along—you know you have. Tell me what it is!"

"No," Savilla said archly. "I don't think I shall. You have not yet impressed me with your… sufficiently sincere desire to know."

THE House of Shield and Sword was located on the southern edge of the city. From his rambles with Sandalon, Kellen had gotten the impression he knew the city fairly well, but somehow this was one of the places that had never been included on their walks.

It was out beyond the firing kilns, separated from the city proper by a dense plantation of balsam-bough trees. There was no pathway through the forest; nothing to indicate that anything lay beyond the evergreens but more woodland. If Idalia had not been with him, Kellen might well have turned back at the forest's edge.

"Here you are," Idalia said, stopping at the far side of the trees. "Think you can find your way from here?"

"I… oh."

A whole pocket canyon spread out before him, its floor rich with tall grass. The forest, he realized, had been planted—and carefully tended—to screen its opening. Horses grazed loose in the meadow, their coats shiny with rain.

About halfway down the canyon floor was the House of Sword and Shield.

Like all Elven architecture, it blended in to its surroundings so harmoniously it seemed to have grown there instead of being built. Unlike the House of Leaf and Star, it was all of simple golden stone except for the roof; one story, and with the high-peaked roof making it look even lower and wider.

"Why is it out here in the middle of nowhere?" Kellen asked.

"You'll have to ask Jermayan," Idalia said, amused. "I think he's coming now."

She pointed. A rider was coming toward them. Jermayan, and Valdien.

Today the Elven Knight wore no armor at all, merely a simple tunic and leggings in green beneath his raincape, with soft boots to match, and Valdien wore only a simple halter. Elf and destrier moved as one being, and Kellen wondered absently if he could learn to ride a horse, and if he could ever manage to equal Jermayan's easy grace.