To Light a Candle

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Of course they are,” Idalia said, with an assurance she hadn’t felt until that moment, and with affection and love flowing over into her voice. “And now we’ll go home.”

  “I’ll help,” Shalkan said. “I’m not sure Kellen remembers where it is. And even if he does, I’m not sure he could get there without deciding to lie down on the path for a nap. Which would severely inconvenience anyone else who needed to walk there.”

  Kellen grinned tiredly, but did not contradict his friend.

  Idalia brought Kellen’s cloak, then Kellen swung his leg over Shalkan’s bare back, and the three of them made their way to the small house Kellen shared with Idalia. Morusil accompanied them for part of the distance, until his path diverged from their own.

  This time, Kellen didn’t even mind the rain.

  No one seemed to take any particular notice of them. Elves were tactful in that way.

  “HERE we are.”

  Kellen was nearly asleep by the time they reached their door. He blinked at it in surprise.

  Everything looked different—familiar and strange at the same time. While he’d been gone, Sentarshadeen had taken on something of the aspect of a dreamworld in his mind; something too good to be true. But here it was again, as real as the rocks in the road. He took a deep breath and swung his leg over Shalkan’s back.

  “I’ll see you later,” Shalkan said. “Get some sleep.” When the unicorn was sure Kellen was steady on his feet, he turned neatly on the path before the door and trotted delicately away.

  Idalia opened the door, and Kellen hurried to get in out of the rain.

  “Rain. It’s been raining since we started back. It’s raining now. Doesn’t it ever stop?” he asked, yawning as he walked inside. Everything was just as he’d left it, with the addition of a cloak-tree and drip-pan just inside the door. Kellen hung his sodden cloak on the highest peg, stretching and yawning again.

  “Eventually,” Idalia promised. “Normally I’d suggest a hot bath before bed, but frankly, I don’t think you’ll stay awake through it—and I’d hate for you to drown after all my hard work. Why don’t you get out of those damp leathers and into your nice dry bed? You’ll need to sleep off that Healing. And then we can talk.”

  Kellen nodded, heading toward his room. Bed! His own bed! And it would be dry, and warm, and he would not have to drag himself out of it at first light for sword practice, or another long day in the saddle …

  With a mumbled thanks to Idalia, he slid back the door and walked inside.

  The bed was turned down and waiting for him. Everything had been changed to autumn colors; there was a new bed-robe laid out, and—Kellen grinned to himself—towels as well. He sat down on the bench beneath the window and pulled off his clothes, toweling himself thoroughly dry afterward.

  Even in the exhaustion that was the aftermath of the Healing spell, every time he used his hands he felt an enormous pang of relief. Just to pick something up, to close his hands, to look down and see, not numb bandage-covered lumps, but ten healthy responsive pink fingers was almost enough to rouse him to wakefulness again—almost. He’d lived with the fear for so long, that—because of the way they’d been burned, by magic—there’d be nothing Idalia would be able to do to Heal him.

  But now that was all over. He was fine. Better than fine. Healed.

  Time to move on to the next crisis, Kellen told himself, stumbling toward the bed.

  He was asleep before he’d pulled the covers up over himself.

  A few minutes after Kellen disappeared into his room, Idalia looked in. She found Kellen’s clothing strewn all over the floor, and Kellen asleep like a hibernating bear. She smiled faintly to herself and went to brew tea.

  She was tired, but not tired enough to seek her own bed. There had been several present to share the cost of the Healing, and so the physical cost to her had been minimal. Normally, she would have also had a price to pay …

  But not this time, apparently.

  Idalia frowned. She’d never heard of such a thing before, but Wildmages didn’t run to libraries of books setting down the accumulated lore of Wildmages past. For one thing, the Wild Magic itself was fluid and ever-changing, and the way things had happened in the past wasn’t the way things would necessarily happen in the future.

  As it seems I’ve just proven. Ah, well, if there are explanations to be had, I suppose I’ll find them in the Books of the Wild Magic.

  Once the water was hot and her tea was steeping, she went to her room and got out her three Books.

  The Book of Moon, The Book of Sun, and The Book of Stars were the three Books every Wildmage possessed. The Books were magical in themselves, and once they had found their Wildmage, they could not be separated from him or her by any means save the death of the Wildmage. Nor could they be destroyed. In them was everything a Wildmage needed to know in order to set their feet on the path of the Wild Magic, and a lifetime was not enough time to master their contents.

  Idalia sat in the front room and read, drinking tea and listening to the rain. Though she found comfort in the familiar pages, she found very little in the way of enlightenment about what had happened when she’d healed Kellen. There was no gift—no magic—without payment. That was the way the world worked. All magic—whether the Wild Magic, the High Magick of Armethalieh, or the Shadow Magic of the Endarkened—had to be paid for, either in advance, with stored personal energy, or afterward, with a Mageprice—or sometimes both. Any attempt to subvert that Balance led to disastrous consequences: it was just such a temptation that the Endarkened had offered to the Wildmages during the Great War—a temptation to which some of them had succumbed, that of power without price.

  So why had she not been asked for payment?

  If the question bothers you enough, ask, she told herself, putting down The Book of Stars. She picked up her cup of now-cold tea, frowning down into its bowl.

  Subconsciously, she realized she had been waiting for something.

  No, not something.

  Someone.

  Jermayan.

  Surely he ought to have been here by now?

  “Fool,” Idalia muttered under her breath. She’d been sitting here like a maiden in a wondertale, expecting Jermayan to come to her just because she’d changed her mind—but after the thorough job she’d done of driving him away when she and Kellen had first come to Sentarshadeen, if there was to be a reconciliation, the first move in that dance would have to be hers.

  She retreated to her room again, opened her desk, and penned a brief message.

  There were times when it was distinctly advantageous to be a Wildmage, and this was one of them. She went out into her garden, and sent out a silent call.

  She’d expected a bird to come to her call, but it was raining, and birds did not fly in the rain unless they must. To her surprise, a sleek white hound appeared, cocking his head alertly and regarding her curiously, tail wagging slowly.

  He was no masterless animal—his smooth coat and the collar about his neck told her that much—but was apparently willing to take time from his own pursuits to do her a favor. And his price was easy enough to meet: a slice of meat-pie from her larder satisfied him. She tucked her note into his collar and secured it with a ribbon. And then, she sat down to wait.

  JERMAYAN arrived with admirable promptness. He was dressed in blue and silver, his waist-length hair elaborately braided with long silver cords that had a tiny teardrop of midnight-blue lapis at the end of each. They matched the larger drops of lapis that hung from each ear, his cloak-brooches, his rings, and the lustrous bloom of the deep-piled silk-velvet breeches tucked into butter-soft high-heeled boots that swept extravagantly all the way to mid-thigh.

  His tunic was a pale grey heavy silk brocade oversewn with thousands of beads of crystal and moonstone in a seemingly-random pattern meant to mimic a shower of raindrops. The latest fashion among the Elves was clothing that looked as if it was wet when it wasn’t. Idalia was impressed—the man had barely been her
e half a day and was already leading the style.

  “Be welcome in my home and at my hearth,” she said, meaning the words as she had never meant them before.

  Jermayan shook out his cloak—wet with real raindrops—and hung it on the cloak-tree, and set his rainshade—blue and silver, of course—beside it.

  “Well met, Idalia. It is good to be welcome in the home of friends.”

  “Kellen is asleep,” Idalia said, decoding the unspoken question with the ease of long practice. “The Healing went well, and he is restored to complete health; a good, long sleep and a few decent meals will complete the Healing, leaving him as hale as when he left here.”

  “That makes good hearing,” Jermayan said. “Then he will be ready to resume his lessons soon. There is much yet for him to learn in the ways of a Knight-Mage.”

  And so little time for any of us!

  “I would offer you tea,” Idalia said in a faintly-strangled voice, turning toward the stove that stood tucked neatly into one corner of the room. “And it would be interesting to know how Vestakia finds Sentarshadeen as well.”

  But Jermayan did not answer, and the silence stretched as Idalia set the kettle on the stove to heat, and rinsed and filled the Elvenware teapot with several measures of Autumn Rain tea.

  Why didn’t he say anything? If he were angry with her for any reason, he would not have come, so that could not be the reason. Could something have happened to Vestakia?

  Darkness damn all notions of Elven propriety! If he didn’t explain himself soon she was going to break down and ask him.

  Idalia turned around—why was it so hard to face him, now of all times?—and found that Jermayan had not moved away from his position near the door. He was standing, watching her with that utter Elven stillness, his face expressionless. She forced herself to meet his eyes.

  “Idalia, you once played our courtly games far better than this. Now you are as awkward in our ways as Kellen is,” Jermayan said, very gently. “You have changed your mind. Perhaps you would show kindness to one who is your brother’s friend and who has always ��� meant you well.”

  She forced herself to take one step away from the table, then another, noting with a distant measuring part of herself that her legs trembled. Why was this so hard? There was no place in a Wildmage’s life for dishonesty and false pride. She had abandoned those things—she thought she had—years before.

  And because that was true, she knew the reason now. She’d taken risks that mattered before. She’d hazarded her life and her safety. But not her heart. Before, she’d only offered up her life, or a Wildmage’s honor … not something that, if everything went wrong, would leave her whole in body, able to mourn and suffer, without even the chill consolation that she’d done it all in the name of Service.

  Because she was doing this for herself.

  “Idalia?” Jermayan asked. A question. She felt her face quirk in an uncertain smile. She held out her hand.

  His fingers closed over hers. Warm, when his touch had always been so cool before.

  “Because—when you were gone—I realized that we’re all going to die.”

  Jermayan’s fingers tightened over hers.

  “No, it isn’t magic, not a vision, don’t worry. Just common sense. You’re an Elven Knight—”

  She felt him relax. Looking up, Idalia could see that he smiled. She let him draw her closer.

  “My heart, I have been an Elven Knight since before your grandparents met,” Jermayan said.

  “And I am a Wildmage,” Idalia agreed. “And never in either of our lifetimes has Shadow Mountain begun moving so actively against our peoples. You know, and I know, we’re going to war. Kellen destroyed the Barrier. Shadow Mountain won’t stop because of that; if anything, it will speed their plans. Of all of the creatures of Light that the Shadow hates the most, the Wildmages and Elven Knights are at the top of the list of those first to be destroyed.”

  “Yes,” Jermayan said, meeting her gaze steadily, “I fear that you are correct. And so you think I will die before you, and for this reason you are at last willing to hear the counsel of my heart.”

  No, Idalia thought, closing her eyes for a moment. But I think you will not survive me long enough to grieve overmuch.

  “I think I have been foolish to throw away the chance for joy,” Idalia said softly. “And I thank the Gods that I have been given a second chance.”

  She went into his arms willingly, as she had not since the day she had first realized he loved her, and such felt a sense of peace and joy well up as she had never experienced outside of the Wild Magic.

  “Then let it be so, Idalia,” Jermayan said. “And if I do not share your optimism at the length of my life, it is no matter—I shall surrender upon any terms you set. Now be merciful in your victory, and grant one concession more: name the day upon which we may be wed.”

  IDALIA only barely managed to keep from recoiling in horror from Jermayan’s words. Taking Jermayan as her lover was one thing. But marriage … ?

  Elves had given up their share in the greater Magics long ago in exchange for peace and long lives. But they had had many, many years in which to learn to use the small magics they yet possessed in the most effective way possible, and some of them were very potent. Elves mated for life. None of the Elvenkind would offer marriage to someone that they did not recognize a soul-bond with, and when they wed, one of the purposes of the ceremony was to strengthen that soul-bond with those small magics, binding the partners together body, mind, heart, and soul.

  If she married him—perhaps if she did so much as accept his betrothal pendant—they would be linked. It was not impossible that Jermayan would have a certain amount of access to her thoughts—including, possibly, knowledge of the price she had accepted to bring the weather down safely to Sentarshadeen.

  And that was something she didn’t dare allow.

  “Not yet,” Idalia said firmly. “A proper wedding takes time to plan, Jermayan!” she added, making her voice light. “You are no lowly herb-tender, to expect to leap a broom with your chosen goose-girl and call it done! You have an obligation to Sentarshadeen and to your liege to create an occasion that all may treasure in memory!”

  This time she blessed Elven custom for its intricacies. Jermayan would have to ask permission of the King and Queen, who would in turn have to debate this—for Idalia was human, and while such marriages were not unknown, they were rare. He would have to arrange for the appropriate sort of wedding, and it would have to be a very public occasion. And by the time even half of that was accomplished—

  Sentarshadeen might well be a city under siege, and such considerations as weddings would be forgotten.

  “Time—and perhaps fair weather and dry,” Jermayan teased. “And I do not doubt that we will find other things to beguile us during the moonturns of waiting …”

  HE’D thought he’d heard voices.

  Kellen awoke, disoriented by the unfamiliar sensation of sleeping in a warm dry bed. For a moment he couldn’t remember where he was, or how he’d gotten here, but then the memories slipped into place. Sentarshadeen. Home. He felt better than he had in sennights. No bruises, no torn half-healed muscles. And his hands—his hands. He stretched, luxuriating in the feeling that there was nothing whatsoever wrong.

  He’d definitely heard voices.

  And he was hungry. Hungry enough to eat—if not Valdien, then something of approximately the same size as Jermayan’s warhorse, and he wouldn’t really care how thoroughly it was cooked, either. He knew it was the aftereffect of the healing Idalia had performed on him, but that didn’t make him any less hungry. He only hoped the larder was well stocked.

  He belted on the heavy overtunic he’d worn home, too hungry to stop and look for the bedrobe he remembered seeing, and slid back the door into the common room.

  Jermayan and Idalia were there.

  Both of them.

  Together.

  And from the look of things, they had definitely se
ttled their differences.

  Kellen retreated quickly, feeling his cheeks flush, and slid the door shut a shade too forcefully, leaning against it. His hunger was momentarily forgotten.

  He felt himself growing hot with embarrassment. He stared around the room, and as he did, he saw a bowl of fruit and a carafe on the bedside table. He walked over to it, discovering that there was not. only fruit, but a plate of cheese pastries covered by a cloth. The carafe contained cider.

  See? Kellen told himself, sitting down on the edge of the bed and biting into a pastry. There’s food in here. You don’t need to go out there.

  In fact, he thought he might not ever go out there again …

  There was a faint rattle as the door slid open again.

  “You can come out now,” Idalia said, stifled laughter in her voice. “It’s safe. I promise. And we wouldn’t want you to starve to death in here.”

  Kellen got to his feet, setting the remaining half of the second pastry back on the plate and brushing crumbs from the front of his robe. He thought of all the things he could possibly say, and decided not to say any of them. They were all simply too horribly embarrassing, especially with Idalia looking at him that way and obviously trying so hard not to laugh.

  “I wish both of you all happiness,” Kellen said instead. He was surprised—both to find that he meant it, and that it was exactly the right thing to say.

  THE following evening a formal banquet was held to officially welcome Kellen and Jermayan home to Sentarshadeen.

  Kellen spent the day preceding it indoors. He had a choice, or so Idalia told him that morning. He could stay inside. By Elven standards of etiquette, that would mean he was not officially “here,” and no one would bother him.

  Or he could go out. But once he crossed his doorstep, he’d be fair game, and though the Elves were notoriously—and unfailingly—polite, they also lived to gossip, and he would probably be the center of more attention than he liked.