To Light a Candle

by Mercedes Lackey

  “That’s enough.”

  Cilarnen looked up, to find Kardus standing in the snow behind him. The Centaur Wildmage had a large canvas bag slung over one shoulder, and a knife in one hand.

  “Bolt the door, or the goats will get in among the fodder and gorge until they burst.” As he spoke, he began cutting the braided lengths of straw that bound the fodder-shocks together. “Then help me spread this over the snow, or the strong will keep the weak away from the food.”

  By the time the dogs brought the herds back, Kardus and Cilarnen had covered the snow with hay, and both sheep and goats settled to browsing contentedly. Kardus reached into his bag and pulled out several large brown loaves. He tossed one to each of the waiting dogs, who were standing by expectantly. As they gulped them down, Cilarnen saw that the loaves were meat and bread mixed together, obviously what the dogs were used to receiving.

  “I told Toria I would see to the flocks today,” Kardus said. “But I see you got here first.”

  “I’d done the stables,” Cilarnen said. “I didn’t think anyone would have thought about the other animals yet.”

  “They have thought,” Kardus said. “But there are many dead and injured, and not enough hands to do the work.”

  My friends are dead, Cilarnen thought bleakly, feeling his throat tighten and eyes sting again. And everyone in Stonehearth had lost friends. It was a small village. Everyone knew everyone else.

  “Kardus—why did the … Demon … come here? Do you know? Tell me!”

  But the Centaur Wildmage only shook his head wordlessly.

  “CAN anyone tell me,” Savilla asked with spurious mildness, “just why there was an open attack on that grubby Centaur village?”

  Her highest-ranking nobles were gathered before her in the formal Audience Chamber, where she had summoned them as soon as the word of Yethlenga’s attack upon Stonehearth had reached the World Without Sun. She did not know why he had attacked—and she could not ask him before she killed him, for the Lightborn had managed, not merely to defeat him, but to destroy him.

  To destroy one of the eternal, beautiful children of He Who Is.

  For that they would pay in the last full measure of pain and despair, but Savilla would not hurry either her pleasures or her vengeance.

  Her own spies ranged freely and far, wherever magic and ancient land-wards did not constrain them. She had agents—both Endarkened and otherwise—in the Wild Lands—but Yethlenga had not been one of them. Her creatures knew better than to risk her displeasure by showing themselves openly, no matter what the personal cost.

  “I will know what I will know,” Savilla said dangerously.

  She sat upon the Shadow Throne, dressed in scarlet as red as her skin and white as pure as shattered, aged bleached bone. There was utter silence. No one dared to speak, even though their Queen had asked a question.

  “Highness.” Prince Zyperis broke the silence at last, crawling forward and bending low before her, wings tightly furled in submission. “Yethlenga’s action goes so strangely against your wise counsel that perhaps it was only … childish foolishness.”

  “And so you would excuse it?” Savilla hissed. She reached out with one foot and placed it on his shoulder, digging in with her talons until the blood flowed.

  Zyperis raised his head to meet her gaze, though the movement opened deeper gouges in his back. “Never. Only beg that you question those who will give you proper answers, my Queen,” he said softly. “Ask those who have been his companions and servants. If they knew his plans, and did not tell you, that is treason, and must be properly punished.”

  Savilla straightened, and pushed Zyperis away from her with a kick that sent him sprawling, bending his wings painfully beneath him. She waved him to his feet with a languid gesture.

  “Rise, all of you. Chamberlain, bring Yethlenga’s household here to me. Now.”

  Soon an odd assortment of beings were ushered into the Audience Chamber—several Lesser Endarkened, the squat misshapen cousins of their greater brethren; a collection of humans, and a blind Centaur. All knelt immediately.

  “Your master, Yethlenga, is dead,” Savilla said without preamble. “Your lives and fortunes depend on what you can tell me now. I will reward truth, and punish lies.”

  “Great Queen, we will tell you everything,” one of the Lesser Endarkened said. “And so will the vermin.”

  The slaves knew very little, but the questioning of the servants produced the names of two of Yethlenga’s companions: Anilpon and Iroth.

  And when the slaves were sent to the Pits to await new masters, and Anilpon and Iroth were sent for, they could not be found.

  “Where are they?” she demanded of her chamberlain.

  “We are searching for them, Queen Savilla,” Vixiren, underbutler to her household, said.

  The tension in the Audience Chamber eased, just a fraction, now that Savilla’s wrath had found a new target.

  “It is nearly as good as a confession,” Zyperis suggested.

  Savilla glanced sharply at her son. He had been brave today, speaking out and risking her wrath. But had it merely been an attempt to divert attention from himself? Had Yethlenga been one of Zyperis’s spies? Was this a conspiracy, and Anilpon and Iroth its other members?

  Perhaps.

  And perhaps not.

  She did not think Zyperis was ready to challenge her just yet. And the attack upon Stonehearth had been—as he’d pointed out—strange. There was nothing to gain from killing a few Centaurs and terrorizing an isolated collection of mud huts. Zyperis would never make such a foolish mistake.

  But was it so foolish?

  Something at Stonehearth had been capable of killing one of the Endarkened.

  And now she might never know what it had been.

  “YOU have to know,” Cilarnen pleaded.

  “I do not lie to you when I tell you I do not,” Kardus said. “I have traveled far—even into the Lost Lands, where the Dark Folk—as they call them there—raid among the folk as foxes among hares. But never have they come this far south since the end of the Great War. It is true that Andoreniel calls us to fight in honor of the ancient Treaties, but the Elves have seen only Their work, and Their creatures in the Elven Lands, not They Themselves.”

  “But one was here. And it said that They have agents in Armethalieh,” Cilarnen repeated stubbornly, holding on to what he knew. So much of what Kardus was telling him simply didn’t make sense to him, and he was really afraid to ask for an explanation.

  What was the Great War? When had it been? Did it have anything to do with Armethalieh? Did that mean the Elves and Demons had fought before? What did that have to do with humans?

  “Perhaps that is why the humans there would not heed the Elves, when they tried to warn them,” Kardus said. “I do not know. Perhaps Kellen Wildmage will know. We will ask him when we see him.”

  Would Kellen even care what happened to Armethalieh? Somehow Cilarnen doubted it.

  Still, he had to try.

  He turned and followed Kardus back toward the gate.

  AT the end of three more days, the small party left Stonehearth, heading for the Elven lands.

  They left a badly damaged village behind them—and far too many dead—but in the days before they left, Wirance sent messages to the nearest villages, and help—in the form of food, supplies, and hands to help with the rebuilding—would soon arrive.

  If it had been at all possible, Comild, Wirance, and the others would have waited until the others arrived. Nearly a third of the surviving Centaur soldiers were too badly injured to travel with them. But Kardus thought that Cilarnen’s news must be brought before the Elves without delay, and Cilarnen reluctantly agreed, little though he wanted to meet the Elves.

  And everyone agreed it was too dangerous for the two of them to travel alone.

  Sarlin had given him a horse to ride. It was one of the draft horses—there was nothing else available in the Centaur village—but it was better than walking
. She’d insisted he take it.

  “YOU’VE already done so much for me,” Cilarnen had said when she offered him the horse. She was the Lady of Stonehearth now, and the responsibility weighed heavily on her young shoulders, but there was no one else to take it up. She had put aside her grief to take charge of the preparations for their leaving, gathering together supplies from the remains of the village’s stores, finding clothing and armor for those whose possessions had been destroyed, making sure Cilarnen had proper clothing for the journey. Wirance had his own mount, of course—a sure-footed mule, the preferred form of transportation in the High Hills, especially in winter—but Cilarnen needed something other than his own two feet, or they’d not arrive at their goal until spring.

  “You took me in, you and—and Grander, and Marlen—” His throat closed, and he swallowed hard. “I never told them … I never told you …”

  Sarlin hugged him hard. “Oh, hush now, City-man! We knew. Hyandur told us how they’d hurt you there—how they’d killed all your friends, and worked their evil spells on you, and chased you off with their horrible stone dogs, and still you wouldn’t say a thing against them because they were kin. That would put anybody off! And you worked hard for us, and never complained, and then … you saved our lives. You did. Wirance told us. The Herdsman gave you your magic back, and you saved us. The least we can do is give you a proper four legs to get on with.”

  “Oh, Sarlin!” Cilarnen said, caught halfway between laughter and tears. “I promise I’ll come back—and I’ll take good care of Tinsin, I will. I wish—”

  “I wish Papa had been here to see this day,” Sarlin said softly. “He always knew you’d amount to something, City-man. But go on with you. You’ve plenty to do to get ready. And don’t worry about us. You won’t know, being City-folk the way you are, but farming folk are tough. We’ll get through this. We’ll get a crop in the ground come spring—and come you back by Harvest, you’ll see us doing well.”

  “I believe that, Sarlin. And we’ll make sure you can,” Cilarnen vowed.

  He wasn’t sure who “we” was—though it felt right to say it. Not the High Mages. They didn’t care what happened to the folk of the Wild Lands—and they twice didn’t care if those folk didn’t happen to be human. And he wasn’t sure—yet—whether the Elves cared either. But even if it was only he and Kardus—for Cilarnen knew by now that the Centaur Wildmage cared about all his people—Cilarnen would do his very best to see that Sarlin and her people were left to live their lives in peace.

  “Be sure you do,” Sarlin said, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Now go your ways.”

  THEY departed laden with small gifts: a packet of pastries, a skin of last year’s mead, a well-wrapped honeycomb.

  One thing that Cilarnen did not take with him was his phial of headache syrup. It had been nearly empty the day of the banquet, and Stonehearth’s Healer had been one of those killed in the Demon’s attack.

  Even if she had not been, Cilarnen had the strong suspicion that his headaches had been linked to whatever had been blocking his Gift, for since it had returned, the one time he’d automatically taken a dose of the cordial, it had made him as sick as if he’d taken an overdose of it, and he’d given the rest of it to Sarlin for the use of the wounded.

  Perhaps the headaches were gone for good.

  THE entire village—or so it seemed—turned out the morning they left to see them off. Cilarnen was kissed and hugged and back-slapped by nearly everyone in the village—all of whom seemed to know some version of his role in the destruction of the Demon—until Cilarnen was grateful to clamber up on Tinsin’s back and put himself beyond their reach. He wasn’t sure how to gracefully ask them to stop thanking him when he felt deep down inside that they should be yelling at him for not helping sooner.

  The big grey mare was not the ideal mount. She was a draft horse, not used to having a rider. Cilarnen had practiced with her a few times in the past two days, and she’d come to accept the idea of having someone on her back, but not to like it. A set of tack had quickly been cobbled together—really just a riding pad and stirrups—but though he’d be in no danger of falling off, Cilarnen could already tell he was going to be sore at the end of the day’s ride.

  It would still be better than walking.

  Comild gave the signal, and the troop trotted out through the gates of Stonehearth.

  THEY stopped several hours later to eat and rest, at least partly for the benefit of the two humans, who were grateful for the chance to dismount and stretch their own legs for a change. Not that Cilarnen’s legs hadn’t been stretched already—quite too much, as a matter of fact, straddling the draft horse’s wide barrel.

  As he’d been riding, Cilarnen had been thinking about the future for a change. All the long sennights he’d been in Stonehearth, he now realized, he’d thought no further than his tasks for the day.

  But the Demon’s attack had changed everything. It wasn’t just that he had his Gift back—though that was part of it—or finding out that the City he still loved, despite all it had done to him, was in terrible danger. It was that somehow the world had become much larger than he’d ever imagined it could be, and he needed to find where he belonged in it, and what he could offer it.

  There were his Magegifts, of course, and as much training as he possessed. More than his tutors had suspected, of course, but how much use was it here, outside the City?

  His Gift was fairly useless without the appropriate apparatus. Much of that he could make, with the proper resources, but it was unlikely he’d have access to them anytime soon. High Magick was so very complicated …

  But there was one item he might be able to make right here, and it was absolutely essential, the first of all tools.

  At their rest stop, he waited until everyone was finished eating, and then sought out Kardus. He found Kardus less intimidating than Wirance—he and the Centaur Wildmage seemed to be bound together, somehow, though Cilarnen still didn’t understand Kardus’s talk of Knowings and Tasks, any more than he’d understood when Wirance told him that magick had to be paid for. Commons paid for magick, not Mages.

  “Kardus,” he said, walking over to the Centaur. “Is there an ash tree around here anywhere?”

  The Centaur Wildmage regarded him curiously. They were stopped in a forest of young trees, their branches winter-bare.

  Cilarnen shrugged when Kardus said nothing. “I wouldn’t know one tree from another. Is any of these an ash tree? Or a willow?”

  “Willow trees grow best near water,” Kardus said with a gentle smile. “But there is an ash here. I will take you.”

  He led Cilarnen away from the others, stopping before a slender tree with smooth grey bark, which looked pretty much like every other tree in the woods to Cilarnen. “And now?” the Centaur asked.

  “I need a straight length of wood about as long as my arm and as thick as my thumb,” Cilarnen said, gazing up at the tree. There seemed to be some suitable branches, but they were fairly high up. “Living wood.”

  And I have now merited Banishment all over again, speaking of the secrets of the Art with a non-Mage. Oh, well. They’ll have to catch me before they can Banish me, Cilarnen thought with bleak humor.

  Kardus reached out and put his palm against the trunk of the tree. “Dryad, if you sleep here, know that we do not ask this lightly. We will take only what we need, and use it well. I promise you this.” He turned to Cilarnen. “Climb and cut. Take only what you need.”

  One of the gifts that the folk of Stonehearth had pressed upon Cilarnen at his leavetaking was a good heavy knife, more than capable of cutting through a tree branch if he was careful. But getting up the tree looked like more of a problem. At last, Cilarnen managed to reach the branch he was after by standing on Kardus’s shoulders and clinging to the slender trunk of the ash for dear life.

  That left him only one free hand. It would have been easier to just saw away a big cluster of branches near the trunk, and then take what he nee
ded after it had fallen to the ground. He started to do that, but then he remembered Kardus’s words.

  He’d spoken to the tree. As if there might be something alive inside.

  As if dryads were real.

  Demons were real. Maybe dryads were more than Illusory Creatures.

  Cilarnen hesitated, then adjusted the placement of his knife, reaching far out along the branch and feeling the strain in his shoulder as he stretched. At last the length of wood he wanted eased free.

  And Cilarnen, caught off-balance, fell sprawling into the snow.

  He landed flat on his back, winded but unhurt—the snow was thick, and he hadn’t fallen all that far.

  He staggered to his feet, brushing snow from his clothes. He’d dropped both the branch and the knife, of course, but the knife had made a deep hole in the snow crust where it had fallen, and the branch was sticking up out of the snow like an arrow. He picked them up.

  “Now you must thank the tree, for giving so graciously of herself,” Kardus said.

  “Is there really a dryad in there?” Cilarnen asked cautiously, turning toward the tree.

  “I do not know. I do not have the magic to see her if she is there,” Kardus said, a little wistfully. “And this would be her season to sleep, in any event. But it is always proper to give thanks for the bounty of forest and field—and to the Otherfolk, even if you cannot see them.”

  Cilarnen nodded. “Thank you, dryad,” he said to the tree. “I really need this.” He felt strange talking to a tree—but then, he’d felt equally strange talking to Centaurs not so very long ago.

  “Good,” Kardus said approvingly.

  Cilarnen looked down at the length of wood in his hands. It looked nothing like the polished, elegant tool he had used back in the City. “I need to trim this,” he muttered under his breath.

  He found an outcropping of rock and used it to steady the branch while he trimmed the ends flat. He carefully cut away all the tiny twiglets sticking out from it, measured it against his arm, and trimmed again.