To Light a Candle

by Mercedes Lackey

  “That is so I do not fall off,” Jermayan said, not turning from his tea preparations. He’d heard the faint clinking, of course; Elven hearing was sharp. “It would be foolish not to take every precaution—though I am certain Ancaladar could catch me if I did fall.”

  “I could,” Ancaladar said, poking the end of his nose through the opening of the pavilion. “I would always catch you, Jermayan. And you, Lady Vestakia. But the straps are strong. And more could always be added, as many more as you thought might make you feel secure”

  “And the tea is ready,” Jermayan said, gesturing to Vestakia to come and sit beside him.

  “What will—I mean, do you know—” She stopped, frustrated by her inability to phrase her remark as anything other than a question. Kellen made it sound so easy!

  Jermayan smiled, and handed her a cup of tea.

  “For the next sennight—at the least—Redhelwar will consult with his commanders—of whom I am not one, thank Leaf and Star—to decide what tactics will serve us best when we next engage our foe. Perhaps new weapons will be needed, and those must be made, and we must train in their use, as well as in the best way of confronting the enemy. All these things will take time. And we do not know what those who oppose us may do. Should they do anything at all, our plans will change.”

  Vestakia sipped her tea. And it is all up to me. I must tell them where to go—where the enemy is. Or … not.

  She knew she was the only one who could find the Shadowed Elves. The Wildmages had all tried—even Jermayan, whose power worked so differently from that of the other Wildmages—and none of them could sense where the enclaves of the Shadowed Elves lay. Only Vestakia had the power to sense Demon-taint and find the Shadowed Elves.

  I must try. She had led Kellen to the Black Cairn, though that had been the most terrifying thing she had ever done in her life. She had gone down into the cavern of the Shadowed Elves, and that had been worse. And there had been true danger both times; the threat of immediate death from an enemy who was trying to kill her.

  But neither venture had made her sick with fear the way the thought of climbing onto Ancaladar’s back and soaring into the sky did.

  Once, when she was a child, before Mama had died, she had gone with her, accompanied by Aunt Patanene, to the Icewild River to fish. The river had been in full spring flood, and she had been far too young to be of much help, so while Mama and Aunt Nene worked the nets, she had wandered away and walked out onto the slippery river stones.

  And fallen in.

  Her heavy cloak had soaked through at once, pulling her toward the bottom, as the swift river current swept her along below the surface. Fortunately she had been upstream of the nets, so Mama and Aunt Nene had been able to rescue her before she drowned, but ever afterward she had remembered the cold of the river and the airless choking darkness.

  The thought of going up in the sky brought the memories back sharply. Flying made her think of drowning, and her heart beat faster with fear.

  If she did not agree to fly upon Ancaladar’s back, she knew, Jermayan would not rebuke her. But if she did not agree to fly, they would have to search for the caverns on foot. It would take moontums instead of sennights.

  “Do what you can do. You can do no more than that.”

  Suddenly it seemed as if Mama was beside her, speaking in her ear. Mama had always said that—and after she had died, Aunt Nene had said it for her.

  It was as if Mama had given her the right words to say now.

  “If I am … too afraid, up in the sky,” Vestakia said slowly, “then I will not be able to do what you need. But maybe … we don’t need to do it all at once? If we could just practice a little? To see if I could get used to flying?” Her voice trembled, and she stared hard down into her teacup, hoping that Jermayan could not see how terribly afraid she was to say even that much.

  “Yes, of course,” said Jermayan calmly, as if this were the simplest thing in the world. “Today you will watch me put the harness upon Ancaladar, and sit upon his back. He and I will help you get in to and out of the saddle as many times as it may take to make you feel comfortable with doing so. Then, tomorrow, as the weather will hold fine, we will take a short flight, if you like.”

  FINDING a white unicorn in a snowfield might be a difficult task, but not when you had a sticky fruit-bun left over from breakfast tucked into your tunic.

  “Is that for me?” Shalkan asked, coming up silently behind Kellen.

  “Of course it is,” Kellen said, unwrapping the treat and holding it out for his friend.

  “Um,” Shalkan said, finishing the bun in three bites. “Next time get one of the marzipan-stuffed ones. I think they’re serving them at dinner tonight.”

  “Uh-huh.” Kellen had no idea what Shalkan’s sources of information were, but they were always accurate, especially when it came to sweets. “I need to talk to you.”

  “You’re even less happy than usual—and that’s saying a lot,” Shalkan observed, falling into step beside Kellen.

  “Redhelwar offered to make me an alakomentai,” Kellen said bluntly. There was no reason to mince words, not with Shalkan. Thank heavens. At least there were a few beings in this army he didn’t have to do verbal dances with for hours before he could get to the point!

  “And you accepted? Or … not?” the unicorn asked.

  “I’d have to ride a horse! Unless—?” Kellen said hopefully.

  “No. There are limits,” Shalkan said firmly. “Which horse?”

  “He offered me Mindaerel.”

  “She’s a good choice,” Shalkan said. “Gentle and well trained. She’ll give you a lot less trouble than Valdien does. And you know how to ride. Not very well, but you probably won’t fall off.”

  “But—”

  Shalkan stopped and nuzzled him gently. “We’re not forever, Kellen. Or even for as long as a pair like Petariel and Gesade, you know. I will always be your friend, but—I will give you full honesty, here—a year and a day bonded to you will be quite enough for both of us. And we both know that if you want those stiff-necked Elves to listen to you, they’ve got to see what you’re made of. Redhelwar is offering you a good place to start. Just don’t think he’s offering you an easy one.”

  “I don’t,” Kellen said. He’d expected Shalkan to object—he realized now that part of him had been hoping that Shalkan would object. But Shalkan thought it was a good ideas as well. And that, Kellen knew, meant he was going to do it.

  . He’d ordered Jermayan around, on the way to the Black Cairn. He’d led the rescue party on the first expedition to the caverns. He knew he could do it … in the abstract. But this was all real and immediate and a little daunting. And much more formal than anything he’d ever done before. He wasn’t good at being formal: discussing tea and talking about the weather, the way the Elves seemed to expect their military leaders to do even when there was a war on. Give him something to hit with a sword, sure, he was fine, better than fine, but the rest of it …

  He’d have to learn. That was all there was to it.

  “All right. Then—since you think I should—I will,” Kellen said, taking a deep breath.

  “And don’t think you’re going to be leaving me behind if you happen to get sent off on any interesting missions, either, because that isn’t going to happen,” Shalkan said firmly. “You’d only get into trouble if I let you go off by yourself.”

  “Right,” Kellen said, feeling a bit better. So he wouldn’t be riding Shalkan, but the unicorn wasn’t going to let him go off into danger alone. “No interesting missions.”

  Shalkan snorted eloquently, switching his tail. “Just be sure to tell the armorers, so they can change Mindaerel’s colors. Oh, you’ll be quite the dazzling sight. I can’t wait.”

  “Do you want a faceful of snow?” Kellen demanded.

  “Do you think you can manage it?” Shalkan drawled archly. Before Kellen could react, the unicorn bounded forward and kicked back, sending a thick shower of snow into Kell
en’s face.

  Kellen fell backward, coughing and sputtering—and quickly assembling several snowballs to hurl, with deadly accuracy, at his friend.

  “Hah!” he cried gleefully as his missiles found their mark.

  For the moment, troubles were forgotten.

  “IF they’re going to fight the way the first ones did, there’s no point in risking Vestakia in the first assault wave,” Kellen said.

  “We do not know that they will. Nevertheless, point taken,” Adaerion responded. “We should risk Vestakia as little as possible. We dare not lose her.”

  There were days that Kellen almost felt as if he were back in the House of Sword and Shield. Mornings were spent in battlefield drill with his new command, afternoons at what seemed a never-ending series of convoluted strategy meetings that made Andoreniel’s Council look straightforward. Every time he tried to drop a hint that the Enemy wasn’t acting the way They had in the last war, the session turned into an excruciating analysis of what had and had not happened, not what the Elves were going to have to do in order to deal with it. It was enough to drive him mad.

  At least they might have something real to fight soon. Jermayan had actually persuaded Vestakia to fly with him, and they spent their days covering an expanding ring of territory centered on Ondoladeshiron. The area that they’d “cleared” was marked on a large map suspended in a frame in Redhelwar’s tent, and each day a new segment was marked off—a tiny segment, in comparison to the vastness of the Elves Lands, but far better than nothing.

  And much faster than if they’d had to do it on foot.

  After almost a sennight of meetings, Kellen knew both the komentaiia and the alakomentaiia rather well, though Redhelwar still remained an enigma to him. Of the senior commanders, Padredor, who had gone down into the caverns and faced the Shadowed Elves sword to sword, tended to favor Kellen’s suggestions, and thankfully did understand that something had to be done to ready the fighters for an entirely new sort of warfare. Adaerion was conservative, but hated to lose troops or assets for any reason, and favored cautious plans that forced the enemy to commit its resources without forcing him to commit his own. Arambor preferred to draw the enemy out with a display of supposed weakness—Kellen suspected his tactics might work fine in theory, but in practice an enemy might take a pretended weakness and turn it into a real one.

  And Belepheriel still preferred to believe that there might not be any more Shadowed Elves at all—and if there were, they could certainly be dealt with by the tactics that had served his ancestors in battle for the last several thousand years. His resistance was quiet, but firm.

  Of his new fellows-in-rank—all of whom were old enough to be his grandfather, at the very least—several had been newly raised in rank following the Battle of the Caverns, and tended to be quieter than the others. Petariel—Captain of the Unicorn Knights—and Rulorwen—Master of the Engineers—tended to be the most outspoken of the rest.

  “Vestakia is not the only one who needs protection,” Keirasti said. “Our shields serve us well against sword and mace, but not against a bucket of acid.” She winced faintly; Kellen knew Keirasti had lost many of her command in the battle at the underground village, and also knew that her long sleeves hid acid-scars and still-healing burns from that encounter.

  “I will hear suggestions for a defense,” Redhelwar said formally.

  No one spoke.

  Why didn’t they say anything? Kellen wondered, They all knew what the answer was—everyone in this room had been trained by Master Belesharon, and he would certainly have told them, just as he’d told Kellen. “If you cannot be where the blow is not, you must arrange matters so that the blow strikes something other than yourself.”

  Maybe it was some kind of weird Elven etiquette having to do with doing things the way that things had always been done. Maybe they just didn’t want to acknowledge the truth. But Kellen remembered what Rochinuviel had said: “In time of danger, new ideas must not be set aside merely because they are new.”

  “A larger shield,” Kellen said, when it became obvious nobody else was going to say anything. “They’re no use on horseback, but you’re fighting on foot in the caverns. Something large enough to hide behind.”

  “Hide! The Children of Leaf and Star do not hide,” Belepheriel objected.

  “If acid would improve your complexion, it would not improve mine,” Arambor said tartly. “Yet the crafting of such shields would be the work of moonturns.”

  “If Kellen can show me what he is thinking of, I believe my armorers can have at least a few ready within a sennight,” Artenel said. “We have seen that good Elvensteel is no defense against the vile liquids that such a shield as this must repel. If they need not be metal, then the work should go quickly.”

  “Let such shields be made,” Redhelwar said. “Bring the first one to me here as soon as it is completed.”

  The discussion moved onward. Kellen let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. Keirasti shot him a grateful look.

  Petariel edged over.

  “You’re just lucky there probably won’t be a Flower War this spring,” he whispered. “I’d hate to face Belepheriel in the field, and you’d probably lose your lance, your garlands, and your colors besides, Knight-Mage or no.”

  Kellen nodded politely. He had absolutely no idea what Petariel was talking about.

  Seventeen

  On the Wings of Dragons

  It’s beautiful!” Vestakia shouted over the rush of the wind. Jermayan nodded, and Ancaladar laughed aloud, his deep voice booming through the sky.

  Today was the sixth day they’d flown, and every day she grew to love it more. She couldn’t imagine now why she’d feared it so. Even riding behind Jermayan, there was a freedom and a solitude here, and she hadn’t realized how much she’d longed for it. She’d been alone for so much of her life that she’d not only grown used to it, that solitude had become a part of her fundamental nature. Living in the densely-populated city of Sentarshadeen—and then in the even-more-crowded war camp—she’d yearned for something like this far more than she’d realized.

  In the beginning she’d been constantly afraid that she’d fall off. Her first flights were only minutes long, and had left her shaking and sweat-drenched, but stubbornly determined to master her fear. And suddenly the moment had come when she was not afraid; when she could look around her and see the wonder of the world below as only birds—and dragons—saw it.

  And then their true work had begun.

  Each morning Vestakia dressed in her warmest furs—by now she had special clothing just for flying—and rode her palfrey to the orchard where Jermayan and Ancaladar waited. They flew throughout the day, landing once or twice to eat and brew tea, for it was cold up in the high sky.

  As they flew, Vestakia concentrated on the ground below, willing herself to be aware of any hint of Demon-taint. But as one day followed the next and she felt nothing, Vestakia began to wonder if—though none of them thought it possible—her Gift really wouldn’t work from the air.

  Then, suddenly, today, she felt it. A thick queasiness at the pit of her stomach. She drew a deep breath, grateful as she had never been before to feel the onset of the misery that signaled that Demon-taint was near. And she was even more grateful to realize by the way she felt that it was not just that she was high above that attenuated the sensation. She tapped Jermayan’s shoulder and pointed. North.

  He nodded, and Ancaladar veered off in that direction.

  Because they were moving so fast, the nausea swiftly worsened, and soon Vestakia was gasping and shuddering, clutching with mittened hands at the raised cantle before her.

  “Down there—” she gasped, knowing that either Jermayan or Ancaladar would be able to mark the spot close enough for the army to find it. “Ah!” The yelp was torn from her as they passed directly over the site.

  She expected the pain to begin to fade immediately as they flew away from the spot, but to her dismay, it didn’t. �
��Keep going!” she choked out.

  Ancaladar had begun to swerve back toward Ondoladeshiron. There was a slight bobble as he returned to his original course, and Vestakia whimpered as the pain began to increase again.

  “There …” she whispered. It was the last thing she remembered.

  Some time later she realized she was no longer in the sky. She was sitting on a blanket, leaning back against Ancaladar’s side. No matter how cold it was, the dragon’s body was always warm, like summer-warmed rocks. It was as if he radiated sunlight.

  She took a deep breath. Her chest hurt.

  The light brightened as Ancaladar folded his wing back.

  “She’s awake,” Ancaladar said softly.

  “I know I’m awake,” Vestakia said, feeling slightly cross. “And at least we know it works.”

  “We do indeed,” Jermayan said, folding her hands around a cup of hot sweet tea and helping her raise it to her lips. “And while I am grateful for the news, it is perhaps somewhat distressing to learn that we have not one, but two enclaves within a short day’s ride of one another to deal with … and both of them very close to Ysterialpoerin, most ancient of the Elven cities.”

  “That isn’t good, is it?” Vestakia said, after a pause.

  “No,” Ancaladar assured her. “There really isn’t any way to make news like that sound good. But we’re very glad to have it, all the same.”

  SINCE Idalia worked with strong and sometimes toxic chemicals in her salves and potions, Kellen had brought her into the discussion with Artenel. The Elven armorer already knew the shape of the shield Kellen wanted—long and square, but curved for strength.

  But what to make it out of was another question.

  “Metal’s right out,” Idalia had said frankly. “Acid will eat right through it. Glass is best to stop acid.”