To Light a Candle

by Mercedes Lackey

  “A commander must do more than look to his mount,” Isinwen said. “Ciltesse was born in Windalorianan, among the Fields of Vardirvoshan, where, it is said, one learns to ride before one learns to walk. It is indeed true that Anganil is the finest of the available destriers, young and in his prime, while in a very few years Firareth will return to Vardirvoshan to live out his days, if Leaf and Star are with him. But he is wise, and can keep a rider safe even when such a one may be … occupied by other matters.”

  And what seemed like “a very few years” to the Elves might seem like a considerably longer time to a human, Kellen reflected. And—listening to what Isinwen did not say—he got the impression that Ciltesse’s opinion of Kellen’s horse-manship might be just a bit better than Kellen’s actual skills.

  “I am pleased with my choice. Leaf and Star grant that my choice is pleased with me.” And that I can keep him alive.

  It was a prayer that Kellen seemed to be making more and more often these days. He didn’t think he could bear the heartbreak of losing another destrier so soon.

  SOON they were riding out toward the nearer cavern. Kellen took the opportunity to get to know his new mount, and suspected that Firareth was taking his measure as well. Fortunately, between them Deyishene and Mindaerel had managed to teach him enough horsemanship for him to reassure his new mount that he did know what he was doing, and after a while he felt Firareth relax a bit.

  Idalia had contented herself with saying that she was glad to see he was looking so well. Apparently nobody was going to scold him today.

  On the other hand, he hadn’t seen Shalkan yet, though he suspected the unicorn was following them at a comfortable—for Shalkan—distance.

  When they reached the cavern, Jermayan and Ancaladar were already waiting.

  “Better go tell him what you’d like,” Idalia suggested.

  Kellen rode forward to where the enormous black dragon crouched in the snow. He was pleased to see that Firareth approached Ancaladar calmly.

  “Farneyirel would be pleased to know that Firareth has found a master who will honor him as he deserves,” Jermayan said. “He has waited long to return to the field.”

  “I think we’ll do well together,” Kellen said. “Idalia said I should instruct you on how to trigger the traps.”

  Ancaladar snorted gustily. Firareth flicked an ear, but was otherwise unimpressed. “Say, rather, you should tell us what you have seen of them. Jermayan will do the rest,” the dragon said.

  “I am so instructed,” Kellen said ironically, bowing where he sat. “Most of the ones I saw involved a trip-wire. I saw a lot of trip-wires that didn’t seem to activate any traps I could see. In some places, there was quicksand disguised as stone—that needed no trip-wire at all. In other places, there were rods sticking out of the cave walls, and if you brushed against them, jets of—something—would spurt out of the rock, or jars of acid or poison would be broken or tilted on you. In one place, there was a jet of air flowing continuously across the passage: I don’t know what would have happened if that had been interrupted. And the entire roof of the cavern village is set to collapse—it’s a huge place; I don’t know how they managed it. The trigger for that must be somewhere in the village, I think, but I didn’t go into the village to look for it.”

  “A prudent child,” Ancaladar commented. “So, Jermayan, let us snap the wires and smash the sticks, and see what comes of that.” The dragon looked up, studying the snow-covered slope of the mountain. “And I would suggest that everyone stand well back, just to be safe.”

  Kellen rode back to the others.

  “Ancaladar suggests we move back,” he told them. “And on the whole, I think we ought to be even more cautious than he suggests.”

  They retreated to the edge of the little stream. By the time they turned back, Ancaladar had moved back as well, far enough from the cavern mouth so that he’d have plenty of room to launch himself into the air quickly.

  Jermayan gestured. A spark of blue fire flew from his hand and vanished into the cavern mouth.

  For a very long time, nothing seemed to happen at all. Then the ground beneath the horses’ feet began to tremble and shake, a long low shuddering rumble that went on and on. The Elven destriers shied madly, backing into a streambed that suddenly held ice but no water, as their riders fought to steady them. Kellen could see a plume of—smoke?—dust?—steam? issuing from the cavern’s mouth, as he did his best to reassure Firareth. The destrier might be tranquil and mild-mannered, but this was something wholly unexpected. But the shaking subsided fairly quickly, and the animals steadied, though they were still restless and unhappy.

  The traps—there must have been a lot more of them than I saw, Kellen realized. And whatever spell Jermayan had used, it had set off every single one. The cavern mouth … well, it wasn’t there anymore. The ice that had covered the rock face had fallen away in large sheets, and there were deep raw cracks in the exposed granite of the cliff face as the mountain seemed to have … settled.

  I hope for their sake all the Crystal Spiders got out all right.

  “Look!” Ciltesse said, pointing.

  High above where the opening of the cavern had been, the snow on the mountain began to shift. It meant nothing to Kellen, who had never seen either snow or mountains before this winter. But others knew better.

  “Snow-spill!” Isinwen shouted. “Ride!”

  The horses needed little encouragement to run. Kellen looked back and saw Ancaladar bound into the air. The snow was halfway down the mountain face by now, spreading like a fan.

  A large fan.

  He could hear it now. A roaring, like a waterfall, but faint and far-off—for the moment.

  How much snow was on that mountain?

  Was it all coming down?

  If the entire army had not come this way the day before, breaking a deep trail in the snow that even another night’s snowfall had been unable to fill, they would not have been able to try to outrun it.

  But “try” was all they were able to do.

  The roaring now was as loud as the fury of a battle, and the wave of snow pushed wind before it. Kellen felt the rush of air at his back and braced himself even though he knew that it was the most futile of gestures—

  Then he felt the spell as it was being cast, and saw two waves of snow as high as Ancaladar’s shoulder pass them by on either side, racing along beside them as fast as a running horse. A few hundred yards further on, the force of the snow-spill was spent, but without Jermayan’s spell it would certainly have been enough to bury them all.

  The troop reined in—Kellen had been bringing up the rear—and stopped. Kellen looked back.

  There was a deep sheltering “V” in the snow along their track. Beyond that, and to either side, the snow lay white and smooth—and deep. There was no sign of the cavern mouth—or even of the cliff face.

  Ancaladar landed a few yards ahead. The dragon kicked up a great plume of snow with his landing, then settled deeply into the snow. Jermayan dismounted, and walked through the snow to Redhelwar. Kellen urged Firareth forward.

  Jermayan bowed.

  “It seems the cave was more extensively mined than anyone properly understood,” Redhelwar said.

  “Ancaladar expected a … small snow-spill,” Jermayan admitted. “He has seen them before, when the snows have been heavy. And we thought—when I sent the wind to scour the caverns—that when the roof of the village cavern collapsed there would be some disturbance, but …”

  Jermayan looked a bit shaken, and more than a little drained. Kellen was reminded, once again, that if Ancaladar’s storehouse of power was infinite, Jermayan’s energy was not. He wondered just how much energy it had taken to turn aside that wall of snow.

  “But we are all still alive thanks to you, and the caverns are gone, and so are the traps, which is what matters,” Kellen said. “And I do not think, from the way Idalia is looking at us, that either you or I will have to worry about tomorrow’s battle if yo
u do not go and rest now.”

  “So I have said,” Ancaladar said, speaking up now. “But I am a mere dragon, so of course my Bonded would not listen to me. No. We must land, and he must assure himself twice-over that what he could see with his own eyes was indeed so, and stand here in the snow when a warm fire and a hot meal is what he truly needs.”

  It was amazing, really, how much Ancaladar could sound like Shalkan when he tried, though Kellen had the impression Ancaladar was reserving the worst of his lecture for when he and Jermayan were alone.

  “Then let him go to them at once,” Redhelwar said, speaking directly to Ancaladar.

  Jermayan bowed once again, and walked back through the snow to Ancaladar.

  “Men,” Idalia said in disgust, coming up beside Kellen.

  “Wildmages,” Kellen corrected absently. “Or maybe Elven Knights. Keirasti isn’t any more sensible, and she’s a girl.”

  “‘Girl’—she’s old enough to be your grandmother,” Idalia said with a snort.

  “Great-grandmother, probably,” Kellen said agreeably. “And I suppose the Healers all take care of themselves very sensibly? Or do they work themselves until they drop, going without food and sleep when there are wounded to care for?”

  Idalia laughed, looking surprised. “You’re getting far too good at arguing, little brother. And the worst of it is, you’re right—as you know perfectly well, since you’ve worked in the Healers’ tents.”

  They ducked their heads, covering their faces as Ancaladar took off, raising a shower of snow. When the black dragon was well airborne, Dionan gave the signal, and they began to ride back toward the camp.

  “You’re sure you’re all right?” Idalia asked.

  “Fit to fight tomorrow,” Kellen told her, allowing himself just the briefest moment of preening, thinking about his new glory of armor and weaponry. “I’ll be a stunning sight, too. You just wait and see.”

  THAT night, Kellen attended the meeting of the senior commanders to plan the placement of the troops. No one had remarked about his presence at all, either for or against it. Kellen kept his mouth shut and his ears open. If he wanted to learn how to handle an army—not just set policy for it, or to react to an emergency facing it—here was the place to begin.

  Kellen had expected they would attack the farther cavern sometime during the next day, but Athan Wildmage had said that his Calling Spell needed to be timed to the moon’s appearance in the sky above the cavern mouth. The Shadowed Elves were more likely to come out at night, too, and for once they wanted them to come out.

  So the army would have one last day of grace to finish its preparations for attack. One more day to rest, to heal, to mend armor and weapons and make new ones, to plan. The trouble was, without knowing what, exactly, they were going to face, it was difficult to plan.

  Redhelwar’s decision was to divide the army into very small, very mobile, sections. It was more likely the Shadowed Elves would attack if they thought the odds looked to be in their favor. The third of the army that was to have been used to attack the nearer cavern would be kept well back and hidden until the enemy was thoroughly committed, and those who were already there had been ordered to spend the day appearing to scatter their forces, on the pretext of building a more permanent set of camps and organizing several hunting parties.

  Their strategy was founded on the hope that the Shadowed Elves were just as uncoordinated and barbaric as they had been at the first cavern. There was every possibility for the plan to turn to a disaster if the Shadowed Elves showed any organization and generalship at all. And everyone gathered in Redhelwar’s tent that night knew that every battle they’d had with the enemy thus far might be all part of one long feint: the Shadowed Elves might not actually be the feral half-animal rabble that they seemed. If that was the case, the Elven losses would be heavy tomorrow.

  But there was no way to know. Kellen’s Knight-Mage gifts couldn’t truly show the future. At best they seemed to give him a wider view of the present—he’d “seen” the attack on Ysterialpoerin because it was already in motion, and the nearer caverns had already been mined when he’d given his warning that they were too dangerous to invade. And he already knew his battle-sight could be blocked by Demonic magic.

  When it came to the outcome of tomorrow’s battle, he knew as little as Redhelwar did. The sole advantage they had was that they had not lost a third of the army to the trapped caverns. Kellen only hoped the enemy did not know that, but there was no way to be sure.

  THE following morning, he went out to say good-bye to Shalkan before taking his troop out into position. The morning meal had been lavish—the cooks had truly outdone themselves, since it was the last proper meal the fighters would probably see for a whole day at least—and Kellen was certain he was not the only one who did his best to try not to think of it as a farewell feast.

  When he buckled on his new armor for the first time—it had been waiting in his tent when he returned from the meeting the previous night—he had to admit that despite his reservations about what he could not help thinking of as its gaudiness, Artenel had done a magnificent job. As long as he didn’t look at it, it felt just like his old armor, nearly as comfortable as an ordinary suit of clothing. At that, the showy armor actually made him relax a little—it was very difficult to picture himself going out in something that looked like a fancy-dress costume to actually fight. Never mind what his head knew, his insides took one look and didn’t believe. His sword, of course … well, he’d never mistake Light at the Heart of the Mountain for his old sword, but that was not a disadvantage. The sword moved like an extension of his hand—no, his thought. And if he had to kill any more duergar, well, he’d use a spear.

  Tucking some delicacies saved from breakfast into his new surcoat, he went up to the Unicorn Knights’ camp. Even if he didn’t have much of an appetite this morning, that never seemed to hinder Shalkan.

  Though the Unicorns were posted at Ysterialpoerin now, there was a great deal of traffic back and forth between the city and their camp. Once Kellen and the others were in position, Redhelwar intended to move the units that had been guarding the cavern back to the main camp for a few hours as well. If the Shadowed Elves were watching, the more confusion about who was where, the better.

  “I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage,” a familiar voice greeted him from the edge of the Unicorn Knights’ encampment.

  “I See you, Riasen,” Kellen said. “I’ve come looking for Shalkan. I ride out to the farther cavern in a few hours, and I hoped to see him.”

  “And I back to the city.” Riasen shook his head ruefully. “I should have brought an edifying scroll or two—you cannot imagine how very dull it is there! But that’s all to the good, when one is hoping not to be attacked, of course.” He glanced out toward where the unicorns were drifting toward the camp. “One imagines Shalkan will be along in a few moments, if only to admire the fact that you have something near to proper armor at last.”

  “Urm. Yes,” Kellen replied, blinking owlishly at him.

  Riasen chuckled, and motioned to him to follow toward the center of the Unicorn Knights’ encampment. “Only think what Artenel could have done with enough time and the proper equipment—but still, no one will think badly of you. It is wartime armor, after all, and you will soon have better. And no one, indeed, could find any fault at all with your spurs and sword. Quite fitting, since you come from the sea-city.” He picked up a cup from a table inside the door of his own pavilion, and filled it from a pot steeping on the brazier there before offering it to Kellen. “Tea?”

  “I suppose it must be fitting, since the one who gifted me with them is long in years and wisdom,” Kellen said, accepting the inevitable cup of tea with real gratitude. He’d never thought of Armethalieh as a “sea-city” before. He could see the wave pattern in his sword’s quillons, but he still couldn’t make out the pattern on his spurs, even in the strongest sunlight. The stones glowed brilliantly, and he could tell there was supposed to be a patte
rn, but that was all.

  And Riasen, perfectly casually, seemed to find as much fault with his armor as Artenel had.

  “Utterly stunning,” Shalkan drawled, mincing into the center of the circle of pavilions. He struck a pose, and somehow managed to remind Kellen of some of his most dandified classmates back in Armethalieh, the ones who spent every moment they weren’t studying the High Magick arguing about clothes. “I can see I shall have to have a new saddle and armor—immediately.”

  “Barely worth putting on, I assure you,” Kellen said, doing his best to match Shalkan’s tone. “Still, Artenel does wonders with the poor resources at his command.”

  Shalkan snorted rudely. “As if you could tell the difference.”

  “Well, I can’t,” Kellen admitted, dropping the pose. “He says it’s sound where it counts, and that’s all I really care about.”

  Shalkan shook himself all over in silent laughter. “If you did live a thousand years, I still don’t think they could manage to make an Elf out of you.”

  “Probably not,” Kellen agreed.

  He finished his tea—it was cold before he was done with it, but the arid winter weather left him constantly thirsty—bowed courteously to Riasen, and followed Shalkan off beyond the circle of pavilions.

  “I see you’ve won your spurs—and gained a fine sword,” Shalkan said when they were private. Or as private as things got in a war-camp, anyway.

  “Belepheriel wanted me to have them,” Kellen told him, still a bit bemused by it all—and still worried that he might have done something wrong by Elven standards. “I hope I did the right thing by accepting them.”

  “If he hadn’t wanted you to have them, he wouldn’t have given them to you,” Shalkan said inarguably. “The way the Elves see things, you honored him by taking them. And if I do say so, you managed your way out of the whole mess fairly gracefully, all things considered.”