To Light a Candle

by Mercedes Lackey

  It was needed, Jermayan thought, as he and Ancaladar were hurled across the clouds. Forgive me.

  Ancaladar fought for altitude, his wings straining in their sockets, and after a desperate battle they were above the storm, soaring through calm winds and sunlight as sheets of ice crackled and fell from the dragon’s great wings. Jermayan looked down at the roiling cauldron of black snowheavy clouds that filled the Ysterialpoerin valley. It was snowing now, a blizzard that would not spend itself easily or quickly. And though snow would not quench the Shadowed Elves’ burning metal, nothing else would burn. The damage to the forest would not spread.

  “Not an elegant execution,” Ancaladar said at last, sounding both amused and breathless. “But effective. Are you well, Bonded?”

  “I shall be better when the enemy is vanquished,” Jermayan said. “Though I wish it did not have to be. Are you ready to return?”

  “I shall be quick,” Ancaladar said. The great black dragon folded his wings and dove through the storm, falling to earth as swiftly as if he were a thunderbolt himself.

  AT last the bitter work beneath the ground was done. Not without casualties—for even the Shadowed Elf young fought with desperate intensity—but it was done. All were dead, even the infants—and that, the Elves could tell themselves, was an act of mercy, for the youngest had obviously gone untended by their siblings.

  They settled the bodies neatly, but left them behind to recover later, for Adaerion was uneasy about what might be happening above.

  Kellen had led the host going in. This time he was last out, for the caverns were not yet safe, even if no Shadowed Elves or goblins remained here. There were still the duergar to hunt down; Adaerion could be certain Kellen could resist their lure, and could protect the others from giving in to it.

  Figuring out how to hunt them down—so the caverns could be finally cleared—was a problem for another day.

  And even when we clear this place out, who knows how many more lairs remain? Kellen thought wearily. And this isn’t even the war. This is just another of Shadow Mountain’s strategies to weaken us BEFORE the war.

  He had never felt so close to despair.

  BY the time he reached the surface, Kellen already knew—from talk passed back up the line—that the promised blizzard had come early—magically early. No one knew why, but everyone was agreed that the Wildmages would not have called it.

  Fresher information came the closer Kellen got to the surface, but it was frustratingly incomplete. A battle at Ysterialpoerin. Their own orders remained the same: stay here and clear the caverns.

  At last he reached the end-tunnel, and almost wished he hadn’t.

  Snow was blown along half its length. He could see nothing beyond the entrance but dim whiteness. Each pair of Knights who walked out through the entrance was visible for only a few seconds before vanishing into the dense all-concealing snow. Their heavy cloaks whipped around them as if they were made of thin silk.

  Kellen hurried forward, all but shoving Isinwen ahead of him. They must have won at Ysterialpoerin. Redhelwar would surely have been able to get the reserves from the camp to the city in time to support them.

  He was grateful that Jermayan had taken the time to reshape the ramp out of the caves. The wind was fierce, and the snow that covered it had been packed down to ice by the feet of those before him. If it had been any steeper, it would have been a slide, not a pathway.

  He looked for Adaerion, but it was Jermayan who came toward him out of the snow.

  “Shalkan is asking for you. Come quickly.”

  “Shalkan?” Shalkan was at Ysterialpoerin!

  “He is unhurt. But … hurry.”

  JERMAYAN had brought the storm. Kellen gathered that much from the Elven Knight’s half-distracted explanation on the flight to Ysterialpoerin. That, and that the Elves had won the battle.

  “I thought for the forest, and the city. It did not matter to the Shadowed Elves or to their masters if they all died, so long as they accomplished their task of destruction, and so I looked first to the trees. Snow would slow the burning, and its cause could be looked to later. So that is a great victory.” Jermayan’s voice was bitter, carried back to Kellen as they flew through the clear air and sunlight above the storm. “When poets unborn sing of this day in centuries to come, surely they will say that we won.”

  “Jermayan—” Kellen began. If he couldn’t get some straight answers out of Jermayan soon, he was fairly sure he was going to start shouting.

  “Not now,” Ancaladar said.

  The dragon tilted his wings, diving back into the storm, and speech became impossible in the maelstrom of their descent.

  Kellen was working the saddle-straps before Ancaladar had quite settled. The dragon had landed in a clearing barely big enough to accommodate him—a neat piece of flying with the winds as strong as they were. Kellen slid down the dragon’s ice-covered ribs into a drift of snow.

  “Shalkan!” he shouted.

  “That way.” Ancaladar extended his neck in the direction Kellen needed to go. “Hurry.”

  Kellen ran.

  HE came upon it all at once, a scene so hideous that at first his mind refused to admit what it saw, and then when he realized what he was seeing, Kellen staggered back against a tree, bile rising in his throat.

  Dead unicorns.

  There were … too many to count. They had been laid in the snow in rows, neatly, as the Elves set their own dead, fresh-removed from the battlefield. Their bodies were rapidly being covered by the falling snow, covering the hideous wounds, the shattered horns.

  Dead, they looked so small …

  “Kellen. Come.”

  Shalkan appeared in front of him, blocking his view of the dead and rousing him from his horrified daze. The unicorn was glowing, just as he had on the night Kellen had first seen him.

  Kellen reached out his gauntlet blindly and closed it over Shalkan’s mane, letting the unicorn lead him away.

  “Shadowed Elves did this,” Kellen said a few moments later. It wasn’t a question.

  “The females from the caverns attacked, led by the males that escaped Athan’s call. The females had all borne young. It made things difficult. Now.” Shalkan stopped and looked at Kellen.

  “Many of us are hurt. I am taking you to where the Healers are caring for us—but as you know, only a particular sort of Healer can be of use to us.”

  “A virgin,” Kellen said. “A chaste virgin.”

  “Fortunately there are a few of those around,” Shalkan said, with a ghost of his usual dry humor. “So you will see blood and wounds in plenty, but nothing the Healers cannot handle. And the Knights may go to the Wildmages, of course—as soon as the rest of them manage to here. I don’t say the blizzard wasn’t necessary. But it causes problems.”

  The Knights can go to the Wildmages. But the unicorns can’t. Because—

  “I can’t be—” Kellen began, embarrassed and outraged.

  “You are,” Shalkan said inexorably. “The only Wildmage who can touch us. You have seen a unicorn healed. If you can heal Gesade, she will live.”

  Gesade!

  “Idalia—Jermayan—” Kellen said desperately.

  “Cannot approach her. It would kill her,” Shalkan said. “She is very badly hurt. You are her only hope.”

  I can’t do this! “I need tools,” Kellen said, shutting away his fear. “And someone to share the price.”

  “Both are waiting,” Shalkan said. He hesitated for a moment. “There’s something else you probably need to know. Petariel is dead.”

  Kellen took a deep breath. He’d shared his morning meal with Petariel. They’d joked together about Petariel going off to a dull day of guarding something nobody was going to attack. And now he would never speak to Petariel again. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that eventually he would weep. Now, though, all he could feel was a terrible emptiness.

  Though it was not as terrible as the emptiness that would move within Gesade.
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  Shalkan began to move forward once more, as quickly as the deep snow would allow.

  “Does she know?” Kellen asked.

  “We aren’t sure,” Shalkan said.

  A few moments later they arrived at the clearing where the wounded unicorns were being tended. It had been hastily enclosed with awnings of heavy silk canvas hung between the trees and overhead, and the ground was covered with sleeping mats, cloaks, and even carpets. Several heavy braziers heated the air.

  Kellen and Shalkan stepped inside. Here the air was moist, and filled with smells, some familiar to Kellen, some not. The cinnamon scent of unicorns. The oddly-sweet scent of Elven blood. The rank scent of Shadowed Elf blood, and—faintly—the acrid scent of the poison they used on their weapons. The cloying smell of burn ointment, and the flowery scent of Night’s Daughter, the herb that Jermayan had used so liberally on Kellen’s burns to numb the pain. He could never smell it without remembering that long torturous journey back from the Black Cairn, and ever since then, the scent recalled unpleasant memories.

  He knew everyone here, but he didn’t dare stop, didn’t dare let himself see any of them. Not now. He had to think of only one thing right now.

  Gesade.

  She was at the far end of the tent, lying on her side. The overpowering reek of Night’s Daughter nearly made him gag; she smelled as if they’d bathed her in it. Her fore and hind legs were tied together. Trigwenior and Ansansoniel knelt before her, holding them gently, and Menerchel sat on her shoulders. Even though she had been heavily dosed with a sleeping cordial—Kellen could smell it from where he stood—she was thrashing weakly, trying to get to her feet. The three of them spoke to her soothingly, trying to calm her, but she was beyond hearing.

  Her entire head and most of her neck were completely swathed in salve-soaked cloths. There was an airhole at the end through which he could hear her whistling gasps for breath, her agonized whimperings, but they sounded … wrong.

  Menerchel looked up as Kellen approached. His face was streaked with tears. He said nothing. There was nothing to say.

  Kellen moved behind him, kneeling at Gesade’s back, as close to her as he could get. He pulled off his helmet and gloves. What he needed was already laid out.

  “Hush, Gesade, hush,” he said, speaking to her as if she were Deyishene, or Lily. “It’s Kellen. I’ve come to help. Just lie quietly, if you can. I’ll help you, I promise.”

  He didn’t know if she heard.

  He cut a few strands of his hair, and a few from the base of Gesade’s mane, below the ointment-soaked cloths. Then he reached for the bandage at her neck. Already others—Elven Knights, unicorns, even one or two of the Healers—were gathering around to share the price, just as Shalkan had promised.

  But Shalkan was nowhere in sight.

  “No—don’t,” Menerchel begged, seeing what Kellen was doing.

  “I need her blood for the spell,” Kellen said gently. “And I need to know how she’s hurt.”

  “Acid,” Menerchel said starkly. “They threw acid in her face.”

  Kellen closed his eyes for an instant, fighting back the images Menerchel’s words evoked. Acid was a favored weapon of the Shadowed Elves. He’d seen the wounds they caused. Armor was no defense—acid ate metal, slipped through every crack.

  And the unicorns went into battle only lightly armored.

  Kellen peeled back the edge of the bandage, exposing raw burned flesh slick with numbing ointment. Gritting his teeth, he wiped a small patch of skin clear. Blood beaded to the surface. He soaked the hairs—his and hers together—then quickly replaced the bandages.

  He picked up the knife—a small Healer’s knife, wickedly sharp—to cut himself, then realized he’d almost forgotten to ask the vital question. No Wildmage could ever assume that help would be offered. It must always be asked for.

  “Who will share the price of this healing with me?”

  “We will—all of us,” Menerchel said.

  Kellen looked up at those waiting, making sure that all agreed. Then he cut his hand, mingling his blood with Gesade’s.

  Quickly now, he summoned the brazier alight, and added the proper leaves: willow, ash, yew. A thin coil of blue smoke began to spiral upward.

  Leaf and Star, let this work!

  He motioned for Menerchel and the others to move back—Gesade’s struggles were weaker now—and gently dropped the knot of bloody hairs onto the coals. Then he laid his hands on Gesade’s exposed neck and shoulder.

  She quieted at last beneath his touch, and for a terrible instant Kellen thought she was dead, until he saw the slow steady rise of her ribs. The peace that filled her gave him a moment of calm as well; when he saw the shimmering dome of protection form around them all, he felt a spark of hope. The Gods of the Wild Magic had heard.

  “Forgive. Forgive and forget.”

  The words filled his mind, and Kellen knew that this was the price They set upon Gesade’s healing—and that it was twice now that the Wild Magic had commanded him to forgive. His previous Mageprice was still unpaid, but that wouldn’t matter. Idalia had told him that prices could run unpaid for years; all that mattered was that you paid them willingly when the time came. He did know that you knew when the time had come to pay a Mageprice, although figuring out how to pay it was left up to the individual. But none of that was important now. He would have accepted the price if it had been far higher. I will, he promised.

  The sense of listening departed. All that was left was the work of healing.

  It was the hardest yet, as if he tried to lift the weight of the earth itself from beneath his feet. Again and again he struggled to become a conduit for the Healing Magic, feeling as if he tried to touch something just out of reach.

  And every moment he struggled, he felt Gesade growing weaker.

  “Don’t try. Be.”

  Master Belesharon said that in the practice circle. Only when you could step aside from your thoughts of what you should be doing, and do the thing itself, was the thing accomplished.

  He stopped trying.

  He thought of Gesade, whole.

  He remembered her looking down at him in the snow, the night he’d tried to escape from camp to scout the nearer cavern.

  He remembered her—yes, and Petariel—running at the head of the Unicorn Knights on a day that was bright and clear. Powdery snow had sprayed up from beneath her hooves as she ran, and the sunlight had sparkled off their armor …

  He realized he was lying curled around her body, his face pressed against her stomach, breathing in her warm scent. It was an awkward position, and Kellen straightened with a stifled groan. He didn’t remember moving, or closing his eyes.

  He blinked. He felt as if he’d been asleep, though he was sure he hadn’t. The protective shield was gone, so whatever was going to happen, had happened. He felt hollow and light-headed, but that was normal after a healing, for Healer and Healed alike.

  “You … glowed,” Menerchel said.

  That was encouraging, Kellen decided, but he was still reluctant to lift the bandages and see what lay beneath. At least Gesade was sleeping now, not writhing in heavily-drugged agony.

  He lifted the lower edge of the bandage again.

  White fur. Thickly soaked in ointment, but there was no trace of burn or scar. Eagerly now, Kellen lifted away the rest of the cloths—they had not truly bandaged her, only wrapped soft cloths loosely over the terrible burns. The flesh beneath was perfect. Whole.

  Then he reached her head.

  It took him a few seconds to understand why what he was seeing looked so wrong. Her horn was unblemished. Her soft muzzle was whole.

  But her eyelid was sunken into its socket. Frantically, Kellen lifted her head. The other side matched exactly, the eyelid sunken over an empty socket.

  She had no eyes.

  SHALKAN found him several hundred yards from the unicorn’s clearing. He was kneeling beside a tree, gagging up what felt like every meal he’d ever eaten in his li
fe.

  “Kellen—”

  “Go away!” He couldn’t bear to see anyone right now. Especially Shalkan. Not after what he’d done.

  “Kellen—”

  “I hurt her! I blinded her!”

  How could a healing have gone so wrong? Was it because he’d come here straight from the caverns? What had he done to her? It was all his fault—

  “I saw her before the Healers got to her.” Shalkan’s voice came to him, harsh and rasping, as if the unicorn had been weeping until his throat was raw. “You didn’t. She was already blind. Shall I tell you what a bucket of acid in the face does to a person—or a unicorn? I could describe it in great detail, if you’d like.” Shalkan’s words were cruel, but they penetrated Kellen’s own grief and horror.

  “Stop it,” Kellen said wearily. “I already know. I’ve seen it too.” He sat back, scrubbing his face with snow. “But … I healed her. Or I could have. If I’d been good enough.” And that was what was so horrible. He hadn’t been good enough, not nearly good enough, and he had been her only hope.

  “No.” An Elven Healer Kellen didn’t know came and knelt in the snow beside him. “I am no Wildmage, but I have aided them in their healings, and I have heard them speak among themselves. The power of the Wild Magic to heal is indeed great, but it cannot create that which is not there. That which will—or might—grow with time will grow at a Wildmage’s touch. But that which is lost is lost forever.” The Healer took his shoulder in one hand and shook it. “Look at me, Kellen Knight-Mage. See the truth in me!”

  Kellen studied the Healer’s face. She regarded him with grave compassion and faint puzzlement, as if she had never seen anything like him before. Kellen knew without having to ask that she was from Ysterialpoerin.