To Light a Candle

by Mercedes Lackey

  “And certainly there will be time enough for that on the morrow,” Redhelwar said, as smoothly as if Kellen had not just proposed to murder a guest under Elven protection. “Tonight, I believe he still recovers from his ordeal in the blizzard—I know not where. For yourself, Kellen, I am certain a warm bath, a hot meal, and a good night’s sleep will be welcome before you are called upon to try this stranger’s motives. The tea that can be brewed in the caverns, so I am assured by Adaerion, is foul, and you will wish for better. Belepheriel has made you a gift of some of the Armethaliehan Black that you favor; I shall send Dionan to your pavilion to brew it for you after you have bathed, and see you to your rest.”

  For a moment Idalia thought Kellen would object, but he caught himself in time. He bowed, deeply.

  “You do me too much honor, Redhelwar. It is cold in the caverns, and colder without. It will be good to spend the night in reflection, and I will welcome the tea.”

  He bowed again—to Redhelwar, to Adaerion, to Idalia, and left quietly.

  There was silence in Redhelwar’s pavilion for a time.

  Someone please tell me that Kellen didn’t just suggest killing Cilarnen, Idalia thought.

  “If the Mageborn boy is indeed a threat …” Adaerion began.

  “Then Kellen will deal appropriately with him in the morning,” Redhelwar said. “I trust him to do as the Wild Magic wills.”

  But not, I notice, enough that you were willing to let him know where Cilarnen is now, Idalia thought.

  Bowing, she took her own leave.

  HE was sure Redhelwar was right. He thought he was sure.

  Actually, he wasn’t sure of anything other than that he was cold, hungry, and tired.

  But a hot bath and fresh clothes—he’d spent the last sennight living in his armor, and it was certainly time for a change—did much to make Kellen feel better, as did a hot fresh meal that hadn’t started life as blocks of journey-food. After that he returned to his tent—where Dionan was waiting to brew the promised tea—and drank the entire pot, while giving his armor and sword a thorough cleaning.

  It made him feel better—as long as he didn’t think about Cilarnen.

  The uppermost emotion in Kellen’s mind—he was honest enough to admit—was outrage. How dare Cilarnen come here? This was Kellen’s place, Kellen’s life—he’d worked hard to make a place for himself here, and now Cilarnen was coming to—

  Take it all away? Is that what you really think?

  Kellen snorted, surprised, disgusted, and amused—all at the same time—by the direction of his own thoughts. Even if Cilarnen were a fully invested High Mage with an army at his back—which he wasn’t—he couldn’t do that. But what if he ISN’T Cilarnen at all? What if he’s a Demon who’s figured out some way to pass the bounds of the Elven Lands?

  And conceal himself from Vestakia? Unlikely, but possible.

  What was slightly more possible was that he was some other kind of enemy. Something Vestakia couldn’t sense, something that could pass the bounds of the Elven Lands, but an enemy nonetheless.

  If he’s an enemy, I’ll deal with him.

  But you have to deal with yourself first, a small inner voice said.

  Kellen sighed, and set his sword and armor aside—both gleamed with oil and polish—and sat down cross-legged on his sleeping mat. He sat quietly, not emptying his mind but letting it fill with whatever it chose.

  His losses came first. Ciltesse. Petariel. The dead friends he had not yet had time to mourn in the need to cleanse the caverns of duergar. The lost members of his thirty, replaced already by near-strangers who had not yet had time to become friends. He was afraid to get to know them well, afraid to lose them too.

  Elves were supposed to live for centuries. There were Elves in Sentarshadeen as old as Armethalieh! They were supposed to be living in peace in their beautiful cities, studying, crafting, making life itself into an art. They weren’t supposed to die—drowning in their own blood, spilling their guts out on the snow, vomiting and convulsing as they died of Shadowed Elf poison …

  Screaming as they were eaten by acid.

  They weren’t supposed to die.

  But they do die, Kellen told himself. They die so their children will live. They die so the Centaurs will live. They die so the trees will live.

  He remembered the barren wasteland he and Jermayan had ridden through on their way to the Black Cairn—the land that, so Jermayan, had told him, had been a lush and fruitful forest before the last time Shadow Mountain had gone to war.

  Yes, they fight because of that.

  If there had to be war, that was a good reason to fight. Because to see the whole world turned into that—and worse—was unthinkable. Anything his friends had to do to stop it was worth it.

  Even die.

  But Gods of the Wild Magic, he would miss them—!

  He let his grief wash over him, and through him, and when its first violence was past, he looked deeper.

  Hatred. Anger. Fear. They came racing into his consciousness like coldwarg over the snow, all centered on the image of a young man he remembered only dimly.

  Envy. Spite. Malice. He hoped that Cilarnen had suffered every step of his journey here, had loathed falling into the hands of the “Lesser Races,” had been terrified of the Elves.

  Grief. Despair. He hoped, when Cilarnen had heard the gate slam shut behind him—he’d realized his high-and-mighty father had betrayed and abandoned him—he’d realized that the High Mages cared for nothing but power, for nothing but themselves. That everything he’d done every day of his life to excel, to please, had come to nothing in the end.

  Kellen realized he was crying silently, tears streaming down his face.

  Is that it? he thought wonderingly, even as his heart ached with loss and despair. But I don’t care—

  Apparently he did.

  “I don’t,” he whispered aloud, wiping at his eyes. He had everything here—friends, a life, work that mattered, a gift to cherish and train.

  But the thought of Cilarnen coming here … frightened him.

  Because Cilarnen was—or had been, at least—everything that Kellen had once desperately wanted to be. And it was as if …

  As if I’m afraid that if when I see him again, everything will go back to being that way. I’ll be Kellen-the-failure again, and he’ll still be … perfect.

  It was a ridiculous thing to fear. In Armethalieh, Cilarnen had belonged, and Kellen had been out-of-place. Here, Kellen fit in.

  Only he didn’t. Not really. He was a Knight-Mage. Knight-Mages didn’t “fit in.”

  There.

  That was the root of his anger and fear.

  He didn’t fit in here either. He was just as alone here as he had been in the City.

  Kellen bit back a heartfelt sob.

  Oh, it was a completely different situation, of course. In Armethalieh, conformity was the highest goal. Here, everyone valued him for being different. His Knight-Mage gifts were esteemed and honored.

  But he was still different. Set apart. In a way that even Idalia wasn’t.

  And now, if Cilarnen came and fit in …

  You’ll be jealous. You’ll still be jealous. Of him.

  Kellen managed a shaky laugh and wiped his face dry once more.

  But he thought he’d worked his way to the heart of the problem. It had been as painful as lancing an infected boil, but he felt better now. And he thought that tomorrow, when he faced Cilarnen, he could judge him fairly—for whatever he was.

  I won’t like it. I won’t like HIM. But I can do it.

  Thoroughly exhausted now, Kellen rolled into his bedclothes and doused the lanterns with a gesture.

  Twenty-four

  Shadows of the Past

  Cold air and a hint of movement woke him. Kellen rolled out of his bedclothes and grabbed his sword in one fluid movement. Someone was moving toward him. He reached out and grabbed the front of the intruder’s tunic, flinging him to the bedroll he’d just vacat
ed, the edge of his sword at the shadowy figure’s throat.

  “Hey!” the intruder yelped. He must have felt the cold of the steel at his throat then, because he went absolutely still.

  With a gesture, Kellen lit the lanterns.

  And stared down at someone who could only be Cilarnen Volpiril.

  He’d seen that face, Kellen realized with a shock—and since his Banishing. It was the same face that had appeared in Idalia’s scrying bowl the day he’d gone to Ashaniel to ask her to warn Armethalieh: russet hair, pale blue eyes, narrow aristocratic Mageborn features. He was freshly shaved, and his hair was still cut short in the manner of the City, but no proper Mageborn son would have a complexion so roughened by wind and weather.

  “Cilarnen Volpiril,” Kellen said in disgust, getting to his feet. “Close the flap,” he said without turning around, “it’s cold in here.”

  When he turned to pick up his sword sheath, he got a good look at his second “guest.”

  The Centaur had waist-length hair—black, with a broad white streak—and, uncommon for male Centaurs, was clean-shaven. His tail had a white streak in it as well, and he had three white feet. Charms were braided into both his hair and his tail, and around his neck, over his tunic, he wore a necklace from which were strung many more. Kellen’s mind caught up with his body, and he knew then what this was all about.

  “You must be Kardus,” Kellen said, sheathing his sword. How a Centaur could still be a Wildmage without having magic was a question for another time. He reached for his tunic and pulled it on. “I’m Kellen. Is your Task fulfilled?”

  “Yes,” Kardus said. “My Task was to bring Cilarnen to you. But I have grown fond of him on our journey. I would stay to help him, if I may.”

  For a moment Kellen thought of ordering him out, then shrugged. “It’ll be cramped, but sure. Tea?” He was glad, now, that Dionan had left the tea-things behind. It occurred to him that maybe he’d better apologize for nearly decapitating Cilarnen. “Ah, sorry about the welcome. We sleep lightly around here; it wouldn’t be the first time that the Enemy has tried to infiltrate the camp.”

  He rummaged around until he found his camp boots and slipped them on, and began setting up the tea brazier.

  “DON’T you want to know why I’m here?” Cilarnen demanded.

  When he’d awoken in the Healer’s tent several days ago—unutterably relieved to discover that Kardus had kept the Wildmage Healers away from him—he’d wanted to see Kellen immediately.

  Only Kellen, it seemed, wasn’t here.

  Nobody was willing to tell him when—or even if—Kellen would be back, either, and so for nearly a sennight Cilarnen had waited in the Centaur camp, hoping for word.

  Tonight he’d finally heard that Kellen had returned—from a Wildmage Healer who had been with Kellen at someplace called the further cavern—but still the invitation Cilarnen impatiently expected didn’t come. Finally he’d taken matters into his own hands. He’d demanded that Kardus show him the way to Kellen’s tent, or he’d go by himself, and a little to his surprise, the Centaur Wildmage had agreed without argument.

  He hadn’t expected the tent to be green silk.

  He certainly hadn’t expected to be attacked when he opened the flap and stepped inside.

  “I said—” he repeated.

  “Probably to annoy me,” Kellen answered coolly, and went on with his tea preparations as if Cilarnen wasn’t there.

  Cilarnen regarded Kellen with a mixture of fear and despair. He had to listen to what Cilarnen had to say!

  But this was not the same Kellen he and his cronies had taunted back at the Mage-College. Oh, they’d called him “Kellen Farmboy” even then because of his hulking size, but now …

  He was muscled like a dock-laborer and surely even taller than he’d been then. There was nothing of the Mageborn about him. He looked nothing like Lycaelon Tavadon—he looked like one of the High Reaches folk—and his hair was long enough to braid.

  And then there was that sword. As large and heavy as a Ritual Tool, but Kellen handled it as if it weighed no more than a practice rapier. And his speed—

  Cilarnen had never seen anyone move that fast in his life—not even the Centaur warriors. He’d barely taken two steps into Kellen’s tent before he’d been seized and flung to the floor, feeling something cold and sharp at his throat, and when Kellen had lit the lanterns—by magic, Wild Magic—he’d seen that Kellen was holding that monstrous blade to his throat, glaring down at him with a face like Death Itself.

  And now he was making tea.

  “My news is urgent,” Cilarnen said. “It concerns the good of the City.”

  “It can wait until the tea is ready,” Kellen said maddeningly. “Or, of course, it can wait until the morning. I really don’t like being woken up in the middle of the night.”

  “You’re still thinking only of yourself,” Cilarnen said bitterly. “But then, you always did.”

  “Have you always been an idiot,” Kellen asked pleasantly, “or did frost-burn addle your brains? You don’t know anything about me, you’ve come halfway across the world to ask for my help, and now you’re insulting me. What would your father say?”

  “He’s dead,” Cilarnen said bleakly. “I killed him.”

  “WHAT?” Oh, good going, Kellen, you’ve really put your foot in it this time. What was it about Cilarnen that sent him back three seasons in his manners? As if the Elves hadn’t taught him better by now. Leaf and Star—if he’d thought about it, the most annoying thing he could have done was to have been completely polite, and if he hadn’t, then he wouldn’t have put himself in the wrong. “Cilarnen, I—”

  “You don’t care.” Cilarnen’s voice was flat. “Why should you? Your father and mine were enemies.”

  “My father condemned me to death, actually,” Kellen replied slowly. “He wanted me dead so badly he sent three packs of the Scouring Hunt after me. When he found out I was still alive, living outside City Lands, he expanded the Boundaries so he could try to hunt me down again. Whatever our fathers are—were—to each other, we are not enemies. Or at least, we shouldn’t be.”

  As he said it, he felt a sense of Presence.

  A price to pay.

  Forgive an enemy.

  Yes, Cilarnen had been his enemy. Perhaps not for what he had done—though Kellen had certainly suffered enough from his youthful tormenting—but simply for what he was—the symbol of what Kellen could have been, as much so as the Other Kellen he had confronted at the Black Cairn.

  Cilarnen had been—and still was—his enemy.

  Forgive an enemy.

  Forgive—forget—it was time to pay the price of Gesade’s healing.

  Kellen swallowed hard. He’d thought then it was a small price, a light price.

  I forgive you, Cilarnen. I think it will be the hardest price I have ever paid, but … I forgive you. I think you were as much a victim of the City as I was.

  He got up to reach out to Cilarnen.

  “No,” Kardus said quietly. “The touch of a Wildmage is … uncomfortable to him.”

  Kellen settled back and concentrated on preparing tea, saying nothing. This was no simple price, over and done with in hours or days. He would be paying this price for moonturns to come. Perhaps for the rest of his life.

  I can try, he thought desperately. I can only try my best.

  “Was that why Lycaelon wanted to expand the City Bounds?” Cilarnen asked in horrified wonder.

  Kellen took a deep breath, and forced himself to sound calm. He could act as if Cilarnen weren’t his enemy. That was a beginning.

  The sense of Presence—of listening—withdrew.

  So he nodded, and made his expression serious, but open and pleasant. “Yes. We’re fairly sure, anyway. When we found out, my sister and I escaped into the Elven Lands, because we knew that no matter what, the Council wouldn’t dare push the Bounds past the Elven border.”

  “And then everything went wrong, and the Council drew back t
he Bounds to the walls,” Cilarnen said, taking up the story as if it were his to tell as well. Well, maybe it was—he knew what Kellen did not, what had gone on inside the City. “The farmers stopped sending food—they said with so much rain in the fall they would need all their food for themselves. There were no weather spells to protect them anymore, you see. I was an Entered Apprentice then. I saw all the storehouses.” There was a hint of desperation in his voice. “They were half-empty, and every day it was worse. The price of grain kept rising. The Council agreed to buy grain from the Selkens, but of course nobody knew if they would send it. And it made us look so weak!”

  The tea was ready. Kellen poured, and held out a cup to Cilarnen, dropping several honey-disks into it for good measure. In the cold, honey was energy. The boy—Kellen couldn’t help thinking of Cilarnen as a boy, though he knew Cilarnen was a year older than he was—took it automatically.

  Heavy rains. When the Black Cairn had burst, it had affected the weather everywhere. Normally that wouldn’t have included the Delfier Valley, granary of Armethalieh, but when the Mages had restricted the Bounds, they had removed the weather-spells from the valley, exposing it to the full force of the freak storms. Anything still in the fields would have been beaten down and drowned; rotted. He hadn’t known. Of course, if he had, it still wouldn’t have changed anything, but—

  “You couldn’t let that go on,” Kellen said quietly.

  “We had to stop them!” Cilarnen said passionately. “The High Council wouldn’t listen—my father wouldn’t listen. It was his plan to reduce the Bounds to the walls, to shame Arch-Mage Lycaelon, and he would not reverse his position. The Arch-Mage would have listened. I know that now. I know it! But I thought he wouldn’t because of who my father was, and I couldn’t see the City starving before my eyes!”

  Odd as it was to imagine, Kellen thought Lycaelon would have listened. Leaving the City without any way to feed itself was suicidal. But if the rest of the Council had backed Volpiril, and not Lycaelon …