When Darkness Falls

by Mercedes Lackey

The moment Shalkan asked the question, calm settled over Kellen. “I’m going to think,” he said quietly.

  WHEN he got back to camp (carrying Shalkan’s armor, as he certainly couldn’t ride Shalkan into camp), he was able to greet his people as if nothing had happened. The short winter day was already drawing toward dusk, and nobody found it unusual for Kellen to go off to his pavilion once he’d checked with Isinwen. Isinwen could run the camp, barring emergencies. As Kellen’s Second, that had become part of his job.

  But Kellen breathed a deep sigh of relief once he reached his pavilion and pegged the door shut behind him. Instinctively, he knew he’d convinced his Second that all was well and that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and what Isinwen believed, the others would believe as well. But to keep up that deception—and it was a deception, Kellen acknowledged to himself—he needed to find a deeper measure of peace within himself, and find it quickly.

  He lit the lamps and the braziers, took off his armor, and rummaged through his packs until he’d found his three Books.

  He hadn’t had much time for studying them lately, and he really doubted that the answer to his current dilemma was to be found in any of them—not The Book of Moon, which addressed the “how” of the Wild Magic, nor The Book of Sun, which mostly addressed the “when,” nor even The Book of Stars, the most abstruse of the three, which was essentially about the “whether or not” of the Wild Magic—when it was best to intervene, and when it was best to just leave well enough alone.

  Although if this is “well enough,” I’d hate to see a really bad situation, Kellen thought with a sigh, opening the third Book. He guessed he was looking for peace of mind and calm as much as anything—he couldn’t make any good decisions while he was chasing himself in circles, much less act as if he hadn’t just received what was almost the worst possible news the Allies could have gotten. So he might as well improve his mind. The Book of Stars always managed to make him feel better, even when he didn’t understand half of what it was saying.

  What if Andorieniel dies? Ashaniel and Sandalon can’t rule the Elven Lands from the Fortress of the Crowned Horns, and they can’t come back. So the Council will have to make the decisions. And that just won’t work.

  Because the Council would probably—even now—still want to want for the Endarkened to fight a “traditional” war. And the Endarkened weren’t going to do that—or weren’t going to do that until the probability of victory was overwhelmingly on Their side.

  Would Redhelwar act without waiting for the decisions of the Council? Did he even know what needed to be done next?

  Do you?

  Kellen took a deep breath, feeling as if he stood on the edge of a very high cliff. A rash decision right now would do nobody any good. Master Belesharon always said that to make a decision before it was needful was worse than making no decision at all.

  Kellen put all thought of the future from his mind and settled down to read The Book of Stars.

  As always his Book seemed to be speaking directly to him.

  “Do nothing in haste, and everything in its proper time.”

  “What will be, is. And what is, will be.”

  “A Knight-Mage changes his surroundings by his very presence. Sometimes his presence is enough.”

  He read until a grumbling in his stomach told him that it was far past dinnertime, and closed his Book with a sigh, feeling better.

  Nothing was any different than it had been this morning. And as much as the leisurely Elven way of doing things drove him crazy sometimes, right now he had to admit that as bleak as things were, the best thing to do was stick to his original plan. As urgent as matters were, the army needed rest before anyone went anywhere. And that would give him the time to think carefully over who was going where.

  “THIS had better be good,” Keirasti grumbled, though Kellen could tell her heart wasn’t in it.

  “I thought you’d like to take Orata for a ride,” Kellen said, with as much innocence as he could muster. “She’s getting fat and lazy sitting in camp, and so is Firareth. And we’ll be moving out day after tomorrow. Which is why I wanted to talk to you now.”

  “Privately,” Keirasti observed, nodding at the emptiness surrounding them. “Which will be remarked, if not overheard.”

  “Then it must be remarked,” Kellen said. “And not overheard.”

  He’d thought long and hard about this. He’d spent the last several days writing up a full report of everything that had happened so far for Redhelwar—the scroll was a fat one—and he’d already chosen the people he intended to send back over the Mystrals. But he hadn’t yet told them they were going, intending to leave that for the last minute. Keirasti would be leading them—she’d handled the other mission to Ondoladeshiron well, and Kellen knew that she could do this just as expertly.

  And he’d decided that she would need to know why she was going—all of it. So that in case disaster happened, the party was attacked, the report was lost, she would understand that she had to get through and deliver the gist of Kellen’s message personally, no matter who and what she had to sacrifice to do it.

  “I wish to lay a very heavy burden upon you,” he said, beginning slowly and carefully. “Before I can tell you what it is, and why, I must tell you that it might require you to … throw away … hundreds of lives and save your own. I must know if you can do that.”

  “Leaf and Star,” Keirasti whispered, reining Orata to a halt. “Kellen, I do not yet understand.”

  “Keirasti, can you let everyone under your care die to save yourself just because I tell you it’s necessary? Hundreds of people?” Kellen asked bluntly.

  The Elven Knight stared at him for a long moment, her dark eyes wide and unseeing beneath her helm. At last she nodded slowly. “Yes, komentai’i. I can do this.”

  Kellen let out a shuddering breath. “Leaf and Star grant you will not need to. You must tell no one—no one—of what we speak of here today. Ever.”

  Keirasti nodded again. “I understand.”

  “Tomorrow I am sending you and four hundred of my command back over the mountains. You must find Redhelwar wherever he is and deliver my report to him. It must reach him at all costs, no matter what you must do to get it there, no matter what sacrifices you must make. You must go as fast as you can.”

  Which meant risk, for her and all he would send with her, and though he could spare her two of the Wildmages to accompany her party, they would not be enough to protect her force from a magical attack, or to heal her injured swiftly.

  “I… hear and obey, komentai’i,” Keirasti said.

  Kellen smiled unhappily. “If that were all, I would not have sworn you to secrecy. My report may be lost… and … I think you need to know why I am sending you.” He took a deep breath and continued.

  “Rochinuviel has had word from Sentarshadeen. Andoreniel lies gravely ill with plague, too ill to give orders. The Healers do not know when—or if—he will recover. Redhelwar doesn’t know that he is sick; Rochinuviel found out too late to send a message with Jermayan when he came to Ondoladeshiron. This information is too … sensitive … to trust to the signaling mirrors—even if they did work across the Mystrals.”

  And Rochinuviel doesn’t think the Council has sent word to Redhelwar. That was clear enough from what she said to me. If they had, we would almost certainly have met up with the rider. And I think Shalkan would have known, somehow.

  Keirasti actually rocked in her saddle. Orata took a nervous step sideways in the snow, and tossed her head inquiringly. “The King …” Keirasti said.

  “Ashaniel and Sandalon are safe at the Fortress of the Crowned Horns,” Kellen said, reminding both of them. “And Andoreniel could recover. I will go to Sentarshadeen as soon as I am finished at Halacira, and see him myself.”

  Keirasti nodded, still looking stunned. Kellen waited, giving her time to take in what he had just told her. He’d had several days to get used to knowing that the Allies were essentially without a leader,
after all, and when you came right down to it, Andoreniel wasn’t his King. It was different for Keirasti.

  After a few more moments she blinked and nodded, signifying that she was ready to go on.

  “Knight-Mage, what are your orders for the Army’s General?” she asked simply.

  There it was, right out in the open, the one thing he’d been avoiding for days.

  No, not avoiding. Setting aside until the proper time.

  An irresistible sense of Presence filled him—the same calm that came with casting a Healing spell, or sinking into Water Mind. He knew the words he had to say, just as if he’d rehearsed them for sennights—or remembered them from an old Teaching Song.

  “Say to the Army’s General all that I have told you, and that it would please me greatly if he would bring the Army to the Gathering Plain to hear the news from Sentarshadeen,” Kellen said firmly, and without a trace of doubt.

  The sense of waiting Presence lifted.

  What have I done? Have I just taken command of the Army? What if Redhelwar says no and stays in Ysterialpoerin?

  There was no answer to that, nor would there be for quite some time. But he’d done all he could.

  Keirasti sighed. “It shall be done. And now … if we are to depart tomorrow, there is much for me to do tonight.”

  “Travel safely,” Kellen said.

  “Komentai’i,” Keirasti answered uncompromisingly, “We will travel fast.”

  Nine

  A Lifetime in a Moon

  IT HAD BEEN nearly three moonturns since Vestakia had begun her attempts to communicate with the Crystal Spiders, and the knowledge of failure was growing in her soul like a poisoned wound she could not heal.

  If only she could make sense of what the Crystal Spiders were trying to tell her!

  Since she had begun her work, she had risen each day at dawn, breakfasted, and gone with her guards down into the caverns. She was grateful for their presence, for Vestakia never forgot, not even for a moment, that her Endarkened father would do anything to get her back—and the Endarkened had many allies.

  For the last several sennights she had divided her time between the Main Camp and the caverns, for with the steady influx of refugees from the now-abandoned Elven Cities farther north—and the outbreak of plague both in the temporary city and in Ysterialpoerin itself—every Healer was needed to tend them. And though Vestakia preferred not to go among strangers who would be shocked by her Demonic appearance, her assistance in the Main Camp could free another Elven or Wildmage healer to go among the sick and injured civilians—and skilled hands were always needed to compound medicines.

  And her work here at the Further Caverns seemed to be going nowhere.

  Though both Kellen and Idalia had spoken of how confusing communication with the Crystal Spiders was, Vestakia had hoped her Wildmage heritage—and the odd gifts it brought with it—would make things easier for her, but her hopes had been dashed on the very first day, when Kellen had brought her down into the caverns.

  Of course she had learned much about learning to communicate with an alien mind, and even see through its eyes. Linking with the Crystal Spiders was an easy thing now, and sorting through the mind-pictures they sent her no longer caused Vestakia the sickness and disorientation it had at first. And oddly enough, though no magic was truly involved, the skills at perception and concentration that she honed in the caverns were useful elsewhere: Not only had she become far more expert at diagnosing the ills of her patients—or telling the minds of most of the people around her, in fact—simply from the way they looked and held themselves—but she could read the mood and intention of the mute beasts around her, and even her equestrian skills had improved remarkably as a result.

  There was no doubt about it. When all of this was over, she would be an excellent goatherd, if that was what she chose to do. That was how she had begun her life, after all: as a goatherd, tending the herd of goats her mother Virgivet and her aunt Patanene had taken away from their home village with them into exile deep in the Lost Lands to provide them—and later, Vestakia—with food, shelter, clothing, and even trade-goods. Until Kellen, Shalkan, and Jermayan had found and rescued her, the goats had been her closest companions, and though she had learned much since of Healing, it was always good to know that she still had her first skills to rely on.

  Assuming, of course, that all of this was ever over in a way that allowed for the herding of goats.

  But no matter how much work there was for her at the main camp, her sense of duty drew her back, over and over, to the Further Cavern, and her frustrating communion with the Crystal Spiders.

  By now Vestakia felt she knew everything about the location that she sought except where it was. The mind-pictures the Crystal Spiders sent her during their communications were still blurred and fragmented, the kaleidoscopic images of a world seen through eight eyes multiplied dozens of times over, but by now she was used to that. She was even used to seeing images of things that could not be, for by now she knew that the Crystal Spiders could create artificial images to communicate, as well as simply transmitting images of things they had seen.

  Jewels and water. Jewels and water. A riddle she could not solve.

  Even Cilarnen could not solve it with his Armethaliehan magick. They had all hoped, once he had found a source to power his spells, but… not only did the High Magick require a great deal of preparation for many of its spells, but they had to be done at specific times as well. And if that were not enough complication, the divination and scrying that Idalia and the other Wildmages took so much for granted was nearly absent from the High Magick, or so Cilarnen said. The forms of distance-seeing the High Magick did possess required that the Mage already have a link with what he wished to see, either of familiarity, or through a tangible object.

  And what use is that? If you already know what it looks like, or where it is, why do you need magic to take a look at it? Vestakia had wondered irritably when he’d explained. But she hadn’t said anything aloud. Cilarnen was already doing everything that he could—and much more than he safely could—to help their cause.

  But it was frustrating.

  Late this morning Vestakia had returned from three days spent at the Main Camp. The Healers were desperate to keep the plague from spreading to the army—or from claiming any more lives than it already had among the others—and though a Wildmage-infused cordial was having a certain amount of effect in treating it, a great deal of the stuff was needed, and preparing the cordial for charging was painstaking work.

  But it was also vital work.

  The Elves called the plague Shadow’s Kiss, from the characteristic dark scars it left behind on all of its victims. If one survived most diseases, Vestakia knew, one was safe from them forever—that had been true of the goat-pox she had contracted as a child.

  But if one survived Shadow’s Kiss, it was still possible to get it again, and no one who got it a second time survived.

  Or perhaps, Vestakia thought with a sigh, the second plague was a completely separate disease that only struck those who had been exposed to the first plague. The symptoms were very different: a quick high fever lasting only a day, followed by death. Unlike the original plague, it didn’t seem to be contagious.

  They had no way of knowing.

  All they knew was that they had no way of treating the second plague. It seemed to be new—the Elven Healers said it wasn’t mentioned in any of the Story Songs of the Last War.

  Despite the fact that they were their main source of information on how to treat many of the diseases they were facing now, both Vestakia and Idalia were getting very tired of the Elven Story Songs.

  Very nearly as tired as they were of seeing people die because their medicines simply weren’t working very well.

  WHEN she’d gotten back to the smaller camp at last, the only thing she’d wanted was to throw herself down on her bedroll and sleep, but a sense of duty drove her down into the caverns.

  There she had tried,
yet again, to extract the information they all desperately needed from the Crystal Spiders’ completely willing yet utterly alien minds, working until Khirethil—the captain of the troop who watched over her while she was beneath the mountain—had finally insisted that she stop.

  “You gain nothing by forcing us to carry you to your bed, Vestakia,” Khirethil had said, her black eyes uncompromising. “And in working yourself into exhaustion, you waste time in the end.”

  It was good advice, and kindly meant, and Vestakia had forced herself to take it.

  In camp, under Khirethil’s steady gaze, Vestakia also forced herself to eat, though the food lay heavily in her stomach. Afterward she had excused herself quickly, and gone to her pavilion.

  Until she had started working here, she had not had a pavilion of her own, but shared Idalia’s tent—for warmth and companionship far more than safety, for among the people of the Allied army she felt accepted and, yes, cherished as she had never expected to find herself in all the years of her life. From the moment she had been born, Demonic in form but human in soul, her mother and her aunt had taught her and warned her: Trust no one. Show yourself to no one. No one will look beyond the surface and dare to believe in the human soul within.

  But Kellen had. Even now, tired and miserable as she was, the thought of him brought a warm glow of happiness to Vestakia’s spirit. From the first moment he had seen her, Kellen had trusted her, believed in her, without question. What had grown between them—or might grow between them—was very awkward, given the Mageprice that Kellen paid, but Vestakia’s own mother had given up twenty years of her life so that Vestakia could be human, and Vestakia was familiar with Mageprices. And a year and a day was not forever.

  But even constrained as they were—not to look, not to touch, barely to take notice of one another save as comrades in the field, Vestakia wished Kellen were here now.

  How he would laugh to see her pavilion!

  She’d known, of course, that the Elves tended to choose a “signature” color for a person—Kellen’s was a very pretty green, just the color of Shalkan’s eyes—and she should have had fair warning when the armor that Artenel had produced for her had been enameled a cherry-red the exact shade of her skin, but she really hadn’t expected to be presented with a matching tent.