The Outstretched Shadow

by Mercedes Lackey

  “But what if I hurt you?” Kellen blurted out, reaching down to touch his sword. He’d held it in his hands yesterday at the armory. He knew it was sharp. A dangerous weapon, designed specifically to strike through the armor they both wore. He’d seen swords at Festival-plays in Armethalieh, and the City Guard and the nobles carried them, and of course the Mages used them in the High Magick, but none of that amounted to actual practical personal experience …

  Jermayan smiled coolly. “It is not possible for you to harm me. I am an Elven Knight. I have been upon the Way since before your grandfather first drew breath. You cannot hurt me. And I promise I will not hurt you. There will be pain, yes. But I will not hurt you. Now get your helm,” Jermayan repeated, this time in a tone that brooked no argument.

  There didn’t seem to be any way around it, and Kellen felt a faint irritation mixed with dread. Had anyone asked him if he wanted knight-lessons? Had anyone warned him this was going to happen when they told him to pick a sword back in the armory? No, he was stuck out here in the middle of nowhere with a crazy Elven Knight in love with his sister, about to be made a complete fool of just so Jermayan would have something to laugh at. He was a Wildmage, not a knight of any kind! Wildmages weren’t knights, anyway—Mages and knights were two different things. He was out here to work magic, not prance around in the heat with a big knife looking like an idiot. Why was Jermayan doing this to him?

  Of course he’d fight if there was trouble. He wasn’t a coward—he’d fought the Outlaw Hunt, hadn’t he?—but it took years to learn to fight with a sword and be any good at it, Kellen knew. Give him a club and he’d do some damage, but a sword …? This was just some complicated Elven plot to make him look stupid, that’s what it was.

  Jermayan was waiting patiently, with a look on his face that indicated he was prepared to wait right there until the sun set, if necessary.

  Kellen set his jaw and went back to Shalkan, and took his helmet from the unicorn’s saddle, setting it on his head. As its confining weight settled into place and blocked his peripheral vision, Kellen felt himself starting to panic, and forced himself to take deep calming breaths. He’d really impress Jermayan if he tripped over his own feet and fell flat on his face the first time Jermayan swung at him.

  He just needs me to prove to him that this isn’t going to work, that’s all, Kellen told himself calmingly. Then we can think of something that will. But he hated the thought that it wasn’t going to work, that he was going to fail. It made him so angry …

  He clutched at the sword hilt, wondering how it could feel so right in his hand when he could never learn to use it—knight—Mage—one or the other—not both—when he suddenly remembered something from The Book of Moon.

  “The Knight-Mage is the active agent of the principle of the Wild Magic, the Wildmage who chooses to become a warrior or who is born with the instinct for the Way of the Sword, who acts in battle without mindful thought and thus brings primary causative forces into manifestation by direct action.”

  He hadn’t been sure what it meant at the time—and he still wasn’t—but—

  But in the subtle way that Wild Magic worked, he might have remembered that passage now because the Wild Magic wanted him to. So it wasn’t one or the other, Knight or Mage. And maybe this could work, if he thought of sword fighting as a kind of spell, if he made the conscious choice to try the Way of the Sword rather than having it thrust on him. His anger was a warning and a clue: if he was angry, he needed to pay attention and figure out why, because that meant this was important.

  Kellen stood beside Shalkan and thought very hard, trying to fight back his anger. He remembered how he’d fought the Hounds. How he’d been angry, more angry than he’d ever been in his life, and then somehow he just hadn’t been there. He started to shake, thinking about Jermayan lying dead and broken at his feet, the way the Hounds had lain …

  No. That wasn’t the message his anger was sending him. He needed to not fail in front of Jermayan, not to kill him …

  Please. Tell me, Kellen thought desperately. He wasn’t sure whether it was a prayer, or a spell, or just a hope he could figure out what his own mind was trying to tell him quickly, but whatever it was, it worked. This wasn’t about Jermayan.

  This was about the sword. About learning to be a warrior. The thought fascinated and repelled him at the same time. It was like when he’d first picked up the three Books of the Wild Magic, only much stronger. It was about using the Wild Magic in a way Idalia had never even hinted at. It might even be wrong. Maybe this was the way that Wildmages went rogue.

  No, that couldn’t be right. Wild Magic was all about balances. If there was healing, then—did there have to be killing?

  Maybe. To defend others. He wasn’t sure where that thought came from, but it felt right. It felt as if it fit. Not killing for the sake of it, not for the sake of power, not to impose what you wanted on someone else—but to protect the weak, to defend yourself and others—

  Maybe it was like hunting. He hunted and killed; Idalia did, too, for meat and fur and hides, but only for as much as they needed and no more. Balances: death and life, healing and killing. But death and killing—only when you had to.

  He knew Jermayan was right. They had to get to the Barrier. And Kellen needed to be able to pull his own weight if there was any fighting along the way. He couldn’t expect Jermayan and Shalkan to protect him.

  Maybe the Wild Magic could help him learn the skills he needed. And if it didn’t work, he’d be no worse off than he was now.

  And if he’d guessed wrong—if he’d misinterpreted everything, if this was how Wildmages went bad …

  Well, then when they got back, Idalia could sew him into a sack and sell him to the Selken-folk, just like she’d promised.

  “Kellen?” Jermayan called.

  “I’m coming,” Kellen said quickly.

  He returned to where Jermayan was waiting for him.

  Jermayan drew his sword in one fluid motion, holding it before him in both hands. “Do as I do, Kellen.”

  Kellen drew his sword, doing his best to copy Jermayan’s stance and grip. He concentrated, and felt the world seem to still the way it did whenever he was about to cast a spell or use his Magesight. He thought about the canyon, about the Hounds, and finally let go of his fear.

  And suddenly there were two Jermayans facing him. They overlay each other, but one was real, and the other was a colorless phantom. Kellen blinked, knowing he was seeing the phantom-Jermayan in the same way he saw the sylphs and dryads back in the Wildwood.

  Then the phantom-Jermayan moved, swinging his sword down, and Kellen—acting entirely instinctively, acting without mind—swung his own sword up to block the blow.

  Jermayan’s sword rang off Kellen’s with a jolt of steel. Jermayan had not expected Kellen’s sword to be there; he sprang back with a cry of surprise.

  For Kellen’s part, he had not expected the jarring force of the contact. He staggered backward, the shock jarring him out of the spell-trance, and the flat of Jermayan’s blade swept around and caught him with a painful thump along the ribs.

  But when Jermayan came for him again, Kellen was ready for him, holding the phantom-image firmly before his gaze, and blocking as it struck. Each time, it moved a fraction of an instant before the real Jermayan did, and each time Kellen’s sword was there to meet it.

  But no spell-sight could make the sword in his hands weigh any less, or make even light and flexible Elven armor easier to move in. Though they’d been sparring only a few minutes, Kellen was gasping for breath by the time Jermayan stepped back and lowered his sword to rest.

  Kellen, grateful that the lesson seemed to be over, fumbled his sword back into its scabbard and pulled off his helmet, dropping it beside him. His hair was soaked with his sweat. He yanked off one of his gauntlets, wiping his face with his bare hand, and staggered over to the tree to lean against it. While they’d been fighting, he’d reacted without thought, just as The Book of Moon sa
id, but now that it was over he felt like he’d spent a whole day at the pumping station, or even behind a plow like the ones he’d seen in Merryvale.

  Jermayan pulled off his own helmet and tossed it to the ground, then sheathed his sword in turn. He regarded Kellen expressionlessly for a moment, then went over to the mule and searched through the packs for a moment. He came back with a pair of tankards and opened the water barrel again, dipping them both full and handing one to Kellen.

  Kellen took his and drained it thirstily. At the moment he found it impossible to imagine getting through an entire battle wearing this stuff. How did people manage?

  Jermayan was still staring at him, as though he’d never seen Kellen before. “I know what you are,” the Elven Knight finally said.

  Kellen froze. For so many years of his life those words, or some variation of them, had made him flinch. They’d always been the prelude to yet another lecture on his many inadequacies. But Jermayan, it seemed, didn’t mean them that way. The Elven Knight was smiling at him—a genuine smile at last, one of relief, and something like awe.

  “You’re a Knight-Mage, aren’t you?” The words were spoken in tones of approval, even admiration.

  Kellen shook his head wordlessly, unable to speak. He wasn’t. He couldn’t be. Could he? He didn’t even know what a Knight-Mage was! The passage he’d remembered, the business about the Knight-Mages, it was just words in the Book. What he’d done was spur-of-the-moment, something he’d tried out of a desperate desire not to look completely foolish and a need he couldn’t explain even to himself.

  “You didn’t know, did you?” Jermayan asked sympathetically. “I suppose not: Knight-Mages are very rare. Even another Wildmage won’t always recognize one for what they are, though undoubtedly you would have figured it out eventually. It is said they only appear in times of direst need. I suppose you simply thought that you just weren’t a very good Wildmage.”

  Kellen nodded, unable to meet Jermayan’s gaze. He had thought that, all the time. Idalia’d told him not to worry, but how could he not worry about it, seeing what she could do and knowing that the best he could accomplish was so much less?

  “Well,” Jermayan said, breaking into Kellen’s thoughts. “You never will be, not in comparison with a true Wildmage, though you will master healing and fire-calling, and other useful skills; they will just never come as easily or naturally to you as to a Wildmage. A Wildmage’s and a Knight-Mage’s Gifts lie in opposite directions, though both belong fully to the Wild Magic.”

  That was exactly how he’d felt! Kellen clutched the tankard desperately, and some of that desperation must have entered his expression, for Jermayan’s face softened further.

  “Here,” he said, pointing to a fallen limb in what passed for shade under the tree. “Sit—and drink! I will tell you all that I know.”

  Kellen refilled his tankard and obeyed, hardly able to contain himself. It was nothing short of a miracle, an Elf offering to tell him everything without having to coax it out, driblet by driblet!

  Jermayan settled himself, and took a cautious sip of his water. “A Wildmage,” he began, “reaches out to all the world, knowing it intimately, in touch with all of it. A Knight-Mage’s gifts turn inward, refining himself, so he cannot be turned away from his path once he has chosen it. A Knight-Mage can withstand forces that would destroy a Wildmage, for his power lies in endurance and the alliance of his knightly skills with his Wildmagery. You will never be what Idalia is … but she will never be what you will be, either, Kellen.”

  “Is it—bad?” Kellen asked, tentatively.

  “You mean, can a Knight-Mage be turned to the bad?” Jermayan asked. “That is a foolish question, Kellen. All things can, as you know. But the Knight-Mage, even more so than the Wildmage, must choose that path, knowingly, and with forethought, and when he does, the Wild Magic will desert him, and he will retain only his own innermost gifts and training.”

  So I can’t just slide into evil. And it can’t just sneak up on me and corrupt me. That was easily the most comforting thought he’d ever had.

  He looked down at the sword at his side, remembering the feel of it in his hands. This was his, this skill. The sword was his tool. It felt right in his hands, an extension of himself. And with Jermayan’s help …

  “Never forget this,” Jermayan continued gravely. “The Knight-Mage makes the choice of life and death, directly and immediately. Be certain that when you claim a death, your reasons are good ones, the death is necessary, and that, to keep your spirit clean, you forgive your foe when you slay him. Anger is not to be shunned. Anger can be useful, and for the Knight-Mage it is a weapon just as is your sword. Good clean anger, full of purpose, will focus you. But as your sword, it can cut you if you clutch it to you. Remember that, and when the time when it is useful is over, you must let it go.”

  Kellen nodded earnestly, vowing to remember. He didn’t entirely understand what Jermayan was talking about, but he sensed that he would understand it sometime later.

  The Elven Knight smiled again, and drained his own tankard. “Now, come. We have some distance to ride. And now that I know what you are capable of, you will not find your lessons so easy.”

  Kellen grinned at him. Even more than that moment beside the spring, when Idalia had explained the truth about the Demons, he felt a sense of relief so intense it nearly made him weep. A Knight-Mage! There was a name for what he was. He wasn’t a second-class anything—not a failed High Mage, not a not-good-enough Wildmage. He was a Knight-Mage.

  “Just try me, Master.”

  They returned the water barrels to the back of the mule, and Jermayan retightened Valdien’s girths, and they rode on.

  “I’M a Knight-Mage,” Kellen said to Shalkan, letting Jermayan get a little ahead. For the moment, all his worries about the future, his fears of the battles he still had to face, the Barrier, were all gone. He knew what he was, now, and it was as if a key had been turned in a lock. He knew that the next time he opened his three Books and read them, things in them that had never made any sense to him before would suddenly be as clear as the water of Songmairie.

  Learning his new skills wouldn’t be easy, he knew that too. But for the first time—the very first time—in his entire life, Kellen felt as if he were finally pointed in the right direction. A Knight-Mage. A special kind of Wildmage. It still didn’t seem entirely real to him, but the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. It would take work—a lot of it, he was guessing—to master a Knight-Mage’s special gifts, but what he became would be his. Not a second-class Wildmage, doing things that Idalia could do better. A first-class Knight-Mage. Needed.

  A new thought struck him. “Did you know?”

  “I wasn’t sure,” Shalkan said after a long pause. “I suspected—especially after you managed to destroy two overlarge packs of the Outlaw Hunt with nothing more than a big stick—and my not-inconsiderable help, of course. Only a Knight-Mage could have done that. But the choice was still yours to make. You could have refused to be, you know.”

  Kellen stared down at Shalkan’s ears in surprise. The idea hadn’t even occurred to him.

  It felt so right. How could he have refused to be a Knight-Mage?

  The same way I could have refused the Wild Magic?

  It would have been possible; he could have given in to Lycaelon, burned the Books, gone back to his studies. The Mages would have edited his memories. He might even have been happy.

  And if he had?

  I wouldn’t have been Outlawed, I’d never have come to the Wildwood. Eventually Lycaelon probably would have found a reason to try to claim the Wildwood, but not for a while. So Idalia might not have come to Sentarshadeen until it was too late.

  It could have fallen out that way. It could easily have fallen out that way. He wouldn’t have given in if he’d known they were going to take his memories, of course, but he wouldn’t have known about that part, then or ever.

  If he’d given in …

&
nbsp; But he hadn’t.

  Was this why the Books had come to him when they had? So he could be Outlawed and find Idalia? So Lycaelon would expand the borders, chasing both of them to Sentarshadeen, where she would find out about the drought and the Barrier?

  And where Kellen could find someone who could tell him what he was?

  It made him dizzy for a moment, as if he had gotten a glimpse of a great pattern, of which he was an integral part. It was intoxicating.

  And frightening.

  Wildmages served the balance of All That Was. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t safe. To be fair, nobody had ever told him it would be.

  To claim his proper place in that pattern meant danger. But to give it up—would leave a hole in the pattern that would mean—well—maybe disaster, for a lot of people he was coming to know and like. What would happen if one who could become a Knight-Mage refused the challenge?

  “It is said they only appear in times of direst need.” Hadn’t Jermayan said that?

  “No,” Kellen said aloud. “I couldn’t have refused.”

  Shalkan just nodded, and let it go at that.

  THEY stopped at a dry riverbed to make camp late that afternoon. Jermayan looked grim at the sight. Last season, he told Kellen, the broad sandy expanse before them had been a swift, deep-flowing river, one of many that carried the mountain waters down into Sentarshadeen. But with the drought, it had dwindled away to almost nothing. All that was left was a narrow rivulet still trickling along what had once been the deepest part of the riverbed.

  Since they were stopping for the night, this time they unsaddled Valdien and Shalkan—fortunately the unicorn was able to tell Kellen what to do—and unloaded the pack mule.

  But when Kellen would have removed his armor in turn, Jermayan stopped him.

  “It is time for your next lesson,” Jermayan said cheerfully. It occurred to Kellen that the Elven Knight had become quite unaccountably better-humored since their first stop …