The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy

by Mercedes Lackey

  “How big?” Cilarnen had asked warily.

  Margon sketched a shape in the air with his hands.

  “Not too bad,” Tiedor said with relief. “My birth-father is a carter. He’ll let me borrow one of the carts and teams, and he won’t ask any questions if I tell him it’s Mage-business. I can drive a cart and team, too.” He regarded the rest of them, a faint smirk on his features, and Cilarnen felt a faint pang of … guilt? Relief?

  He’d always looked down on Tiedor—who hadn’t?—because of his Common blood. But it was just that—the fact that he came from the Commons and remembered what he’d learned there—that would make their plan work now.

  “That’s good then. And, Tiedor—thank you. I don’t think this would work without you.” He turned to the others. “We seem to have a plan. Margon will get us the athanor, Tiedor will get the cart to transport it here, Kermis will write out the list of materials that we need to make the umbrastone, and we’ll all work on getting them. We can work out the rest of our plan while we’re actually making the umbrastone.”

  IT was a good plan—Cilarnen had discovered, over the last several moonturns, that he had a talent for planning—and the first part of it went exactly as he intended. The athanor was acquired, installed, tested, and seasoned—both Margon and Kermis agreed on the necessity for that.

  Obtaining the ingredients for the recipe took far more ingenuity, though the six of them were wealthy by any standards but those of the Mageborn.

  But finally, almost two moonturns later, they were ready to begin.

  It had not been an easy time for Cilarnen. He had the disturbing feeling that his father was watching him more closely than he had for a long time, and the gossip he overheard in his work as an Entered Apprentice was not encouraging. Though the City was protected from inclement weather, the Delfier Valley was not. And outside the City, the autumn storms had been ferociously hard; Cilarnen did not precisely understand the details or the logic, but apparently because of the bad weather, the farmers were withholding the rest of their food, just as Margon had warned would happen.

  And what was the Council doing? Engaging in screaming debates (so it was rumored) as to whether—and if so, how—to continue its trade with the High Hills, now that it no longer had a Trading Outpost available in Nerendale. Would the caravans even be willing to come into Armethalieh as they had a generation ago? And if they were, would the Council be willing to allow them in?

  Well, they won’t have to. By spring, this will all be settled. I hope, Cilarnen told himself uneasily. He still wasn’t sure what they were going to do once they had the umbrastone. The making of the stuff had turned out to be so complicated that none of them had even begun to discuss the next phase. Deep down in his heart, he just hoped that the Council would see how serious things were, and understand that they had to take the Home Farms back.

  Perhaps he was going about this all wrong. Maybe he should just petition for a private audience with the Arch-Mage Lycaelon. It was every Mageborn’s right—a right rarely invoked, but still the law of the City. He could ask the Arch-Mage what to do.

  Tonight he’d been the first to arrive at their secret meeting place, and his train of thought was interrupted by the arrival of the others.

  “I’ve brought wine,” Geont said. “I think we’ll need it.”

  Kermis shuddered faintly. “Well, I’ve brought tea—and decent water.” He flourished a packet and a large flask. “Phastan Silvertip. I hope the pot’s clean.”

  “And I’ve brought the mixing bowl,” Jorade said, lifting a huge shallow container of pure gold from beneath his cloak and setting it on the shabby wooden table with a grunt. The rickety table creaked and shifted beneath the weight. “I borrowed it from the family chapel. Nobody will miss it—so long as it’s back before Morning Devotions, of course.”

  “It will be,” Kermis said. “And Tiedor?”

  “One dozen hen’s eggs, fresh from the hen and this morning’s market,” the young Entered Apprentice said. “The ways of Mages are mysterious,” he added with a grin. “The silly woman had no idea why I’d want to be down in the Fowl Market buying my own eggs. She fluttered as much as one of her own geese!”

  “Women!” Cilarnen agreed, dropping his own contribution into the bowl—eight ounces of white roses (heads only). The recipe had specified that they had to be cut precisely at sunrise without the use of metal, so Cilarnen had been unable to simply buy them in the Flower Market. Rather, he’d had to slip out of bed at an unspeakably early hour, make his way across the City to the Park, charm his way into one of the greenhouses with a tale of a youthful dare, and bribe one of the gardeners heavily to allow him to cut them with an ivory letter opener he’d sharpened for the purpose. And hope that nobody—like his father, or his tutors—checked up on his story, because it would be a little awkward to explain.

  Though not nearly as awkward as the truth.

  The eggs and the roses were the only fresh ingredients. The others they had been able to gather and store here over the last several sennights. As Tiedor carefully broke the eggs into the bowl—they weren’t sure from the recipe whether to break them or not, but as Kermis pointed out, if they didn’t break them, what they would have would be chickens—the others added the rest of the ingredients. Last of all, Kermis added several ounces of fluid—and rather poisonous—quicksilver, and then dropped in the original piece of umbrastone. It would form the raw materials in its own image, making the creation of new umbrastone more certain. It instantly sank to the bottom.

  All of them stared down at the golden bowl full of peculiar and unappetizing varicolored slime. The quicksilver floated on the top, eddying around the broken eggshells and the rose-heads. It smelled … odd.

  “Well it isn’t going to do anything yet!” Kermis said, sounding irritable and nervous. “Help me pour it into the containment vessel. Then we’ll light the athanor. Then we wait.”

  It took four of them to pick up the bowl now that it was full, and it hadn’t been light to start with. The room was dark, lit only by entirely mundane lanterns, for Kermis was worried that any use of the Art Magickal would interfere with the delicate operation of the Art Khemitic. They would be using ordinary wood and coal to heat the oven, which meant that one of them would have to be here every day to make sure it stayed at the proper temperature.

  Cilarnen locked eyes with Master Raellan across the lip of the bowl as the four of them lifted it in unison. Master Raellan gave him a small smile of triumph.

  “Halt in the name of the High Council!”

  Suddenly the cellar blazed bright with Mage-light. Cilarnen heard the clatter of Stone Golem feet on the steps leading down into the cellar. He didn’t know who dropped the bowl first, only that it slipped from his hands to strike the floor with a ringing clang, spattering its noisome contents everywhere.

  Spell-fed panic gripped him, and despite the Mage-light glare, it was suddenly hard to see. Cilarnen backed away from the mess on the floor until the wall jarred hard against his back.

  “Run!” someone shouted, but there was nowhere to run to. There was only one entrance to the cellar, and it was filled with Stone Golems and grey-clad Journeyman Mages, their wands tracing glowing Glyphs of Containment in the air.

  This has all gone terribly wrong. It was a ridiculously understated thing to think, and it was the last conscious thought Cilarnen had before one of the floating glyphs touched his face. It seemed to burst, stealing his senses from him.

  ANIGREL watched with grave approval as the Stone Golems carried the last of the unconscious conspirators from the cellar. It had been the work of an instant for Master Raellan to vanish, and Undermage Anigrel, here on the Arch-Mage’s orders, to take his place. And though the children might speak of Master Raellan all they liked, no one would ever be able to locate the fellow, no matter how hard they searched—which would only add to the High Mages’ paranoia once the full extent of this night’s work was disclosed. It would be obvious that the childr
en were merely the spearhead of a conspiracy to destroy the very fabric of life as the City knew it.

  At least, it would be once he was through explaining things to Lycaelon.

  “THE conspirators have been secured, my lord.”

  Anigrel stepped into Lycaelon’s private office in the Council House. Outside, the single carillon of Midnight Bells rang through the night air.

  “Good.” A flame of triumph kindled in Lycaelon’s grey eyes. “And their fathers?”

  “Remain—so far—in ignorance that their activities have been discovered,” Anigrel said smoothly.

  “You feel they were involved as well?” Lycaelon said sharply.

  “My lord, how could they not be?” Anigrel said, feigning surprise. “Young men of good families … how could they mount a conspiracy of this magnitude without assistance from their families? Could young Lalkmair have gained access to the information he needed to create umbrastone without his father’s assistance, for example? And I’m sure you will find, when you question them, that there are others involved as well. Assuming their memories have not already been erased by magick to protect their fellow conspirators, of course.” There! That should do much to explain the inconvenient fact that Cilarnen and the others would insist they were alone in their plans.

  He watched as Lycaelon contemplated the prospect.

  “There must be trials,” he said at last. “There can be no accusations without evidence of guilt. But it is a time for the testing of fealty, Anigrel. Yes, and a time to reward loyalty.”

  “Trials, of course,” Anigrel said smoothly, “but you will wish to proceed with the utmost caution, naturally. It seems obvious that this is yet another attempt by the Wildmages to subvert our ranks, for who else would need to weaken our magick in order to replace it with their own? Further, it now seems clear that Lord Volpiril has been involved all along, and that his insistence on reducing the borders of our influence is in fact another aspect of this very conspiracy. He will have to resign his Council seat at the very least—and as for Cilarnen, I imagine the Council will recommend Banishment, don’t you?”

  Lycaelon smiled. “Indeed. Banishment for Cilarnen and for the tradesman’s whelp—and that means the re-enlargement of our Borders to make that punishment more than a meaningless reprimand. Volpiril, Isas, and Breulin—at the very least—will lose their Council seats over this night’s work.”

  Anigrel merely nodded, and schooled his face into an expression of humility.

  “And that leaves vacancies on the Council,” Lycaelon continued. “And I know precisely whom I intend to appoint to one of those places. Oh, it hasn’t been done for centuries, but there is precedent for it. I have the power. I shall raise you, my loyal aide, to the rank of High Mage at once, and you shall take Volpiril’s place, to serve me loyally as he never did.”

  Anigrel waited a beat, as if the news had not actually penetrated, then assumed a look of mingled pleasure and surprise. Not shock; shock would be a little too much. “My Lord!” he said, gazing at the Arch-Mage. “I—I hardly know what to say!”

  “And I do not think I shall fill the other vacancies at all,” Lycaelon went on, with grim satisfaction. “Let those seats stand empty, rather than being occupied with those who would only become my enemies.”

  The next few bells were full of feverish activity; messages sent and received, certain Mageborn notified, certain of them kept in ignorance. And through it all, Anigrel worked quietly at Lycaelon’s elbow, as if nothing had changed. Which was exactly what Lycaelon wanted, of course.

  So now he would be a member of the High Council, Anigrel thought to himself. And afterward—little though Lycaelon might suspect it at the moment—they would go on winnowing the ranks of the Council of those who were not perfectly loyal to the Arch-Mage.

  The Arch-Mage and his so-devoted acolyte.

  THEY were somewhere underground, that much Lairamo knew for certain. Despite her best intentions, she had lost consciousness several times during that frightful aerial journey, when she had dangled far above the surface of the ground, half-frozen and battered by the winds of the storm.

  When she had regained consciousness, it was dark. She could smell damp stone, and knew by the stillness of the air that she was somewhere far beneath the earth’s surface, in a tunnel or a cave. She was being carried in some kind of sling by beings who did not need light to see by, and had not known whether to pray that the children were with her, or not. She knew that if they were not with her, they were surely dead, but perhaps death was better than her own eventual fate.

  But as they traveled, each step making her sway nauseatingly back and forth in her sling, faint sobs and whimpers told her that at least some of the children still lived.

  At last their journey ended. There was a break in the darkness; a patch of eldritch purple light, almost blinding after the unrelieved darkness. Having a point of reference in the blackness made Lairamo feel even more ill. She had no choice but to close her eyes tightly.

  She opened them again as the sling was being set down. The source of the violet light was now visible: a thick encrustation of luminous lichen high on the walls of the small grotto.

  Her captors’ forms were concealed in deep hooded cloaks. They moved with silent efficiency, and even though she knew she ought to try to find out why they had been brought here, Lairamo was afraid to speak to them. There was something about these silent creatures that horrified her somehow—even though they were completely muffled in shapeless cloaks—Lairamo could tell that there was something about them that was so deeply, poisonously wrong that it revolted her very nature.

  They quickly deposited their burdens and departed, as silently as they had done everything else. The moment they were gone, she raised her head and counted the slings.

  Six. She got to her feet, pushing the enveloping folds of her sling aside, and hurried among the bundles. She began unfurling them, wrinkling her nose at the odd, fusty odor they exuded. All the children were there, and safe—some unconscious, some merely terrified into unblinking immobility. She caught up Sandalon and Kalania in her arms, unable to think of what to do next. The children were groggy from cold and shock. Sandalon clung to her wordlessly and tiny Kalania trembled, too terrified to cry.

  Lairamo looked around, clutching the youngest children to her. Apparently they were to be kept alive for a while, for the edges of the cavern were piled with boxes and bundles, some bearing the marks of great age.

  “Alkandoran!” she said, calling out his name until the boy roused. The teenager sat up slowly, looking around groggily and then with increasing apprehension.

  “Look through those bundles. Get the others to help you. We need to find a brazier or something that will serve as one, and some way to start a fire. It is cold in here. We need light—and heat.”

  “Yes, Nurse Lairamo.” Alkandoran was not so many years away from having had a nurse of his own, and from his expression, Lairamo could see that it was far easier for him at the moment to take orders than to think about where he was.

  Tredianala, Merisashendiel, and Vendalton had freed themselves from their hammocks at the sound of familiar voices, and were looking around with a growing curiosity. Lairamo didn’t think it had occurred to the younger children yet that the others were dead, and if the Gods of Leaf and Star were kind, it might not occur to them for a long time to come.

  “Come on,” Alkandoran said sturdily. “We need to look for useful things.”

  Merisashendiel and Vendalton were eager to help. Tredianala, the more timid of the cousins, came and curled up next to Lairamo.

  “Will we be going home soon?” she asked trustingly, leaning her head against Lairamo’s shoulder.

  “Soon, I hope,” Lairamo said, since it would hardly do to tell the child the truth: that they might be going home to the Gods, but they would almost certainly never see Sentarshadeen again.

  She doubted anyone at all had survived the massacre. Creatures that could outrun unicorns—and k
ill them, as she had seen, to her horror—must certainly have destroyed everyone else in the caravan first. There would be no one left to warn Sentarshadeen that they had been taken, and though the Fortress of the Crowned Horns would know they had not arrived on schedule, it would be sennights before they could send word to Sentarshadeen to warn Ashaniel and Andoreniel of the disaster.

  And by then … whatever fate was planned for them would surely have befallen them. And where could their rescuers begin to look for them?

  “I found a brazier!” Alkandoran cried delightedly, tipping the pieces out of their bag with a clatter and peering at them in the dimness. Further discoveries followed: lanterns, and oil, some odd amber-colored, waxy cylinders that Lairamo identified as candles—something the Elves did not use—and thankfully enough charcoal to keep the two braziers Alkandoran had found burning for quite some time, though they would have to be careful of the toxic fumes. Still, the air seemed fresh enough now that Lairamo thought they probably had more to worry about from the cold than from suffocating. Down here the air was always cold, and there was the danger of falling into a body-chilled lethargy that could end in death.

  Though perhaps that might not be a bad end …

  Most of the looted goods that had been left for them were of Elven manufacture, but there was enough of peculiar and unfamiliar design—and therefore probably of human origin—to suggest that their captors had plundered human trade-caravans as well as Elven ones.

  There were no blankets—at least they’d found none so far, though there were many more bundles to search through, and searching should keep the children occupied for at least a while. Lairamo sighed. Perhaps the peculiar slings could be used as blankets.

  “Light two of the lanterns first, Alkandoran. We’ll feel better with some light.”

  The boy hurried to comply—his hands shook only a little—and the shadows rushed back as the welcoming golden light blossomed. In the stronger illumination, the fungal glow disappeared, the lichen becoming merely a greyish encrustation on the cavern walls.