The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy

by Mercedes Lackey

  “So can I,” Jermayan said, an odd note in his voice.

  THE rest of the journey was almost a mirror of the first, though this time the sun was westering, treating Kellen to a spectacular show as it tinted the clouds with a thousand shades of gold. He missed the clouds when they left them behind, and was surprised to see that though here they were still in sunlight, the land below was already touched with twilight shadows.

  Ancaladar landed in the unicorn meadow near the House of Leaf and Star, but only long enough for Kellen to dismount. With Jermayan still in the saddle, he launched himself into the sky again, heading for his home canyon.

  Kellen stamped and stretched, working the stiffness out of his cramped muscles. It had been a beautiful flight, but still a cold one.

  “And did you enjoy your day?” Shalkan asked, materializing out of nowhere. The unicorn was hard to see—Kellen realized it was almost dark; well after lantern-lighting time.

  “It was instructive,” Kellen said. “And cold. But the children are safe at the fortress now.”

  “And likely to remain so?” Shalkan asked.

  Kellen regarded his friend broodingly. “Unless They try something I can’t imagine … yes.” Or until they starve to death waiting for us to defeat Shadow Mountain. Resupplying the fortress would be an easy matter come spring—but each time its doors were opened, all who were within were exposed to danger from an attack by treachery and stealth.

  “But you’re still not happy,” Shalkan said, falling into step beside Kellen as the young Knight-Mage began the long walk toward home. “And after you got to ride Ancaladar, and meet Master Tyrvin. Such gratitude.”

  Kellen made a rude noise. “‘I am duly grateful for all the mercies and benefits visited upon me,’” he said, quoting one of the sentences of the Litany of the Light that he’d had to recite each Light’s Day back in Armethalieh. “I just think I’m forgetting something.”

  “Well, you’ll have plenty of time to try to remember it on the ride to Ondoladeshiron,” Shalkan said cheerfully.

  THE journey to Ondoladeshiron took a sennight and a half, for not only did they move through deep winter, but they were restricted to the pace of the supply wagons that they escorted. These wagons held immense quantities of food and weapons, as well as much of the store of Wild Magic-infused articles that Idalia had crafted.

  For the first time, Kellen traveled with an Elven army in formal battle array. Although he was certainly battle-seasoned, he had not yet won his spurs in the House of Sword and Shield, and even though he was a Knight-Mage, he was also Shalkan’s rider, so for purposes of Elven battle protocol he rode under the orders of Petariel, Captain of the Unicorn Knights, as a junior knight.

  Kellen found it instructive; he kept his eyes and ears open, and began to learn a great deal about the bonds of camaraderie that other Unicorn Knights had with their mounts.

  The Unicorn Knights, of necessity, rode apart from the main army. By Elven standards they were all quite young, though they would have been grandmothers and grandfathers among humans. All of them were still mourning the loss of their comrades, both Elven and unicorn, in the Shadowed Elf ambush, for the community of Unicorn Knights was a small, close-knit one. Not every Elven fighter was even remotely interested in bonding with a unicorn.

  Oddly, it was a community that Kellen had never really been a part of, until now. He wasn’t a “real” Unicorn Knight—his bond with Shalkan was part of a Mageprice lasting a year and a day. That wasn’t the same thing as choosing a unicorn for a companion—or being chosen by one. And what happened when the Elf fell in love with another Elf? He—or she—would never see their unicorn friend again. Not up close, anyway.

  “You’re thinking like a human, again,” Shalkan observed, when Kellen confided some of these thoughts to him.

  “I am a human, in case you haven’t figured that out yet,” Kellen said. It felt good to discuss—for a change—something that had nothing in particular to do with Shadow Mountain.

  Shalkan snorted eloquently. “As if I could forget. Humans think the whole world revolves around them—but we have lives of our own, too, you know. The partnership of knight and unicorn is a fine thing, but in most cases both of the beings involved realize at the start that it’s only going to be an episode—a relatively short one—in what will be long lives for them both. A year and a day probably seems like a long time to you—well, for most of these knights, their partnership won’t seem to last much longer.”

  Uh-huh. That sounded awfully cold-blooded to Kellen. Maybe an Elf—who was going to live several centuries—could manage it Or …

  “How long do unicorns live, anyway?” Kellen asked.

  “Longer than you’re likely to if you keep asking foolish questions,” Shalkan answered quellingly.

  Ah. Evidently there were some things even Kellen wasn’t supposed to know.

  KELLEN didn’t spend all his time with the Unicorn Knights. Fortunately, a Knight-Mage could go where he pleased, and Kellen took full advantage of that freedom.

  Jermayan was flying with Ancaladar, doing most of the long-range scouting for the little army, but naturally he had brought Valdien with him. Under Deyishene’s tutelage, Kellen’s equestrian skills had improved to the point where—with Jermayan’s permission, and after a proper introduction to Valdien to assure the destrier that it was, indeed, all right—he could take Valdien out of the horse-lines and ride the great storm-colored destrier among the main body of the troops.

  He saw things there that greatly disturbed him.

  He knew already that Elves were creatures of great respect for tradition. He saw now that the tradition extended to the organization of their army. The equivalent sons and daughters of these same Elven households had probably ridden in exactly these positions a thousand years ago, the last time the Elves had gone to war.

  Which meant, Kellen thought with a frown, that when the Elven armies gathered to face Shadow Mountain, the Demon horde would know exactly who and where everyone was. Idalia had told him that the Demons weren’t merely long-lived, like the Elves, but truly immortal. So it wasn’t impossible that there were actual Demon generals out there that had faced the Allied and Elven armies last time.

  He might not know everything about the Art of War yet, but he did know that it wasn’t a good idea for the enemy to know what the entire disposition of your troops was going to be in advance. And if the Elves were as much creatures of Tradition as they appeared—which Kellen had no reason to doubt—Shadow Mountain already knew every possible battle formation they would use.

  Not good.

  Individually, the Elves were unstoppable fighters—and individually they were perfectly capable of improvisation if they put their minds to it And they were smart enough to realize within seconds of an encounter that they were no longer playing by the same rules as they once had been. For some of them, that was fast enough to save them. But the larger the group, the more unwieldy and Tradition-bound it became.

  The easier to defeat.

  He’d identified another problem, Kellen realized with an inward sigh. It was just too bad he couldn’t come up with a solution to it as easily. The Elven Commanders weren’t going to throw out several thousand years of the “proper” way of doing things just on his say-so. And their tactics had worked the last time.

  That’s the root of the problem. It worked twice before. They know it did. So why shouldn’t it work again?

  The only bright spot in things—no more than a faint glimmer, really, to be honest—was that Kellen doubted whoever was running the Demon side of this war had any interest at all in engaging in a series of formal battles. As for the battle against the Shadowed Elves, it wouldn’t be a traditional form of warfare at all, so it would rely on the Elves’ strengths, not their weaknesses.

  It was almost as if they were certain to win … and their victory didn’t matter to Shadow Mountain’s ultimate strategy. But if they ignored the Shadowed Elves, knowing them for the trap that they w
ere, Shadow Mountain would mercilessly exploit that weakness in the Elven Lands’ defenses.

  We’re trapped either way, Kellen thought, in grudging admiration for the unknown Demon general. We have no choice but to do exactly what they want us to do. For now.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ondoladeshiron at Last

  SENTARSHADEEN WAS A hidden city, a city of forests and canyons. Ondoladeshiron stood in the middle of a vast plain at the foot of a mountain range—Kellen recalled that Idalia had turned from a Silver Eagle back into human form here; if his memory was right, Ondoladeshiron was also where she’d met Jermayan.

  The buildings of the Elven city echoed the rise and fall of the surface of the plain, and evoked the towering strength of the mountains behind them as well. Like the Elves themselves, Ondoladeshiron had the ability to hide in plain sight: though it should be easy enough to see a large city in the middle of a plain, especially in winter, Ondoladeshiron eluded the eye, deceiving one into thinking it no more than a natural tumble of stones. The buildings looked nothing like buildings of any kind; it was impossible to see anything that didn’t look as if it had been formed entirely by the chaotic action of weather, wind, water, and time. Yet Kellen knew that whatever the Elves were doing to hide their city, they were doing it entirely without magic, merely the skill honed by centuries—millennia!—of observing the natural world.

  One thing that assisted Ondoladeshiron to hide itself was the presence of the Elven army camped at the city’s outskirts on the Gathering Plain. The encampment was as colorful as the city was circumspect, drawing the eye toward itself. At this distance, all Kellen could see was rows of pavilions in colors like the flowers in a spring meadow, and the horse herd beside it. Kellen wondered just how many of them there were: he, Idalia, and Vestakia had ridden here among nearly two hundred knights, all Andoreniel could spare from the patrols around Sentarshadeen.

  Of course, like every Elven city, Ondoladeshiron also had its Flower Forest In this season, it was the only spot of natural color in the snow-covered landscape. Though the trees at the outer edges of the forest were covered in snow, all were in leaf, and some were in flower.

  “Courage, brother,” Idalia murmured as they neared the encampment.

  “What?” Kellen asked. He was riding Valdien today, and the destrier was (for the most part) behaving himself. Unfortunately, Jermayan’s mount knew that Kellen’s horsemanship wasn’t the equal of his master’s, and Valdien had all Jermayan’s dry sense of humor. He liked to pull tricks on Kellen at odd moments, and then pretend he’d done nothing at all. It took all of Kellen’s attentiveness to remain in the saddle sometimes, though it was doing wonders for his riding skills. It occurred to him that the destrier was giving him the equine equivalent of Belesharon’s lessons in swordsmanship.

  Idalia gave him a strange look. “You’re the first Knight-Mage born in a thousand years. Don’t you think a few people are going to want to meet you? Including other Wildmages?”

  “Oh.” Oh. “But nothing I should worry about, right?” Kellen asked with a crooked smile.

  “Right,” Idalia answered, smiling back.

  ONCE again, being Shalkan’s rider worked in Kellen’s favor. Though the rest of the knights were grouped by the city of their residence, the Unicorn Knights’ pavilions were all bunched together at the very edge of the camp, so that their mounts could come to them easily. By the time Kellen had turned over Valdien to the Sentarshadeen horse-master and found out where he was supposed to be, Petariel already had the wagons with their gear separated out from the rest, and he and the other Sentarshadeen Unicorn Knights were unloading them, while others that Kellen didn’t recognize—even if all Elves looked fairly similar, even to Kellen, the armor of an Elven Knight was highly distinctive—were marking out the places where the pavilions were to be erected.

  Kellen quickly got to work. No student of Belesharon’s was afraid of a little hard work, and besides, he was looking forward to getting his bedroll unpacked and finding who was brewing the tea. Menerchel usually took charge of that—Kellen had tactfully assured the others at the outset that he would happily light any fires they liked, and do extra work putting up the pavilions, but that everyone would be a great deal happier if he did not do any of the cooking.

  The other thing at the back of his mind was that surely, if he was hidden away in the midst of the Unicorn Knights, none of the other Wildmages would be able to find him.

  It wasn’t that Kellen was afraid to meet another Wildmage. Wildmages were, one and all, a force for Good. And he’d long since gotten over the time when he’d worried about being a not-good-enough Wildmage. That had ended at the moment when he’d discovered he was a Knight-Mage, a different sort of Wildmage entirely.

  So, then, why?

  Both his Wildmage training and Master Belesharon had taught him that such hidden reluctance was a warning, to be confronted and understood at once, if at all possible. Now that the pavilions were all in place—and firmly staked down against the wind—Kellen went and collected his equipment and Shalkan’s armor. He dropped it in his tent, then procured a large mug of Winter Spice Tea from Menerchel, then returned to his tent to unpack his gear and think the matter over.

  He wasn’t afraid of the other Wildmages. He wasn’t ashamed of what he was. And as for not wanting to be the center of attention … well, he was getting plenty of attention right here, since all of the other Unicorn Knights were just as fascinated by a Knight-Mage as any strange Wildmage might be, and if Elves were legendary for their stubbornness, they were equally known for their curiosity.

  So that wasn’t it.

  “Cozy,” Shalkan said, walking into the tent.

  Since the pavilion was—naturally—in Kellen’s “color,” the light shining through it turned Shalkan’s white fur a radiant pale green, which was a rather startling effect, Kellen thought.

  “I guess it’s going to be home for a while,” Kellen said. “So I’m just as glad it’s comfortable.”

  “Idalia’s looking for you—or so I hear. There are some people she wants you to meet,” Shalkan said, tilting his head to regard Kellen from beneath his long lashes.

  “And I don’t want to meet them. And I don’t know why,” Kellen sighed. “I’m trying to figure that out.”

  “Child of the City,” Shalkan said, his voice unusually serious, “you are not responsible for the errors of your ancestors. Not even the most immediate ones.”

  “Of course not; I know th—Is that it?” Kellen said, catching himself in midsentence.

  “Maybe,” Shalkan said inscrutably.

  Kellen thought about it. Idalia had been gone from Armethalieh more than half her life, but he hadn’t. It was true that he’d been Banished, and Armethalieh had severed all its ties with him, but maybe, deep in his heart, he was still what Shalkan had called him: Child of the City.

  And Armethalieh had not done well by the Wild Magic. It had set the High Magick in its place. It had cast out its Wildmages, denied their existence, killed them wherever it found them.

  Now he could identify the peculiar reluctance to meet another Wildmage.

  It was guilt.

  “But they won’t blame me,” Kellen said aloud, exasperated with himself.

  No, they won’t—so stop blaming yourself. You had nothing to do with decisions made in the City centuris before you were born.

  Kellen sighed, feeling the knot of tension and reluctance dissolve. “I’m always borrowing trouble, aren’t I?”

  “I don’t see why you feel the need to,” Shalkan said, “when the world is always willing to give so much of it away for free. Now, don’t you have somewhere to be?”

  “Yes,” Kellen said. “And … thanks.”

  HE found Petariel and let him know where he was going, then headed off to find Idalia.

  Sentarshadeen’s encampment was at the far side of the Gathering Plain, so Kellen had to walk through most of the camp to reach it.

  The tents of Ondoladesh
iron were nearest the city itself, and Kellen recognized banners from Windalorianan, Deskethomaynel, and Thultafoniseen as he passed, for part of his training in the House of Sword and Shield had been in the heraldry of the Nine Cities. That meant Lerkalpoldara, Valwendigorean, Realthataladon, and Ysterialpoerin were yet to arrive, but they were the most far-flung of the Nine Cities, and it might be another fortnight before they arrived. Andoreniel’s army should be on its way to the cavern before that, Kellen hoped.

  He reached the Sentarshadeen pavilions, and saw familiar faces—but not the familiar faces he was looking for. In response to his puzzled expression, Dervasin took pity on him and observed that the Wildmage Idalia was to be found with Evanor, Vestakia, and the others among the tents of the Healers, and pointed him in the right direction.

  Once more Kellen set off, discovering that he’d passed that collection of tents on his way across the field. Since the Healers weren’t knights, their tents were a reflection of their personal style rather than knightly colors. Some were … very bright indeed, their surfaces as brilliantly and randomly colored as a field of wildflowers. Others were as plain and deceptively simple as an Elvenware bowl, or—in the way of Elves—carefully painted to look like something they were not. The pavilion Idalia shared with Vestakia, for example, was artfully crafted to look as if it had been stitched together from carefully-tanned deer hides, right down to the tiny stitches and the small imperfections in the leather. Only when you touched it did you realize that it was the same thick and durable silk canvas as all the others.

  He wondered whose idea that had been.

  He hoped Vestakia hadn’t had any problems. They’d all grown so used to her appearance in Sentarshadeen that it only now occurred to Kellen that the rest of the Nine Cities might see nothing more than her outward appearance.

  He dismissed the thought with a shrug. She had many friends and protectors now.