The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy

by Mercedes Lackey

  Moving carefully, Cilarnen consolidated several piles until he had cleared space atop the storage trunks for them to sit. Their cloaks hung in the one corner of the tent not filled with papers—Cilarnen had that much practicality—slowly dripping melting snow onto the carpet.

  “I can offer you tea—if I can find the tea-brazier and the pot,” he said. “Of course, I don’t have any decent tea, but still …”

  “I’ll take the thought for the deed,” Kellen said. “So what did you want my help with?”

  “What, should we not discuss the weather for at least half-a-bell?” Cilarnen teased. Then he sobered, settling to business.

  “I think I may have figured out how to power my magick, Kellen.

  “You know how they do it in Armethalieh. Because Power is something that everyone has in tiny amounts, though only those with the Magegift can use it to fuel their spells, long ago the High Mages decided that they would harvest and store the power of the unGifted citizens and use it for their spells, adding it to their own natural power. If I have to rely on nothing more than my own innate power, there are very few spells of the High Magick that I will ever be able to successfully cast, but outside of Armethalieh, with its elaborate system of Talismans and—probably—greater reservoirs, there is no mechanism for harvesting and storing Power.”

  Kellen nodded. Cilarnen was telling him nothing neither of them didn’t already know, but he was obviously working his way up to something.

  “But Armethalieh didn’t always exist, and for the High Mages to create their system, they had to have a power source before they discovered that one, or else they wouldn’t have been able to cast spells in the first place and invent the High Magick, do you see? These books that Kindolhinadetil gave me are very very old, Kellen—I studied one or two of the same ones back in the City, and in the copies I saw there, everything was slightly different. As if they’d been rewritten here and there over the centuries. So I wasn’t surprised when I finally came across references to the original source of the High Mages’ power—something that, needless to say, is certainly nowhere taught in the City today.

  “It seems that the High Mages once harnessed Elemental energy directly to fuel their spells. Apparently it was very dangerous—the one book I have that talks much about it goes on and on about how the Mage must be careful not to cast too many spells, and to rest frequently, lest he burn out his Gift and his life. And apparently you couldn’t do it for long—the book talks about High Mages ‘retiring if they can’ after seven years—as if that ever happened. That part just doesn’t make sense!”

  It might not make sense to Cilarnen, but it did to Kellen. If Cilarnen was talking about High Mages from before the founding of Armethalieh, then he was talking about High Mages who were still fighting Demons—for, he now knew, Armethalieh had been founded shortly after the end of The Great War, when the High Magick came to declare the Wild Magic anathema. High Mages who fought for the Light would almost certainly die young, burning out their Magegift on the battlefield fighting the Endarkened.

  “Anyway, I’m not exactly ready to evoke an Elemental and try to figure out how to take away its power in order to use it myself,” Cilarnen said. “I’m barely used to the idea that the Elemental Powers are something—things—you might actually meet, and not abstract concepts used to balance out the design of a spell. I keep thinking of them as a different kind of Illusory Creature, and then my mind stops working entirely. But whatever they really are, I’m certainly not going to kidnap one of them and steal from it. And even if I could figure out how to ask for its permission, I think the arrangement of taking its power might kill it—assuming they can be killed.”

  Kellen was sure by now that Cilarnen was taking as long to get to the point as any Elf ever had. But he could also see that whatever conclusion he had reached was a troubling one for the young High Mage, so he supposed that it was just as well to let Cilarnen reach the point in his own way.

  “But the Elves guard their land through the land-wards, which are also linked—according to these scrolls—to the Elemental Powers. Oh, I can’t exactly read them, of course, but Kardus can, and I think I am learning to puzzle out a word or two. At any rate, I think I could adapt the High Magery spell to link with the land-wards and draw on the Elemental Powers through that. I wouldn’t be tapping into the energy of any specific Elemental Creature, so there would be no danger of harming any of them, and I do not think I could draw enough power off the landwards to affect them. At any rate, I could easily do a divination to make sure.”

  Cilarnen seemed to be finished talking, and so far he had not raised any points, as far as Kellen could see, that would require Kellen’s help.

  And if what he had said he had learned from the ancient texts was true, even if Cilarnen knew precisely what he was doing, it would be more than dangerous. And he was talking about adapting a spell that hadn’t been cast since the last time there were Knight-Mages—and if there was one thing Kellen knew for sure, it was that playing fast-and-loose with the rule-bound High Magick wasn’t simply dangerous. It was disastrous.

  “Cilarnen …” he began uneasily.

  “You think I don’t understand the consequences?” Cilarnen asked. “Or just the magickal theory involved? At heart it’s a simple substitution of Powers of equivalent class: every Mage learns it in order to adapt spells to specific functions. Otherwise you couldn’t—oh, Preserve a specific loaf of bread instead of all bread within the range of your spell.”

  It’s just like Maths. At heart, the High Magick is just like Maths, Kellen realized with a stunning sense of sudden insight.

  Of course, he’d always liked Maths. And he doubted anything was ever going to make him like—or really understand—the High Magick.

  “This is a lot more complicated than loaves of bread,” he pointed out. “And even if you get it exactly right, it could still kill you—which I know you know. But mainly, you said you needed my help, and I know it can’t be in the spellwork.”

  Kellen’s comment startled a sharp laugh from Cilarnen. “As if I would have you anywhere near any proper Working Circle! Precious Light, Kellen, I would as soon Work without a Circle at all as have your help! And you would be just as pleased to have me guard your back in battle, I imagine. Whatever it is that you do, I suppose you do it very well, but you are even less of a High Mage than I am. No, it is the matter of permission. If I am to try to take power from the Elven land-wards, I must have permission. But whose? And how do I ask for it?”

  KELLEN raised the matter with Redhelwar the following day, when he met with the Army’s General to plan his own journey toward the south.

  “In a matter such as this, affecting the whole of the land, it is Andoreniel who is the voice of the land,” Redhelwar said, after a long hesitation. But his voice was troubled.

  “Yet Andoreniel is silent,” Kellen said, forcing himself to remain calm. “As is Ashaniel. And we are far from Sentarshadeen. I do not believe that we may let this matter lie until Cilarnen can go in person to Sentarshadeen. Jermayan and Ancaladar could make the journey quickly and safely to bring Cilarnen there, it is true. But we do not know when they will return to the army, and while they are on the wing, flying between cities, there is no way of getting a message to them quickly, so the same problem applies. If I take Cilarnen with me, we will be several moonturns on the road. It is time we cannot afford to waste. We know that a High Mage and a Wildmage combining their powers can slay Them—and the High Magick has other spells that the Wild Magic does not.”

  “I cannot speak in Andoreniel’s name,” Redhelwar said. “But Kindolhinadetil is the Voice of Andoreniel. We must go to him and ask for his counsel.”

  THERE are so many ways this can go horribly wrong, Kellen thought a sennight later, and magic was the farthest thing from his mind.

  He, Cilarnen, Redhelwar, and several others were on their way to seek an audience from Kindolhinadetil at the House of Bough and Wind.

  And Kellen was ve
ry much afraid that Cilarnen was going to have to speak for himself.

  Kellen had taken every spare moment he had in the past several days—and there weren’t many—to give Cilarnen every warning and piece of advice he could think of about how to behave when he met the Viceroy of Ysterialpoerin. Cilarnen thought the Elves he’d met so far were bizarre and mysterious, but they were nothing compared to the Elves who lived in the Heart of the Forest. Jermayan had once told Kellen that the Elves of Ysterialpoerin were the ones who lived as closely as possible to the way Elves had lived before there were humans. Isinwen, Kellen’s second in command, had left Ysterialpoerin, the city of his birth, because he found the people stultifying formal. If they were so formal that even other Elves wanted to leave, Kellen couldn’t imagine them having any patience at all with humans. The one time he’d been there, he’d kept his mouth shut and his head down, and hoped they hadn’t noticed him too much.

  He’d told Cilarnen all that, of course. But he wasn’t sure he’d gotten through to him. And he hadn’t really had the time to figure out a way to get through, because the preparations for his own departure were taking up all his attention.

  When Redhelwar had said he was giving Kellen a “force” to take to Halacira, Kellen had imagined it would be something small—perhaps his own troop with a few supply-wagons added.

  Instead, Redhelwar was placing a full third of the army under Kellen’s direct command.

  There were ways in which it made sense. Two sets of messengers had failed to report back from Sentarshadeen; Kellen might need to fight his way into the southwest and be able to send back word with a heavily-defended force to the main army without weakening his own forces. Artenel and several of Rulorwen’s people were accompanying Kellen in order to begin the assessment of the caverns, and Engineers do not travel light; there would also need to be enough mounted troops to protect the Engineers’ equipment.

  Pack animals, destriers, and draft animals—and their riders and handlers—all had to be fed and sheltered, which meant supply and equipment wagons, which in turn added to the number of draft animals… .

  And Kellen was in charge of all of it.

  In part this indicated a vote of confidence from the Army’s General. Partly it was—Kellen sighed inwardly—another test. Being placed in charge of this portion of the army meant he was being placed in charge of commanders who were—except for Artenel—his equals in rank, and certainly his seniors in age and possibly experience. Redhelwar would wish to know if Kellen could command them.

  What Kellen wanted to know was if he could keep them alive. The continuing silence from Sentarshadeen worried him desperately. Perhaps Cilarnen could find out what the problem was there.

  If today’s meeting went well.

  If Cilarnen didn’t manage to offend Kindolhinadetil completely.

  And, of course, don’t forget, if this is something Kindolhinadetil can even grant. Redhelwar only said we could “ask his counsel.”He didn’t say what would come of it.

  “Will you stop twitching?” Cilarnen whispered beneath the steady crunch of their horses’ hooves through the snow-crust. The day was clear and bright—for a change—one less thing to worry about in a day that held far too many things to worry about. As much as Kellen had needed to leave Isinwen behind to oversee the work of departure, he’d felt he’d needed him with the embassy to Kindolhinadetil even more. Ysterialpoerin was Isinwen’s birthplace, and Kellen’s Second might be able to help keep Cilarnen from unwittingly giving grave offense. Isinwen rode silently behind Kellen, dressed, as Kellen was, in the best their clothes-chests had to offer after a season of hard campaigning.

  “I’m worried enough as it is,” Cilarnen went on, in an undertone that was—nevertheless—perfectly audible not only to Kellen but to every Elf there. “You’ve already made it sound as if everything I know about Elves is true.”

  “That they never lie, and they never tell the truth.” Kellen didn’t even need to look around to know that Isinwen would be wearing his blandest expression. Kellen forced himself not to think of the consequences if Cilarnen said something so shatteringly tactless in front of the Viceroy. Dammit—Cilarnen was the one who’d grown up being successfully groomed for a Council seat until Anigrel had maneuvered him into plotting treason. Why couldn’t he remember something as simple as how acute Elven hearing was?

  I’ll only have to hope he remembers it when it really counts, Kellen thought gloomily. Then a new thought struck him. Just what did Cilarnen really know about Elves? The proverb he’d just quoted to himself was from the oldest Proscribed Histories of the City. He’d learned it from Idalia, who’d been using it to teach him quite a different lesson. What Cilarnen would have been taught, as Kellen had been—back in the City—was that Elves were fatally beautiful, treacherous, and incapable of telling the truth at all.

  He only hoped experience—and familiarity—had been a better teacher to Cilarnen than the City Histories had been.

  Kellen forced a smile. “The truth is, I don’t know what to expect in Ysteri-alpoerin. I don’t like that.”

  “Well, who does?” Cilarnen said crossly. “But from what you say, the Viceroy is the only one who can give permission for me to try this experiment, so …” he shrugged helplessly, the gesture muffled by the heavy cloak he wore.

  Kellen nodded. Outnumbered as they were in this war, they could afford to overlook nothing that might give them the edge in battle. No matter what risk it involved.

  THE High Reaches had a stark beauty in winter. It was a land of dark forests and deep valleys nestled among the mountains that had given the area its name. It marked the border between the Elven Lands and the Wild Lands, and its people loved it fiercely. Centuries ago, in the aftermath of the Great War, humans had come to these high hills and mountains seeking one thing: freedom and peace, and they had found it here. They traded with their neighbors—the Centaurs, the lowlanders, even with Armethalieh in the West—and went their own way, holding to their own customs as they always had, for as long as they could remember.

  They followed the teachings of the Huntsman and the Forest Wife, who taught them to live in harmony with their land, taking only what was needed, and always returning gift for gift.

  And so they had prospered.

  No longer.

  Death came to the High Reaches on silent scarlet wings.

  PRINCE Zyperis stood in the middle of the forest. He could barely contain his glee. Where to begin? The best part was that the foolish Lightborn would not know that he had been here … oh, not for a moonturn at least. It would all be done in secret.

  And sometimes secrets could be the highest form of Their art.

  He spread his wings wide and shook them, and a fine black mist drifted from them on the cold still air. It settled on the trees around him, and wherever it touched, the greenneedle bark began to whiten, just a little.

  Within days, the tree would be dead.

  The blight would spread throughout the forest, spreading from tree to tree upon the wind, to everything that grew. The winds would carry it beyond the High Reaches, into the Elven Lands and the Wildlands as well. It would begin slowly—that was its beauty—but within one turn of the moon that the Light-born used to mark Time, it would have spread so far that all who lived here would know of it… though they would not know its source.

  Zyperis walked on, pausing now and again to seed the forest with blight.

  And that was not all.

  As he walked, he transformed himself, taking on a form he had often used: a shape pleasing to the Lightborn. There were many wanderers these days, and even if someone should see him, out here in the deep woods, it would not be that unusual.

  As he walked, he scattered grain upon the snow. It glowed faintly, but the hungry animals—hares, deer, birds—who came to feed upon it would not notice.

  All of them would leave their feast carrying plague.

  As would those who fed upon them.

  And those who fed upon them.r />
  Plague and blight, the surest, most stealthy weapons of the Endarkened. They would spread through the High Reaches—oh, not necessarily to kill. That would not be sufficiently elegant. But to starve, to weaken, to cripple.

  To call the Elves’ troublesome Allies home.

  AS on his last visit, Kellen felt entirely out of place in Ysterialpoerin, and the idea that the Elves—any Elves—could consider the city homelike and inviting was disturbing to him in some way he couldn’t entirely articulate.

  It wasn’t as if they were simply living in the woods. Kellen had done that—with and without a roof over his head—and while he preferred to be comfortable, he could understand people (like Idalia) who’d rather live in the forest than in a town.

  But in Ysterialpoerin, the Elves had taken a city and made it look like a forest. Only not like a real forest—by now Kellen had seen plenty of those—but like a dream of a forest, so that the longer you were in Ysterialpoerin, the more you felt as if you were asleep with your eyes open.

  It was … perfect. Every snow-covered branch, every drooping bough, even the shadows on the glittering surface of the snow were … perfect.

  It made Kellen feel as if he were suffocating. In a strange way, it reminded him of the City. But at least if you were born in Ysterialpoerin and didn’t like it, there was somewhere else you could go, since in the Elven Lands, nobody objected to your leaving the place where you had been born.

  He glanced over at Cilarnen. Cilarnen looked as if he’d been hit over the head with a very large hammer. He was staring around himself, eyes wide, and his lips were pressed together in a tight line.

  At last they reached the House of Bough and Wind. Kellen was pleased to see that its beauty had brought Cilarnen out of himself. So far as he knew, it was the only building in Ysterialpoerin that looked like a conventional house, and it was as beautiful as all things Elven, though thankfully in a way humans could appreciate.