The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy

by Mercedes Lackey

  Delicately the Demon Queen parted the gray robes and the fine linen tunic beneath, until Anigrel’s bare chest was exposed. The Talisman of the Light that he wore glinted against his pale skin on its fine golden chain.

  And then, before Anigrel could move or protest, she tore open his ribs and plucked out his heart.

  Blood sprayed over Lycaelon as Anigrel’s body dropped to the ground. The Arch-Mage scrabbled backward through the cold wet leaves with a despairing cry.

  The Demon bit into the still-pulsing heart as if it were a choice piece of fruit. Chewed. Swallowed.

  “Perhaps too quick,” she commented. “But he has annoyed me for a very long time with his protestations of soft human love. Do not hope that you may join him, Mage-man. I have something special planned for you. Something rich and rare. I shall enjoy it very much. Perhaps you can bring yourself to enjoy it, too.”

  “I do not wish to leave you here,” Redhelwar said uneasily, as Idalia and Cilarnen dismounted at the City gates.

  “You are needed with the army,” Idalia said. “You must go. Besides, we have Jermayan and Ancaladar.”

  “Be sure that I will defend both Idalia and Cilarnen with my life,” Jermayan said, stepping out through the open gates.

  “And I,” said Ancaladar, craning his long neck down so that his head was on a level with them. “I think they might not wish to upset me, you know.”

  Behind Jermayan, the Delfier Plaza stood as empty as if Cilarnen had obliterated all of the inhabitants of Armethalieh along with its magick.

  “Come on,” Cilarnen said. “We have to get to the Council House. The first thing that has to be done is to re-cast the Wards. Properly, this time. The way they should be.”

  “And I will close the gates,” Ancaladar said, as they stepped inside.

  SHE had been gone from this city almost half her life, and certainly for the best part. As she heard the bronze panels of the Great Gate bang closed behind her with Ancaladar’s enthusiastic help, all she could think of was that this city that the High Mages were so proud of was much cruder and shabbier than she remembered it being.

  Not smaller, of course. It was larger than all of the Elven Cities—probably put together. But then, no Elf would consider, even for an instant, living in the ugliness and squalor of the poorer quarters of Armethalieh. Nor would they be willing to live so closely packed together. It would not even be possible, without magic. A lot of magic.

  “Cilarnen, did you take all the magick off of the City?”

  He chuckled, shaking his head. “No. I haven’t got that much power, even with the help of the Shining Ones. But the Wards seem to be linked to a lot more spells than I thought. It isn’t as if I ever really had a chance to study the spell, or I could have done a much more elegant job. The bell-towers, though … I think they must have been linked to the Wards, somehow. I hope no one was hurt when the towers collapsed, but it was only the tallest spires that fell, and all of those would have been in the Mage-quarter, or near it—the Temple of the Light, the Mage College, the Great Library, the Garden Park. The Council House itself will be safe. It does not have a tower. The other carillons—in the Merchants’ Quarter and the Garden Market—are all fairly sturdy. They will be dis-timed, and will no longer ring, but I do not think they will have fallen. The carillons in the Nobles Quarter will all have shattered, but they are not heavy ones, and the Nobles will complain, but they are always complaining, and here we are.”

  Before them stood the bronze doors of the Council House. They were flanked on each side by a row of Stone Golems. Cilarnen reached out, cautiously, and tapped the nearest one. It did not move.

  “Perhaps they, too, have been disenchanted,” Jermayan said musingly.

  “I think so,” Cilarnen said cautiously. “I’ve been Banished, Idalia’s a Wildmage, and you, well, you’re an Elf. They shouldn’t let any of the three of us within a hundred yards of these doors without trying to tear us into pieces.”

  “That’s comforting, I don’t think,” Idalia said.

  “Well it is,” Cilarnen insisted. “If they aren’t attacking, it means my spell took down not only the City Wards, but every piece of defensive magick Armethalieh has, at least in the Mage Quarter, where most of the spells would be. Not so good when you consider that there’s a whole Enemy army outside right now trying to get in, but since we’re trying to get in, too—without being killed—it’s a good thing for us.”

  “Lead on, then,” Idalia said.

  Cilarnen mounted the steps and pushed at one of the great bronze doors. Since the doors normally opened and closed by magick, it took the three of them to move it, but at last they got it open.

  “NO—no—no!” A gray-robed Council Page stood in the center of the hallway, eyes wide with terror at the sight of the three strangely-garbed intruders. “Get back!”

  The boy was a few years younger than Cilarnen was, and obviously half-mad with fear. Cilarnen had never served as a Council House Page because of his rank, but he knew the duties that the Pages performed. This young man would have been supposed to wait in the hall and watch over the doors, but—especially today—he would never have expected them to open.

  And Cilarnen well knew what a horrifying sight he and his two companions presented in their furs and armor.

  “I am Lord Cilarnen of House Volpiril, and I must see the High Council at once,” Cilarnen said. “You must conduct us to them immediately.”

  “I—I—I—Wait here.” The Page turned and fled, his soft boots scuffling across the black and white marble floor.

  “Do we wait?” Idalia asked.

  “No,” Cilarnen said. “I think I know the way.”

  BUT they had not gone more than a few steps toward the Council Chamber before their path was blocked by six Magewardens.

  “I am here to see the High Council,” Cilarnen repeated.

  There was a sudden flare as the Magewardens’ Spells raged and died against the violet glow of Cilarnen’s Mage-Shield. One moment Cilarnen had been standing, apparently defenseless. The next, the air between him and the Magewardens was filled with the shimmering light of his spell.

  “Do you think I am an idiot?” Cilarnen demanded angrily. “The Arch-Mage has been kidnapped by Demons—Demons whom you serve, because Lord Anigrel is your master! You all saw Them today, if you aren’t blind. Now get out of my way, before I do to you what my friends are going to do to Them.”

  “Cilarnen?” one of the Magewardens said, stepping forward. “Cilarnen Volpiril?”

  “Geont?”

  Geont Pentres had been one of his fellow conspirators—in a conspiracy, Cilarnen knew now, that had been created entirely by Anigrel to gain himself a Council seat and remove those members of the High Council—like Lord Volpiril—who could interfere in his plans to hand Armethalieh over to the Demons.

  “You were Banished. Stripped of your Gift. What are you doing here? How do you know me?” The young Magewarden stared at Cilarnen, frowning in confusion.

  “Once we were close friends, Geont. Anigrel lied to us both. I was Banished—but not stripped of my Magegift. Your memories were changed, if you do not know me. I am sorry to see you have become Anigrel’s hound. Once you would have given anything to save Armethalieh from the same enemy you now serve.”

  “I still will. Do you swear by the Light that you come here in peace?”

  “I swear it, Geont. And these who are with me come in peace as well. They’re my friends.”

  Geont Pentres stared past Cilarnen, now looking not only confused, but appalled.

  “An Elf. And … a woman.”

  Cilarnen smiled. “She’s Lord Lycaelon’s daughter, Geont, so I’d take that look off my face if I were you. Don’t bother saying that you don’t remember her, either. You don’t remember me, after all. Yes, they are my friends and comrades. And there is a Demon Army outside the City. And we need to see whatever is left of the High Council. Right now.”

  “Dyvel, go and tell the High Council tha
t Lord Cilarnen Volpiril… Lady Idalia of House Tavadon, and …”

  “Jermayan of Sentarshadeen,” Idalia supplied helpfully.

  “—Jermayan of Sentarshadeen, Elf, wish to see the High Council,” Geont said.

  “You can’t do that!” Dyvel gasped in shock.

  “Is Lord Anigrel here to stop me? Is the Arch-Mage?” Geont demanded. “No. They were both carried off this morning by monsters. And even if House Volpiril is a forcing-house of treason, I for one would like to know what Lord Cilarnen is doing here with his Magegift intact, and strong enough to hold off the six of us. He was only an Entered Apprentice when he was Banished.”

  Dyvel bowed and retreated.

  “And the rest of you,” Geont said. “I am certain you have somewhere else to be. Go there. Lord Cilarnen has given me his word that he comes in peace.”

  The other four Magewardens didn’t look very much as if they liked being dismissed, but they went.

  “Now, Lord Cilarnen, if you would dismiss your Mage-Shield, it would ease my mind very much,” Geont said. “I swear by the Light I will attempt no spells against you. I do not think I could prevail, in any event.”

  The purple glow of Mage-Shield shimmered and died.

  “And now?” Idalia asked.

  Geont ignored her. Cilarnen sighed. “Do, please, Geont, answer the Lady Idalia’s question, in the name of the Light and the peace between us.”

  “We must await Dyvel’s return. The High Council is in sealed conference. There is much to do. If you wish a fair hearing, you must wait to be summoned.”

  “There certainly is much to do, since the City Wards have been brought down,” Idalia said tartly.

  Geont opened his mouth to deliver a stinging rebuke.

  “Geont,” Cilarnen said quickly. “Our other friends—what happened to them? Jorade Isas? Kermis Lalkmair? Margon Ogregance? Tiedor Rolfort? Do you know?”

  Geont looked at him. “They are not my friends. I do not know them. One hears gossip, of course. Rolfort is a Commons name. Of him I know nothing. But there was some scandal with the Lalkmair heir some moonturns ago. His father stripped him of his Gift, and he killed himself soon after. Young Ogregance is apprenticed to his father; he was supposed to test for advancement in the fall, but did not. I see Jorade Isas at the Golden Bells now and then, but I swear to you, we do not know each other.”

  Cilarnen bowed his head. “Thank you, Geont. You have told me what I wished to know. If not what I wished to hear.”

  Dyvel returned a moment later, almost running. “They will see them!”

  “Come with me,” Geont said.

  THE three of them stood in the center of the black and white marble floor of the Council Chamber, staring up at the black marble bench at the High Council.

  Only five seats were filled now: Lorins, Ganaret, Nagid, Dagan, and Harith.

  The High Mages had suffered a series of nasty shocks today, starting with the kidnapping of their Arch-Mage, and continuing with the “attack” on their city by a large black dragon and Cilarnen’s unicorn-cast spell. Yet they merely looked cross and bored.

  “Well?” Ganaret demanded.

  “We have come to tell you how to save yourselves,” Cilarnen said. “And to save Lord Lycaelon, too. And to tell you of a plot that has been brewing here in the City for many moonturns, though it is not the one you believe.”

  “Will you speak of this under Truthspell, boy?” Nagid demanded.

  “You will address me properly, by my rank and House,” Cilarnen said evenly. “I was Banished unjustly, for crimes I did not commit, and so I claim all that was taken from me.”

  “You committed treason, as I recall,” Harith said.

  “At Anigrel’s instigation,” Cilarnen said. “Yet—I believe—the charge for which I was Banished was Wildmagery, and I am no Wildmage. Now and always, my devotion is to the High Magick, and my loyalty is to the Golden City.”

  IDALIA ground her teeth in frustration, listening to Cilarnen’s calm demand for an empty title. Yet she knew it was necessary. If he could not get the High Council to treat him—all of them—with respect, they would not listen. And if they would not listen to them …

  None of this would work.

  She needed their help.

  The time was drawing near to pay her final Price.

  All the time they had been riding toward Armethalieh, she had felt it, without understanding quite what it was she was feeling. And then—when the Demons had taken Lycaelon—everything had become completely clear in her mind, just as it always did for a Wildmage at the moment when Mageprice came due.

  Paying this one was just going to be a little more complicated than most. And require a lot more outside help.

  “IT is true,” Ganaret said. “Lord Cilarnen is no Wildmage. Nor, apparently, is he without the Magegift that should have been Burned from his mind at his Banishing. How can this be?”

  “Cast your Truthspell and ask me,” Cilarnen said, smiling calmly.

  A Journeyman Mage was summoned to the Council Chamber, and the spell was cast.

  Cilarnen spoke then, carefully, persuasively. Of the days of famine in Armethalieh. Of the cabal he had formed. Of “Master Raellan”—Anigrel in disguise—who had brought them all together and set their feet on the path to treason, carefully shaping their plans and causing them to do things they would not otherwise have done.

  Anigrel, who had been supposed to Burn the Magegift from his mind on the eve of his Banishment, and who had not.

  He spoke at length of Anigrel, whom the Allies knew to be a pawn of the Demons. How Anigrel had lied to the High Council, telling them that the Elves and the Wildmages were attempting to destroy them, when it had been Anigrel and the Demons all along. Of how the Demons had raided the villages in the Delfier Valley, slaughtering both the farmers and the Militia and Mages sent to save them. He had seen Their attack on Nerendale himself: As a witness, under Truthspell, his testimony constituted proof under the Law of the City.

  He spoke of how the Elves and their ancient Allies had been fighting against Them to save them all.

  “And now—tonight—the Demon Queen will sacrifice the Arch-Mage to bring He Who Is back into the world, if we cannot stop him,” Cilarnen said, finishing his explanation at last. “To do this, you must help them—the Elves, the Wildmages—just as your ancestors did a thousand years ago. You must do this in the name of the Eternal Light.”

  “This cannot be true,” Harith said in a shaking voice.

  “My son does not lie.”

  “Father!”

  Setarion Volpiril stood in the doorway of the Council Chamber, wearing the gray robes and rank tabard of a High Mage of the Golden City.

  “Lord Volpiril, you should not be here,” Lord Ganaret said quietly. “You have given your oath.”

  “‘I shall work no treason—against the High Council, against the City … or against the Arch-Mage,’” Volpiril agreed, quoting the oath he had been forced to swear, his deep voice resonant and steady. “Yet tell me, Lord Ganaret, how is it treason to come here and tell you what you all know: that my son speaks the truth?”

  He stepped further into the chamber.

  “We have all seen our friends and colleagues … vanish. In the past moon-turns we have been told that they conspire with Wildmages, or Commons, or Selken Traders, or we have been told nothing at all. This day we have seen with our own eyes the creatures from the Black Days seize Lord Lycaelon. Lord Cilarnen tells you that they mean to use him to end our world. Do you wish to do their work for them? Today I have seen unicorns, and dragons, and creatures my masters in the Art Magickal have told me were only illusion, as real as my own flesh. If we do not believe this truth, we will not live to see another sunrise. And by the spells that bind me still, if this were treason I would be dead before you now.”

  “We must vote,” Lorins said, a whimper in his voice.

  “Vote?” Idalia demanded. “What in the name of Leaf and Star can you possibly have to vo
te on?”

  “Nevertheless,” Lord Ganaret said, “everything must be done in the proper form. If you wish our help, madame, all must be done by the will of the Council as a whole. Now, I pray you, withdraw and leave us to our deliberations.”

  Ganaret waved a hand dismissively, indicating that the three of them should step back to the center of the room.

  RELUCTANTLY, Idalia and Jermayan did as they were bid. Rather than join them, Cilarnen crossed the room to where his father stood.

  “My Lord Father,” he said, bowing his head.

  “You dress the part of a mountebank,” Volpiril said, smiling faintly.

  “It is cold outside the City walls,” Cilarnen said.

  “I have misjudged you,” Volpiril said.

  “No, Father, I think you judged me well enough. Let me remove the spells that bind you. We will need all your gifts.”

  “You will need me, you think, to bring the Council to heel,” Lord Volpiril said.

  “If you can,” Cilarnen answered steadily.

  He knew, from the brief viewings he had done of the Council and the City—and what Idalia had told him of her own scrying while it had still been possible for Wildmages to see into City lands and the City itself—that things had been very strange and difficult here since he had left. His father had always been an ambitious man, placing his ambition before everything, even his own son. But among the High Mages, ambition and the good of the City were one, at least among the best of them.

  In this moment of greatest danger, after seeing the City suffer around him for so long, having seen their ancient Enemy in the flesh at last, Volpiril would do what needed to be done so that Armethalieh might live.

  “Lycaelon’s whelp is a Wildmage,” Volpiril pointed out, nodding toward Idalia.

  Cilarnen smiled. “Both of them are, Father. And Kellen is my closest friend.”

  Volpiril raised his eyebrows. “Ah. Well. House Volpiril has always had a talent for advantageous alliances. If you can unbind the spells of the Arch-Mage of Armethalieh, I suppose I must learn to trust your judgment.”