Mercedes Lackey - To Light A Candle

Kellen looked over his shoulder. The two unicorns were standing behind them.

“Let’s go back to the Unicorn Camp,” he said to Cilarnen.

When they reached the edge, he swung down off Firareth and patted his shoulder.

“Drop Anganil’s reins to the ground and tell him to stand,” Kellen said to Cilarnen. “He won’t wander.”

Cilarnen looked dubious, but followed Kellen’s suggestion.

They made their way to the center of camp. Kellen added more charcoal to the communal brazier.

The two unicorns waited expectantly. Gesade’s ears flicked back and forth as she followed the sound of his movements. If Cilarnen noticed her blindness, he had the sense not to mention it.

Kellen told his part of the story, and encouraged Cilarnen to add his own, just as he had told it to Kellen early this morning.

“I hardly think that was fair,” Gesade said when Cilarnen had finished. “You were trying to do the right thing.”

“I didn’t think,” Cilarnen said, still sounding confused by his own actions. “My—my father would not have listened. The whole City knew that. But any of the Mageborn has the right of personal appeal to the Arch-Mage. It would have been a hideous scandal. I would certainly have been disowned. But… it would have been better.”

“It wouldn’t have worked,” Kellen said flatly. “I don’t say this because…” Because he’s a hidebound monster who tried to kill me twice .

“Kellen, we all knew,” Cilarnen said tactfully. “You and Lycaelon… didn’t get on.”

“Yes,” Kellen said. “But… don’t you see, Cilarnen? It’s like war. Lycaelon was on one side. The other twelve members of the High Council were on the other. Those odds are not good for… winning. And we now know that They are involved somehow.” A thought struck him. “I think that all of this might have been arranged to empty a Council seat. Your friends—did any of them have connections to the High Council?”

Cilarnen didn’t even have to think. Unlike Kellen, he must have had the ranks and lineage of every one of the Mageborn committed to memory. “Jorade was the great-great-grandnephew of Lord Isas—and his heir. Geont was a Pentres, but the Pentreses are allied to the Breulins, and Lord Breulin sits upon the Council.”

“So of the six of you, three had Council connections. What of Master Raellan?”

“He helped us a great deal—without him, we would never have found each other. But I’m sure he had no connection to the High Council. He was a Journeyman—of a minor house at best, perhaps even the son of a commoner like poor Tiedor. He never did give a family name, and we thought it would be tactless to ask.”

But you trusted him with all your lives, because he was Mageborn . Kellen didn’t ask what had happened to Master Raellen. It would be too cruel. Cilarnen didn’t know what had happened to any of them. By now they were either dead, living somewhere in the City stripped of their Magegift and their memories, or—if they’d been incredibly lucky—simply didn’t remember anything about the whole “conspiracy” at all.

“Kellen… you don’t think… it all happened just so someone else could take a Council seat?” Cilarnen sounded horrified.

Kellen didn’t answer. It seemed likely to him. In the normal course of things, there wouldn’t have been a vacancy for years—even decades.

“If one of the Tainted is on the Council, They have more of a ‘stranglehold’ than a ‘foothold,’” Gesade said, “assuming I understand how your High Council works.”

“What does Redhelwar plan?” Shalkan asked.

“To see what Idalia and the others can come up with to see into the City,” Kellen said. “And to make his plans depending on what they do see.”

—«♦»—

SCRYING was not the answer. Idalia and the others ruled that out quickly enough—even Jermayan, with Ancaladar’s power to draw on, could not force the scrying bowl to show him Armethalieh.

“Flowers,” Idalia said in rueful exasperation, looking at the image in the bowl. “Very nice, I don’t think. I’m happy to know that spring will come, of course, but it isn’t very helpful.”

To send a spy into the City was impossible. To send anything but magic across the City-wards was impossible.

But they had to find the right spell.

It was Atroist who provided the first clue to the answer. The Lostlands Wild-mages were accustomed to speaking to one another over far distances—Idalia and Jermayan had seen such a spell at work when Atroist spoke with Drothi.

“But it needs a focus at the other end,” Atroist said. “And I do not think you will find one in your Golden City of Mages.”

“Then combine it with a scrying spell—or parts of one, anyway,” Tarik said. “That doesn’t need a focus.”

“But scrying is unfocused,” Idalia pointed out. “It shows you what you need, not what you want—and this time, we need to see exactly what we want.”

“Then blend in some Hunt Magic,” Tarik suggested. “When you go hunting for deer, it’s no use at all Calling hares.”

“To see is well and good,” Jermayan said, “but you do not need merely to See. You need also to Know. So this must be not just a spell of Seeing, but a spell of Knowing, such as Kellen uses. It does you no good to see if you do not understand what you see.”

“There is a spell the Forest Wife teaches us,” a Wildmage named Kavaaeri said slowly. She was one of the few female Wildmages to have come with the High Reaches folk. “We use it for herbs and mushrooms, so that we are sure of them before we use them. It is not a Knight-Mage spell… but it is a spell of Knowing.”

The discussion went on.

—«♦»—

AT dusk Kellen collected Cilarnen from the Centaur encampment and went to join the Wildmages.

He’d worried about whether Cilarnen would be able to stand the proximity of so many Wildmages—he suspected, from what Kardus had told him, that being around Wildmages for Cilarnen was like being around non-virgins for Shalkan.

“It’s not too bad,” Cilarnen said. “It’s just… it feels as if something terrible is going to happen. But nothing ever does. I can stand it. As long as nobody casts a spell on me,” he added darkly.

“We’d almost always ask your permission,” Kellen assured him. “Unless you were unconscious, and it was for a healing—or to keep you from harming someone else.”

“Well, I don’t ever want a spell cast on me,” Cilarnen said fervently. “To heal me or for anything else. If I’m going to hurt somebody, stop me some other way.”

Kellen didn’t answer. He wasn’t about to make a promise he might not be able to keep.

—«♦»—

THE Wildmages were gathered together in one of the great lodge-tents of the Mountainfolk, a structure large enough to accommodate several dozen people at once, and tall enough at its domed center for Kellen to stand comfortably upright.

Even Kardus was there, kneeling among the others and looking perfectly at ease, though Kellen wasn’t sure how the Centaur had managed to negotiate the narrow doorway.

Both Kellen and Cilarnen were carrying rucksacks. Though wine was difficult to find in an Elven camp, with Vestakia’s and Isinwen’s help, Kellen had managed to assemble a number of bottles of things that more-or-less fit the definition, from mead to hard cider to Elven fruit cordials to some actual bottles of wine. He hoped Idalia appreciated the effort.

The lodge was filled with the good smells of roast meat and fresh bread— and the residue of enough magic to make him want to sneeze, though Cilarnen didn’t seem to react to it. Looking around, Kellen saw a seat by Idalia and moved toward it. Cilarnen went to sit by Kardus.