2 To Light A Candle.13 (65 page)

Dionan's tent was set up as an office, with a table and chairs. A smaller table held a teapot and cups—it would have been startling if it did not. Kellen took a deep mental breath and resigned himself to attempting the Elven dance of politeness once again.

"One observes," he began, "that the Working last night went well, and that because of that, the Wildmage Atroist journeys back to the Wildlands."

"So very direct," Dionan sighed. "I will pour tea."

"Thank you," Kellen said meekly. He'd thought he was doing pretty good. He hadn't come to talk about Atroist, after all.

"I have recently tasted a most exceptional tea," he said, trying again.

"It would please me greatly to know the name of this tea," Dionan said, setting a tall pottery cup before Kellen. Kellen lifted it and sipped, tasting the familiar flavor of Winter Spice Tea.

"The name told to me was Auspicious Venture," Kellen said. "I am told it is a very rare tea. I am pleased to have had the opportunity to have tasted it."

"A rare tea indeed," Dionan said. "One may go half a lifetime without tasting it."

"It had a strong flavor," Kellen said. "And it seemed to me that the flavor changed constantly. I am sure I did not appreciate it sufficiently. I am gratified by the variety of teas available for me to taste."

"Indeed," Dionan said. "You will find the teas of springtime to be strong and complex, when they come into season. I look forward to aiding you in your education, should it be possible. Many humans are not interested."

"I discover that I do not brew tea well," Kellen said. "I do not see that this should be a drawback to appreciating its taste."

"The two go together," Dionan said, a note of faint reproach in his voice. "Still, if you will begin by appreciating the taste, you will come to understand the making, for they are both part of the same thing."

The odd thing was, Kellen believed him. Tea and the making of tea had to go together, like—like swordplay and the proper stance. If you had one, you'd have the other.

"You enlighten me," he said, bowing where he sat.

Dionan smiled. "Come to me to understand the spring teas, and I will teach you the making with the summer teas, for they are the most subtle, and in the summer teas, the making is all. Any fool may brew a winter tea." He made an elegant motion—not a shrug, but an indication the subject was about to change. "But perhaps you did not come to speak of tea."

"Perhaps I did not know that I needed to come to speak of tea," Kellen said, "but wisdom is not summoned, only discovered." Another of Master Belesharon's favorite sayings. "What was in my mind when I awoke this morning that Redhel-war would wish to know what I had done and learned since I left him."

"Perhaps it is so," Dionan agreed. "If you come to his pavilion at the second hour after noon, you may speak to him of the Wildmage Atroist and other matters touching on the current campaign. I shall see to it that you have the opportunity to sample Ice Mountain Wind as well. You should find it interesting."

"I look forward to that opportunity," Kellen said, rising to his feet and bowing. Aral I hope we're both alive in the spring, so you can teach me more about tea.

KELLEN spent the time waiting for the next move in this "game" of war on the hundred homely tasks that had been neglected while he'd been in the field— laundry, a proper bath, a thorough cleaning of his sword and armor—and Shalkan's armor—now that he had light and time to do them. He discovered that his helmet-crest needed refletching—the feathers had gotten thoroughly battered and blood-soaked—and dropped it off with the armorer on his way to Redhelwar's tent.

Part of him chafed at this constant focus on inessentials—what did it matter whether he had feathers on his helmet or not, or what they looked like?—while another part of him was resigned to it. He could not change the way the Elves did things overnight. In fact, he probably could not change much—permanently—in his lifetime. When—if—they all got through this and beat the Demons back, the Elves would probably go right back to their old ways the next day. And until they found the next enclave of the Shadowed Elves, there was nothing more vital to be doing.

As he crossed the camp, he could see mounted parties out on the plain, drilling on horseback with the long Elven lance. It was beautiful to watch… but it would be next to useless fighting underground.

He reached Redhelwar's pavilion and waited. After a moment, Dionan summoned him inside.

"Dionan observes that you have recently had the good fortune to taste Auspicious Venture," Redhelwar said, once Kellen was seated. "Perhaps you would favor me with your opinion of it. It would be gratifying to perceive this tea through a human's senses."

Kellen's heart sank. This was high formality indeed, something he was terrible at. And despite his growing interest in Elven teas, they were very different from the teas brewed in Armethalieh, and he'd never really been much of a connoisseur. Tea had always been something you drank when you were thirsty, and that was about it. And of all time to start comparing the finer points of leaves—

Still, if that was what Redhelwar wanted to talk about, he guessed he'd better do his best. He needed to understand the Elves if he wanted to be able to persuade them that he was right about Shadow Mountain. But oh, it was very hard to be patient at a moment like this!

But he put on a serious expression. "You honor me with your interest. I know very little about tea, and my tastes are uneducated as yet, but I shall explain as best I can. I am told that it is flavored with the fruit of the vilya. To me it tasted of fruit and smoke, and the taste seemed constantly to change. I found it a strong-flavored tea, and to me that was very agreeable. It was unlike any tea I have ever had, and yet it seemed to remind me of something, in a way I cannot define."

"It is a good description, for one unversed in tea," Redhelwar said. "One observes that it is odd for a knight to escape Master Belesharon's tutelage without learning the ways of tea."

"I have much more to learn in the House of Sword and Shield," Kellen said simply. "And many of the… more subtle arts had been set aside to concentrate upon those which Master Belesharon considered more needful to my position and his limited time."

If that wasn't enough of a hint—

Apparently it wasn't. "We shall do what we may to continue your education here," Redhelwar said. "Now come. Try this tea."

Cups were set before Kellen and Redhelwar, and Dionan seated himself with his own cup. Kellen raised his cup, inhaling the fragrant steam.

It was hot, yet somehow it managed to smell of the cold purity of ice. The paradox was so odd, that it actually distracted him from his ever-present anxieties. Kellen sipped cautiously.

It wasn't a tea for drinking carelessly, like Winter Spice. This was a tea that had to be paid attention to, almost like listening to music. It was herbal, like most of the Elven teas, and there were flavors of grass and metal in it—it sounded unpleasant, but it wasn't, not really. And over all, the sense of winter combined with the heat of the tea seemed to offer a promise that no matter how cold the day or how deep the snow, spring would always come.

"It is a riddle," Kellen said, setting down his cup after several sips. "It's hot— but there's ice in it, somehow. Snow—and green things."

Dionan exchanged a pleased look with Redhelwar. "I did suggest that perhaps the brewing would not be wasted on him, Master."

"I admit I had my doubts, but you have convinced me," Redhelwar said. "Yes. Winter Mountain Ice is one of Teamaster Thenandelet's most subtle creations, the recipe for its creation passed down in my family for many generations. When you have finished, we will pour something that requires less attention, and speak of necessary things."

Kellen finished his cup slowly, still trying to figure out how something so hot could make him think of cold. He didn't quite manage to solve the riddle before the cup was empty.

Dionan removed the cups, and replaced them with larger ones. Kellen caught the familiar comforting scent of Winter Spice Tea. Good. At least it wouldn't distract him from what he had to say.

"Dionan mentioned that you wished to speak of matters touching upon the Wild Magic, and of the Wildmage Atroist," Redhelwar said, when the new tea had been tasted.

"As you know already, he left this morning for the Lost Lands," Kellen said. "Last night, he spoke with Drothi, another Wildmage there. She said she will bring everyone south as quickly as possible, and that because of the great trouble in the Lost Lands, it will not be difficult to convince them to come."

"Go on," Redhelwar said.

"Drothi told Atroist—it was as if I were actually in her presence, and could see her and hear everything she said—that Their raids on the Lostlanders have continued through the winter, and in addition, monsters have begun appearing in the Lost Lands. I did not recognize all of them from her descriptions, but Jer-mayan did. He said that there are coldwarg, icedrake, shadewalkers, and serpent-marae in the Lost Lands, and the Lostlanders have seen the Deathwings that attacked the caravan near the Crowned Horns as well. The coldwarg have destroyed two villages in the Lost Lands, but she was not clear about where the oth-ers were, only that they are close enough to the villages to be a constant, and urgent, threat."

And please, please, someone make the Elves understand that urgent means urgent!

Redhelwar sat and thought for several minutes after Kellen had finished speaking.

"This is fell news, but good to have," he said at last. "I shall send troops west to support the rangers Andoreniel has sent to conduct the Wildlanders to the eastern border. If these creatures follow the Wildlanders toward the Elven Lands, it may be that our ancient land-wards will not stop them all, nor do I wish to witness a slaughter just outside our protection. But perhaps you will favor me now with your views on why these creatures should have so suddenly appeared in the Wild Lands, where they were not before."

This is a test. Kellen knew it, with a sudden cold shock of intuition. A test, as—in its way—Kellen's opinion of the tea had been. Redhelwar was testing him. But for what? After the Battle of the Cavern, Redhelwar already knew how well he fought.

He chose his next words with great care.

"Drothi hasn't given us much information to go on, but it seems clear to me, from what she said last night and from what Atroist has said before, that They have long considered the Wild Lands their special private hunting preserve. I think that now They're using it as a place to breed up and collect these creatures in great numbers. Jermayan said most of them hadn't been seen since the Great War, and that he'd thought most of them were extinct. Drothi said the Wildlanders only knew them from ancient story-songs.

"It seems to me, from the tactics we've seen Them using so far, that They are not anxious to meet us on a battlefield. They did that in the Great War, and They lost. If They intend to try it again at all, I think They want to make sure we're very weak before They do. So They're using tactics of attrition. First They struck at your water supply, and that failed, but if They can strike at crops and flocks— and game, in the case of the Mountainfolk of the High Reaches—They don't need to meet us on the battlefield. They can starve us to death."

There was a long pause after Kellen had finished. Both Redhelwar's and Dio-nan's faces were expressionless, in the way that Elven faces often were. At last Redhelwar spoke.

"And all of these are creatures of cold. If they are stopped by the landward barriers, they will simply follow the mountains until they come to a place where they may pass, and enter into human lands," the Elven general said grimly. "The coldwarg and the icedrake must stay in the realms of cold unless they are spell-guarded, but the serpentmarae and the shadewalker may roam where they will."

"Unless those who have created them are keeping them back to use later," Kellen said. "We won't know until it happens."

"As with all things in war," Redhelwar agreed. "A reasonable analysis, given the scant information that we have… and I admit, I have found Their continued reluctance to take the field against us somewhat puzzling. Nevertheless. There is another matter that it is in my mind to speak to you of today.

"As a Knight-Mage, you fight for the Elves, and your valor is unquestioned, but you are not truly of my command. I would change that, were you willing. It is in my mind that you might be one of my alahymentaüa. You would lead a troop under my orders, and work as one with the other alakomentaüa.

"Of course, you would need to take a destrier as your mount, and for this I am truly sorry. If Shalkan consents, it is also in my mind that Mindaerel is without a rider, and grieves at her loss. You might take her, did you find favor in one another's eyes."

Kellen sipped his tea without answering, glad that the rules of Elven formality allowed him time to gather his thoughts before he answered. The alakomen-taüa were sub-commanders. The Elves didn't use a lot of ranks; there were generals, commanders, and sub-commanders, and everything else was just "understood" by people who had known each other and worked and trained together for centuries. As far as he could figure out, he'd have equivalent rank to Petariel, but below Adaerion.

And the root word komen—which was Old Elven—didn't really mean "commander" or anything like it. It meant—as close as you could come to it in non-Elvish—"brotherhood." Try to translate the whole thing, and what you got—besides a headache—was "the servant of the brotherhood." What Redhelwar was proposing was as much an adoption as it was a military promotion.

But… give up Shalkan? Kellen wasn't stupid or dense enough to think this was nothing more than a polite suggestion on Redhelwar's part that he could lightly decline. He wouldn't be with the Unicorn Knights anymore, and he wouldn't have the protections against the Demons that riding Shalkan undoubtedly gave him. But it would give him a visible and acknowledged place—not only in the army, but in the War Councils as well.

"Nothing would please me more than to accept your generous offer," Kellen said, thinking hard. "And I believe it would be for the good of all. But as you know, Shalkan and I are bound together by an unfulfilled Mageprice. It would not be wise or appropriate for me to answer without consulting him."