2 To Light A Candle.13 (84 page)

There was a very long pause. Adaerion and Dionan looked at each other, then back at him. Both of the Elves were watching him as if he might faint, or explode… or turn into a dragon right before their eyes.

"Kellen," Adaerion said, speaking slowly and carefully, "do you understand that by winning the Challenge, you had the right to take Belepheriel's place in rank? And that you gave it up to him by your words to him?"

Oh. Oh. No wonder everyone had been acting so oddly. And no wonder Adaerion had felt it necessary to speak so bluntly now. Kellen knew enough by now about how Elven gossip ran to know that everyone in camp must have a pretty clear idea of what had happened between him and Belepheriel in Redhel-war's pavilion that night. And it looked like running off the way he had hadn't changed his position particularly—at least, it seemed his so-called rights under the "Challenge" would still have been honored. Everyone must have been expecting him to take over Belepheriel's command the moment he was on his feet again.

Kellen shook his head.

"Adaerion, Dionan… you both know that I want Redhelwar to… listen to my counsel, when I have something to say that is given to me by the Wild Magic. To say that I don't want what Belepheriel has would be a lie. But I wish to earn it—not to take it away from someone else. Not by—" He was about to say "playing children's games" and stopped. "Not this way," he finally said. "Earning it would be right. Having it because we have lost a commander, and I was needed would be right. Taking it would be wrong."

"You would renounce being a commander of hundreds because it did not suit you?" Adaerion asked.

"No! No, nothing like that. I renounce being a commander of hundreds because I do not yet have those skills," Kellen said frankly. It was true; he could command a smaller force in the field easily now, and certainly he could advise Redhelwar about what he thought the army should do, but as for being able himself to think of and give the orders on such a scale—those skills he still lacked.

"I must learn all that you, and Dionan, and Redhelwar—yes, and Belepheriel—can teach me about the use of an army. And quickly." He let out a breath he had been holding in without realizing it. "And I honor Belepheriel. It would be wrong for all of us for me to claim what I cannot properly govern. It would be as if I had been foolish enough to claim the Light at the Heart of the Mountain when I did not even know the use of a dagger."

And I have to figure out what Shadow Mountain is really after. All of this with the Shadowed Elves, bloody and dangerous as it is, is just delaying tactics. There has to be something Shadow Mountain wants—and doesn't have ;yet. When it has it, the real war will start. And if we can't fight it properly, we'll lose.

He already knew that. The Elves might be able to bring more fighters into the field, but to do so would be to utterly strip their cities of protection. Shadow Mountain was waiting for that, he was sure. The Demons themselves might not be able to enter the Elven Lands, but many of their creatures could. Even when the Elves destroyed the last of the Shadowed Elves, they wouldn't be safe from the other creatures of the Endarkened.

The Centaurs, the Mountainfolk, the Herdingfolk Wildmages, the Wildlan-der farmers—all of them would add to the army's numbers, perhaps even double its size, but that wasn't enough to gain them victory. Not without an enemy who would stand and fight. And against the Demons… It would still be suicide. "Then your decision is made," Dionan said.

Kellen nodded. He wasn't sure if he'd made a terrible mistake and insulted everybody, or done exactly the right thing. It felt right to him, that was all he knew.

"Then perhaps you will wish to see what Artenel can do to replace what you have lost," Dionan said. "At the third hour past noon, it would please Redhelwar to drink tea, and hear your thoughts on tomorrow's attack upon the farther cavern."

"Yes," Kellen said, getting to his feet. "Of course. It would please me greatly to drink tea with Redhelwar."

He exited Dionan's tent with a feeling of intense relief.

FORTUNATELY, it was nearly impossible to get lost in an Elven war camp once you'd learned the disposition of the tents. Kellen found the tents of the armorers without difficulty.

The first thing that caught his eye were several of the new shields, racked outside the cooper's tent for transport to the farther cavern. He picked one up and hefted it experimentally.

Heavy, yes, but not as heavy as he'd expected. It was half as long as he was tall, and would provide good protection in the caverns. Leather over wax over wood, just as he, Idalia, and Artenel had decided. Water-soaked, it would be heavier, but he'd still be able to lift it, he judged, and the Elves were much stronger than he was.

"Kellen! This is no time for idleness. We have much to do," Artenel said, walking out of the main armorer's tent and regarding him sternly.

Meekly, Kellen followed the Master Armorer into the tent.

"One wishes, of course, that you had not had the misfortune to lose every piece of your armor all at once," Artenel said, sounding mournful. "But it is not without precedent. And fortunately, knowing that you would be… difficult to fit, I began my preparations sennights ago."

He gestured at the long table at the center of the tent, and drew back a protective cloth with a flourish. All the components of a full set of Elven battle armor in Kellen's size lay there, waiting.

The armor Kellen had just lost had been covered with a subtle pattern like wood-grain. The armorers said the patterns added strength to the metal, and the pattern chosen to ornament the metal of the armor was apparently another matter of great importance to Elves. Jermayan's had a pattern of tiny stars over its entire surface, and, knowing the Elves as well as he now did, Kellen had no doubt that it was an accurate representation of the night sky at some season. Master Be-lesharon had called Kellen's armor plain and dull, because it had been made in such haste that there had been no time to add the coat of glistening enamel that was the final touch on normal Elven battle armor. Kellen had liked that just fine.

But apparently Artenel had had a lot of free time to spend on making a new set of armor, just on the chance that Kellen might need it, because the armor he unveiled for Kellen's inspection was as green as Shalkan's eyes. Each piece glittered like glass.

And instead of wood-grain, the metal beneath the enamel was covered with a tiny intricate pattern of twining vines similar to the pattern worked into his clothes. Here and there, Kellen could see an occasional star glisten palely among the leaves.

Leaves and stars. Leaf and Star? He felt a sudden cold chill. Who do these people think I am?

The Elves swore by Leaf and Star, just as the Herdingfolk did by the Good Goddess, and the Centaurs by the Herdsman. When Kellen thought about it at all—which was rarely—he thought they were all probably different ways of seeing the same thing he and Idalia—and every other Wildmage—touched when they invoked the Wild Magic: the Power that set Mageprices and kept the world in balance.

Certainly one of the first things that Idalia had taught him about the Wild Magic was that paying whatever Mageprices the Wild Magic set was a way of keeping the world running properly, even if he didn't understand at the time how the prices he paid—some of them quite small and personal—could really help. How had rescuing a servant girl's kitten back in Armethalieh, for example, helped the wider world?

But knowing that you were a tool of Greater Powers, and accepting that fact, Kellen realized, was far different than knowing that everyone else knew it too.

He'd been able to handle the thought of being scorned, outcast, relieved of his command, a lot better than he was handling this, Kellen realized. Because he was used to being the goat, the misfit, the butt of a thousand jokes. He'd been that all his life. When he'd become a Knight-Mage, well, the Elves were tactful, and he'd gone almost immediately into training in the House of Sword and Shield, where Master Belesharon had treated him like the humblest apprentice, so while life had been much more pleasant, his status hadn't seemed appreciably different from what it had been before.

Now things were changing, and rapidly.

You wanted to command the Elven army, and you didn't think things would change along the way? What would Shalkan say if he knew you thought that?

"It is very beautiful," Kellen said gravely. "I am honored."

"It is unworthy work, filled with flaws," Artenel said dismissively. "Done in haste under the worst possible conditions. Had I dared to present such a piece to my Masters as evidence of my craft, I would still be feeding the forge fires in the guild-house. But it is sound and strong, and will turn a blow, I promise you that. And in a few moonturns, better will come from Sentarshadeen."

Better than this? Despite Artenal's protests, Kellen could see no flaw in the armor—and if Artenel said it would protect him, he could be certain that it would.

But though the pieces were complete, the armor was far from finished, for now it had to be assembled on the body of the man for whom it had been prepared, and a thousand modifications made.

"NEARLY done," Artenel pronounced with satisfaction a few hours later, "though you will undoubtedly wish to make the last adjustments yourself."

"As you say," Kellen said, hastily scrambling from the undertunic and leggings he'd worn for the armor-fitting back into his clothes. "But at just this moment, I am called elsewhere."

KELLEN ran all the way to Redhelwar's pavilion, and suspected that he was late anyway, but if that was the case, the Elven general gave no sign of it.

To his surprise, Redhelwar was alone. Kellen had somehow expected this to be a less private occasion. He wondered if he was going to get the scolding he still felt he might deserve—or at least that protocol ought to demand. He had disobeyed orders—no matter how strong the need, and no matter how right he'd been to do so, there was still that.

But as always, they began with a—mercifully brief—discussion of the tea and the weather. Soon, however, Redhelwar changed the subject.

"You come before me as if your spirit lies heavy, Kellen. Yet already today I have had Adaerion's good counsel, and Dionan's and Belepheriel's as well. And I have been privileged to hear all that Idalia Wildmage could tell me of the nearer cavern." Redhelwar leaned forward a little. "So. I would know what lies unsaid between us, that you look upon me as one who expects ill tidings."

Well, if that wasn't an opening to come straight out with what was bothering him, he had never heard one. "When you made me alakomentai, you gave me a place in your army," Kellen said, thinking his words through slowly. "Army officers follow orders. You gave me an order. And I didn't follow it."

"Yet you are also a Knight-Mage, a voice of the Wild Magic. And if I would command the Wild Magic, then perhaps I shall step outside and command the wind and the weather to answer my will as well," the General said dismissively. "It would be as efficient a use of my time. You risked both life and honor to save the army. Let that be an end to this matter."

It was an order, and Kellen took it as such. Seeing Kellen's assent and relief in his expression, Redhelwar smiled, every so faintly, and turned to more practical matters.

"The first of the Centaurs will arrive at Ysterialpoerin within a sennight, so Jermayan tells us. Not so many as we will see come spring, but a goodly number for the season—and the weather, which remains difficult. Unfortunately, the Wildmages tell us that to bring truly calm weather here would take all their power, and worsen the weather elsewhere, so they do not advise it. Perhaps it is just as well that our battles this season take place below the earth. A number of High Reaches Wildmages travel with the Centaurs, of course. It will be good to add their numbers to those already with us."

But it still wouldn't change the weather. Kellen remembered that Idalia had never wanted to meddle with the weather without a very good reason, and right now the weather patterns were still trying to settle back to normal after the long unnatural drought. That was one of the reasons this winter was as bad as it was— and a good reason why it was a good idea to leave the weather strictly alone, no matter how bad it got. But…

"If the Shadowed Elves are changing the way they attack…" Kellen began.

"That thought has been much in my mind," Redhelwar said somberly. "Idalia has spoken to me of the traps she saw in the first cavern, but says that you saw more. Yet from what she described, such traps as were there would be the work of moon turns to create."

"Yes," Kellen agreed. "They knew we would be coming. And they knew it— perhaps—before we were led to their first lair. All that we do here to fight them is planned for us by others. But we have no choice."

"No," Redhelwar said quietly. "And tomorrow we discover what further en-tertainment they have planned for us."

"Goblins and duergar," Kellen said instantly. "The Crystal Spiders said there were more of them in the farther cavern. And all the Shadowed Elves will be there—the ones from both caverns. So we'll be facing more of them than we expected." He felt a surge of gratitude to the Crystal Spiders, odd creatures though they were. If they hadn't come to Idalia's rescue, if they hadn't made the effort of talking to her—

"Yet if we face more of our foe than we expect, the reverse is also true, for we have evaded their trap, by the grace of Leaf and Star and the intercession of the Wild Magic." The commander tapped the table with one finger, betraying his own tension in a manner that Elves seldom indulged in. "Light will keep duergar at bay, and we shall have that in good measure—but it will not stop one from luring prey within reach of another foe," Redhelwar added, consideringly. "Wild-mage Athan has suggested that he might work a spell of Calling to cause the Shadowed Elves to come out to us. They are easier to kill outside their caves, and we would be beyond reach of their allies."

"A good plan, if it works," Kellen agreed. "Idalia said that the tamkappa

don't work against duergar, but they might work against goblins. They move through stone, though."