He suddenly realized he couldn't be here. Not in the middle of the Elves, not standing so close to Idalia's Circle. Blindly, he turned and pushed his way through the crowd, forcing his way through the unresisting bodies entirely by touch.
The Elves didn't seem to notice, but Kellen was gasping for air by the time he reached the edge of the crowd. He looked around—anywhere but at the Circle—breathing deeply and hugging himself tightly to try to shake off the mesmerizing trance state. It felt as if he were trying to force himself awake from the deepest of sleep; he pinched himself—hard—welcoming the sharp immediacy of the pain as something to anchor himself to.
When he was sure he could resist the lure of the rising power, Kellen looked around. He found he was standing on a small rise among the trees, where he could look down on the ceremony behind him. The Elves still sang, but now the sound was something outside him, separate from him, a thing he could shut out with an effort of will. It was unearthly, the kind of song that no human throats could ever form. Not with harmonies built a hundred choruses deep, and so perfectly attuned that even the thought of discord was impossible.
The center of the Circle was only a hazy silvery glow, as bright as if the full moon had come to earth, but Kellen did not need to see Idalia to know what she was doing, for most spells of the Wild Magic followed a similar pattern. She would have kindled a fire in the brazier and used it to burn the appropriate herbs and leaves, along with a few drops of her blood. That was the sacrifice of Power Within that linked the Wildmage to the Power Without, like priming a pump—a metaphor Kellen had neither known nor understood until he had seen pumps in Merry vale.
And somehow the Elves were singing their own power into the spell as well, linking themselves to each other and to Idalia. Kellen could feel that even as he held himself back from it. Unlike the ordinary folk of Armethalieh, who had power, but could neither sense nor use it, though the Elves could not use their power, they not only could sense it, they knew it, intimately and well, and could direct it to the skill of one who could use it.
The song had begun slowly, a call and response, the melody sweeping around the circle of Elves as the counterpoint followed in its wake. But gradually the counterpoint died away, as more and more voices took up the melody alone, and the melody simplified, until all the voices below sang as one, a single, simple, heart-piercing phrase of unutterable sweetness, repeated over and over in a language Kellen didn't understand.
And step by step that song line shortened as well. Three beats, then two, and Kellen felt the spiraling tension coiling upward, demanding release.
One single note soaring toward the stars, until he thought he would go mad, or the stars themselves would shatter—
—and then—
Silence.
Darkness.
Release.
Kellen staggered backward, as if something he'd been pulling against had abruptly disappeared. He realized that the spell was cast, and that now he needed to get down to Idalia. He forced himself to move.
It was harder, this time, to make his way through the Elves. As Idalia had predicted, they were exhausted by their sacrifice of power to the spell. Some had sat down where they were, others were leaning against the person next to them for support. All of them seemed somehow disoriented, drained. Kellen pushed through them as ruthlessly as he could bring himself to, navigating by the faint steady glow of torchlight ahead of him.
Idalia was kneeling on the white stone, a dark object a little larger than one of the Elven lanterns between her knees. Though it looked nothing like the usual sort of keystone from the quick glimpse he got of it, there was no denying that was what it was. The object drew him, in the same way that the Elven song had drawn him, but this time he did not resist the pull of it. He entered the circle, not a particle of his attention on anything but the object, none to spare even for Idalia.
Hide me! the thing cried out to him. Shelter me, cover me, protect me now!
Kellen quickly dropped the spell-caul over it, swaddling whatever it was up firmly in the red silk—it was surprisingly heavy for its size—taking care to wind it so deeply in the soft folds that nothing could possibly 'leak' out to betray its presence. He finished by tying the tasseled cords firmly around it.
When he looked up again, Idalia had collapsed completely, lying unconscious on the ground.
Kellen took a step toward his sister, but he wasn't quick enough. A male Elf had stepped out of the crowd, stooping and lifting Idalia into his arms as though she weighed nothing at all.
It was Jermayan.
The Elf stared challengingly into Kellen's eyes, as if daring him to object to his presence.
Now Kellen was torn between duty and duty. He knew that Idalia didn't want to have anything more to do with Jermayan, but at the moment Idalia was in no condition to complain. Kellen couldn't carry her and the keystone. And no one else seemed to be in any condition to care for her…
