of her eyes. There were dark circles beneath those eyes that were only a shade or two lighter, but otherwise she seemed quite healthy and alert for someone who had been drained to the point of unconsciousness only a few hours ago.
'Tandarion just came to bring your armor and sword. I've made tea. While you eat, I can tell you what to look for and how to trigger the keystone when you reach the Barrier. Then… it's all up to you, Kellen.'
Her words brought him fully awake as even a bucket of cold water could not have. Kellen sat up quickly, unable to believe he'd actually fallen asleep. 'You know?'
'More than I did last night. And you'll learn more on the way. Now come on.'
She picked up a bundle and tossed it at him—the quilted undertunic for his armor, and the supple leather socks that went beneath the armored boots, and left Kellen alone.
He carried the bundle off to the water closet—one thing he was going to miss on the road was the convenience of Elven plumbing—and as he washed and dressed, Kellen felt odd memory-echoes of the last time he'd dressed in unfamiliar clothing for a long journey into the unknown. It was not so long ago—little more than a moonturn—that he and Idalia had left the Wildwood heading into Elven lands. But then they'd been heading out of peril into safety—or so they'd thought then. Now Kellen was leaving even Idalia behind, going from the near-safety of Sentarshadeen into—
—into grave danger indeed.
Suddenly he knew that, out of the blue, and a chill of apprehension came over him, shaking him to the core and making him shiver. This is not a wondertale. It's dangerous. Really dangerous… Suddenly the glorious Elven armor was no longer just something to look good in; it was something to keep him from getting hurt. Or killed.
He sat down at the table in the common room and accepted a cup of tea, though he didn't think he could eat anything. Idalia produced a comb and began braiding his hair—by now it had grown long enough to make a short club at the back of his neck.
'You'll want to wear it this way,' she said. 'Otherwise your hair will just get caught on the inside of your helmet. Now. Where to go. You'll be riding north, toward the High Desert. Do you remember that vision you had, the first time you tried scrying?'
'I don't think I'll ever forget it,' Kellen said, with an inward shudder. 'I've been thinking about it, and I'm not sure it was meant to be a representation of an actual event—more the symbolic representation of the damage the Barrier is capable of causing—but I think the place you're looking for looks something like that, at least in essence, so you should know it when you see it. As for how you'll be drawn to it, well, the magic that has created the Barrier has imposed a unnatural sort of order on the natural world, and that kind of power leaves footprints of a sort. What you need to look for as you ride is abnormal patterns, things that are orderly in a way that Nature isn't when left alone. The Barrier is the source, and the closer you get to it, the more abnormalities you'll see.'
'Like what?' Kellen asked. Despite his misgivings, the tea had awakened his appetite, and he reached for one of the morning pastries Idalia had set out on a plate on the table.
'Swirls of birds overhead that are flying in an odd pattern and can't seem to break out of it. Animals— especially small ones, like mice or squirrels—that are running aimlessly in circles or performing repetitive motions over and over. Swarms of insects, especially noxious ones, or ones that don't belong. Anything that seems wildly out of place. Anything nasty. Anything rotten, dead, or dying that has no business being there.'
'But how will I know?' Kellen asked. 'I saw new things in the Wild-wood every day, and we're miles to the west of that. I could guess wrong.'
'That's what you'll have Shalkan for. And whoever's going with you. They'll know what's out of place if you don't: Shalkan, most especially, will be sensitive to the kinds of wrongness that you're looking for. And trust in the Wild Magic. When you're not sure, use Finding Spells to show you the way. But be careful about that. Using the Wild Magic may alert Shadow Mountain to your presence, so be sure to move on when you've done that.'
It seemed, thought Kellen, that he was to be going off like a wonder-tale knight on a quest after all, looking for something he wasn't sure how to find, guided by mysterious signs and portents. He tried not to show the unease he felt. Idalia had said to trust in the Wild Magic, and Kellen already knew how much power it possessed. Once he began, in a way he'd be a part of Idalia's spell as well. He had to trust that.
'Okay,' Kellen said, taking a deep breath. He had a thousand questions, but he knew they were mostly for his own reassurance. Idalia had already told him everything he really needed to know. 'And when I get there?'
'You'll see another keystone—I'm not sure exactly what it will look like, but I do know that you'll know it beyond a doubt. When you've found it, you'll need to take your keystone and place it on top of the Shadow Mountain keystone, then trigger the counterspell. You'll do that by the same method you use to charge a keystone, only in reverse: this time you need to tap your keystone, but instead of pulling the power into yourself, you need to channel it directly into the other keystone.'
Kellen thought about it for a moment, reviewing the steps of the spell for triggering a keystone's power in his mind. 'Sort of like a healing, except instead of passing spell-energy into a living being, I'll be passing it into a second stone?' he said. Suddenly something occurred to him. 'But, Idalia… you made the keystone. You charged it. You said that only the Wildmage who charges a keystone can use the energy within it. How can I… ?'
Idalia smiled encouragingly, and the expression only made her look more tired.
