Stubborn as an Elf… When you came right down to it, everyone, Elf and human, had the same life span. They lived until they died, that was all—and with Shadow Mountain moving against the Bright World again, the lives of Elven Knights would be measured in years, not centuries.
A few days, a few hours, of happiness would have been something—a gift to him, a gift to herself, something they could have shared, a moment of sweet fulfillment with which to defy the monstrous Darkness that Jermayan was even now laying down his life to destroy.
Her thoughts were bleak, anguished, and the passing of the days only increased her despair.
Even if they succeeded, she would probably never see either of them again. The energy released when the spell was triggered would be… well, she did not know enough even to guess at the effects. Add to that the power of the unbound weather patterns, unleashed from their unnatural binding… lightning, hurricane, gale-force winds, and there, high in the mountains, in winter, snow. Heavy snow.
How could two men and a unicorn, probably wounded, battered, definitely alone, ever hope to survive even a single night in a blizzard?
Even success would not guarantee their safety, or their lives.
And so Idalia took care to keep entirely to herself in the days that' followed Kellen's departure, lest her unhappiness contaminate the hope that was growing in Sentarshadeen with each passing day.
IT was over a sennight since they'd been gone. Idalia had been restless all day, wandering far beyond the city, into the Flower Forest beyond the House of Leaf and Star. There were no flowers now. She could feel the sorrow of the trees and plants, their slow withering starvation and death, and her helplessness in the face of their need was like a fresh grief. The narrow canals the Elves had dug to bring water to the forest held only dampness, for the five springs were not inexhaustible, nor were there enough Elves in Sentarshadeen to man the pumps to fill the canals every day.
Who shall live and who shall die? They have had to make so many choices already, and if my spell does not succeed, if Kellen and jermayan do not succeed, they will have to make more…
Sick at heart, Idalia turned away from the slowly dying forest and crossed the unicorn meadow again. It was nearly lantern'lighting time, the bright, ever-cloudless sky dimming as the sun set. She should go home, and rest. Tomorrow morning she would come back here, to the spring called Songmairie and do as she did every morning. She would cast her Seeking Spell to see if the Barrier was down. Perhaps tomorrow she would scry as well, but she had been afraid to do that for fear of what her spell would show her. Like the Elves, Idalia wanted to hope until all hope of hope was gone.
Suddenly there came a pulse of magic so strong it staggered her; a lightless flash perceptible only to her Wildmage senses, but it blinded and deafened her to all else for one incredulous moment.
Kellen has triggered the keystone!
Wild hope and sudden fierce joy filled her. He's gotten through!
She stood, staring northward, fists clenched, willing him to hold out, to keep the link true until the spell was complete. She hadn't known she'd be able to sense it, but the keystone was part of her, formed of her magic and linked to her, and so she'd felt that first fierce uprush of energy as the keystone began to give up its spell. But now… nothing.
Nothing but hope, and her faith in all she knew Kellen to be.
Idalia turned and began to run.
She was back in less than half an hour with her tools and a full bag of charged keystones. Heart hammering, hands shaking, she dipped each in the spring and began to lay them out in a circle around her. There was a bag of crystallized honey-disks in her tool-bag as well, used for sweetening tea, and as she worked she pulled one out and popped it into her mouth. She'd need the energy, now and for the rest of the night. If the spell had worked.
Please, you Gods who shape the world. Let it be so!
She paused for a moment, waiting. But the spell would run fast once it was triggered. If it had worked, she would be able to sense the results now. Or the failure.
Once more—as she had done so many days ago—she dipped water from the Elven spring and scattered it around herself, touched water to her lips, raised her dripping hands to the sky, and called to the rain.
Hesitation. Confusion. And then…
Haste. Urgency. Frenzy. Need. Long-penned forces boiling across a barrier that had suddenly been cast down, roaring through the parched and empty halls of air with the force of a landslide, carrying a tidal wave's worth of water with them, shedding it indiscriminately and violently on the desert-dry land below…
