Still, he had a good pair of heavy boots there, and a warm sturdy cloak that would come in handy right now. If the Council had really wanted to even pretend to be fair, they would have let him get proper clothes from home. But the Council only wanted to make a good show for its citizens, not for its victims, and right now Kellen had other concerns. Right now he had to think—hard—about what to do next.
He didn't have his Books of the Wild Magic with him. The Council had those. And they probably thought that without them he was defenseless, but he actually didn't need them. He'd been right when he accused the Council of not having any idea of how the Wild Magic worked, and despite all Lycaelon's fine words about how they'd studied it a long time ago (he bet they hadn't) they were assuming it was just like the High Magick they were familiar with.
But unlike High Magick, which needed so much calculation, preparation, tools, and endless memorization of stock formulas, Wild Magic, as Kellen had already learned, was driven far more by the intent of the caster than by calculation. He didn't need pages of written-out spellcasting—a grimoire, a temple full of tools and furniture, and rigid observance of planetary hours—to be able to use it. He could cast an effective spell with what he already knew and what was around him.
But what kind of a spell?
What did he want?
To stay alive was the easy and obvious answer, but maybe it was a little too easy. There was always a price, and for a need this big, the price would be high. That much Kellen knew already. What price would the Wild Magic ask for the gift of his life? How would it answer such a request?
Was it a price he was willing to pay?
He hadn't, after all, been willing to pay Lycaelon's price for remaining in the City, so Kellen already knew that some prices were too high.
Better not ask for just staying alive, then, Kellen decided warily. He thought carefully about all he'd read. The three Books were less about spells than about the principles behind them—the physics, not the ethics. Ethics, apparently, was something the Wildmage had to work out for him or herself.
But as he recalled from The Book of Moon, the less you specified in Wild Magic, the better your response was likely to be. Getting specific meant getting selfish—thinking too much, and at the same time, not thinking enough.
I guess… maybe… if when you ask for something from the Wild Magic you're always promising to give something in return… the easier you make it for Something to give to you… maybe the easier it becomes for you to repay in return?
Or maybe I'm completely wrongl I have no idea what I'm doing here! he thought in frustration.
Kellen sighed. What was the smallest, simplest, least thing that he needed? The less he asked for, the less he'd have to give, after all. Or so it seemed to him right now.
To be out of City lands by sunrise. I need help to be out of City lands by sunrise. I don't care how, or where I end up, but that's what I need—REALLY need. And I don't care what I have to pay for it —no, that's not true, I won't murder to pay for it, and there are probably other pretty horrible things I wouldn't do, but something personal probably wouldn't be a problem. And that's what I need—REALLY need.
He felt a great sense of relief, as if he'd managed to solve a riddle correctly. That was what he needed, and that was what he'd ask for. And how badly awry could the spell possibly go? According to The Book of Stars, if he didn't specify a payment limit, he would be granted the chance to turn down what he was offered—with no hard feelings, as it were. For instance, if he was asked to murder someone…
Because some things, as Kellen was already discovering, came at too high a price. And if, just if, as Lycaelon claimed, there were Demons involved, Kellen knew there might be a price worse than that of giving up his own life.
With the matter settled to his own satisfaction, Kellen waited some more, this time with a purpose. At last the moon rose through the trees, shedding its dappled light through trees rustling with the new leaves of early spring. Finally, he could see where he was, and what he needed to get.
The Calling Spell he intended to try was a bit more elaborate than the simple Finding Spell he had cast twice before, and required more ingredients. Fortunately the trees were already in leaf, and those simple ingredients were easy enough to find. Two chimes' search allowed him to collect leaves from each of three trees: an oak, an ash, and a thorn tree, and to amass a good handful of tinder and dry sticks from the forest floor to build the fire to burn them.
Returning to the center of the cart track, he piled his kindling and tinder carefully in a heap, then took the strongest of the sticks he had gathered and carefully drew a circle around himself, digging the line as deeply as he could into the rutted bare-earth surface of the road. He broke up the stick and added it to the pile, and then with a flick of his fingers, set the small pile of sticks and tinder alight.
It was such an easy spell—the first one in The Book of Moon, the first one that the Student of High Magick studied—that for a moment Kellen wasn't sure which method he'd used to summon the flames. He felt disoriented,
