To Light A Candle

“I’m not arguing with Elves,” Kellen said, sitting down in a chair at the opposite side of her bed from Jermayan. “If you’re feeling well enough to leave, you can argue with them.”

Idalia snorted rudely. “Have you ever tried arguing with the Healers?”

Kellen laughed. “Not with the Healers—but I spent yesterday morning arguing with the Council—at least I think that’s what I was doing—and I didn’t get very far.”

“You did, however, make something of an impression,” Jermayan said, pouring tea and handing a cup to Kellen across the bed. Thanks to the Elven “small magics,” the tea was still hot, and Kellen sipped it gratefully.

“Well, I’d love to know what it was. You’d have thought I was discussing the weather, instead of the fact that Shadow Mountain’s managed to stick a whole race of things smack in the middle of the Elven Lands, where they can pretty much do what they like.”

“They’re aware of that,” Jermayan said broodingly. “And they understand it is a grave threat, especially since the… Shadowed Elves… can grant safe passage into the heart of our realm to creatures who are truly of the Shadow, as we have learned to our cost. Though the land-wards detect such as they once they walk upon the surface of the land, our borders are not secure. We must return to the enclave Vestakia discovered, and destroy it.”

“You can’t assume it’s the only one, either,” Kellen said. It was the first truth of war that Master Belesharon had taught him: never underestimate an enemy’s strength and resources.

“No,” Jermayan agreed. “With Vestakia’s help, we must search out and destroy them all.”

Time. That will take time. Time to find each enclave of the Shadowed Elves, time to fight the battles, time to search the whole of the Elven Lands… and we only have Vestakia to help us do it.

And what will the Demons be doing while we do that?

“And what then?” Kellen asked. “When it’s all done?”

Both Idalia and Jermayan were looking at him as if they didn’t understand, but to Kellen, it was as if a story were unfurling itself in his mind, almost as if he were remembering one of Master Belesharon’s old Teaching Tales. But this wasn’t something old. This was something new, something yet to happen.

“When all the Shadowed Elves are gone,” Kellen repeated patiently. “What then?” He only realized then that he’d asked a question—bad manners here— and rephrased it: “Tell me what will happen next—and what the true Enemy will be doing while we destroy the Shadowed Elves.”

Idalia smiled faintly. “Kellen, it will probably take a very long time to be sure we’ve gotten all of them. Maybe years.”

“But we don’t have years,” Kellen said. He gestured at the xaqiue board. “The Council thinks we do. Shadow Mountain puts up a barrier to starve the Elven Lands of water. We knock it down. We expect them to attack, then—though maybe after a very long time. But they don’t. They show us something we have to attack: the Shadowed Elves. I’m not saying we don’t: they’re a threat, and if we don’t destroy them, they will be used against us. But can’t you see it? We didn’t find out about them by accident. They were shown to us. It’s like a xaqiue game. We’ll commit our forces, we’ll go after them… we’ll probably destroy them. And then there will be something else.”

“Their main attack,” Jermayan said. “But we will have already gathered our army together. We will defeat them once again, just as we did before, though I do not deny that the cost will be high.”

“No,” Kellen said. He wasn’t sure where the sense of certainty came from, but he’d never been surer of anything in his life. “Don’t you get it, Jermayan? They’re never going to attack—not this time. That’s what you expect, because that’s what they did the last time. That’s what Andoreniel and Ashaniel are going to wait for—a big massing of Enemy troops; a formal declaration of war. And it won’t happen.”

For a moment he almost thought he’d convinced Jermayan. More than anyone else in Sentarshadeen, Jermayan knew him as a Knight-Mage, and knew what he was capable of—this instinctive understanding of War and how it worked. The more he trained with Master Belesharon—the more actual fighting he saw—the more Kellen realized just how his particular Wild Magic gifts worked.

But then Jermayan shook his head.

“Kellen… I do not say that you are wrong. But no matter what They plan, we must eliminate the Shadowed Elves first. Even now, Andoreniel sends word— not only to the Nine Cities, but to our allies as well, invoking ancient treaties. As soon as the children are safe—once I have persuaded Ancaladar to take them to the Crowned Horns—we go to muster at Ondoladeshiron. To fight in winter is hard, but he thought it best not to wait for spring.”

Well, at least he’d convinced the Council of that much, Kellen thought. But it wasn’t enough. He knew that, even though he didn’t know—yet—what was enough.