To Light A Candle

“Other Wildmages?” Kellen broke in, surprised.

“Of course,” Idalia said. “Did you think we were the only ones? And—let me see—the Mountain Folk will come early, since they have no crops to tend. The Lost Lands folk will come next, for they must put their herds in order before they can come—but they will come as fast as they can, for as Vestakia has told us, they have been bearing the brunt of the Demon raids. The Wildlanders will come last, for they must get a crop in the ground before they can send troops. We will not see them before late spring. And such Otherfolk as can aid us—they will be with us as well.”

“So many,” Kellen marveled.

“I do not know, since I haven’t seen them yet, but I suspect that all the humans the Elves will be able to call to their banners could be tucked safely behind the walls of Armethalieh—if it were empty, of course—with plenty of room left over.”

Not so very many, then, after all. Kellen didn’t know how many Centaurs there were, and though the Elves were formidable fighters, it had only—only!— been a thousand years since the Great War, and he knew from things Master Belesharon had said that the Elven population had suffered heavily during the Great War and not yet reached its former numbers.

None of the races had. Several of them had been wiped out entirely; the water-sylphs, the bearwards, the minotaurs, the firesprites. The dragons were nearly extinct—Ancaladar thought there might be others, somewhere, who, like him, had hidden and refused to Bond. How many, though, he could not even guess; they had avoided even each other. Only a Bonded dragon was fertile, Kellen had discovered, and unless they could somehow coax a female dragon—if there were any left—out of hiding and into a Bond, the dragons might as well be extinct.

Humankind was reduced to a few thousands scattered over the land in far-flung villages—and the inhabitants of the Golden City, home to tens of thousands, cowering behind their walls and their tyrannical laws. The great Centaur tribes were a shadow of what they once had been. The Allies had spent everything they had to defeat the Shadow in the Great War—had turned thousands of leagues of fertile fields and forest to stony waste where nothing grew, even now— and counted themselves lucky, because they had defeated the Shadow.

Only the Shadow hadn’t been defeated.

“It has to be enough,” Kellen said bleakly.

“It will be,” Idalia said firmly. “After all, we have a dragon.”

As if that were a summons, they heard the outer door open and close.

“Ah,” Idalia said. “The Elven Mage has returned.”

Kellen felt a strange tickle of unfamiliar magic—dragon magic made his nose itch—and knew that Jermayan must have been working with Ancaladar again, practicing sorcery. He set down his half-full mug and went with Idalia to greet his friend.

“Ah, Kellen,” Jermayan said, seeing that Idalia was not alone. “It is good to find you here.”

Jermayan looked both cold and exhausted. Perhaps things would be easier in the spring, but now, in the cold of winter, it was hard on him.

“You look frozen,” Kellen said, with sympathy.

“I am assured that—with time—I can construct a suitable hall for our work, once I have mastered the appropriate skills,” Jermayan said wryly, noting their concern. “However, by the time I have mastered them, the need for such a hall will have passed.” He sighed, and sat down on one of the long padded benches that lined the sitting room. “Meanwhile, I call fire to burn upon the ice.” He gazed down at his hands broodingly.

“Fire’s supposed to be easy,” Kellen said tentatively. It was the first spell a Student Apprentice of the High Magick learned back in Armethalieh, the first spell in the Books of the Wild Magic. Light a candle, call flame to tinder…

But Jermayan was talking about kindling a fire on the ice… How was that possible?

Idalia returned from the kitchen and set a cup of tea in his hand. “You do what you have to, Jermayan,” she said.

“And having worked as hard as any apprentice in the House of Sword and Shield,” Jermayan said, smiling faintly, “I have reconciled Ancaladar to necessity. Tomorrow we fly to the Fortress of the Crowned Horns. I would be honored if you would accompany us, Kellen.”

Who, me? Kellen thought wonderingly.

“The children will be reassured by your presence, so Vestakia assures me,” Jermayan explained. “And I thought perhaps you would find profit in seeing our greatest fortress.”