To Light A Candle

Idalia.”

He escorted her to the edge of the Mountainfolk camp, and Idalia, tucking her cloak tightly around her against the eternal winter wind, went off to find out who wanted to see her.

—«♦»—

SHE caught up with Dionan fairly quickly. He had Vestakia with him, and they were searching among the Healers’ tents, obviously looking for her.

“Idalia!” Vestakia cried, sounding breathless with relief. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“So I discover,” Idalia said dryly. “Here I am. I See you, Dionan.”

“I See you, Idalia Wildmage,” Dionan answered, bowing respectfully. “Redhelwar asks, if you would find it convenient, if perhaps it would please you to join him in his tent.”

No wonder the Elves drive the Mountainfolk crazy, Idalia thought wryly. From her long experience with the Elves, she had no difficulty understanding that she had been bidden to come to the Elven General at once—whether it “pleased” her or not. But few humans without equivalent experience of the Elves would find Dionan’s words as easy to decode.

“Of course,” Idalia said. “It would please me greatly,” she added for good measure.

Dionan led her—and Vestakia as well—through the milling and confusion of the camp. Redhelwar’s scarlet pavilion was an oasis of serenity in the midst of all the apparent disorder—though nothing in an Elven camp was ever really disorganized.

When they reached the tent, Dionan bowed them in ahead of him. Idalia entered first, and found that the pavilion was filled with people.

Kellen was there, and Jermayan, as well as a number of the high-ranking Elven war leaders. More surprising—for this seemed to be a strategy meeting— Rochinuviel, the Vicereign of Ondoladeshiron, was there, and Atroist as well.

Naturally, tea must be served and drunk before the business of the meeting could be discussed, though things went swiftly by Elven standards. When the delicate Elvenware cups had been collected and set aside, Redhelwar spoke.

“We have been blooded by the foe, and he will be a difficult enemy to master,” Redhelwar said. “Yet by the grace of Leaf and Star, and with Vestakia’s aid and that of our Wildmages, we shall find the dark places in which he bides and scour his presence from the land, so that They have no foothold here, and the poor tortured spirits of our cousins can find rest at last.”

There was a profound moment of silence, and Idalia remembered what Kellen had told her: even while they devoted every fiber of their being to killing the Shadowed Elves, their Elves never stopped thinking of them as Elves, and hating the necessity that drove them to slaughter what they considered to be their own kind.

“Yet this is a fight that cannot be won with sword and spear alone,” Redhelwar said, continuing. “We must once more take up our alliance with those who wield the Wild Magic, as it was in the time of the Great War. To that end, Rochinuviel brings word from Andoreniel.”

Rochinuviel bowed, stepping forward. The Vicereign was gowned as elaborately as she had been on the day that she had greeted the Unicorn Knights on the Gathering Plain. Diamonds and moonstones glowed and glittered in her long black hair, and she wore a cloak of thick white fur over a gown of white velvet banded in ermine and satin as bright as ice. But despite the fact that she was dressed for Court in a pavilion full of men and women wearing armor and coarser furs, she did not look out of place. She was simply Rochinuviel, as inviolate as the snowcapped peaks.

“Your words honor me, Redhelwar. The words of Andoreniel will bring change to the Elven Lands. It is, as I am sure you expect, a hard counsel, but wise, and in time of danger, new ideas must not be set aside merely because they are new. Andoreniel’s words are these: the Lostlanders must come south, every man, woman, and child of them, every goat and sheep, every household chattel. No living thing which they value is to be left behind. They will be granted safe passage through the Elven Lands, escorted by our own people, all the way to the lands of Men. Then shall their Wildmages fight among us against the Shadowed Elves, and those of their young men who are willing as well. All of the Lostlanders who take up arms in honor of the ancient treaties shall be our valued allies, and all the rest shall be safe in the Lands of Men, and all who aid them there shall have the gratitude of the Elves. So says Andoreniel, Lord of the Nine Cities.”

Atroist let out a deep sigh of relief, bowing his head.

“I shall tell them this at once, Lady. You are more than generous.”

“It is not I who am generous,” Rochinuviel said, rebuking him gently, “but Andoreniel, who speaks through me. I have given his words, and now I will go, and leave you to see to the matters of war. You will tell Andoreniel when he may expect your people to arrive.”