To Light A Candle

perhaps, we will speak of it further.”

“Um, well, Armethalieh probably isn’t very much like your legends either,” Kellen said tactfully. He supposed the Lostlanders thought of Armethalieh as a sort of paradise, the way the wondertales wrote about the Mage College.

“In our legends, it is a place that shines with painful brightness to mask the darkness of its Mages’ hearts; a place where there is no night or day, no winter or summer; a place where the citizens have no souls, for they have been stolen to fuel the magic of the Mages. Music fills the air eternally to mask the cries of despair rising from the captive populace,” Atroist said simply. “I apologize if my words offend you. They are only legends.”

Oh.

“They’re close enough to the truth,” Kellen said sadly. “Except that nobody’s in despair. Everybody’s perfectly happy with the life they have—or most of them are, anyway. They’re”—he thought long and hard for a good analogy—“sheep, and the Mages are the shepherds, except that these shepherds not only keep them shorn of every scrap of wool they grow, but would probably throw them to the wolves if wolves showed up. But they don’t know that, and so they’re completely content.”

“You weren’t,” Atroist pointed out.

“No,” Kellen agreed. “Idalia wasn’t either. But most people are. The High Mages make sure of it.” He supposed he ought to hate Armethalieh and the High Council for what it had done to him. Certainly they’d acted out of pettiness and spite, and tried to kill him, but since he’d been Banished, he was happier than he’d ever been before in his life.

And to his surprise, he was worried about them. They were blind, self-centered, bigoted idiots, true, but nobody deserved to be the Demons’ victims.

Kellen and Atroist had reached the edge of the camp by now, and a few minutes more brought them to Atroist’s tent. The two men stepped inside, and Kellen set down his pack with a sigh of relief.

“I’d better be going. Shalkan will want to know what happened,” Kellen said. “I hope your friends get here safely.”

“As do I,” Atroist said. “Fare you well, Kellen Knight-Mage.”

“You, too, Atroist Wildmage,” Kellen said.

—«♦»—

WHEN he returned to the Unicorn Camp, Kellen was grateful to find not only tea, but soup and fresh bread waiting.

“The advantages of being chosen for night patrol,” Petariel told him cheerfully, handing him a steaming bowl. “Not you, Wildmage. I order you to report to your bedroll at once. You look exhausted.”

“I’ll make sure he gets there,” Shalkan said, walking around the corner of one of the tents and staring pointedly at the jar of crystallized honey until Petariel laughed and offered him a disk of it.

“Huh,” Kellen said inelegantly, squatting near the large brazier and filling himself with bread and soup with brisk efficiency. “Thanks.” And that was all he said for long enough to fill himself up to the brim with hot food and drink. After half a loaf of bread, three bowls of soup, and two mugs of tea with a great deal of honey, he felt a lot better—well enough, in fact, to realize how tired he was. He stumbled off to his tent, one arm over Shalkan’s shoulder, glad he was awake enough to remember where it was.

“So,” Shalkan said, once they were inside.

“Atroist spoke to Drothi. The Lost Lands are being used as a breeding ground for monsters,” Kellen said, struggling out of his armor. When he heard his own words he stopped, blinking in surprise. But it was true, wasn’t it? The Demons had to put them somewhere while they were rebuilding their numbers. “I have to tell Redhelwar.”

“The news will keep. And you’ll present it so much more elegantly if you’re awake when you do it,” Shalkan said cuttingly. “Now finish taking off your armor and go to bed.”

—«♦»—

KELLEN awoke when the sun was high, feeling as if he ought to have had restless dreams, but unable to remember any of them. Shalkan was already gone, on business of his own. Kellen dressed—not armor, but camp clothes—and made his way from the tent. He’d check with the Watch Commander for orders, then go to the tents that served as the common dispensary for food in the settled camp to see about breakfast, then bathe if his schedule allowed it. A fixed camp allowed for a number of luxuries—though he wouldn’t have thought of them as luxuries a few months ago. Hot food he didn’t have to cook himself, hot water for bathing, and more fur blankets on his bed than he could carry in a pack or on a packhorse that he shared with three others.

Riasen was the captain of the Morning Watch—since Petariel had been on patrol last night.