To Light A Candle

“I am Kardus Wildmage. It is my Task to bring the human Cilarnen to Kellen Wildmage,” Kardus said, stepping forward.

There was a long pause. Cilarnen blinked, unable to believe his eyes. Suddenly there was a second Elf standing beside the first. The two of them were identical in every way, except that the second Elf held a long staff instead of a bow.

“You will accompany me,” the second Elf said.

He turned and walked off through the winter forest, without waiting to see if they followed.

As they rode through the trees, Cilarnen realized they must be in Elven Lands now. He looked back, but the first Elf had vanished again.

They rode now in silence broken only by the whistle of the wind and the crunch of the snow beneath their hooves. Where before the quiet had seemed companionable, now it was awkward, as if all of them felt that someone might be listening and judging all that they might have to say to one another. For the first time it occurred to Cilarnen that he could have been stopped and turned back at the border. What would have happened then—to him and to Kardus, since Kardus would have been unable to complete his Task? Would it have been like the magickal backlash to a spell of the High Magick gone wrong? Or would Kardus simply have camped on the border until his patience wore them away?

Their guide walked steadily onward, never looking back. At last, as the short winter day drew toward a close, they reached a clearing that had obviously been prepared for them.

Windbreaks had been strung between the trees in a half-circle around the clearing to block the brunt of the winter wind. The ground had been swept clear of snow and leaves very recently, and Cilarnen could see that it was as smooth and level as the floor of a house. The sense of this place being a sort of outdoor house was heightened by the fact that in the center of the clearing was a tall cylinder. Its exterior was covered with the most beautiful tilework Cilarnen had ever seen, and through the openings in the side, he could see the gleam of embers.

A stove? Who would put a stove out in the middle of a forest?

Elves, he supposed.

“All you need is here. Others will come for you. Remain until they do,” the Elf said.

With that their guide vanished, as if he’d possessed no more substance than the snow itself.

“Elves,” Comild said with a sigh of relief as their guide departed. “Elder brothers, and all, but still…” He trotted into the clearing, the other Centaurs following him.

Cilarnen hung back. It wasn’t that this place made him uneasy—not even as much as Wirance did, and down deep inside, he trusted Wirance—but ever since they’d ridden across the Elven border, he’d had the peculiar sense of being inside a dream he couldn’t wake up from, and this place just made it worse.

Kardus looked up at him inquiringly.

“Kardus… back at the border… if they hadn’t let the two of us through, what would you have done?” Cilarnen asked.

“We would have waited until they did,” Kardus replied simply. “It is my Task to bring you to Kellen Wildmage, and yours to go.”

“But how long would we have waited?” Cilarnen asked, pressing for information.

“Until they did,” Kardus said. “I have been in Elven lands before. The Elves are not like humans, nor like Centaurs. They are cautious, but they are not unjust, nor would they deny a Wildmage who needed to complete a Task. Sentarshadeen, the King’s city, lies near the border. If we did not leave, they would send to Andoreniel, and he would tell them to let us pass.”

So his guess had been right. Kardus had been perfectly prepared to wait the Elves out. Cilarnen felt—relieved. Kardus wasn’t going to abandon him.

“Are we going to Sentarshadeen?” Cilarnen wondered what a whole city full of Elves would look like.

“I do not know. But come. It is cold here, and Elven stoves give good heat.”

The Elves had left them more than a well-prepared campsite and a stove with a good fire. At the edge of the campsite were more provisions: casks of cider and mead, bread, cheese, and the carcass of a deer, skinned and dressed for roasting.

After weeks on the trail with nothing but dried food and trail-rations to sustain them, the Centaurs fell upon the fresh food with shouts of delight, and soon the savory scent of roasting meat filled the clearing, and the smoke of bubbling fat spiraled up toward the trees. As they waited for the chunks of meat to cook, they shared out the