To Light A Candle

They’d never know now. The Wild Magic wanted Kellen to act, and act he would, and they would deal with what came of it.

Idalia poured the tea, and they drank it quickly before it cooled—or froze solid.

“Dawn’s coming,” Shalkan said.

Idalia looked at the sky. The clouds were starting to break up, and the stars she could see were faint.

“We might as well go,” Kellen said, rising to his feet. “Let’s wear the tarnkappa, but take lanterns, too. Either the tarnkappa will shield us or they won’t. And there doesn’t seem to be anything out here.” He furrowed his brows. “And you know, now that I think about it, that’s just… strange. They know we’re here. But there aren’t even sentries at the cave entrance.”

“You can ask them about that when we see them,” Idalia said, trying to sound as if this was the sort of thing she and he did every day.

She replaced the tea-things in Cella’s packs, emptied the brazier into the snow, cooled it, and packed it as well, then took out the two tarnkappa she’d brought. She handed one to Kellen, along with a piece of blue chalk.

“We won’t be able to see or hear each other while we have these on. But I’ll be able to see the marks you make on the cave walls, and follow those,” she said. “And I’ll leave my own—in yellow—so if we get separated for some reason, you can use them to find me.”

“Try not to do that,” Kellen urged. “I really don’t want to have to try to explain how and why I lost you to Jermayan.”

“Come to that, I don’t want to have to explain the reverse,” Idalia said. “Well, go ahead. I can follow your footprints in the snow as far as the entrance.”

“Enjoy yourselves,” Shalkan said, with a shake of his head. “We’ll be right here.”

—«♦»—

KELLEN put on his helmet, then shook out the tarnkappa and flung it around himself. As soon as the hood dropped over his helm, the darkness became eerily bright. Making sure he could reach his sword and dagger easily, Kellen started off.

The tarnkappa muted the sound his footsteps made in the snow, but it could not erase his tracks. He walked in a weaving pattern toward the cavern’s entrance—a straight line would draw the eye of any watcher, as there were few straight lines in Nature. He reached the entrance and peered inside, but there was nothing to be discerned by either the tarnkappa’s darksight or his own Knight-Mage- enhanced senses.

He stepped inside, chalked a small blue arrow just inside the entrance, and went on, moving slowly and carefully.

The entrance passage was low and narrow—the Shadowed Elves might have been able to walk upright in it, but Kellen found himself crouching reflexively.

Up ahead he could see the corridor broaden. He was about to quicken his pace when a thread of green fire at his feet stopped him. He froze, looking down.

A few inches above the floor, stretching across the whole width of the corridor, was a shining strand of greyish material. It glistened to his battle-sight with baleful intent.

He flung off his cloak and spread his arms wide, feeling something bump into one of them. “Stop,” he whispered hoarsely. The cavern was pitch-black to his vision now, all but the thread of green fire.

“What?” Idalia whispered after a moment, having removed her own tarnkappa.

“There’s a trip-wire here. Low to the ground. Do you see it?”

There was a long pause, while Idalia put on her tarnkappa and then took it off again so she could talk. “Yes.”

“I need to see what it does. I hope I won’t trigger it. Step back.”

Kellen pulled his cloak back down. Once more the cavern was bright. He knelt down in front of the trip-wire and studied it carefully, willing himself to See it deeply, to Know it.