And Kellen wasn’t thinking clearly at all.
“Well, as a Knight-Mage, you have precious little use for Mageshield, now, do you?” Idalia said, trying to draw him back to the present and make him focus on what he
Kellen looked at her, startled. “I… suppose not,” he said, slowly.
“It would be good to know just
“That is something he has told no one,” Adaerion said. “And we do not know enough of the ways of the human city to know for what cause it casts out its folk.”
Kellen looked at Idalia. She was relieved to see that he seemed to have come back to himself a bit.
“You and I were Banished for studying the Wild Magic,” he said hesitantly. “But… they would have let me stay if I’d apologized and given it up.”
“Well, we can rule out studying the Wild Magic,” Idalia said. “Because we know he hasn’t done that.” She frowned. “There’s hardly anything else the Mages Banish someone for. For any other crime, you either do penance, pay a fine, get your memories excised, or all three.”
“Idalia,” Kellen said after a moment’s silence, an odd note in his voice, “what
Idalia thought hard. It had been almost half her lifetime since she’d discovered her three Books in the Records Room of the Council Hall, and from the moment they’d come into her hands, she’d known she was committing…
“Treason,” she said. “To study the Wild Magic is to commit treason and heresy against the Light.”
“Ah,” said Redhelwar with satisfaction. “We progress.”
“No,” said Kellen. “We don’t. We could talk until the sun came up and get nowhere,” he added harshly. “What we need to do is ask Cilarnen questions, not each other. So I’ll see him. I’ll question him. And if I don’t like his answers, I’ll kill him.”
“Kellen!” Idalia gasped, stunned.
“That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?” Kellen said bleakly, and now Idalia could see the pain in his eyes—the pain of a man carrying a burden far too heavy for him to bear. “To kill things? We can discuss why he’s here and how he got here for as long as we like. But in the end, it comes down to one thing: a Wildmage brought Cilarnen to me, because that’s his Mageprice. I don’t think there was anything in that price about me letting him live.”
Idalia would have liked to deny the truth in that—but in all honesty, she couldn’t.
“I don’t know why an Armethaliehan Mage—whatever his rank, Banished for treason or not—is here. It doesn’t seem really likely that they’d let him go with his Gift intact, or when they knew an Elf was lurking around outside the City ready to help him escape the Scouring Hunt. It sounds like a trap to me. I’ll see,” Kellen finished simply.
“And certainly there will be time enough for that on the morrow,” Redhelwar said, as smoothly as if Kellen had not just proposed to murder a guest under Elven protection. “Tonight, I believe he still recovers from his ordeal in the blizzard—I know not where. For yourself, Kellen, I am certain a warm bath, a hot meal, and a good night’s sleep will be welcome before you are called upon to try this stranger’s motives. The tea that can be brewed in the caverns, so I am assured by Adaerion, is foul, and you will wish for better. Belepheriel has made you a gift of some of the Armethaliehan Black that you favor; I shall send Dionan to your pavilion to brew it for you after you have bathed, and see you to your rest.”
For a moment Idalia thought Kellen would object, but he caught himself in time. He bowed, deeply.
“You do me too much honor, Redhelwar. It is cold in the caverns, and colder without. It will be good to spend the night in reflection, and I will welcome the tea.”
He bowed again—to Redhelwar, to Adaerion, to Idalia, and left quietly.
There was silence in Redhelwar’s pavilion for a time.
“If the Mageborn boy is indeed a threat…” Adaerion began.
