To Light A Candle

Cilarnen weren’t his enemy. That was a beginning.

The sense of Presence—of listening—withdrew.

So he nodded, and made his expression serious, but open and pleasant. “Yes. We’re fairly sure, anyway. When we found out, my sister and I escaped into the Elven Lands, because we knew that no matter what, the Council wouldn’t dare push the Bounds past the Elven border.”

“And then everything went wrong, and the Council drew back the Bounds to the walls,” Cilarnen said, taking up the story as if it were his to tell as well. Well, maybe it was—he knew what Kellen did not, what had gone on inside the City. “The farmers stopped sending food—they said with so much rain in the fall they would need all their food for themselves. There were no weather spells to protect them anymore, you see. I was an Entered Apprentice then. I saw all the storehouses.” There was a hint of desperation in his voice. “They were half-empty, and every day it was worse. The price of grain kept rising. The Council agreed to buy grain from the Selkens, but of course nobody knew if they would send it. And it made us look so weak!”

The tea was ready. Kellen poured, and held out a cup to Cilarnen, dropping several honey-disks into it for good measure. In the cold, honey was energy. The boy—Kellen couldn’t help thinking of Cilarnen as a boy, though he knew Cilarnen was a year older than he was—took it automatically.

Heavy rains. When the Black Cairn had burst, it had affected the weather everywhere. Normally that wouldn’t have included the Delfier Valley, granary of Armethalieh, but when the Mages had restricted the Bounds, they had removed the weather-spells from the valley, exposing it to the full force of the freak storms. Anything still in the fields would have been beaten down and drowned; rotted. He hadn’t known. Of course, if he had, it still wouldn’t have changed anything, but—

“You couldn’t let that go on,” Kellen said quietly.

“We had to stop them!” Cilarnen said passionately. “The High Council wouldn’t listen—my father wouldn’t listen. It was his plan to reduce the Bounds to the walls, to shame Arch-Mage Lycaelon, and he would not reverse his position. The Arch-Mage would have listened. I know that now. I know it! But I thought he wouldn’t because of who my father was, and I couldn’t see the City starving before my eyes!”

Odd as it was to imagine, Kellen thought Lycaelon would have listened. Leaving the City without any way to feed itself was suicidal. But if the rest of the Council had backed Volpiril, and not Lycaelon…

“And I couldn’t see the City starving before my eyes” At that moment, Kellen felt something he hadn’t expected for Cilarnen: respect. As Mageborn, Cilarnen would have been one of the last to suffer; in fact, the hardships of the City would scarcely have touched his life at all. Yet he had taken on the responsibility his elders were too enwrapped in political wrangling to claim.

“What did you do?” he asked gently.

“We made umbrastone,” Cilarnen said miserably. “Light deliver me, I don’t even know why, now! There were six of us, and Master Raellan: Jorade Isas, Geont Pentres, Kermis Lalkmair, Tiedor Rolfort, Margon Ogregance, and me. Margon’s father was on the Merchant’s and Provender’s Council, so he knew exactly how bad things were. Kermis was the one who had the recipe for umbra-stone. It eats magic—I think we thought that if we made enough of it, we could get into the High Council chambers and make them listen to us.”

“Leaf and Star,” Kellen said softly. Treason, they’d guessed back in Redhelwar’s tent, and here it was: conspiracy to overthrow the High Council and meddling with forbidden magic. He’d read about umbrastone in the Ars Perfidorum, the Book of Forbidden Acts. It was one of the products of the Art Khemitic, and as such, as much anathema to the High Mages as the Wild Magic was.

“We were arrested before we even made the first batch,” Cilarnen said, sounding baffled and grief-stricken. “I don’t know how they found out. But we had all the ingredients, so that was good enough for the High Council. I don’t know what happened to any of my friends—I think at least one of them was Banished before me, and died. Hyandur said there was someone in a Felon’s Cloak, and the Hunt… I didn’t believe him then. Or maybe… Undermage Anigrel said my father was dead, when he came to Burn away my Gift. He said the conspiracy was Lord Volpiril’s idea.”

“He lied,” Kellen said instantly, though the mention of Anigrel’s name made him want to twitch. It wasn’t only kindness that motivated his words, but common sense. Why would Lord Volpiril instigate a conspiracy whose sole purpose was to overthrow him and support Lycaelon’s position? Anigrel must have been lying.

Cilarnen held up a hand. “That doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice rough with grief. “This does: Undermage Anigrel came to Burn away my Gift. I still have it.”

Kellen started, but didn’t interrupt.

“For a long time I didn’t.” Maybe Cilarnen interpreted Kellen’s expression of startlement as skepticism, because he nodded vigorously. “Truly. Even you have to believe I’d know whether it was there or not. I spent two moonturns at Stonehearth, and I didn’t have it—just the worst headaches you can imagine. Then— the day that Thing came—it came back.”

“And it’s all there?” Kellen wasn’t sure quite what he was asking, or what good the information would do him. He knew how the High Mages fueled their spells—by power stolen from the citizens of Armethalieh through their City Talismans. Even if Cilarnen hadn’t had his Gift Burned out of him, he had nothing now