To Light A Candle

Cilarnen looked surprised, as if the thought had never occurred to him.

“So… it worked out for the best?” he said tentatively.

“It went as the Wild Magic wills,” Kellen said automatically.

Cilarnen recoiled in disgust, wincing faintly.

Kellen sighed ruefully. Cilarnen was more difficult to talk to than the Elves of Ysterialpoerin! “You can’t have that much objection to the Wild Magic. You came here with a Wildmage,” he said, with just a touch of chiding in his voice.

It was an hour before dawn now; he wasn’t going to get any more sleep tonight. He might as well get dressed and take Cilarnen to be fed. At a slightly more civilized hour he could present him to Redhelwar—hoping Cilarnen did not insult the Army’s General too thoroughly—and they could begin to plan what to do.

“Kardus is different. He doesn’t make my skin crawl,” Cilarnen said with a shattering lack of tact. “And anyway—I’m already Banished. What difference can it make who I associate with? But Wild Magic… it doesn’t make any sense.”

Kellen looked at Kardus, puzzled.

“As you know, I have no magic. Yet when the Books came to me, I did my best to live by their teachings, and to follow the Great Herdsman’s Path. There are times when I Know what others do not, and in payment for these Knowings, I am always set a Task. I Knew in Merryvale that I must go to Stonehearth, and help the human child I would find there. When I reached Stonehearth, my Knowing unfolded further, and I realized, after the attack, that my Task was to bring him to you, in order to give him the help he truly needed.

“Both Wirance and I found that his magic was of a kind neither of us knew. We tested him with the Wild Magic, and found that Wirance’s Books caused him true distress where mine did not, though he could read neither Wirance’s set nor mine. Yet their spells worked together well enough at Stonehearth.”

“Huh,” Kellen said. One more mystery. Well, given time and enough information, this one could probably be unraveled too.

He pulled off the tunic he’d grabbed at random and opened his clothes chest.

“What are you doing?” Cilarnen asked nervously.

“Getting dressed.” For some reason Kellen was starting to feel like Cilarnen’s much older brother. “It’s almost dawn. Then the three of us—by your courtesy, Kardus Wildmage—are going to go and eat, because I didn’t get much sleep and I’m hungry, and as the Mountainfolk say, ‘Sleep is food, and food is sleep.’ By then the day-watch of the camp should be on duty, so I’ll go to Dionan or Ninolion and see when we can see Redhelwar—the General of the Elven Army, Cilarnen, and he’s the most important person here, so try to be extremely polite. The Elves set a great store by politeness. Then, when we do see him, you can tell him what you’ve told me, and we’ll figure out what to do about it.”

As he spoke, he finished dressing, and buckled on sword, dagger, and spurs. It was a little cramped with Kardus in the tent, but he managed. Quickly running a comb through his hair, he braided it into a tight club at the base of his neck, tied it with a ribbon, swung his cloak around himself, and picked up his gloves.

Cilarnen was staring at him, jaw hanging.

“You look like an Elf,” he blurted, scrambling to his feet.

Kellen bit his lip. Hard. “Cilarnen, have you actually seen any Elves? I look about as much like one of them as a draft horse looks like a unicorn. Come on.” He doused the lanterns and worked his way around Kardus to the door of the pavilion.

—«♦»—

CILARNEN followed the other two out of the now-dark green tent, gasping a little as the sharp bite of the cold air. It was still black as night, for all Kellen Tavadon’s talk of it being nearly dawn, and snowing—of course. At least Tavadon had listened, though Cilarnen wasn’t really sure how much he understood. He had kept talking about things that had happened a thousand years ago, not about what had happened back in the village. And about Elves.

Always Elves.

Cilarnen seethed with resentment. Like any properly-raised Mageborn, Cilarnen knew about Elves. They were deceitful, they were one of the Lesser Races—

Of course—he felt a wash of confusion—Centaurs were a Lesser Race, too. And Sarlin and Kardus were Centaurs.

But they were different. They didn’t make him feel quite so… unfinished.