Lycaelon bowed his head in a fine imitation of sorrow, but from their vantage, Kellen saw he was hiding a smirk. "Our way is hard," the Arch-Mage said, mournfully. "Our resources are few. We are one city, alone, without allies, in the face of the teeming bestial hordes of Darkness and Error. But the Light defends us, and our course is clear: In the name of Humanity, for the sake of our lost and imperiled brethren, we must claim all of the Western Hills for Armethalieh and the Light—extend our borders once again, no matter the cost to ourselves, and send forth a Scouring Hunt to purge those lands of the creatures that would usurp Man's rightful place in the world!"
There was a moment of silence, then the rest of the Council was on its feet, cheering Lycaelon as the vision slowly faded.
"BLOODY hell!"
Idalia threw her tankard into the spring and began to swear in low passionate tones. Some of the words Kellen had heard on the City docks; some of them he could only guess at the meaning of. She pounded her knee with a closed fist as she vilified every member of the Council, particularly Lycaelon.
Finally she turned from profanity to language that didn't make his ears burn quite so much.
"That pompous precious prancing ass, that demagogue, that warmonger, that coward—simpering around like a maiden whose feelings are hurt and getting everyone else to do his dirty work for him, that—that— Oh, if Mother were only there, she'd spank him!"
At last she ran out of words and simply sat there, head down, breathing hard, as Kellen watched her anxiously.
Extend the borders of Armethalieh … to here? But that's crazy. We're hundreds of miles from the City. Shalkan had to run at top speed for a night and a day to get here, and a unicorn is faster than… How can the City possibly control this much territory!
Of course, the Mages could claim it… all that involved was the casting of a Boundary Spell. The magickal cost would be high, but that was the City's problem.
And once they'd claimed it…
He looked up, and saw Shalkan watching him from the edge of the clearing.
"Is there trouble?" the unicorn asked.
"The City's going to expand its boundaries—to here," Kellen said bleakly.
Shalkan snorted and started back, then stamped his forehoof angrily.
"There's nothing for it, then," Idalia said angrily, fishing her tankard out of the spring, pouring the water out, and getting to her feet. "We'll have to warn the villages and move farther west. Into the Elven lands, I guess—they won't dare try to intrude there."
"You mean we're just going to run?" Kellen said indignantly, getting to his feet as well. "Just because the City decides it wants somebody else's land? Why should we move? We should stay and fight!"
"Don't be an idiot," Idalia said blightingly. Then she shook her head, and moderated her tone. "I'm sorry, Kellen—I didn't mean that; I'm angry at them, not you. You heard our beloved and most merciful father, though, and you should know what that means. They're going to set the borders and then send a Scouring Hunt. They won't even send out a Lawspeaker with a decree this time to give the Otherfolk time to get away. A Scouring Hunt is just that. They'll send Hounds, hundreds of them. You and Shalkan fought two packs and barely survived. How can we—and half a dozen villages full of innocent, unarmed villagers without an ounce of magic among them, at least half of them mere children—fight against pack after pack after pack of Hounds?"
"Well, they can run, but we should fight!" Kellen exclaimed, feeling his face grow hot.
"And what if all my friends here decide to help us—they will, you know," she replied tightly. "And then, because the ones that can fight have stayed, their families stay—"
"It isn't fair," Kellen muttered angrily, kicking at the ground. "We shouldn't let them push us around!"
"If we stay and fight—if we don't warn them—they'll die, and is that fair?" Idalia demanded.
Kellen hung his head. "No," he whispered. "But it isn't fair," he repeated.
"I know," Idalia said gently, "but it's the right thing to do." She sighed, and upended the tankard, shaking out the last of the water. "The right thing to do is almost always the hardest."
"How—how long do we have?" Kellen asked. His voice shook, just a little.
"Shalkan?" she asked.
"A moonturn at least," the unicorn said, tilting his head to the side for a moment of thought. "They'll have to gather the power to set the Bounds, then gather more to awaken the stone Hounds, even with every stonecutter in the City working day and night to craft as many as they'll need. They'll see no need for haste."
"You don't think so?" Idalia looked skeptical.
"How could the Western Hills possibly know what a special treat lies in store for them?" the unicorn said sarcastically. He tossed his head. "And we'll need every moment of time between then and now, so we'd better get to it. I'll warn everyone I can, but there are many I can't approach. You'll have your work cut out for you. Don't dally."
With a bound, the unicorn was off.
Kellen looked at Idalia and smiled crookedly, though he'd never felt less like smiling in his life. To be Banished was bad enough, but now, to be run out of the Wildwood when it was just starting to feel like home…
"Well, I guess I don't have to worry about finishing that addition after all," he said, trying to put a good face on things.
"And I guess you're going to get to see the Elves," Idalia said, doing her best to match his bantering tone. "Come on. We've got work to do."
BUT as they turned to the work of preparing to warn the Wildlanders of Armethalieh's intentions, some of his father's words came back to him, and Kellen found he couldn't recognize himself in the oh-so-dangerous Outlaw Lycaelon had described.
Him? Know the deepest secrets of the City? When he'd wandered through his seventeen years there blind and half-asleep to everything the Mages did? Lycaelon was just putting on airs, trying to make him seem more of a danger than he was. He wasn't a danger at all. All Kellen wanted was to be left alone—but telling the Council that wouldn't suit Lycaelon's plans. When he couldn't even save himself from the Hunt without Shalkan's help? Just who did his father think he was going to fool?
Maybe it didn't matter. Lycaelon was creating a paper tiger, a bogeyman, out of the only material he had at hand, trying to make Kellen seem to be the heart and ringleader of some grand conspiracy of evil with designs on the conquest of Armethalieh, when in reality he wasn't a danger at all, and never would be. All Kellen had wanted—all he'd ever wanted— was to be left alone—
That wouldn't suit Lycaelon's plans, now, would it?
"He's using me as an excuse, isn't he?" Kellen asked.
Idalia sighed. "If it gives you any comfort, yes, at least partly—though I'm sure Lycaelon also hopes that in extending the boundaries, he'll get another chance to hunt you down as well. But I don't think that's the whole of it by any means. I'm sure that even if you were still tucked up safe in Armethalieh, the Arch-Mage would have found some bogeyman to wave in the Council's faces. This can't be a spur-of-the-moment thing." She shook her head. "I just wish that I'd known about this sooner. Shalkan's right. It's going to take every moment we've got to get folk warned and out of here."
"At least I am here now, and I know the truth," Kellen replied, setting his chin with stubborn determination. "I'd rather know the truth and be here, facing a Scouring Hunt, than be sitting there, safe, believing his lies!"
IN his small office just off Arch-Mage Lycaelon's far grander one, Chired Anigrel, the Arch-Mage's own confidential secretary, awaited the outcome of the Council session as he worked his way slowly through a large stack of requisition forms, all of which would require the Arch-Mage's personal signature and magickal seal.
He had no doubt of how the session would go. Lycaelon Tavadon was a persuasive orator, with the strength of utter conviction to lend power to his words.
It is always better that way. Sincerity is the best disguise of all.
And all the better for being no disguise. The Arch-Mage had no hidden agenda, no secret double game that lay beneath the surface of his words… aside from the rather charming and innocent desire to bend the entire Council wholly to his will or even dispense with it utterly. No, the secret desires and hidden agendas here within the Council House belonged solely to Lycaelon's so-deferential and self-abasing private secretary and whipping-boy, Undermage Anigrel.
Who would have thought that both of Alance's brats would show the Taint? Since Kellen's—The Outlaw's—Banishment, Lycaelon had been harder than ever to deal with. Anigrel could blot out the man's petty life with a lifted finger, but every day he was forced to pretend that he was a mere Journeyman-Undermage, years away from attaining the exalted dignity and power of a High Mage. If not for the brat's defection to the ancient enemy…
Anigrel gritted his teeth in annoyance at the lost opportunity that Kellen's departure represented, and kept himself from blotting the parchment beneath his hand with an effort. If he had only managed to get Kellen under his thumb, and then corrupt him utterly, what a prize for his Dark Lady the boy would have been!
"There are no failures, only opportunities," she had told him when he had told his Dark Lady what had happened, making his report as he did once each month at moondark. It was the greatest risk he took, the one moment of unhallowed magic that the Council might conceivably detect. But his talismans, spells, and wards protected him, and in all the years he had played his double-game, he had so far escaped discovery.
"Lycaelon is vulnerable now. Play upon his fears, make him believe that his son could not have escaped him without being cunning as a serpent and powerful as a Demon Prince. He wishes to make Armethalieh strong; foster those ambitions and make them synonymous with his own prosperity. Make the Golden City hated by all the world."
Her mind-voice was like a caress, wakening a hunger that must go eternally unsatisfied, until he could rise high enough in the ranks of the Mages to slake his lesser appetites in the poorest quarters of the City.
Or until the City fell.