The Elves didn't seem to notice, but Kellen was gasping for air by the time he reached the edge of the crowd. He looked around—anywhere but at the Circle—breathing deeply and hugging himself tightly to try to shake off the mesmerizing trance state. It felt as if he were trying to force himself awake from the deepest of sleep; he pinched himself—hard—welcoming the sharp immediacy of the pain as something to anchor himself to.
When he was sure he could resist the lure of the rising power, Kellen looked around. He found he was standing on a small rise among the trees, where he could look down on the ceremony behind him. The Elves still sang, but now the sound was something outside him, separate from him, a thing he could shut out with an effort of will. It was unearthly, the kind of song that no human throats could ever form. Not with harmonies built a hundred choruses deep, and so perfectly attuned that even the thought of discord was impossible.
The center of the Circle was only a hazy silvery glow, as bright as if the full moon had come to earth, but Kellen did not need to see Idalia to know what she was doing, for most spells of the Wild Magic followed a similar pattern. She would have kindled a fire in the brazier and used it to burn the appropriate herbs and leaves, along with a few drops of her blood. That was the sacrifice of Power Within that linked the Wildmage to the Power Without, like priming a pump—a metaphor Kellen had neither known nor understood until he had seen pumps in Merry vale.
And somehow the Elves were singing their own power into the spell as well, linking themselves to each other and to Idalia. Kellen could feel that even as he held himself back from it. Unlike the ordinary folk of Armethalieh, who had power, but could neither sense nor use it, though the Elves could not use their power, they not only could sense it, they knew it, intimately and well, and could direct it to the skill of one who could use it.
The song had begun slowly, a call and response, the melody sweeping around the circle of Elves as the counterpoint followed in its wake. But gradually the counterpoint died away, as more and more voices took up the melody alone, and the melody simplified, until all the voices below sang as one, a single, simple, heart-piercing phrase of unutterable sweetness, repeated over and over in a language Kellen didn't understand.
And step by step that song line shortened as well. Three beats, then two, and Kellen felt the spiraling tension coiling upward, demanding release.
One single note soaring toward the stars, until he thought he would go mad, or the stars themselves would shatter—
—and then—
Silence.
Darkness.
Release.
Kellen staggered backward, as if something he'd been pulling against had abruptly disappeared. He realized that the spell was cast, and that now he needed to get down to Idalia. He forced himself to move.
It was harder, this time, to make his way through the Elves. As Idalia had predicted, they were exhausted by their sacrifice of power to the spell. Some had sat down where they were, others were leaning against the person next to them for support. All of them seemed somehow disoriented, drained. Kellen pushed through them as ruthlessly as he could bring himself to, navigating by the faint steady glow of torchlight ahead of him.
Idalia was kneeling on the white stone, a dark object a little larger than one of the Elven lanterns between her knees. Though it looked nothing like the usual sort of keystone from the quick glimpse he got of it, there was no denying that was what it was. The object drew him, in the same way that the Elven song had drawn him, but this time he did not resist the pull of it. He entered the circle, not a particle of his attention on anything but the object, none to spare even for Idalia.
Hide me! the thing cried out to him. Shelter me, cover me, protect me now!
Kellen quickly dropped the spell-caul over it, swaddling whatever it was up firmly in the red silk—it was surprisingly heavy for its size—taking care to wind it so deeply in the soft folds that nothing could possibly "leak" out to betray its presence. He finished by tying the tasseled cords firmly around it.
When he looked up again, Idalia had collapsed completely, lying unconscious on the ground.
Kellen took a step toward his sister, but he wasn't quick enough. A male Elf had stepped out of the crowd, stooping and lifting Idalia into his arms as though she weighed nothing at all.
It was Jermayan.
The Elf stared challengingly into Kellen's eyes, as if daring him to object to his presence.
Now Kellen was torn between duty and duty. He knew that Idalia didn't want to have anything more to do with Jermayan, but at the moment Idalia was in no condition to complain. Kellen couldn't carry her and the keystone. And no one else seemed to be in any condition to care for her…
Before Kellen could think of what to say, Jermayan turned away and began carrying Idalia back in the direction of her and Kellen's house.
Kellen clutched the silk-wrapped bundle tighter and followed.
It looks like they're well matched in one thing. They're both about as stubborn as each other, anyway. He sighed. Well, if he wants to do this, and it makes him feel useful … he's a grown man. I guess he's a grown man. He looks old enough to make up his own mind about making himself miserable, anyway.
Though true night had fallen while the keystone was being created, Jermayan had no trouble finding his way along the narrow unlighted paths that lay between the unicorn meadow and Kellen and Idalia's house, and Kellen found himself having to hurry to keep up with the Elf. If Jermayan had not been dressed entirely in white, it would have been even more difficult.
"You can slow down, you know," Kellen finally said, a little breathlessly. "There's no rush—I don't think Idalia's going to wake up anytime soon. And thank you for taking her."
Jermayan abruptly slowed, allowing Kellen to catch up with him.
"No, she is exhausted," Jermayan said tenderly, gazing down at Idalia's face, her head cradled protectively against his shoulder. "But I would not wish to place you in the position of having permitted my attentions to your sister, should she learn I have taken this service upon myself."
"What you and Idalia do—or don't do—is between the two of you," Kellen said hastily. "She wouldn't listen to me anyway." And since I didn't even know I had a sister until Shalkan dumped me at her front door a few moontums ago, and since she all but told me off for trying to nose in when you first showed up on our doorstep, I'm sure not going to start telling her how to run her life now.
Jermayan smiled faintly. "Great wisdom in one so young," he commented.
"Besides," Kellen added, after a moment, "what do I know, anyway? Somebody who keeps company with unicorns doesn't have a right to a lot of opinions about people who—ah—can't."
He thought he heard a faint chuckle from Jermayan, but he couldn't be sure.
They continued onward in a more companionable silence until they reached the door. Kellen opened it, and Jermayan carried Idalia inside. Kellen was glad they'd left a couple of the lamps burning; he hadn't anticipated coming back with so many burdens. He quickly set the wrapped keystone down on the padded bench.
"Show me to her room, of your grace," Jermayan said, and Kellen went to open that door in turn.
Kellen turned back the covers and Jermayan laid Idalia carefully down on the bed, gazing at her for a long moment, his face unreadable. Kellen could feel the tension of things unsaid and emotions denied fill the room like water running into a cup, so intense it made his head hurt.
"Cover her warmly, and watch over her," Jermayan said abruptly. "See that she sleeps undisturbed."
Jermayan left—not seeming to hurry, in the fashion of Elves, but gone so quickly it would have been easy to imagine he'd never been there at all. Kellen removed Idalia's sandals—she might be willing to sleep in her clothes, but not in her shoes—then covered her and closed the bedroom door, blowing out the bedside lamps before he left.
He picked up the keystone and went to his own room, tucking it securely away in his pack, then went to light the lamps outside the door. Elsewhere in the canyon he could see other scattered points of light, as the Elves who had wearily returned to their homes had done the same.
He built up the fire in the stove and rummaged through the cabinets, setting out a meal for Idalia if she woke up during the night. He realized he was hungry himself—he'd been too excited to eat earlier—and cut himself a slice of cold venison and dried-cherry pie, washing it down with a tankard of cold berry-cider. Eating dispelled the last of the eldritch feeling he'd gotten from being in the meadow, as if a wind had blown him free of cobwebs. And paradoxically, it left him that much more free to worry.
Now that Idalia's part was done, the keystone made and charged, his part of the task seemed that much closer to beginning. In a few hours, he and Shalkan and one of the Elves would be on their way, riding into the unknown. Kellen was sure he couldn't possibly sleep, but it would do no harm to lie down for a few hours…
"WAKE up, sleepyhead!"
"What… ?"
Kellen came groggily awake out of muddled dreams, thrashing and struggling. The dreams that had seemed so vivid a moment before dissolved instantly, leaving him blinking in confusion.
He didn't remember falling asleep. But the last time he'd looked out the window of his bedroom, the sky had been black. Now the sky was grey-pale, and Idalia was standing over him, wrapped in a violet house robe the color of her eyes. There were dark circles beneath those eyes that were only a shade or two lighter, but otherwise she seemed quite healthy and alert for someone who had been drained to the point of unconsciousness only a few hours ago.
"Tandarion just came to bring your armor and sword. I've made tea. While you eat, I can tell you what to look for and how to trigger the keystone when you reach the Barrier. Then… it's all up to you, Kellen."
Her words brought him fully awake as even a bucket of cold water could not have. Kellen sat up quickly, unable to believe he'd actually fallen asleep. "You know?"
"More than I did last night. And you'll learn more on the way. Now come on."
She picked up a bundle and tossed it at him—the quilted undertunic for his armor, and the supple leather socks that went beneath the armored boots, and left Kellen alone.
He carried the bundle off to the water closet—one thing he was going to miss on the road was the convenience of Elven plumbing—and as he washed and dressed, Kellen felt odd memory-echoes of the last time he'd dressed in unfamiliar clothing for a long journey into the unknown. It was not so long ago—little more than a moonturn—that he and Idalia had left the Wildwood heading into Elven lands. But then they'd been heading out of peril into safety—or so they'd thought then. Now Kellen was leaving even Idalia behind, going from the near-safety of Sentarshadeen into—