"Well," Jermayan said, breaking into Kellen's thoughts. "You never will be, not in comparison with a true Wildmage, though you will master healing and fire-calling, and other useful skills; they will just never come as easily or naturally to you as to a Wildmage. A Wildmage's and a Knight-Mage's Gifts lie in opposite directions, though both belong fully to the Wild Magic."
That was exactly how he'd felt! Kellen clutched the tankard desperately, and some of that desperation must have entered his expression, for Jermayan's face softened further.
"Here," he said, pointing to a fallen limb in what passed for shade under the tree. "Sit—and drink! I will tell you all that I know."
Kellen refilled his tankard and obeyed, hardly able to contain himself. It was nothing short of a miracle, an Elf offering to tell him everything without having to coax it out, driblet by driblet!
Jermayan settled himself, and took a cautious sip of his water. "A Wildmage," he began, "reaches out to all the world, knowing it intimately, in touch with all of it. A Knight-Mage's gifts turn inward, refining himself, so he cannot be turned away from his path once he has chosen it. A Knight-Mage can withstand forces that would destroy a Wildmage, for his power lies in endurance and the alliance of his knightly skills with his Wildmagery. You will never be what Idalia is… but she will never be what you will be, either, Kellen."
"Is it—bad?" Kellen asked, tentatively.
"You mean, can a Knight-Mage be turned to the bad?" Jermayan asked. "That is a foolish question, Kellen. All things can, as you know. But the Knight-Mage, even more so than the Wildmage, must choose that path, knowingly, and with forethought, and when he does, the Wild Magic will desert him, and he will retain only his own innermost gifts and training."
So I can't just slide into evil. And it can't just sneak up on me and corrupt me. That was easily the most comforting thought he'd ever had.
He looked down at the sword at his side, remembering the feel of it in his hands. This was his, this skill. The sword was his tool. It felt right in his hands, an extension of himself. And with Jermayan's help…
"Never forget this," Jermayan continued gravely. "The Knight-Mage makes the choice of life and death, directly and immediately. Be certain that when you claim a death, your reasons are good ones, the death is necessary, and that, to keep your spirit clean, you forgive your foe when you slay him. Anger is not to be shunned. Anger can be useful, and for the Knight'Mage it is a weapon just as is your sword. Good clean anger, full of purpose, will focus you. But as your sword, it can cut you if you clutch it to you. Remember that, and when the time when it is useful is over, you must let it go."
Kellen nodded earnestly, vowing to remember. He didn't entirely understand what Jermayan was talking about, but he sensed that he would understand it sometime later.
The Elven Knight smiled again, and drained his own tankard. "Now, come. We have some distance to ride. And now that I know what you are capable of, you will not find your lessons so easy."
Kellen grinned at him. Even more than that moment beside the spring, when Idalia had explained the truth about the Demons, he felt a sense of relief so intense it nearly made him weep. A Knight-Mage! There was a name for what he was. He wasn't a second-class anything—not a failed High Mage, not a not-good-enough Wildmage. He was a Knight-Mage.
"Just try me, Master."
They returned the water barrels to the back of the mule, and Jermayan retightened Valdien's girths, and they rode on.
"I'M a Knight-Mage," Kellen said to Shalkan, letting Jermayan get a little ahead. For the moment, all his worries about the future, his fears of the battles he still had to face, the Barrier, were all gone. He knew what he was, now, and it was as if a key had been turned in a lock. He knew that the next time he opened his three Books and read them, things in them that had never made any sense to him before would suddenly be as clear as the water of Songmairie.
Learning his new skills wouldn't be easy, he knew that too. But for the first time—the very first time—in his entire life, Kellen felt as if he were finally pointed in the right direction. A Knight-Mage. A special kind of Wildmage. It still didn't seem entirely real to him, but the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. It would take work—a lot of it, he was guessing—to master a Knight-Mage's special gifts, but what he became would be his. Not a second-class Wildmage, doing things that Idalia could do better. A first-class Knight-Mage. Needed.
A new thought struck him. "Did you know?"
"I wasn't sure," Shalkan said after a long pause. "I suspected—especially after you managed to destroy two overlarge packs of the Outlaw Hunt with nothing more than a big stick—and my not-inconsiderable help, of course. Only a Knight-Mage could have done that. But the choice was still yours to make. You could have refused to be, you know."
Kellen stared down at Shalkan's ears in surprise. The idea hadn't even occurred to him.
It felt so right. How could he have refused to be a Knight-Mage?
The same way I could have refused the Wild Magic?
It would have been possible; he could have given in to Lycaelon, burned the Books, gone back to his studies. The Mages would have edited his memories. He might even have been happy.
And if he had?
I wouldn't have been Outlawed, I'd never have come to the Wildwood. Eventually Lycaelon probably would have found a reason to try to claim the Wildwood, but not for a while. So Idalia might not have come to Sentarshadeen until it was too late.
It could have fallen out that way. It could easily have fallen out that way. He wouldn't have given in if he'd known they were going to take his memories, of course, but he wouldn't have known about that part, then or ever.
If he'd given in…
But he hadn't.
Was this why the Books had come to him when they had? So he could be Outlawed and find Idalia.? So Lycaelon would expand the borders, chasing both of them to Sentarshadeen, where she would find out about the drought and the Barrier?
And where Kellen could find someone who could tell him what he was?
It made him dizzy for a moment, as if he had gotten a glimpse of a great pattern, of which he was an integral part. It was intoxicating.
And frightening.
Wildmages served the balance of All That Was. It wasn't easy and it wasn't safe. To be fair, nobody had ever told him it would be.
To claim his proper place in that pattern meant danger. But to give it up—would leave a hole in the pattern that would mean—well—maybe disaster, for a lot of people he was coming to know and like. What would happen if one who could become a Knight-Mage refused the challenge?
"It is said they only appear in times of direst need." Hadn't Jermayan said that?
"No," Kellen said aloud. "I couldn't have refused."
Shalkan just nodded, and let it go at that.
THEY stopped at a dry riverbed to make camp late that afternoon. Jermayan looked grim at the sight. Last season, he told Kellen, the broad sandy expanse before them had been a swift, deep-flowing river, one of many that carried the mountain waters down into Sentarshadeen. But with the drought, it had dwindled away to almost nothing. All that was left was a narrow rivulet still trickling along what had once been the deepest part of the riverbed.
Since they were stopping for the night, this time they unsaddled Valdien and Shalkan—fortunately the unicorn was able to tell Kellen what to do—and unloaded the pack mule.
But when Kellen would have removed his armor in turn, Jermayan stopped him.
"It is time for your next lesson," Jermayan said cheerfully. It occurred to Kellen that the Elven Knight had become quite unaccountably better-humored since their first stop…
He's enjoying this! Kellen thought, caught halfway between his own anticipation at another lesson and a flash of exasperation at Jermayan's high spirits. Of course, he isn't the one who's going to get hit.
But despite the fact that he was tired from the long day's ride, and the fact that he suspected there was a bruise under the armor where Jermayan had managed to land a blow on him that morning, Kellen found his spirits rising to match Jermayan's. There was an indescribable Tightness that he felt when holding the sword in his hands. And the longer he thought about it, the more sure he was that he had finally found the work he was supposed to be doing.
Was this how Idalia felt when she called on the Wild Magic? If so, it was no wonder that she seemed so contented, and so willing to use it whenever she was called upon, even if the cost to her was high. And happy—or at least happy when she wasn't thinking about Jermayan. Kellen only wished there was some way he could tell her that he understood at last.
On the dry sand of the riverbed, Jermayan used his scabbard to scratch out a circle about twelve feet across.
"Here is our dancing floor," the Elven Knight said. "You must try to push me out over the boundary. I will do the same to you. If I succeed, you have lost. If you succeed, I have lost. In battle, it is important never to give ground except by your own choice, so that an enemy cannot move you into danger. Come now, and we will begin."
Kellen quickly discovered that this was harder work than simply blocking Jermayan's blows had been. Over and over, Kellen found that he had blocked every blow… and still been forced to give ground exactly as Jermayan wished him to.
"How are you doing that?" Kellen demanded as Jermayan stepped back once again and raised his blade in salute, looking down to see his foot once again over the edge of the circle.
"Most warriors step back to block," Jermayan explained, taking pity on Kellen at last. "It is a common instinct, because it helps to absorb the force of a blow. You, knowing this, will use it against your foes. It will help you force your enemy where you wish him to go. Step sideways when you attack, and you can turn him as well, for he will always turn to face you without thinking about it. Now, let us try again, and this time, step forward as you block."