To Light A Candle
Mercedes Lackey
The Obsidian Trilogy 02
3S XHTML edition 2.0
click for scan notes and proofing history
contents
Chapter One - In the Forest of Flowers
Chapter Two - A Healing and a Homecoming
Chapter Three - The Banquet in the Garden of Leaf and Star
Chapter Four - In Training at the House of Sword and Shield
Chapter Five - Secrets in the City of Golden Bells
Chapter Six - The Room of Fire and Water
Chapter Seven - Discord in the City of a Thousand Bells
Chapter Eight - Prisoners of Darkness
Chapter Nine - The Council of Fear
Chapter Ten - The Return of the Dragons
Chapter Eleven - The Road Through the Border Lands
Chapter Twelve - To the Crowned Horns of the Moon
Chapter Thirteen - Ondoladeshiron at Last
Chapter Fourteen - Blood and Sorrow
Chapter Fifteen - At the Siege of Stonehearth
Chapter Sixteen - Ghosts upon the Wind
Chapter Seventeen - On the Wings of Dragons
Chapter Eighteen - The Price of Power
Chapter Nineteen - The Wisdom of Betrayal
Chapter Twenty - The Order of Battle
Chapter Twenty-One - Blood on the Moon
Chapter Twenty-Two - Smoke and Storm
Chapter Twenty-Three - Journey’s End
Chapter Twenty-Four - Shadows of the Past
Chapter Twenty-Five - Gifts and Promises
Chapter Twenty-Six - Against All Odds
Chapter One
In the Forest of Flowers
KELLEN TAVADON COULD never have imagined fighting a battle so one-sided as this, but he no longer had the energy to spare for despair. Up and around the circumference of the Black Cairn he went, and as he did, the icy wind slowly increased. It seemed to Kellen as if the source of the wind was the obelisk itself, as if it blew from someplace not of this world. As if from a great distance, he could hear inhuman yelping and the sounds of battle. If he looked, he knew he would be able to watch his friends die.
But he refused to look. He could not afford to be distracted from his battle. It took all his concentration to keep his footing on the stairs. Kellen’s teeth chattered uncontrollably in the cold; tears that owed nothing to grief streamed from his eyes and froze along his cheeks and lashes. He gripped Idalia’s keystone hard against his stomach and prayed that it would hold together.
If he had been able to think, he would have been certain that his situation could not be any worse, and then, as a further torment, grit mixed with the frigid wind began to pelt him. Fine sand at first, that left him blinking and half-blind, but soon good-sized pieces of gravel and small rocks that hammered his skin and even drew blood. He could taste grit between his teeth, on his tongue, feel it in his nose, in his lungs, choking him. He pulled his undertunic up over his head. It was hard to breathe through the heavy quilted leather, but as he heard the wind-driven sand hiss over its surface, Kellen was glad he’d buried his head in its folds. Better to be half-stifled than blind. Slowly his tears washed his eyes clean.
Soon it was not just gravel that the wind carried, but rocks the size of a fist. At this rate, he’d be dodging boulders soon. And one direct hit from anything really large and he’d be dead—and the fate of Sentarshadeen, and perhaps of all of the Elves, would be sealed.
He needed to protect the keystone as well as his eyes and lungs. Kellen quickly shoved the keystone up under his shirt, and turned toward the wall so it was protected by his body as well. The keystone was as icy against his skin as it had once been warm against his hands. He turned his face against the wall, and crept even more slowly, up the stairs. The sand made them slippery, and he knew Something was hoping he’d fall and break the fragile keystone.
At least the howling of the wind and the booming of the rocks against the stone shut out all sound of the battle below. If it was still going on. If all his friends weren’t dead already.
I won’t look back, Kellen promised himself. Whatever happens, I won’t look back.
It was so unfair for the enemy he faced to be throwing rocks at him! Unfair—no, it wasn’t so much that it was unfair. It was humiliating. The Enemy wasn’t even going to bother wasting its Demon warriors on stopping him; he wasn’t an Elven Knight, after all. He wasn’t any sort of a real threat. He meant so little to the Enemy that the Enemy thought it was enough to batter him with a few rocks, certain that he was so cowardly, so worthless, that he would turn tail and run.
That, as much as all the pain and despair, nearly broke Kellen’s spirit.
Only his anger saved him.
Anger is a weapon, as much as your sword.