Now, at last, Armethalieh had entered the fight.
Rain lashed and battered the City itself, a storm such as had not been seen within the City walls since the first stones were laid.
The Apprentices watched the battle from the walls, and brought back word of the battle's progress, though they barely understood what they saw. When they had reported that the forest was burning, Idalia had demanded that the Mages remove the weather-shields from the valley, and bring rain to quench the fires. The Council had had to go to the walls themselves and gaze out at the carnage below before they would agree, but after they had seen it, they made no more trouble.
As far as the eye could see for mile upon mile there was nothing but fire and burnt and dismembered bodies. The forest was in flames, all the way to the horizon.
The Mage College had become a hospital for the army's wounded. The students had all been sent to their homes, the Mages who normally occupied its grounds had been called away to Workings. Binding spells wreathed the Mages own defenses, so they would not attack the Allies, and the tents and wagons of the Healers now filled every open space.
There were few wounded.
* * * * *
NO bells rang in Armethalieh tonight. The City of a Thousand Bells lay mute beneath the fury of the magic-and-magick-called storm. But the High Mages did not need the City's bells to reckon time.
It was nearly midnight. Their spell would be timed to match that of the Demon Queen. They had spent precious hours as the day drew on preparing and adapting it from the old records in Lord Lalkmair's archives, and then rehearsing it, because they could afford no mistakes. It would work precisely as the Wild Magic had promised Idalia that it would.
In the Council Chamber, Idalia prepared to begin.
She wore nothing but a light gray Mage-robe, her hair loose and unbraided down her back, and of all the things that had happened in the City today dragons, Elves, Wildmages, spells, an entire Demon army right outside their walls it was this that had stunned the Mages of Armethalieh nearly to the point of frothing catatonia.
A woman dressed as a High Mage.
A woman in a Mage Circle.
At least she knew now where Cilarnen got his stubbornness from. Lord Volpiril had done everything up to and including threatening the High Mages with death and immediate Banishment to get them to work with her, and it was as much an acknowledgment of their desperate situation as it was a tribute to the force of his personality that he had succeeded.
Thirty-six Mages stood with her, Setarion Volpiril and Dyren Lalkmair among them. In a moment, she would step into the center of the Circle, and they would begin.
She had not told Jermayan the truth.
He believed everyone here believed that the spell they were about to cast would bring Lycaelon Tavadon here from the Spellstones, whisking him out from beneath the Demon Queen's hand to join her at the moment her spell was cast.
It wouldn't. No human magic not even a Triple Circle was that powerful. But the spell surrounding the Demon Queen's altar would permit a substitution, so long as what was substituted was closely enough related in blood and magic.
A daughter for a father.
A Wildmage for a High Mage.
Tonight she would die.
But this was the Mageprice asked of her and that she had consented to long ago. To give her life. And because she was a willing sacrifice not one ripped unconsenting from life in blood and fear, but a death hallowed by the Wild Magic her death could not be used to break the bonds that would allow He Who Is to return to the world.
"It is nearly time," Jermayan said to her.
"Yes," Idalia said. She reached into the pocket of her robe, and drew out her Three Books. She took Jermayan's hand, and placed them into it. "I want you to keep these for me. I do not think they would… do well within a Mage Circle."
"Perhaps not." Jermayan smiled, but his dark eyes were worried.
"Perhaps there is something you would wish to give me in return?" she asked.
It would not matter now.
He smiled, and reached up to unclasp the chain from about his neck. "I have waited long to give this to you, Idalia. I had thought this day would not come."
He clasped the silver eight-pointed star around her neck. An Elven Betrothal Pendant. It settled in the hollow of her throat, still warm from his skin. She reached up and touched it with the tips of her fingers.
She could not say goodbye. If she did, he would know what she meant to do. It was possible he might even try to stop her, offer himself up in her stead, and there was no time to explain why that could not be. He would know soon enough. She had kept the truth from him selfishly because every moment in these days that could be spent without pain was a gift from the Gods, and she would give up none of them. Instead she smiled, saying nothing at all.
"Come, Lady Idalia," Lord Volpiril said.
She turned away and stepped into the Circle.
* * * * *
JERMAYAN watched from the edge of the room as Idalia stepped away and took her place at the center of the gray-robed High Mages. The room began to fill with smoke, making him wish to cough, but he schooled himself against it sternly. Only a few moments. Midnight would come, and Lycaelon Tavadon would join her in the Circle.
And they could leave.
He did not like the human city.
It was too crowded, too filled with ugliness and hate. There was nothing here of appropriateness and harmony; no respect for the natural world that was the gift of Leaf and Star. No wonder they had fallen so easily to Anigrel's plots; these humans were already half in love with Darkness. It made him sad. Far better to face that Darkness openly upon a battlefield than to pretend it did not exist, dulling your own senses until you saw nothing at all, not beauty or ugliness, truth or lies.
Perhaps they could take Cilarnen with them when they went.
He knew the boy rested now in the care of the High Mage Healers. The spell that had raised the Wards of the City had cost him dearly, though his father swore that he would live and heal. Cilarnen had spoken of the High Mages as great Healers, and even Idalia did not have many ill things to say of them, save that they were reckless and arrogant. In Jermayan's opinion, those were bad enough things to say of any Healer, save that she said one thing more.
That they took away inconvenient memories.
The Elves lived long, longer than any of the other Children of the Light. More than any, they were the sum of their memories. To destroy to remove a person's memories, yet leave them alive, not knowing what they had lost, was a transgression so black that Jermayan could barely imagine it. Yet it was an act the Mageborn of Armethalieh performed as a matter of course. Both Kellen and Cilarnen had lost memories their past beyond recovery, changing the people they might have been.
Jermayan only prayed that the High Mages would not meddle so again with Cilarnen while he lay helpless in their hands.
Idalia stood quietly in the center of the High Mages as they moved about her, casting their spell. Jermayan felt nothing. He did not expect to. Perhaps he was still an Elven Mage, though he lacked all ability to work any magic, but it did not matter: Elven Magery would be as blind to the High Magick as any High Mage was to the workings of the Wild Magic. The spell being raised before him, no matter how powerful it was, was something he could neither sense nor feel. All he could sense was the passage of time, moving inexorably toward midnight, and the sound of the storm that battered the City. Even the sound of the battle he knew to be raging outside the City walls was muted, hushed to silence by the restored City Wards.
Suddenly there was a flare of light, startling him.
The Mages reeled back, staggering and falling.
He pushed through them.
Idalia was gone. In her place, crouched upon the floor, lay the naked form of a haggard old man. He was filthy and disheveled, his mad eyes staring about him in terror. He drooled in fear.
Suddenly Jermayan realized what she had done.
She had not called her father to her.