KELLEN caught Cilarnen's eye as the meeting came to a close, and after making an appointment to meet with Redhelwar on the following morning to discuss the disposition and selection of the force that would be dispatched to Halacira within the next sennight, he caught up with Cilarnen outside the pavilion. "I haven't seen you around lately," he said.
Cilarnen smiled wanly. "Not quite as indirect as one of the Elves, Tavadon, but it will do, believe me! You haven't seen me because you've been at the other end of the camp. And I've been studying. Light deliver me if I'd studied half this hard back in the City I'd be sitting on the Mage Council right now, I swear it!" He rubbed his forehead wearily. "Oh, don't fear I've neglected Anganil. He gets a good ride morning and night if I can manage it which means assuming the weather cooperates. Weather! If I never see any more weather I shall be well pleased," he muttered darkly.
"They tell me it is worse this year than it has been before," Kellen said, as they began to walk slowly in the direction of the Centaur encampment.
"It is uncivilized. I am tired of huddling in a freezing tent like an animal," Cilarnen said with a shuddering sigh. "I am tired of strange clothes and strange food and not having my own bathroom. I know it sounds petty, when we are all when the world itself is in so much danger, but I want to go home. And the worst of it is, I know home isn't even there. That damned Dark-tainted traitor Anigrel has ruined everything we in the City took centuries to build, and if we cannot stop him, he will smash it completely."
Cilarnen caught himself with an effort, and took a deep breath. "But it hasn't happened yet, and will not, by the Mercy of the Light, and just now you heard about a whole city of your friends that has been destroyed. For that I am truly sorry. I should like to see an Elven City someday."
If there are any left standing soon, Kellen thought. "I hope you will," he said. "Thank you for your kindness."
"And you will want to know if I've gotten anywhere with turning myself into a useful High Mage. I think so. But I think… I think I need your help."
* * * * *
THE last time Kellen had seen Cilarnen's tent it had looked very much like his own, with the addition, of course, of a double armload of books.
Since then, the tent had exploded into chaos. Kellen only hoped that Redhelwar did not order the main force of the army to move out on short notice, because he was certain that the contents of Cilarnen's pavilion could not be packed for moving in anything less than two days. Cilarnen's sleeping pallet was crammed off in a corner, a table and stool had been added both were heaped with papers and in addition to the books, several scrolls had been added to the disorder.
Now that was puzzling. The scrolls could only be written in Elven the older the book, the more likely it was to use the older alphabet and Kellen was pretty sure that Cilarnen didn't read Elven.
In addition to the scrolls and the new furniture, Cilarnen's tent now also contained a stave cut precisely to Cilarnen's height, a broadsword which did not seem to be intended for what Kellen would consider practical use and a set of shelves crammed into a corner and filled with pots, bags, jars, and boxes.
There was barely room to move.
Cilarnen set the lamps and braziers alight with a gesture as the two of them entered perilous, that, with the amount of loose vellum, scrolls, and bound books the pavilion contained, the pavilion was a tinderbox and as the air began to warm, Kellen could smell that the air was redolent of oddly familiar scents.
"Light-incense," he said, surprised.
"Well, the ingredients for it, anyway," Cilarnen said. "Or most of them. You can't do a conjuration without it. Fortunately I found the recipe in one of the books, as Armethalieh is hardly likely to send me some if I ask. All I have to do now is figure out a way to get my hands on either oil of cassiar, or cassiar bark, and I can compound as much as I need."
"Ask Kindolhinadetil," Kellen said. "Or, properly, ask Redhelwar to ask Kindolhinadetil. He might have some. Cassiars probably grow in the Flower Forest."
"If he has given me all these books, I suppose he might let me harvest a bit from his trees," Cilarnen said, sounding faintly baffled.
Moving carefully, Cilarnen consolidated several piles until he had cleared space atop the storage trunks for them to sit. Their cloaks hung in the one corner of the tent not filled with papers Cilarnen had that much practicality slowly dripping melting snow onto the carpet.
"I can offer you tea if I can find the tea-brazier and the pot," he said. "Of course, I don't have any decent tea, but still…"
"I'll take the thought for the deed," Kellen said. "So what did you want my help with?"
"What, should we not discuss the weather for at least half-a-bell?" Cilarnen teased. Then he sobered, settling to business.
"I think I may have figured out how to power my magick, Kellen.
"You know how they do it in Armethalieh. Because Power is something that everyone has in tiny amounts, though only those with the Magegift can use it to fuel their spells, long ago the High Mages decided that they would harvest and store the power of the unGifted citizens and use it for their spells, adding it to their own natural power. If I have to rely on nothing more than my own innate power, there are very few spells of the High Magick that I will ever be able to successfully cast, but outside of Armethalieh, with its elaborate system of Talismans and probably greater reservoirs, there is no mechanism for harvesting and storing Power."
Kellen nodded. Cilarnen was telling him nothing neither of them didn't already know, but he was obviously working his way up to something.
"But Armethalieh didn't always exist, and for the High Mages to create their system, they had to have a power source before they discovered that one, or else they wouldn't have been able to cast spells in the first place and invent the High Magick, do you see? These books that Kindolhinadetil gave me are very very old, Kellen I studied one or two of the same ones back in the City, and in the copies I saw there, everything was slightly different. As if they'd been rewritten here and there over the centuries. So I wasn't surprised when I finally came across references to the original source of the High Mages' power something that, needless to say, is certainly nowhere taught in the City today.
"It seems that the High Mages once harnessed Elemental energy directly to fuel their spells. Apparently it was very dangerous the one book I have that talks much about it goes on and on about how the Mage must be careful not to cast too many spells, and to rest frequently, lest he burn out his Gift and his life. And apparently you couldn't do it for long the book talks about High Mages 'retiring if they can' after seven years as if that ever happened. That part just doesn't make sense!"
It might not make sense to Cilarnen, but it did to Kellen. If Cilarnen was talking about High Mages from before the founding of Armethalieh, then he was talking about High Mages who were still fighting Demons for, he now knew, Armethalieh had been founded shortly after the end of The Great War, when the High Magick came to declare the Wild Magic anathema. High Mages who fought for the Light would almost certainly die young, burning out their Magegift on the battlefield fighting the Endarkened.
"Anyway, I'm not exactly ready to evoke an Elemental and try to figure out how to take away its power in order to use it myself," Cilarnen said. "I'm barely used to the idea that the Elemental Powers are something things you might actually meet, and not abstract concepts used to balance out the design of a spell. I keep thinking of them as a different kind of Illusory Creature, and then my mind stops working entirely. But whatever they really are, I'm certainly not going to kidnap one of them and steal from it. And even if I could figure out how to ask for its permission, I think the arrangement of taking its power might kill it assuming they can be killed."
Kellen was sure by now that Cilarnen was taking as long to get to the point as any Elf ever had. But he could also see that whatever conclusion he had reached was a troubling one for the young High Mage, so he supposed that it was just as well to let Cilarnen reach the point in his own way.
"But the Elves guard their land through the land-wards, which are also linked according to these scrolls to the Elemental Powers. Oh, I can't exactly read them, of course, but Kardus can, and I think I am learning to puzzle out a word or two. At any rate, I think I could adapt the High Magery spell to link with the land-wards and draw on the Elemental Powers through that. I wouldn't be tapping into the energy of any specific Elemental Creature, so there would be no danger of harming any of them, and I do not think I could draw enough power off the landwards to affect them. At any rate, I could easily do a divination to make sure."
Cilarnen seemed to be finished talking, and so far he had not raised any points, as far as Kellen could see, that would require Kellen's help.
And if what he had said he had learned from the ancient texts was true, even if Cilarnen knew precisely what he was doing, it would be more than dangerous. And he was talking about adapting a spell that hadn't been cast since the last time there were Knight-Mages and if there was one thing Kellen knew for sure, it was that playing fast-and-loose with the rule-bound High Magick wasn't simply dangerous. It was disastrous.
"Cilarnen… " he began uneasily.
"You think I don't understand the consequences?" Cilarnen asked. "Or just the magickal theory involved? At heart it's a simple substitution of Powers of equivalent class: every Mage learns it in order to adapt spells to specific functions. Otherwise you couldn't oh, Preserve a specific loaf of bread instead of all bread within the range of your spell."
It's just like Maths. At heart, the High Magick is just like Maths, Kellen realized with a stunning sense of sudden insight.
Of course, he'd always liked Maths. And he doubted anything was ever going to make him like or really understand the High Magick.
"This is a lot more complicated than loaves of bread," he pointed out. "And even if you get it exactly right, it could still kill you which I know you know. But mainly, you said you needed my help, and I know it can't be in the spellwork."
Kellen's comment startled a sharp laugh from Cilarnen. "As if I would have you anywhere near any proper Working Circle! Precious Light, Kellen, I would as soon Work without a Circle at all as have your help! And you would be just as pleased to have me guard your back in battle, I imagine. Whatever it is that you do, I suppose you do it very well, but you are even less of a High Mage than I am. No, it is the matter of permission. If I am to try to take power from the Elven land-wards, I must have permission. But whose? And how do I ask for it?"
* * * * *
KELLEN raised the matter with Redhelwar the following day, when he met with the Army's General to plan his own journey toward the south.
"In a matter such as this, affecting the whole of the land, it is Andoreniel who is the voice of the land," Redhelwar said, after a long hesitation. But his voice was troubled.
"Yet Andoreniel is silent," Kellen said, forcing himself to remain calm. "As is Ashaniel. And we are far from Sentarshadeen. I do not believe that we may let this matter lie until Cilarnen can go in person to Sentarshadeen. Jermayan and Ancaladar could make the journey quickly and safely to bring Cilarnen there, it is true. But we do not know when they will return to the army, and while they are on the wing, flying between cities, there is no way of getting a message to them quickly, so the same problem applies. If I take Cilarnen with me, we will be several moonturns on the road. It is time we cannot afford to waste. We know that a High Mage and a Wildmage combining their powers can slay Them and the High Magick has other spells that the Wild Magic does not."
"I cannot speak in Andoreniel's name," Redhelwar said. "But Kindolhinadetil is the Voice of Andoreniel. We must go to him and ask for his counsel."
* * * * *
THERE are so many ways this can go horribly wrong, Kellen thought a sennight later, and magic was the farthest thing from his mind.
He, Cilarnen, Redhelwar, and several others were on their way to seek an audience from Kindolhinadetil at the House of Bough and Wind.
And Kellen was very much afraid that Cilarnen was going to have to speak for himself.
Kellen had taken every spare moment he had in the past several days and there weren't many to give Cilarnen every warning and piece of advice he could think of about how to behave when he met the Viceroy of Ysterialpoerin. Cilarnen thought the Elves he'd met so far were bizarre and mysterious, but they were nothing compared to the Elves who lived in the Heart of the Forest. Jermayan had once told Kellen that the Elves of Ysterialpoerin were the ones who lived as closely as possible to the way Elves had lived before there were humans. Isinwen, Kellen's second in command, had left Ysterialpoerin, the city of his birth, because he found the people stultifying formal. If they were so formal that even other Elves wanted to leave, Kellen couldn't imagine them having any patience at all with humans. The one time he'd been there, he'd kept his mouth shut and his head down, and hoped they hadn't noticed him too much.