"I will wait for you at the edge of camp," Hindulo said, turning and springing away. His body was a golden gleam against the snow as he sprang through the darkness.
Cilarnen turned to watch Hindulo go.
"They are the most beautiful things in all the world," he said, as solemnly and intensely as if he were passing judgment.
"In that matter, you and he are in full agreement," Menerchel said with a smile. "And I as well, for that matter. Come. It is not far."
Hasty and strange the young human Mage certainly was, but anything that loved unicorns as Cilarnen High Mage so obviously did was certainly of the Light.
A High Mage was something Menerchel only knew of from the oldest of Master Belesharon's Teaching Stories. He had never expected to meet one in fact, if anyone had asked him five years ago, he would have solemnly assured them that it was far more likely that he would meet a Knight-Mage first even though as far as anyone knew at that time, there were no Knight-Mages at all, and there was an entire city of High Mages at the other side of the Wild Lands.
But to meet a High Mage if he had been foolish enough to attempt it Menerchel would have had to leave the Elven Lands (and he had been entirely happy in Thultafoniseen, working in his family's tea business, when he and Hindulo were not engaged in other duties), cross the Wild Lands, and successfully enter Armethalieh, something his friend Hyandur had not been able to do
doing much to prove, in Menerchel's mind, that the thing could not be done save by overwhelming force.
And since Menerchel had thought in those days that he would be unlikely to leave Thultafoniseen for long, and never leave the Elven Lands at all, and he knew that he was certainly incapable of overwhelming Armethalieh by himself, and the High Mages never left their city, it seemed far more likely that, of the two possibilities, he would see a Knight-Mage first, since a Knight-Mage was a kind of Wildmage when all was said and done, and they were not in the least uncommon in the Elven Lands.
And in fact he had seen a Knight-Mage first, but to add rarity to improbability, a High Mage had left the City of Mages and traveled across the Wild Lands and into the Elven Lands, so now Menerchel had seen a High Mage as well.
I must stop wishing to see things unless it is our victory, and all of Them vanished. I am certain Hindulo would agree. And yet… it seems very odd to me that such brief and hasty people as the High Mages should have such power as Kellen and Cilarnen have both spoken of. Perhaps they have such powers precisely because there are creatures such as Them in the world. In which case, if all of Them were destroyed, would the High Mages lose their powers as well?
It was a riddle that could not be solved tonight.
Healer's Row was near the middle of the camp, where the most vulnerable of the camp's inhabitants the sick, the wounded, and the Healers, who rarely wore armor, at least while treating patients could be sheltered in the event the camp was directly attacked. Because it was early in the evening, Menerchel looked for Idalia first in the sick-tents, and not at her own pavilion.
* * * * *
CILARNEN sat on the long bench in the outer room with Menerchel while another Elf Yatimumil, he thought his name was went off to get Idalia. The set-ting bore an odd resemblance to the day he'd met Kellen, and Kellen had dragged him off to the Healer's tent.
His head had hurt then, too. Thank the Light it wasn't summer; he felt as if the cold was the only thing keeping the pain at bay. He lowered his head into his hands and squeezed his temples. It didn't help.
There were Healing Spells in the High Magick, of course, but nowhere in all the Art Magickal had a time been foreseen when a Mage might have to heal himself. Wildmages might wander the earth like solitary lunatics, so Wirance had told him, never seeing another of their own kind from the moment they embraced their magical destiny till the day of their death, but High Mage worked in Circles, in Colleges, in Councils… Cilarnen could be a solitary High Mage much easier than he could imagine one. "I See you, Menerchel."
When he heard Idalia's voice, Cilarnen raised his head.
Menerchel bowed. "I See you, Idalia. The blessings of Leaf and Star be upon you this night. I bring you Cilarnen High Mage, whom Hindulo found asleep in a snowbank, though not for long enough to take much hurt from it, I think. He brings grave news of a place called Nerendale, and he would have you know of it. I regret such rudeness and brevity, but the Unicorn Scouts ride picket tonight, and I am needed elsewhere."
"Then you must go at once, Menerchel, and give my thanks to Hindulo. The blessings of Leaf and Star go with you also."
She waited until Menerchel had left, and then turned to Cilarnen.
"Of all the stupid, half-witted, inconsiderate " she began furiously.
Cilarnen laughed, though it turned into a groan of pain halfway through. "'Stupid' and 'half-witted' I will grant you, Lady Idalia though by the Light, I could not beat to be alone tonight but how 'inconsiderate'?"
Idalia stared at him for a moment, then took a deep breath. "To begin, once we noticed you missing, we'd have to go looking for you. And then, once we found you dead, some of us would be sorry. And even those who did not mourn your loss would worry that your death meant that some enemy had managed to get close to the camp to kill you."
"I see," Cilarnen said distantly. "I apologize for troubling you, Wildmage. Nevertheless, my news is urgent. Perhaps you will hear it and give your opinion as to whether Redhelwar should hear this at once."
* * * * *
IDALIA sighed inwardly. She'd managed to forget what Kellen had been like at the very first in feverish high spirits one moment and brooding in corners the next, wearing his feelings on the outside of his skin and as volatile as only a teenage boy could be.
Though he did his best, Cilarnen was a thousand times worse, adding to Kellen's mix the sensibilities of a pampered aristocrat and the arrogance of a High Mage. That they all hadn't been tempted to murder him a thousand times over was a tribute to the fact that somehow Armethalieh hadn't managed to ruin him.
But tonight he was tired, and he knew he'd pulled a stupid stunt trying to walk down from the ice-pavilion in the dark. It was a long walk even in the daylight. Too long, unless the air was absolutely still and the sun was out.
And he looked ill. Feverish.
Let the plague not come here. Gods of the Wild Magic, is that too much to ask? So many people gathered in one place, it would go through the camp like fire through a standing grain field at harvest.
"Cilarnen?" she asked quietly. "Are you ill? Is that why you came?"
"No." He sounded very positive, but she had never seen him look less well in all the time she had known him. "My head hurts again, but that is not why I came. They have killed everyone in Nerendale, and the Militia, too. Anigrel sent them to Nerendale I think he sent them so that they would be there to be killed. Perhaps it was a sort of sacrifice. Or perhaps he does it willingly. They have two High Mages now as well they were not friends of mine, but they were men I knew. Middle Houses, of course. Not well-connected. Or else they would not have been sent, you see." His tone was reasonable, but his pupils were widely dilated, and his words made no sense at all.
"Cilarnen," Idalia said carefully, "you can't know what's going on in Nerendale. That's inside the Bounds, and none of us can scry inside the Bounds."
"The difference between your magic and mine," Cilarnen said dismissively, "is that mine does what I tell it to, and yours does what it thinks you should do. Today I saw Nerendale. I wish I hadn't," he added, as if to himself.
"You made your magic work," Idalia said, realizing what Cilarnen was not saying.
Cilarnen nodded, and then winced. "I can cast any of the spells of a High Mage. I haven't practiced most of them, and I don't understand them, and I still don't have a lot of the equipment and materials I need, and some of the spells just require more than one person, but as long as I'm within the Elven Lands, I have the power." He took a deep breath, and seemed to consider the matter carefully. "I think I'd rather have a dragon."
Idalia shook her head, exasperated with herself. Shock. He was in shock. She hadn't seen the symptoms because she hadn't been looking for them and they were masked by the magic, but they were there, now that she was looking for them.
Curse every High Mage back to the founding of Armethalieh for the way they raised their sons! Cilarnen was no Elven Knight, but it looked like the Mage College could show the House of Sword and Shield a thing or two about stoic endurance.
And possibly pure stupidity.
"First I'll get you the cordial for your headache. Then I'll get you a mug of hot sweet cider and a little soup. Then you can tell me about Nerendale from the very beginning. If you can look into Armethalieh, there are some things I'd like to look at."
* * * * *
SHE sent a runner to the Centaur camp for Kardus, then she had Yatimumil get Cilarnen into dry clothes and wrapped in blankets and settled between a pair of warming braziers. Once she'd dosed him with the cordial and gotten some food and drink into him, his color improved, and he seemed to be tracking better. By that time, Kardus had arrived.
"You have seen Them again," the Centaur Wildmage said without preamble.
Cilarnen nodded, looking very much as if he wanted to cry. He nodded. "Like Stonehearth. Worse. Anigrel… he knew They'd be there. I know he did. He sent the Militia right to them. And two High Mages. They took them away alive. They killed all the others."
"Cilarnen," Idalia said gently, "will you be able to tell this twice?"
While nothing that had happened several hours ago in Nerendale could be urgent enough to justify rousing Redelwar for in the middle of the night, he would certainly need to be told, and it would be best if he could be told by the one who had actually witnessed the events.
Cilarnen nodded shortly. He seemed to draw on his resources, pulling the facts together in the proper order. Then he began.
"As you've guessed by now, the spell to gain a power source worked. The Elven Elementals sent help. As soon as I had a source of power for my spells, the first thing I did was to cast the Glyph of Far-Seeing upon the Council Chamber of Armethalieh."