The trouble is, we need all our strength, and our Allies, to have any hope of winning. And why should they stay here in the Elvenlands if the Demons are attacking them at home?
Kellen sighed. The weariness he'd held at bay in Redhelwar's tent had come sneaking back, making it hard to think clearly.
* * * * *
ISINWEN, Kellen's Second, was waiting for Kellen when he got back to his tent, and the look of disapproval on the Elven Knight's face made Kellen wish just for an instant that he'd stayed out in the wind.
"I observe," Isinwen said quietly, "that many would lose heart should we lose you, Kellen."
The oblique rebuke cut more sharply than any outright scold could have. Kellen shook his head, acknowledging the barb, and allowed Isinwen to help him off with his cloak.
"I will not die of a walk around the camp, Isinwen," he said gently, sitting down on a stool to pull off his boots. "I wanted to test my strength. From what I have learned today, I can tell you that we will not have Wildmages to support us for a sennight, perhaps two."
The sudden feeling of a key turning in a lock made him blink.
Yes.
He'd wanted to know that. The army needed to know it. And there was certainly no way to find it out other than taking a stroll himself.
Sometimes he wished the Wild Magic could be well, more obvious about things. But it never was.
"Then… I suppose it is for the best. Providing you do not take a lung-fever and end up in bed for a moonturn," Isinwen said, still sounding faintly exasperated.
Kellen laughed, though there was no real humor in the sound. "I don't have time." He set his sword beside his boots. "It would please me greatly if you would present this information to Ninolion at your convenience."
He yawned; he couldn't help himself.
"Get back into bed," Isinwen said firmly. "I will make known to Ninolion what you have learned, so he may advise Redhelwar. And we shall all hope that their services will not be needed."
Kellen nodded in acknowledgment, pulling off his heavy outer tunic. Weariness pulled at him like heavy chains; he had only a moment to hope that he'd find some more of the answers they needed in sleep before it claimed him.
* * * * *
THE cost of attacking the Wildmages and defending her creature within the Golden City had been high. It had cost Queen Savilla dearly, both in the drain upon her power for when the Wildmages had turned her Darkbolt back upon her, the backlash had depleted her of as much power again as it had cost her to cast it and in the knowledge it had given to her son Zyperis, for it had been he who had found her in her ritual chamber, and he who had nursed her back to strength in secret.
Among the Endarkened, knowledge was power. Now Zyperis had seen her humbled; weakened nearly to death. Now he knew a secret lost for a thousand years: that the magic of Mage-man and Wildmage, working together, could end the eternal lives of the perfect creatures of He Who Is.
Zyperis was ambitious. He was her son, after all. He knew he could never hope to rule the World Without Sun while she lived and the Endarkened lived forever.
He would want to use what he had learned. If not at once, then soon.
And meanwhile, the cursed Light-begotten had almost certainly discovered the existence of her Armethaliehan slave and learned his intentions.
Let them, Savilla thought, regarding her reflected image in the mirror of her Rising chamber. Around her, well-cowed slaves from the World Above scuttled, bringing jewels and perfumes and cosmetics to ornament the Queen of the Endarkened to properly appear before her subjects once more. It is too late for them to use what they have learned. I have won. Anigrel sits upon Armethalieh's High Council. The reins of power are in his hands. Soon the City of a Thousand Bells will be mine to turn against my enemies.
And meanwhile … I shall distract my son and lover as easily as I have distracted my enemies. He is young. Let him think I fear him. For now.
Until it is too late for him as well.
As always upon her Rising, there were the Petitions of the Grooming Chamber to be heard. It did not matter that there was a war to conduct; the petty squabbles of the Endarkened nobles must always have first claim on Savilla's attention, for centuries of rule had taught her that over time quarrels grew into vendettas that spread until they drew everyone into them, on one side or the other. And eventually Savilla would be forced to take a side unless the matter, whatever it was, was settled before it had truly begun to fester, while the grievance was still a matter of a favorite slave or a bottle of spilled perfume.
Fortunately, these days such matters were few, for this was a time of such splendor and abundance as the Endarkened had not seen in centuries. Slaves and prey were available in plenty and Savilla intended to open new hunting grounds very soon, which would distract her restless quarrelsome subjects further.
When the last of the lesser nobles' petitions had been heard, she beckoned her son forward.
Zyperis had been waiting with uncharacteristic patience while the others were heard. As always when she beheld her son, Savilla felt a pang of delight. So bold, so handsome, so much her match in cunning and daring. Time would make him her equal, and inevitably he would challenge her, for that was the way of the Kings and Queens beneath the Earth.
In that way Savilla had taken the throne from her own father, Uralesse, lulling and beguiling him over the centuries. Uralesse would never have had the patience and the vision to take this long subtle path to destroy the Children of the Light. He had spent too many centuries mourning his own shattering defeat on the battlefield in the Great War. Yet Savilla, who had fought at his side, had not despaired as he had. In that defeat she had seen the need to begin anew in a new way.
First she had needed to kill Uralesse, to gain the power to put her plans into motion. Then it had been necessary to move with maddening slowness, for the Endarkened had been weakened neatly to destruction by their last defeat at the hands of the Light-spawn, and should they have realized they had not truly won, all Savilla's plans would have been as a quenched candle-flame. For centuries, as generations of the race of Men lived and died, and the long-lived Elves turned back to harp and loom and forgot them, Savilla had worked through her human agents to unbind the great Alliance that had proved the undoing of the Endarkened. The human city raised its walls and closed them tight. The Elves forgot war and thought only of peace.
And Savilla had planned.
* * * * *
"MAMA?" Zyperis asked.
Savilla blinked slowly. Her son was kneeling at her feet, the picture of perfect humility. It was not precisely feigned… but it was something Zyperis granted, not something Savilla took. It was a shift in the balance of power, and both of them recognized it.
But it is only temporary, Savilla vowed.
"I was contemplating the great favors I shall bestow upon you," she said. "We have all worked hard for this day you with your agents among the humans most of all. Now it is time to move forward… "
Savilla spoke long and persuasively, mantling Zyperis with her great scarlet wings a token of great favor. The Endarkened Prince's face glowed with delight, for he had long chafed at inaction and at being excluded from her plans.
"Oh, Mama, how wonderful!" he said, when she had finished speaking. "Surely the Elven King's allies will desert him to look to their own once we begin to act in the Wild Lands! But… you have always said… "
"Oh, my son," she said, stroking his cheek fondly, "it will not matter soon. Just go slowly, as I have told you. Stay far from any lands the Mage-men have ever claimed as their own, for it would not do for them to suspect that their ancient enemy is anything but an ancient myth."
Zyperis drew himself up proudly. "You will see, my sweet Crown of Pain. I shall do all as you would do it yourself. They will sicken, sorrow, and despair and barely know at first that it is we who are to blame for it all. You shall feast upon unicorn and dryad, wood-nymph and selkie: I shall bring them to you with my own hands!"
"I shall rely upon you," Savilla purred, stroking his long black hair as he knelt at her feet. "Sow dissension in their ranks, fill their homelands with sickness and blight, drive the game from their hunters' nets, and all the time let them wonder if we are to blame, or if it is terrible coincidence… "
"Because they dare not ignore either one," Zyperis said happily. "Whether the cause is an enemy's hand, or simple misfortune, the result is the same."
"Our victory," Savilla agreed.
Zyperis raised her hands to his lips and kissed them. She felt the touch of his fangs upon her skin and closed her eyes momentarily in pleasure.
She would bring him to heel. And his anger and frustration would make his utter and inevitable submission all the sweeter.
When Zyperis had gone, Savilla accepted a spangled cloak of gossamer spider-silk from one of her attendants. Draping it loosely about her shoulders, she left her private chambers.
* * * * *
THE World Without Sun was vast, extending far beneath the surface of the earth. Let the Light-begotten think their world was vast: That of the Endarkened was vaster still, so enormous that there were few indeed who knew every chamber and pathway of it.