Without his Knight-Mage's sense of direction and the marks he had chalked upon the walls on an earlier visit he might well have wandered down here forever, for each chamber led into the next with no pattern he could see.
At last they came to an opening in the floor.
Unlike the passage to this level, which had involved a staircase, there was only a wooden ladder leading down through the opening. The ladder was new Artenel had just built it. The previous one and Kellen had no doubt one had existed, and perhaps an entire wooden staircase had been washed away in the flood, as well as whatever machines the Shadowed Elves had assembled.
"This leads to the deep mine," Isinwen said apologetically, indicating the ladder.
"I've been down there," Kellen said. "It's pretty much one big cavern, and as far as I can tell, nothing can get in or out. We don't have Coldlight down there yet, but the ladder's stronger than it looks. Do you think you need to go down, or… ?"
Vestakia looked into the pit, and shuddered. "How large is it?"
"You remember the village cavern at the first Enclave? The one at the bottom of the deep cavern? About that size. Maybe a little bigger."
"Then I should be able to sense anything in it from here."
Nevertheless, she got down on her hands and knees and peered down into the opening, as if she might be able to see something. Kellen shaped a small ball of Coldfire between his hands and sent it drifting past her, down into the cavern below.
Its light gave little illumination. Enough to show that water still lay in pools upon the unfinished rock here, for what Isinwen called the Deep Mine was Halacira as it must have been before the Elves began to improve the caverns. He sent the ball of light swooping and soaring through the darkness as Vestakia concentrated.
"There's nothing," she said at last, sitting back on her heels with a sigh of relief.
* * * * *
NOW that the caverns were cleared and guaranteed to be safe, Kellen could turn his mind to other matters. Providing Vestakia with a suitable escort since she planned to seek out Shalkan he went to see Cilarnen.
The young High Mage had recovered both from the effects of his first aerial journey, and from Idalia's cordial. Kellen found him in his tent one of the largest they had brought with them unpacking his supplies and clucking over each one as if it were a newly-hatched chick.
"Kellen," he said, in obvious pleasure. "Come to seek out the dreaded High Mage in his sanctum?"
"Come to talk," Kellen said. "Providing we can do so privately."
"That, at least, is simply managed," Cilarnen said. "Though I am afraid more complex spells will take another day at least. It is as I feared: My apparatus has been detuned by the flight, and will all have to be reset. But my Wand, at least, is unscathed."
He opened a long bone case it had, Kellen suspected, originally been crafted as a scroll-case and removed his wand. He'd done some work on the slender length of ash since Kellen had seen it last: It was now capped at each end with fine silver, and a narrow spiral of silver wrapped its entire length.
He raised it into the air and began to draw, murmuring under his breath. Glowing sigils, each in a dozen colors, appeared in the air and slowly faded. After he had drawn six of them in a circle around them both, he lowered his wand and replaced it in its case.
"There. No one will heat anything we say or see our shadows, either. Though anyone who walks through the door of the tent will break the spell."
"No one is likely to do that," Kellen said. Anyone coming to the door of Cilarnen's tent, and not receiving an invitation to enter, would simply go away again.
"Then we may speak privately. A useful spell, though a deal more useful, to my mind, in a place with doors that lock. Tea?"
"Since you offer so nicely." Kellen smiled slightly. Apparently Cilarnen had picked up the Elves' habit of accompanying every occasion with tea. "Cilarnen, do you know why you're here?"
Cilarnen shrugged. "You needed me. We left in such a hurry, nobody had time to tell me anything else, and I was too busy packing to ask. But there's something I must tell you, I think.
"You know that Anigrel meddled with my mind before I was Banished and made sure I escaped the Outlaw Hunt. We'd always wondered why. Well, I found out."
Kellen tensed, ever-so-slightly. Cilarnen seemed oblivious.
"He wanted to find you. He knows you are his greatest enemy or the greatest enemy of that which he serves. He knew that word would reach you, eventually, of a Banished High Mage,' alive in the Wild Lands, and we would meet. Perhaps he put a compulsion on me to find you, and the Demon raid just helped things along. Or maybe Kardus helped me because for some reason, your Wild Magic wanted it too. In any event, Anigrel left me my magick because he meant me to kill you with it. I think that's the reason my headaches came back so strongly as soon as I saw you."
"Cilarnen, why are you telling me this?" Kellen asked cautiously. His Knight-Mage powers gave him very little shielding against the sort of magical assault a High Mage could wield. On the other hand, he was physically stronger and faster than Cilarnen.
If it came to a fight.
"Because I looked for his tampering in my mind and found it. He has no hold over me now," Cilarnen said. "Of that I am certain."
Could Kellen believe this? He wanted to. "Both Shalkan and Vestakia pronounced you free of Taint when you arrived," Kellen pointed out.
"And so I was. And so I am," Cilarnen said. "How do you think Anigrel moved undetected among the City Wards for all those years, yet still conspired with… Them? Until the very moment the spell saw its best chance of success, and woke into life, I would pass any test you set me. I did not know it myself but I suspected. How not? Why else would I pass from Anigrel's hands with my Gift intact unless he foresaw a use for it later?"
Cilarnen's words made sense. And Kellen was inclined to believe him. He would not have mentioned the matter at all unless he were sure.
"So you are safe from him now?"
"I swear to it by the Light. And that will come as an unwelcome surprise for that upstart carrion-bird very soon, I hope. Kellen, I have scryed within the walls of the City, watched the Council at its deliberations. The Selken grain-ships will not come until spring. There is rationing in the City, and talk of sending the Militia out to seize the farmers' stored provisions. Who knows how many if any will survive, if they are sent outside the walls? And Anigrel uses every death to fuel the terror of the Wildmages. I think he hopes to bring Lycaelon to consider… an alliance."
"An alliance?" Kellen asked, temporarily diverted from the reason for which he had come. "With whom? He wouldn't let the Elves into the City when Hyandur came; the Armethaliehans think the Centaurs are animals, and "
"With Them," Cilarnen said.
"He can't," Kellen said, aghast. "They can't. They'd never consider it."
"Frighten them enough, and they would," Cilarnen said grimly. "They can change Their shape to look like anything I've seen it. If Anigrel tampers with the Wards enough, the High Mages won't have those to warn them. And anybody who disagrees with Anigrel or his Magewardens or Commons Wardens tends to just… vanish."
Kellen emitted a low hiss of dismay. This was worse than he'd thought. "You've told Redhelwar all this?"
"Yes, of course, but I'm not sure he completely understands how bad the situation is," Cilarnen said.
Elven emotions were hard for humans to read at the best of times. It was just as likely that Redhelwar understood exactly how bad the situation in Armethalieh was getting, and Cilarnen simply didn't realize it.
But it made getting to Armethalieh more imperative than ever.
By now the kettle on the tea-brazier was bubbling violently. Cilarnen busied himself for a moment in preparing the pot, scooping in several measures of Armethaliehan Black and setting out two tall mugs that Kellen recognized as coming from his own supplies.
"It's worse than you think," Kellen said. "The reason you're here is because Andoreniel is gravely ill with plague. Rochinuviel told me he's too sick to give orders, and Ashaniel, who could rule in his place, is at the Fortress of the Crowned Horns and can't return."
"Can't Redhelwar just take over?" Cilarnen asked.
"I don't think so," Kellen said cautiously. "If Andoreniel can't make the decisions that affect the whole of the Elven Lands, his Council must do it if any of them are still alive. Or, failing that, one of the other Viceroys, maybe. But I'm not sure."
Cilarnen poured the water into the waiting pot, and stared at it as if he would find his answers there. When the tea was ready, he poured it, and spoke.
"So the army cannot will not act without orders from the King, or someone who speaks for him. And the King is ill. And you do not think that anyone but Andoreniel will do what needs to be done which is go to Armethalieh as soon as we can, because from all you have told me, if They manage to make Their alliance with the City, we are all doomed. But Kellen, what do you want from me?"