And now she would strike at the root of the problem.
* * * * *
ANCALADAR landed, and simply slid. His great heavy claws made squealing noises against the thick sheet of wind-polished ice. It was scoured to glass-slickness by the unrelenting wind.
At last he managed to stop, fanning his wings wildly, and stood, feet splayed and claws dug in.
They had landed upon the center of a plain at the top of the world. They were so high that there were not even mountains to see, assuming they would even be visible at night. In all directions, the world was… flat. Water and cold and the eternal blowing wind had created a surface unnaturally flat from what Idalia guessed might well be a rolling grassy meadow at the height of summer. Now, at Midwinter, it was as flat and even as a stone floor. In places, it gleamed like a mirror, reflecting the veils of multicolored lights that danced through the sky.
"Pelashia's Veils," Jermayan said, looking up. "The unicorn's valley is named for them."
He dismounted with care, though once Idalia had told him where their destination was, he had taken care to wear spiked sabatons over his heavy leather flying boots, and she had done the same, so the icy surface presented little difficulty to them. Ancaladar folded himself, belly-down to the ice, and Idalia lifted down their panniers of supplies before dismounting.
Ancaladar raised himself up again, folding his wings tightly to keep from being blown about like a draconian ice-boat. "I won't be going anywhere," he assured them. "There's nowhere to go."
Idalia laughed briefly.
She looked around. Pelashia's Veils stretched across the sky, a shimmering veil of orange and blue and red, spread across the cloudy scarf of stars that filled the heavens above it, a few brighter stars caught in its folds. The moon was nearing midheaven, marking midnight, when her spell must be cast.
But down below, the gleaming level plain, blue-white with unblemished ice. extended flat and unmarked for a thousand leagues in every direction.
Or nearly so.
A few hundred yards away stood the shrine markers of their destination.
* * * * *
THEY would be easy enough to miss. Three standing stones, half-buried in ice at this season, set so as to mark the points of a triangle, and between them completely coveted in ice just now a third flat stone.
That was all. The Shrines merely marked a place, after all, and what was done with it and its power by those to whom it belonged, for good or ill, did not seem to matter to the ancient Earth Power that welled forth here. In the echoes of her borrowed memories, Idalia seemed to remember some of the Shrines being enclosed in elaborate temples, their stones painted and ornamented; some venerated in simple woodland glades; some ignored entirely.
This one had simply been… forgotten.
She knew that the Elves continued to venerate the powers of Leaf and Star, but wherever they did it, they certainly didn't do it here. And a good thing, too if They had had any idea of the importance of this place, They would certainly have done Their best to find and desecrate it.
She had never been so cold in her life. The wind was like liquid ice. Every exposed inch of skin and thank the gods of the Wild Magic there wasn't much of it seemed to not only freeze solid where it felt the touch of the wind, but to be able to transmit the cold through her blood to the rest of her that was warmly swathed in wool, fleece, leather, and furs. Heavy furs.
She picked up one of the two panniers that Ancaladar had carried, and began walking toward the Shrine. Jermayan lifted the other and followed.
When they reached the shrine, she dumped the contents of both baskets upon the ice and then began building a balefire at the center of the three posts.
Vilya Alyon Namarii Oak Ash Blackthorn Willow Quince Larudrall nine woods of ancient virtue and power. When she was done, the mound nearly filled the space between the pillars, and stood as high as her chest.
So far Jermayan had not asked any questionseven of the indirect Elven sort, though Idalia could tell his curiosity was nearly killing him. Well, all his questions were about to be answered. It was nearly Midwinter Midnight.
"Now I summon the Starry Hunt," she said. "I hope. If I'm right and they'll comethey should certainly be a match for He Who Is." She turned back to her balefire.
* * * * *
JERMAYAN stared at Idalia's back in astonishment not untinged with horror. He would turn her from her course if he could, save for the fact that their situation was too dire.
He understood, now, why she had not named the Ally she intended to summon.
The Starry Hunt! A legend barely remembered among the Elves, something from ancient days indeed, from before the founding of the Nine Cities, from before the Great Pact, when Elven Wars were not bloodless wars of flowers. The Endarkened had not been all the Elves had fought. In the morning of the world, before humans were ever born, the Elves had fought each other: House against House, family against family, sister against brother…
Perhaps so that when the Endarkened came, they would be the most perfect warriors the world had ever seen. A match for creatures of blood and pain and death.
In those days, the Powers the Elves cried out to as they lived and died were not powers of joy and harmony and balance.
But it was uncounted thousands of years since the First War.
Those Powers had slept long.
Had must have changed with the land and its inhabitants.
Idalia lit the balefire with a wave of her hand. The wood kindled with a great rush of flame. Fire washed over the tall white pillars of the marking stones, its warmth holding the bitterness of the wind at bay.
Then she began to speak.
It was as if she was talking to a friend, though her words were in no language Jermayan understood. It was the most ancient form of the speech of the Elves, the tongue that they had abandoned long ago to speak the speech of men.
Slowly her voice grew louder, more rhythmic. Now she no longer spoke, but chanted. Her voice rose and fell in a cadence as old as the wind and the stars, and as it did, Jermayan felt the first breath of Power wash over him.
He was the most powerful Mage to walk the world in a thousand years. The spells he could summon through his bond with Ancaladar were nearly the equal of the Endarkened's. In single combat, spell to spell, he might even be the equal of the Prince of Shadow Mountain.
Yet the Power wakening here was so far beyond his own as to render him the merest child in comparison.
The Starry Hunt had slept. But it was not gone.
He was no coward. Since they had first discovered what it was they fought. Jermayan had expected to lay down his long years upon the battlefield against their monstrous foe, forfeiting all his future for the barest chance at even delaying Their victory.
But in the face of the Allies Idalia now summoned, he wanted nothing more than to turn and flee.
Her cries were wilder now, her words whipped away by the wind as soon as she uttered them. The flame of the balefire changed, its flame going from yellows and oranges to a clear blue-white. Idalia flung the bundle of banners into the flame. Suddenly they were here.
It was as if the sky itself was torn open by their arrival. A host of gigantic Riders stood against it, their star-shod steeds ramping and jostling for position. He could not look upon them.
Jermayan fell to his knees, bowing his head in utter submission.
* * * * *
THEY were crowned with stars.
Stars gleamed from their horses' harnesses. Their horses' bodies were the color of the night sky. Their armor was the gleaming silver of moonlight and midnight and the winter air itself.
There were hundreds of them. Thousands. As many as the stars in the sky.