3 When Darkness Falls.8 (10 page)

"It will be easier next time, Bonded," he said, a faint note of amusement in his voice.

"It would be… interesting to learn how it is that you have come to such a conclusion, should it please you to share such information," Jermayan said, after a very long pause. By the time he had found his voice, they were away from the walls of the mountains, and could dare to fly above the clouds again.

"Of course," Ancaladar replied. "You wingless ones make trails upon the ground, and having once made them, can follow them easily, though the creation of them is a difficult matter, needing much thought. So it is with finding a path through the air. It is true that these change, with the day and the season, but that means only that more of them need be learned to a single destination. Yet all the sky-paths to one destination are but variations upon a single theme, as it is in music. You are a musician, Bonded. You will understand this well. I have now written my theme — and a difficult one it was — and now I can create variations upon it."

"As you say," Jermayan said, not entirely convinced. Knowing where to go was one thing. Being able to go there was quite another.

After a few more minutes' flight — and compared to what had gone before, it was actually quite smooth — Ancaladar began his descent to the Flower Forest of Lerkalpoldara.

They landed in a snowstorm. The wind blew with such stunning force that even Ancaladar — who had been prepared for it — skidded several feet before he dug his claws into the ice beneath the drifting snow and anchored himself.

Jermayan knew it could not be truly cold — the coldest days of all were too arid to allow snow to fall from the sky, and on those nearly as cold, what rained down from the heavens was not snow, but a sort of ice dust. But even so, he felt as cold as if he were still in the upper air.

Ahead was the Winter City of Lerkalpoldara, nearly invisible in the snow.

Its walls towered higher than the roof of the House of Leaf and Star. Were the weather better, Jermayan knew he would see breathtaking beauty, for all life among the Elves was art, even the building of a city of ice that would be swept away with the flowers of spring. As it was, centuries of experience had allowed the Elves to sculpt the snow around the city into structures to direct the wind so that it kept a path leading up to the walls clear.

"Go," Ancaladar said. "I shall be fine here."

Stiffly, Jermayan dismounted from the saddle. Fortunately, they had not needed to recreate an entire pack-harness for this mission, as Ancaladar's original harness had taken a fortnight to make: Artenel had simply needed to come up with some way of attaching new carry-baskets to Ancaladar's existing harness, a quick and simple matter. As for the baskets themselves, they could be provided at the departure point. Which was just as well, Jermayan reflected, as he walked toward the city, as the baskets would surely not have survived the journey here…

As he drew closer to the walls of the Winter City, he could see them clearly, and he frowned in confusion. The wind-cleared path led forward, but to a stark and utterly featureless wall of ice that looked as if it owed its sculpture less to Elven hands, and more to wind and snow. It was crude, perhaps even ungraceful in places, and Jermayan's heart ached with sudden fear: Had the Enemy's agents penetrated the Elven Lands as far as Lerkalpoldara?

But the head that appeared over the top of the ice wall was reassuringly Elven, cloaked in the white furs and artfully-tattered silks of a Scout-sentry.

"It is a strange bird that flies in winter," the woman observed, "yet we would recognize Ancaladar and his rider anywhere. I See you, Jermayan, Elven Mage and Knight."

"I See you, Magarabeleniel, Vicereign of Lerkalpoldara," Jermayan responded, gazing up. "We are grateful that you recognized us, for I have no doubt that if you had not, our welcome would have been colder than the snow."

"Maiden Winter is more than playful this year," Magarabeleniel agreed wryly. "But come. Be welcome in our city and at our hearth."

For a moment Jermayan wondered how that was to be possible, for he saw no sign of a doorway in the wall, but a second head appeared beside hers, and a ladder of rope and bone was lowered down to him.

He expected to climb up it, but as soon as his hands and feet were securely in place upon its rungs, unseen hands within Lerkalpoldara pulled him quickly up the wall, and guided him over the side, until he was standing on a ledge a few feet below the top. From here he could look out over the valley — just now, though it was near midday, the twisting veils of hard-driven snow obscured everything. Even Ancaladar was invisible, though Jermayan knew the dragon must be where he had left him, and something of Ancaladar's size and color would be difficult to miss.

He glanced around. Below him stood Lerkalpoldara's Flower Forest. Even in winter he could smell the life of the forest, and it warmed him as no fire could. Surrounding the forest were the tents of the Elves of Lerkalpoldara. They were made of heavy wool, dyed and woven in elaborate patterns — heavier and sturdier than the campaigning tents of the Elven Knights, for these were not a temporary accommodation, but the only home of the Elves of the Plains City.

Lerkalpoldara had sent many of her young men and women to Andoreniel's army to fight — and many more had gone to tend the cows and horses, the sheep and pigs and goats, to repair armor and harness, to mend old tents and to make new ones, and to cook — for Lerkalpoldara's people lived all the year in tents and under sky, and no one in all the Nine Cities was more expert in making and holding camp tidily and well.

Of those that had not gone to war, not all would be here within walls at this time, for the herds that were the life of the Plains Elves must be husbanded, even in winter, and her people took turns to care for the central herd.

But only a handful of the people did this, and even accounting for those who were tiding herd, and those who were away at war, Jermayan saw too few tents erected here within the Winter City, and too many sentries standing upon the walls, even in the midst of a storm.

This was a city at war.

But with what, or whom? And why had word not come to Redhelwar, or Andoreniel?

Questions it would have been the height of rudeness to ask — even if Magarabeleniel had not far outranked him — crowded Jermayan's thoughts, but the Elven Knight held his tongue. There was yet time.

Magarabeleniel led him down from the walls and into the streets of the Winter City. Here the air was comparatively still, the winds blocked by the walls of the city.

Together they walked among the tents to The House of Sky and Grass. Jermayan saw no one else as he passed between the tents, not even the street-sweepers who would normally be about in this weather, for even though the ice-walls blocked most of the falling snow, it did not block all of it. But word of his arrival had obviously gone ahead, and the inhabitants of the Winter City were doing him the courtesy of ignoring his presence entirely.

The House of Sky and Grass was no larger than the largest of the other tents they passed — perhaps the size of Redhelwar's pavilion — and there was nothing to mark it as the Vicereign's House save an elaborate braided knot of dried summer grass that hung beside the door. Magarabeleniel stopped beneath the canopy.

"Be welcome in my home and at my hearth, Jermayan son of Malkirinath, Elven Knight, Ancaladar's Bondmate. Stay as long as you will, and when you go, go with joy."

"To be welcomed at the hearth of a friend is to be made doubly welcome," Jermayan answered formally. "1 accept with thanks." He followed her into the tent.

The floor of the tent was covered with rugs that matched the weaving of the tent's walls, and here the air was so warm that the ice on Jermayan's heavy stormcloak actually began to melt. There was a rack near the doorway to hang outdoor garments, and after Magarabeleniel had pulled the door curtains snug against the outside air, they both removed their outer layers — and Jermayan his armor — and spread them to dry, Jermayan accepting a houserobe and boots from his hostess.

Though there seemed to be no one else present, someone had obviously been here recently, for the braziers and the lanterns were lit, and someone had prepared the tea things. The kettle was boiling, and a low table was prepared with what looked to be a rather more substantial meal than Jermayan was used to taking with his tea.

"You will discover that you do not hunger, here in the Great Cold," Magarabeleniel said. "But one must eat, all the same."

She seated herself upon a cushion upon the floor, and motioned for him to do the same. She filled the teapot, and as the tea steeped, they began with a thick soup, and talk of the weather.

They did not speak of the sentries upon the walls, or why those walls were so stark and plain.

Over several small courses — all very rich — and several pots of tea — they discussed many things, though never, of course, the reason Jermayan had come. The weavers had produced some truly splendid work recently. The autumn flowers had been less extravagant than usual, but some beautiful specimens had still been seen. The herds were as well as could be expected, and in ten years or so would have been restored to their former size. The burn which Gaiscawenorel had remarked upon the Plain, of course, would be gone long before that; in a growing season, or perhaps two, no trace of it would remain. Grass fires were a fact of life, and easily dealt with; it was only the Great Drought that had made this one so very difficult.

At last Magarabeleniel allowed the conversation to turn to the progress of the war — though still, of course, not to the reason that Jermayan had come.

"I regret that my brother is not here to greet you as well, but he is riding with the herds and will not return for at least a fortnight. Were he here, he would wonder how it goes with our folk who answered Andoreniel's call, if there were anything you cared to tell of that."

"Were Chalaseniel here, I would have much to tell him," Jermayan answered, and spoke at length of the army's recent battles. Of the Shadowed Elves, and their fight against them. Of their victory in determining the Demons' ultimate strategy: to gain the human Mage-City for their own. And of Redhelwar's recent discovery that the Demons were now massing their forces to send what creatures they could into the Elven Lands, as well as along their borders, using the ways the Shadowed Elves had prepared.

There was a long silence after Jermayan finished telling this news, and in it he came to realize that whatever message Andoreniel might have sent, it had not reached Lerkalpoldara. Well, that was only to be expected. And so Magarabeleniel's next words did not surprise him.

"Andoreniel knows we will fight the Shadow to our last breath, as we did in the days of old, no matter how unlikely the chance of victory," Magarabeleniel said at last. "Should the City of a Thousand Bells fall — and forgive me for speaking bluntly, cousin, but what you tell me does not make me think it will long stand, with this canker in its heart — then I cannot think where in all the forests or beneath all the stars the Children of Leaf and Star may find shelter from the Shadow's hunger. We will stand against it, and fall — and unlike the Seven, no victory will rise up from our slain bodies. But no one can truly know how the game will play before the stones are laid upon the board, as Master Belesharon has told us all, so we will not think of that yet. What is in my mind now is of a more practical nature. It is in my mind to wonder at your purpose in traveling to tell me of these things now, with so much of winter yet to run, for you have seen the Gatekeeper, and know he is not to be traversed for many moonturns yet — later this year, we think, than in other years. We would have sent word of this, but the ice has claimed our signaling mirrors, and those who would care for them are with the army. All who remain must look to the herds, and to other difficulties of which you do not yet know."

Though the tone of her voice had not changed, there was a faint note of warning there.

"I would hear of these difficulties, if there were anything you cared to tell," Jermayan said mildly.

"You have said that the Ancient Enemy wishes to send its forces into the Elven Lands, to strike and harry. I say to you that they are here
now
. Some we have faced of old, and know. Others we have never seen before, but know now to our cost: the great white bats that fly by day and night.

"These monsters drove the wolf and tiger down upon the herds, for anything that lives will run from a Coldwarg pack. The Coldwarg followed them to slay, first the predators and then the herds. Yet were it Coldwarg alone, well, we have slain Coldwarg before. They make a fine cloak-lining — yes, and a saddle-cloth, too!" She smiled, faintly and without mirth. "Yet there are others, and worse. After the high passes froze, but before the Great Cold set in, we saw signs of shadewalkers and even the hint of an ice-drake lair, though that we are not sure of, for it is not cold enough yet to bring the creature out to hunt. But to know that the war against the Shadow goes badly makes ill hearing, for I think our own war for the Eastern Plains is that one in small, and I tell you plainly, cousin, the walls of the Winter City shall not rise with next year's snow."

Because there will be no one left alive to build them again
, Jermayan thought to himself. The Lerkalpoldarans could fight — indeed, they were fighting — but without magic and without Elvensteel. And against the monsters of Shadow Mountain's brewing, it was a battle they could not win.