2 To Light A Candle.13 (95 page)

"A reasonable suggestion," Adaerion said, with equal reluctance.

"Will the Crystal Spiders be able to tell you when the caverns are… empty?" Vestakia asked, speaking up for the first time.

"I'm not sure," Kellen admitted. "They're not very much like anything we've ever seen before, though they're not Tainted. So when they say the caverns are empty, that's when I'd like you to check and see what you feel."

"Nothing, I hope," Vestakia said. "But… you did say they could talk to each other, didn't you? That the one lot in the trapped caverns talked to the ones here?"

Kellen nodded, frowning faintly in puzzlement, wondering what she was thinking.

"Well," Vestakia said, "once the cavern is clear, maybe someone should find out just how far away they can talk to each other. Because the weather's getting so bad now—if these storms keep up—that Jermayan and Ancaladar and I won't be able to fly to search for the next Shadowed Elf cave, but if there are Crystal Spiders living in all the caves in the Elven Lands, and they know everything that goes on in their caves, and they all talk to each other, maybe they can tell you where the next cave you need to go to is."

Everyone stared at her. It was such a simple, practical, obvious solution that none of them had thought of it. And it would save them an enormous amount of time—and danger to Vestakia.

If it worked.

"That is an excellent notion, Lady Vestakia," Adaerion said with grave enthusiasm. "It is certainly something we must try, once the caverns are safe to enter."

Kellen felt a sense of relief. Not so much at the thought that Vestakia wouldn't be in constant danger—though that thought was never far from his mind—but at the thought that, if her plan worked, she would no longer be completely irreplaceable.

"Well," Kellen said, "once we've gotten rid of the duergar and you tell us the caves are clear, I'll introduce you to a bunch of giant glowing spiders and you can ask them yourself. How would you like that?"

Vestakia grinned at him. "Better than flying around for sennights freezing my… feet off, to tell the truth! And spiders certainly won't care a bit what I look like, so we won't have to persuade them that I'm not Tainted!"

KELLEN and Keirasti moved their troops into the caverns. When the blizzard blew itself out, they barely noticed—their days had settled into a wearying, hideous routine as they searched the caverns, hunting duergars. With the dark-sight hoods the Wildmages had made for them, they could approach their prey in darkness and still see and hear one another, and the Crystal Spiders kept their promise, letting them know where to hunt.

The creatures had approached them eagerly as soon as they had ventured past the now-empty Shadowed Elf village. Remembering what Idalia had done, as soon as he saw them approach, Kellen pulled off his gauntlet and held out his bare hand.

The enormous spiders had climbed over him eagerly, until he was covered in them. Though they looked as insubstantial as thistledown, the whole swarm of them was surprisingly heavy. One of them walked out on his arm, and settled its body in his palm.

■.You return.: He heard the voice in his mind. It tickled faintly. -.Now we can help. You hunt the Black Minds. We know where they are.:

Show me, Kellen thought.

Pictures appeared in his mind—parts of the cave system he hadn't seen yet. They were blurred, impossible to decipher.

The Crystal Spiders must have sensed his bewilderment, for the pictures ceased. :We will take you—near. And then you will know.:

Know? How? Kellen thought in bewilderment.

:You will know,: the voice in his head repeated.

The carpet of spiders ebbed from his body, and the Crystal Spiders began to scuttle away with surprising speed.

"We follow them," Kellen said to the others.

Soon enough he understood what the Crystal Spiders had meant. After they had followed the Spiders for a while—being careful to mark their trail at intervals in order to find their way back—two of their party simply dropped their weapons and began walking forward.

"Rhufai!" Reyezeyt said sharply. "Janshil!"

"Let them go," Kellen said quietly. "They'll lead us right to where we need to go."

The first kill was easy: though the duergar held ten of them spellbound at the end, it didn't seem to understand that it was still vulnerable. The others rushed forward, confusing it, and Kellen and Keirasti spitted the duergar on their long wooden spears. In death it dissolved instantly, filling the cavern with the same gagging sweet-sick stench Kellen remembered from his first duergar kill.

It was the last time their hunts were to be this easy. The duergar seemed somehow to be able to silently communicate with one another. Once Kellen and the Elven Knights had killed the first one, the others seemed to understand there was a need to hide.

And if they could not hide, attack.

"WATCH him! Watch him!" Kellen shouted. His voice echoed eerily in the vastness of the cavern.

A dozen of the Elves stood like sleepwalkers. The duergar was backed into a small alcove just off a larger chamber deep within the mountain. It crouched and snarled, revealing a mouth filled with formidable teeth.

Then it sprang at the entranced Elves.

Keirasti barely blocked its rush toward the helpless ones, sweeping it back toward the alcove with the shaft of her heavy spear. Then she, too, dropped the spear, sinking to her knees in a daze. The weapon clattered to the ground as she fell beneath the duergar's spell. Some of the first victims were rousing now, as the creature turned its powers on other prey: Kellen, rushing forward to attack, found his way blocked by Seheimith and Nironoshan. He thrust them aside, but by then the duergar had released them and claimed others.

Seeing its way blocked only by those who were powerless to hinder it, the duer-gar bounded forward, away from Kellen and toward the freedom of the deep caves.

Kellen hefted his spear and threw.

It did not go in as deeply as he hoped, but it broke the monster's concentration. The Elves carrying the net rushed forward, flinging the net over the creature and trapping it. Seconds later, it was dead.

"Not as bad as it could have been," Kellen said, relieved.

"At least this time no one died," Keirasti said tightly. When one of the creatures had bitten Tildaril—one of her command—there had been no time for Kellen to even try to Heal him. Tildaril had died in seconds, screaming in agony as armor and flesh had boiled away from the bite like smoke.

They left the net and spears where they were. They were useless now that they'd come into contact with duergar blood.

"Let's find the next one," Kellen said.

As he'd expected, the Crystal Spiders appeared almost immediately. Once the duergar had begun to hide, the Crystal Spiders had needed to lead Kellen and the Elven Knights closer each time.

Kellen knelt down and removed his gauntlets. As they had each time before, the Crystal Spiders swarmed over him, nestling into his outstretched hands. The long furlike bristles that covered their bodies tickled his hands, as if they were as much cats as spiders.

Each time they touched his mind, the contact became easier, though Kellen always had the impression that he baffled them as much as they confused him. If Vestakia went ahead with her plan, and tried to get complicated, detailed information from the Crystal Spiders, she wasn't going to have an easy time of it.

-.Dead. Webs, eggs, babies. All safe now,: came the voice in his mind.

You need to show us where the next one is, Kellen thought back, forming the silent words carefully.

:All safe now. All safe.:

Kellen sighed mentally and tried again. The Crystal Spiders weren't stupid. They were just… alien. Where is the next Black Mind that we need to kill?

There was a pause. He felt a riffling through his mind, as he did whenever the creatures were trying especially hard to make him understand something.

-.There are no more. Not here.:

"Not here," Kellen said aloud. If the Spiders made a distinction between "here" and "not here," maybe that meant they were able to sense the other caverns, and the "Black Minds" there.

There are no more Black Minds in these caverns? We have killed them all? he thought back.

:All dead. All. Webs, eggs, babies, all safe,: came the reply once more.

Good, Kellen thought back. That's good. I want to bring a friend of mine to talk to you—about other Black Minds, in other caverns. Will you talk to her?

He sensed confusion and uncertainty, then a long pause, as though the Spiders were conferring among themselves. Or perhaps they were simply thinking— in all the times he'd talked with them, Kellen had never decided whether they were one group-mind, or separate creatures.

:She will kill Black Minds?: the Spiders finally asked.

She helps us kill Black Minds, Kellen answered. Yes.

-.Then we will speak with her,: the Spiders answered.

Thank you, Kellen thought at them, as the mass of Spiders flowed off his body and scurried away into the dark.

He got stiffly to his feet—it was cold in the deep caves, a constant damp chill that made his bones ache—and looked at the others.

"They say that one was the last," he said.

"Good. I am tired of sleeping in a cave," Keirasti said simply. "And I am tired of wearing a bag over my head. Now we can go back."

They gathered their remaining weapons and headed for the surface.

DESPITE the warmth of the bodies packed around him, Cilarnen was cold, though he knew he was lucky not to be freezing. He was thirsty, and as the bells passed—he still reckoned time by the standards of the City, even if no one around him did—he began to be hungry as well. How long were they going to be trapped here?

Tarik had told him—the man had eventually introduced himself—that the Elves they'd been riding to meet would probably come looking for them soon. Cilarnen hoped so. It would be a cruel jest on the part of the Light if the people coming to aid the Elves were slain, not by the enemy, but by a storm Called by one of their own people.

In addition to everything else, being packed in so closely with a bunch of Wildmages was uncomfortable in a way Cilarnen couldn't quite define, like being forced to listen to an annoying sound, or a ringing in your ears that went on and on and wouldn't stop. But there was nothing to be done about those things, and so he resigned himself to being miserable. And he hoped—if it came to the unthinkable worst—that at least Kardus would survive, and take his message to Kellen.

AS it happened, Tarik was quite right. Late the next day, Cilarnen was roused from an uncomfortable half-doze by shouts and the violent shaking of the wagon. The tarpaulin at the back was hauled away, and light, snow, and fresh arctic air streamed into the cramped confines of the wagon.

"Ah," Tarik said with satisfaction. "Rescue."

The others clambered out of the wagon, and through the snow-tunnel at the foot. Cilarnen simply sprawled where he was, luxuriating in the absence of the Wildmages. It was as if someone had finally stopped banging on a sore tooth. At the moment he didn't care if he stayed here and froze.

"Cilarnen? Come." Kardus was leaning into the wagon, looking worried. "A rescue party has found us. They will take us to their camp. It will be a long cold journey, and we must travel through the night, but better that than to remain here."

For a moment Cilarnen thought of telling Kardus to go on without him, that he was fine where he was, but he realized that that was ridiculous. He'd freeze here, and his message would go undelivered. He had to go on, for Armethalieh's sake, if nothing else.

Everything hurt as he crawled across the floor of the wagon toward Kardus. The Centaur lifted him down and carried him through the snow as if he were a child, and Cilarnen was too weak to protest.

It was still snowing heavily, and the wagons were nearly buried. The Centaurs had dug down a large ring of firm ground for themselves and the mules and horses, but outside it the snow was Centaur-shoulder height.

The snow was still blowing down—not as heavily as when the blizzard had first struck, but it was impossible to see more than a few yards. He could barely make out the forms of their rescuers, blurred by the snow.

"Can you ride?" Kardus asked.

"Yes." He had no idea whether he could stay on Oakleaf's back or not, but Cilarnen knew he was going to try.

THEY left the wagons behind, and the heaviest of their gear. Linyesin said that they could come back for it when the weather cleared. Cilarnen wondered when that would be. Spring?

From the others, he learned that their rescuers were more of the so-called El-ven Knights, and a few more men of the High Reaches. The Centaurs were already organizing themselves into marching order, moving slowly along the path the rescue party had broken through the snowdrifts.

Kardus handed him a wineskin. "Drink this—all of it. It will warm you and strengthen you for the journey."

Cilarnen took the wineskin gratefully. To his surprise, it actually contained wine—not the mead the Centaurs preferred—and it was hot wine besides. He gulped it down quickly, for once not caring about the taste, and without wondering how it had been heated. When he had finished, Kardus took the wineskin back.

"Stay with me. This will be no pleasant journey—but far better than remaining here in the open."

SEVERAL bells later, Cilarnen decided that Kardus had a great gift for understatement. The sun set, but they did not stop. All through the night they traveled, at a plodding pace little better than a walk. He had thought the journey thus far had been near-unendurable. It had been a mild spring jaunt compared to this.

Cilarnen hated to think of how long Oakleaf had gone without proper care. At least he understood why this was happening; the poor mule didn't.

At dawn they stopped, but only long enough to give the animals a little water and some broken cakes of journey-food. It was simple enough to melt a hole in the snow; the edges turned instantly to ice and formed a natural watering trough—as long as you could keep the water from freezing. Once Cilarnen saw what the Wildmages were doing, he did it as well, and allowed Oakleaf and the mules that were being led along behind him to drink. Though he could usually summon Fire without difficulty, this time the effort left him giddy and breathless, as though he'd run for a long time without stopping. He did his best to conceal his difficulty from Kardus, but he suspected the Centaur Wildmage noticed, all the same.