To Light a Candle

Book 2: The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy

by Mercedes Lackey, James Mallory

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Epic Fantasy; Sword & Sorcery

Synopsis

To his own surprise, young Kellen, once the disappointing son of the great Mage who leads the City's Mage Council, has become a powerful Knight-Mage. Valued for his bravery and his skills as both wizard and warrior, Kellen joins the Elves' war councils. Yet he cannot convince the City of his birth that it is in terrible danger.



Kellen's sister Idalia, a Wild Mage with great healing ability, has pledged her heart to Jermayan, a proud Elven warrior. Someday Idalia will pay a tragic price for a world-saving work of Wild Magic, but until then, she will claim any joy life can offer her.



Jermayan, who has learned much fighting at Kellen's side and loving the human Idalia, finds that everything changes when he bonds with a dragon while rescuing the Elf Prince and becomes the first Elven Mage in a thousand years.



Furious at her enemies' success with the dragon, the Demon Queen attacks in force. Light struggles against Dark, like flickering candle flames buried deep in the shadow of Obsidian Mountain.

Release date: December 27, 2005

Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Print pages: 656

Sample

One
In the Forest of Flowers
Kellen Tavadon could never have imagined fighting a battle so one-sided as this, but he no longer had the energy to spare for despair.
Up and around the circumference of the Black Cairn he went, and as he did, the icy wind slowly increased. It seemed to Kellen as if the source of the wind was the obelisk itself, as if it blew from someplace not of this world. As if from a great distance, he could hear inhuman yelping and the sounds of battle. If he looked, he knew he would be able to watch his friends die.
But he refused to look. He could not afford to be distracted from his battle. It took all his concentration to keep his footing on the stairs. Kellen's teeth chattered uncontrollably in the cold; tears that owed nothing to grief streamed from his eyes and froze along his cheeks and lashes. He gripped Idalia's keystone hard against his stomach and prayed that it would hold together.
If he had been able to think, he would have been certain that his situation could not be any worse, and then, as a further torment, grit mixed with the frigid wind began to pelt him. Fine sand at first, that left him blinking and half-blind, but soon good-sized pieces of gravel and small rocks that hammered his skin and even drew blood. He could taste grit between his teeth, on his tongue, feel it in his nose, in his lungs, choking him. He pulled his undertunic up over his head It was hard to breathe through the heavy quilted leather, but as he heard the wind-driven sand hiss over its surface, Kellen was glad he'd buried his head in its folds. Better to be half-stifled than blind. Slowly his tears washed his eyes clean.
Soon it was not just gravel that the wind carried, but rocks the size of a fist. At this rate, he'd be dodging boulders soon. And one direct hit from anything really large and he'd be dead—and the fate of Sentarshadeen, and perhaps of all of the Elves, would be sealed.
He needed to protect the keystone as well as his eyes and lungs. Kellen quickly shoved the keystone up under his shirt, and turned toward the wall so it was protected by his body as well. The keystone was as icy against his skin as it had once been warm against his hands. He turned his face against the wall, and crept even more slowly, up the stairs. The sand made them slippery, and he knew Something was hoping he'd fall and break the fragile keystone.
At least the howling of the wind and the booming of the rocks against the stone shut out all sound of the battle below. If it was still going on. If all his friends weren't dead already.
I won't look back, Kellen promised himself. Whatever happens, I won't look back.
It was so unfair for the enemy he faced to be throwing rocks at him! Unfair—no, it wasn't so much that it was unfair. It was humiliating. The Enemy wasn't even going to bother wasting its Demon warriors on stopping him; he wasn't an Elven Knight, after all. He wasn't any sort of a real threat. He meant so little to the Enemy that the Enemy thought it was enough to batter him with a few rocks, certain that he was so cowardly, so worthless, that he would turn tail and run.
That, as much as all the pain and despair, nearly broke Kellen's spirit.
Only his anger saved him.
Anger is a weapon, as much as your sword.
"I'll—show—you!" he snarled through clenched teeth. And went on. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, blind, aching, terrified, but now, above all else, furious, he drove onward.
Then came the worst part—when the wind and rocks began hitting him from all sides. Kellen realized that must mean he was near the top of the cairn. Groping blindly, his head still muffled in his tunic, he slid his hand along the wall in front of his face, until he touched emptiness. The wind pushed at his fingertips with the force of a river in flood If he tried to simply walk up to where the obelisk was, the wind would pluck him off and hurl him to the ground.
Very well. Then he would crawl.
Kellen got down on his hands and knees and crawled up the rest of the stairs, brushing the sand away carefully from each step before him. It caked on his abraded hands, and every time he wiped them clean on his tunic, fresh blood welled up from a thousand tiny scratches. And the wind still blew, cold enough now to steal all sensation from his flesh.
He reached a flat place, and crawled out onto it, pushing against the wind.
Suddenly, without warning, the wind stopped. The silence rang in his ears.
"Well, you make a fine sight," a man said from somewhere above him, sounding amused.
The voice was elusively familiar.
Kellen dragged his tunic down around his neck and stared, blinking, into the watery green light.
He was facing … himself?
Another Kellen stood on the other side of the obelisk, grinning down at him nastily. The point of the obelisk came just to his heart level. This Kellen was sleek and manicured—no one would ever call his smooth brown curls unruly!—and dressed in the height of Armethaliehan finery, from his shining half-boots of tooled and gilded leather to his fur-lined half-cape and the pair of jeweled and embroidered silk gloves tucked negligently through his gleaming gilded belt. The cape and gloves were in House Tavadon colors, of course. No one would ever forget which Mageborn City House this young man belonged to, not for an instant.
Slowly, Kellen got to his feet, though his cramped and aching muscles protested. Instantly, Other-Kellen clapped his bare hands over the point of the obelisk, blocking Kellen's access to it.
"Think about what you're doing," Other-Kellen urged him. "Really think about it. Now, before it's too late. You've had a chance to taste freedom, and you've found it's a bitter wine. Only power can make it sweet, but you already know the responsibilities that power brings. Even the powerful aren't really free. The only real freedom we have is of choosing our master, and most people don't get even that. But you can choose."
"I don't serve anyone!" Kellen said angrily.
"Oh? And you a Wildmage," Other-Kellen said mockingly. "I should think you would have learned better the moment you opened the Books."
Kellen snapped his mouth shut abruptly. If this was a fight, he'd just lost the first battle. He did serve the Wild Magic, and so far he'd done exactly what it told him to do. How free did that make him?
"You've made some bad choices in the past," Other-Kellen continued smoothly. "Even you're willing to admit that. Wouldn't you like the chance to undo them? To start over, knowing what you know now? You can have that. Few people get that opportunity."
Other-Kellen smiled, and for the first time, Kellen could see his father's face mirrored in this stranger's that was his own. The sight shocked and distracted him, even in this moment and in this place. Assurance … competence … or just corruption ?
"You left Armethalieh because you rebelled against your father's plans for you, but you know better now, don't you? Arch-Mage Lycaelon only wants for you what he has always enjoyed himself! And that's not so bad, now, is it? What does it matter if it takes a bit of groveling and scraping, and a lot of boring make-work to get there? Think about how you used to live—and how you live now. The life of a High Mage has its compensations—and the High Mages were right, back when they walled themselves off in their city. They were right to want to build safeguards against the prices and bargains the Wild Magic required," his doppelganger said, his voice as silken and sweet as honey, reasonable and logical. Kellen himself had never sounded like that. "What's so wrong with . trying to improve something? They still practice magic, and they do so without the prices that the Wild Magic demands. They give their citizens a good life—and if life in the Golden City is too restrictive, well, when you're Arch-Mage, Kellen, you'll be able to make all the changes you've dreamed of."
That shocked Kellen so much that he almost dropped the keystone. Of all of the things he had imagined and fantasized about, that was never one that had occurred to him!
"And you can be Arch-Mage," the double said, persuasively. "You have the gift and the talent; your father isn't wrong about that! If everyone must serve, then choose your service. Serve the City. Go back now, beg your father's forgiveness—it won't be that hard Give up the Wild Magic. That won't be hard, either, will it? Step back into the life you should have had, and work for the good of Armethalieh. You'll have everything you wanted. Just think of all you can do for the City when you return …"
Kellen stared in horrified fascination at his doppelganger. Was this really him? The person he could have been—or could still be?
If he did this, could he even turn the City to help the Elves, and forge a new Alliance as in the old days?
But Jermayan would know what had happened—
Shalkan surely would—
Vestakia—
"Your companions are already dead. You have no one to consider but yourself. No one will know what happened here but you. Isn't it time you did what you want, for a change? Here is your future, Kellen." His doppelganger leaned forward, his face wearing a mask of pleasantry, his voice eager, urging. "You have but to reach out and seize it. And you will receive nothing but praise for your actions."
Now Kellen looked away, down toward the plain below, but everything below the top of the cairn was covered with a thick layer of yellow-green fog. It was as if the rest of the world had vanished Quickly he looked back at his doppelganger, suspecting a trick, but Other-Kellen had not moved
His doppelganger smiled at Kellen sympathetically, as if guessing the direction of Kellen's thoughts.
"But if you go through with this foolish adventure, your future will be set. If you think you have troubles now, you can't even begin to imagine what your life is going to be like afterward—assuming you don't die right here. Think of the Demons. They know your name, Kellen. The Queen and Prince of the Endarkened know who you are. They know all about you, and they'll find you wherever you go. You won't have an easy death, or a quick one. Torment—oh, for them, it is the highest form of Art, and they have had millennia to perfect it. You won't die, but you will long for death with all of your being. For years, Kellen, for years …"
Other-Kellen shuddered in mock-sympathy, his eyes never leaving Kellen's face. Kellen's face. Kellen trembled, remembering his nightmares, knowing they must have fallen far short of the truth.
"Oh, you might survive triggering the keystone. You might even manage to get back to Sentarshadeen alive. And I'm sure your friends the Elves will do their best for you. But it hasn't really been much of a best so far, has it? They couldn't even manage to save themselves without a Wildmage or two to help. And when it comes right down to it, they're going to. take care of themselves and their families first once the trouble starts, aren't they?
"I wouldn't say we're friends, exactly but I would say I'm the closest thing to a friend you've got. Right here. Right now. Think about it, Kellen. This is your last chance. After this, you have no choices left. Think. Use what you've learned. They've all tried to keep the truth from you so you wouldn't know what the stakes are. Think how hard you've had to work to find out what little you have. Why is that? So you wouldn't know enough to make a fair choice," Other-Kellen said.
Fair, Kellen thought bitterly. Nothing about this is fair. Nothing had ever been fair and out in the open, from the moment he'd found the three Books in the Low Market, and hearing all his secret fears and unworthy hopes in the mouth of this manicured popinjay was the least fair thing of all.
He remembered Jermayan telling him about The Seven—how when they'd faced down the Endarkened army at the pass of Vel-al-Amion and first beaten them back, the Endarkened had tried to seduce them to the Dark
As one of the Endarkened was trying to seduce him now. This, then, was their last line of defense, and the most compelling of all.
"Well …" Kellen said, walking closer and lifting the keystone in his hands as if he were about to hand it over. "I guess I really ought to be smart and do what you say."
The Other-Kellen smiled triumphantly and relaxed, certain of its victory.
"But I'm not going to!" Kellen shouted.
He brought the keystone down—hard—on the doppelganger's hands. It howled and recoiled as if it had been burned, jerking its hands back from the point of the obelisk.
And in that moment, it … changed.
The Other-Kellen was gone. In its place stood a Demon.
It—she!—towered over Kellen, her wings spread wide. He caught a confused glimpse of blood-red skin, of horns and claws, but she was barely there for an instant, for in the moment that the Demon had released her hold on the obelisk, Kellen slammed the keystone down over the tip of the stone.
The instant the keystone touched the obelisk, the Demon howled in fury and vanished, her cheated rage a whiplash across his senses. For a moment he was blind and deaf in a paroxysm of pain. He cringed, but kept his hands on the stone.
They had not counted on his experience with being lied to. And perhaps that was the greatest weapon Lycaelon Tavadon had given to him.
I know a lie when I hear it, you bastards! His father had lied to him so smoothly, so. convincingly, and so often, that Kellen had learned every guise that a lie could wear.
Kellen trembled all over, realizing in that moment how close the Demon had come to winning. But it hadn't.
Now it was up to him. Despite everything he had already gone through, the hardest part was still to come. Hardest—and yet, in its way, the easiest. All he had to do was surrender—surrender his will, surrender his power, and put it all in the service of something far outside himself.
He took a deep breath and reached down into the keystone with his Wildmage senses, touching the power waiting within. The power leaped toward him eagerly, but Kellen knew that he was not to be its destination. Gently he turned it toward the obelisk.
He felt the obelisk's resistance, and pushed harder, adding the last of his strength and all of his will to the keystone's power, forcing the link into being.
One by one, the obelisk's defenses gave way. Kellen felt the triggering force begin to rush through him and into the obelisk. He kept his palms pressed against the keystone's sides; without him to maintain the link, the spell would be broken before the Barrier was breached And all of it—the journey, the others' sacrifice—would all have. been for nothing.
Then, breakthrough.
And his body spasmed, convulsed, his mouth going open in a silent scream.
This was worse than anything he could have imagined He felt as if he were being struck by bolt after bolt of lightning, a torrent of energy that somehow went on and on and on, searing its way through him.
His hands were burning. Holding the keystone was like clutching red-hot metal fresh from the forge, and there was no respite, no mercy. He could smell the pork-like scent of his cooking flesh, could feel blood running down his wrists as blisters swelled up and burst, and then, in a thunderclap of agony, the fire was everywhere, coursing through his veins with every beat of his heart.
Kellen howled unashamedly, great wracking sobs of hopeless agony. And he held on. Perhaps it was stubbornness, but he had always been stubborn. And he would not give the Demons this victory.
Then came a single thought, emerging through the fire and the pain.
I'm going to die.
He realized at that moment that this was the price of the spell, the rest of the cost. It must be. A Wildmage's life. Idalia must have known when she created the spell that the price of casting it would be the life of the one who triggered it. His life. Kellen felt a flash of pride in his sister at keeping the painful secret so well.
But he would have to consent. No Wildmage could give up that which belonged to another—not without turning to the Dark.
She had known the price of the magic, but she could only have hoped he would pay it. Well, he wasn't going to let her. down. He would be everything she had hoped And if he had been an uncouth barbarian to the Elves of Sentarshadeen, at least he would be an uncouth barbarian whose name would live on in their legends forever.
If that's the price, he shouted silently to the Powers, then I will pay it! I wish I didn't have to, but I swear I pay it willingly and without reservation!
But more than ever, having surrendered his life, he yearned to keep it. To see the sun again, to feel the gentle summer wind, to walk through the forest or drink a cup of morning tea. But all those things had their price, and so did keeping them. And some prices were too high to pay. The price of his life would be the destruction of all those things, soon or late. The price of keeping his life would be victory for the Endarkened
No. Never!
My life for the destruction of the Barrier. A fair bargain. Done. Done!
Then the pain was too great for thought.
Abruptly the obelisk began to swell, its stark lines distorting as if the malign power it contained was backing up inside it, filling it beyond its capacity. Its swelling carried him upward; he. collapsed against its surface, clinging to the keystone, and still it swelled. Now the stone was a baneful pus-yellow color, nearly spherical. Kellen lay upon its surface, unable to preserve the thought of anything beyond the need to maintain the link
The whole cairn shook like a tree in a windstorm.
The toxic light flared lightning-bright.
And for Kellen, there was sudden darkness and a release from all pain.




THEN, of course, there was a return to life, and pain. And since the latter meant that he still had the former, it was less unwelcome than it might have been. And through the pain, the faces of Vestakia and Jermayan—so they had survived!
It had all been worth it then. Only afterward did it occur to him that the compounded trouble he had fallen back into might make him begin to regret that return to life …




IT had taken them only a sennight to travel from Sentarshadeen—easternmost of the Nine Cities—into the heart of the Lost Lands to face the power of Shadow Mountain.
The return trip took longer, though at least nobody was trying to kill them this time. That did not mean, however, that the journey was less trying. If anything, it was physically harder.
To begin with, it was raining—although rain, Kellen reflected grimly, wearily, was a mild word to apply to the water that had been falling from the sky nonstop for the last moontum.
It was just a good thing that Elven armor didn‘t—couldn't—rust.
Jermayan, of course, didn't mind the rain at all. But the Elven lands had been suffering under the effects of a deadly spell-inflicted drought for almost a year. Kellen had only spent a few days in Sentarshadeen before heading north toward the Barrier, and even what little he'd seen of the Elves' desperate attempts to save their city and the forest surrounding it had been enough to daunt him. How much more terrifying must it have been for an Elven Knight, one of the land's protectors, to watch everything he loved wither and die for sennight upon sennight, knowing there was nothing he could do about it?
No wonder Jermayan welcomed the rain.
Vestakia didn't seem to mind the weather all that much either. But then, Vestakia had spent her entire life living nearly alone in a little shepherd's hut in the wildest part of the Lost Lands, with only a few goats for company. A little rain—or even a lot of rain—probably didn't bother her too much.
But it felt increasingly like torture to Kellen. For one thing, he still wasn't all that used to uncontrolled weather. He'd grown up in the Mage-City of Armethalieh, where everything—including the weather—was governed by the rule of the High Mages. He'd never actually seen rain until he'd been Banished by the High Council for his possession of the three Books of Wildmagery—and his Banishment hadn't been that long ago. He'd never had to stand out in the rain in his life.
But now … well, there wasn't anything like a roof for leagues and leagues, probably. Even when they stopped to rest, they never really got out of the rain. The most they could manage was to drape some canvas over themselves, or, if they were lucky, find a half-cave, or shelter under a tree.
To add to his misery, he was still suffering from the injuries he had gotten in his battle to break the Barrier-spell. He'd been so sure that his life would be the price of the spell that awakening afterward had been a shock. After all, every kind of magic required payment, and the first lesson the Wildmage learned was that each spell of the Wild Magic came with a cost, both in the personal energy of the caster, and in the form of a task the Wildmage must perform.
But in this case, it seemed his willingness to sacrifice his life had been enough. Or perhaps, just perhaps, the cost had been his willingness to live and endure.
If you can call this living, he thought, as he rode along behind the others in the direction of home. His injuries had been so severe that it had been a sennight before he'd been able to ride at all, and his burned hands were so heavily bandaged that he couldn't possibly wear his armored gauntlets, much less hold a sword. Any protecting that was going to be done was going to have to be done by Jermayan, and maybe Shalkan, and possibly Vestakia; he was strictly along as baggage.
He had become so used to pain that now he could hardly remember a time when he had lived without it as a constant presence. And underneath the pain was fear, fear he never openly expressed, but was constantly with him. The fear of what was underneath those bandages.
He would much rather dwell on the minor misery of the rain.
His heavy hooded oiled-wool cloak was soaked through. His heavy silk surcoat was wet. The unending rain had managed to make it through both of those layers and even through the tiny joins and chinks in the delicately-jointed Elven armor that he wore, soaking the padding beneath.
It wasn't that he was cold—he wasn't, even with winter coming on. All the layers he wore saw to that. But he'd never felt so soggy in his life.
He rested the heels of his hands—wrapped in goatskin mittens to keep the bandages dry, and medicated to the point where the pain was only a dull nagging—against the front of his saddle, gazing around himself at the transformed landscape. Everything looked so different now! On the outward trip, they'd been navigating mostly by his Wildmage intuition to find the direction of the Barrier; his sister Idalia, who was a much stronger Wildmage, hadn't been able to locate it by scrying, and until he and Jermayan had linked up with Vestakia, they'd had no way of sensing it directly. So for the first part of the trip, they'd been traveling mostly by guess … and through a far different countryside than this.
The rain had changed everything about the landscape that had once been so parched and barren. There were lakes where none had been before, meadows had become impassable swamps, trickling streams had become rivers, and all the landmarks he'd memorized on the outward trip were gone. On their return passage, they'd had to rely on Jermayan's familiarity with the Elven lands and Valdien's and Shalkan's instincts to find them a route that wasn't underwater or under mud.
"Are we there yet?" he muttered under his breath.
"Sooner than you think," Shalkan answered.
Kellen sighed. He hadn't thought Shalkan would be able to hear him over the sound of the rain. But by now, he should know better than to underestimate the keenness of the unicorn's hearing.
"How long?" he asked.
"Less than an hour. We've already passed the first scouts from Sentarshadeen. They've probably gone back to warn the welcoming party to be ready to greet us." The unicorn's voice was bland, but Kellen's stomach clenched in a tight knot of tension. He'd lost all track of how long they'd been traveling, and hadn't had any idea they were so close. Now the aching of his body was joined by the clenching of his gut. They had gone out a party of three. They were returning a party of four. And one of the four was not going to be welcomed with open arms by the Elves.
"Does he know?" Kellen asked. He nodded to where Jermayan rode on Valdien, with Vestakia—thoroughly bundled up, of course—sitting behind him on the destrier's saddle. At the end of a long tether, the cream-colored pack mule ambled along behind Valdien, every inch of her covered with the black mud splashed up from the road. At least once they were back in Sentarshadeen it would be someone else's job to try to get her—and Valdien—clean.
"He saw them, I imagine," Shalkan said, without adding the obvious: that naturally Jermayan would recognize exactly where he was, even if Kellen didn't. And that Elven senses were much keener than Kellen's. Especially now, when most of Kellen's awareness was wrapped in pain.
Almost home—at least, as much home as Sentarshadeen was. Dry, out of the rain, and a chance to sleep in a proper bed again. And most of all, a proper Healer to deal with his hands and anything else that was wrong with him. Kellen tried to look forward to those things.
Unfortunately, there were a lot of things about their welcome home that he wasn't looking forward to. And unfortunately, he was not really certain that a Healer would be able to set his hands right again.




EVEN at the beginning of winter, the Elven valley bloomed. The silver sheen of the unicorn meadow had turned to deep emerald when the rains came, and the parched city had come back to life.
Released from their desperate hopeless task of attempting to irrigate the forest lands surrounding their canyon home, the Elves had resumed their patrols of the deep woods and the extended borders of their homeland, for now, more than ever, it was vitally necessary, with their ancient Enemy roused to life once more. And only a short time ago, one of those scout-pairs—a unicorn and his rider—had brought word to Queen Ashaniel that Kellen and Jermayan had been sighted upon the road.
Idalia had been about to scry for news of them when the Queen's message was brought to her. She had immediately gone to the House of Leaf and Star, both to thank the Queen for the news and to hear more of it than the scouts had brought to her.
Though the House of Leaf and Star was—in every sense that humans understood the word—the palace of the King and Queen of the Elves, it was not even as grand as the house Idalia had grown up in. Elven buildings were not meant to be imposing, but to be suitable, and although the House of Leaf and Star was one of the largest structures in all the Elven Lands, it still managed to look welcoming and homelike. It was a low, deep-eaved house built of silvery wood and pale stone, and age and strength radiated from it as from an ancient living tree.
By the time she had crossed the long roofed portico, her cloak and wide-brimmed Mountain Trader hat had shed most of their burden of water, and her boots had dried themselves upon the intricate design of slatted wood with which the portico floor was inlaid—crafted for just that purpose, as all the works of the Elves managed to combine beauty and practicality with flawless ease.
She was not surprised to see the door open before she reached it.
"I See you, Idalia Wildmage," the Elven doorkeeper said politely.
"I See you, Sakathirin," Idalia answered with equal politeness. Elvenkind was both an ancient and a long-lived race, and except under extraordinary circumstances, its members were unfailingly courteous and unhurried. Part of the courtesy was the assumption that a person might not wish to be noticed; the greeting I See you was meant to convey acknowledgment of one's presence, with the implicit right being that one did not have to respond if one wished to be left alone. "I have come to share news with the Lady Ashaniel, if she would See me as well."
"The Lady Ashaniel awaits you with joy," Sakathirin said gravely. "Be welcome at our hearth." He stepped back to allow Idalia to enter.
The rain pattering down on the skylight echoed through the tall entry-hall, its music a counterpoint to the splashing of the fountain that once more bubbled and sang beneath it. Idalia smiled, seeing that reflecting pool was once again filled with fish, their living forms mirroring the mosaic they swam above, that of fish swimming in a river. The Elves delighted in this form of shadowplay, combining living things with their copies so expertly that it was often hard for mere humans to tell where Nature ended and Elven artistry began.
By the time Sakathirin had disposed of her cloak and hat, one of Ashaniel's ladies-in-waiting had appeared to conduct Idalia to the Queen's day-room.
In Armethalieh, such a room would have been called a "solar," but that was hardly an appropriate word for this room today. The walls were made of glass—hundreds of tiny panes, all held together in a bronze latticework—and the room seemed to hang in space, surrounded by a lacework made of light and air.
And water.
Raindrops starred the palm-sized windows, and streaks of rain ran down the outside of the glass like a thousand miniature rivers. The effect might have been chilly, despite the warmth of the lamps and braziers that filled the room, save for the fact that the room's colors were so warm. The ceiling had been canopied in heavy velvet—not pink, which would only have been garish—but a deep warm taupe, rich as fur. The pillows and carpets picked up those colors and added more: deep violets, ember-orange, a dark clear blue shot through with threads of silver …