Elvenbane (39 page)

I
wonder if he regrets not following me across the Gate
.

I wonder if he is still alive. Evelon is not a hospitable clime
—
or
was
not, when I left
…

As for here—it was hospitable enough—now. Few of the elves would admit how near they came to losing it. Humans…

Well, after his careful reeducation, the boy would certainly learn to see the real world as it was, and not as he wished to see it. And perhaps he would, in the end, be grateful that the elves were here, and not in Evelon.

Dyran went over his mental list. Valyn had his orders; he would go with his belongings, one servant, and his hunting birds. And he would be staying with underlings and allies on the trip. None of this camping and scouting he had been talking about.

That was something Dyran simply could not comprehend, this seeking after a primitive life-style, this obsession with nature and pitting one’s mind and body against it. Adventuring about was dangerous, even on lands holding allegiance to their Clan. Valyn had a bloodline to carry on, and it was about time he realized it. In fact, it was more than time he acquired some responsibilities.

Everything seemed to be well in hand. Including the careful choice of Cheynar as the point of fosterage. Again, the corner of his mouth twitched.
Never do anything for only one reason
. That had been a motto that had brought him power and profit, time after time. Cheynar was a fanatic when it came to humans, yes. But he was also the ally Dyran had assigned to learn if there was anything to the rumors of dragons and dragon-skins.

Cheynar had lost the girl, but he had a scrap of skin—or so he said. Valyn could make sure of both. And Cheynar had said nothing else since he reported the failure and the success. It might be he
had
nothing to report. It might be that he was withholding information. He might be working on his own behalf, or on another’s…

As always, the possibilities were many. But with Valyn in place, the boy would not only receive a much-needed education, he would be an information line to Cheynar, whether or not he knew that was the role he was playing. Dyran knew his son well enough to know he would ask the right questions, and learn a great deal from the answers to those questions. And he knew Cheynar well enough to know what those answers might indicate, beyond the obvious.

Yes, everything was in place. Even the reassignment of the pet to the general slave barracks, pending transfer. Dyran was actually of two minds about that. The threat of transfer might give him more power over Valyn than the actuality.

Dyran sighed. His duty had been done; everything that could be taken care of, had been. It was now time to retire to the talented and trained hands of his concubines, to have this infernal headache massaged away.

He shoved himself away from his desk and stood up. The lights brightened as he rose, and he quickly crossed the few paces from the desk to the door to the harem.

It would be good to rest, and better to be indulged.

After all, he had earned it. This had been a fine day’s work.

Valyn brought fresh livery from Mero’s closet, thinking ironically how his father would blanch if he saw his
son
playing servant to a
human
.

“Can you ride?” Valyn asked anxiously as Mero pulled himself up off of the bed with a smothered oath. The boy’s back was bandaged and treated with the best the estate had to offer, but it would be days before it healed, and probably half a day before the pain lessened noticeably.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” Mero said around clenched teeth. “It’s either ride, or get sent to that—” Valyn waved a warning hand, and Mero subsided.

But he needed to give Mero clearer warning.
:You never know when there might be listeners
,: he thought as hard as he could, knowing Mero would be able to “hear” what he was thinking. That particular talent had manifested two years ago, and Mero had sharpened it with practice.

Mero nodded.

“I don’t know what to say, Shadow.” :
I’ll delay on the road as much as I can
,: Valyn told him,
:And I think I can manage a couple of days’ worth. That ought to get you in place. But are you
sure
they’ll accept that you might have been a fighter in training
?:

“I’ve accepted it,” Mero said with resignation, But his fingers were moving in a private code they had worked out together, and his face wore that look of concentration that told Valyn he was “searching” for unseen listeners. “
They’ll accept anything you put in that note. And I’ve seen some of your father’s assassins; they aren’t any bigger than I am. Don’t you worry about my convincing
them.
You just worry about giving me a couple of days for them to get tired and nervous about having me around. I’m going to need enough time to convince them that they’d really rather see the back of me without being obnoxious enough to get another beating
.”

“I hate to see you leave.”
That
was sincere enough; Valyn was worried about Shadow. A hundred things could happen to him on the way. Not the least of which was that he might well pass out and fall off of his horse. He was not in any shape to ride, much less ride as hard as he was going to have to.

“I’m not exactly thrilled about going. But you told me Lord Dyran’s orders. Better get it over with all at once, I say. Start off with marks in my favor for obedience. Maybe that’ll counter the stripes I’m wearing.”

That had been the covering story Valyn had concocted to explain Mero’s disappearance; that he had, as any dutiful son would, taken his father’s orders at face value and sent Mero on his way
immediately
.

When Mero did not arrive at his destination, there might—or might not—be a search sent out for him. The horse would be found—riderless, with everything intact. It would be assumed that Mero did, indeed, pass out and fall off his horse. No one would ever think that a slave might run off and
leave
such a valuable piece of property as a horse, if he was running away. Though the estate was patrolled, there were always wild beasts to be reckoned with, raiders from the wild humans and from rival elven lords, and packs of feral dogs. If a body was not immediately found, there would be no real concern. One slave more or less made very little difference to the running of the estate, especially if the slave happened to be Mero.

And that, so far as Dyran was concerned, would be the end of the problem. He would probably be relieved, if he thought about the disappearance at all.

In reality, Mero would be riding out on the route that Valyn was to take in the morning. He would push himself and his horse to the limit, while Valyn dawdled. And when he reached the manor of old Lord Ceinaor, an elven overseer of one of Dyran’s enormous farms, he would abandon the horse and present himself to the Lord’s overseer and hand over a note written by Valyn but signed with Dyran’s seal. It styled Mero as a young assassin-cum-gladiator, sent to “recover from injuries.” Lord Ceinaor would not know
what
to think; Dyran had never sent a human to the farm to recover before—but Dyran was not predictable. He might be trying his underling’s loyalty, to see whether Ceinaor would obey a truly peculiar request. The human might have been sent as a threat. The human might be a spy. Or he might be recovering from a failed or partially failed attempt on someone else’s bondling, and Dyran judged it best that he do so in obscurity.

When Valyn approached that manor,
he
would use his powers—and his knowledge of herbs, gleaned from Delia—to make his bondling bodyguard desperately ill. Once he reached the manor, he would see Mero, and “commandeer” him to replace his sick servant.

Half of this plan was Valyn’s, and half Mero’s, It had been Valyn’s notion to replace his own servant with Mero in some place where Mero was not known. Mero had come up with the ways and means to do so.

:You know, you could be really dangerous, given Half a chance
,: Valyn thought wryly at his friend, as he helped him into his livery.

“
Comes with practice, Valyn
,” Mero replied in hand-sign. “
Practice
—
and the fact that you saved me from being conditioned like the rest. I can think for myself. Most humans don’t have that luxury
.”

Valyn didn’t reply to that; there really wasn’t a great deal he could say. He simply straightened Mero’s tunic, and stepped away.

“Here,” he said, handing Mero what looked to be one note, but was actually two. The second one was to Lord Ceinaor, the first to the stable servants. The first was under Valyn’s signature, the second under Dyran’s seal. Valyn had half a dozen blank notes, already sealed, hidden away against emergencies. “Take this down to the stables, and they’ll give you a horse. Good luck, Shadow. I’ll miss you.”

Mero took both, and pocketed them. “Just so that nobody else misses me,” he said lightly, and Valyn winced.

But then he added, “There’s no one watching, not even by magic. I checked. Your honored father is getting his brains scrambled by the ever-lovely and talented Katrina. He’s much too busy to worry about trifles like us.”

Valyn winced again, and blushed. His father’s latest favorite concubine was rather—exotic. And utterly without shame. She’d even approached
him
, with an invitation that had filled him with confusion. Not that he hadn’t gotten his share of experience with females—but—

It wasn’t what she said, it was the
way
she had said it! And what she was doing
while
she said it!

But Mero would be gone in a few moments. Since no one was watching, he could do what he’d been longing to do since they had decided on this. He reached out, and—carefully—embraced his half-cousin.

“You take care of yourself, little brother,” he said, his voice thickening a little. “I want to see your ugly face glaring at me from among old Ceinaor’s servants.”

Mero returned the embrace, with interest. “I’ll be there,” he said huskily. “You don’t get rid of me that easily.”

Then he let go of Valyn’s shoulders, and walked stiffly to the door. “Luck ride with both of us, brother,” Valyn called softly after him, unable to think of anything else to say.

Mero turned, and grinned crookedly. “Luck and a fair wind at my back—and a foul one in
your
face!”

And with that, he was gone. The door swung shut behind him; the door and wall were so well-made that Valyn could not even hear Mero’s footsteps heading for the staircase.

The suite had never felt so empty before. Or
sounded
so empty. For the past several years, Valyn had never been anywhere without someone—usually Mero—along with him. Even on his own carefully supervised excursions to the harem. He was the heir; his safety was of paramount importance to Dyran’s staff, who knew they would die to a man if anything ever happened to him. Now, for the first time, he was completely alone.

Valyn restrained his impulse to run after his “little brother” and returned to his own room to pack.

Then went to bed, but kept waking every time he thought he heard a sound, then would lie staring up at the invisible ceiling for what felt like an eternity until he fell asleep again.

I
wish I could really show him how much I love him
, he thought, only now regretting the things he hadn’t said all these years.
I can’t. I don’t know how. All my life they’ve punished me every time I showed my feelings, and now
—
there’s nothing
,
I
feel
it, but nothing gets past the surface. I haven’t cried since I was two… most of the time I don’t laugh, either. There’s just
—
nothing. Like what’s inside and what’s outside are two different people
.

He swallowed, and turned on his side, dry-eyed.
I hope he understands how much there is I’m not telling him. I hope. If this doesn’t work
—
if any thing happens to him
—

It was a very long time until dawn.

SHANA HELD HERSELF in her trance by sheer force of will. She was looking through another’s eyes, that of a wizard-gifted child in charge of feeding the others in the slave pens. She didn’t want to watch this, and yet she could not look away. There was a young woman in this pen; a child-woman who reminded her of Meg so much that Shana was trembling in reaction. She had been following this girl’s story most of the afternoon, picking up information through the wizardling’s ears, listening in on the conversations of guards.

The girl cowered in one corner of the slave pen; an ordinary human child, one without wizard-powers, one who simply had the misfortune to fail the promise of early beauty. At six, she had been stunning; at twelve, merely lovely. But at fourteen, in the midst of concubine training, she had put on a spurt of sudden growth. Her features had coarsened, her limbs lengthened. Now she was simply attractive.

That was not enough for a concubine. A concubine had to be supernally beautiful.

The girl, gently reared, who had never once had a
voice
raised in anger against her, much less a hand, had been sent to the common pens as a breeder. The guards, who seldom saw a girl as unspoiled and attractive as this one, were wagering who would get to enjoy her first.

But as Shana watched, surreptitiously, through her host’s eyes, the decision was taken out of their hands.

A man she recalled only too well entered the room; a tall, blond man with cruel eyes. The guards seemed to know him, too; their conversation ceased, and they backed slowly away from him. Shana’s host froze in place, but it wasn’t the young boy that this nightmare out of Shana’s past wanted…

He scanned the room coldly—and his gaze alighted on the girl. He pointed.

“That one,” he said, smiling thinly. “I’ll take that one.”

One of the guards made as if to protest, but a single glance from the blond one’s eyes stopped him; the guard shrugged, and turned away. One of the other guards made his way through the rest of the waiting slaves, seized the girl by the arm, and hauled her to her feet. He would not look at her; he simply pulled her back across the room, and shoved her into the blond man’s arms.

The girl looked up into her captor’s face, and something she saw or sensed there made her blanch.

The blond man laughed—and as Shana watched in numb horror, drew on an odd, studded glove, and slapped the girl across the face with it, knocking her to the ground. As the girl fell back, Shana saw that her face was cut in a series of shallow, parallel lines, from which blood was welling.

The man looked about at the rest of the slaves. “Someone here is a troublemaker,” he announced indifferently. “This is what happens to slaves who make trouble.”

Then he hauled the girl to her feet, and began to beat her, starting with her face—

Just like Meg—

Shana fled her host’s mind, vowing through her tears as she did, that this would be the
last
time she ever stood by and watched the elven lords or their henchmen torture and murder again. One day—soon—she would have the power herself to deal with them.

And the wizards already did.

Shana wanted to scream in frustration. She had requested this private interview with her teacher, and it was going badly; much, much worse than she had ever thought it could. She clenched her hands on the arms of her chair, and tried again.

“We have to do something,” she said carefully. “I told you what it’s like out there; I told you that I think the elves are too busy going at each other’s throats to even notice us, if we keep our interference small. But people—good people—are being murdered every day, master! We can’t just sit here and let it continue!”

Denelor shook his head. “It’s just not possible, Shana,” he said. “We simply can’t do anything. The humans will have to get along the best they can, just as they’ve always done. If they want freedom, they’ll have to learn to fight for themselves.”

Right. The slaves should fight for themselves, when they were collared and conditioned against even thinking for themselves! “But
why
aren’t we doing anything?” Shana cried rebelliously. “There are more of us than there ever were, except before the Wizard War! We don’t have to have another war, but we could at least be
doing
something, instead of hiding like frightened mice!”

Denelor colored a little, and looked away. “Shana—you just can’t understand. The situation is a great deal more complicated than you realize. There are too many factors involved. What good would we do if we helped a handful of halfbloods—or humans—and got ourselves uncovered in the process? How would
you
like it if the elves discovered the Citadel? Where would you go? Back to the desert?”

“Why should they find the Citadel? It didn’t happen before,” Shana pointed out, her hands still clamped on the arms of her chair, as she tossed her hair angrily. “And that was in the middle of the Wizard War, when the elves
knew
what we were and what we could do! Not even Dyran knows we exist, you know that! Why should it happen now? Our ranks are closer than they’ve
ever
been, because no one wants to chance another split like the one that lost the war! What reason do you have for thinking something like that would happen?”

“Because—because it could,” Denelor faltered. “The Citadel isn’t invisible, you know. We
can
be discovered, if the elves know what to look for. And it’s doubly likely to happen if we start aiding
humans
.”

“I don’t see why—” Shana began.

He interrupted her. “Do you think that they are all going to welcome us with open arms, greet freedom with gratitude? If you do, you’re living in a dreamworld, my child.”

He sat back in his chair, his confidence restored, and Shana sensed that her advantage was slipping.

“Let me enlighten you. Most of the humans out there don’t even call themselves’slaves’ because they don’t think of themselves as slaves. The elven lords have them conditioned to obey—and to think of their
fellow humans
as the enemy, the rivals. It isn’t the elven lords they really worry about—it’s the overseer, who is
quite
likely to be human, and the fellow working next to them. Fully half of them have never seen one of the lords, and don’t particularly care if they never do. All they care about is getting that overseer’s job… and his privileges. They’re only interested in the immediate future.”

He actually smirked, and Shana flushed in frustration.

“That’s the difference between us and them, child,” he said fatuously. “They can’t see beyond their noses to the vast horizon. And if we threaten to take away the little privileges they’ve worked so hard for, and give them only this dubious freedom in return, they
won’t
thank us for it. To them, it’ll be freedom—to starve, to shiver in the cold, to lose the promise of a steady meal and guaranteed shelter, with guaranteed rewards if they are good and do what they are told.
That
is who would betray us, those same humans you want us to help—because we wouldn’t be giving anything to them that they want, or need. We would be the enemy, because we threaten their way of life.”

And was that what he kept telling himself, Shana thought, a bit contemptuously.
She
didn’t have a great deal of use for humans—but
they
weren’t the problem. The elves were. The elves were the ones who gave the orders; the humans only obeyed. And she could not understand why the wizards were cowering behind the protections of the Citadel—as she had said, like so many frightened mice. There was no reason why they couldn’t be helping the humans covertly—or saving a lot more of the halfblood babies and youngsters than they were now. Most of the halfblood children resulted from encounters with accidentally fertile concubines or with breeders, and most of those were eliminated as soon as they were born. It wouldn’t take much work to start substituting wizards for midwives, and the illusion of a dead baby for the reality of a live one.

She had approached her teacher about doing something with purpose in the world outside the cavern;
actively
helping the halfbloods out there—and intervening on behalf of the humans with wizard-powers as well. She remembered what had happened in the slave pens all too clearly, particularly on long, sleepless nights.

Denelor had seemed sympathetic enough during discussions with his apprentices, but she had discovered during the course of this conversation that he was like all the rest of the senior wizards. So long as what he did would not put him at risk, he would act. The moment there was the slightest chance that any action would alert the elven lords to the reemergence of the wizards—and thus threaten his comfortable life—he would sit back and do nothing.

Just like the humans he thought of so contemptuously.

But he was not the worst of his kind here—

Denelor finished his lecture, and looked at her expectantly. She shook her head, and gave it one more try. “It’s not
right
, master,” she said stubbornly, hoping that one last appeal might turn him to
consider
her argument. “It’s just not
right
. We have power; doesn’t that mean we have responsibility, too? Isn’t that what you’ve been telling us? The greater the power, the more the responsibility? Who are we responsible
to
, if not to those who are helpless?”

“Our responsibility is first to ourselves, Shana,” he replied, after a moment of hesitation. “We can’t do anything if we’re under siege by the elves. Think of all the halfbloods we’d be unable to help, if the lords knew we existed.”

Think of all the ones you don’t help now, because you’re afraid to
, she replied, but only in her mind, and under the tightest of shields.

“We do what we can, but we have to be here to do it,” he said, with an air of finality. “I know it’s hard to accept, but just because something isn’t right, that doesn’t make it less true.” He paused a moment, then finally
looked
at her again, this time with concern. “Shana, I hope you’re keeping this to yourself. I probably shouldn’t say this, but there are those among the senior wizards who are—ah—disturbed by you. I’m sure it’s no surprise to you that you have a great deal of power. You’ve surprised me with it, more often than I’d like to admit. Some of my colleagues are afraid of that power. Some of them are suspicious of you; they think you could be a plant by the elven lords. Most of them don’t understand how a child as young as you are, and without formal training, could acquire the kind of power and expertise you have.” Now he looked at her as if
he
suspected something. “There are those who think you may be planted on us by the elven lords, or that you may even be a fullblood—”

Shana’s eyes widened, and she said defensively, “I told you, I
had
to learn by myself just to stay alive! Do they think that living out in the middle of a desert is
easy!
Besides, I have the mind-powers, and you
know
I do. You’ve been the one training me. No one of full elven blood has the mind-powers, and I do.”

“You do,” Denelor agreed, looking a little easier. “And those can’t be duplicated by magic. But you could still be a plant, a halfblood raised and trained by elves to infiltrate our ranks.”

Shana frowned. “How could I be a plant if the elves don’t know we exist? And besides, I’m trying to get everyone to
do
something about the elves, to fight back against them, and if I was a plant, why would I be doing that?”

Denelor shook his head. “Child, that’s precisely what would make them even more suspicious. How
else
would the elves find out where we were, unless we attacked them or even worked more actively against them at a time when they have been alerted to look for the source of those actions? Please, Shana, be more careful of what you say. You’re making people uncomfortable, and that makes them irrational.”

Shana sighed, and gave it up as a lost cause. She agreed that she would be more careful, shared a cup of tea with her master, and then let herself out of Denelor’s quarters.

Well, that’s that
. She grimaced, and set off down the halls to her own room. If Denelor wouldn’t back her up, there was no hope of convincing any of the other senior wizards. She had some supporters among the apprentices, and there were a few of the junior wizards, like Zed, who agreed with her. But for the most part, Shana’s cause looked pretty hopeless.

She shoved her hands into her pockets and slouched back to her room. The halls were mostly empty; at this time of the day, people were generally amusing themselves before dinner. The really powerful ones mostly wanted to be as much like the elves as possible, she thought cynically. With their comforts, their entourages, their little intrigues—they did things with magic, instead of with slaves, and it was on a smaller scale, but that was what they wanted. Right down to pushing people around who didn’t want to think for themselves.
That’s
why she made them uncomfortable, because they were afraid she couldn’t be manipulated, and she had so much power… power they would like to control.

She’d been watching and listening—her few days in the slave pens had taught her a lot about that—and she’d seen the pattern to life in the Citadel. And life in the Citadel was like life in one of the Great Households of the elves. On top was Parth Agon, the chief wizard—the strongest, rather than the eldest—who liked things the way they were and did not want to see his tiny kingdom disrupted. Below him were the wizards who felt as he did, the ones given the highest positions. And below
them
, on the bottom, were the ones who might have felt differently—but saw no reason to risk themselves.

Just before this meeting she’d said as much to Zed, who’d only shrugged his shoulders. “Lots of people here escaped being killed in the nick of time,” he pointed out. “Maybe they don’t want to have to go back to living each day afraid.”

“Neither do I!” she’d exclaimed, “But I’m not going to let that keep me from doing what I know is
right!”