Elvenbane (41 page)

He looked up at her, and shook the hair out of his eyes. “But what if I’m not getting any more power with this thing?” he asked petulantly.

Shana sighed, and dark Elly rolled her eyes and shrugged. Elly, several years younger than Kyle, had already mastered the basics, and was working on finesse.

Shana decided to let
her
explain. Maybe he’d pay attention to someone he knew. “Lens-shaped stones
focus
, Kyle,” Elly said slowly and carefully. “It’s the
crystals
that increase power. You’re using a cabochon-cut stone; you could push from now’till next spring and still have the same amount of power going in as coming out of there. That stone is going to concentrate the power to a little point—”

Someone pounded on the wooden door of the room Shana and her little circle were using as a meeting place. All conversation stopped dead, and Shana started guiltily; and she wasn’t the only one to jump. Not that they were doing anything
wrong
, but none of the senior wizards actually knew anything about these meetings. They weren’t forbidden—but if the senior wizards knew about them, they
might
be.

Operating on the principle that what the authorities didn’t know about, they couldn’t forbid, Shana had taken great care to see that they didn’t learn about the lessons in the first place. She didn’t see any reason why she should share the new knowledge she had been gaining with people who weren’t going to use it—or at least, weren’t going to use it for anything useful. .

So the meetings were held in one of the empty rooms in the maze of corridors winding deeply into the living rock of the Citadel. And the only people who knew which room it was were her fellow apprentices—and Zed.

“Shana!” It was Zed’s voice, muffled by the door, but recognizable. “Shana, it’s me! I’ve got something to tell you! It’s important!”

Shana jumped to her feet and hurled the door open quickly. Zed slipped inside as soon as she had it open a crack, and shut it behind him. “Listen,” he said, looking around at all of them with a peculiarly intense expression on his face. “Do you people really intend to start
doing
something about what’s going on out there, instead of sitting on your thumbs? Or are you all talk and no action?”

“Why?” Shana demanded, a stir of excitement and anticipation prickling the back of her neck.

“Because I just found out that one of Lord Treves’s overseers is going to cull about a dozen kids, that’s why,” Zed said, anger creeping into his voice, a fleeting expression of outrage moving across his face like a shadow. “And the mud-clods in charge around here won’t do one damn thing to stop them!”

Kyle blanched; he’d very nearly been “culled” himself, and only escaped when his mother smuggled him out and left him in the woods. “W-why not?” he stammered. “Th-they’ve intervened on Treves’s land before! Wh-what’s stopping them?”

Zed leaned back against the door, and crossed his arms, all trace of his earlier emotion gone, as if it had never been. “Because,” he drawled, “this time the kids are all full-human. They’ve got the human magic, that’s why they’re being culled. Master Parth doesn’t see any reason to help mere humans, especially not when the overseers already have all the uncollared kids locked up, and we’d have to actually break them out.”

“Master Parth is—not the only answer around here,” Shana said flatly, cold anger settling just under her breastbone. “And yes,
I’m
ready to do something.” She looked around her, challenge in her gaze. “What about the rest of you?”

“You can count
me
in,” Kyle said immediately, though he was still pale, and looked more than a little frightened.

“And me,” Elly added, an eye-blink after him.

There was no dissension, and no hesitation; the rest followed Shana’s lead in agreeing to help within a heartbeat of one another.

“Fine,” Zed said with satisfaction and approval. He pushed away from the door and joined them. The rest of the apprentices looked up at him expectantly. “Here’s what’s going to happen. The overseers don’t actually
know
which kids have the wizard-powers, so they rounded up every uncollared child in the area and they’re going to be testing them tomorrow. I know who they are, and the kids all know who they are. And if we work fast, and together, we should be able to get them out of the pen before the overseers find out which ones are the kids they really want. So, first off, have any of you ever seen the holding pen at Treves’s manor?”

Kyle had, as Shana knew. Kyle had most
certainly
seen it; he’d been
in
it before he was taken by his mother to be left for the wizards to find.

Kyle didn’t hesitate; he grabbed a stick of charcoal and a bit of scrap paper and began drawing a map for the others. Within moments they were huddled together over the drawing, proposing and discarding plans.

Shana turned back to Zed, to see that he was grinning from ear to ear.

“You
planned
this, didn’t you?” she said accusingly, whispering so that the others wouldn’t overhear. “You did—I know you did—”

“Not
this
, exactly,” he admitted, “but I knew something like this would come up. I’m getting tired of Faith’s attitude about full-humans. I’ve
been
tired of the way he won’t interfere in any situation that looks the tiniest bit risky, and I’ve felt that way for a long time. And after I saw how you were shaping up, I was hoping you were going to put some spine into some of the ‘prentices so we could have a group to work with. One or two couldn’t make much difference—but a group this big can.”

“I tried to put some spine into some of the masters,” she said sourly, “but it didn’t work.”

Zed’s only reply was a snort. Then he leaned over the shoulders of the huddled ‘prentices, and studied Kyle’s sketched map.

“All right—” he said, and they quieted down so quickly that Shana was consumed with envy. “This is what I’d do____”

The fire crackled, and scented candles burned all over the room, imparting a warm light no mage-made glow could duplicate. Parth Agon sipped his stolen wine, and frowned at the goblet. Not because of the bouquet of the wine—
that
was fine. It was something else entirely that left a sour taste in his mouth.

The new ‘prentice, Shana, to be precise.

He turned the goblet in his hands, watching the play of light over the matte metal surface without really seeing it. Shana was a problem, and was likely to become a greater one.

Somehow, some way, she had learned to shield her mind even from
him
. Somehow she had acquired the power to keep that shielding intact against all of his efforts to penetrate it. That was cause enough for alarm. Parth had gotten and held his power by knowing
exactly
what the others were thinking at all times. Shana represented a disturbing blank spot in his knowledge.

Furthermore, she had begun teaching a carefully chosen circle of her peers how to accomplish exactly the same thing. The blank spot was spreading. He was not pleased. And that was by no means all…

She was a bad influence, he brooded, holding his goblet in both hands as he slumped in his chair. She was asking questions the masters would rather not answer—and that he would just as soon she didn’t ask. Why the wizards were remaining in hiding, for instance; never interfering except when there was no chance they could be detected—and why they wouldn’t aid humans, even those with wizard-powers of their own. She was implying that they were cowards, lazy, or both. She was encouraging the ‘prentices to think about acting directly against the elves.

The ‘prentices didn’t like the answers they were getting from their masters. Or the lack of answers. And it was entirely possible they’d started to act on their own.

That thought led inevitably to another.

I’m losing control.

That was the worst thought of all; his hands tightened on the cool metal of the goblet as he gritted his teeth in carefully restrained anger. The candles flickered in a bit of draft.

She was working against him. But she was only a child—she couldn’t be doing this on her own. So who was behind
her
? Who in the Citadel was teaching her these things? It wasn’t Denelor… it couldn’t be. That lazy fool couldn’t have taught her
half of
what she had learned this winter.

But if it wasn’t Denelor, then who was it?

He ran down the entire list of senior wizards in his mind, and couldn’t find a connection between any of them and Shana. Half of them didn’t even know she existed; they were lost in their little otherworlds of illusion, trance, and daydream. The other half didn’t
care
she existed. They played out their dance of control and power within the microcosm of the Citadel, and cared nothing for the outside world. And none of them would have been willing to risk putting their precious safety in the hands of these reckless children, if they’d known what their ‘prentices were up to.

But dealing with them—which really meant dealing with their ringleader, Shana—presented something of a problem. She hadn’t actually
done
anything yet, and neither had they. Parth couldn’t prove that she was even thinking of it, and even if he could, thinking was no crime. Until they made an overt action that truly, demonstrably, endangered the Citadel, he could only watch her.

And even if he caught her at something—aiding halfbloods to escape to the Citadel without her master’s permission, for instance—there were still limits to the punishments he could or dared impose on her.

He couldn’t expel her from the Citadel; the elven lords would catch her before very long. And as soon as they questioned her, the elves would know about the halfbloods.

He wished passionately that it was Shana’s neck between his hands, rather than the goblet. He would give so much to be able to strangle the baggage… which he couldn’t do even if he caught her red-handed. There were laws about that, laid down because of what had divided the wizards at the end of the war.
If
she were caught and
If
the entire populace of the Citadel found her guilty of acting against the Citadel, the worst that could be done to her would be to send her into the desert, back where she came from.

He couldn’t “dispose” of her either; she hadn’t actually
done
anything, and the others would certainly take exception to his taking the law into his own hands on a mere supposition.

I
wish I knew what she wanted
.

I wish I knew who was behind her!

He had never been so frustrated in his life. From the time he had reached the Citadel and became the protected protege of the most senior wizard of the time, to this moment, his life had been one smooth climb to the high seats of power. No one had ever thwarted him before. No one had ever
challenged
him before. He was not enjoying the experience.

He sat, slumped over in his chair, for the remainder of the afternoon, trying to think of some way he could either dispose of the girl or control her, and coming up with nothing. The candles guttered down to the sockets, and his own ‘prentice—
not
one of the young rebels—came in to replace them, and still he was unable to think of an answer to the problem.

Finally he was forced to conclude that he was going to have to leave her alone. He set the empty goblet down on the little table beside his chair, and sat up a bit straighter, trying to divorce himself from the emotions that raised in him. He stroked his beard with one hand, forcing himself to accept that solution.

He decided, slowly, to leave her alone. Unless she brought the elves’ attention down on the halfbloods. Then he could move against her.

He nodded to himself, and refilled the goblet, taking it up again. Oddly enough, the conclusion was not as hard to take as he’d thought it would be. It was not an end; it was merely a delay. The girl
was
reckless; she took wild chances. With luck, one of those risks would catch up with her.

And then
—
she’s mine
.

With a creak of tortured metal, the stem of the goblet bent double beneath the pressure of his tightening fingers. Parth Agon did not notice.

“Dear Ancestors, I’m bored,” Valyn said, flinging down his book on the cushion of the window seat, and staring out at the gloomy, dark pine woods beyond his window. Cheynar’s manor was unlike any Valyn had ever seen before; it had none of the glowing ceiling lights that most of the elven-made buildings he’d been in boasted. Instead, illumination was supplied by day with natural light, through skylights and windows. And at night, Valyn either had to glow his own magic-lights, or make do with lanterns and candles. Magic was clearly at a premium on
this
estate.

And yet, Cheynar was considered a power to be reckoned with among Dyran’s allies and underlings.

Today Valyn was considering lighting a glow even though it was not much past noon. The sky outside was a flat, dark, slate-gray. Rain dripped down through the branches, and more rain misted the air between the window and the trees.

Shadow sneezed, and rubbed his nose. “I thought you were supposed to be learning something from Lord Cheynar,” he observed with a sniff. “But all we’ve done since you got here is sit around this suite or go out riding in the rain.” Shadow sniffed again.

“Riding in the rain, and catching colds,” Valyn replied, immediately guilty. “Sorry, Shadow. That cold of yours is
my
fault. We shouldn’t have gone out yesterday. I didn’t mean to act like a spoiled brat about the riding, but I just couldn’t stand being inside one moment more—”

“I know, I know—” Shadow blew his nose, and took a long drink of hot tea. “And it’s not your fault elves don’t catch colds. I just wish I shared that immunity.”

Valyn shrugged apologetically. “I wish I could cure it.” He looked back outside; the gloomy woods had not changed a fraction. “I wish we had something to do. Anything.”

“I guess we should both be just as glad Lord Cheynar hasn’t been paying much attention to us,” Shadow observed, as he joined Valyn in the window seat. “It surely makes it a lot easier to stay out of his way.”