Elvenbane (52 page)

She was interrupted—by an odd sound that made her look over Valyn’s shoulder, and the completely unexpected sight of a door appearing in the wall next to the fireplace and swinging open. She stopped dead in midsentence, her mouth hanging open as she stared. Valyn turned in his seat just in time to see Shadow emerge from the half-height door, beating dust from his clothing and coughing.

Her first thought was—
How did he get back there
? And her second was accompanied by a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Did every room in this place have hidden doors in it? Was that the way all elven buildings were made? If so—she would
never
feel comfortable in a building again! Not when someone could creep up on you unseen and pop out of the blank walls!

Valyn recovered first. “What were you doing in there?” he demanded, astonished. “And why did you—”

“I had to find something out,” Shadow said, interrupting him. “Listen, I am really sorry—we’re in trouble, I’ve been an idiot, and Shana’s been right all along.” His expression was a grim one, but he met all of their eyes without flinching. “Triana’s been after me, and I fell right into her trap with a grin on my face and my arms wide open. She put a glamorie on me to make into her own little tame wizard—and she intends to throw the rest of you to Cheynar’s people. I overheard her on the teleson this afternoon.” He paused for a breath, and absently rubbed his temple, as if his head hurt. “I’m sorry. I apologize. Now, we
have to
get out of here; how are we going to do it?”

“Wait a moment—if you overheard her this after noon, why did you wait until
now
to tell us?” Valyn asked, accusation in his voice and eyes.

“I couldn’t get away until now,” Shadow replied unhappily. “I didn’t want her to know I’d overheard her, so I had to keep on as if nothing had changed. Cheynar won’t be here for another two days. I didn’t think a couple of hours would matter one way or the other.”

“He’s right,” Shana said, surprising even herself, as all eyes turned towards her. “If he’d come running to one of us this afternoon, and Triana had been expecting him to be with her, she’d have known something was wrong. Valyn, you were out riding, I was in the library, and Keman was—”

“Spying among the slaves,” Keman supplied. “Looking for information that would prove to Valyn that you were not being unduly sensitive, Shana.” He smiled sheepishly. “I found any number of things, but it would seem they are no longer necessary.”

“You see?” Shana said, turning back to Valyn. “If he’d come looking for us then, Triana would have missed him,
and
we’d have wasted time trying to find each other.” She raised one eyebrow at Shadow, who nodded soberly.

“Exactly. I’ve been stupid; it wouldn’t help to compound my stupidity. But we have to get out of here
now
—because in a little while Triana is going to discover I’m gone, and she’s not going to be happy.”

Shana decided that she was not going to ask what he’d done. She had the feeling that his pride was smarting from this whole affair, and that he probably set up some surprise for Triana designed to salve that bruised pride. Unfortunately, that kind of “surprise” generally made for a great deal of trouble.

She should know; she’d given in to that temptation to salve her own bruised pride more than once.

“Ancestors!” Valyn muttered. “I wish you’d given us a little warning, Mero—how are we going to get—”

“We don’t need a thing.” Shana interrupted him, a grin of vindicated triumph on her face. “Just stay right where you are. I haven’t been
sulking
in the library, like you all thought I was. I’ve been very busy, in fact—”

Her hand sought her globe of amber, and she closed her fingers around it tightly.

“Don’t anybody move—” she warned.

Faster than a breath, she seized the power she needed from Triana, ripping it from her ruthlessly—

She fed the power through the amber, multiplying it threefold, and twisted it into the paths of the spell as she whispered the words that set the spell of transportation—

And she named the place.

“The Citadel—”

The last thing she saw was Valyn’s mouth dropping open as the room filled with light as bright and sudden as a lightning-flash—

Her stomach lurched sickeningly—

—and they were gone.

Triana smoothed her pearl-white, silken dress over her breasts and flat stomach, and preened herself in the mirror. The fabric was just barely transparent, designed more to tease than to reveal. Mero had worn her ring at dinner, and she had seen to it that the meal was one loaded with purported aphrodisiacs. Between the spell, the dinner, and this dress, Mero should be ripe for the plucking.

She tapped on his door, then let herself in without waiting for his response, and flipped the lock shut as she closed the door behind her.

She didn’t want to be disturbed by anyone, not tonight. Every indication was that Mero was not inexperienced; she was looking forward to putting him through his paces.

Mero wasn’t waiting for her in the sitting room—which was probably not surprising. He was in the bedroom, of course, and given his romantic nature he had probably left the lights turned down low, and perhaps had perfumed the air with incense—she sniffed, and thought she detected the faint scent of flowers.

She slipped towards the bedroom, and eased the door open—

“Shadow—” she whispered, then stopped, puzzled.

The bed was still made up, the room undisturbed, and both were empty.

What
—Now entirely perplexed, she pushed the door completely open, and walked normally into the bedroom.

Nothing.

Not a sign of life.

He’s hiding behind the door, and he’s going to jump out and catch me
—

But he wasn’t. He wasn’t anywhere in the suite.

She turned, slowly, unable to believe that someone might make an assignation with her and then not appear for it. And as she turned, she saw the small square of paper pinned to the pillow.

She reached for it, and opened it.

Amateur
, it said, in neatly formed script.

Nothing more.

It took a moment for her to understand what he meant—but the moment the meaning dawned on her, she was so startled that her mind went blank—

And by then, it was too late.

As she stood there, frozen with shock,
someone
reached out a magical “hand” and ripped her power from her, wrenching it away from her with a force that was physical as well as magical.

Ancestors
—

Her knees gave; she stumbled, then fell onto the bed. She tried to call for help, but could only gape like a stranded fish.

The only “sound” was the one of the spell that took her power, a jangle of discordances like the music of mad minstrels.

Who
—she thought, desperately trying to make her body work again.
How
—

But that magnificent creation that had served her so well for all these years was not responding. Her legs would not move; she could barely move her arms. As the last of her power bled away from her, and she began to black out from weakness, she tried to reach out with one hand for the bell to summon a slave.

Her vision narrowed, and sparks danced in front of her eyes.

She could feel the end of it—she almost had it—

Then—
sound
, overwhelming—the roar of an avalanche—the crash of thunder—

The transportation-spell?

And with that, she dropped into darkness.

FEAR—

Shana’s stomach lurched and twisted; she was disoriented, dizzy. Was she falling?

Fear
—
the growl of thunder
—

Sound, an unending roar, a cacophony, overwhelming, surrounding her—

—
where am I
—

Nothing—not blackness,
nothing
—all around her.

Dizzy
—
sick
—
thunder pounding the senses
—

She panicked; couldn’t remember where—what—

—and dropped with a
bump
that tumbled her rump-first down to the ground onto the lawn of the Citadel cave. The others apparently had no better luck with their landings than she did; when her head stopped spinning and she could look about, she saw them sprawled in varying degrees of disorientation beside her.

She coughed, and cleared her throat. In the near distance, where the Citadel bulked against the back of the cavern, there were shouts. Surprise, alarm, confusion; the entire Citadel had been aroused.

“I—didn’t claim it was a
quiet
spell,” she said weakly, as people poured out of the building.

Valyn had the presence of mind to cancel the magic that made Shadow look full-elven, and to cast a hasty illusion of halfblood appearance on himself; she saw the features on both of their faces blur and reform at the same moment. In the general disturbance as the transportation-spell’s effects died down, she doubted if anyone noticed the light breath of music that came with his magic.

Right now she didn’t want to even think about casting another spell.
No wonder the old ones didn’t do this often
. She had known this would be more difficult than the simpler version she and the others had used to steal goods from the elven overlords—but she had not anticipated anything like this.

Zed reached them first, running as if his feet were on fire. When he saw who was sprawling all over the grass, he slowed, then stopped beside Shana, a strange mixture of surprise, apprehension, and wry amusement on his face.

“Well, Shana,” he said, looking from her to Valyn and back again, “you certainly know how to make an entrance.”

I
don’t believe it. The one time I do something I’m sure is right and it turns out to be completely wrong
.

Shana buried her head in her hands; Keman sat down on the bed beside her, and patted her shoulder sympathetically.

She couldn’t believe what a mess she’d made. She just couldn’t believe it. She’d turned the entire place on its ear and undone hundreds of years of secrecy in one afternoon. How did she do these things?

“Hey,” said Zed. She looked up, and he handed her a cup of hot tea. “Look, it could be worse,” he continued, squatting on his heels next to her. “So, you didn’t know the transportation-spell can be traced—so what? There was no reason you should know that—and I’d be willing to bet it was only a matter of time before the elven lords learned where the Citadel was.”

“But I’m the one who broke the disguise,” she said miserably. “It wasn’t chance, or fate, it was me—doing something stupid.”

“So?” Zed didn’t look terribly worried. “There were a lot of us who wanted to face the elven lords straight on; now there’s no choice. We fight, or we get wiped out.”

“If that’s supposed to make me feel better, it doesn’t,” she told him sourly.

He grinned. “We’re not exactly helpless, you know—and anybody who’s afraid to fight can pack their things and head into the wilderness or the desert.” He paused a moment, then added, “Besides, even though they won’t tell you this, I will. The elves only know where we are in general. They
don’t
know the exact location of the Citadel. That gives us a really good tactical advantage when they move into the area to try and find us.”

“But that wasn’t what I wanted,” she protested unhappily. “I didn’t want to force anybody into anything.” She glanced sideways at Shadow and Valyn, who occupied the room’s only chair and the top of her little chest. “All I wanted was to get myself and my friends to someplace safe.”

Zed shrugged. “So it didn’t work out that way. Despite what anyone else says, I think we’re ready to take the elven lords on. Provided we aren’t taking on all of them at once.”

At that, Shadow looked up. “I’ve been keeping track of the Council through the lovely Triana,” he said, “just in case the wizards decided they weren’t going to tell
us
anything. They’re divided on it. In fact, it’s business as usual. Some of them think this is a trick by one of the others, some are certain it isn’t serious, and some just want to play games of politics with the situation. And of the ones that want to come wipe us out, most think that there isn’t more than a dozen of us. That lot is arguing about who’s to be in charge, and who is to report to whom—where the troops are supposed to come from—who’s going to supply them. It’s funny, really. While they’re debating, Dyran, Cheynar, and a couple of others are stealing a march on them and coming after us.”

Shana was surprised; first, because she hadn’t known that Shadow’s reach was that far, second, because of the elven lords’ behavior. It seemed so ridiculous—

But Zed nodded. “That was what I thought would happen. Back during the Wizard War they were united. Nowadays they’re so used to betraying each other that it’s second nature to them.
That’s
the weapon that is going to win this one for us.”

“Win?” Shana squeaked. “I’ll be happy just to survive! You haven’t seen what they can do—”

Valyn finally roused enough to take part in the conversation.

He had been acting so—flattened. As if when his plan went wrong and she took over, all ambition and energy seemed to drain out of him.

“Shana, don’t write us off the record before we even try!” He turned to Zed. “You can work that business of dividing them up even with the ones that are allied,” he said slowly. “At least you can with Dyran’s faction. No one trusts anyone in that cabal. If we can defeat them quickly, we’ll frighten the rest—and I think at that point there would probably be enough elves on the Council who are concerned only with their own skins and prosperity that we might be able to get them to sue for peace before they figure out how few we are.”

“Now
that
is what I was hoping to hear,” said a voice from the doorway. Shana’s old mentor Denelor entered, on the heels of his own words. “I’ve been studying the histories, you know,” he said, rubbing a tired eye with one finger, “and I’d noticed something about the elven lords. Since the Wizard War, every bit of real, physical fighting that’s ever been done has been fought through humans. You don’t like to risk your own lives at all, do you, lad?”

He looked directly at Valyn when he said that, and it took Shana a moment to realize that the wording of that last question was significant.

Valyn paled, his fists clenched, and he looked about him as if trying to figure a way to escape.

“Do relax, there’s a good lad,” Denelor said wearily. “I have no intention of doing anything about you, other than picking your brains for information. You there, youngster, give me that chair, will you? I’m too fat to want to stand for long. Which one are you, Mero or Keman?”

“Mero,” Shadow said, giving up the chair and taking a seat on the floor instead, relaxing under Denelor’s matter-of-fact attitude. “Keman’s on the bed. How did you know Valyn was elven?”

Denelor smiled a tired smile. “Two things, I suppose. One was his name—I know something about all the major elven lords and their heirs, and ‘Valyn’ isn’t a human name, anyway. The other was the fuss that occurred when Dyran’s heir and the heir’s bodyslave went missing at about the same time, and the fact that it was hushed up so quickly. That told me that the youngster was probably either a runaway or an abductee, and more likely the former. We don’t
all
bury ourselves under this mountain, and ignore the world outside, Shana.” That, she presumed, was for the look of surprise she must be wearing.

Denelor settled himself in the chair with a sigh. “At any rate, I keep a quiet eye on the affairs of our neighbors; I put all the facts together and added the faint glow of illusion that hangs about you, and concluded that the V’kass el-Lord Valyn and the Valyn that materialized with our Shana were one and the same.” He gave Valyn a kindly smile. “Sometime if you feel like talking, you’ll have to tell me what led you to bolt, lad.”

“Does anyone else know about him?” Shana asked anxiously.

“No,” Denelor replied, folding his hands over his stomach, “and I don’t intend to tell them. It isn’t relevant. A lad who would keep his halfblood friend—relative?—safe for years, then turn and run with him, is not the kind who would betray us. What is relevant is what you can tell us about our opposition.”

“You were right about them not wanting to risk their own lives,” Valyn said, slowly relaxing again. “That’s absolutely true. That’s why feuds never turn into assassinations. When you have as long a prospective lifespan as one of us—well, you don’t want to cut it short. If we can defeat the forces under Lord Dyran and make them think that we could just as easily defeat
anything
they’d bring against us, the Council is very likely to want to sue for peace. Especially if—”

He stopped, his expression clearly saying that he was torn between wanting to continue, and wanting to let his words remain unsaid.

“Especially if we can kill one or more of the elven leaders and bring it home to the rest that the immortals
can
be slain. Is that what you were going to say, lad?” Denelor asked softly.

Valyn nodded, reluctantly.

“That’s easier said than done, Master Denelor,” Zed said with direct matter-of-factness. “There aren’t a lot of things that’ll kill an elven lord. Magic, if you can get it past his shields. A sword, a knife, poison, if you can get within range to use them. Projectiles can be gotten rid of at a distance, so arrows are out. Except for elf-shot, and we don’t have any of that—”

“We have something like it,” Shana interrupted.
-.Keman, should we let them know what you are
?:

Keman shrugged slightly.
I don’t know why not. Between Mother and me, we’ve pretty well let the secret out
.:

:Then go ahead. Just don’t fill up the room, please.:

“Oh?” Denelor said, turning back to Shana. “And just what is this—
my word]”

Keman, who had transformed himself back into his real shape, though at less than one quarter of his real size, grinned toothily. Shana’s bed creaked and threatened to collapse, and he slid quickly from it to the floor. Zed and Mero scrambled hastily out of the way, and Zed’s eyes were as big and round as wine goblets. Shana couldn’t help herself; she chuckled, just a little, to see the otherwise unflappable Zed so thoroughly discomfited.

“Dragon-claws, Master Denelor,” Keman said, hissing the sillibants just a trifle. “You may ask Valyn if they are effective. Clippings from my claws can be made into an arrow-point, just as elf-shot can be. They pass magic-shields, and they are quite poisonous to those of elven blood.”

He transformed again, back to his halfblood shape, and Zed moved cautiously back to his place, although he kept a wary eye on the young dragon.

“My word,” Denelor said weakly. “This is—rather astonishing. But—there is nothing of magic about you, no telltale—how—”

“It’s not an illusion, Master Denelor,” Shana told him. “It’s a true shape-shift. Use an illusion-breaking spell on him and he’ll look exactly the same. That’s dragon magic, to change the shapes of things, including themselves.”

Denelor mopped his brow with his sleeve. “Well,” he said, after a long pause. “I thought I would come down here to consult with you about our present situation, then bring something to the elders as a kind of given—but I’m going to bring back a great deal more than even I bargained for. Well.” He sat there for a moment longer, looking at each pf them in turn, then heaved an enormous sigh. “Let’s get on with it, then, shall we? There’s no point in wasting time.”

Valyn slipped from tree to tree, letting his clothing blend in with the bark as he came up on the enemy’s rear.

Thank the Ancestors he finally had something to do. Something he
could
do. He felt so—useless. He hadn’t been able to think of anything for himself lately—his mind just wasn’t working. And every time Shana came up with another brilliant idea, he felt more and more inadequate. He’d assumed he would be pivotal in this whole rebellion—

Not only was he not pivotal, he wasn’t particularly useful.

It was not a good feeling. And all his life, he’d thought of women as being the useless ones—not really consciously, of course, but—it was one of the “givens,” like the fact that the sun set in the west. Shana had turned his “given” on its ear. Sometimes he half expected to find that the sun was not setting at all anymore.

Compared to that, finding himself working against Dyran was hardly worth thinking about.

Though it was odd to think of his father as the enemy. And yet, not odd at all. Somehow they had always been enemies, from the very beginning; and only now had the hostilities come out into the open. He had never really known his father, he thought, as he froze behind a tree trunk. It was strange, but he felt more kinship with old Denelor than he did with his own father.

As far as that went, he’d never really had the sense of family with anyone that the humans and halfbloods seemed to take for granted. Even Mero had always been—kind of an extension of himself. The shadow he had been nicknamed for. Mero had never seemed to have a life or a mind of his own—and one of the few times he’d balked, over handfasting to Shana, Valyn had never once hesitated to use a glamorie to change his mind.

In fact, the only time he’d done something against Valyn’s wishes when Valyn
hadn’t
used a glamorie to bring him round, was over Triana.

And was that because he didn’t think he should—or because he didn’t want to go head-to-head with Triana, he asked himself soberly.

He had found himself feeling very isolated and alone, watching the affection that Shana and Keman shared, the relationships between the older wizards and the children they had adopted. There was room in a relationship like that for quarrels and disagreements, for each party going his own way. There didn’t seem to be that kind of freedom in the bond between himself and Shadow. It would indubitably have been better for both of them if there had been.