Elvenbane (33 page)

They wanted something, she thought suspiciously. Nobody would do this without wanting something. But she had learned enough in the slave pens to keep her mouth shut on that observation. Whatever it was that they wanted, she’d learn it soon enough. As long as it wasn’t the secret of dragon-skin…

“What were all those rumors about’dragon-skin’?” his companion asked Rennis. “It was all over the city. Something that was going to make a fortune for the Lord whose bondlings found the dragons. If I hadn’t been staying in character, I’d have laughed my
kejannies
off. I’ve never heard so much bunk in my life!”

Rennis shrugged. “Ask the girl, Zed,” he said shortly, turning to work on his own horse’s harness. “I heard less than you did, and I didn’t bother to read Tarn before I put him out.”

Zed spend a moment with his packs before finally turning reluctantly to Shana. “So,” he said in a condescending tone, “what was all this about dragon-skin?”

She decided to lie and see if she could get away with it. If these people were reading her mind all the time, they’d
know
if she was lying. But if they weren’t—or if she was stronger than they were—they would have no idea. It would be a good test, since she would then know exactly how private her thoughts were.

“I found these little lizards in the desert,” she said boldly. “They had really beautiful colors, mostly because they were poisonous enough to drop a full-grown one-horn.”

“They could drop an
alicorn!”
Zed was clearly impressed. “I thought nothing could poison those things but their own spite! That’s one nasty lizard, girl!”

Shana nodded solemnly, encouraged at his response.

Evidently Zed, at least, was unable or unwilling to test her thoughts. “It’s funny, in the desert, things that are really deadly seem to be really pretty.”

Rennis looked up from his work and smiled. “That is because nature has evolved them so that their colors advertise their danger to other creatures.”

Shana nodded; that was exactly what Foster Mother had said, though not in the same words. “
Most poisonous creatures are brightly colored, because they do not need to protect themselves with camouflage. And sometimes, their pretty colors attract the foolish and unwary to become their dinner
.”

She continued her tale-spinning. “Anyway, since they were really poisonous, they were pretty easy to kill as long as you did it from a distance; they couldn’t move very fast, and they liked to spend a lot of time sunning. I started killing them because I didn’t want any of them being where I was sleeping; I was pretty good at getting them with rocks. But it seemed a waste to just kill them—I couldn’t eat them, they were poisonous to eat, too, so I started skinning them and I made a tunic out of the skins. The men that found me called it’dragon-skin,’ I don’t know why. And they wouldn’t believe me when I told them where it came from.”

Zed snorted in disgust, and shook his head so that his forelock flopped into his eyes. “Elves! There’s always got to be a secret; someone’s always got to be hiding something. They couldn’t even tell their own mothers a straight story, and they don’t believe anyone else would, either.”

For some reason, her story seemed to make Zed a little friendlier, at any rate, he stopped scowling at her and started explaining things, while he unpacked what seemed to be three sets of bedding.

“We’re going to spend the night camped out here in the woods,” he said, pulling a metal bowl, and some things Shana didn’t recognize, out of the bags he’d had tied behind him during the ride. He looked up at Shana, and raised an eyebrow at her doubtfully. “You aren’t going to have any problem with that, are you? This is pretty rough camping. I mean, there’s no showers, no real beds, and not a lot to eat—”

It was her turn to look sardonic. “I spent most of my life in hills drier than this,” she pointed out. “With less cover and less to pile up between me and the rocks. I’ve slept with runner-birds and two-horns, on sand. I’ve caught my own food. I survived a sandstorm.”

The younger man blinked, his jaw dropping. “Oh,” Zed said weakly, somewhat taken aback. “You really
are
a wild child, aren’t you?”

She shrugged. “If you know so little about me,
why
did you rescue me?” she asked, voicing the question that had been eating her alive since the moment Rennis had told her how much gold and effort they had expended on her part.

“Because of the power, child,” Rennis said from the other side of the clearing where he was unpacking his goods, entering the conversation again. He stood up, and walked toward her. “Magic is—noisy, so to speak. It makes something like a mental’sound’; the more magic, the more sound, unless you are very, very good—good enough to mask that sound. The more
power
, the more sound. Your collar inhibited your magic, yes—but to do so, it required power, and so created a sound. In your case, a very
loud
sound, which told those of us that could hear it that your own power was very great indeed. That was why we came to save you—your potential power is enormous, and well worth the risk. Now, would you care for something to eat?”

The abrupt change of subject took her by surprise, and she only nodded. Rennis went back to his bags and began rummaging through them. As Shana watched him, rubbing her feet, a question occurred to her. One that she did not ask.

Why would they need someone with a lot of power—and need her badly enough to risk getting caught themselves?

Rennis returned, and gave her a piece of fruit and some hard bread and a bit of dried meat. She thanked him, and since her legs still ached, stayed where she was while he and Zed set about making a campsite.

What did they want her for, she wondered.

But the answer was not forthcoming.

THUNDERCLOUDS PILED BLACKLY Overhead,
and the rumble of distant thunder was a constant undercurrent to the argument. “
No
!” Keman shouted, his tail lashing. “I don’t believe you, Mother! Shana is my sister, she’s more my sister than that lazy lump of spite everyone else calls my sister! She is in danger, and you took me away before I could help her! And I’m going back there, and nothing you can say is going to stop me!”

“Keman—” His mother glanced over her shoulder uneasily; they were arguing in the middle of the Lair valley, and his shouting was beginning to attract a crowd.

“I told you, I’m going back, and you can’t stop me!” he repeated, uncomfortably aware that his voice was cracking from the strain, which wasn’t doing much for the confident, adult image he was trying to project.

“Maybe she cannot,” a voice rumbled warningly behind him, “but
we
can. The halfblood was cast out, young Keman, and there’s an end to it.”

Keman managed to suppress the immediate reaction of turning round about and cowering submissively to Keoke. The time was over for submission, and the fact that Keoke was an Elder had very little bearing on the matter. Keoke was
wrong
, and Keman had decided on the flight home, ignobly carried in his mother’s claws, that he was no longer going to submit tamely to injustice, even if it was delivered by an Elder.

“Shana was punished, when
Rovy
should have been, and you all know it, Mother! I am
not
going to stand here and let your cowardice hurt her any—”

A wing-buffet from behind sent him rolling end over end, coming up against a rock, and sprawling ungracefully at the foot of the cliff.

Keoke towered over him, the Elder’s eyes red with anger, but it was to Keman’s mother he spoke, not to Keman.

“That is beyond the bounds, even for
your
son, shaman,” Keoke growled. “I suggest that you confine him to your lair until he has learned some manners
and
some concern for the Kin instead of placing so much importance on his own peculiar ideas of justice.”

Alara hung her head as the rest of the dragons around her rumbled their agreement. Keman stood up, shaking his head to clear it, and found himself surrounded too closely even to allow him to spread his wings. He had no doubt that if he tried, the others would seize them, and too bad if the membranes tore in the process.

He was “escorted” to the lair, his mother trailing along behind, and he sulked every step of the way.

Rocks for brains and stones for souls, every one of them
, he thought angrily, making no effort to shield his thoughts, and not caring who happened to overhear.
Too stupid to change and too complacent to want to. If we were back Home right now, they’d probably refuse to use the Gate! Hidebound, overfed, underexercised, feckless, selfish, prejudiced, unreasonable, obstinate
—

:That will be quite enough, Keman
,: his mother said sharply.
.-Everyone in the Lair knows your opinion by now, I’m sure
.:

Good
, he thought.
:Fine, let them cast
me
out too
,: he replied bitterly. .
I deserve it as much as Shana. After all, I didn’t sufficiently humble myself to Rovy, so obviously I provoked him into a justifiable attack on
—:

:I said
enough,
Kemanorel
,: his mother interrupted. Warned by her tone, Keman subsided until they both were deep inside the lair. Their escort had tactfully remained outside.

Alara paused; Keman didn’t. He kept going right past her, head down, tail dragging, making straight for the dubious sanctuary of his own cavelet.

“Keman,” she said tentatively.

“What?” he replied churlishly, smoldering with anger and making no effort to hide it.

“Keman, I’ll find Shana, and I’ll take her somewhere safe,” she said. “I’ll do my best—”

He turned, and looked her straight in the eyes. “Mother,” he said coldly and clearly, “I don’t believe you.”

And with that, he flung himself into his cave, extinguished the light, and curled up in the dark with his back to the entrance.

He waited, while Alara stood just outside, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Finally she left, without saying a word.

Thunder echoed down through the entrance of the lair, and the earth shook with it, even this far underground. This would be a storm of monumental force—

Which suited Keman’s plans entirely.

Keman waited a moment to see if his mother would return, but there was no sign of her. But rather than creep to the entrance of his cave and look, he stretched himself out on his hoard, rested his chin on his foreclaws, and closed his eyes.

He reached out, carefully, delicately, with his mind.

He made no attempt to make contact with those minds he sensed around him, only to identify who they were and, more importantly, where.

In the passageway leading to the rear entrance, swelling with self-importance, was Myre. Just beyond her, lurking outside the entrance, Rovy. Predictably, the bully was lurking
above
the entrance, so that he could drop down on Keman if he tried to escape that way. And lying across the front entrance was his mother, her mind dark with guilt.

So. They thought they had him pinned down.

They thought they’d covered all the entrances.

But none of them had accompanied Shana on her little rounds of exploration, and none of them knew that the wall at the rear of the storage caverns that separated Alara’s lair from an empty one was no longer quite intact.

Keman slunk out of his cave, belly flat to the ground, his scaled hide changed to a rough blue-gray texture that matched the stone around him. Whenever he thought he heard or sensed something, he froze. Unless someone knew exactly what to look for, they never would have spotted him.

He reached the storage caves without incident, while thunder continued to roll down the long, echoing tunnels of the lair, giving only a hint of the fury outside.

He took his time, carefully displacing stones so that they wouldn’t rattle against each other and alert Myre or his mother. He considered, briefly, trying to build it up again from inside, then decided against it. He wouldn’t be back to need this particular escape route again. He had every intention of seeing to it that he never set eyes on another of the Kin.

The next lair was a small one, in poor repair.

Thunder pounded through it, echoing off every wall as clearly as if he stood beneath the open sky. Fitful flashes of directionless light accompanied it. He picked his way carefully across the stone-strewn floor, sometimes catching a claw on a stray rock, or stubbing a toe painfully. Fortunately he and Shana had fully explored this little retreat; and once he reached the far wall, he saw clearly what he had been watching for: the flickering blue fire of lightning, illuminating the ceiling and the chimney-hole that pierced the center dome of the lair.

That hole was his route to freedom, which would take him outside above the heads of everyone watching for him, under cover of the storm.

All he had to do was reach it.

He sighed, transformed his claws into something much more suited to rock-climbing. Talons thickened, straightened into short, hard spikes; claws became more handlike, and covered with tough skin. He set all four feet into the wall, and began his ascent.

Outside nothing was visible but a tree-covered hill. There was no sign of anyone living here, much less all this!

Shana stood at the entrance to the cave, with the mage-curtain sparkling behind her, and gawked without shame. If the Kin ever saw this, it would start a whole new fashion! Buildings inside a cave—and this one must be bigger than that place they held her in. She still couldn’t believe it.

“This is the Citadel,” Rennis said, waving his hand at the edifice beyond. “You can’t see all of it, of course; the old wizards used a lot of the tunnels and caverns behind the building as well. That tripled the size of the inhabited section, at least at the height of our glory. So, there it is: the Citadel, never discovered, never taken, not even when the wizards themselves were defeated.”

Even in ruins, with the facade of the building crumbling from age, and what plaster remained spotted with mildew, it was an impressive sight. The ceiling of the cave was hidden, as in the elven lords’ buildings, behind a soft, amber glow. Unlike the little light-balls created by the dragons, this magically created light-source illuminated clearly everything in the main cavern. The shield-wall spell across the entrance, which would admit only those it was keyed to, effectively hid the reality of the Citadel behind an illusion of a shallow, uninteresting rocky cavity in the hillside, floored with dry leaves and sand and hosting only a spider or two.

This was not a water-carved cave as was the lair—or at least, there was no sign here of the hand of nature. Floor, walls, and ceiling were smooth, unmarked expanses of rock. A shallow staircase, also carved from the living rock, led down to the floor of the place. The entire hill had been hollowed out by magic, energies still resonating faintly in the walls, with the massive, yet graceful building dominating the farther wall, and artificially nurtured plants and trees growing right up to the staircase at their feet. Sheep grazed in little white clumps across the cavern, completely unconcerned that their backs were being warmed by magic, and not natural sunlight.

A stone-paved path led across a lawn of rough, sheep-cropped grass towards the building. The Citadel was made of the same yellow stone as the cavern, constructed as completely unlike an elven lord’s hall as possible. This place was multistoried, and virtually all the space that was not load-bearing was devoted to windows looking out on the artificial park.

Zed, growing impatient, pushed past them, muttering something.

Over the yellow stone, plaster had been applied, to make the building glow a pure, unsullied white.

It must have been magnificent when it was new, Shana thought, wishing that she could have seen it.

Surely it had gleamed in its little green park like a moonstone on velvet.

Now most of the windows were dark, empty sockets. The plaster had fallen from the stone, leaving large patches of yellow. The stonework itself was cracked, and the grass was taking over the path. The trees and bushes had been allowed to spread without hindrance, and were shaggy and unkempt, except where the sheep had nibbled them.

Still, there was something impressive about it even yet. Certainly taken as a unit, with the building and the cavern that housed it counting as “the Citadel,” it was the single most remarkable piece of human handiwork Shana had ever seen. They rivaled even the elven-built city in some ways, because the city had been mostly built by human hands, not elven magic. The Citadel was entirely halfblood work, and constructed entirely by magic.

And that it all stood after these many hundreds of years was a further testament to the powers of those old wizards.
They must have been so powerful
…

“Well, come along, Shana,” Rennis said, patting her on the shoulder, startling her. “You have a lot of things you have to do so you can get settled in.” He walked forward and down the steps, leading his horse carefully so that it didn’t stumble.

“I do?” she said, following him, while Zed strode ahead of them stiffly, already leading his horse up the path to the Citadel.

“Of course,” Rennis replied indulgently, looking back over his shoulder at her. “You’ll have to meet your master, be shown your quarters, learn where everything is—”

“Wait!” Shana said, stopping dead in the middle of the path, alarmed at the word “master.”

“I thought you said there weren’t any slaves here!”

“What?” Rennis turned back to her with a face full of astonishment. “Of course there aren’t any slaves—”

She planted her feet far apart, and set her hands on her hips. “Then why am I going to have a master?” she asked, raising her chin aggressively.

To her surprise—and anger—Rennis began to laugh. She’d had more than enough of being laughed at lately, she thought with annoyance. It wasn’t
her
fault she didn’t understand things! She would very much have liked to see how
he
would do, plopped down in the middle of the Lair!

“I’m sorry, child,” Rennis said—though he didn’t sound in the least sorry. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “I keep forgetting how little you know of us. Your ‘master’ will be a senior wizard, Denelor Vyrthan, and he will be your ‘master’ only in the sense that he is the master of his magical abilities and your teacher, while you will be his apprentice and his pupil. Along with several other young wizards, of course. Mind, you
will
be expected to clean up and cook for him, and do a few other things for him; that’s what apprentices do to pay for their teaching. But you’ll have several other youngsters to share the work with you.”

“Oh,” Shana replied, since some sort of reply seemed in order. “All right, then. But I can’t cook.”

“I suppose not,” Rennis replied thoughtfully. “Well, you ought to learn. If you go out on a journey, how do you expect to get your meals otherwise?”

She’d eat them raw, of course, she thought derisively. What was wrong with that?

“Now, first things first,” Rennis said, resuming his journey towards the building. “Let’s see about your quarters…”

Shana had somehow gotten the impression that living among the wizards would be very like living among the Kin.

She learned that in some ways she had been right, but in most ways she was completely wrong.

Dragons seldom needed to “clean up” anything, with the exception of Keman, who needed to clean the pens of his pets, sometimes daily. But that was a simple process of raking out excrement and throwing down fresh sand or straw.

When Shana had been held in the slave pens, there hadn’t been anything to “clean up” either. Slaves owned nothing, their bedding was taken away periodically and exchanged for new, their tunics taken away daily, and they themselves washed daily.