Elvenbane

insist on an immediate hearing, and Keoke answered even more reluctantly, :Now, then. I will summon the Lair.:

Then, without another word, the Elder sideslipped, turning on his wingtip, and began the spiral down to the bottom of the canyon. Keman waited until he had landed, then launched himself off the edge of the cliff and followed him straight down, wings folded in a stoop, backwinging at the last moment, sending sand and tumbleweeds flying as he braked to a spectacular landing on top of a rock outcropping near the center of the canyon.

Keoke's frill flared in reluctant admiration, though he said nothing; he simply turned, and took a step in the direction of the gathering-cavern.

'No,' Keman said aloud. 'Not in the dark. Not in a place where secrets breed. Up here. In the light, where truth belongs.'

Keoke half turned and looked over his shoulder, one eye-crest arched ironically. 'Isn't that a little melodramatic, Keman?' he said mildly.

Keman's spinal crest flattened with embarrassment, but before he could reply, Alara spoke from behind him; his heart jumped when he heard his mother's voice. He had been so afraid that she would be angry with him for what he had done...and yet, he'd had no other choice...

'Melodrama is the prerogative of the young and passionate, Keoke,' she said. 'But I think he is right. This should be discussed in the open, not in hiding. The Kin are accustomed to hiding. Perhaps we ought to change the thinking that leads to hiding.'

As Keman turned to his mother with surprise and gratitude, she looked up at him and sent a wordless wash of love and welcome over him; and said softly, 'I stand with you in this, Keman. I am only sorry that I was not free to do so before.'

He lowered his head to her, and she brushed his crest lightly with her wingtip, and silently sent him a bolstering tide of approval. And as the first of the Kin arrived, they turned to face them together, he on the rock, and she below him.

'... and there the matter stands,' Keman said, looking from face to face in his audience, and finding the visages of the Kin strange and difficult to read after all his time among the elves and halfbloods. 'Through no one's fault, elvenkind knows we exist; the need for secrecy is at an end, for the secret itself is out. The Kin took on a responsibility to Lashana which has been sadly neglected...and another to the halfbloods by our meddling. Would they be in such peril if it were not for the Prophecy that we took care to spread? I think not. I challenge the old ways; I call for an end to them, and for the Kin to come to the aid of the halfbloods, now, before it is too late.'

'I answer that challenge!' cried a female voice he did not recognize...though by Alara's start of surprise, she did. 'Are you willing to fight to defend it?'

'Who speaks?' Keoke called impatiently. 'Who answers the challenge?'

'I do!' replied the same voice, and the dragons crowded around Keman moved aside to let the challenger through. For one moment, as the young female dragon pushed and shouldered her way to the front of the crowd, Keman did not recognize her, she had changed so much since he had left. But then her coloring, a certain sullen look in her eyes, and the petulant cast of her features gave her away.

'Myre?' he said, bewildered.

'What, you didn't think that your sister would have the sense to see what a fool her brother is?' Myre sneered...sounding very like Rovylern. She cast a sideways, guilty glance at Alara, but did not show any sign of backing down. Instead she remained exactly where she was, feet planted stubbornly, spinal crest signaling her aggressive intentions. 'The halfbloods have no call on us,' she said scornfully. 'No two-legged animal does. Your brain has gone soft, brother, to think that we owe anything to animals. The Kin serve only the Kin. The Kin answer only to the Kin. That's the way it should be.'

:.After you left, Rovylern changed his bullying from physical to verbal...and Myre left my lair and moved in with Lori and her son, and became every bit as much of a bully as he had been,: Alara told Keman quickly. :She and Lori are two of a kind, and with Rovylern lurking in the background, Myre can intimidate just about anyone. The only difference between Myre and Rovy is that she's careful never to be caught harassing anyone. I sometimes think,: she concluded bitterly, :that I gave birth to a changeling.:

'How do you challenge me, sister?' Keman asked mildly. 'A physical contest would be blatantly unfair, don't you think?' Female dragons, once they matured, tended to be much larger than males, and Myre was no exception to that rule.

'Magic,' Myre said, and Keman thought she had an odd, sly look to her when she said it. 'Your magic against mine. Here and now.'

'Done...' he said, without thinking...and realized from the smothered gasps around him that he had made a major mistake.

But it was too late to back out now...assuming he could have. A physical challenge was out...he was small even for a male, and Myre, though not yet at her full growth, was much bigger than he was...if he had turned down magic, what did that leave?

He leapt down from his rock to the ground, and faced her; the rest of the Kin cleared well away from the combat area...and he tried not to notice his mother's glance of despair as she moved back out of the way.

He had learned things with Shana she couldn't possibly know. He had an edge she couldn't guess. He would beat her. He had to.

But the sly expression in her eyes did not change as he braced himself for the first trial. 'Let the combat begin...' said Keoke.

Ahhh!

Keman shuddered as another shock convulsed him, holding him upright, although he could no longer see and could hardly hear.

...got to hold on...it hurts...hurts...

The sounds of the crowd of Kin were growing more and more indistinct, as he tried to break Myre's hold on him, and failed.

'Enough!' Keoke roared...it sounded as if his voice were coming from the other side of the universe...

The pain stopped, and Keman collapsed in a boneless heap into the dust; dimly hearing Myre's bugle of triumph, and no longer caring. He simply lay where he had fallen, head on one side, eyes closed, the bitter taste of defeat choking him, and no less an agony than the ache of his abused flesh.

He would live...in fact, in a while, he would be mostly recovered, for recovery from magically caused hurts came swiftly for a dragon. Right now he wasn't certain if that was what he really wanted.

He'd lost. He told Shana he'd bring back help...but he'd lost. Myre didn't even cheat; she didn't have to. The magic he knew was no match for combative Kin-magic. And that was all she knew.

If he had been in halfblood form, he would have wept.

How could he face them again? How could he go back to them and tell them that the help he promised wasn't coming?

But if he didn't go back...they wouldn't have even him.

He was exiled now beyond all recalling, as good as dead; if he were to approach anyone of the Kin, they would pretend he was not there.

He waited as sounds receded; as the last of the Kin left the arena, left the 'dead one' to vanish discreetly. At least that would give him the privacy to pick himself up and take himself and his defeat away. Finally he opened his eyes, and slowly, aching in every fiber, got himself to his feet. He felt as if every scale had been separately hammered, then set on fire.

The canyon was completely empty; there wasn't even a hint that anything lived here. Somehow, that made him feel worse. Contrary to the Law, he had hoped that at least Alara would have stayed.

But...perhaps it was just as well. Now he was free to do whatever he felt had to be done. He would do it alone...but he need no longer fear the censure of anyone of the Kin.

You couldn't condemn a ghost, he told himself. You couldn't punish someone who was already dead. He didn't have anything else to bring Shana, so he would bring her what was left of his life.