Elvenbane

against the Kin as a whole. I won't speak for what she might do to individuals, though...if I were in her skin, with Rovy bullying me, I'd probably rip his head and tail off and exchange them if I found I could.'

A further silence followed, and Alara could feel passions ebbing as the other three calmed.

Keoke nodded slowly. 'Makes sense,' he admitted. 'Raise a louper on a two-horn, it thinks it's a two-horn. And...I must agree with you that Rovy is a problem unto himself.'

Alara caught herself before she snorted with contempt. That was not the way to win the others over to her side. 'There's more to it than that,' she said, as reasonably as she could. 'I'm trying to teach her that we're basically very like each other, her kind and ours. I'm trying to make her see herself as part of something, instead of estranged from it. I'm trying to show her what being part of the Kin and the world is all about, so that when she makes changes, she thinks about the consequences of those changes first. I hope that by the time I'm finished with her, she won't ever do anything that would adversely affect the Kin, no matter how trivial it may be. I love change as much as any of you, but I want it to be beneficial. And I want it under our control.'

All three heads nodded; none of them needed to be reminded about what uncontrolled change could do. 'I don't think there's any doubt that she is going to make changes,' Keoke said at last. 'But if we can control the direction of the changes...'

His eyes grew thoughtful, and a pleased expression crept over his face. 'I can't help thinking what she could do to keep the elven lords out of mischief. All they have to do is suspect she exists, and they'll be chasing shadows at every turn!'

'She'd be a better agent among the humans than any of us could ever be,' Alara reminded him. 'Think of what she could accomplish!' She voiced a possibility she had only begun to explore, figuring it was worth placing before them. 'She might even be able to awaken the powers of those humans who have magic, but are not aware of it. Then think what the elven lords would have to contend with.'

Orola nodded, very slowly. 'But we have to make sure its powers are never turned against us. Alara, you're going to have to watch this creature as carefully as you fly the Thunder Dance. The potential for change is too great to dismiss, but there's danger in this creature, danger for us.'

'I am watching her, Orola,' Alara reminded her tartly. 'Haven't I just said as much? I know the risks as well as you do. But I also know the rewards, and I think they're worth the risks.'

'I agree,' Keoke said decisively. 'And you're one of the best shamans in the Kin. If anyone can keep her from getting out of hand, you can.'

'Thank you, Keoke,' Alara said, so surprised she hardly knew what to say. Praise did not often fall from Keoke's lips. 'You know I always do my best for the Kin.'

Keoke heaved himself to his feet, and the other two followed his lead. 'Just keep an eye on the child, Alara,' he said. 'Make sure she will never get a chance to turn on us. That's all. If you'll do that, we'll keep the rest off the glide path and out of your thermals.'

Alara sighed, and bowed her head thankfully. 'That's all I've ever asked,' she replied. 'Thank you.'

Keoke considered the night sky, then abruptly heaved himself into the air, his huge wings spreading with a snap to catch a rising breeze. 'You're welcome,' he called, as Orola and Anoa strolled back towards their lairs, leaving Alara standing before hers alone. 'Just don't make a fool out of me.'

I'll be trying just as hard not to make a fool out of myself, she thought wryly, and she waved him farewell before descending into the lair and looking for the three-horn she could smell just inside. Despite her own self-doubt and worries, her mouth watered.

But hunger could not keep her from other thoughts. Keoke, my friend, I have a great deal more to lose. My reputation, my self-respect...

...my children. Especially the one with only two legs.

Shana lay in the shadow of a huge boulder, so quiet that a tiny lizard ran over her leg and paused to sun itself on her thigh, as if she were nothing more than a particularly soft rock. She didn't even twitch. She had just discovered something strange and wonderful, a new way to look at things, and if she was spotted now by the dragons she was watching, it would ruin a very rare chance to put what she had learned into practice.

Below her, three of the young dragons...dragonets no longer; they were quickly reaching adult size...were practicing shape-shifting.

Now there was nothing new about that; Shana had watched Keman shifting his form hundreds of times over the past five years. But she rarely got a chance to see any of the other dragons at the exercise, and she wanted badly to learn if what she had found today, watching Keman, was peculiar only to him, or could be used to spot any dragon in a shifted form.

If it could, she would never again have to worry about Myre or Rovy sneaking up on her in the guise of a two-horn or something equally innocuous. Or worse yet, lying in wait for her in the guise of a rock.

She unfocused her gaze and relaxed the same way she did when she was about to enter a trance, but she kept her eyes open. Then, while the youngster immediately below her was still in his shifted two-legger form, she looked slightly to one side of him.

Sure enough, in a strange way that was both seeing and not- seeing, she found him surrounded by a kind of rainbow shadow-dragon, a shadow that she could only see out of the corner of her eye.

It was as if she could see into the Out, she thought wonderingly. As if she could see where the rest of him had gone.

Keman had told her that when a dragon size-shifted, he threw most of himself into something they called the Out. It was hard work, and required quite a bit of concentration. Not all dragons were equally proficient; Rovy, for instance, couldn't manage anything much below half his size.

Which was going to make it awfully hard for him to shift into anything practical once he was a full adult, Shana thought, snickering. Or if he lived long enough to get as big as Father Dragon, he was never going to be able to shift to anything but a small hill. She doubted that anybody would believe in a two-horn the size of a long- nose.

The youngsters beneath her, though, were quite good for their age, and fully capable of shifting to the two variations of two-legger form. The adults were very insistent that the youngsters keep the two kinds separate...not that Shana could see there was a great deal of difference between the two. One kind was a little taller, a little thinner. Their coloring was consistent...very white skin, pale gold hair, green eyes. The others tended to come in several colors, none of them quite so bleached-out. The first forms made Shana think of a cave-spider she'd seen, an unusually old and large one. The pale forms had the same attenuated limbs, the same washed-out look, the same languid menace.

Well, it didn't much matter. Shana had never seen anything but a dragon wearing those forms anyway. They were useful for jobs that needed hands, or for things that required a smaller body than a dragon's.

She wondered wistfully where she came from. Maybe my real mother and I were two of the last...like the one-horns, dying out. Alara still had not had a great deal to say about Shana's birth or her kind. She always told Shana that she would find out 'when she was ready.'

So when would Shana be ready? Alara wouldn't tell her that.

Stewing away on the old question made her forget what she was trying to do. Even as she lost her concentration, the shadow-dragon faded away, and everything looked perfectly normal again.

Fewmets. She tried to get it back, but it was no use. Now all she could see down there were three young two-leggers, with two-legger shadows on the ground at their feet, and not even a hint of spectral dragon-shapes hovering behind them.

Oh, fewmets. She stirred a little, and the lizard scampered off her leg and into a crevice, its tiny mind full of alarm. It takes too much concentration; it isn't worth it, she decided. She was better off 'listening' for Rovy and Myre, and catching them when they had shifted that way. They couldn't hide what they were thinking. Not from Shana, anyway. Keman couldn't hear them...but he couldn't hear most animals, either.

It occurred to her then to wonder where Keman was. He was supposed to be joining this group about now, as soon as his lessons with Alara were over.

Suddenly, she...and the young dragons below her...doubled up with a hammer-blow of phantom pain,