Elvenbane

happen to him?

She shivered as she realized that the answer was 'yes' and that no excuses would be accepted.

'If you would rise, do so alone,' she heard in her mind, and recalled the gold- bedecked woman at Lord Dyran's side, watching the smith writhe in agony at her feet, her face impassive.

The lesson was there, and easy to read.

Rise alone and fall alone. If he had cared half as much for me as he did for the purity of his blades...but I was less than a blade, and he had a replacement standing ready.

As she took each step, each breath in agony, there was a hotter fire burning in her mind. Once Lord Dyran had grown tired of her, she was of less use than one of his pensioners. And he no longer cared what happened to her.

The pensioners...once she had scorned them; the weak in power, or elven 'lords' fallen on hard times, who had lost too much in the ever-renewing duels. The duels were fought by their trained gladiators, but they represented very real feuds, and the losses incurred when their fighters lost were equally real...

Twice as pathetic were the sad cases whose magic was too weak to accomplish more than self-protection. Though these 'pensioners' could not be collared, they could be coerced in other, more subtle ways. They often served as overseers, as chief traders, and in other positions of trust. They were neither wholly of the world of the High Lords, nor pampered as luxuriously as the treasured slaves, such as concubines and entertainers. Serina had pitied them, once.

No. Better to fall, she thought, than eke out a miserable, scrabbling existence like theirs...

Better to have reigned at least for a little while; to have stood at Lord Dyran's side, and answered to no one but her master... to have feared only purely mortal trickery. Unlike the pensioners, whose every action was a move in a game they did not understand.

'So,' Dyran said, regarding the top of the trembling overseer's head, as the elven subordinate knelt before him. 'It would seem the quota cannot be met.' He was all in black today, and the milky light from the skylight overhead made his hair gleam like silver on his shoulders. He had a look about him that Serina knew well, a look that told her his mood was a cruel one, and she hoped he would appease it on the person of his overseer.

'No, my lord,' the elven overseer replied, his voice quavering. There was nothing in his appearance...other than his clothing...to tell a human of the vast social gulf between himself and Dyran. His hair, tied back in a neat tail, was just as long and silky, just as pale a gold. His eyes were just as green, his stature equal to Dyran's. Both had the sharply pointed ear-tips of their race, and both appeared to be fighting men in the prime of life. The overseer wore riding leathers; Dyran fine velvet. But there were differences between them not visible to the human senses; differences that made Dyran master. 'There have been too many injuries, my lord, to...'

'Due to your neglect,' Dyran reminded him silkily. Serina saw that his goblet of wine had warmed, and replaced it with a chilled one. He ignored her, all his attention bent on his victim.

The overseer blanched. 'But my lord, I told you that the forge chains needed...'

'Due to your neglect,' Dyran repeated, and settled back into his ornately carved wooden chair, steepling his long, slender hands before his chin. 'I'm afraid I'm going to have to teach you a lesson about caring for your tools, Goris. I believe you have a daughter?'

'Yes, my lord,' the overseer whispered. He glanced up briefly, and Serina noted that he had the helpless, hopeless look of a creature in a trap. 'But she is my only heir...'

Dyran dismissed the girl with a gesture. 'Wed her to Dorion. He's been pestering me for a bride, and his quota has been exceeded. We'll see if his line proves more competent than yours.'

The overseer's head snapped up, emerald eyes wide with shock. 'But, my lord!' he protested. 'Dorion is...'

He stopped himself, and swallowed suddenly, as his pupils contracted with fear.'

Lord Dyran leaned forward in his seat. 'Yes?' he said, with venomous mildness. 'You were about to say...what?' He raised one eyebrow, a gesture Serina knew well. It meant he was poised to strike, if angered.

The overseer was frozen with terror. 'Nothing, my lord,' he whispered weakly.

'You were about to say, 'Dorion is a pervert,' I believe,' Dyran told him, his voice smooth and calm, his expression serene. 'You were about to take exception to the fact that Dorion prefers human females to tedious young elven maids. As do I. As you finally remembered.'

'No, my lord,' the overseer protested, barely able to get the words out. Serina noted that he was trembling slightly, his hands clenched to keep from giving himself away.

Dyran held him frozen with his eyes alone, a bird helpless in the gaze of a deadly viper. 'You would be correct to believe that Dorion prefers his concubines to insipid little elven maids. Nevertheless, Dorion intends to do his duty and breed an heir, however distasteful and depressing that may be. As I did. And you have a suitable daughter. Nubile, of breeding age. Barely, but close enough. Nubile is all that Dorion requires; frankly, I think he might even prefer it if she were unwilling. You will wed her to Dorion, Goris. See to it.'

The overseer went white-lipped, but nodded; rose slowly and painfully to his feet, and turned to leave.

'Oh, and Goris...'

The overseer turned, like a man caught in a nightmare, his face gray with dread.

'See to those forge chains yourself. You have enough magic for that.' The elven lord smiled sweetly. 'That is, if what you have told me is true. Barely enough, but that will do. If you show you are willing to exert yourself on my behalf, I might arrange for your daughter to be divorced once she breeds.'

Dyran laughed as the overseer plodded to the door, his head bowed, his shoulders sagging. Serina knew why he laughed. If Goris had 'just barely' enough magic to mend the forge chains, that meant that he would be lying flat on his back with exhaustion for weeks afterwards, and be unable to use what magic he did have without suffering excruciating pain for a month or more.

As for Goris's young daughter, the elven overseer Dorion would undoubtedly bed her as soon as he wed her, and keep bedding her lovelessly until she conceived, then abandon her for the arms of his concubines.

Dyran reached for his wine and waited for his seneschal to bring him the next piece of business. Serina refilled his goblet as soon as he removed his hand from it. She had no pity for Goris's daughter. If the girl wanted to succeed, she would have to be as ruthless as any other elven lord or lady. If she could not manage that, she deserved what came to her.

Goris doesn't know that his forge chains were sabotaged. That was one of the many advantages of being at Dyran's side constantly; when the damage was first reported, Serina had been privy to the report, and to the knowledge that they had been weakened by magic. The saboteur might even have been Dorion; for the moment, however, Dyran chose to assume it was the work of one of his rivals on the Council. It might well have been; that kind of sabotage was typical for the Council members, as well as those who aspired to Council seats. It was just one more move in the never-ending cycle of feuds and subterfuge.

It was a game that Goris and Dorion would have played, had they been equal to it. But their weak positions and equally weak magic ensured that they would always be in the service of a stronger elven lord. Only one thing stopped the elven lords short of outright assassination of each other: births were so rare among them that an elven pair might strive for decades before producing a single child, and once wholesale assassination started, the perpetrator would find himself on the top of everyone's list as the next victim.

With an entire world to plunder, one would think that the overlords would despoil and move on. But the elven lords did take a reasonable amount of care with their properties...which sometimes made Serina wonder at this unusual restraint. They did not take an equal amount of care with their human resources, however, humans birthed often, and there were always more slaves on the way when the current batch was used up. Only the special, and the skilled, were valuable.

'If you would rise, rise alone.'

Serina was very careful to keep herself counted among the 'valuable.'

She was proud of Dyran; already in the past few months he had eroded Lord Vyshall's power by planting a rumor with just enough truth to be believed that he was thinking of divorcing his current lady and arranging another marriage. He had traded information on the vices of Lady Reeana for that bit of news. And he had managed to buy