Elvenbane

other.

'So,' he asked, reaching for a piece of bread, 'still think that sandstorms are all bad?' He laughed at his own joke, passing the big man another chunk of bread for himself.

Ardan chuckled. 'Not if they blow a bit of sand like that our way,' he replied. 'In fact, if they'd do that more often, I could come to like them!'

Keman hid in the ruined tower, and watched the humans from behind its meager protection. He had never been terribly good at reading thoughts, even the thoughts of one of the Kin, but these humans were all possessed of something that kept him from gleaning even the most rudimentary information from their minds. He remembered his mother saying something about 'collars'...and since they all seemed to be wearing metal or leather collars around their necks, it seemed safe to assume these collars were responsible. He cowered in the shadow and tried to make himself shadow-colored, pressing his belly to the sand as he concentrated on overhearing their words, since he could not eavesdrop on their thoughts.

He feared the absolute worst from them; their everyday chatter could easily be covering up darker intentions. He'd already lost sight of Shana; they'd lured her into their tent, and presumably they had put one of their collars on her as well, since he couldn't even read her thoughts.

His stomach was rolling like a wind-weed, and every muscle in his body ached with tension. He wanted to dive right in and rescue her from their clutches...but he couldn't; he didn't know where she was exactly, or whether she was all right. And there was no way to just swoop down out of the sky and carry her off. For one thing, he wasn't sure he could. He'd never tried to fly carrying her before. For another, he wasn't sure how he'd extract her from that tent.

So the question was, how was he to get near her?

He couldn't appear as a dragon; that was forbidden. He couldn't take one-horn form; they'd shoot him on sight with one of the powerful little bows he saw several of them carrying. In fact, any four-footed creature of any size would probably be greeted with a flight of arrows.

If they didn't think he was a danger, they'd probably think he was dinner.

He couldn't try to slip in as a human, either, in a group this small, they all knew each other, and a stranger would automatically be thought of as an enemy. Especially with the men of a trade- caravan.

He had to join them, somehow. He had to be something they'd want, but something that was not a threat.

He rubbed his dry eyes with his knuckle and sighed. It was nearly sundown, and he'd been out in the heat most of the day. Being this close to water and unable to go take a drink was sheer torment. He watched with raw envy as one of the pack-beasts ambled up to the pool to drink its fill. If only he could do that...

Huh. A way into the camp suddenly presented itself to him. Why couldn't I do that?

It only took a moment of concentration to shift form; when that moment had passed, one of the ugly, warty- skinned pack-grels stood in the place Keman had been.

He ambled down to the oasis, heading straight for the water, as if that was the only thing on his mind, joining the others at the waterside.

He put his head down and slurped with the rest, going weak-kneed for a moment as the ecstasy of the cool water passed over his dry, parched tongue. It was all he could do to keep from gulping the liquid and foundering himself.

It took a moment for his presence...and the fact that there were now ten pack- beasts where there had been nine before...to register with the humans. But when they noticed, they greeted his arrival with greed and pleasure. Four of the drovers surrounded him; he raised his head and blinked mildly at them. They exchanged grins and one of them strolled up to him and put out a hand. He nuzzled it briefly, trying not to wrinkle his nose at the man's rank scent, before putting his head down in the water again.

They allowed him to finish drinking, at least, before putting a halter on him and leading him to the picket line. There, in the company of nine other specimens of beauty, Keman closed his eyes and tried his best to touch Shana's mind, straining until he had a headache in one temple that throbbed in time with his pulse.

With no result whatsoever.

He continued to try, off and on, while the humans around him puttered about, starting cook-fires, making dinner. One of them came by with a measure of grain for each of the grels, and Keman licked his up as quickly as any of the real grels. By sunset Shana still hadn't emerged from the tent, and Keman suspected that something terrible had happened to her. He strained his tether rope to the breaking point, trying to get as close as possible to the tent, trying not to imagine all the horrible things that could have befallen her in there. But he couldn't help it; he kept seeing her bound, gagged, tortured...

Finally he had his answer as to why she hadn't appeared, when one of the two men who seemed to be in charge of this group, a big man in a gray desert-coat over his scarlet tunic, passed by his picket, measuring a few pinches of some kind of powder into a fresh skin of water.

A drug... He altered his ears, making them keen enough to hear a gnat breathe, as the man pushed aside the flap of the tent and went in.

He heard Shana's voice then...it sounded dazed and sleepy. 'H'llo,' she said, slurring the word. 'I'm...awful tired. Sorry.'

'Do not apologize for weariness, child,' another man replied. 'You must sleep as long as you need. But drink, first. The desert air is dry, and you must drink often.'

'Thanks...' said Shana, and then she said nothing more. Both men emerged, looking very satisfied with themselves. The second man was dressed all in crimson, with crimson braid decorating his clothing, but otherwise he was unremarkable. His hair and eyes were brown, he was bearded, and he was a head shorter than the first man. He laughed softly, as if to himself, just as he passed the grel-picket.

Keman couldn't help himself; he snapped at the man as he walked by, but the man simply reached out and brought his fist down hard on Keman's nose.

Ayeee! His bellow matched the cry of pain in his mind. The only time Keman had ever experienced pain like that was when Rovy was on his back, digging his claws into Keman's shoulders. The young dragon went to his knees, still bellowing in surprise and hurt, as the man passed on, taking no notice.

Oh...he thought, tears of pain coming to his eyes, as he moaned involuntarily. Fire and Rain, that hurt! He thought his nose was broken...

But as the pain died, he discovered that the man had done no such thing. His nose was perfectly all right; it wasn't even bleeding. He had just discovered the grel's one point of weakness. It was a lesson he wasn't likely to forget in a hurry.

The picket line had been left alone in the dark, and Keman was once again trapped with his own thoughts and fears.

So the men had drugged Shana, and were keeping her drugged and collared. Why wasn't she afraid, he asked himself, yearning towards the tent. Why hadn't she wondered why she couldn't see thoughts anymore?

Then it occurred to him...she had no reason to suspect that these people were dangerous...or even human. She had every reason to suppose that they were just more of the Kin, probably playing a drama-game.

Mother had never told her that the elven lords and the humans still existed. In fact, Mother had given her every reason to think that they had either died out in the Wizard War or lived so far away that the Kin would never see them. None of the other adults ever talked to her, and the only dragonets that told her about humans had been ones she'd never believe...Rovy and Myre. She had learned to write from books the Kin wrote in elven tongue, and those were never histories of anyone but the Kin.

They had kept her blind. Even if she suspected these people weren't Kin, she was so drugged now she had probably lost the thought entirely. She wouldn't want Kin to know what she could do...like see thoughts. She might not even have bothered to try reading thoughts, not if she was drugged.

And even if she had...she'd told Keman how her powers faded for a bit after she killed that ground squirrel. She might just think that they had faded again.

What am I going to do? How can I get us away from here when I can't even warn her that