Elvenbane

jealously.

Keman felt obscurely sorry for him. There was something very sad about Iridelan; he was not stupid, he had potential...there were any number of things he could be doing. Even a drone bee had a use...Iridelan had none. He seemed to sense how futile his life was...but he didn't know how or what to do to change it. He had convinced Iridelan that he was in some trouble with his parents, and that only a show of initiative...like tracking down the wild girl everyone seemed to be talking about...would save him from being fostered out to a particularly repellent aunt. He'd gotten that idea from one of the books Alara had brought back from one of her trips for her pupils to read.

He felt under the pillow and brought out the paper again, though he knew the contents by heart.

Collar found in girl's possession had Dyran's brand, identified as concubine collar last worn by Serina Daeth, slave who escaped to desert under sentence of death for bearing halfblood. Slave assumed dead. Girl likely to have found collar, as she made no mention of Serina.

So little, and yet it held so much import.

Keman had long ago given up his fantasies that Shana was really Kin. What he had not known was what, exactly, a halfblood was.

'Human mother, elven-lord father. A myth,' Iri had told him last night, when the young elven lord, at least, was deep in his cups. 'Like those so-called'dragon-skins' the girl was wearing. Halfbloods are a myth; they were'sposed to have started a war called the Wizard War. That's why it's death t' let a human breed with an elven lord. There was a Wizard War; wiped out about three-fourths of the high mages, but I don' think it had anythin' to do with halfbloods. They're'sposed to be fabulous mages.' He had snorted at the thought. 'When slaves don't have magic an' even if they did, the collars'd block it, an' even mages like Dyran have t' try decades t' get a kid with th' same power he has...an' outa nowhere, these halfbloods are'sposed to have enough magic t' whip us all?'

'But the Wizard War...' Keman had said tentatively.

'Nursery tales. Stuff t' cover up what really happened. Tell you what, I think the Wizard War had plenty of the lords on both sides. Prob'ly wasn't anything to do with halfbloods at all...most likely the other side was a bunch of the ones got tired of bein' on the bottom all the time, an' got together, an' the winners blamed everything on the halfbloods so their kids wouldn't get ideas in their heads.' Iri sloshed the wine in his cup, gesturing with it. 'Tell you what, the High Lords could use some young blood in the Council! They could damn well use some shaking up again!'

Then Iri was off on his favorite tirade, about how the old oppressed the young, the powerful oppressed the weak, and how everything would be better if every elven lord was a lord in truth, with one vote to his name, and everything shared out equally, no matter who was a powerful mage and who was a weak one.

Keman refrained from asking, 'What about the humans'; he knew from past experience that In would just give him the same kind of look as if he'd asked, 'What about the two-horns.' When Iri spoke of equality, he meant equality of the male elven lords. Females were to be pampered and protected. Humans were livestock.

But that business about the halfbloods, and the death sentence, had given him the clues he needed to search the library of the town house where they both were staying, and now he knew exactly the kind of danger Shana was in. And he also knew a little more about the Wizard War and the Prophecy of the Elvenbane.

She was a halfblood, she was the daughter of Dyran and his concubine, and by now everyone who wanted to get his hands on her had at least guessed that was what she might be. Keman couldn't imagine how she had managed to find her mother's collar...but that must be why he couldn't speak mind-to-mind with her. Just one more piece of rotten bad luck... if she hadn't found it, likely no one would ever have guessed what she was. But since she had found it, they were bound to at least think about the possibility.

The real fanatics would kill her on sight, just on the suspicion of being a halfblood. Lords like Dyran would take her, try to find out about the dragon-skins, and then kill her.

The only thing that kept his hopes up was the fact that no one, no one at all, had come forward with the 'secret of the dragon-skin.' And that argued for the idea that someone or something else had got her...

And from all the evidence, it might well have been dragons from another Lair.

He wasn't getting anything done here, he decided abruptly, tearing the paper to bits. It was time to get out of here, before he was challenged and discovered. Maybe he'd have more luck once he got out of the city.

There was nothing he needed to take with him except what he was already carrying. All he had to do was walk out. And all he needed was a destination.

Lord Dyran's estate, he decided, taking his cloak and closing the door of the guest room behind him. That's where she was supposed to be going. Maybe he'd find something out along the way.

She couldn't have been swallowed up by the ground, after all.

V'kass Valyn el-Lord Hernalth, heir to the vast estates of his father, Lord Dyran, sat in his chair as quietly and motionlessly as a marble statue. His father's scarlet-draped office was as utterly silent as the inside of a crypt. Blood-scarlet draperies and upholstery, white walls, black furniture, the frames carved of onyx, as cold and implacable as Dyran's anger.

Yesterday the room had been entirely green; jade green, an exact match for Dyran's eyes.

My lord father is in a mood, I see. It isn't just me. Something was not going well for Lord Dyran...but it was Valyn who was going to have the brunt of his displeasure. Valyn compressed his lips to hold in his temper, and waited.

'I am not pleased with you, V'kass Valyn,' Lord Dyran said, after a long silence that was supposed to cow his errant offspring, and did nothing of the sort. Valyn had played this game before. 'I am not pleased with you at all.'

'I am sorry, my lord,' Valyn murmured, bowing his head in what he hoped was a convincing imitation of repentance. I'm sorry that I couldn't get Shadow away before you started in on him. I'm even sorrier that I'm not old enough to challenge you. One day he would challenge his father, and when Lord Dyran least expected it. Dyran didn't know it yet, but Valyn's magic was stronger than his. What Dyran had that Valyn didn't was experience, and a long history of tricks and treachery.

'Sorry is not enough, V'kass Valyn.' Dyran rose, wearing his power like a cloak, flaunting it by creating a subtle glow about himself. The trick didn't work on Valyn though; he'd seen it too many times before.

Besides, he could glow too. That was a baby-trick; he could glow almost as soon as he could walk. Ancestors knew he used it on his nurses often enough.

'No, sorry is simply not enough.' Dyran came around his black onyx desk, and stood directly in front of his son, so that Valyn had to look up at him. 'You've been sorry before this. Nothing that I have said or done has managed to convince you that humans are not, and never will be, worth the time and effort you put into them. They are tools, Valyn. Nothing more. Exceptionally intelligent tools, but no more than that. They can't even look after themselves without one of us to tell them what to do.'

He wasn't convinced, because he had read the histories; because he knew what the truth was, and what the lies they told each other were. The humans used to have a flourishing civilization and culture; the elven lords destroyed it so completely that the humans didn't even know what the names of their old gods were.

Dyran frowned; it took all of Valyn's control not to wince. 'You've grown far too attached to this pet of yours, Valyn, and I won't have it. It's about time you saw the real world, and you learned what these animals are like when they aren't properly trained and conditioned.' Dyran had chosen gold for this interview with his son; between the glow and the reflection of light off his clothing, it was hard to look directly at him...which-was, Valyn knew, entirely the idea.

'Yes, Father?' he said, since Dyran seemed to be waiting for some sort of response.

'I'm fostering you with one of my liege men, V'kass Cheynar sur Trentil,' Dyran said brusquely, turning abruptly and resuming his place behind his desk. 'I don't know if you are aware of this, but he breeds common workers. You'll get an eyeful there, I suspect...and you should pick up a proper attitude. You think you know humans...but all you know are the ones...the few...bright enough to be house-trained. The first time one of the beasts turns on you, you'll see I was right about them all along.'

Valyn hid his dismay as best he could. Lord Cheynar had made a visit or two to the estate...and had left in his wake a trail of brutalized bodies and traumatized minds. Though his fortune was based on the breeding of common