Elvenbane

accept, but just because something isn't right, that doesn't make it less true.' He paused a moment, then finally looked at her again, this time with concern. 'Shana, I hope you're keeping this to yourself. I probably shouldn't say this, but there are those among the senior wizards who are...ah...disturbed by you. I'm sure it's no surprise to you that you have a great deal of power. You've surprised me with it, more often than I'd like to admit. Some of my colleagues are afraid of that power. Some of them are suspicious of you; they think you could be a plant by the elven lords. Most of them don't understand how a child as young as you are, and without formal training, could acquire the kind of power and expertise you have.' Now he looked at her as if he suspected something. 'There are those who think you may be planted on us by the elven lords, or that you may even be a fullblood...'

Shana's eyes widened, and she said defensively, 'I told you, I had to learn by myself just to stay alive! Do they think that living out in the middle of a desert is easy! Besides, I have the mind-powers, and you know I do. You've been the one training me. No one of full elven blood has the mind-powers, and I do.'

'You do,' Denelor agreed, looking a little easier. 'And those can't be duplicated by magic. But you could still be a plant, a halfblood raised and trained by elves to infiltrate our ranks.'

Shana frowned. 'How could I be a plant if the elves don't know we exist? And besides, I'm trying to get everyone to do something about the elves, to fight back against them, and if I was a plant, why would I be doing that?'

Denelor shook his head. 'Child, that's precisely what would make them even more suspicious. How else would the elves find out where we were, unless we attacked them or even worked more actively against them at a time when they have been alerted to look for the source of those actions? Please, Shana, be more careful of what you say. You're making people uncomfortable, and that makes them irrational.'

Shana sighed, and gave it up as a lost cause. She agreed that she would be more careful, shared a cup of tea with her master, and then let herself out of Denelor's quarters.

Well, that's that. She grimaced, and set off down the halls to her own room. If Denelor wouldn't back her up, there was no hope of convincing any of the other senior wizards. She had some supporters among the apprentices, and there were a few of the junior wizards, like Zed, who agreed with her. But for the most part, Shana's cause looked pretty hopeless.

She shoved her hands into her pockets and slouched back to her room. The halls were mostly empty; at this time of the day, people were generally amusing themselves before dinner. The really powerful ones mostly wanted to be as much like the elves as possible, she thought cynically. With their comforts, their entourages, their little intrigues...they did things with magic, instead of with slaves, and it was on a smaller scale, but that was what they wanted. Right down to pushing people around who didn't want to think for themselves. That's why she made them uncomfortable, because they were afraid she couldn't be manipulated, and she had so much power... power they would like to control.

She'd been watching and listening...her few days in the slave pens had taught her a lot about that...and she'd seen the pattern to life in the Citadel. And life in the Citadel was like life in one of the Great Households of the elves. On top was Parth Agon, the chief wizard...the strongest, rather than the eldest...who liked things the way they were and did not want to see his tiny kingdom disrupted. Below him were the wizards who felt as he did, the ones given the highest positions. And below them, on the bottom, were the ones who might have felt differently...but saw no reason to risk themselves.

Just before this meeting she'd said as much to Zed, who'd only shrugged his shoulders. 'Lots of people here escaped being killed in the nick of time,' he pointed out. 'Maybe they don't want to have to go back to living each day afraid.'

'Neither do I!' she'd exclaimed, 'But I'm not going to let that keep me from doing what I know is right!'

'Tell me that when the hunt's on your tail,' Zed had replied, then strolled off to vanish down one of the mazes of corridors. Zed had that talent; if he didn't want to be found, he could vanish as completely as Father Dragon...

She looked for him, in a desultory fashion, all the way back to the apprentices' quarters. She didn't see him, which probably meant he still didn't feel like being social. And in her current mood of disgust with the lot of them, she wasn't sure she wanted to see him, either. But when Shana reached her room, after the conversation with Denelor, it seemed to be singularly confining. She found herself longing for a glimpse of the sky, of a leafless, winter-bound tree, of anything that wasn't within the walls of the Citadel. She thought about going to round up some of her own tiny circle of adherents, the ones she was teaching what she'd discovered about the power of jewels...but that seemed too much like the same manipulative games the older wizards were playing.

So instead she closed the door and began restlessly roaming the confines of her quarters. They didn't enlarge any for all her pacing.

'I want to do something!' she said to the four walls of her room as she prowled back and forth like a caged animal. 'I want to make a difference out there! I want to do more than the Kin are doing...'

So why don't I?

The thought took her by surprise, and made her steps falter and stop. She rubbed her head, then sat down on her bed to think about the idea a little further.

Why didn't she do something? She probably could, all by herself. She didn't need their cooperation, or even their permission. With the jewels, she could do just about anything, really. She could certainly reach just about anywhere.

That was something of an exaggeration, but the jewels did help, they gave her reach and power she wouldn't have had without them. Not that she depended on them, but they were a wonderfully useful tool... oddly, it was the least precious that did the most. Considering that the Kin held that the exact opposite was true, she found that fact rather funny.

A great deal of practice had revealed some general rules. Crystalline forms boosted power, and lens-shaped forms concentrated it. She worked better with some specific kinds of stones than with others, and what worked well for her did not necessarily work for someone else. For her, quartz-crystals, semiprecious agates, and amber did the most...the precious stones like rubies and emeralds accomplished little more than to catch the light, in her hands.

That had led to an ironic situation. She no longer feared having her hoard discovered...no one would want the specific stones that were the most valuable to her...a double-ended spear of clear quartz, common enough; an irregular globe of polished amber, perfectly clear, with no inclusions of seeds or bits of leaf; and a handful of assorted moonstones. But with these, she suddenly felt certain that she could reach beyond these walls, to affect the real world beyond them.

Or at least see what was going on out there...

She put her back against the wall and reached out for the crystal spear, where she had left it on the chest beside her bed. She held it where the light from her magically powered lamp would shine into it, and cradled it in the palm of her hand, staring deeply into it, past the surface reflections.

When she felt ready, she reached out with her mind as Alara had taught her when she was learning to speak mind-to-mind...but sent her thoughts into the crystal, instead of seeking a specific person.

Now she closed her eyes and held her mind very still, as she identified and closed out all the thoughts closest to her. There weren't many; most of the wizards preferred to be under mind-shields at all times. Though she had not understood why at first, it seemed a sensible precaution now, and a courtesy, when there were many others who could hear thoughts about you...and some who might not yet be able to close them out.

She moved her 'self' out of the Citadel, and into the forest, seeking for a viewpoint, her mind spread out like a fine net to snare errant thoughts. In moments, she had found one; she caught a thought and held it, and was looking through the eyes of a canny mountain-cat, crouched over a game trail.

She stared in mute fascination. Some snow fell in the area of the Lair in winter, but not much...a similar amount of rain fell in there in the summer. Keman had gone up into the higher country where there was more, but he could fly; she couldn't. And she had not been outside the Citadel since she had arrived here.

She had never seen so much snow before. The ground was white, snow-covered as far as the cat's eyes