Elvenbane

could see. The cat perched on a heavy limb of an evergreen of some kind, the branches above him so snow-laden that they sagged down over the one he had chosen, giving him a truly effective hiding place.

She held down her elation, so as not to startle her temporary host, but she felt a pardonable surge of triumph. She had moved outside the Citadel...and for the first time, had made contact with the mind of a creature she did not actually know was there.

Next jump...farther out...

She cast herself loose from the cat and reached out again; 'listened' for further thoughts...and snatched at the first ones that presented themselves.

And this time found herself looking at the world through elven eyes.

There was no doubt of it; the hands she looked down on were long, slender, and as pale as her moonstones. And elves saw things a little differently from humans; everything living had a kind of shimmer about it, like heat- haze. Anything nonliving didn't. And if that wasn't enough, there was another elven lady sitting beside her, in the attitude of a teacher, watching every move she made.

Finding herself in an elven mind was so much of a surprise that she nearly lost her hold on the elven lord's...-or rather, lady's...thoughts. But she steadied herself down quickly, and began taking in her surroundings.

It was a girl, not a woman. That was the first realization. This was a girl about her own age. She was clothed in shimmery silks of an opalescent green, and she moved with studious grace, practicing the kind of movement Shana had always thought was natural.

Her hostess was flower-sculpting...a term Shana plucked out of the girl's memory. Not arranging...that was different, and something the girl left up to her slaves. The girl...

She knew, with the certainty of her own name, that of the elven maiden. Sheyrena an Treves.

Sheyrena, then...was delicately shaping the petals of the living flower before her. She spun them out, her magic delicately rearranging the form, and making the petals thinner, turning them into gossamer webs of color. She had finished two of the four petals of what had been an ordinary poppy. Now it looked as if it had been made of silk; transparent, crimson silk, that billowed about the dark heart in carefully arranged folds. She finished the third petal even as Shana watched, and began on the fourth.

Shana took careful notes. She'd had no idea anything like this was possible. And it was absurdly simple as well. Already she had several ideas on how else she could use this particular spell of manipulation.

When the girl had finished, she turned to her mother, her face carefully schooled into a calm mask, for approval. No elven lady should ever be seen as less than perfect, and perfectly controlled. Shana caught that thought as the girl smoothed the hope from her expression.

Poor thing... For a moment, Shana actually pitied the girl.

'Very good, dear,' Viridina an Treves said, nodding her head slowly and graciously. Her expression was that mask of perfect serenity her daughter strove to imitate. The rest of her was just as flawless. Viridina wore her silver gown with a complete unconcern that made it seem a part of her. The elven lady's pale gold hair was arranged in an artfully careless fall over one ear, no less a sculpted work of art than the flower her daughter had just transformed, and yet showing no sign of how much time had gone into its creation.

Her daughter permitted herself a smile of acknowledgment of her mother's compliment. Viridina responded with an answering smile of approval for her daughter.

Her very young daughter; Shana realized with a start that she had made a mistake in her assessment. The mind she had touched was that of a child no more than ten or twelve. The child had power...that was what had deceived her...

No, that wasn't it at all. The child had control. Very little power, really; what she had was total control over all the power she possessed. And all it would ever be good for was to manipulate tiny things...

Her spells would always be minor ones, like flower-sculpting, or water-weaving, or light-arranging...Shana saw that in her memories of her lessons and what her mother could do. Her father could do more; he was quite adept at illusions. But all Viridina and her daughter could use their insignificant power for was the kind of spells that were decorative...

Or stopping someone's heart, Shana's mind whispered eagerly, at this hint that the girl thought of herself as something less than the males of her kind. Little things weren't necessarily minor. Tell her. Show her.

She shook off the temptation. Even if she thought of herself as inferior, she was still of elven blood; she was still one of the masters. If the girl had been a human, though, and otherwise helpless...

But something she had not consciously noted alerted that other part of her mind. Wasn't she helpless, as helpless as the slaves? Look at the mother's face...and into the mother's mind!

Unable to resist the temptation, Shana did so, and saw the real state of most of the ladies of the elven Clans.

They were pampered...as a prize brood-mare was pampered. Protected...as a valuable gem. Allowed no choice of fates, any more than a slave was. Allowed no freedom at all until a child was conceived and carried to live birth...

The future that awaited this girl was as bleak as a slave's. A loveless mating to someone who valued her only for her potential power, the dower she brought from her father, the alliance she represented, and the heirs she might breed. A life spent in the confines of the 'bower,' the women's quarters, with nothing of any importance to do. Ladies were not expected to exert themselves, and few did. Most whiled away the long hours with music, flower-sculpting or playing other similarly mindless games.

This was the life the girl's mother had endured for the past four hundred years...with no end in sight. An endless pastel existence, close-confined, safe...

Shana shuddered, and withdrew a little.

The girl picked up another flower, and began on it; a wild rose, this time. She touched the first petal, spinning it out into a thin mist of palest pink.

Shana couldn't bear it any longer. Well, why shouldn't she at least...suggest what she could do. Where was the harm in that? She might need it someday. If she had the courage to use the information... Why not? If the girl doesn't use it, no harm; if she does...someone will get what he deserves. She would just hint at the possibilities.

A kind of reckless intoxication impelled her to do just that, hiding the suggestion deep in the girl's mind...If you can change a flower petal, what else can you change?...

The girl didn't seem to notice that anything had happened. Certainly her mother didn't. They continued to make their artistic little flowers, placing them carefully in a studied arrangement for tonight's banquet, for magically formed flowers were too important and delicate to be entrusted to slaves. When Lord Treves's guests saw these, and knew the powers of the daughter, there might be marriage proposals...

Shana couldn't take anymore. She withdrew her mind completely and let herself drift back to the safety of the Citadel before anyone detected her meddling.

She centered herself; woke herself carefully from trance, speeding her heartbeat, letting the blood flow freely through her veins.

As she opened her eyes again, she realized what it was that drove the dragons to shift their shapes and take the forms of men and elves. It was a different kind of power...

And it was a heady experience. And addictive...

With time, she became more and more adept at reading the minds of distant elven lords and their ladies. The human minds, of course, remained closed to her, because of the collars the human slaves wore.

Those collars could, and did, function in a way that kept prying thoughts out as well as developing mind- powers locked within. But the elven lords were wide open to her questing mind, and she took full advantage of the fact. Shana came to know all of the neighbors bordering the wild lands that held the Citadel.

She also came to learn more of what she could do with magic; power did not have to be overwhelming to be effective...something as 'simple' as the elven maid's flower-sculpting ability could be as devastatingly effective as calling lightning.

And a lot less draining.