Elvenborn

Invited guests were met here by an escort and let out, and the chamber itself would hold no more than ten at the most. The 'key' to unlock the door was the presence of a family member or someone else (like Gel) to whom the lock had been sensitized. Of course, it was possible to overpower the escort and open the chamber door that way, but the door was guarded every moment of every day, and at least one guard would be able to raise an alarm. There would be no invasions of the estate through this Portal—or so it was hoped. After all of his studies in military tactics, Kyrtian was only too aware that a clever commander could think of ways to get past their precautions. His only comfort was that most of the Elvenlords were not very clever commanders.

Kyrtian parted with Gel just outside the Portal Chamber, as the guards tried to pretend they weren't eavesdropping. 'Well, we're in for it now,' he said, in mingled pride and cha­grin. 'I think this is the highest-ranked member of the Great Council to come here since Grandfather's day, and we're go­ing to have to make certain everyone is totally prepared and understands what they need to do. The sooner we start preparing the staff and servants for Lord Kyndreth's visit, the sooner we can get it over with, and then everything can go back to normal.'

'And the longer we delay, the more we risk an insult. Don't worry, I'm on it,' the Sergeant said with a wave. 'You go break the news to the Lady.'

Gel made for the training-quarters at a trot, and Kyrtian re­flected that the Sergeant was probably already five steps ahead of him in planning things. And one thing was absolutely cer-

tain; the visit could not take place until every servant on the es­tate was so well- rehearsed in the appropriate conduct of a slave that nothing would force him to depart from it, not insult, not punishment, and certainly not carelessness. Those servants closest to Kyrtian and his mother would have to be the best ac­tors of the lot, which meant that certain of the younger and less experienced house-servants (such as Lynder) would be replaced for the duration with others who had been promoted to other positions or had even retired. Kyrtian would certainly be doing without most of his personal servants, who would be attending Lord Kyndreth, but that was a small price to pay for keeping up the deception that this was a normal Elven household.

All that would be in the hands of Gel, Lady Lydiell, and Lord Tenebrinth the Seneschal, and the sooner he let the last two know what was about to descend on them, the better. Gel was right; Lord Kyndreth's visit could not be postponed for long without offending him.

He paused for a moment to locate both his mother and the Seneschal; this was no time to waste precious moments hunting for them by ordinary means. The merest whisper of magic told him that, as was often the case at this time of day, Tenebrinth was with his mother in the latter's office, probably going over the household and estate accounts, making plans for the next couple of months, or dealing with issues of the servants. That could not possibly have been better for Kyrtian's purposes. By catching them together, Kyrtian would only have to go over the prospective visit and the reasons for it once.

Lydiell's office was literally at the center of the manor, over­looking everything. The manor boasted five towers, one at each corner and one at the center, with the center-most being a good two stories taller than the others—a full twelve stories tall. The towers gave the manor a look of delicacy and attenuation that Kyrtian found both attractive and amusingly deceptive, for the building itself had been constructed to survive a long siege, and had been built to withstand siege weapons that for the most part no longer existed. Lydiell's office was a glass- walled room at the very tip of the center-most tower, a place that would, in war-

time, be occupied by at least four lookouts. Even in the worst weather, it was a snug and welcoming place, as the tower was one of the few places in the manor that depended on magic for more than lighting and a decorative illusion or two. Magic, and not mechanical contrivances, heated and cooled the tower and protected it from the worst weather. Magic also ensured the safety of any occupants of the transparent tube he entered at the bottom of the tower, powering the little platform under his feet that slowly rose through the tower to the top. No human could use this contrivance by himself, not even if that human was blessed with the humans' own form of magic. In this way, when she worked, Lydiell could be assured that no one could inter­rupt her without having to go first to one of elven blood. There were drawbacks to being as approachable as the lords of this manor had always been; the short-lived humans tended to come to them with any problem that had them stymied for more than a few moments, assuming that long experience granted unfath­omable wisdom.

If it did that, there wouldn 't be a Young Lords' War now. The Old Lords would have known better than to let them get as far as they did. And there wouldn't have been a second Wizard War either.

The intervening floors of the tower were, for the most part, unfurnished, although this was the oldest section of the manor and everything else had been constructed around it. The round rooms were too small to use for anything but offices, and only Lydiell and Tenebrinth had need of an office. So Kyrtian passed room after round, empty, alabaster-walled room with nothing more to entertain him than brief glimpses of the outside through the weapon-slits that served in place of windows. Even the look of alabaster was deceptive; the tower was built of something far stronger, though too much magic went into the construction of the material for anyone to use it these days. This tower was an artifact of the first fifty years after the Elves crossed out of Evelon, when no one knew if this world would prove to be as dangerous as the one they had left, a time when the elven-born existed as closely crowded together as any of the

primitive humans in their huts, and waited for something infi­nitely more dangerous to descend without warning than a mob of weak, short-lived humans.

Tenebrinth's office, just below Lydiell's, was empty and un-tenanted as Kyrtian had anticipated. That office, and Lydiell's, were nearly double the size of the rooms below them. The walls swelled out here, giving the tower the look of a deep plate or shallow bowl balanced on a candlestick and covered with a round, pointed silver dish cover that was the overhanging (and projectile-proof) roof. The windows in Tenebrinth's office were only half the size of the ones in Lydiell's, but were glazed with the same impervious substance used instead of ordinary glass in every opening of this tower. Light that came through this substance lost some of its color and strength, making it appear as if the office lay underwater.

Now Kyrtian heard voices, and as he rose through the ceiling of Tenebrinth's office into that of Lady Lydiell, Lord Tene-brinth himself got up from his chair to greet him. Lady Lydiell remained seated, but welcomed her son with a smile and an ex­tended hand.

Tenebrinth was a little older than Kyrtian's father would have been had he still been alive, having apprenticed in the position of Seneschal under Kyrtian's grandfather. He had served in his official capacity for as long as Kyrtian had known him, and as one of Kyrtian's tutors as well. As with all Elvenlords above a certain age but below the point of being considered ancient, it was impossible to tell exactly how old he was. Tall, thinner and less muscular than Lady Lydiell, with a long jaw and nose and prominent cheekbones, hair confined with a silver clasp at the nape of his neck, he looked exactly like what he was, a studious creature, serious and careful in thought and speech, a true scholar and thinker who preferred to joust with his mind and not his body.

'Well, I see you survived your encounter with the young tygers,' the Seneschal said genially. 'Permit me to congratu­late you.'

Kyrtian stepped out of the tube, kissed the back of his mother's hand, and took the chair that the Seneschal offered

him. 'Believe me, it felt like being in a tyger-pit,' he replied with feeling. 'I can't imagine how anyone enjoys these so-called social occasions.'

'They aren't all as bad as combat challenges seem to be,' Lady Lydiell said with a touch of sympathy and a shrug. 'Some of the fetes can be positively pleasant, especially the fetes for unwed daughters. The presence of women seems to make the young tygers sheath their claws and hide their teeth, at least long enough to look civilized while in the company of the ladies.'