Elvenborn

second, a brunette with brown eyes full of passion, full lips, and a sensuous body, fairly radiated promises; she lounged against a pillar in a way that thrust her bosom forward—strain­ing the silk of her scarlet, form-fitting wrap—and allowed her to watch him with a provocative, flirtatious, sideways glance. The third had a tumble of flaming curls and merry green eyes, a dancer's body of strength and agility clothed in a simple blue tunic that left her legs bare, and the expression of a completely innocent child; she looked up from the kitten she was playing with to smile at him with a face full of laughter. It seemed that in these three, all the variety of an entire harem was encom­passed. And only a statue could have failed to respond to the silent invitations each of them sent to him in her own way.

'You see?' Lady Lydiell said quietly, as the three sank to the ground in deep curtsies. He glanced at her, and saw that she had a glint of mischief in her own eyes. 'Well, dearest, is it safe to leave you alone with them?'

He couldn't help it; he flushed—but he covered it with a half-mocking bow. 'You're going to have to if I'm to give them convincing memories,' he told her, causing her to blush. It was with a bit of satisfaction that he bowed her out, and turned to face his new 'acquisitions.'

He was trying to think of something to say when they de­scended on him as a body and made speech irrelevant, at least for that moment, and the many that followed.

Sergeant Gel followed Lord Tenebrinth into the Old Tower, his mood not precisely apprehensive, but tinged with that emotion. Lady Lydiell rarely spoke to him face-to-face, and this was the first time that she had ever required him to attend her in her pri­vate office.

He had never been inside the Old Tower; few humans had, only the one or two required to clean Lydiell's, and Tene-brinth's, offices. One of the lords, or the lady herself, would have to have brought him personally; there was no other way for him to use the only means of access, which was a bizarre transparent tube. He couldn't imagine how he was supposed to climb it and entered it with Tenebrinth rather dubiously—only to suppress a start as the floor beneath him began to rise. It gave him a queasy sensation, despite his familiarity with magic, to ride this contraption. It just didn't seem... natural. Round, empty room after room passed him—or rather, he passed them—as he rose with no real sensation of movement.

He began to wonder if he would ever reach the top, when fi­nally one of the rooms showed signs of occupation—as did the next after that—and then the platform slowed and came to a stop at the topmost level.

Lydiell's office, at the top of the tower, had a dizzying and unrestricted view that he, as a military commander, could see was of incalculable value for the chatelaine of the manor—or the commander of its defenses. The office walls were all win­dow, and he wondered as he stepped gingerly off the platform what a storm would be like up here.

Lydiell greeted him with a smile, which made his apprehen­sion vanish. She even rose; that was an unexpected honor, and he bowed as deeply as he could without looking ridiculous. The Lady did not like groveling; none of her clan did.

'Sergeant Gel, please, make yourself easy,' she said, as she gestured with that grace only the Elvenlords possessed towards an unoccupied chair. 'This is not an official summons—rather, it is a personal one. I have a desire to consult you.'

Tenebrinth evidently took this as the signal to depart; he stepped back on the little platform and discreetly dropped back to the next level, leaving them alone.

Gel took his seat and examined the Lady's face, and swiftly understood why she wanted to see him. 'Kyrtian?' he asked, wasting no words.

She nodded, and took her place behind her desk, clasping her hands on the surface before her. 'I had hoped,' she said, hesi-

tantly, as if she was voicing thoughts long held in secret, 'that I could keep Kyrtian isolated from the politics of the Great Lords and the Council. Unfortunately, it seems that the times conspire against my hopes.'

'It does look like he's going to get tangled up whether he likes it or not,' Gel said cautiously, his eyes never leaving her face, unnerving as it was to look her straight in the eyes. 'My Lady, I don't mind telling you that I don't like the idea any bet­ter than you do.'

'I'm not certain you realize just how tangled he's likely to get,' Lydiell replied, a faint frown-line creasing her ageless brow. Gel couldn't for the life of him read those odd emerald eyes the Elvenlords all had, but at least she wasn't trying to hide her facial expressions. 'Lord Kyndreth is not going to be content merely to learn a few tricks with magic to help train hu­mans—when he realizes just how extensive Kyrtian's knowl­edge and practical experience of military matters is, he is going to want my son to exercise his talents in the service of the Old Lords. He will certainly want Kyrtian to command a force against the Young Lords, and possibly keep him on after the Young Lords are crushed, to move against the Wizards and the wild humans.'

Gel swore under his breath, angry at himself for not thinking of that himself. And it was far too late to try to talk Kyrtian out of abandoning the full-scale maneuvers he had planned. The boy was determined to prove to Lord Kyndreth that this was the only way to train fighters, and nothing would do but to show him how easy it was to hold the spells needed on entire armies.

Lady Lydiell sighed. 'Your face tells me that my fears are likely to be realized. Oh, why couldn't he have been an artist or a musician, or obsessed with—with—oh, horticulture or some­thing equally frivolous?'

'At least he isn't bent on being the dead opposite of his fa­ther, my Lady,' Gel replied grimly. 'You'd not like him as a fop, or a lazy layabout. Or worse, falling in with—'

He hesitated; after all, he was a human, and Lydiell was El-ven. Blood was blood—

But Lydiell surprised him with a bitter smile and a light an-

swer. 'Falling in with the pampered perverts that most of my kind are. You don't need to spare my feelings, Gel; we cannot afford to be less than honest with each other if we are going to be able to keep Kyrtian out of the pitfalls lying before him.'

Ah, cowflops. Why do I have to feel like it's me that's his fa­ther? I'd rest easier at night. He might be only a few actual years older than Kyrtian, but in real terms, he might just as well have been the Elvenlord's father. By the standards of his race, Kyrtian was the equivalent of a stripling, although by human reckoning he was in his late thirties. In knowledge and general responsibility, he was certainly that—but in the unconscious things that characterized an adolescent, he was very much Gel's junior. His boundless energy, his enthusiasm, his tendency to act rather than sitting back and waiting for events to come to him—those were the characteristics of the young, and made Gel feel very old.

The strength, speed, and endurance of youth were also his, and might be for the next century or two, which made Gel feel even older. He'd noticed of late, much to his chagrin, that he was slowing down, losing some of his edge; in fact, he and that man of Lord Kyndreth's had talked about that. Kaeth wasn't getting any younger either, and if he ever had to actually foil a fellow-assassin, that could be fatal if he didn't take steps to compensate.

We 'II both just have to be sneakier to make up for what we 're losing, he reminded himself. Youth and enthusiasm are no match for experience and treachery.

'I hate to admit this, my lady,' he said, feeling ashamed that he had not anticipated this situation, 'but I've kept him as igno­rant as you have of the way things are—' he waved his hand vaguely at the windows '—out there. And I did it for pretty much the same reasons as you, I figure. Why throw something at him that he couldn't change and would only worry about?'

Ah, all those old lessons came back to him now, of being taken off the estate as Tenebrinth's page, so he could see just how the other Elvenlords really acted and thought. Tenebrinth had collared him, of course, and if he'd done something even slightly stupid—which, even as a child he hadn't been likely