Elvenborn

drive one side or the other to make a cru­cial mistake.

But, of course, they didn't ask her opinion, and she didn't of­fer it—since it was clear that they would not believe a mere fe­male would have any experience relevant to the 'man's work' of warfare.

As if they have any! she thought, without amusement. But warfare was not why she had come to this meeting. Eventually they got around to the topic she wished to cover, in the form of a single casual comment by one of the least intelligent (to her mind) of the lot, occasioned by one of her bodyguards stifling a cough at one of the more fatuous suggestions.

'Lady Morthena,' said Lord Alrethane, with a frown on his face, 'I really do not know what you are thinking, allowing armed and uncontrolled slaves to continue in your service.'

'They are not slaves, they are my willing servants,' she countered smoothly. 'I find that I sleep better, knowing that my sleep is guarded by faithful people who serve me from loyalty and not because they are forced to.'

'Loyalty? Loyalty?' Alrethane exploded. 'Are you actually ascribing a civilized emotion to these simple-minded barbar­ians? They're a bare step above the beasts!'

Another discreet cough reminded him that he was insulting people who were freemen, armed, and protected with armor that would stop both magic and blades. He stopped, abruptly, and averted his eyes.

'He has a point—' someone said.

Morthena looked up and down the table again, examining ex­pressions, and was disappointed.

So. Nothing has changed. She had hoped that some, at least, of the Young Lords would have started to see sense. Insofar as the humans were concerned, the Young Lords were of two camps; the majority—a scant majority, but enough—held hu­mans and halfbloods in the same contempt as did their elders. The minority, led and coached by Lady Moth, wanted to see hu­mans and halfbloods given equal status with Elves. So far, none of those she considered to be 'wavering' had changed their minds. She had hoped that this particular display, showing just how far she trusted her people, would have had some effect.

At least the minority saw to it that the human slaves owned by the rest were not mistreated.

And there have been enough chances already that those who had the courage and initiative to escape to the Wizards have al­ready done so.

The slaves they now had probably served out of the usual mix of fear of the collar, an inability to imagine that anything could be different, and an inability to get their hands on any iron or steel which would render a slave-collar useless. She sus­pected that it was the former two reasons that were the strongest, since anyone who really wanted the metal rings that would negate the collars could have one from Moth's people just by asking. Pity would only take her so far; if the slaves here couldn't look beyond their fear, if they didn't have the basic in­telligence to imagine something different from their current life, she couldn't help them.

I won't press the issue any further; if I do, I'll only weaken my own party, and if the rest of these young fools turn on me, I will have to barricade myself within my own lands and hope they grow bored with me. There would be no point in trying to flee; I am not at all sanguine about the likelihood of a full El-venlord finding a welcome among the Wizards, even if Dina's children are among them.

Her thoughts were momentarily distracted by that reminder of Dina's children. Poor Dina; she hadn't heard anything from them since they parted from her on Moth's doorstep. It was, af-

ter all, just as likely they were in hiding somewhere other than among the halfblooded Wizards. Only one of them was a half-blood anyway—Lorryn, the boy. Sheyrena was of full elven blood, and she could not imagine the girl being welcomed by the Wizards.

It's likely that although Lorryn might have been able to con­vince the Wizards that Sheyrena was not actually an immediate danger to them when he first encountered them, he would never be able to convince them that Rena is completely harmless. And if he couldn't convince them that his own sister wasn't going to bring disaster on them, he'd never be able to make them believe that an ancient Elven lady like Moth was on their side.

Poor, poor Dina; she worried so much about them, although she tried not to show it. The one regret that Moth had was that there was no way for her to discover if Dina's two children were all right, or even where they were.

It is the most likely, actually, that Rena is ensconced some­where off in the wilderness, far from Elvenlord, human, or half-blood. She has magic enough to keep herself safe—well, according to Dina, she has magic enough to control alicorns! And Lorryn would never allow her to come to harm or suffer any want— if he's with the Wizards, he'll see to it that she's got food enough and shelter. In a way, she envied the two young­sters. If I'd had the youth and the opportunity, I'd have gone right off the map. The world is wide, after all; wide enough to hide dragons from us for all these centuries, it can certainly hide a few Elves who don't wish to be found.

The conversation had made a wide detour around the ques­tion of the slaves, and was back on the topic of the war. Some­one wished aloud for some secret that would allow the select elimination of some of the leaders. 'That would throw a good fright into them,' the callow youngster said, with a savagery worthy of any 'barbarian and bestial human.' 'Let a few more of them die the way Lord Dyran died, and they'll give us what­ever we want!'

Moth held her tongue. It was just as well that the Young Lords were not aware that Dina and her daughter managed to incinerate Dina's husband, the Lord Treves, in a' way very sim-

ilar to the way Lord Dyran's son slew him. Her own trusted ser­vants knew, and they had kept it a strict secret, and she was quite grateful to them for preserving that secret. These young hotheads should never learn something that dangerous. They 'd probably manage to kill each other with it.

Eventually the meeting ground down to its inevitable conclu­sion, and Moth rose. 'With your permission, gentlemen, I should like to go tend to the library until sunset, if I may?' she asked politely.

They didn't even take a second thought about her request— young Lord Ketaliarn waved vaguely at her, and she took that as permission and left, trailed faithfully by her escort.

Of all the things that showed how callow they were, this was by far the most blatant. They considered the library to be use­less, fit only for the concern of silly old ladies half living in the past. They thought all she was doing was cleaning and preserv­ing the books—removing a few, now and then, for her own amusement in her bower.

Oh, the young fools.

The room she now entered, one of the finest libraries ever as­sembled in this world, was (had they only had the wit to realize it) full of information the Young Lords could use to help their own cause. She breathed deeply of the scent of leather, vellum, parchment and paper, took a long look around the shelves that her husband had only seldom permitted her to access while he was alive, and set to work.

Many of the oldest books had not been tended in far too long; she would not permit any book, however trivial, to suffer from the worm's tooth or the decay of age. Whenever she was here, she spent a few hours in cleaning and restoring those ancient books—no matter how trivial they seemed to be, there was no telling when some scrap of knowledge in them might prove useful.

Most of her time, however, was spent in looking for the ones that she would rather not leave to the curious eyes of the Young Lords.

Lady Moth had helped young Kyrtian's father with his re­search in this very library once or twice before his disappear-

ance, and. she was well aware that he had known better than she what lay here. She only knew within her own books was a set of very, very ancient works that Kyrtian's father had consulted in his searches for ancient