Elvenborn

prove that they are wrong. When you don't change, you get brittle, and the next thing that hits you will break you.'

She looked past the faces of her own friends, out to the hu­mans, in whose eyes smoldered resentment for all Wizards now, even her. 'Changing means that we can't sit in our Citadel

and think we're superior to anything just because we can do some things well. Don't you see?' She fumbled a little. 'We all need each other. Oh, I can bring in a live sheep from the hills with magic, but I don't have the first idea of how to take clay and make a watertight cup, and let's face it, if I'm thirsty, I need that cup, and the person who can make it is superior to me at that moment! Don't you see?' she pleaded. 'I never wanted to be a leader, but—I don't know, maybe Kalamadea is right and hamenleai has something to do with it and I just can see that we all need to change and we all need each other if we are going to survive—and maybe, if they'll learn to change a little, we even need— them—'

She gestured helplessly at Caellach and his friends, unable to put what she wanted to show them into words—the great puz­zle that she saw in her mind that somehow had places for all of them to fit into.

But evidently, although there was some puzzlement out there, she got part of her point across. The resentment and anger had faded, and although there were grimaces at the thought of including Caellach and his ilk back into the fold, there seemed to be acceptance of the idea, too.

Then came the thing she hadn't expected—

'It's hard on an old man, all this changing,' said one of Cael-lach's cronies plaintively. 'It's hard, girl. You go along with your life all even, then suddenly it's all upset—but—'

He took a deep breath, and shuffled across the space be­tween Caellach's crowd and the rest of the convocation. He looked up at her, and heaved a sigh. 'I hate all of this uncom- fortableness and having to do without,' he continued, half in complaint, half in resignation, 'but I'd rather stand with you than against you. Just don't ask too much all at once of an old, tired man, will you?'

She got down off her slice of tree-trunk and offered her hand. He took it, and that was the beginning of the end. In ones and twos, the rest of Caellach's followers came over to her side, al­though most of them just tried to blend back into the crowd and didn't actually come to stand with her. It didn't matter; they'd

abandoned Caellach. Even if they didn't entirely agree with her, even if they were still going to argue and grumble, they'd abandoned their leader and they had opened themselves up to the possibility of change.

It was enough. For now, it was enough.

21

Rena took her place on the carpet next to Mero in Diric's tent. The flaps were rolled knee-high, and scrims of loosely woven linen kept bugs out while allowing a breeze to flow through. It was dinnertime, a meal much en­ livened these days by the addition of vegetables supplied by trading and the gardens that the Corn People were growing, as well as by the changed herbs provided by Rena herself. Dinner, shared with Diric and Kala, was a more-than-pleasant meal, now that the first lot of crude iron ingots had arrived from the Citadel. Once again, Diric's star was in the ascendant, so far as his people were concerned; and he had lost that worried frown. Kala was just as pleased and far more open about it. After all, the Iron People now had everything they needed—iron, good grazing and water, and even the remains of their old allies, the Corn People, to settle in somewhere nearby and commence the farming that they would not or could not do.

Rena and Mero were reaping the benefits as well; as the rep­resentatives of the Wizards, everyone with a forge wanted to know what they knew about possible future production, and there were no few folks who wanted to see if they could some­how ease to the head of the queue waiting for the next ship­ ment. The Trader clans were a little discomfited to find that they were no longer the only source of iron, but they'd gotten over it, particularly now that the women among the Iron People had be­gun to experiment with faceting the fool's gold and polishing

yet another form of mineral with a high iron content that the Traders had brought in. Both made fine 'gems' for setting, the new 'oil-iron' in particular having a lovely liquid-black sheen to it that looked wonderful in blackened- iron filigree. So now the women had more material for their tiny jewelry workshops than they'd ever had before and the new materials had brought on a spate of creativity that had even the men intrigued and hovering over the women's work, trying to reckon how they could coax their mates, mothers, sisters, and friends to produce some of the new work for them. Diric already sported leather arm-guards inlaid with iron settings that held large oil-iron cabochons, courtesy of Kala's hands, and she was working on a matching collar as well. He was setting something of a fashion, much to Rena's silent amusement and Kala's open glee.

It seemed an auspicious time for Rena to see about some­thing she had been planning for a while.

Kala brought in plates of flatbread, broiled meat, thinly sliced vegetables, and bowls of soured cream. The Iron People could now enjoy one of their favorite meals—flatbread rolled around spiced meat strips and vegetables, garnished with dol­lops of cream. Rena and Mero had come to enjoy these as much as their hosts, and Mero quickly made himself a roll as soon as Kala set the platters on the carpet before them.

'How badly do you want to keep your two Elvenlords, Diric? They don't look very healthy to me,' Rena asked, as Diric reached for a piece of flatbread.

He didn't even pause in his motion. 'They haven't been a lot of use for some time,' he admitted, laying a paper-thin slice of cucun-pod and some of Rena's sweetened and tenderized grasses on the flatbread, following it with strips of meat and a dollop of soured cream. 'Out of respect for your wishes they haven't been entertaining us, but I don't think they would now even if we tried to force them into it with beatings. I think they're going mad, actually. Their keeper can barely get them to eat and drink; I'm told all they do is stare at whatever they're pointed at.'

'I think they've gone mad,' Rena replied, relieved to hear the matter-of-fact tone in his voice. 'You can still get Kelyan to

talk if you try hard enough, but Haldor—your keepers are hav­ing to feed him by hand. I want them, if you don't.'

'Tell me what you want to do with them, first,' Diric replied cautiously.

Rena took a deep breath and looked to Mero, who gave her an encouraging smile. She looked back into Diric's sable-brown eyes, and told herself what a fundamentally reasonable man he was. 'I want—I want to try something. I want to see if my magics can change people's memories. There have been ru­mors, oh forever, that some of the Old Lords can do that, and I should think that since women's magics among my people are used delicately, it should be easier for a woman to do that than a man. Since Kelyan and his friend are already mad, I can't hurt them further, and I may be able to help them.' She steeled her­self. 'If I can—help them, that is—there are several things I want to do with them. The first thing is to find out how the elf-stones of the slaves' controlling collars are made and how the slaves are controlled by them.'

'Shana's got this idea that would take less iron than the jew­elry,' Mero put in helpfully, his green eyes alight