Elvenborn

situation. But Lorryn was continuing.

'You remember, we've been getting some communications from mother—irregular letters,' he continued. 'Lady Moth isn't just any elven lady. She has never mistreated her humans— they're servants, not slaves, to her. In fact, when we left mother with her, just at the start of the revolt, she was riding the bounds of her estate with armed human men who called her 'Little Mother' and treated her—well, with affection.'

That got her attention. The only Elvenlord that she had ever seen treated with affection by humans had been Valyn. 'Re­ally?' And Lord Kyrtian had gone there—why? 'I wonder—'

'Don't wonder, go and find out,' Father Dragon urged her. 'Do it before the Great Lords make up their minds what to do about him. Because if they don't decide to use him, you can be sure that they'll try to destroy him.'

'Would that be so bad?' Shana countered, knowing that she sounded heartless—but she had to bring up the point, because others would. If it came down to it, her authority rested on one thing, and that was the ability of the rest to trust her decisions. With some rare exceptions, the humans and Wizards of the Citadel would see Elvenlords taking down other Elvenlords as a step in the right direction, and not trouble themselves as to what might follow.

'It could be.' That was Lorryn, looking troubled. 'For one thing, Shana, if we can make him an ally, he'd be better than anyone here at the art of war. For another—he has to be one of

the rare ones, like Lady Moth. If he's removed, all the humans on his estate will be in deadly danger from whoever they put in his place. You can't want that!'

She groaned, but had to agree; if all that was true, even if they managed to rescue all of Lord Kyrtian's slaves, it would strain the capacity of the Citadel to support them. Why was it that every turn of fate brought more and more people for whom she had to be responsible into her purview?

'He may not realize just how treacherous the Great Lords are, Shana,' Kalamadea said quietly. 'He may not dream he's in danger. If nothing else, he deserves to be warned.'

'And the best person to warn him is me, I suppose.' She tried to sound resigned, but aside from the pressure and burden of apparently additional responsibilities, she didn't really feel re­signed at all. She felt excited— this was the sort of thing she was good at.

But Lorryn—to separate, even temporarily, now that they were together—

Once again, he read her feelings as well as her thoughts.

'You go,' he said, softly, before she even looked at him. 'You have to go. I'll see no one makes trouble here, and you'll be there and back again before you know it. It can't take more than a few days at most, can it?'

'I wouldn't think so, but—' Now she looked at him.

:I'll miss you every moment, but this is something only you can do. He might not trust a dragon. He won't trust that some strange wizard has the authority to speak for all of us. Rena can't get here soon enough to talk to him, even if she'd be will­ing to leave Mew. But you're the Elvenbane. If you make him an offer, he'll believe you.:

And there, after all, was the heart of the matter. She was dis­tinctive; no one could mistake her for anything other than what she was. Her description had circulated to every part of the El-venlords' domain now, and once Lord Kyrtian set eyes on her, he would know who she was.

:Just promise to come back to me.:

That was the easiest promise she had ever made.

24

Kyrtian's nose tickled, and he rubbed it absently. Why is it that in spite of decades of practice, the Ancestors had handwriting that was uniformly atrocious? The tiny words not only looked as though they had been written with the aid of a lens, they conformed to no school of calligraphy he 'd ever seen.

Kyrtian labored his way through yet another personal jour­nal, making notes on sheets of foolscap for later transcription in his own neat (and extremely legible) hand. This business of concocting a 'personal' script-style must have been a common affectation among the bored. But why they should choose to also write as if paper was more valuable than gold was beyond his comprehension.

Here in Lady Moth's library, it was so quiet he could almost hear dust motes falling out of the air to add to the accumulation on the books. Lady Moth had brought back all the volumes that she had extracted during the time that the Young Lords were us­ing the place as their headquarters. The situation was reversed now, and she commanded her late husband's estate and hold­ings as she should have done some time past. With no army to command and no war to fight, the Young Lords were hardly in need of a command-post, although they were still full of an im­potent defiance.

Kyrtian reached for a glass of water and absently took a sip.

For the moment, the Young Lords were living on the grounds of the dowager-estate, Lady Moth's Tower, hiding in the one place where no one was likely to come looking for them. Wear­ing illusory disguises to make them look like human slaves, it was unlikely that even if a search was made there for them that they would be found.

As long as they can hold together, and not have someone get a change of heart and defect, they should do all right.

He'd talked to them all, and at the moment, he didn't think that likely. Not while they were safe and not having to suffer any serious hardships.

Not even Moth's own slaves knew who they were—the story was that they had been part of the Young Lord's army, and that Moth was sheltering them to keep them from being punished for having been conscripted in the first place.

It was a situation that made it hard for Kyrtian to keep a straight face whenever he thought about it. Living among the slaves was going to do them a world of good.

Already he'd seen signs of a change in attitude towards the humans from some of them. He had every