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 secrets; she did not know which books they were, nor what they held.
Nevertheless, since she had been forced to quit the place, she had been determined that at the first chance she would get in here and find them again. Since the Young Lords got here, she had been using her visits to find each and every one of those precious volumes and take them back to the Tower, a few at a time. Whatever was in them had led to the death of one Erven-lord; she suspected that what he had gone seeking had somehow killed him. Which implied that the secrets to be found in those books could be very, very dangerous indeed.
None of the Young Lords cared what she did in there. So as she worked on the task of keeping the library cleaned and preserved, and she ferreted out those precious few books so that one day, perhaps, she could present them to Kyrtian, they were completely oblivious to the value of what she was taking out right underneath their very noses.
I shall have to do some research of my own, I'm afraid, she reflected. A dangerous secret was exactly what she was looking for, after all; there were a few old half-remembered stories of things that had been abandoned right after the Crossing, and techniques that had been forgotten in the haste to find and build a secure haven.
For her part, at the moment, she would be happy to find some way to communicate with her nephew other than by teleson or messenger.
She had just been informed this morning of a very disturbing rumor—as yet unconfirmed, but she had been hoping to hear something either to confirm or deny it at today's meeting. One of her servants took periodic and very risky ventures into the lands still held by the Old Lords, coming back just after dawn with the situation as viewed from the Enemy's vantage—and he had told her that there was a report that Kyrtian had taken command of the Old Lords' army.
If that was true—
If that is true, then the other side has made a desperate gamble, and all unknowing has hit upon the one thing that will probably give them victory. And the thing is, these young fools will be dead certain that putting Kyrtian in command of the Enemy is going to be the one thing that will ensure the Old Lords' defeat. Young idiots.
If only she could speak to him, and persuade him that she was one of the rebels, surely he would think twice about his current allegiance!
I don't dare use a teleson—those are too easily monitored. And none of my humans have the human type of magic that lets them talk mind-to-mind with each other. And I won't send one of my people where he might be captured or conscripted into the army. It is a terrible position to be in.
She was going to have to start studying these old tomes herself.
After all, it was a far better idea than sitting with her hands folded, waiting for disaster to overtake all of them.
Besides, she decided firmly, shoving another ancient volume into the saddlebag for her guard to take with him. I will never sit by with folded hands while things fall to pieces.
—not even if someone ties me into the chair and binds my hands together!
14
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In the heart of the Citadel, the home of the halfblooded Wizards, Lorryn ignored the drone of voices around the table and took just a moment to marvel at his surroundings. It seems so strange, even now, to finally be myself. No illusions, no carefully hiding what I am— In spite of everything, all the hardships, all the danger, even the silly aggravations, Lorryn was not sorry to be here, among Halfbloods like himself, at last.
This most spacious of caverns in their new home that the Wizards used as a meeting-hall was a pleasant place in which to find oneself—so long as no one was meeting in it. A peculiarity of the caverns allowed a wonderful flow of fresh air through here, so long as certain openings that served as doors and windows were left open to catch the summer breezes. Last winter things had gotten a little stale in this room, and with such a high ceiling it tended to be dank and chill.
Unfortunately for his sheer pleasure, there was a meeting going on, and Lorryn was glad that he had ample experience in keeping a pleasant expression plastered on his face while he himself was not feeling in the least pleasant. He had a headache like a tight band around his head, and he had inserted his tongue a trifle between his teeth to keep from grinding them and making the headache worse.