Elvenbane (42 page)

Valyn glanced at his cousin out of the corner of his eye. Shadow had bounced back from his beating so fast even Valyn was impressed, though he seemed much quieter than usual. But perhaps that was only because of the cold.

Shadow folded his arms on the window ledge and rested his chin on them, watching the wet pines as if he found them completely fascinating. “On the whole,” he drawled, “I think I’ll take bored. It’s
much
better than having Lord Cheynar’s overseers asking me pointed questions about my background.”

Valyn gave himself a mental kick for being such a donkey. Of course being bored was better than being noticed! Even a fool would have been able to figure
that
out! As long as he and Shadow were left to their own devices, there was very little chance that Lord Cheynar would check back with Dyran and possibly let slip the description of Valyn’s “bodyguard.” And there was no chance that Shadow would find himself being interrogated by Cheynar’s men.

When they first arrived, Cheynar had received Valyn in his office, with the same cold courtesy Valyn fancied he used with his underlings. He had taken a scant moment to glance at the sealed letter from Lord Dyran that Valyn presented to him, then thrown the packet on a corner of his desk, and leaned over the broad expanse of cherry-wood to pin Valyn in his chair with his dagger-keen glare.

“I want one thing understood, young Valyn,” he’d said, his voice completely without expression. “You’re on
my
estate now, not your father’s. You will follow
my
orders. Is that perfectly clear?”

“Yes, my lord,” Valyn had murmured, in his most submissive tone. Cheynar had sat back in his seat with a fleeting expression of satisfaction.

“In that case, we’ll get along just fine,” Cheynar stated flatly. “Right now, I am sorry I simply don’t have time to see to your amusement, but something has come up that requires all of my attention. I shouldn’t have taken the time to meet with you myself, but I wanted to make certain that you understood how things are here. Do you?”

“Entirely, my lord,” Valyn had replied, looking down at his clasped hands.

“Good.” Valyn looked up at the scrape of wood on stone. Cheynar stood, obviously impatient for him to be gone. “There’s a slave just outside the door, he’ll show you your quarters. I’m sure they’ll be satisfactory.”

And without waiting for a reply, Cheynar had turned and walked away, leaving Valyn to stare after him, a bit stunned.

Since that time he had not once set eyes on the Lord of the estate. He had been left to amuse himself however he wished. More than once, he had decided that Cheynar’s dour manner was due entirely to the estate itself. Bordering the wilderlands, the manor was surrounded on three sides by tall, greenish-black pine trees with thick, drooping branches that blocked the sun for most of the day, and were home to what seemed like hundreds of owls at night. And for some reason, at least since Valyn arrived here, it had rained at least part of every single day.

There was no hunting to speak of, except for Valyn’s accipiter hawks, who were nasty-tempered enough to fling themselves into the thickest of underbrush after prey. But the hawks were not willing to fly in weather this foul, and after having one goshawk turn on him in frustration at having missed a kill, Valyn was not inclined to press his luck with them. The gos missed his face by a breath with those wicked talons, and only Shadow’s Intervention had gotten the hawk calmed.

There was no hunting with hounds; Cheynar did not keep a pack.
His
dogs guarded the pens of his slaves, and he did not have enough of them to spare for such frivolities as hunting.

The only other form of exercise and amusement was riding—through cold, dark pines that dripped constantly, even when it wasn’t actually raining.

Other than that, there wasn’t much of anything to do. Valyn had often thought that he was bored back on his father’s estate.
Now
he knew what boredom really was.

:On the other hand, we could have Lord Cheynar’s undivided attentions
,: he thought wryly, and saw Shadow nod.

“There are always worse situations, brother,” Shadow said aloud, and sneezed again.

“Like having a cold—” Valyn teased, producing a handkerchief and handing it to him. “Or being out in
that
with a cold. Or keeping my gos from taking your eye out.”

“Like being the person—or persons—who
really
have Lord Cheynar’s undivided attentions,” Shadow corrected, and bent closer, lowering his voice. “My lord is not at all happy at the moment. It seems there’s been a disturbance at one of his breeding farms.”

“Oh?” Valyn suddenly found the view out the window just as fascinating as Mero did. There probably weren’t any watchers—or at least Mero couldn’t detect them—but it was a good idea to exercise a little caution now and again, just in case. “And what was this disturbance?”

“When we first arrived here, he had a message that the latest crop of youngsters included an unknown number with wizard-powers among them,” Shadow informed him, as they both stared fixedly out the window at the dripping pines. “That was just before he met us, when he sent me to the suite with the baggage and took you off to his office. I haven’t said anything until now, because he’s had someone watching us. Either he can’t spare the watcher, or he’s convinced we’re harmless.”

“I devoutly hope the latter,” Valyn replied grimly. “So, there were children with wizard-powers… Halfbloods?”

Mero shook his head. “No. Full-humans. There isn’t a chance you’d get a halfblood on this estate. He sterilizes all his concubines, and elves caught using anything other than a sterile concubine get thrown out without a copper piece.”

“Full-humans.” Valyn mused on that for a moment. “I take it that the signs were objects flying about, and the rest of the usual symptoms?”

Shadow turned his head just enough so that his cousin could see his approving smile. “Your father taught you better than he knew.”

“My father doesn’t know that I know that,” Valyn corrected. “Most of the elven lords my age think human magic is a myth, and I think my father wants to keep it that way. So, what happened to the children?”

“Ah, now that is what has Cheynar’s undivided attention,” Shadow whispered, a hint of satisfaction in his voice. “It seems that they vanished, right out of the slave pen, before they could be identified positively. About a dozen, more or less; that night they were bedded down with the rest, the next morning, they were gone. You might almost say, they disappeared.”

“They
what!
Valyn kept his voice down with an effort. “How could they—”

“With help.” Shadow licked his lips, and Valyn felt a tingle of excitement. “I’ve been hearing magic since we arrived, Val. Quite a lot of it, in fact, but none of it on this estate. It’s all out there in the woods. I think it’s probably safe to assume that it had something to do with the children disappearing out of the slave pens.”

“So there are more halfbloods?” Valyn whispered, half to himself, half to Shadow. When he got no reply, he turned back to see his cousin watching him soberly, red nose and all.

“I don’t know, Val,” Shadow replied. “I’m just not that good, to tell what and who is out there. But I do know that those children are gone, and magic had something to do with it, and Cheynar is really, really worried. And that is all I
can
tell you.”

“That’s enough,” Valyn said, excited at the very idea. “That’s enough for
me
to do something. I haven’t been able to train you, because I didn’t really know what you
could
do. But if there’s a wizard out there good enough to steal children, if I can scry and watch him, I can start showing
you
what to do.”

“Well—” Shadow said suddenly, his eyes going distant, his brows creasing, “better get ready to watch, then. Because I hear it—them—and they’re right out there in those woods!”

KEMAN STOPPED IN the middle of the road, with a chilly spring breeze whipping his mane and tail, and raised his head suddenly at the unexpected trill of melody in his mind.

Magic—an elven lord? Here? It “sounded” like someone he knew—

Then he realized why it “felt” so familiar. The last person on earth he expected.
Fire and Rain, it’s Shana! She’s alive! She’s all right
!

Now Keman knew what was meant by the two-legger expression, “It made the hair on the back of my neck crawl”—if that was the right expression. Did hair crawl? Feeling Shana’s magic at close range for the first time in months did something like that to him. The hair of his mane actually stood upright, and he raised his tail a little as he cast about for direction.

It’s her
! he thought, first stunned, then incredulous, then overwhelmed by an avalanche of simple joy.
It’s her! I found her! I found her
!

And it
was
Shana’s magic; there was no doubt of that. But it was much, much stronger than it had been when she’d been driven out of the Lair. Stronger, and more controlled as well; be read that in the complexity and implicit power of the melody, and the general feeling that it was effortless. The change in her was astonishing.

All of which boded interesting times for the Kin and the Lair when they got back. If she’d been this strong, she wouldn’t have been driven out in the first place—and they wouldn’t be able to drive her out again! No one would be able to do anything
to
her anymore—

But that was secondary, really. What was important was that he had found her in the first place. I
can’t wait to see her, to find out what’s happened to her
! He tossed his head and pranced with glee, all of his discouragement and depression changed in that single moment of discovery.

He looked about quickly, out of sheer force of habit. It was growing dark, and he hadn’t seen anyone on this wilderness track for—days. There was absolutely no point in keeping to the one-horn form he’d taken to keep predators and hunters away, not now, not when there was no one to see him. Without another thought, he sprang into the air and shifted in midleap, resuming his Kin-shape with a sigh of relief.

Not for the first time, he wondered how his mother could stand it. Anything else felt like his skin was too tight. He’d had no choice, until now. Several times, when he’d thought he was safe, he’d rounded a bend in the road and come face-to-face with a collared human out on some errand of his master’s—or even an entire pack-train of them. With the collars on, it was impossible to sense them; impossible to know where they were. So Keman had kept to a form that, while unusual, was also threatening enough to keep the curious at a distance.

The seductive song of magic came again, this time sustained, as if Shana was doing something that took a good deal of time. And it was joined by other, lesser melodies. She wasn’t alone, then. No, he could feel—hmm—six or seven other wizards, and a lot more people. Humans, but uncollared, and young, he thought. Keman caught his direction and flew off, wings beating strongly, at just above treetop-level. And with every wing-beat, he wanted to sing along with the melodies of well-constructed magery, caroling with joy. I
can’t believe it
—
I finally, finally found her! And no one is ever going to take her away from me again
!

It had been a discouraging winter. Lord Dyran’s estate had proved as barren of information as the city, and his rivals offered little* more. Keman’s guise of a young elven lord made him practically invisible—and for some cases, shifting into human slave form was even better, for very little attention was paid to slaves on most estates, so long as they were either working or at least
not
absent from an appointed duty. But none of this helped Keman in his quest for information, for Shana might just as well have vanished down a hole to the center of the earth.

Finally, for lack of anything else, Keman had taken to the wilderness. There were “wild humans” rumored to be living there; Shana
might
have escaped to them. Certainly, between them, the terrain and the wildlife made traveling the few roads that passed through those lands quite difficult.

All of which just proved that the elven lords didn’t have quite as much control over this world as they thought they did.

Elves didn’t take to those tracks willingly, and humans not at all unless ordered. Every year, pack-trains were lost to causes unknown, and more than a few travelers desperate or stupid enough to journey alone never reached their destinations. The elves claimed officially that the losses were due entirely to weather and wildlife, but rumors spoke of huge bands of bandit humans, commanded by some unknown or unnamed elven lord, who swooped down on the unwary traveler to rob and kill.

And there were other rumors, spoken in whispers, in corners, that said those bandits were commanded by no elven lord, but by other humans, and that they had sworn to die before wearing a collar.

In honest truth, during all his time here Keman had seen no sign of “huge bands of humans,” collared or otherwise. What he
had
seen was the result of elven tampering with weather and ecology; terrible storms that could sweep up out of nowhere, pounding an area with wind, torrential rain, and lightning, or burying it in snow and ice. He had never seen so many one-horns before, black and white—he guessed that at least half the one-horns still alive and breeding were here, in these wilderlands. And one-horns were by no means the fiercest of the predators prowling these woods. He’d encountered many creatures he had no name for, more evidence of failed elven tampering in hopes of producing creatures that could be sent out to kill hundreds of human pawns in their staged battles. Evidently they had not learned their lesson with the one-horns.

But there was no need for “huge bands of bandits” to explain the losses on these roads. Elven interference and indifference were more than enough to ensure that these wilderlands remained hostile.

The light was failing, but Keman altered his eyes for night-vision; both to use all the available light, and to see things by the heat they radiated. The second gave him an odd kind of view down through the boughs of the trees below. Pine-scent blew up to him as the branches tossed with his passing, as if he were creating a kind of tiny windstorm as he flew.

The magic-song ended, but Keman had his bearings. His own mind-reach was limited, but as soon as he thought Shana might hear him, he began calling with his mind. At first there was no answer, which was pretty much what he had expected, but as he neared, he heard a reply, and
much
sooner than he thought he would.

:Keman
?: The voice in his head was incredulous, faltering a little, a bit stunned.
:Keman, is that… That
is
you! Fire and Rain, I never thought
—
where are you
?: She sounded even better than her magic; her thoughts were strong and clear, and he thought fleetingly that Alara would be proud of her control.

:Northeast of you, and closing
.: he replied smugly, feeling rather proud of himself.
:Did you really think I’d let you get thrown out here and not at least
try
to find you? I’ve been looking for you since before the snow fell, and
—:

:Keman, I’ve got people with me
.: she interrupted warningly.
:Halfbloods and humans, and I can’t leave them. And they
can’t
see you, you know that. You know what would happen to you, and to Foster Mother. It’s bad enough that the elven lords have dragon-skin. At least most of them don’t have the faintest idea what it is. But if anyone, even the elven lords’ enemies, see a real dragon
—:

:Not a problem, don’t worry
,: he assured her. .
I know how to handle the situation. Just be ready for your long-lost foster brother to find you shortly. He’s been looking for you since those humans stole you out of the desert. Umm
—
halfblood brother, or human
?:

Silence for a moment, while powerful wingstrokes closed the distance between them.
:Halfblood; I may have to bring you back with me to the Citadel
—
never mind, I’ll explain all that. You just think up a convincing story about how you found me, why you came looking for me, and how you tracked me from the desert. I’ve told them that’s where I lived, and I said I was a fosterling, but I never mentioned you or Alara
.:

:All right
,: he replied—scanning the forest ahead for an unusually large grouping of heat-sources.
I think I see you
,: he said, when one appeared just ahead of him. :
I’ll land and walk in
.:

With that, he cut off his mental sendings; landing in trees this thick was going to take all his concentration. In fact, for a moment he wasn’t sure he was going to manage it at all—

Then he spotted the clearing, where one of the forest giants had fallen, taking down an entire swath of lesser trees with it. There was just enough room along the path of its destruction for him to make a prey-catching stoop and backwing into a good landing without getting impaled on the branches…

Moments later, he was in halfblood form, and lurking in the shadows, watching from behind the shelter of a tree trunk and trying to think of how best to approach the camp. He couldn’t see Shana from this angle, but there were three or four others in plain view from where he crouched, one human and two halfbloods, firelight flickering on their faces. They looked very young, at least to him—the human especially couldn’t have seen more than a dozen summers. He was afraid to walk right up to them, for fear he’d startle them; the halfbloods probably could do the same kinds of things Shana could, and he didn’t feel like getting pummeled by rocks—or worse, they might well be able to hurt or even kill with their powers. But he didn’t want to sneak up on them, either; that could be misconstrued, too.

Someone solved the problem for him.

“Don’t move,” said a hard, controlled voice in his ear, as something very sharp poked into his ribs. “And be grateful your ears are a little less pointed than an elven lord’s, or you wouldn’t be standing here alive.”

The pure, expressionless cold of that voice sent shivers up his back, and ice down his veins. He swallowed, and coughed to clear his throat. “I—uh—I’m looking for someone,” he began. He wondered if he ought to turn around, then decided that he probably had better not.

“I’ll bet you are,” the voice said, with just a trace of mockery.

“No, really—I’m looking for my sister, my foster sister, I mean, and I’ve come a long way,” he said, babbling desperately. “All the way from the desert. I’ve been looking for her since fall. She was taken by humans—”

“The desert?” The point digging into his ribs eased up a little. “What’s her name, stranger?”

“Shana,” he whispered, relaxing as the pointed object was removed from his side entirely. “She’s been gone for months and months—the others didn’t want me to look for her because they were afraid of the elven lords finding out about us, but I had to come. I’ve been looking for her for so long, and there hasn’t been a trace of her anyplace and—”

“That’s because she’s been with us for months and months,” the voice said dryly. “You’re not in the clear yet, stranger, but you’re closer. Let’s just move into camp, and see if Shana recognizes you.”

Keman stepped carefully from behind the tree trunk and picked his way across the branch-strewn, root-rutted, uneven ground towards the circle of firelight. As soon as he got a little closer, he saw Shana, who appeared to be deep in conversation with one of the human children. That was when he noticed something interesting—most of the halfbloods were in their late adolescence, and there wasn’t a single human that could be called anything but a child. Although Keman was no kind of expert, he judged them to be no more than ten, and several were younger.

Although Shana had every appearance of being engrossed in talk, Keman saw her taking quick glances about her out of the corner of her eye. Watching for him, he had no doubt. He did not reopen his mental contact with her, though. If she didn’t know when he was going to appear, her surprise would be more genuine, and more believable to his captor. Keman also had no doubt that
this
was the one to convince of his veracity. This one was woods- and worldly-wise. He had been keeping watch while the others huddled about the campfire. If Keman slipped, he’d catch it.

A twig snapped under his foot just as he entered the circle of firelight, and everyone looked up, variations on alarm and surprise on their faces. And a fraction of a heartbeat later, Shana leapt to her feet, and flung herself at him.

“
Keman
!” she cried, as he caught her awkwardly. “Oh, Keman,
Keman
—”

Then she burst into tears, which was not something he expected at all; he held her awkwardly, while the owner of the voice chuckled, and came around the two of them, into the firelight.

“Looks like you’re what you say you are,” the young halfblood said, tossing long, dark hair out of his eyes, and bestowing a half smile on his erstwhile captive. Keman had the oddest feeling, looking at the young man’s deep, troubled eyes, that a half smile would be all
anyone
would ever get from him…

“
Look
, family reunions are wonderful, but we’ve got a problem here, Shana,” said another young man—not with the kind of disparaging self-importance that would normally accompany words of that nature, but as if he was genuinely afraid. “We’ve got a dozen human kids with wizard-powers, and nowhere to take them. So now that we’ve got them loose, what are we going to do with them?”

One of the youngest girls snuggled up to him, and he put his arm around her as she looked up at him with frightened eyes.

“He’s right, Shana,” Keman’s guard said soberly. “You
know
we can’t take them to the Citadel, and they aren’t old enough to survive out here on their own—and even if they were, the elven lords would track them down in a season. They’ve hardly even seen the outside World, they certainly don’t know how to take care of themselves in the wilderness!”