Elveblood hc-2 Read online

  Gladly, she told him, her smile widening, making a white crescent across her face like a sliver of moon in the night sky. I would like to meet this so-clever maiden; perhaps I should instruct her on the ways of a Man-Hearted Woman, so that she can claim that distinction as well! It would force Jamal to acknowledge her as a war-captive, and not as a slave, if she did.

  That is well thought, he chuckled. Very well thought! It had not occurred to me. Jamal will be most discomfited; you know he is not in comfort when he must speak even to our own Man-Hearted Women, and this will vex him greatly!

  He chuckled again, thinking of Jamal's extreme discomfort if Shana were to successfully claim that she was Man-Hearted. She would then officially be a war-captive, and Jamal would be forbidden by law and custom to put her or her underlings to the question; he would be completely unable to question her effectively, and her mere presence would make him uneasy. Oh, Kala was a clever one!

  You remind me yet again why I sought your hand, he told her, capturing her plump hand in his and squeezing it, though I still cannot comprehend why it was my suit that you favored.

  That is why I keep to your tent, silly boy, she teased, returning the caress. You value wisdom, which lasts, over a slim-hipped and lissome figure, which does not! Ah—I hear them coming!

  Regretfully he released her hand, and put on his Priest face. As he had expected, Shana arrived with a full contingent of Jamal's guards. Well, that would be changed. Henceforth, he would have his own men fetch her.

  Trusted men. I believe I know who Jamal's eyes and ears are among the Priests, but I shall keep risks to a minimum.

  So. He regarded Shana with a stem gaze. I understand that you wish to impart knowledge to me.

  She nodded, and cast scornful glances to either side of her, as if to make it plain that she was not going to speak even in the presence of Jamal's underlings. You know the ways of courtesy to a war-captive and a leader, Priest Diric. I will give you my word not to cause trouble nor escape; to you, and no other, she replied shortly, and shut her mouth firmly.

  He wondered if her phrasing was accidental or deliberate, for she had implied that Jamal was ignorant of proper behavior. He caught grimaces from one or two of her guards, and hidden grins from others. Hmm. And perhaps those last agree with her? Interesting. I wonder how many of his own people Jamal has offended with his high-handed ways. He glanced aside at Kala, remembering their conversation. All of the Man-Hearted Women, I would think. Perhaps I should begin offering them the counsel of the First Smith, and remind them that the First Daughter had a Manly Heart and fought beside her brother to great honor…

  I do, he told the girl gravely. And I shall offer that courtesy to you now, as I have in the past. He looked to the guards. You may go. The war-captive has given her word and her parole to me.

  They were not slow to leave, making him wonder the more. Were they that eager to return to Jamal with word that they had completed their mission—or was the embarrassment of the mission so distasteful that they could not have it done with quickly enough?

  As soon as they were out of the tent and gone, Kala clapped both hands over her mouth, stifling a giggle, and Shana relaxed, grinning at them both.

  Did you see how they scurried away? Kala gasped around her laughter. Oh, the shame! They will not make themselves prominent to Jamal's eyes any time soon! I think they will see to it that they volunteer for night watch and far scouting, and nothing near to Jamal's tent or his regard!

  You think so? Diric felt immensely cheered; Kala was better at reading the subtle signals of body and expression than he. All to the good. Shana, this is Kala, my wife. Kala, this Is our demon.'

  I am very pleased to meet you, Shana replied gravely, and half-bowed. Kala waved an impatient hand at her.

  None of that! she exclaimed, though Diric could tell that she was pleased. I am no demon lady to be bowed to!

  Nevertheless, Shana replied, respect where it is due—and speaking of respect, what did you think of my play? We all matched wits after I got back, and this was the one notion we thought would give us unlimited access to you.

  Diric nodded with approval. It was a risk, but no more than we already have undertaken, and since you made your declaration public, Jamal could not do anything other than he did without incurring more shame or declaring open warfare between the two of us. That would tear the clan apart, and even Jamal is not prepared to do that.

  Yet.

  Shana shifted her weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other, precisely as the messenger had done earlier. I knew it was a greater risk than you're saying, she admitted. I hoped that your people didn't have a tradition of torturing captives… but I knew that was a possibility if Jamal was so angry with me that his anger overcame his sense.

  She was wiser than he thought, and much older than her years. Then again, she had been, according to her own words, a captive of the real green-eyed demons, and perhaps she had seen cruelties among them that gave her that hard-won wisdom.

  Come, sit, he said instead, neither confirming nor denying her statement. Kala is something of an expert in locks; let her look at your collar. As Shana obeyed, taking a seat on one of the fat pillows with no sign of reluctance, he added, We first unearthed them from the coffers of the First Smith when we captured the two males. They are very old, and I had not seen the like before, but it was in the orders of the Priests that a store of them was to be kept intact to hold demons, and that they were not to be melted down nor reused in any other ways.

  Shana tilted her chin to the side as Kala examined the lock of the collar. His wife made some soft sounds, as she always did when she was looking closely at anything, and in a moment she made a tching noise that signified her satisfaction.

  Simplicity, she said in quiet triumph. Let me get my tools.

  She rose and whisked off into the private quarters, returning in no time with a leather pouch of the fine tools that all women-smiths used in making their jewels. This lock is very fine, very old, she said, settling herself beside Shana, and opening up the pouch to remove a set of probes. It has the look of something made by a woman, in fact. It is a trifle more complicated than some I have seen, but not as complicated as many I have made myself.

  How old do you think it is? Shana asked with interest.

  Very; more than that I cannot say. Kala probed at the lock with her probes held firmly in her plump, clever fingers. I suspect that it is old enough that when it was made, it was the most complicated lock anyone of the Clans had ever seen. Something like this would not wear out readily, so it is hard to judge age by wear, or lack of it. The tip of her tongue protruded from the corner of her mouth as she concentrated, and Diric had to restrain a chuckle. She always did that, it always amused him, and that amusement always annoyed her. It does bear out a tradition among the women, that it was the women who found the means to stop the green-eyed demons from exercising their power when captive.

  Oh? Shana said, her tone very neutral. Kala looked up into her eyes and smiled slyly.

  So you have tried some of your lesser magics and they worked, hmm? It is well you did not try the greater, such as lightning. It would have been a painful lesson. Kala grinned broadly as Shana started. It is the Iron, young maiden. Magic heats it when the wearer attempts to exercise it. Lesser magics only so much that you might think it no more than the doing of the sun. But greater, like calling lightnings down from the heavens—aiee!—you would be most unhappy, if it did not kill you altogether. She raised both eyebrows at the younger woman. As my husband can tell you, that, as well as the Mind-Wall, came to all the First Priests in a dream one night, straight from the heart of the First Smith and His Wife. But it was the women, so the tale says, that first thought of using collars on their captives.

  Oh. This time Shana looked chagrined, and a little alarmed. But what about the way that your warriors were immune to the magic we used against them?

  Ah, Diric spoke up. That, I know the answer to. Magic coming from outsi
de is reflected from it, so that the wearer takes no harm. So you see, between the collars and the armor and jewelry, we are well protected. Unless—

  Unless magic is not directed against you, but against what is around you, Shana supplied grimly. Believe me, it would not take long at all for the greater elven lords to figure that out! They have the advantage of having waged war successfully against your ancestors, the ones who fled into the South with their cattle. Personally, I mean. It is not tradition that guides them, but memory.

  Eh? Diric said, sure he had not heard her correctly.

  If your legends say that the demons live forever, they are not far wrong, Shana told him, so earnestly he could not doubt her. Many of the same elven lords who fought your ancestors are still alive and hale today. I would not like to see what would happen if your warriors went into a charge on their bulls, and a great fissure opened up in the earth in front of them.

  Since Diric had, in his time, seen the tragic results of many stampedes in uncertain terrain, he could and did know what would happen—with the addition of human bodies to the bovine ones. He shuddered, and welcomed the distracting click as Kala forced the lock of the collar open. She took it from Shana's neck with another smile.

  See how I trust you because my husband trusts you, she remarked, bending now over the collar in her lap. You know all our secrets, and if you were a true demon, you would have us at your mercy.

  Shana only laughed, and felt of her neck. I would never have believed how heavy a simple iron band could be.

  It is not the weight of the metal, but the bondage that it represents, Diric said solemnly, and she nodded. But you have not all of our secrets. There remains one. Do you wish to know it?

  How you can keep me from knowing your thoughts? she asked. I wonder that you have that secret at all, since the elven lords don't have that magic. Only humans do.

  But humans can be enslaved by demons, he reminded her. They can even serve them willingly. So we learned, when we fought beside the Com People and were forced to flee. But the discipline of the Mind-Wall is easy for one to learn who does not possess even the least and littlest bit of that magic himself. Our children all are taught it as they are taught to speak, until it is as unconscious as breathing.

  So how do you do this? she persisted.

  He laughed. I think—very hard, and in the front of my mind—of just that. A wall, a simple, blank wall. So—

  He demonstrated for her. Thus—it is down. Thus—I create it, slowly. Do you see? We call this being 'double-minded,' hiding our thoughts behind the Mind-Wall.

  She frowned as he did it twice more, and shook her head. I see how you do it, but to do it myself—

  It takes much practice, when you come to it late, he assured her. The Priests who have the thought-magic test all the people at intervals, and those who seem weak are given some personal attention to strengthen their wills. Now you know all.

  Shana sighed. I knew it had to be something simple, both the blankness and the problems with true magic. I knew that the elven lords didn't like having iron or steel around them, I just never knew why. I always assumed that it had something to do with the fact that if they are hurt with the metal, they can sicken.

  Possibly because bits of the metal too small to be seen poison the wound, Diric hazarded, and then any magic they cast would turn upon the flesh that was wounded—well, it does not matter. Now, have you anything to offer me? Jamal will be expecting great amounts of information about your lands and people—what am I to give him?

  She grinned so hugely, he wondered what the jest was. I couldn't take the chance that you people might have a way to tell if I was telling the truth or not, so I phrased that declaration very carefully. My people would be very, very pleased to see trouble come to the elves, so what I really said was that I would tell you everything I knew about the green-eyed demons.

  Now Diric saw the jest, and stifled his own bellow of laughter behind his wrist. Oh, most excellent! And let us be most pedantic and thorough, so that we have occasion for many, many meetings.

  I'll tell you right down to the number of blankets in their storehouses, if I know it, she promised. So where shall we start?

  With the property of the demon closest to our current line of march who is also farthest from your people, he said promptly. If we must give him a target, let us give him a true and tempting one.

  Diric, she replied, after studying him for a moment, I come to like you more and more with every passing moment.

  And I, you, oh crafty maiden, he told her truthfully. And I, you.

  Keman got his turn later that afternoon; he was looking forward to it with an anticipation that made his teeth ache. He wanted out of that cursed collar so badly, he could hardly stand it. Not only because he wanted to go hunt—in this form, it was easier to live on the kinds of foods available to him than it was for Dora in her bovine form, but he still needed fresh, raw meat in quantity every so often—but because he wanted to meet Dora tonight face-to-draconic-face.

  What he had learned of her last night had been something of a trauma to both of them; she had no idea there were any other dragons in the world at all, and he had no idea there were any Lairs as far south as hers was. Without talking to one of her elders, he was not able to determine if her people had discovered their own Gate, if they were a late-arriving group from the peaceful haven that his Kin had left because it proved boring, or if she was even a dragon as he knew them. After all, dragons and elves were both immigrants to this place from elsewhere. There might be yet another group of creatures that had found its way here.

  But the time spent in her company had been far too short, and despite all the momentous occurrences since sunset yesterday, the meeting she had promised with him for this evening was still the thing that preoccupied his thoughts. He begged Shana to let him be the second one to have his collar removed, using persuasion and some truth, so that he could go fly with Dora in his true form. She had not been able to shift where he could see it last night, because that would have been well within sight of both the herds and the herdsmen, so he still had no idea what she really looked like.

  The truth was that he had traveled over more of the elven lords' lands than any of the four of them, when he had made his search for Shana after she had been captured by slavers. He had not confined his travels to being in elven form, either; he had made plenty of trips in the air. Draconic memory for territory was excellent and very precise; he would be able to draw maps that should send Jamal into paroxysms of delight.

  Mero, Lorryn. and Kalamadea would be able to add their information that would send Jamal into fits of greed as well. All of them knew something about the properties that various elven lords held, and what they didn't know, they were equipped to make up. It should be interesting.

  It would be even more interesting if Jamal actually got as far as attacking the elves.

  One thing at a time. For now it was most important that he get this cursed collar off!

  Diric was waiting, with stylus and a set of smoothed slabs of clay. So was his wife, with her little pouch of tools. Both were smiling as he entered the tent.

  Make your rough maps on the clay, Diric told him without preamble. This way you can erase or change things; when you are certain of your map, I will give it to one of my Priests to be burned onto leather.

  He nodded, and sat down beside Kala, Diric's wife. After several days of living with these people, he had begun to accustom himself to their idea of beauty, and he could see that she had been a great beauty when she was young, and was still quite attractive now. She still moved with a precise and studied grace, and when she smiled, she glowed. If her figure had spread with age, if gray had crept into her coarse black curls, it hardly mattered. Her eyes were the loveliest that Keman had ever seen on a human or even an elven lord; a beautiful, deep brown, as wide and guileless as a doe's.

  This will not take long, now that I have the trick of it, she told him—and a few moments later, after skillf
ul probing with her tools, the lock gave a click and the collar came off in her hands.

  He rubbed his neck reflexively with one hand, and picked up the stylus in the other, grateful now that his mother had taught him reading and writing as the elves practiced it. These Iron People still had no idea what he was—and he was not about to give that particular secret away!

  And the sooner he got some maps into this clay, the sooner he would be out of here, free to meet Dora for a flight and a hunt.

  It took a little longer than he had really wanted—it proved to be much more difficult than he had thought it would be to translate what he remembered from the air and the roads into scratches of the right relative length in the clay. By the time he had filled the four clay tablets with maps of the territory between here and Lord Tylar's estate, it was fully dark.

  This is very rough, he warned, as Diric placed the last of the tablets into the hands of one of his under-Priests. 'There was a lot of detail I had to leave out because of the scale we were working in.

  Then you will have to return to give me that detail, will you not? Diric replied, logically. Indeed, you and Shana and the other two should all be here to give me that detail. It will mean many, many meetings, I would think.

  Oh, he replied, feeling very, very stupid for not seeing that very thing. Of course. We want to have many, many more meetings, right?

  As many as it takes, Kala replied, and held out the hated collar. Here you are, slip this on and push it closed; you will hear it click as if it has locked, but it cannot lock now, it can only latch. She showed him a tiny stud on the underside of the collar. You push this, and it will release, and you can take it off.

  Thank you, he said, fervently, and slipped the collar back on. He tested her work by closing it, then opening it again, immediately, and smiled with relief when it came open exactly as she had promised.

  She only raised an eyebrow at that, but made no comment other than, You must promise to take those with you; I would not want faulty collars in among the rest. If all you say is true, and if Jamal has his way with his dreams of conquest, we may well need true collars in the future.