by Andre Norton
She would never know if her magic was the equal of Lorryn's, because no elven maiden would ever be taught anything but useless skills like flower-sculpting, water-weaving, and the like. Oh, she had heard vague rumors of a few, a very few, elven women who wielded their power like a man, but she had never met any, and she doubted that any of them would be willing to share their secrets with her. Yet before that lesson, it would never have occurred to her that she had a certain power in her own hands that no elven lord would ever suspect.
For it was during the course of that lesson that she realized something strange, exciting, and a little frightening.
The same skills I used to shape the flower could be used in other ways—stopping a heart, for instance. Those useless lessons? If she ever needed that power, those lessons might not be so useless after all.
What is this? A thread? No, cut it off.
She had not mentioned her revelation to her mother, knowing that Viridina would have been horrified. And she had not really known that the idea would work until a few days later, when she had found a bird in the garden that had flown into a window and broken its neck. Without thinking, she had moved to end the poor thing's pain—and stopped its heart.
She had run back to her own room in horror, fleeing what she had done. But the deed remained, and the power, and the knowledge of what she had done.
Since that moment she had not been able to look at anything the same way. She had surreptitiously experimented with her power, working with the sparrows and pigeons that flocked to the garden. At first she had only made tiny alterations in their color, or the length of their feathers. Then she grew bolder, until now her garden was full of exotic creatures with feathers of scarlet and blue, gold and green, with trailing tails and flaring crests, all of them tame to her hand. Something told her that making subtle changes with her power could be as important—and as dangerous—as the kinds of magic that Lorryn wielded.
And yet, at the same time, she was afraid to stretch out her hand and take the ephemeral power that beckoned her. No other elven woman had ever dared do so—perhaps there was a reason. Perhaps this beckoning power was nothing more than an illusion of strength. True, she could make a colorful bird out of a sparrow—but what good was that? What did it prove?
If my lady could remove her foot from the sleeve, please?
But what if it was not? What if it was real? What if she had discovered something no one else knew?
Her secret thoughts weighed in her soul and made it impossible to accept anything at face value anymore. Hardest to bear was the way her father treated her mother and herself.
This very gown was an example of how little he thought of them, how little he trusted them with anything of import. To Sheyrena's certain knowledge, the only time he ever came to Viridina's bower with a pleasant face was when he wanted her to come play the proper wife before his influential friends. In private, neither of them could ever truly please him. He preferred the company of the human slaves in his harem, and constantly compared Viridina to his latest favorites, always unfavorably.
Not that I envy them, she thought, glancing out of the corner of her eye at one of the redheads. Father's tastes are fickle, and his favorites never last long.
And when his favorites were out of favor, Lord Tylar seemed to take a malicious delight in sending them to serve his wife or daughter in the bower. Sheyrena had never been able to guess whether he did so to try to torment them with the still lovely presence of his former leman, or to torment the former favorite with the presence of the lawful wife who could not be displaced. Perhaps it was both.
Viridina accepted this quietly and without a single comment, ever; just as she accepted with the same serene resignation everything else that life bestowed on her. She was not envious of the harem beauties either; there was really no difference in the world of the harem and that of the bower except that Viridina could not be supplanted. They had neither more freedom than their putative mistress, nor less. As Sheyrena had gradually come to understand, the distinction between the bower and the harem was that the bower was a harem of one. Only when it came to Lorryn and Lorryn's well-being did Viridina show any signs of interest—though a furtive, obsessive, fearful anxiety, as if she was terrified that something would happen to him. She watched over Lorryn with the care and concern she could have shown if he were an invalid, rather then the healthy creature he was. Or did his attacks of kryshein mean he was not as healthy as Sheyrena thought? Was there some secret trouble with Lorryn, something Rena could not be told? But if that was true, then why hadn't Lorryn told her? He never had kept any secret from her before!
Viridina might accept her lot as an elven lady, but it was more than Sheyrena could stomach for herself.
Better to be ignored as the daughter than humiliated as the wife of someone like Father.
She was surrounded by all of the slaves now, each of them making minute adjustments to the gown, the lacings, as if she were nothing more than a mannequin inside it and the gown itself was the important guest. Sheyrena had a sudden, absurd thought, that perhaps this was the real truth—that the gown had a life and purpose of its own, and she was nothing more than the vehicle it required to propel it to the place where it would be admired!
Yet, in a sense, that was the whole truth. The gown represented Lord Tylar, his power, his wealth, his position. She was nothing more than the means to display all these things, a convenient banner-bearer. It was the banner that was important, not the hand that held it, after all. Anything would have served the same purpose.
If I'd been as feeble-wined as Ardeyn's mother, he would still have had me trussed up in this gown and sent off to the fete. And if he were as wise as any of the High Lords, he would have found a way to command my silence so as not to distract potential suitors from the message of his importance.
She and her mother were nothing more than things to Lord Tylar—not that this was a new thought, but it had never been driven home quite so obviously before. They were possessions, game-pieces, and their whole importance lay in how they could be played to the best advantage.
She was encased in the layers of this gown as she was encased in the layers of his power over her, and nothing would ever change that. She knew that, and yet a persistent little voice deep inside kept asking, Why not?
Because that is the way things are, she told that little voice. They have always been that way, and they will always be that way. Nothing will ever change them. Certainly not one insignificant female, for females are of no consequence to anyone.
But the little voice would not accept that answer. As her slaves directed her to sit again so that they might dress her hair, it replied, Oh no? Then what about the halfblood wizards? What about the Elvenbane? She is only one female.
Sheyrena had no answer for that. Certainly the High Lords had been certain they had disposed of all the halfbloods long ago, and had thought they had made certain no others could be born. The halfbloods, with their melding of human and elven magics, were holders of the only real power that had ever threatened the elven lords' rule over this world they had conquered so long ago. Yet despite all the precautions, more halfblooded children had been born—worse, had escaped to grow into their powers—and had survived to learn how to use those powers. One of those children had been a girl who had, by ill luck or conscious direction, matched the descriptions of a savior in human legend called the Elvenbane. She had found allies the High Lords hadn't even dreamed existed.
Dragons.
Sheyrena sighed as she thought of the dragons, her chest constricted by the tightly laced dress. Not that she had ever seen one, but she had heard plenty of descriptions. Oh, how she would love to get just a glimpse of one! Sinuous, graceful, glistening in the sunlight with the colors of precious gems as they flew—dragons lilted through her dreams at night sometimes, leaving her yearning after them when dawn came, sometimes with her cheeks wet with tears of longing and loss.
'Turn your head this way, my lady.
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br /> It was the dragons that had turned the tide for the wizards, and made it possible for them to hold off the armies of no less than three of the High Lords. There had been a dreadful slaughter that included many elves. Chief among those was the powerful, if half-mad, Lord Dyran. Sheyrena had heard it whispered that it was his own son who had slain him. That hardly seemed possible, and yet, who would have thought that dragons were possible a year ago?
In the end, the High Lords were forced to accede to a truce. The wizards retreated out beyond the lands that the elves claimed, and the elves pledged to leave them in peace.
My father claims we drove them out, and that we only let them go because it wasn't worth pursuing them. She allowed herself a treacherous iota of contempt. The last time he entertained guests, he went on for hours about it. They all did. You'd think we actually defeated them, from the way Father acted!
And that little voice inside spoke up without prompting. Maybe they aren't as much in control as they would like to think, it whispered insidiously. Maybe they aren't anywhere near as powerful as you think. Maybe you aren't as insignificant as they would like to make you think.
That's all very well, she told it sullenly, But what exactly am I supposed to do to prove how free I am?
The voice finally went silent then, having no solutions to offer. After all, it was nothing more than her own stubborn rebellion.
Still, that was a point. Lorryn called the second Wizard War a draw at best, a rout at worst, and he did not mean for the halfblood side. What if the power of the High Lords had weakened? Did that mean there was room for a female to make a life for herself, in the midst of the High Lords' scramble to retain what they had?
Bend your head, please, my lady.
But how? That was the real question. How to escape the dreary life that had been laid out for her from the moment of her birth? These plans had a life of their own, rolling along whether or not she agreed to them.
And Father can force me if he wants to. That was another fact. He could visit any number of unpleasant punishments on her if she refused to cooperate. He could confine her to a single room on starvation meals.
He could even lock a slave-collar on me, and coerce me to obey with magic. She had heard rumors of that happening to some maidens, faced with exceedingly unpleasant husbands-to-be. It was easy enough to conceal such a device in a piece of elaborate jewelry; such things were constructed for favored slaves all the time. She felt her throat close and her breath come shorter at the very idea. She quickly controlled herself, before the slaves noticed.
No, there was no escape for her—only the minimal freedom she had now, as the daughter rather than the wife. But if only there were!
Not that I have any idea what I would do, she admitted to herself. It was just that she had been feeling so stifled for such a long time, locked up in the bower, doing next to nothing, listening to the gossip of the slaves. I want to do something with my life, even if I don't know what. I don't want to become another pretty puppet like Mother; that much I do know. I couldn't bear that.
But as she watched the slaves braiding and arranging her hair in the mirror, she was struck by how much she did resemble her mother. And an uncomfortable thought occurred to her. Had Lady Viridina always been the perfect elven lady? Or had she been forced to pretend that she was, until the last of her spirit faded, and the pretense became reality, the facade became fact?
Could that happen to me?
A very uncomfortable thought, that. Sheyrena turned away from it nastily. There was not and never had been a sign that Lady Viridina was anything but what she appeared to be. Sheyrena was not her mother. Viridina could never understand her.
If only I'd been born a boy… Another thought-path, this one worn by travel. If only she had been born a male, Lorryn's little brother instead of his sister They were nearly as close as brothers anyway, for despite custom to the contrary, because of his mother's obsessive need to oversee his welfare, Lorryn had spent plenty of time in the bower instead of being sequestered away with a series of male tutors. Viridina encouraged this, and even dropped her fanatic watchfulness whenever her son and daughter were together. He had shared plenty of lessons with Sheyrena as they grew. She had trailed along after him countless times, dressed in his castoffs, without anyone seeming to notice. Even now he smuggled her out in disguise as a male slave, sharing rides and hunts with her, whenever their father wasn't in residence. Discipline was relaxed whenever Lord Tylar was gone; there wasn't such a close watch kept, and Lorryn's age and status kept awkward questions from being asked.
She enjoyed the rides, although the inevitable conclusion of the hunts generally made her feel sick and she avoided the kill whenever possible. It was Lorryn who had told her most of what she knew about the real conclusion of what he called the second Wizard War.
Please close your eyes, my lady.
Sheyrena obeyed the request, and continued to follow her own thoughts. She assumed Lorryn picked up most of what he knew from the other el-Lords, the young heirs and younger sons that he saw socially. Most of what Lorryn had told her, she suspected, was not anything their elders would approve of her hearing. -Very little of it was flattering; Lorryn and his contemporaries did not have a high opinion of their elders' intelligence or ability.
She had the feeling that Lorryn secretly admired the now-deceased Valyn, Lord Dyran's heir, who had actually joined forces with the wizards, turning traitor to his own kind. Lorryn swore that he had done so to save his presumably halfblooded brother, Mere; though how he could know that, she hadn't a clue. He seemed obsessed with that part of the story, but as for her, she could not hear enough about the dragons.
Oh, the dragons…
The slaves were working on her face now, with tiny brushes and pots of cosmetic, trying to give her some semblance of a living person. That was going to be difficult to do; her hair was the palest white-gold imaginable, and her face completely without color in its natural state, her eyes so pale a green as to seem gray. Anything they did with cosmetics was doomed to look artificial. At the best, she would resemble a porcelain statue; at worst, a clown.
At the moment, she was inclined to hope for the clown.
Lorryn had also been the one to tell her about the Elvenbane, who summoned the dragons. Some of what he had told her she had also overheard when her father had made conversation with guests, but not that. Her father never even acknowledged that any such creature existed.
That wasn't particularly surprising. The Elvenbane was female and halfblood, and must represent everything Lord Tylar hated and feared.
But if I could choose anything other than a boy—I would choose to be her. Oh, how that would shock Lady Viridina! But that was what Sheyrena dreamed, in the secret dark of the deep night: that she was the Elvenbane. Powerful in her own right, bending the world to her will and her magic, riding across the sky on a dragon; that was the way to live!
If I was the Elvenbane, there would be no father to stop me, nothing I couldn't do if I wanted to. I could go anywhere, see anything, be anything that I wished!
She settled back into her daydreams as the slaves worked on her face, tiny brushes flicking across her cheeks, lips, and eyelids with the kiss of a thousand butterflies. She envisioned herself mounted on a huge scarlet dragon, soaring under a cloudless sky, so high above the forest that the trees blurred into a mossy carpet of green and there was no sign of walls or buildings. In her dreaming, the dragon carried her toward the mountains she had never seen, which rose to meet them, towering spires sparkling with fantastic crags of crystal and rose quartz, amethyst and—
A polite cough woke her out of her dream. Regretfully she opened her eyes and regarded the handiwork of the slaves in her mirror.
It was appalling. It was also the best they could do, and she knew it. Her eyes were washed out by the heavy peacock-blue they had painted on her lids; her cheeks had hectic red circles that looked as clownlike as she had imagined, and her rosy, pouting lips simply did not
look as if they belonged on her face.
She dared not approve it, but she did not disapprove either. If Lord Tylar didn't like it, let him be the one to say so.
When she said nothing, the slaves went back to the final arrangement of her hair.
Left alone, it was her one beauty, but they were building it into an edifice that would match the dress, and as a result, it looked like a wig made of bleached horsehair. They had piled most of it on the top of her head in stiff curls, coils, and braids, leaving only a few tendrils, stiffened with dressing and trained into wirelike spirals, to trail artificially about her face. Now they were inserting all the bejeweled hair ornaments her father had dictated; heavy gold and emerald, of course.
If I had been dressing myself—I would have chosen the pale rose silk, with flowers and ribbons, pearls and white gold. Nothing like this. I would fade into the background, but at least I would not look like a clown.
By the time they were done, no one would ever recognize her. Which was just as well. She wouldn't want anyone to recognize her, looking like this.
It wouldn't have been so bad if only Lorryn could be with her. He'd have been able to make her laugh, he'd have helped her to keep her sense of humor about it all, and he would have kept anyone she actually disliked from getting too close. But Lorryn was subject to spells of terrible pain in his head—the one affliction that elves were subject to—and he had been overcome by one of those spells just this morning.
It's just as well. I wouldn't even want Lorryn to see me looking like this.
Lorryn lay on his bed, with one eye on the door, one eye on his hard-won book about an ancient and extinct tribe of humans called the Iron People, and one ear cocked for the sound of footsteps. He had carefully positioned himself so that he could drop the book to the floor and fling his arm over his eyes at the slightest sound or movement of the door to his bedroom. Fortunately, Lord Tylar was more likely to come striding into his son's chambers with a fanfare and an entourage than he was to try and catch Lorryn unawares.
