Mercedes Lackey - Elvenbane

Interesting that he was still thinking of Dyran as an enemy, which meant he still had Valyn's "cause" on his mind. Well, it couldn't hurt to humor him.

"I do have a gallery box," she said, playing with her hair and looking up through her lashes coyly. "I don't use it very often but...why not?" She jumped to her feet, and gave her hand gracefully to Mero. "Here, stand up. I can't work on you while you're sitting there."

He rose obediently, and she admired the play of muscles beneath his shirt as he moved. His frame, light, but strong, was much more to her taste than the attenuated bodies of elven men. Or even the bulky forms of human men, for that matter.

She really did need a little wizard for her very own, she mused, and she spun a careful mist of illusion that lightened his dark hair to silver-blond, thinned his body, lengthened his ears, and bleached his complexion to pale alabaster. Once I get him broken in, he just might turn out to be the best lover I've ever had .

Her work done, she stepped back and admired it critically. "I think that will do," she said, nodding. "Are you ready? Come on, there's a Council session going on now."

"How are we going to get there?" he asked, as she turned without waiting for his answer, and led the way to her father's study at a fast walk. "Lord Dyran has to spend a week in travel to get there, but Lord Leremyn lives farther away and gets home every night. What's the trick?"

"Every one of the original High Lords had a permanent spell-cabinet in their manor," she said over her shoulder, as he trotted down the white marble hallway to catch up with her. "It only goes one place: the Council building at the capital. We can't change it, and if we ever tried to move it, the spell would break. Lords like Dyran, who are upstarts, really, don't have one. There were a few of them destroyed during the Wizard War, but most of them still work. The idea was that with the cabinets, lords could live on their estates and govern them while still sitting on Council. Of course, the ones that don't have the cabinets have to live in the capital during Council season, but that's just too bad for them, really."

"Why don't they just build their own?" Mero asked, as she paused in her chatter long enough to open the study door.

"Because it takes too much power," she explained. "The old ones built the cabinets as the manors were being built, and they all contributed to each cabinet's spell, all twenty of them. It took them a year, and they couldn't do anything magical at all during the year except to build the cabinets, it took that much power."

Unspoken was the implication that the elven lords on the Council these days didn't trust one another enough to either contribute power or lie helpless while recovering, in order to build more cabinets. She wondered if Mero had picked that up.

Probably , she decided, looking at his thoughtful expression as she pulled back the pale-pink satin drapery that concealed the cabinet, and handed him one of her sardonyx seals from the drawer of the dainty carved-birch desk in front of it.

"Here," she said. "Don't lose this. The cabinet here only works one-way, but the one at the Council building won't know where to send you home if you don't have this with you."

Obediently, he pocketed it, and she pulled the door open for him. There was just barely enough room inside for two.

"Get in," she said, and followed him, closing the door after herself and giggling when he tickled her playfully.

They returned at nightfall, and Mero handed her out of the cabinet with a great deal of gallantry, but none of the playfulness he'd shown earlier. The room had been made ready for their return; lights burning, and the curtains drawn as she preferred them. She broke the illusion on him with that touch, and his face shimmered and changed as she allowed him to resume his core-illusion, of full humanity.

He looked at her thoughtfully, and she smiled. He smiled back, but didn't say anything, and Triana gathered that the Council session had really opened his eyes to the reality of elven politics...and the strength of Lord Dyran.

The subject that had been before the Council was a dispute between two of the lesser lords...one which seemed simple on the surface, but involved the prestige and welfare of at least a half dozen Council members. And the rest, of course, had bets riding on the outcome. Insofar as she had been able, Triana had kept up a running commentary on exactly who was involved with what, who was being betrayed, who was likely to turn his coat if the tide turned against him. Dyran, who, as always, was covering both sides without either side knowing that he was, controlled both halves of the conflict with a masterful hand.

If Mero had to pick a day to visit the Council, this was a good one, she thought with satisfaction, as she had Mero take a seat, and summoned a servant to fetch them a late meal. Not like the day they spent arguing over trade quotas and the Council tax on oat harvests.

She felt a little light-headed, and recognized the symptoms for what they were. "If you don't mind, Mero," she said, breaking into the young halfblood's reverie, "I'm going to go change. I'll be right back."

He kissed her hand as she stood, and she gave him a dazzling smile before turning away and going out the study door.

She didn't really want to change; she wanted to reinforce the glamorie, and for that she needed one of the talismans in which she had stored power. Besides creating the illusion for Mero, the transport-cabinet used her energy for the actual transportation, and she was depleted. But no matter how depleted she was, one thing she would never do was to allow any of the slaves to handle her talismans. That would be inviting disaster. You never knew when one of them might have enough residual wizard-power and will left to use the stored energy of the talisman to counter the spells on his collar.

She wouldn't run; it wasn't dignified. But she hurried her steps as much as she could without running, her heels echoing in the white marble hall, and let herself into her room without any fanfare. There was no one there, which was just as well. She tried not to let anyone know where she kept her talismans, not even the lowest of the slaves.

She took the key from around her wrist and unlocked the appropriate drawer of her white-lacquered jewel cabinet, and looked through her talismanic jewelry until she found the necklace of amber that matched her creamy-gold gown. She slipped it on over her head hurriedly, and immediately felt better, less as if she were reduced to a mere wisp of herself. Being depleted always made her feel as if she were likely to blow away on the next breeze.

She returned to Mero, her steps echoing confidently up the hall. She thought she heard male voices somewhere ahead, and didn't give it a second thought. But as she approached the door, she heard the sound of a splintering crash, and the thud of two bodies on the floor.

Ancestors! What on earth? Who would dare ...

She flung the door open, just in time to see Mero receive a kick in the ribs that sent him flying into the wall, taking one of her little carved-birch chairs with him. The chair did not survive the impact. Mero did, but not well.

Triana whirled, her power rising within her, to confront Mero's assailant. A huge, muscular, dark-haired man stalked past her, ignoring her presence and advancing on Mero with blood-lust in his eyes. She recognized him with surprise. It was a human named Laras, one of her stable, a slave who had been intended for the gladiatorial ranks before she had taken him for her own purposes. If he had been a little brighter, she might have elevated him to be Rafe's replacement, but his dim-wittedness ruled that out. Nevertheless, he seemed to regard himself as her favorite. He had always been inclined to jealousy, and his fits of temper were violent and notorious among the slaves, but she had never seen him lose his control so completely.