[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Alara watched her foster daughter scamper away across the hard-baked
ground and experienced mingled emotions: pride, and guilt. The child grew more
attractive with every passing day a lithe, lean girt, surefooted and athletic,
a remarkable combination of frailty and toughness. Her fine-textured skin had
darkened to a warm brown from constant exposure to the sun, and her bright
green eyes sparkled with humor more often than not. From her elven father, she
inherited delicate bones and a beautifully sculpted face with high cheekbones
and a determined chin. From her mother, she took her dark, deep-auburn hair
that shone in the sun like old copper. Her little tunics of patchwork
dragon-skin gleamed against her sun-gilded limbs as if she wore a corselette
of enameled metalwork.
She had become indispensable to Alara, and even those of the Kin most
opposed to her presence agreed grudgingly that she was both attractive and
useful. With her small size and clever hands, there were many things she could
do that the Kin could not, unless they shifted and fully half of the Kin in
this Lair preferred not to shift to anything as small as a human child.
That accounted for the pride.
Though there were those Shana would rather not have doneanything for,
Alara could usually convince her to do so to keep the peace. She was stubborn,
but not stupid. She knew very well that there were still those of the Kin who
felt she had no place here though she did not know why.
And that accounted for the guilt.
Alara knew she should tell the child& and she couldn't bring herself
to. But if she didn't, Shana was going to find out on her own. And then what
was Alara going to tell her?
There was no doubt in Alara's mind that the child was as bright as
any of the Kin. If Shana had been born a dragon, Alara would have had no
hesitation in officially training the girl as a shaman. As things stood,
however, all Alara could do was to teach her fosterling alongside Keman, and
see where Shana's inclinations led her. One thing was certain; the child's
mental abilities were already impressive. And when Shana came into her full
halfblood powers at puberty, Alara was not prepared to wager much on any
individual coming against her.
Sometimes Alara wished she could trade Shana for Myre. This was one
of those times, she thought, as she slid out of the gazebo and into the
glaring sunlight, her belly-scales rasping a little on the stone steps. Alara
was so exasperated with her second offspring that she hardly knew what to do
with the child. Myre was lazy, self-centered nothing moved her but her own
Page 77
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
interests. She lied constantly, and was surprised when her mother caught her.
But worst of all, she was stupid. She did things without thinking. Myre should
have been born a human; she'd have made a perfect concubine. And Shana should
have been born into the Kin.
And that only brought Alara full circle back to her original worry,
and the shadow of the mountain above her seemed to fall on her thoughts as
well as her body. How was she to tell Shana that the girl wasn't a dragon?
Alara paused at the foot of the mountain behind her gazebo, and made
certain the scrying-crystal in the pouch- around her neck was secure. She
tucked her wings in close to her body, took just enough time to lengthen and
strengthen her claws, and began the climb, setting her claws into the first of
hundreds of tiny cracks she would use to climb to the top.
It was a trek she had made any number of times in the past. Some of
the shamans preferred to scry deep in the hearts of their lairs, surrounded by
countless crystals, and buried in the silence of the caves. But Alara found it
easier to read the paths of the air as high up in the sky as possible, with
the wind on her skin and the sun warming her and filling her with energy.
She moved up the rocky side of the mountain as easily as one of
Keman's lizards climbing a wall. And why not? She had learned to climb like
this by studying them. Like the lizards, she could climb near-vertical
surfaces, so long as there were cracks and crevices she could wedge her claws
into.
Today she had chosen to climb, rather than fly, because climbing left
her free to think.
There was plenty of time to tell the child that she was not of the
Kin. If Alara waited, Shana wouldn't be as devastated by the idea her training
in meditation would make the bad news easier to bear. She might even be able
to be philosophical about it. After all, she was the child of Alara's heart,
though not her body. And Alara had told the girl that often enough.
But she would make such a good shaman&
As good as Keman.He would be a shaman, even if his sister wouldn't.
She came out of her thoughts long enough to look about and judge how far she
had to go. She was about halfway up the side of the peak, and here the
climbing slowed, as she sought toeholds in smoother rock. How strange it was
that the child Alara meditated for had no gift for shamanism, the child she
bore in her youth was gifted, but not outstandingly so, and the child that was
not of the Kin at all would be a fit apprentice for Father Dragon himself if [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]