Elvenborn (Halfblood Chronicles, Book 3) - Hardcover

Norton, Andre; Lackey, Mercedes

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312864566 ISBN 13: 9780312864569

Publisher: Tor Books, 2002

Synopsis

In this long-awaited new novel in The Halfblood Chronicles, fantasy greats Norton and Lackey tell the enthralling story of the reclusive elvenlord Kyrtian, who emerges as a hero in a world torn by politics and war. When his cousin, Aelmarkin, tries to prove that Kyrtian is unfit to run his estate, the plan backfires, and soon Kyrtian, who doesn't share the venal, greedy nature of his cousin, finds himself with more power than he ever wanted.

Like his father before him, Kyrtian has always treated the humans on his estate like servants, instead of enslaving them as other elvenlords do. His father's legacy also leads Kyrtian to learn ancient military skills long since lost to elvenkind through the carelessness of the elvenlords. Kyrtian's rediscovered knowledge piques the interest of the current elvenlords, and soon Kyrtian finds himself appointed the new commander of the army, to the relief of his ruling peers.

For the sons of the most powerful elvenlords, the Young Lords, have rebelled against their fathers and are waging war. But by taking advantage of both the privileges of his new command and the help of some unexpected new friends, Kyrtian finally gains the resources to embark on his own, personal quest--resuming his father's search for the Great Portal, the magical doorway through which the original elvenlords entered this world.

As war rages between some sons and fathers, Kyrtian searches desperately for his own lost father, hoping to uncover not only the mystery of his disappearance, but also the secret behind the origin of elvenkind.

About this title

About the Author:

For well over a half century, Andre Norton has been one of the most popular science fiction and fantasy authors in the world. Since her first SF novels were published in the 1940s, her adventure SF has enthralled readers young and old. With series such as Time Traders, Solar Queen, Forerunner, Beast Master, Crosstime, and Janus, as well as many stand-alone novels, her tales of action and adventure throughout the galaxy have drawn countless readers to science fiction.

Her fantasy, including the best-selling Witch World series, her "Magic" series, and many other unrelated novels, has been popular with readers for decades. Lauded as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, she is the recipient of a Life Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention. Not only have her books been enormously popular; she also has inspired several generations of SF and fantasy writers, especially many talented women writers who have followed in her footsteps. In the past two decades she has worked with other writers on a number of novels. Most notable among these are collaborations with Mercedes Lackey, the Halfblood Chronicles, as well as collaborations with A.C. Crispin (in the Witch World series) and Sherwood Smith (in the Time Traders and Solar Queen series). An Ohio native, Ms. Norton lived for a number of years in Winter Park, Florida, and now makes her home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where she continues to write, and presides over High Hallack, a writers' resource and retreat.

Mercedes Lackey began writing fiction while working for American Airlines. In addition to her many novels, she has written lyrics for and recorded several albums of fiction folk songs, which have been distributed through Firebird Arts & Music. Lackey's longest-running series, beginning with Arrows of the Queen, details the adventures of the Heralds of Valdemar. Lackey's other series include Bardic Voices; the Elementals; the Halfblood Chronicles (first volume: The Elvenbane); Elves on the Road, which includes Tor's Burning Water and its 0sequels; and the Obsidian Trilogy, also published by Tor, which begins with The Outstretched Shadow.

Lackey often teams up with both her fellow masters of fantasy, such as Andre Norton and Anne McCaffrey, and talented newer writers Rosemary Edghill. Married to artist and sometime co-author Larry Dixon, Lackey, who was born in Chicago, lives near Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

1
 
 
V'kel Aelmarkin er-Lord Tornal smiled down at the slave who rested her pale-tressed head on his knee. She was his current personal favorite, a young human female nestled trustingly against his leg. Her thin, fine-boned face and porcelain complexion pleased him with their flawless symmetry and perfection. She returned his smile shyly, yet with a touch of the coquette, her round, blue eyes reflecting her callow, unsophisticated nature. No rebellious thoughts dwelling in that narrow skull--in fact, he would be surprised if she managed to conjure up more than one or two thoughts of any kind in an average day! Her pedigree was immaculate, out of a long line of carefully chosen slaves famed for their beauty and delicacy to be nothing more complicated than any other ornamental object.
He sighed with contentment, and smoothed the pale gold, silken hair away from her brow with a gentle caress. She was exquisite; lovely, eager to please, pliant, graceful, innocent and incredibly easy to manipulate. Exactly the sort of slave that gave him the most pleasure. He carefully cultivated that innocence, and none of his other slaves would dare his wrath by spoiling that naivete. No tales of floggings or more extreme punishments, no harem-stories of his other "favorites" and what had become of them--nothing to hint that he had aspects she had never experienced. So far as she was concerned, he was the gentle, loving, ever-kind master that she believed him to be.
He turned his attention back to his most important guest. "There, you see?" he said, gesturing expansively to the hall before them and its raucous occupants. "Did I not promise you would be far more amused here than in dancing attendance on all the dull, hopeful maidens at your father's fete?"
Elvenlord Aelmarkin did not possess enough magic to create a fanciful illusion in his Great Hall, so the luxurious surroundings here were all quite real; guests at his entertainments would always find themselves in the same opulent room that they had graced at the last entertainment, rather than a new and exotic setting vastly different from their last. He made up for the lack of novel surroundings by the lavishness of his entertaining, which had begun to earn him something of a reputation.
Take this room, for example: fortunately it had been beautifully constructed in the first place, and he had only needed to embellish it when it came into his possession. The north and south walls were mostly of glass--northwards lay a natural lake, artfully landscaped, and southwards were the pleasure-gardens. The east and west walls, paneled in wood bleached to silver, held silver-rimmed doors that led to the rest of the manor. The ceiling with its bleached-wood beams from which hung great silver fantasies of lights, crystals, tiny glass sculptures and silver filigree, also boasted vast transparent skylights; just now the reflection of the myriad lights made it impossible to see anything of the outside world, but later, when the lights were dimmed, the stars would shine impassively down on the celebrants. The black carpet of the floor was kind to the bare feet of the slaves, but Aelmarkin had selected black carpeting largely because it was easy to clean after one of his entertainments and was far more forgiving a surface for a drunken reveler to fall on than marble or wood. The east and west walls were hung with silver draperies, and the silver dining-couches were upholstered in black to match the carpet. Between each couch and the next stood an enormous silver censer, from which came sensuous and intoxicating incense-smokes. Silver tables stood before each couch, and the guests provided the only touch of color in the room. The couches themselves each held two occupants, an invited guest and a companion of his (or her) choosing--either a fellow guest or one of Aelmarkin's harem-slaves dressed in silver gossamer and matching silver collar. Picturesque wine-slaves, dressed in abbreviated silver tunics, stood at each couch with their silver pitchers, and more slaves dressed in silver tunics and gossamer skirts or trews served the guests with plates of dainties. Enough wine had been drunk by this time that the guests were starting to raise their voices in less-than-delicate jests, and lose what few inhibitions they had when they arrived here.
V'sher Tennith er-Lord Kalumel raised one long, silver eyebrow sardonically as he surveyed the occupants of the dining couches before and below him. "I must admit," he drawled, "that seeing Varcaleme making a fool of himself is far more entertaining than fending off would-be brides and their anxious fathers."
Aelmarkin laughed and continued to caress the platinum tresses of his slave, chosen out of all the possible candidates presented to him, because she most resembled a delicate Elven maiden. He dressed her like an elven girl, too, in flowing gowns of delicate pastel silks with huge, butterfly sleeves and long embroidered trains, ordering her attendants to weave strings of pearls in her silver-blond hair--and to arrange her hair so that it covered the round tips of her ears. So long as one didn't look too deeply into her eyes, the illusion was complete; and he could use his magic to change her blue eyes to Elven-green if he chose. Her name had been "Kindre" until he ordered it changed to the Elven "Synterrathe."
The aforementioned Varcaleme was chasing one of the wine-girls around his couch; the flower-wreath she had bound around his brows had slipped sideways and was obscuring one eye, and the fact that he had drunk most of the wine in her now-empty flask was not aiding his ability to catch her. She had cast one look at her master when she began eluding those clutching hands, to see if he objected to her evasions; he had nodded slightly, and she needed no further encouragement to keep dodging his advances. Varcaleme's couch-companion, one of his personal concubines, a tall, dark-haired wench gowned in brilliant emerald that matched the beryl of her controlling collar, seemed relieved that she no longer had to entertain him, and was nibbling on spiced fruit, wearing a bored, but wary, expression.
Now the rest of the guests had taken an interest in the proceedings, calling out encouragement to Varcaleme or the slave, taking bets on whether or not he would catch her, as she dodged his outstretched hands and outpaced his stumbling feet. Most of Aelmarkin's guests were male, with a scant pair of Elven ladies. One of the ladies, clad in pearly silks that revealed scarcely less than the slaves' costumes, had brought her own couch-companion, a muscle-bound human gladiator; the other Elven lady, swathed from nape to ankle in skin-tight black satin, had come with another of the Elvenlords--who was not her affianced. Of the remaining twenty guests, half had brought their own concubines, and half had made a selection from the slaves offered to them by Aelmarkin.
All of the Elvenlords present, with the exception of Aelmarkin and the lady who had brought her own male concubine, were the sons of ruling Elvenlords--but had not joined the Young Lords' Rebellion. Most of them saw themselves as losing far more than they would gain by rebelling, and the rest were cynically hoping for the rebellion to eliminate their fathers for them.
Aelmarkin and V'dann Triana Lord Falcion--who, despite being female, was Lord of the Falcion holdings in her own right, and thus (it recently had been ruled) was entitled to the title of Lord rather than Lady or er-Lord--were the only Elvenlords in the room with their own estates and property. Aelmarkin, however, was hardly a Great Lord--his property was a fraction of the size of any of those with real power; most of his wealth came from the sale of the exquisitely bred and trained concubines who were literally worth their weight in gems. That gave him a certain status, but no real power. As for Triana, her standing had plummeted after her involvement in the debacle of the Second Wizard War, and she was no longer a desirable ally to anyone on the Great Council. She generally kept to herself on her own estate. He suspected that she was biding her time, waiting to see which way the wind blew in the Young Lords' Uprising, before she tried to worm her way back into the good graces of the powerful.
As a party guest, however, she was still of value; an acid wit and a reputation for depravity gave her all the fascination of a captivating serpent, and people enjoyed seeing what she would say or do next. Any time Aelmarkin invited her to one of his entertainments, he knew he would have full participation, and her own parties continued to be extremely popular among the younger sons, those who did not possess great power, and those who did not have a Council seat.
Aelmarkin was by no means as certain as the Great Lords that Triana would remain out of power for the foreseeable future. She was clever, resourceful, and learned from her mistakes. The Wizard Wars and the Rebellion were changing everything; it was always possible that Triana would prove to be a potent ally at some point. It was even possible that she would somehow claw her way to power entirely on her own. The extent of her boldness was demonstrated in her dress tonight; gowned in transparent silks like a concubine, she knew very well that however tempting she might be, there was no one here with sufficient power to dare touch her without her consent--and so she taunted them with her very appearance.
Besides, she had no scruples to speak of; he liked that in a woman--provided he didn't have to marry her.
"Have you heard anything more from the Council about your petition?" Triana called to him from across the room with a half smile. Her gladiator offered her a choice tidbit with a servile gesture; she allowed him to feed it to her, nibbling at it with white, sharp teeth. He was new to Aelmarkin, but that was hardly surprising; Triana went through male slaves at an astonishing rate.
He concealed a wince; Triana had a vested interest in the outcome of that petition, and it was one quite opposite to his. She would bring up the subject; he'd cherished the notion, when he'd scheduled this entertainment, that it might be a victory celebration. Since it wasn't, he had hoped no one would bring up the subject.
"They denied it," he said, trying to sound as if he didn't care about the outcome, even though his defeat ate at him.
Triana made a little pout of sympathy, and Tennith turned his head to gaze at Aelmarkin with astonishment. "No, really? I should have thought that your cousin had proved himself mentally unbalanced a hundred times over by now!"
About half of the guests looked puzzled; they didn't know who Aelmarkin's cousin was and he really didn't wish to enlighten them.
"Really!" chimed in another, sending away a server with a flick of an impatient hand, "Your cousin is quite a piece of work, Aelmarkin. Playing soldier with human slaves as if he was still an infant playing with toys! It's ridiculous! If he was going to have an obsession, it at least ought to be a dignified obsession!"
"Oh, I don't know," purred Triana, running her finger along the arm of her gladiator. "Some of us like to play with soldiers." The slave blushed from the top of his head to well past his waist.
"On what grounds did they deny you?" Tennith asked, and Aelmarkin wondered if he detected a certain malicious enjoyment in Tennith's tone. Tennith might not be a lord in his own right, but he outranked Aelmarkin, and he wasn't above flaunting that fact and embarrassing Aelmarkin at the same time.
But Tennith would find out for himself what the Council had said if he simply bothered to ask his father. Aelmarkin's best protection lay in pretending the decision meant very little to him. "They did a very tiresome thing; they had the production records from the estate for the last fifty years brought out, and nothing there shows that cousin Kyrtian is neglecting his estate or his duties. They decided that he isn't unbalanced, merely eccentric, and that eccentricity is hardly grounds for taking his inheritance and giving it to the next male heir."
"Next male heir?" Triana asked significantly, with a little frown. "Isn't his mother still alive? Wouldn't she be the appropriate heir even if he was disinherited on the grounds of insanity?" That was Triana's interest; anything that barred another female from inheriting could eventually be used against her.
"His mother is not my sister," Aelmarkin replied. "She's not the next heir of blood-descent, as you so clearly were for clan Falcion. If Kyrtian were removed, the estate would come to me, naturally and legally."
"She's probably the one running things, then," Tennith pointed out. "If she doesn't want to be sent back to live in her father's household, she has to make it look as if your cousin is competent."
"That may be, but I've no hope of proving it," Aelmarkin growled, wishing that Lady Lydiell had resembled the child at his feet rather than the clever creature she was. He recalled his intended pose, and forced a laugh. "Well, I suppose the Council had to rule the way that they did. Lord Jaspireth told me rather tartly that if fitness to hold title and property was to be judged on the basis of unusual hobbies, half the Council would lose their seats."
"Half?" Tennith laughed. "More like three-quarters! Looked at in that light, it's obvious you are a victim of necessity."
Aelmarkin signaled to his wench to refill his goblet, and sipped at the vintage with deliberation. "Much as I would like to see the lands of my clan administered properly, I suspect they will come to me in time, anyway. Kyrtian shows no sign of marrying, which in itself ought to prove his unfitness, and it's entirely possible he'll manage to break his neck, or do something equally foolish to himself, as he careens around the countryside."
"Break his neck?" queried the second lady, looking puzzled, as did her escort. "I'm afraid I'm rather lost, Aelmarkin. I don't know anything about your cousin. Who is he? Is he doing something dangerous?"
That triggered laughter among some of the others, who were more familiar with Aelmarkin's cousin than she was. Triana took pity on her--probably because the lady's escort was neither clever nor outstandingly handsome--and explained.
"We've been discussing Kyrtian V'dyll Lord Prastaran," Triana said, giving Aelmarkin's cousin his full name and title. "Surely you've heard something about him?"
The lady shook her head. "Not really," she confessed, then realized that Triana was patronizing her, and put on a cool air as she tried to save the situation. "But I don't pay much attention to the provincials."
Aelmarkin snorted. "He's certainly provincial, I'll grant you that, Lady Brynnire. He never leaves the estate unless he absolutely has to. He could get a seat on the Great Council if he only worked at it, but he won't even try! Instead, he spends all of his time collecting books and studying--of all the nonsensical subjects--military tactics!"
"Military tactics!" Triana erupted in peals of laughter. "Oh, Aelmarkin, even if he is serious and not seriously unbalanced, just who does he think he's going to use military tactics on? Everyone knows the humans and the half-bloods don't have real armies! They don't fight proper battles! And as for the Young Lords--"
She stopped, because it was entirely possible that this was a touchy subject for some of Aelmarkin's other guests. But Tennith, whose father was highly placed in the Great Council and thus was the highest-ranked Elvenlord present, finished her sentence for her.
"The Young Lords are a disorganized pack of rabble," he said loftily. "Once a solution is found that negates their ability to nullify magic, they'...

About this edition

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0312864566
• ISBN 13: 9780312864569
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384