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.He convinced them that Tannim was unlikely to turn against his friends, but that there wasnothing stopping the young man from marching on Underhill and taking over the areas held byUnseleighe with a small army of Cold-Iron-wielding humans.He even half-convinced Shar.She had been trained as a youngster by the Unseleighe, after all, inthe time before she had broken off with her father.Why shouldn't Tannim think that she was justthe same as them? She was the daughter of Charcoal, Chinthliss' great enemy—and she had beengroomed by Charcoal to be Tannim's rival in magic ever since Chinthliss took Tannim as a protégé.Allying with Madoc Skean became a matter of self-defense.Until she came to learn more about both Tannim and Madoc, that is.Then it became obvious, atleast to her, that this tale Madoc had spun about a human mage mad for power was full of what theythrew on the compost heap.Tannim was no more a conquering Patton than she was.He might considermoving into some little unused section of Underhill one day, just as she had, but conquering vastsections of it would simply never occur to him.It was only Unseleighe paranoia that made such athing seem possible.But by then she had already committed herself to Madoc.She'd been having second thoughts for sometime now.The very fact that her blood-father was friends with the Unseleighe was enough to make her thinkthey were worthless.What she had learned about them since she had cut off all ties to him onlyconfirmed that.Only her own paranoia had made her listen to Madoc in the first place; only hisincredible charisma had persuaded her to give the Unseleighe one more chance.But Madoc had grown more and more arrogant with her every time she had spoken with him since shefirst pledged her help.He needed her; she was the only creature allied with him that could handleCold Iron with impunity.He knew that, and yet pretended that it was otherwise.And the more she saw and learned of Tannim, the less she liked Madoc or wished to put up with him.So she donned her armor; armor that the Unseleighe would understand.Her hair she braided back ina severe and androgynous style that left the impression of a helmet.She wore tunic and pants ofknitted cloth-of-silver that cleverly counterfeited fine chain-mail and minimized her femininity.Her belt was a sword-belt, with a supporting baldric, and the empty loops that should support asheath spoke eloquently for her capabilities.She looked herself over in the mirror, analyzing every nuance of her outfit and stance for cluesthat might hint at weakness.She found none.She banished the glass again and turned toward the Gate, activating it and setting it for anUnseleighe-held portion of Underhill where she could Gate to Madoc Skean's stronghold.Althoughthis was a poor strategic move, coming to him like a petitioner, she would not permit him here.Allow him here but once, and there was no telling the mischief he could cause.Or what he might leave behind, besides his smell.Her Gate had only three settings: Unseleighe Underhill, her mother's realm, and her father's.Thelast, she would not use.To go to the human world, she must use the Gate in the "garage." A bitawkward, sometimes, but necessary.file:///F|/rah/Mercedes%20Lackey/Lackey,%20Me.Serrated%20Edge%204%20-%20Chrome%20Circle.txt (56 of 173) [6/4/03 10:33:36 PM]file:///F|/rah/Mercedes%20Lackey/Lackey,%20Mercedes%20-%20Serrated%20Edge%204%20-%20Chrome%20Circle.txtShe stepped through her Gate, felt the shivering of energies around her as it sprang to life andbridged the gap between where she was and where she wanted to be.As usual, it was dark.She blinked, and waited for her eyes to adjust.Many Unseleighe creaturessimply could not exist in bright light, so most Unseleighe realms were as gloomy as a thunderstormduring an eclipse, or dusk on a badly overcast day.She stood at the head of a path that traveledstraight through a primeval and wildly overgrown forest.Forests such as this one had not existedon the face of the human world since the Bronze Age, if then.It was the distillation ofeverything about the ancient Forest that primitive man had feared.And it contained everything dark and treacherous that primitive man had believed in.The trees were alive, and they hungered; strange things rustled and moaned in the undergrowth.There were glowing eyes up among the branches, and as Shar stepped out on the path, the noisesincreased, the trees leaned toward her, and the number of eyes multiplied.Something screamed in pain in the distance, and something nearer wailed in desolation.Shar looked about her with absolute scorn, as the sounds and eyes surrounded her, and the treesclosed in."Will you just chill out?" she snapped, putting a small fraction of her Power behind her words."I've been here before, and you know it.I am not impressed."A moment of stunned silence, a muttering of disappointment, and within a few more seconds, thetrees were only trees, and there were no more scuttlings in the underbrush or eyes in the branchesoverhead."Oh, thank you," she said sarcastically, and made her way to the second Gate.So much of the powerof the older Unseleighe depended on fear that the moment anyone faced them down, they simplymelted away.That might be why there were so few of these unadapted creatures active in thehumans' world these days, and Cold Iron had nothing to do with them fleeing to dwell Underhill.The modern world was frightening enough that most people couldn't be scared by these ancientcreatures [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]