Elvenblood by Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton Read Free Book Online Page B

here all night." He turned before he even finished the sentence, and strode off down yet another pink marble hallway, this time heading for his study and the Transportation Portal in it
    He
could never have mustered the magic for a direct Portal to the Council Hall, but one had come with the manor. The Treves Portal would take them to the Council Hall, and from there they would use the Hemalth Portal to the estate, permitted to pass there by the magic signet impressed into the invitation. Only those who had access to such Portals would be able to take such a direct and immediate route to the fete—the ones who did not would be forced to take tedious journeys across country until they reached the estate the hard way. It was a measure of the power the House of Hemalth held that there were plenty of elven lords praying for the opportunity to make such a journey.
    The ring on Rena's right index finger was
not
one of Lorryn's creations, but a simple signet, with a moonbird carved into the beryl (not an emerald) held in the bezel. That would be her key to the Portal that would allow her to return home; without it, she would be stuck in the Council Hall until someone came to get her. While emeralds were prized for their beauty and sought after by the human slaves permitted jewels, it was the more common beryl that was truly priceless to the elven lords, for only beryls could take and hold magic power, or be used as the containers for spells. Women wore emeralds, useless, lovely emeralds.
Men
bore beryls, as the outward signature of their power.
    Rena trailed along behind her father, careful not to step on the train of her mother's gown, with the guards following in her wake.
    The door opened as Lord Tylar approached, and me little parade massed through it into the room beyond. There wasn't much to mark the room that her father called his "study" as anything of the kind; it really held nothing but a white marble desk and a couple of chairs-—no books, certainly no papers; he left all of the tedious business of dealing with accounts and the like to his supervisors and underlings. The pink marble of the floor of the hall gave way here to soft, thick carpets of (leathered gray, and the pink marble of the walls to some unidentifiable substance the pale gray of rain clouds. There were two doors to this room, both of a darker gray than the walls; the one they used to enter, and the one that stood directly across from it—but the second was no door at all, but the Portal.
    Lord Tylar stopped in front of the Portal, his hand on the latch, and turned back to frown at his daughter. Rena shrank into herself a little, involuntarily.
    "Hold your head up," he reminded her sharply. "And smile."
    Without waiting to see if she followed his orders, he opened the door and stepped through it. He did not hesitate a moment—but then, he was used to Portals by now.
    The doorway held only darkness, and it was as if he had been devoured by that darkness the moment he stepped across the threshold. Rena had never actually used this or any other Portal before, although Lorryn who had, told her it was nothing to be afraid of. Still, something inside her quailed before the lightless
emptiness
of it, and she would have stepped back except for the presence of the guards behind her—
    —
who are probably there to make sure I don't turn and bolt back to my room
!
    Lady Viridina seemed oblivious to her daughter's fear, she didn't even hesitate, simply followed her husband's lead, stooped and gathered her train up gracefully, and stepped across the threshold into nothingness.
    Rena froze.
    One of the guards cleared his throat ostentatiously. She started, and turned to look at him, knowing her eyes were probably as wide and frightened as a rabbit's.
    "If my lady would please to follow the Lady Viridina?" he said, in a voice harsh with many years of shouting orders. His bland but implacable expression left no doubt in her mind that he had been ordered to pick her up