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she prowled back and forth like a caged animal. "I want to make a difference
out there! I want to do more than the Kin are doing "
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So why don't I?
The thought took her by surprise, and made her steps falter and stop.
She rubbed her head, then sat down on her bed to think about the idea a little
further.
Why didn't she do something? She probablycould , all by herself. She
didn't need their cooperation, or even their permission. With the jewels, she
could do just about anything, really. She couldcertainly reach just about
anywhere.
That was something of an exaggeration, but the jewels did help, they
gave her reach and power she wouldn't have had without them. Not that she
depended on them, but they were a wonderfully useful tool& oddly, it was the
least precious that did the most. Considering that the Kin held that the exact
opposite was true, she found that fact rather funny.
A great deal of practice had revealed some general rules. Crystalline
forms boosted power, and lens-shaped forms concentrated it. She worked better
with some specific kinds of stones than with others, and what worked well for
her did not necessarily work for someone else. For her, quartz-crystals,
semiprecious agates, and amber did the most the precious stones like rubies
and emeralds accomplished little more than to catch the light, in her hands.
That had led to an ironic situation. She no longer feared having her
hoard discovered no one wouldwant the specific stones that were the most
valuable to her a double-ended spear of clear quartz, common enough; an
irregular globe of polished amber, perfectly clear, with no inclusions of
seeds or bits of leaf; and a handful of assorted moonstones. But with these,
she suddenly felt certain that she could reach beyond these walls, to affect
the real world beyond them.
Or at least see what was going on out there&
She put her back against the wall and reached out for the crystal
spear, where she had left it on the chest beside her bed. She held it where
the light from her magically powered lamp would shine into it, and cradled it
in the palm of her hand, staring deeply into it, past the surface reflections.
When she felt ready, she reached out with her mind as Alara had
taught her when she was learning to speak mind-to-mind but sent her thoughts
into the crystal, instead of seeking a specific person.
Now she closed her eyes and held her mind very still, as she
identified and closed out all the thoughts closest to her. There weren't many;
most of the wizards preferred to be under mind-shields at all times. Though
she had not understood why at first, it seemed a sensible precaution now, and
a courtesy, when there were many others who could hear thoughts about you and
some who might not yet be able to close them out.
She moved her "self" out of the Citadel, and into the forest, seeking
for a viewpoint, her mind spread out like a fine net to snare errant thoughts.
In moments, she had found one; she caught a thought and held it, and was
looking through the eyes of a canny mountain-cat, crouched over a game trail.
She stared in mute fascination. Some snow fell in the area of the
Lair in winter, but not much a similar amount of rain fell in there in the
summer. Keman had gone up into the higher country where there was more, but he
could fly; she couldn't. And she had not been outside the Citadel since she
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had arrived here.
She had never seen so much snow before. The ground was white,
snow-covered as far as the cat's eyes could see. The cat perched on a heavy
limb of an evergreen of some kind, the branches above him so snow-laden that
they sagged down over the one he had chosen, giving him a truly effective
hiding place.
She held down her elation, so as not to startle her temporary host,
but she felt a pardonable surge of triumph. She had moved outside the
Citadel and for the first time, had made contact with the mind of a creature
she did not actually know was there.
Next jump farther out
She cast herself loose from the cat and reached out again; "listened"
for further thoughts and snatched at the first ones that presented themselves.
And this time found herself looking at the world through elven eyes.
There was no doubt of it; the hands she looked down on were long,
slender, and as pale as her moonstones. And elves saw things a little
differently from humans; everything living had a kind of shimmer about it,
like heat-haze. Anything nonliving didn't. And if that wasn't enough, there
was another elven lady sitting beside her, in the attitude of a teacher,
watching every move she made.
Finding herself in an elven mind was so much of a surprise that she
nearly lost her hold on the elven lord's -or rather,lady's thoughts. But she
steadied herself down quickly, and began taking in her surroundings.
It was a girl, not a woman. That was the first realization. This was
a girl about her own age. She was clothed in shimmery silks of an opalescent
green, and she moved with studious grace, practicing the kind of movement
Shana had always thought was natural.
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