Elvenborn by Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton Page A

mother, he decided, with a slight sinking of his heart and a contradictory feeling of relief. I'll tell her so at dinner. That should make her so happy she'll let us besiege her very bower if we want!
     

4
     
     
     
    As Lynder replenished the goblet of cool water at Kyrtian's right hand, the young lord soaked until the aches in his tired, sore muscles eased. He'd have remained in the bath until he was in danger of falling asleep, if not for two factors. His stomach complained that it hadn't gotten anything but wa¬ter for some time, and he knew his mother was waiting for him to have dinner with her and out of politeness would not touch a morsel until he appeared. Servants sent off for a platter of finger-foods would have taken care of the hunger, but he was not going to be rude to his mother!
    It isn 't wise to be rude to one's mother. She knows everything about your childhood that is potentially embarrassing.
    Reluctantly, he stepped up out of the water, dripping onto the marble floor, and waved off another attentive servant, taking the soft, snowy towel the lad held out to him. Wrapping the towel around himself, he returned to his bedroom to find clothing laid out over a stand and waiting for him to don. This clothing had been selected by Lynder to complement whatever his mother was wearing for dinner. It was a small gesture, but one that his mother appreciated, and it only cost a little extra attention on the part of the servants; such attention was no burden to them, for she was as beloved to her staff as she was to her son.
    To his relief, the waiting clothing was casual, a comfortable tunic and trews of heavy amber silk with a simple geometric design in bronze beadwork trimming the collar and belt. That meant his mother was in a casual mood; in fact, with any luck, she had arranged to dine on the balcony outside the lesser dining-room, where they could watch their human dependents dancing and listen to their music.
    He knew, because she had told him, that other Elvenlords
     
    generally chose to dine amid self-created, fantastic settings built of illusion, a simpler version of the illusions he'd seen at the few Elven gatherings and fetes he had attended. He had never been able to fathom why they would wish to do such a thing. How boring must it be, surrounded by something so ut¬terly controlled, in which one knew to the moment exactly what would happen? He preferred real weather, real sunsets, and the spontaneity of live performers. But then, he'd never cared much for even the most elaborate of illusions, far preferring the beau¬ties of the real world to gossamer fantasies. Even his suite held a but single illusion, to bring the outdoors that he loved inside regardless of weather or season. He had created an ethereal for¬est glade and waterfall, illuminated in a perpetual twilight, in the corner of his sitting room. This illusion opened his suite and made the room seem to extend far beyond the actual walls. He could easily have had a real waterfall put in, but that would have made the sitting room rather more humid than he liked. The three rooms of his suite—sitting room, study, and bedroom—were oth¬erwise all as they had been built: grey carpet, white walls and ceiling, simple, unornamented furnishings with frames of pale birch-wood and fat cushions in grey-blue, grey-green, and slate-grey. Sourceless, gentle light bathed the rooms, but could be extinguished with a single command—magic, yes, but hardly illusion.
    He donned the soft, comfortable silk garments, slipped on a pair of buttery leather indoor boots and belted the tunic with a matching sash. After a quick glance at himself in a mirror to en¬sure that he had not forgotten anything, he set out for the dining-chambers, leaving the servants to clean up behind him. The same sourceless light as brightened his rooms illuminated the hallways whose only ornaments were small tables placed at intervals against the wall. He noted with approval that now that