Kiron whistled and got the big male’s attention. “Kashet,” he said firmly, and making the “up” gesture with both hands. “Fly! Pen!” Kashet didn’t know the word “home”—which to Avatre meant two things; both Sanctuary itself, and any pen in which she had spent more than a couple of nights. But he did know “pen,” and “fly” as separate concepts—he just didn’t know what “fly” meant if Ari wasn’t on his back.
Kiron had done a lot more training to make Avatre autonomous from the beginning than Ari had ever done with Kashet. He’d had to; on their trek to Alta, he’d needed to be able to direct Avatre in hunting from some other place than in her saddle, because sometimes he needed to drive the game into Avatre’s waiting talons. Kashet, on the other hand, had never had to meet that challenge. The dragon looked at him with his head to one side, as if he was hearing some strange sound he didn’t recognize at all.
“Pen,” Kiron repeated, putting as much emphasis as he could on the simple word. Kashet knew what it meant, and he’d just seen Avatre fly off in that direction—surely he could reason out that he was meant to go there, too. . . .
Kashet blew out his breath in a puff, then turned away, but instead of flying as Avatre had, he stalked off through the streets afoot. People scrambled to get out of his way, not with any sign of fear, but only because the streets of Sanctuary were very narrow, and there wasn’t really room for a dragon and even a small person to pass side by side in them. He was going in the right direction.
Maybe he remembers walking all those corridors in the Jousters’ Compound, Kiron thought, He was used to walking in the Compound, rather than flying. Well, as long as it gets him there on his own, he can walk or fly as he chooses!
He turned to enter the chamber himself, reasonably sure that Kashet would get himself to where he belonged, because even if he got confused, by now one of the other Jousters would have heard he was stalking through the streets and come to guide him back. Or else Aket-ten would send someone to get him.
Or both, Kiron thought, as he slipped in through the doorway, and started to edge around the walls to get to his spot among the other councilors.
He saw that there was a woman in the gown of a priestess—a compromise between the tightly-pleated mist linen of the Tian priestesses, and the loosely-draped, heavier linen of the Altans, this was mist linen for coolness and comfort, but without pleating, and held in place by twin shoulder pins and a belt. Most other women of Sanctuary wore purely Altan gowns, since most women here were Altans.
“. . . and every one of them has confirmed it,” the speaker was Tir-ama-ten, the Priestess of Beshet of the Far-Seeing eye. She looked very unhappy. “I do not know how it is that those whose Gift is to see forward did not warn us about this!”
“Because, Great Lady, their gaze was confused and befogged,” Kaleth said soothingly. “As my gaze has been increasingly confused and befogged. We have known this was happening, as the Magi make the future more uncertain. There is no responsibility to be laid on you or on them; rather, allow me to thank you for always having the eyes of one of your Far-Seeing Priestesses keep watch over the Winged Ones of Alta. Your duty is to the people of Tia, not of Alta, and yet you have been bending your eyes to my folk. If you had not, we would never have known they were besieged until it was too late.”
“Besieged?” Kiron said—though it was not really a question. “The Magi, of course.”
“And every armed man of their private guard they can put around the Temple of the Twins,” Kaleth confirmed. “I think they would have used the army to break down the doors, except that they knew the army would not obey them in such a task.”
“I wonder how they get even their private guard to attack priests,” Lord Khumun said, looking grim. “To raise hands against the servants of the gods—”
“They grow bold, these Magi,” said Pta-hetop the Tian Thet priest. “First they move to take our acolytes, and now your priests. I wonder that they do not use your army.”
“I do not think they could gain obedience from the army to move against the servants of the gods,” Haraket said. “Oh, yes, it has happened in the past—the far past—of our land, but only when the priests themselves were corrupt, so corrupt that the people wept beneath their heels.”
“I think you are right,” Kaleth nodded. “We had two warnings it was happening today; one from the acolytes of Beshet, the other a cry for help that I heard from those trapped within the temple.”
“According to my acolytes, the siege began this morning. Somehow enough of the Winged Ones mustered strength and will to bar the temple doors against the Magi,” said Tir-ama-ten, her face a study in anger, though the gods being so insulted were not technically her own. “When the Magi could not get at the Winged Ones, they immediately mounted an armed siege. But it is a curious sort of siege; they mount guard around the temple and let no man in or out, but otherwise, do nothing.”
“I think they do not dare—yet,” Heklatis said, with a nod of his grizzled head. “The Winged Ones are much beloved of the people. The Magi may be saying that the Winged Ones are in danger, and that they are being guarded for their own protection.”
“It may be so. Fortunately, the temple might have been designed to withstand such a siege,” Kaleth replied, making a soothing motion with his hand. “And before my contact with him was blocked, the Winged One who called to me told me that the temple itself is well-provisioned and has its own well of pure water. The great danger is that the Magi will decide to use the Eye on them.”
Kiron shuddered, and Nofret made a little strangled sound in the back of her throat. Kiron was just as glad Aket-ten wasn’t here to have heard that. She had a great many friends in that temple. He remembered only too well seeing the Eye lash down out of the Magi’s Tower. It had been a fearsome sight that had left nothing but earth turned to glass behind it.
“I don’t think they will yet,” Ari said, thoughtfully. “If they do, they’ll lose the very thing they are anxious to have back—and they will earn themselves the hatred of the people. Fear is one thing; it is useful to them, but hatred? Hatred is dangerous. Hatred turns fear into anger, and anger turns inaction into action. No, I think they’ll wait for a few days at least, to see if they can force the Winged Ones out with hunger or thirst. And when that doesn’t work, they’ll try some sort of magic first, I think. Maybe try to enspell them from outside and make them walk out, or at least open the doors. Then, perhaps, they will try to get a traitor inside, to open the doors from within. Mind you, I don’t think they would hesitate for a moment to kill your Winged Ones if they can’t use them anymore. But I believe they will hope to find some other way, not the Eye, and that will take time.”
I hope you’re right, Kiron thought apprehensively.
“That is my judgment, too,” Kaleth agreed. “So we have a window of time during which we can get the Winged Ones out of their trap.” He looked straight at Kiron.
Kiron felt his eyes widening as he realized that Kaleth intended him and his Jousters to rescue the Winged Ones. “There are only ten of us!” he objected. “We can’t carry more than a single passenger, perhaps two, if they are children! That would take—”
“—days,” Ari interrupted, with a nod to Kaleth. “Or rather, nights, because I am in no mood to have that fire-sword you lot call an Eye burning me out of the sky. Kiron says he thinks it can’t work without sunlight, so there’s another reason besides stealth to fly in darkness. We couldn’t be better set up for this. We’re in the sickle moon, and it’s waning toward the three nights of dark; we’ll have full moon in a fortnight, and I’m willing to try flying in a full moon. We’ll just have to be careful.”
“Even more careful,” Kiron countered. “But—flying by night, even under a full moon? It’s never been done! The dragons are asleep as soon as the sun goes down!” He tried, and failed, to imagine flying in the darkness. It would be worse than flying in a storm, because no matter how high you went, you wouldn’t be able to see anything. Ho
w could you know where you were? Even at the full of the moon, how could you tell what was below you, or even how near it was?
“So there’s no reason not to try, because the Magi won’t be expecting it,” Kaleth countered serenely. “We don’t need to get them far, just out of the city proper, and then our human smugglers can take it from there.”
“We can take them to my sister Re-keron’s estate,” Lord Ya-tiren said instantly. “She has been one of our agents from the first. I can have word to her by the time the moon begins to wax. She can hide some and scatter the rest, so that they come to Sanctuary by ones and twos. No one will trouble her; she is known to take dangerously ill patients, and if she bruits it about that she has those with a pox—”
“But we need more than that!” Kiron said, throttling down his emotions as best he could. Not that he didn’t want to help the Winged Ones escape, but he wanted to have a reasonable chance of getting everyone out alive! “We need something to distract the Magi and their men from the temple, or we will never get more than a few Winged Ones away!” His stomach clenched, as he thought of trying to maneuver Avatre down to a landing when he couldn’t even guess where the ground was. “The only way we can get them is off the roof, and the only way we can do that is if we have light up there to see where to land. We need something so distracting no one will notice lights on the roof—” He shook his head. “I never thought I would ever say this, but we need something like an earthshake—”
Kaleth went white, and Marit put her hand on his arm.
He straightened, eyes wide, pupils dilated, and Kiron felt a touch of chill on the back of his neck
“What do you see?” Marit asked, urgently.
He stared straight ahead. “Fire—” he whispered. “Fire and smoke in the city, and fire from the sky, and then—then the earth crying out—”
He went rigid, sitting bolt upright, with his arms stretched rigidly along his thighs, and the chamber fell silent. The hair stood up on Kiron’s arms, his entire body went cold, and he had seen this before. Kaleth was in the grip of a vision, but not the “ordinary” sort granted by the powers of a priest or a Winged One. This was a vision sent straight from the hands of the gods, and their presence hung heavily in this room—now he was no longer Kaleth, once Prince of Alta. Now he was Kaleth, who spoke for the gods themselves.
“Train your dragons, Wingleader,” Kaleth said, his voice echoing hollowly, as though he spoke in a room much larger than this one. “Train them to trust you to be their eyes in the darkness. And make your ways of escape, Altan Lord, and ready your refuge. Watch well, Tian Priests, for only you will know when the time has come to act. This one will speak with the Winged Ones this night, and none shall prevent his voice, nor theirs, from being heard. Unhallowed fire will come from the sky, and the earth shall cry out after, and that will be your moment. So prepare to use it, and use it well, for there will not be another chance.” Kaleth’s face had a kind of inner light to it, as if it was a lamp made of alabaster, and his eyes looked into places no human was meant to see.
Kiron stole a glance at the Tians, who had never seen Kaleth speak as the Mouth of the Gods before. From their widened eyes and startled expressions, they knew very well what they were seeing and hearing. And they were also astonished beyond measure.
Has it been that long since one of theirs had that power? he wondered.
Well, it didn’t matter, for a moment later, that inward light faded, and Kaleth somehow—diminished—and became himself again. And, with it, that paralysis compounded of awe and a touch of terror eased, and it was possible to move.
Move, the Tian priests certainly did. Pta-hetop threw himself on his face, and the rest of the Tian priests followed suit before he was halfway to the floor.
“Oh, do get up,” Kaleth said mildly, rubbing his eyes and looking down at them. “Worship the gods, not their instrument. Do you honor the scalpel—or the surgeon? The hammer or the jewelsmith? The pen or the scribe? It is no great virtue of mine that makes me the tool of something greater than I.”
“Your humility is—” Pta-hetop began.
“—justified,” Kaleth said firmly. “I am a man, I have a gift, but it belongs to the gods and they may take it from me if they choose, just as they gave it to me. Now get up, so that I can tell you what they showed me. I hate speaking to the backs of heads.”
Slowly, and with some reluctance, the priests rose and resumed their places, although they still regarded Kaleth with trepidation and awe. Well, Kiron couldn’t blame them. He’d seen Kaleth serve as the Mouth several times now, and it never failed to make him want to fall on his face.
“At some point before the Winged Ones run too short of supplies, the people of Alta are going to take note of the fact that literally nothing is going into or out of the Temple of the Twins,” Kaleth said, as Marit held his hand. He was looking rather white about the lips, which was normal after he’d been granted a vision or used as the Mouth, and in this case, he’d been served with both. “I think it will be on or about the time of the full moon, but my vision didn’t give me too many details of that sort. They’re going to mob the temple to demand that the Winged Ones be let out. Finally, the Magi are going to loose the Eye on them.”
“No!” That cry of anguish and protest was wrung from several throats, Kiron’s among them, when Kaleth held up his hand.
“Don’t worry. They haven’t yet completely gone mad—they’ll be creeping the fire along at less than a walking pace. They’ll mean to frighten the mob away, not to really kill anyone.” Kaleth frowned. “I don’t think it’s out of kindness, though. I think it’s for some other reason. Maybe they’re afraid if they use the Eye openly on people who only want to protect their Winged Ones, the people will turn on them. Or maybe they think if they indiscriminately or openly kill too many with the Eye, people will flee the city in such numbers that there will be no one left to serve them. I don’t think even the army would remain if they overstepped this time.”
“They’ll use the Eye—” Heklatis repeated, and snapped his fingers. “By the gods! I just put things together! Using the Eye will trigger an earthshake, won’t it? And that’s our distraction!”
Kaleth nodded, looking sick but resolute. “Yes, it will. As it has from the beginning; most of us never noticed it because they used the Eye so seldom. I don’t know why it invokes an earthshake, but it disturbs something beneath the surface of the earth, and the more they use it, the worse the shake. By moving the beam of the Eye slowly, they will be using it for quite a long time, and the earthshake that follows, which will come right after sunset, will be very bad indeed.”
“Very bad?” Heklatis sucked on his lower lip. “Length of shake proportionate to time of use, chasing a mob—it’s going to be worse than anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes.”
“Yes,” Kaleth replied, and shook his head. “Terrifying, and even the Magi will be afraid. There will be fires all over the city, a great deal of chaos, and the guards watching the temple will, for the most part, flee. And that will be the distraction you need, Kiron. For that night, and the next three, there will be no one watching the temple; instead, the Magi will order the doors blocked or sealed shut, certain that the people will have too many problems of their own to think about releasing the Winged Ones, and equally certain that the temple will also have its share of deaths and injury. They will trust to the Eye and the earthshake to drive the Winged Ones out and into their hands.”
Kiron felt nausea in the back of his throat; he had endured the aftermath of one earthshake that had wrought terrible destruction in Alta City. He didn’t want to think about what this would do to a city already afraid and demoralized. “I would rather not have such an opportunity at that cost,” he replied.
But Kaleth shook his head. “It is none of our doing, or of the gods’,” he said firmly. “The Magi have already put all of this in motion, and it will happen whether we use the opportunity or not. They have chosen to besiege the Winged Ones, the pe
ople will come to protest, and they will use the Eye, triggering the shake.”
“Then we must make use of it, and take the bitter herb and make a medicine of it,” Ari said, standing up. “We have a plan. Let us put that into motion.”
Train your dragons to trust you to be their eyes in the darkness.
Easier said than done. And without Aket-ten, it would have been impossible.
First, the dragons did not want to be kept from their warm sands when the sun went down. They whined and complained and rebelled as much as if they had been asked to fly in the rain. If Aket-ten had not been able to tell them it was a needed thing—though she could not explain to them in ways they would understand why it was needed—it would not have been possible to keep them from their pens and well-earned sleep.
Second, they truly, passionately, fearfully did not want to fly once the sun was down, even when it was only dusk, and not true dark.
Because, according to Aket-ten, they could not see a quarter of what their humans could see once the brightest light was gone. As they lined up in the last light of the day, heads down and tails lashing, their apprehension was so thick Kiron could practically taste it.
“It is the opposite of cats,” she said, putting a comforting hand on the quivering shoulder of Re-eth-ke, whose objections to doing this unnatural thing were as strong as any other dragon’s, despite Aket-ten’s constant reassurances in her mind. “They may be able to see a mouse from the clouds by day, but they cannot see an elephant at fifty paces once the darkness comes.”
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