Alta dj-2

by Mercedes Lackey

  Ari slipped, and slid off her right shoulder.

  Kiron screamed again, and grabbed for Ari’s arm as he fell for the second time. He caught it, and was slammed against Avatre’s neck by the sudden weight. She struggled for control; he howled with anguish as his arm seemed to flame with pain. He felt his fingers slipping, looked down into Ari’s eyes, and saw bleak despair and resignation.

  Slowly, agonizingly, Kiron’s grip slipped as Avatre lumbered sideways, pulled over by the weight. She didn’t know what to do, and he couldn’t tell her to land without letting go of Ari—

  The fingers slid—down the forearm.

  Wrist.

  Gone.

  Just as Re-eth-ke slid right underneath.

  Ari landed across Re-eth-ke’s shoulders. Astride.

  He screamed in pain. Kiron didn’t blame him. But at least while he was racked with pain, he wasn’t fighting anyone; Aket-ten wrapped her arms around him and sent Re-eth-ke to the ground; Re-eth-ke was perfectly happy to go.

  The rest followed her down; panting and weak with reaction, Kiron let Avatre drift in a slow spiral behind them. He didn’t even think about Kashet—

  Until they landed beside Re-eth-ke, and Aket-ten, who had Ari on the ground beside her, and the great blue-and-gold dragon powered out of the sky like a lightning bolt, heading straight for them.

  This time it was Avatre who interposed herself between Kashet and his prey, while Kiron howled, his voice cracking, “Kashet! NO!”

  And Kashet—stopped.

  A strange look came into the blue dragon’s eyes, and his nostrils dilated as he sniffed in Kiron’s direction. “Kashet,” he said hoarsely, “You know me. We didn’t mean to hurt him. We’ll make him better.”

  The dragon sniffed again, and made a gurgling whine in the back of his throat. Kiron slid down off Avatre’s shoulder; his knees were wobbly, but they held him. He stepped toward Kashet, holding out his hand. “Kashet,” he said as calmly as he could, “Remember? Remember Vetch?”

  Kashet lowered his head down and sniffed his palm—

  —and sighed.

  Then folded his legs underneath himself with a groan, and dropped down into the sand.

  Sand?

  Kiron looked around. They had reached the edge of the desert, and he hadn’t even noticed.

  He patted Avatre, who walked over to Kashet and sniffed him with deep suspicion, then stood guard over him. He trudged over to where the others were gathered around Ari—well, all but Aket-ten. She was leaning against Re-eth-ke, just out of sight of the others, leaning against her dragon’s shoulder. She looked white as fine linen, and he didn’t feel much better.

  He knelt down next to Ari, who was clearly in pain.

  “Let me, young Kiron.”

  The hand on his shoulder was attached to an arm clothed in Bedu blue; a moment later, the hand had gone to Ari’s forehead, and the Bedu was whispering a few unfamiliar words. The agony left Ari’s face, but now the pain there was of a very different sort. He looked straight into Kiron’s eyes.

  “Why didn’t you let me die?” he asked bitterly.

  “And years ago, why didn’t you let me?” Kiron replied without thinking.

  “Because there has been enough of death on both sides, fools,” the Mouth of the Bedu said roughly. “And enough of wallowing in self-pity. Get up, Jouster, who is a Jouster no more.” And he grasped Ari’s wrist, and hauled him to his feet, turning him so that he faced into the west.

  Dozens of brightly colored dots were speeding overhead, coming toward them. One shot past directly overhead, and a little later a bit of harness fell out of the sky to hit Gan in the head.

  “Ow!” Gan shouted, indignantly, and shook his fist at the retreating dragon. “We freed you, ungrateful wretch! Ingrate!”

  “There are no more Jousters, Ari, rider of Kashet,” said the Bedu. “Neither Tian, nor Altan. There never will be again. You are freed of your oaths.”

  Ari—blinked. His lips twitched. “You, who speak for your gods, claim that?”

  “No,” said Kaleth, pushing his way between Oset-re and Pe-atep. “I, who speak for the gods of both Tia and Alta, say that.”

  This was not a Kaleth that Kiron had ever seen before. Leaner, browner, full of fire and energy, and with a look to his eyes as if he had seen all there was of pleasure and pain and had come to accept both as part of a greater whole. Now it was Kiron’s turn to blink.

  And all he could think was, If only Toreth were here to see this. He would be so happy—and so proud. For Kaleth, who had always stood in his brother’s shadow, had come into his own.

  Kaleth had something else new—around his neck was the hawk pectoral of a Priest of Haras, and on both shoulders were tattoos of the symbol of the Winged Ones.

  “Priest?” said Ari falteringly.

  “And Winged One of Alta,” replied Kaleth. He took Ari’s upper arm in a firm grasp. “And as both, I say to you—you are freed of your oaths, which had come to strangle you. There are no more Jousters. The dragons will answer to no bond save love. And so, you have no duty to return to. I give you the wings of the hawk, to choose your fate. You may go anywhere you choose, and leave behind everything that has caused you such pain as made you ask ‘Why did you not let me die?’ ”

  “Or?” asked Ari, looking into Kaleth’s eyes.

  “Or—you may accept that pain, accept the burden of responsibility once again, and help us to do somewhat that may—may—bring a cure to the disease that rots both Tia and Alta.” Kaleth’s gaze was steady. “I promise nothing. The future is in flux, and my visions are not clear. But this I do pledge; those who join us in Sanctuary are vowed with one heart to the goal of ending this wretched war and casting down those who fatten upon it. We have hands, we have plans, and we will try.”

  Ari closed his eyes, and Kiron held his breath. He felt as if he balanced on the edge of a knife blade. He didn’t know why it was so important to have Ari with them—other than to himself, that is—but he sensed that it was.

  And so did Kaleth. But Kaleth was giving him the choice, to stay or to go, of his own will.

  Ari opened his eyes, and looked straight at Kiron—then past Kiron, to where Avatre guarded an exhausted Kashet.

  And he smiled.

  “Take me to this Sanctuary of yours,” he said. “I should like to try.”

  EPILOGUE

  SANCTUARY—

  Kiron stood on the top of a squat, wind-eroded tower, and looked down at the improvised pens where ten dragons wallowed in sun-heated sand, as contented as ever dragons could be. The Lost City was a very strange place. He had thought it would seem desolate, and haunted by the ghosts of thousands. It actually seemed empty, and waiting, as if it never had held people before this moment. The buildings were familiar, yet unfamiliar, the shapes like those of Alta and Tia, yet unlike. Partly it was the utter lack of paintings, inscriptions, and carvings; there weren’t even any statues of gods here. Partly it was the curves of the walls; there wasn’t a straight line here anywhere. The dragons liked it, though. Perhaps it reminded them of the wind- and water-cut valleys and caves where their kind made their homes.

  There was water here, the first need of life, an underground source that seemed bottomless. You reached it through the well house in the center of Sanctuary, which covered the stairway down, which in turn led to a cave and a huge spring-fed pool.

  Sanctuary itself provided the shelters, far more than the current population needed, although there were more people trickling in all the time. The first two had been Lord Khumun and Heklatis, the latter having shed his womanly disguise, but after them had come several of the dragon boys of Alta and Tia (including Baken!) some of the Healers of Alta, and other folk, common and noble. One of those had been Lord Ya-tiren, who had doubled the population of Sanctuary by bringing with him his entire household. Aket-ten and Orest could not have been more overjoyed.

  Kiron could not have been more relieved.

  Aket-ten came up through
the hole in the roof of the tower to stand beside him. He smiled at her, and made room for her to sit on the sand-scoured parapet. “Look—” she said, pointing straight down below.

  Directly below was Kashet’s pen. Entering it were Ari—and Nofret.

  Their voices drifted up on the hot wind.

  “—but of course there can be more dragons, and more dragon riders,” Nofret was saying, in a voice that sounded surprised. “It is not so difficult! How do we get young falcons? We take them from the nest, of course—and we can do the same with dragonets. We have ten dragons that can guard us while we take a single youngster, and we can ensure we do no harm by taking the ones that might not otherwise live, just as we do with falcons!”

  “That never occurred to me,” Ari replied, sounding surprised. “But—by Haras, you are right! We can set a watch on the dragon nests—take the ones that are not prospering—take the ones from parents that are not skilled—”

  “And tell me, are there not times when the parents are slain, as happens with falcons?” Nofret asked “Or injured, or killed by a disease? We can save those entire clutches—and of course, since they will have bonded first to their parents, they will eventually breed as well, and then we will have the best of both sorts of dragon, tame and wild!”

  Her voice was alight with enthusiasm, as Kiron had never heard before. And Ari’s when he replied, was warm with pleasure.

  “How is it that you know so much about falcons?” he asked, “And care so much about dragons? I have—forgive me, my lady, but I admit my experience with women is rather limited—I never met a woman who—who—”

  “Who thought about more than hair and gowns and jewels?” she laughed. “But I was a falconer, Ari! I helped tend and raise my father’s birds—Pe-atep was my father’s man, and I trained him. As for dragons, well—the first time I met Aket-ten and saw her Re-eth-ke, my thought was not, that was Toreth’s dragon, it was I want one like that! I confess to you, I was raw with envy, and I would have traded every gown, wig, and gem in the world for a dragon of my own.”

  “Ah, now I understand why you thought so much about how to gain more!” Ari laughed—and his hand inched toward Nofret’s.

  “Oh, I must also confess that my first flight was utterly terrifying,” she said, a smile still in her voice, “And for a little while—a little—I thought ‘perhaps this is not for me’—but I managed to get beyond that fear as I watched Aket-ten and Kiron flying away into the sky.”

  And her hand inched toward his.

  And when they touched, their fingers curled around each other’s, interlacing until they seemed that they had never been apart.

  “I believe, my Lady,” said Ari softly, “that we must needs find you a dragonet of your own. I should not like to find you trying to win my Kashet away from me. And I—I would like to show you what the world looks like from above. It is strange. There are no borders, you see—”

  Kiron found himself smiling—then grinning—and had to swallow to keep from whooping aloud, as Nofret leaned her head on Ari’s shoulder. “I should like that, Ari. And please call me Nofret. There are no ladies here.”

  With a start, Kiron realized that his fingers had somehow gotten entwined with Aket-ten’s. “I think we should give them some privacy, don’t you?” he whispered, hoping she could not hear how his heart pounded.

  “That might be a good idea,” she whispered back with a grin. “And you know, we might want to go see if there are dragon nesting places around here. It’s going to be a while before Sanctuary can do anything about the Magi and the war. And we’re going to need more dragon riders when we do.”

  “We certainly will,” he replied, warmly, basking in their shared dream. Perhaps he was no Winged One, but the vision was clear to both of them. “We certainly will.”

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