Alta

by Mercedes Lackey

  “They are treating you as an adult, because you look like one as well as act like one,” Kiron agreed. “Even your father was affected.” Then added, “Oh, except Orest, of course.”

  “Of course.” She laughed. “When has a brother ever treated a younger sister as if she had grown up?”

  Possibly when he realizes that Gan, Oset-re, and Toreth are flirting with her, Kiron thought—and the thought gave him a feeling of gloom for a moment. After all, how could he even hope to compete with the likes of them? Wealth, power, the highest breeding—

  But I’m the wing leader and trainer, he reminded himself. They don’t have that. And they’re still tending babies, not flying combat training.

  “Have you gone to see the dragonets yet?” he asked.

  She laughed. “If I hadn’t, the others of your wing would have had seizures by now,” she said merrily. “Yes, I’ve seen all of them. And I would never, ever say this to their faces, but the poor little things look terribly unfinished compared with Avatre. However, I’ve Spoken to all of them, and I can tell you that they are all amazingly healthy and thriving. My only recommendation is to get them all toys now and get them interested in playing. They may be clumsy, and they may not be able to do more than mouth pretty colored things, but their minds need stimulation as much as their bodies do.” She pursed her lips a moment. “In fact, you had better get Bethulan and Re-eth-katen twice as many toys as the rest, and more interesting ones, because they will get bored the soonest. Perhaps systrums that they can rattle, or soft things that they can carry about and worry like puppies.”

  He made a mental note to see to it. “Avatre needs a grooming,” he told her. “And I know she likes your company. Would you like to come along?”

  “No, by now, the servants are back with my things,” she told him, and he bit back disappointment. “If I don’t direct them, they’ll put my bedroom where I’ll be hearing chatter and clatter all night long, and my study in the darkest room of the lot. I promise though, I will wait for you at supper.”

  His spirits rose again. “I’ll hold you to that promise,” he said, and led Avatre off to the grooming pens feeling very much better.

  At supper, however, despite his attempt to sit with Aket-ten in an unobtrusive corner of the enclosure, the others spotted them and settled themselves at the table, completely ignoring some fairly fierce glares on his part.

  This eating area could have been the duplicate of the one in the Tian compound; there were the identical wooden tables and benches, the plain stone walls, and nearly the same cooking smells. The only real difference was that besides the movable awnings on lines overhead, the four walls supported permanent awnings as well, held up on posts, so that the area open to the sky was considerably smaller. And beneath the cooking smells, the scent of the compound was much different—with so many swamp dragons here, and with the canal so near, the air was always humid and full of water scent.

  No wonder the Tians are envious of us. We have so much water we have to find ways to getting rid of it, but once you move from the Great Mother River, there is nothing worth having in Tia.

  He wondered what Aket-ten would think of that observation. If they had been alone, he probably would have asked her opinion. But with the others around—well, they’d probably think he was an idiot.

  He sat there, tongue-tied, while Gan kept Aket-ten laughing with his imitations and his cleverness. He couldn’t help but notice her admiring glances at Oset-re’s handsome profile—and neither could Oset-re.

  Huras, however, seemed to be on Kiron’s side. He had no more advantage than Kiron did in flirting—his father the baker surely did not move in court circles!

  And, in fact, he probably had a bit less of an advantage, for although he was frighteningly intelligent, he was not much inclined to speak unless he was spoken to, and his large frame and stolid expression often made people think he was stupid. While Kiron didn’t think that Aket-ten had made that mistake, Huras also seemed far more interested in what Aket-ten could tell him about Tathulan than about herself.

  Since Huras was at the outer end of the table, he got the serving dishes first—and he kept spearing the choicest bits and passing them directly to Kiron with a nod toward Aket-ten and a conspiratorial wink. Kiron was good at taking hints; he passed the bounty on to Aket-ten, and at least got the reward of a nod of thanks and a smile.

  And Toreth also seemed, obliquely at least, to be helping Kiron. When Gan was being a little too clever, Toreth deflated him with a barbed bit of wit of his own. And when Oset-re started moving to put that handsome face of his in the best possible light, he asked, innocent as a child, “Are you posing for a statue, Oset-re? I should wait until I had earned my first Gold of Honor if I were you.”

  Aket-ten had the grace not to laugh at these stabs at the others’ vanity, but she hid a smile behind the cover of her jar of beer.

  “Aket-ten,” asked Orest, suddenly, quite out of nowhere. “What was going on when you left? Did you really lose your other powers?”

  The group around the table went very quiet, although the chatter from the rest of the eating-court covered the silence.

  “Why do you ask?” she said, in so low a voice that they could hardly hear it. Then—“Never mind,” she continued. “I will tell you all about it, if you all will come to my courtyard later tonight.” She looked around at all of them. “Kiron and Toreth trust you with their secrets; I can do no less.”

  Toreth started a bit at that, but said nothing. Kiron held his tongue as well. But the rest of the meal was eaten in a peculiar silence—not uncomfortable, but awkward. The boys were not sure what they were going to hear, but they were fairly sure it wasn’t something that went well with mild flirtation. Which, Kiron thought, was surprisingly perceptive of them. But it seemed as though when they were prevented from flirting, they—or Oset-re and Gan at least—didn’t know what else to say to her.

  In a way, Kiron could sympathize. The things they normally chattered about—the dragonets, the plans for training—didn’t fit in with the usual definition of “polite conversation around a young lady.” They had no way of knowing that such things would be as interesting to Aket-ten as any of the boys around the table.

  Not that Kiron had any experience with “polite conversation around a young lady.” He hadn’t the breeding or the family background, so he decided that he wasn’t even going to try coming up with witty repartee. He’d just talk to Aket-ten, like he would talk to anyone else, like the two of them had talked when she was still with the Healers.

  So he and Toreth filled the void. Toreth passed on news from outside, and he reported what he had learned from the older Jousters about how the fighting was going. There actually wasn’t much Jousting going on, not with those storms continuing to keep Tian dragons out of the sky. So instead of Jousting, the Altan dragon riders were acting as scouts, and disrupting the Tian camps by means of a number of clever attacks. For instance, setting fire to the wagon-loads of fodder for the chariot horses not only frightened the horses and even ran some off the picket lines, but made it necessary to send for more fodder or try and find grazing. And dropping jars full of deadly black scorpions and poisonous adders into the camps was more than just a disruption. For the first time in years, in fact, the Tian lines had been pushed back. Several small villages had been retaken, and the Tians who had arrogantly moved in had fled in confusion. Kiron’s only complaint was that at least half the credit for the recent string of victories had to go to the Magi, who kept Tian dragons grounded. Eventually, Aket-ten—looking as if she wished to stay—excused herself, saying she had to supervise the servants setting up her things.

  Between them, Toreth and Kiron probably could have kept that particular conversation going all night. But there were, of course, chores to be done, dragonets to be settled into sleep, before they could gather in Aket-ten’s new quarters. Of all of them, Kiron had perhaps the lightest duty; the babies needed a last extra feeding to sustain them in their slee
p, and they were growing so fast that they all had to have their sensitive skin rubbed with oily cloths before they went to sleep, or they might scratch too hard and damage themselves. Avatre needed nothing more than a little extra grooming, and to be told what a glorious dragon she was and that Kiron would be back soon. She settled into her sand with a sigh of pure pleasure, and was fast asleep in moments as the moon rose over the walls of the compound.

  So he was the first to present himself at the door to Aket-ten’s courtyard. It hardly merited the title; it couldn’t have been more than fifteen paces in length or width, and boasted a tiny, square pool with a few latas, a single fish, and a square stone box in which a small acacia tree grew, scenting the night air with its blossoms. There was only one bench; Aket-ten was setting out pillows even as he arrived, and lighting lamps and torches around the walls. Somehow he felt relieved that she was not bringing them into any of those rooms. He helped her with the latter, allowing her to go back into one of the rooms for more cushions.

  There were no mosaics adorning the pool, only the plainest of white tiles; there were no paintings on the walls. It had, after all, been a courtyard shared by a dozen servants, all crammed on pallets into three of the four rooms around it—the fourth room being the bathing room, of course. But Aket-ten seemed completely pleased with her new domain.

  “Are you all right here?” he asked doubtfully.

  “I feel safer here than at home,” she replied, “And I wouldn’t trust living with the Fledglings now no matter what the senior Winged Ones promised me.” She sighed, and sat down on a cushion at the edge of the pool, trailing her fingers in the water. “I don’t trust them anymore; I can’t. I think they would give me over to the Magi in a heartbeat. I couldn’t stay with the Healers either; I was in the way. They were quite polite about it, but I was an inconvenience at best, and I didn’t have a great deal in common with them. Healers are—very passionate about what they do, and I just didn’t share that passion. Here I’m at least useful.”

  “I believe you would find a way to be useful no matter where you were,” said Toreth, coming in on the end of the statement. “I should warn you, though, Lord Khumun will have our heads if we stay too long here, tonight or any other night.”

  “I’ll chase you out before you get yourselves into trouble,” she replied, as the rest straggled in. “I have duties of my own, too—ones I might as well tell you now, because it answers my brother’s question.” She looked around at everyone but Kiron. “No, I did not lose my powers—which were Animal Speech, the Silent Speech with a fellow Winged One, and the Far-Seeing Eye. I did not have the Seer’s Eye, which imparts a view of the future; I did seem to have it at first, but it was the Far-Seeing eye, not the ability to look into the future. I disappointed my teachers in that regard. Frankly—given how things have turned out—I think I am just as glad.”

  “Why?” Gan asked, choosing a flat cushion of woven reeds for himself.

  “Because I think if I had possessed the Seer’s Eye—no matter how far I went, the Magi would have come looking for me.” She shivered. “I am far less of a threat to them without it—”

  “A threat?” her brother gaped at her.

  “I’ll get to that in a moment.” She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes for a moment. “First, you should all know that one of my agreed-upon duties here is that I will be employing the Far-Seeing Eye privately for the benefit of Lord Khumun and the Jousters, and I will do so around dawn, because the Winged Ones are occupied with the Dawn Rites then. Which is why I will be getting up just as early as all of you. They do not know that I never lost my powers. I do not wish them to know this, for they would tell the Magi. Lord Khumun knows because Kiron and my father trust him, and he has no love at all for the Magi.”

  Gan rubbed the bridge of his nose; he had completely lost his usual air of languid boredom. “So Lord Khumun knows the truth about you. Who else, besides your father and Kiron?”

  “The Healers at the Temple of All Gods, which is where I was hiding, rather than going to my aunt,” she said immediately, as Orest continued to gape at her. “You know about the Magi and why I fled, then?”

  Toreth nodded. “I think half of us do. My brother is trying to find out exactly what they’re doing with the Fledglings—” he began. She held up her hand.

  “Wait a moment, and let me explain to the rest.” Briefly she outlined what had happened to her, and what the Magi had been doing with the rest of the Fledglings. Kiron volunteered what he had witnessed—the Fledglings being taken away looking like sleepwalkers, and returning looking utterly exhausted. “But as for finding out what is going on inside the Tower of Wisdom, don’t bother—I can tell you. The Magi are stealing some form of power from us—from the Fledglings—to fuel the spell that sends the storms down on Tia.” She smiled grimly at their nods; by this time none of them was surprised, and she didn’t look as if she had expected any of them to be so. “Here is what you don’t yet know; when the last chance of sending rain is over, they do not intend to stop.”

  Toreth’s head came up, like a hound on a scent. “For the purpose of—?” he asked delicately.

  “That, I cannot tell you. But I learned this, not from watching with my power, because I will not dare that, but from the memories that an Akkadian Healer coaxed out of my mind.” She grimaced. “The Magi believe that the Fledglings are made blind and deaf to what goes on around them as they are being drained of their strength. They are not. But there is a spell of forgetfulness placed upon them before they are allowed to leave. The Akkadian knew it of old, and knew the counter. I remember everything that happened that single time I was taken, and everything that was said and done. This is how I know that, had I the Seer’s Eye, the Magi would have pursued me to the ends of the earth. They cannot permit someone with the Seer’s Eye in any strength to mature into his power. He might reveal the future to the Great Ones—and if he did, the Great Ones and their advisers would soon know that the Magi intend to be the ones to rule in Alta, making those who sit upon the Twin Thrones little more than figureheads.”

  “I should like to speak with that Akkadian one day soon,” said Toreth as if to himself.

  Aket-ten said nothing for a moment. Then she looked up. “Kiron told me that you have—a path you wish to travel, when the gods call the Great Ones?”

  “But not before their time,” Toreth said swiftly.

  “Yes. I believe it is time that the Magi began to practice their craft with—supervision. And with a great many conditions that they must follow. And I believe that it is time to end this foolish war, which eats blood and lives, and gives nothing in return.”

  “Then I am with you,” Aket-ten said simply. “Though I fear that there is little I can offer you.”

  “You can offer your testimony when the time comes,” Toreth replied, grimly. “Other things, too, maybe. Perhaps you can persuade this Akkadian friend of yours to share some of his time with me. I should like to learn how it is that the Magi do their work, and what constraints can be placed upon their excesses.”

  “Perhaps you could hire more Akkadians?” Gan suggested brightly, making them all laugh.

  As if that had somehow released unspoken tension, talk drifted into lighter topics. Having discovered that yes, Aket-ten was as fascinated and enthralled by the dragons as they all were—if, perhaps, not quite as obsessed—the little gathering turned into something very like an ordinary evening. Aket-ten sent a servant for food and jars of beer, brought out the Hounds and Jackals box, and responded to flirtations with clever retorts.

  For a while, Kiron was afraid that she did so only because she wished to keep the way clear for Toreth, but when she delivered a set-down to the prince as well, he relaxed.

  For his part, he did not even want to attempt a flirtation, and kept a sharp watch on his words. If Gan and Oset-re, who were so clever at such things, were left nursing their egos, what hope had he of getting anything other than the same response?

  Aket-ten
might look like an “ordinary” well-born girl, but it was clear to Kiron that she was not in the least interested in the sorts of things that the other boys believed “ordinary” girls concerned themselves with. Not that he was terribly familiar with that sort of thing; he was far more familiar with the way that the older Jousters jibed with the girls who served them their beer. But what passed for a witty innuendo with a slave or a serving girl was probably going to earn him a slap.

  He wanted some of her attention all for himself. So he challenged her to a game of Hounds and Jackals, and had the satisfaction of not only holding his own against her, but of presenting her with something that she did find pleasurable.

  Eventually, the others drifted off to their respective pens until only he and Toreth were left. Orest had been the first to go, wearing a puzzled, even bewildered look, as if his sister had suddenly turned into a stranger before his very eyes. Toreth was watching the game with every evidence of interest, and Kiron was determined to fight it out to the last piece. Finally, with only one Hound left, she took out both of his remaining Jackals.

  “Well fought!” Toreth exclaimed, as Kiron congratulated her. “My Lady, I should like to request a match tomorrow night.”

  “You can have your match, provided you always call me Aket-ten, and nothing more,” she replied, flushed with victory, and putting up the pieces. “I have taken a dislike to being called ‘my Lady.’ ”

  “Gladly. And seeing you play—both of you—I note that you both use unconventional strategy.” He looked keenly from Kiron to Aket-ten and back again. “Now, the one thing that the Magi can do—at a cost that none of us wish to continue paying—is to negate the superiority of the Tian Jousters, if only temporarily.”

  Kiron nodded, though he wondered fleetingly if the prince ever thought of anything other than the war. Or—wars. For there was no doubt in his mind that he considered himself to be at war now with the Magi.