Alta

by Mercedes Lackey

  The lump of grief rose again within him. “Yes, my Lord,” he managed to choke out, and then, at last, the tears began, and he stumbled out of the pen, blindly, feeling his way back to his own pen and the comforting presence of Avatre.

  Except that Avatre was as agitated as he was, and whimpered deep in her throat. The keening wail of the grieving dragonet was cutting across the entire Compound, and as the dragons awoke to it, they began to add their chorus of agitation to her howl of mourning. As he threw his arms around Avatre’s neck, she curled it down around his shoulders and whimpered into his ear while he wept against the soft, slick surface of her chest.

  And wept. And wept. Whenever he thought he had himself under control, his control broke again; it was the dragon that did it, her lamenting filled the whole compound and still there was no end to it, and all he could do, all anyone could do, was to mourn with her, until he had cried himself into a mummy, into dust, and blew away on the wind.

  And then—it stopped.

  For a moment longer, the other dragons still whined or moaned, but after a moment or two, their own plaints died away, leaving a strange and uncomfortable silence.

  Slowly, he pulled himself together. Avatre stopped whimpering, stopped trying to curl herself around him. He raised his head, she raised hers. Then she nosed his wet cheek, and made a tentative, sad little echo of her hunger call.

  “I know,” he said, and patted her jaw. “I know, my love.”

  He levered himself up out of the sand, stiffly; he rubbed the tear stains from his cheeks with the back of one hand, the sand grating across the hot lines etched there by his weeping. Then he went to look for Avatre’s breakfast.

  He roused Avatre’s dragon boy from his bewildered grief, and together they fetched Avatre’s meat. Then he sent the boy to bring food to the other dragonets of the wing, while he tended to Avatre himself.

  She ate—not swiftly, not with her usual exuberance and appetite, but she ate. And when she was done, he apologized to her for leaving, and with dread in his heart, went to the bereft dragon’s pen.

  And found Aket-ten there, feeding Re-eth-katen tiny bits of meat, as if she was a baby again, crooning to her. She looked up at him. Her eyes were swollen and red, her cheeks tear-streaked, and yet somehow she had battled through her own bereavement to come to soothe and comfort the little dragon. Where she had gotten the strength, he could not even guess.

  “As soon as she can move, I’m taking her to the empty pen at the end,” she said, in a voice that brooked no argument. “And then I’m moving my things there. She needs me.”

  She glared defiance at him, but he was not about to argue with her. Not in this mood. He just nodded, and backed his way out. At this point, he didn’t care what she did, as long as she got that terrible wailing to stop, and kept the dragonet from starving herself to death. Another rider could be found eventually, and then he would argue that it was not appropriate for a young lady to be housed among so many young men.

  Later. Not now.

  Besides, somehow he had to get the others going, to establish a semblance of normality. More than ever, they had to get on their feet, get going, get back to business, and prove themselves. The Magi would be watching them now, sure that Toreth had cultivated a hotbed of dissent here, and waiting for the chance to make them fail. Therefore, they had to succeed, and yet at the same time, they had to deceive the Magi into thinking that they were insignificant, harmless. Toreth would have wanted that.

  Throughout the sixty days of mourning, as the prince’s body was prepared for burial with all the care due a Prince and Heir, that phrase kept coming up among the boys that were left. Spoken, or unspoken, it was always there. Toreth would have wanted this.

  The wing got back into the air, back into practice, pushing themselves and their dragons as never before, because Toreth would have wanted that. Heklatis worked feverishly, making their own personal amulets into magic sinks, imbued with every sort of protection that his imagination and the powers of his own mind and body could muster, because Toreth would have wanted his wingmates protected against the evil that the Magi could summon. Aket-ten devoted herself to the welfare of the dragon that she renamed “Re-eth-ke”—“the shining sun-spirit”—because Toreth would not have wanted his dragon to pine herself to death. And within twenty days, Aket-ten was garbed in a kilt and a breast wrap, flying that dragon, first in simple exercise, then in support of the training games, then in the training games and combat practice again. She was not much good at the targeting, except with the sling, but no one could outfly her. And somehow, Lord Khumun never brought forth another boy for Re-eth-ke, and it never seemed terribly urgent to Kiron that he find a substitute—

  Truth to tell, he didn’t think he could bear to look at Re-eth-ke and see another boy in her saddle. Seeing Aket-ten there didn’t hurt; in a way, it was only right that after nursing the dragon back from its depression, she have the same freedom of the skies as the rest of them. He could see it in her face—when she was on the ground, there were anxiety lines there, the haunting flicker of fear that never left her, and the constant nag of worry that at any moment, the Magi might come for her. Up in the sky, all that left her. How could he take that from her? There might have been problems with a young woman in the midst of so many young men, but she never acted like a young “woman.” She might have flirted mildly with them before—she did nothing of the sort now. She acted like one of the wing, with the same earnest determination as any of them, and a complete lack of anything that could be considered flirtation.

  So, by the time that Toreth’s funerary shrine was done, and his mummified body placed in it, and his spirit released to cross the Star-Bridge, Aket-ten had become a part of the wing, and never a murmur against her.

  Not even from the senior Jousters. The Dry season aged toward winter, but everything seemed disjointed and wrong, somehow. The senior Jousters went out; some came back, some did not. Lord Khumun never ordered Kiron’s wing out at all. In a way, that was a relief; in a way, it felt as if the Lord of the Jousters had abandoned them.

  At last the body was mummified, the shrine was complete, and with a shock, Kiron realized with a shock that it was time to say a final farewell. They all went to the funeral rites—and it was only at that moment that the anger he had felt before Toreth’s death finally awoke again. Because the rites were—perfunctory.

  In fact, it felt like an extension of Toreth’s disgrace, as if his own parents believed that the cobra had really been a sign of the gods’ displeasure. When they all arrived at the dock to take the funeral barge to the City of the Dead, Kiron had to look twice to recognize that they did have the right barge, and not one for some insignificant shopkeeper. The barge was small, the decoration sparse, the flowers—well, the only flowers were those brought by the wing. The offerings for the gods were the only things that were there in profusion, in overabundance, in fact, as if Toreth’s parents were trying desperately to bribe the gods into a good humor.

  There was no escort of professional mourners. Toreth’s own parents did not attend. There was only Kaleth, looking like five kinds of death himself, to represent the family, and the wing, to represent his friends.

  The voyage took place in utter silence. There were no chants, no dirges. When they all disembarked at the City of the Dead, there was only a decorated cart hauled by a single ox to greet them, with the mason and the painter. Kiron half-expected the shrine to have been shorted as well, but there, at least, the job had been done handsomely. . . .

  Then again, perhaps Toreth’s parents feared that he would haunt them otherwise.

  The shrine, a masonry construction about the size of a room, was carved and painted all over with the prayers for the dead. Inside it should have already been stocked with abshati figures and offerings and everything that Toreth would need in the afterlife, sealed in several chambers. Only one chamber remained unsealed; the one for his coffin, before which further offerings could be made over time.

 
; If any were—

  We will, he thought fiercely. And I don’t care who knows that we’re doing so.

  The Priest and Priestess of Enefis, the God of the Dead, hurried through the rites until Kaleth stepped forward, forcibly took the regalia from the priest, and a moment later, Aket-ten confronted the priestess who gave hers over without a murmur. And instead of the Priest and Priestess, they finished the rites, properly, and only when all was complete to the last detail, did they return the sacred implements to their rightful wielders. Everyone knew the rites, of course, and anyone could perform them—

  —but to have to step in to do the job properly when there was a Priest and Priestess there was a sign that something was badly out of kilter.

  The body bearers installed the mummy in its niche with what seemed to Kiron to be unseemly haste. Only the mason, who sealed the body in, and the painter, who painted Toreth’s likeness on the freshly plastered wall, did their jobs with dignity and grace. And only the wing and Kaleth stayed to watch it done.

  When even the painter and the mason were gone, Kaleth turned to stumble away—and Kiron, moved by only Toreth would have wanted this put out a hand and caught Kaleth’s shoulder.

  “Come back with us,” he said, to Kaleth’s frozen face. “Don’t go—to your parents’ house. Come home with us.”

  “What?” the young man—prince no longer—asked harshly. “And try to take his place? Pretend I’m not afraid of heights, pretend that I am fit to be a warrior when I know I’m not, try to get his dragon to accept me, and try to—”

  “No,” Kiron said simply. “Come back with us, be yourself, and make a home with us. Do you not think we like you for yourself, and wish your company? Aket-ten tends to Re-eth-ke. She saved Re-eth-ke’s life by comforting her, she trains Re-eth-ke now, and I would not let you take the dragon from her now, even if you wanted her. We don’t want a replacement for Toreth, we want Kaleth, our friend, who needs someone to share his grief with, just as we do. Come and be yourself, with us, who are your friends.”

  He didn’t know where those words had come from, but they must have been the right ones, for something within Kaleth visibly broke. His face crumpled, and he began to weep, as if for the last sixty days he had kept his own grief pent behind a dam.

  Gan took one side of him, and Orest the other, and they helped him along. Kiron hurried his steps and went on ahead, to make certain that all of Toreth’s things had been taken from the empty pen, and it was bare of everything but the essentials. Kaleth had seldom come here; mostly they had met in Kiron’s pen. There would be no memories in that place for him, and likely he would never know that it had been Toreth’s unless someone told him.

  The pen was empty, the sand clean and smooth, the room held only the cot and some linen. Even Toreth’s colors had been painted over on the door outside the room. Re-eth-ke had new colors now, scarlet and white, chosen by Aket-ten.

  Kiron found an unoccupied slave and sent him in search of the things that Kaleth would need for his comfort.

  Then he went in search of Heklatis, and told him what was toward.

  “I don’t know what his parents think they’re doing,” he said bleakly, “But something tells me that if we don’t get him away from them, he’ll—do something drastic.”

  The Healer nodded.

  “Good. This is the best place for him. I will make a potion so he can sleep when he is wept out; I suspect he has done as little of that as of sleeping.”

  Kiron sent a message to Lord Ya-tiren; three slaves returned laden with cushions and lamps, scrolls and papyrus and all the things a scribe needed, including a comfortable chair, a clever little table. In short, all the things needed to make the little chamber into a place of welcome and refuge for a scholar.

  It was an unexpected and amazingly kind and thoughtful act that brought tears to Kiron’s eyes again. He could not help but contrast this with Kaleth’s own parents and their actions.

  But then, Lord Ya-tiren was a scholar, and he understood another such. Lord Ya-tiren knew the truth and believed it; apparently Kaleth’s parents were not even willing to listen to it. Or they were too afraid to acknowledge that it was the truth. Kiron blessed his benefactor’s name, vowed to find a way to make it up to him, and got the chamber in readiness. And when the wing brought Kaleth back with them, Heklatis, too, was waiting there.

  Kiron had expected Aket-ten to be foremost of those offering Kaleth comfort, but to his surprise, she was nowhere to be found. It was only when he heard the sound of light sandals on the stone, and looked out into the corridor, that he saw her. And she was not alone; there was a young woman with her—a woman several years Kiron’s senior, dressed in the kind of expensive linen gown and jewels, the elaborate wig and face paint, that a court lady would wear.

  For one wild moment, he wondered if this was Kaleth’s mother—but a better look told him that if she had given birth to the twin princes, she would have had to do so as a toddler. And it was only when Aket-ten shoved the boys aside so that the young woman could get to Kaleth’s side, when he watched Kaleth’s face transform when he saw her, and saw him seek her embrace as a refuge from the world, that he realized that this wasn’t a sister either.

  Aket-ten, with a look on her face that said that she was very satisfied with her work, shoved past the boys again to get to Kiron. She cleared her throat significantly; the boys started, and looked at her, and when she took Kiron’s elbow and steered him out into the corridor, they followed suit.

  “Aket-ten,” said Gan incredulously, “Is that Marit-te-en?”

  She nodded. “Toreth might have been indifferent to his betrothed, but Kaleth is not Toreth.” She sighed. “All things considered, maybe that wasn’t so bad. Anyway, I had the feeling when Marit didn’t turn up at the rites that either Kaleth was avoiding her, or that her people were keeping her from him. I went to her parents’ house to find out which; they couldn’t stop me from seeking her out, so when I found out that she was frantic with worry for him, I got her and brought her here.”

  “Couldn’t stop. . . .” Gan snorted. “Now that’s an understatement. They wouldn’t dare snub the daughter of Lord Ya-tiren.”

  Aket-ten shrugged. “If she says she’s visiting me, and it isn’t common knowledge that Kaleth is here, then I see no reason to enlighten anyone as to who she’s really seeing.”

  “You did exactly the right thing,” Kiron told her warmly, and she flushed, and smiled a little, for the first time in sixty days.

  “And so did you,” she replied. “I think he should stay here from now on and never go home. His parents are being horrid to him; they believe everything the Magi have been saying about Toreth, and they’re taking it out on Kaleth. The rest of the court is afraid to go anywhere near him; even if they don’t believe the Magi, they’re afraid to risk their anger.”

  Kiron looked around at the others, who nodded or shrugged. “He’s our friend, too,” said Gan defiantly. “He should not only stay here as long as he wants, I think we ought to figure out something he can do to be part of the wing.”

  “He can help me,” said Heklatis, coming out of the door with the empty potion cup in one hand. He hesitated a moment, the continued, “It is well known among the Magi of the Akkadians that great stress and turmoil can awaken things that slumbered within us and might otherwise not have been awakened.” He licked his lips. “And—there is another thought among my people, that in some ways twins are not only bound in mystical ways, but that in a sense they are one extraordinary person, and that if one dies, the other is given all that the other had. The two of them might not have individually had much in the way of magic, but now that his twin is gone—” Heklatis shook his head. “To make the story short, I sense that he might be a newly awakened Magus or Winged One. And of all things, I do not want the Magi to learn this. I can protect him until he knows enough to protect himself, but not if he is living elsewhere, out of my immediate reach.”

  “It’s settled, then.” Kiron nodded
. “And—” He hesitated; but there was something prompting the next words, which came out of his mouth without any notion of his that he was going to say them. “—we all know that he didn’t look much like his brother? Well, I say he should be someone else while he’s here.”

  “Kaleth’s a common enough name,” offered Oset-re. “Or call him Kaleth-ke, which is even commoner.”

  “Kaleth-ke, my apprentice Healer.” Heklatis nodded. “I’ll set this straight with Lord Khumun, and make this offer to Kaleth after he awakens. I do not believe that he will argue with the plan.”

  “Me either,” Kiron said quietly, remembering the look that had been on Kaleth’s face before he made his offer of sanctuary. “Not in the least.”

  From the very moment when Kaleth joined the wing, although conditions outside their little group grew harder and bleaker with every passing day, within the group, something had changed for the better. Within the group, there was a sense that they had become more than a team; that they had become something of a family—with Heklatis standing in as “father,” perhaps, and a family in which there was little quarreling. It was just as well that this was so, because outside the compound, things were not going so well.

  As the winter progressed, the physical damage done by the earthshake was finally all repaired—but the mental and emotional damage only worsened. Kiron felt it every moment he was outside the compound, and he wasn’t even a Winged One. He could hardly imagine how difficult it must be for those who were sensitive to such things.

  The people of Alta were afraid.

  They were afraid that the next earthshake would also come without warning, and they were right to be afraid, because the Magi were still raiding the Temple of the Twins and the Winged Ones for their victims, and even (so the rumor went) casting speculative eyes on the Temple of All Gods and the Healers. All over the city, people were trying to concoct ways to protect themselves when the next shake came. Some solutions were better, some worse, but all of them had one thing in common. They were expensive.