Alta

by Mercedes Lackey

  So, the choice was, far too often, between protecting your family from earthshake, or eating. And even if you had made the choice for the former, there was no telling if your solution would work until the next shake came. So the fear never really left anyone. It was worse at night, when children cried as they were put to bed, for fear that the walls would come down on them in the darkness. Even adults stayed wakeful, with the result that a good proportion of the population went about their daily business looking tired, with dark-circled eyes.

  They were afraid of the Magi, though the Eye of Light (thank the gods!) did not open a second time on the Rings. Still, the lesson had been clear and was still visible—challenge the Magi and pay, obstruct the Magi and pay, threaten the Magi and pay. There were plenty of rumors about how many people had been incinerated by the Eye; that only increased the fear. So far as Kiron was aware, no one had actually confirmed any deaths—but as Heklatis had said, would anyone dare?

  They were afraid of each other. Though no laws were decreed making dissent and expression of dissent into an actual crime, enough people were accused of being traitors and, if not hauled up before a magistrate and jailed, certainly set upon by their fellow citizens, that no one dared speak out. It was bad enough to be accused of being “unpatriotic,” but if you weren’t careful, you could also be accused of being an agent of Tia, sent to foment discontent and discord. And that was a crime. There was a note of hysteria in much patriotic fervor now, as if the “patriot” was trying much too hard to keep from being added to someone’s list. The only sure way to be safe was to be among the Great Ones’ chosen friends or others of rank and privilege. Thus far, no one had dared to accuse any of the nobles.

  Yet.

  Lord Ya-tiren kept away from the court; this did not excite any suspicion, for he had until now been in the habit of devoting himself to the two pursuits of managing his estate and his scholarship. He had eyes and ears in the court, though, and that was how Kiron knew that if nerves were on edge in the city, they were grated raw in the court. If people were uneasy around their neighbors in the city, then they eyed each other with the brittle certainty that they were going to betray each other at the first opportunity in the court.

  The ordinary citizens were sure that the nobles were safe from accusations. The nobles were just as certain that accusations within the court were just a matter of time. If the Heir could be rebuked and disgraced, no one was safe.

  Toreth’s name was never spoken, and if Kaleth’s parents missed him, they were making no show of it. He did send one message that he was staying with friends elsewhere, though he did not specify where. He did make arrangements for messages to be sent back to him. No message ever came, nor did his parents send anyone to search for him.

  “I am useless to them now,” Kaleth noted dully. “When we were the Heirs, it was different; they were the parents of the Princes, and basked in the reflected glory, I suppose. Now, I am nothing but a spare son, and a tainted one at that.”

  Kiron ground his teeth in anger when he heard that. He could not imagine parents using and discarding their children so callously. It only made him the more determined to give Kaleth a kind of second family here.

  But Marit-te-en was at the compound nearly every other day, and she was their second, and much closer source for what was going on in the halls of the Great Ones. Unlike Kaleth and Toreth, she and her sister were identical, had the habit of always dressing alike, and thus it was a trivial thing for Marit to slip away, leaving her sister to play the roles of both twins.

  Frankly, as he came to know Marit, Kiron was coming to sense that there had been one flaw in Toreth’s personality at least. How could someone as intelligent as Toreth not have warmed up to his betrothed? Everyone agreed that Nofret-te-en was as personable as Marit, and Marit was brave, warm-hearted, and if not as clever and quick as Aket-ten, she had her own sort of wisdom. According to Gan and Oset-re, as well as both Marit and Kaleth, the girls were as alike in personality as they were in appearance. Granted, they were nearer to Ari’s age than they were to Kaleth’s, but still—

  If I had never met Aket-ten, Kiron thought, and more than once, I would be coaxing Marit to bring her sister here. . . .

  It was Marit who opened to them the state of things at court, for Marit and her sister were ladies-in-waiting to the (to Kiron) heretofore unknown half of the Great Ones, the twin wives.

  “There are two councils now,” Marit said one evening, as they all huddled around braziers in Kaleth’s room, on one of the coldest and longest nights of the year. “Though we do not think the original council is aware of the—” she wrinkled her brow in thought, “—I suppose I could call it the ‘shadow council,’ for it works in the shadows. The Great Ladies joke about it, actually. They seem to think it very funny that the council that everyone sees is the one without power, and all decisions are being made by the council no one knows about except for those who are on it.”

  Kaleth’s mouth twisted as if he were tasting something very sour. “Let me guess. The shadow council is all Magi.”

  Marit nodded. “Still,” she said, sounding less dismayed than Kiron would have expected, “It is not all bad.”

  “I cannot imagine how—” Gan began.

  “Ah,” Marit interrupted, with a wan smile, “You see, the Great Ladies, not trusting servants, call upon their own ladies-in-waiting to serve at these meetings. I have seen them, as has Nofret. They may show one face in public, but the Magi hate each other as much as they hate rivals outside the Tower of Wisdom. More so, perhaps, in some ways. They are constantly seeking to topple one another. That is probably the only thing that keeps them from becoming all-powerful.”

  “Well, that’s something, at least,” Can said, scratching his head. “But are you sure of that?”

  Marit smiled mirthlessly. “They are not only at each others’ throats, they are making real efforts to slay one another. Just today, Nofret told me, someone attempted to poison Magus Kephru with the wine served at the shadow council meeting. If he had not taken the precaution of testing it first, whoever it was would have succeeded. And no one but another Magus could place poison in a single cup when all were served from the same jar.

  “Oh,” Gan replied, rather nonplussed. “That is—interesting.”

  “But not useful, at least, not to us,” Heklatis opined. “I would not trust any of them as an ally, and that is the only possible use any of them could be to us.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Kiron said thoughtfully. “Any-thing bad that happens to any of them is likely to be placed first at the doorstep of the nearest rival, and then every other Magus, and only third at an outsider.”

  “You have a point.” Oset-re sucked on his lower lip. “The problem is, they each have a half century or more of experience in active deceit and treachery to call upon, whereas we—” he shrugged. “Experience and treachery will overcome youth and idealism with no effort whatsoever.”

  Kiron shook his head. “But we have some of that experience available to us.”

  “Not unless you are far older than you look!” said Gan.

  Kiron sighed. “Perhaps, having grown up with education available to you, you think too lightly of it. I do not. Scrolls, Gan. Volumes of wisdom available to all of us at any time. You have studied more of them than I. What do our texts, the words of our great generals, say to do when an enemy has superior resources?”

  “Run away?” Gan suggested brightly.

  “Move to a theater where he no longer commands those resources,” Kaleth said immediately. “Find ways to deny him those resources.”

  Kiron turned to Aket-ten and Heklatis. “This is where I ask you if you have an answer to that question I asked you some time ago.”

  He didn’t actually expect an answer; he really just wanted them to say “no,” or that they were still working on it, so that he could explain to the rest what his idea was—an idea even more urgent now that Toreth was no longer with them.

  But to his
shock and amazement, the two looked at each other for a long moment. And then Aket-ten answered, soberly, “I believe that we do.”

  SIXTEEN

  GAN looked from Kiron to Aket-ten and back again. “I don’t suppose you would care to explain that? I don’t mean to be rude, but—well, I’m not completely sure just how a girl and a Healer could fit into this situation, no matter what you asked them to find.”

  Kiron ignored Aket-ten’s glare. He knew she’d have a few words later—with him, or with Gan, or both—but she would just have to control her annoyance for now.

  “Toreth’s long-term plan was to put enough Jousters into the field that we could negate the Tian Jousters without needing the storms that the Magi were sending,” he reminded them.

  Kaleth swallowed at the sound of Toreth’s name, but nodded. “I recall that,” he said. “We both thought that once the Magi were no longer necessary to the war, their influence would wane somewhat. That was before we realized what else they were doing, of course. Still, even then, it was a good plan. If nothing else, they would stop draining the Winged Ones in order to send the storms.”

  That made them all silent, and Marit shuddered. “When Kaleth told me—I could hardly believe it. But then Nofret and I saw the Great Ladies growing ever so slightly younger looking, not older, day by day—now they appear to be perhaps half their actual age.” She shook her head. “I cannot fathom why no one else notices, unless it is sheer willfulness not to see. Everyone does speak of how well-preserved they are, or how they have lost weight and become more fit, but they say nothing about looking so—unnaturally young. The great blessing is ‘May you live a thousand years,’ but to think that this is what they might be trying to do—it is monstrous—”

  “But only the Magi know what is truly happening, and I think that none but us suspect, because as you say, people do not want to know,” Kiron reminded her. “And there is only one way to stop them. Someone who is revered by all Altans must speak out. Someone who is trusted by all Altans must tell the truth. And someone whom all Altans know is able to part the curtains of Time must say what lies on the other side of them. In short, the plan is still good, for we need the Winged Ones to be freed, willing to tell what was done to them, and perhaps, willing to say what will happen in the days to come if the Magi are not stopped. Now that they know what the Magi will do to them, once they are in their powers again, I think they will fight to keep from being further abused, and I believe that they will speak out.”

  He looked over to Aket-ten, who nodded, slowly. “They were foolish in allowing the Magi access to them before, but I think that they will rebel once they are no longer controlled and drained,” she said. “At least, I hope they will.” Her voice faltered. “But they are only human, and they can still be compelled by fear. I do not know what would be the greater for them, the fear of the Magi or the fear that they will be accused of aiding the enemy by refusing to be used by the Magi. I—”

  “They will,” Kaleth said, in an odd, flat tone of voice—a voice which nevertheless had a strange sort of echo to it, as if he spoke from within a cave. It was so odd, in fact, that all of them looked at him in sudden concern.

  He was sitting straight up, forearms lying flat along his thighs, eyes staring into nothing. His back was completely ridged, his head up, his feet and legs exactly parallel. It was an oddly familiar pose; Kiron knew he had seen it a hundred times, but where?

  The look in Kaleth’s eyes, though—it sent a shiver up his spine. His eyes might be staring into nothing, or apparently into nothing, but they weren’t blank or glazed. Oh, no—Kaleth saw something, something none of the rest of them could see.

  “He’s—” Gan began, looking awe-struck.

  “Shh!” Aket-ten reached over and clapped her hand over his mouth. “Don’t disturb him!” she whispered urgently. “We must hear all of it!”

  “End the need for storms, and the Magi will drain the Winged Ones no longer. In their arrogance, they believe that the Winged Ones are cowed, and will continue to bend their necks to the yoke, but they are wrong. The Winged Ones already are in rebellion; they merely lack the strength to take their rebellion further. When they recover their strength, they will fight. They will bar the door of the temple to the Magi, they will muster their protections, and they will resist all attempts to take them again. And then—and—then—” his voice began to fade, “—then—the paths divide—”

  Suddenly, Kaleth blinked, and his entire posture changed; he shook his head slightly, raised one hand to his forehead, and blinked again. “Why are you all staring at me?” he asked, looking puzzled.

  Aket-ten let out her breath in a sigh. “Well,” she said, with a nod. “Let me put it this way. You were sitting in the Python’s Pose.”

  At first Kaleth looked at her with a smile, as if he thought she was joking. But a moment later, the smile disappeared. “I was?” he asked, incredulously.

  She nodded—and so did the rest of them, even Kiron. Now that she had named that posture for what it was, he knew where he had seen that rigid, statuelike pose that Kaleth had taken. In statues, of course, statues of the Winged Ones about to prophesy. So Heklatis had been right! Kaleth had, either through shock or some other means, become a channel for the power to see into the future!

  Aket-ten elaborated, while all this went through Kiron’s mind. “Your eyes looked into the depths of time, and your voice told what you saw. We all saw it, we all heard it. You told us that if we can stop the Magi from draining the Winged Ones, then the Winged Ones will fight to keep from being so misused ever again.”

  “The—” Kaleth looked at her as if she was mad. And there was, perhaps, a tinge of fear in his voice. He knew exactly what Aket-ten was saying, and it frightened him. “No. But—I never—but I—”

  “Yes, you are, and I should know,” Aket-ten said firmly. “I have spent years in the Temple of the Twins, and for many of those years, it was thought that I would have the power that you just displayed.”

  Kaleth shook his head dumbly, as Marit took his hand, but Aket-ten was pitiless. “You might as well accept it, for the gods will have their way, whether you are willing or not. You are a Winged One now, Kaleth, and you have the Seer’s Eye. It is a pity you have never been trained, and even more that I do not know how to train you.”

  “Why?” Kiron asked, “What difference would training make?”

  Aket-ten sighed. “Those who are trained can, with proper preparation, part the Veils at will. It is a fearsome task, and does not often give a clear path, for the future is rooted in the present and changes with each thing that we do now. The Sighted cannot always see all of the possible paths either. But at least they can hold the Sight as long as they have the strength. For Kaleth, untrained, the Sight will come and go without any warning.”

  “But—but—” Kaleth looked from one to another of them, as if seeking for someone to tell him that Aket-ten was wrong. “This is not—but I—” He looked for a moment as if he was about to weep. “I can’t—I can’t possibly—”

  It was Marit who took both his hands in hers then, put her head close to his, and murmured something that none of them could make out. It seemed to be what he needed to hear, though, for after a moment, he relaxed, just a little, and lost that stricken look. “As the gods will it, then,” he said. “It is not for me to fight them. Perhaps I will be of some use. I am of little other use, so far as I can tell.”

  Kiron coughed. “More than some use,” he said, as the attention turned back to him. “You have confirmed what I had only hoped, which means that my plan—and Toreth’s plan—is sound. If there is a path in the future that frees the Winged Ones from the clutches of the Magi, then it can only be by one means that I know of.”

  “It would be useful,” Gan complained, “if we could but hear this plan! So far, there has been nothing but mystery from you! It is hard to judge any plan when there has not even been a hint of what you intend to do!”

  Kiron took a deep breath, a
nd looked around at them all before beginning. “If we cannot negate the Tian Jousters with our own numbers, then the only other answer is to remove the Jousters altogether. On both sides, if need be, and to be honest, I think that this may be required. I asked Heklatis and Aket-ten to find a way, thinking perhaps that in magic and the powers of a Winged One combined there might be an answer.”

  “And we have one, we think,” she said slowly. “Though it is not what you might have been thinking. If Heklatis were not a Magus and a Healer, I do not think that we would have found it, but—well, it is simple. The Jousters are nothing without their dragons. The Magi have dealt with them by keeping them grounded with storms, but we realized that if we could keep the dragons out of the sky by some other means, that would be the end of the Tian Jousters.”

  “We didn’t want to poison them,” Heklatis said. “For one thing, it would be very hard to do, and for another, it would just be wrong. For the same reason we didn’t want to give them a disease.”

  Aket-ten nodded. “That was when we realized that without the tala, there are no Jousters, because without the tala, the dragons who are not tame cannot be controlled. And if we found a way to keep tala out of the dragons, eventually the effects would wear off—and you know better than I what that would mean.”

  “And?” Kiron prompted, as the others made various noises indicating surprise or agreement.

  “We looked for something that would kill the tala plant,” she said. “We didn’t find it—but instead, we found something better.” She held up her hand to keep him from interrupting. “You know, if we started to kill the plants, the Tians would surely notice, and perhaps find something to take the place of tala. What we found is better, because it does not kill the tala, it makes the power of the berries weaken once they are harvested. The strength is gone in days. In less than a moon, they are no longer good for anything. And the Tians will never suspect until it is too late. How long a stockpile do you think the Tians have, Kiron?”