Alta

by Mercedes Lackey

  He thought. “Once the new crop is being harvested, a month perhaps. Certainly not more.”

  Aket-ten nodded. “So when the Dry starts, the berries begin to ripen, and they begin harvesting; once last year’s berries are used up and they start to use the tainted berries, within two or three days, their dragons will be uncontrollable. There is just one problem; once we spread this disease, we cannot confine it to Tia. It will come to Alta as well.”

  Kiron winced. “Ah. That is a difficulty—”

  “Not so much as you think,” said Lord Khumun from behind him.

  They all jumped. Kiron leaped to his feet and turned. The light from the lamps on either side of the door fell on Lord Khumun’s face illuminating features that were unwontedly bleak with weariness. “My Lord—what have you heard—”

  “From the time that young Kaleth began to prophesy,” Lord Khumun said heavily. “And you have awakened both my fears and my hopes. Something must change in Alta, or Alta as we know it will cease to be, and soon—and I should not like to live in the society that will take its place. When the power is in the hands of those who stand in the shadows, shadows come to fall over everything. Young Toreth’s murder was only the first, I fear, of many. And to tell the truth, I am not altogether certain it was even the first. Too many of those who have been taken up as ‘agents of the enemy’ have never been heard of again. And no one knows exactly who might have fallen under the Eye.”

  Kiron shivered to hear the words spoken aloud. Young Toreth’s murder. So Lord Khumun knew the death for what it was.

  At least we aren’t alone. . . .

  “You may have wondered why I have kept you of Kiron’s wing from being sent to the fighting,” Lord Khumun continued in what seemed to be an abrupt change of subject. “It is because since Toreth’s death, the Jousters are being flung to the enemy like tidbits to jackals. You have not seen it; I have kept the knowledge from you, deliberately, for I was not sure what you would make of it.”

  He looked at them gravely.

  “My Lord, I think we are not surprised,” said Orest after a moment. “Toreth’s death taught us that the Magi will not tolerate rivals, and in their way, the Jousters are rivals for power.”

  Lord Khumun nodded. “So I believe. What they did not anticipate, I think, is that these new war games and tactics of yours are keeping my Jousters alive.”

  He looked straight at Kiron, who felt himself flush with pleasure.

  “And there, the subject comes back to you lot. I have kept the knowledge of the true situation from you, lest you feel you must fling yourselves into the fray.” The Lord of the Jousters smiled kindly upon them, and somehow managed to keep from looking patronizing. “I knew that if you felt strongly enough, you would disobey even my orders. Now, not even the Magi truly believe that you lot are ready for war, and they know that ordering mere boys to the fighting will make even their supporters look askance at them, so as long as you were not volunteering, and so long as we were having fewer casualties than before, I could keep you safe.”

  “But the senior Jousters—” Huras said worriedly.

  “Exactly. Meanwhile—we go out, day after day, and we are becoming exhausted. At some point, not even your clever new tactics will save us.” Lord Khumun grimaced. “There is no doubt that you are right; the Magi will permit no rival for their power to exist. They have been trying very hard to eliminate us. And I had rather see the dragons gone than watch my men die for no good reason.”

  Kiron let out the breath he had been holding. “Then, my Lord, the best thing for you is this. If you can, if you have thieves that can get into the Tian Jousters’ Compound, send men to seize as much tala as you can. It is better for us to have it than the Tians, and the more of the old, untainted tala we have, the better for us. And then, let us do this thing that we have spoken of without your knowledge, for what we do without your knowledge you cannot be held accountable for.”

  Lord Khumun looked as if he was about to protest, then stopped. “From the mouths of babes comes wisdom,” he muttered, then turned and vanished into the darkness.

  “So, tell us,” Kiron continued, turning to Aket-ten.

  “It is a disease, which puts no outward sign upon the plant, save only a bit of bloom upon the berry when it is still unripe, which is gone when it is dried. Heklatis used his magic to find it, and his knowledge of Healing and herbs swiftly told him what it did. The disease spreads by a dust made from the bloom itself, and we can use magic to make much, much more of it from the bit that we have.” She looked rather pleased with herself. Kiron didn’t blame her. “What is more, I thought of a way to spread it, quickly. When the rains begin, a dragon or two can climb above the clouds with baskets of the dust, and let them loose upon the winds. The dust will be carried into Tia, and brought down to earth with the rains.”

  “And the Magi, who have made the winds to be so much greater than they used to be, will be the ones to carry the blight!” Gan slapped his leg with glee. “By all the gods, Aket-ten, this is choice!”

  She smiled with grim pleasure. “We, who have truly tame dragons, will be the only ones whose dragons still behave, and I will leave it to you to think how that can be useful. But I believe that the wild-caught dragons will actually obey for some time out of habit—and at any rate, if we successfully take a stockpile of undiseased Tian tala, we will be able to keep our dragons under control longer.”

  “We should reckon on not getting any,” Kiron warned. “Unless we can seize raw berries before they get to the Tian compound, I doubt that we will be able to get any. If Lord Khumun has agents who are also thieves, maybe—it is not at all guarded—but the odds are long.”

  “Then our tala and theirs will run out about the same time.” She sighed. “Still. Our Jousters will know that their dragons are going to go wild, but the Tians will not, and they may miss the signs. So perhaps our task should be to sting the Tian dragons into their own rebellion on the very day when the last of the tala is gone from their bodies. And with foreknowledge that it will happen, our Jousters can release their dragons, or allow them to slip their chains, or something of the sort. Or even take them out, and when they begin to get restive, land them behind our lines and turn them loose.” She shrugged. “The Magi will contribute nothing to the war once the Jousters are gone, unless they create another Eye of Light that can be taken to the enemy.”

  “I do not think they can,” Heklatis said broodingly. “Which is just as well for all of us, of course.”

  Recalling the carnage that the Eye had caused, Kiron shuddered. “More than just as well,” he replied. “I am not so sure but that it would not be better for Alta if the thing were destroyed.”

  “There are those on the Second Ring who would agree with you,” said Heklatis, and left it at that.

  There really was not much else to be said after that. Heklatis and Aket-ten reckoned that it would take until the start of the rains to produce a sufficiency of the dust to infect the tala plants.

  And then Aket-ten produced another little surprise for them. “I will borrow a swamp dragon and take her up to release the dust in the clouds above the storms—” she began, casually.

  “Hoi!” he said sharply. “What do you mean, you will borrow a swamp dragon? You’ve never flown any dragon but Re-eth-ke!”

  “I can control any dragon in the compound,” she retorted. “Re-eth-ke is too young to take into a storm, and at any rate, she would hate flying in rain and storm, but there isn’t a dragon in this compound who won’t fly for me. I’ll take one of the oldest and canniest.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort!” he replied hotly. “If anybody goes flying with that dust of yours, it will be me.”

  “On what dragon?” she shot back. “Not even Avatre will fly in the kind of hell the Magi have been creating on the first day of the rains, and rightly. The swamp dragons know storms. They can read them the way desert dragons read thermals! But they won’t fly for you, not into a storm they won’t. On
a day of ordinary rains, yes, but not into a Magus-bred storm.”

  “She has you there,” Heklatis said, with what Kiron considered to be an annoying level of calm detachment.

  “And just what would Lord Ya-tiren have to say to me if I allowed you—” he began, and the moment the words were out of his mouth, he knew that they were a mistake, but it was too late to call them back.

  “If you allowed?” she snarled, getting to her feet, her eyes blazing fury at him. “If you allowed? Just who and what are you, Wingleader Kiron, to say what I shall and shall not be allowed to do? I am responsible to no one but myself for my actions and—”

  “And Lord Ya-tiren would certainly hold Kiron responsible should any accident take place, regardless of that, Aket-ten,” Heklatis said reasonably. “And while it is true that Avatre would balk at carrying him above the heart of the storm, and that none of the swamp dragons would carry him on their own either, if you were to talk to one of them, you could persuade it to accompany you and your mount. Couldn’t you?”

  The Healer looked into both their angry faces and smiled. “I suggest a compromise. Two swamp dragons, to carry you, Aket-ten, and you, Kiron. I should not approve myself of either of you going up alone in any case. It will be dangerous, flying under those conditions. It would be better to have a partner. Don’t you both agree?”

  Even though the very idea of Aket-ten flying under those very conditions appalled him, Kiron swallowed, and nodded. Reluctantly, Aket-ten did the same.

  “Good,” Heklatis said. “I thought you would both be sensible. Now, we need to think of an excuse to send you both up under those conditions. People might well ask, you know. It will do no one any good for you to excite curiosity. The Magi may notice. Others will notice. So why would two Jousters be flying at the height of a storm?”

  They all exchanged a look, and Aket-ten reluctantly sat down again. “I can’t think of anything,” Kiron admitted.

  “Nor I,” said Oset-re, usually so quick-witted.

  “Well, we needn’t think of one immediately,” Aket-ten pointed out. “We have some few days yet. But we had better find one before then, and make sure it’s sound.”

  “And on that note, I will take my leave,” said Heklatis, and smiled, but this time grimly. “Lord Khumun is right about one thing; his Jousters are being flung into the fray without any regard for how exhausted they are becoming. I’ve been seeing injuries, and I expect to see more, and worse, tomorrow and each succeeding day. Good night, young friends, and remember that the worst thing that the enemy can do to us is set us at each others’ throats.”

  He sauntered off into the darkness, as they stared after him. Finally it was Marit that broke the silence.

  “I wonder which enemy he meant?” she mused aloud. “The Tians—or the Magi?”

  Aket-ten still had not forgiven him by the next day; she glared at him every time he saw her, and it made him half crazy. He had agreed that she should go up, so what more did she want from him? It was horribly unfair, too, when all he had been trying to do was to protect her!

  He said as much, crossly, to her brother, as they both unharnessed their dragons in the landing courtyard after a long, hard practice. With cooperative dragons it was easier to do it here, where their dragon boys could take the gear to a room just off the court for cleaning and mending. Having tame dragons was making for a lot of changes, most of which made the dragon boys’ jobs easier. Orest looked at him as if he really was crazy. “Honestly, I thought you were smarter than that,” he retorted, handing the neck reins to the boy to be taken away. “The last thing my sister wants is someone to protect her!”

  Kiron blinked, and paused while he handed over his own kit. “But—” he said, finally, bewildered, “That day in the temple, when she came running at me—”

  “Oh, yes, you would take the one time she was out of her depth and scared to death as the measure of how she is normally,” Orest replied, with a laugh. “No, really, think, would you? When, other than that, has she ever run out of danger looking for someone to protect her from it? Not her! Oh, no, she runs straight into danger, every time! If she wanted someone to protect her, do you think she’d have come here? Think about it, think of the options available to the daughter of Lord Ya-tiren!”

  Kiron did, pausing with one hand on Avatre’s shoulder, and swiftly realized that if Aket-ten had wanted a protector, she could have found one virtually anywhere. She could have married some powerful lord; she could have gone to that aunt who lived past the Sixth Canal. She could have gotten herself made into a priestess of some temple other than that of the Twins. Hamun or Abydesus, for instance, or Hathen. The temples to those gods were all far from Alta City, out in the delta.

  For that matter, she could have gotten herself married to some merchant prince, an Akkadian, or a tin merchant from Thyres, and taken far away from Alta. An Akkadian would have treated her with awe, as a Winged One, and a husband from Thyres, while not understanding in the least what a Winged One was, would have made her his full partner in his business, as was the Thyresian way. She would have been taken to a life of luxury or adventure—or, in the case of a Thyresian, perhaps both.

  No, her brother was right. She didn’t want protecting. And under most circumstances she wouldn’t need protecting either.

  “Not that I’m faulting you,” Orest continued. “Nothing like. Aket-ten was an idiot to think she could ride a dragon up into a storm without having someone along in case something went wrong. And honestly, if you think you dare risk Avatre in all those down- and updrafts, I think you ought to take her, not some swamp dragon. That trick of yours of catching a falling rider—well, that would make me feel better about her going up there in that sort of a tempest.” He shook his head. “I have to tell you, she’s like to drive me mad, sometimes. Give me a proper girl like Marit. One that knows her limits!”

  “I’m not going to apologize for wanting to protect her!” Kiron protested hotly.

  “I’m not saying you should. Just don’t make the same mistake in the future,” Orest replied. “Or if you do, don’t be surprised when she bites your head off.”

  He patted Wastet’s bright blue shoulder, and led him off to the pens, leaving Kiron staring after him.

  Finally Kiron shook his head and went back to his own work—in this case, taking Avatre for her sand bath.

  He thought about what Orest had said while he worked the sand over his beloved until she gleamed, every gold scale burnished like the Gold of Honor, every scarlet scale gleaming like a sacred jewel. And he couldn’t help but notice that she was a lot bigger. Nearly full grown, in fact. If anyone got a good look at her, not just glimpsed from the ground, they could be forgiven for wondering why the two of them weren’t out fighting with the rest of the Jousters, and never mind that he didn’t think they were more than half trained.

  Well, that was another good reason for practicing so far away from the usual practice grounds.

  So Orest thought that his sister believed that she’d had her independence and self-reliance questioned? On one level, it made sense, for other than that one time, she’d never looked for help from him, or from anyone else as far as he knew. Well, look at how he’d met her in the first place! Any other girl who’d been told to go look for a fish in the marshes where the river horses and crocodiles were would have gone straight to her father or one of her teachers to complain! But not Aket-ten, no, she had gone right out into the swamp with only a servant, and if her brother hadn’t intercepted her and gone along, she would have been completely alone out there.

  Which, of course, on another level made no sense at all, since she was a lot older than that girl who’d gone to the marshes, she’d had a lot of experience in where her bull-headed stubbornness would take her, and you would have thought she’d have learned better by now. She had been flying, she knew how tricky the winds and thermals could get even without any weather to complicate them, so how could she possibly think she was capable of flying a strange dragon
into the teeth of the storm? That wasn’t being brave and capable, that was being foolhardy!

  Yes, well, you set off across the desert alone on a barely fledged dragon, part of him whispered. So you’re hardly one to talk about being foolhardy, are you?

  But I had guides! he protested.

  Fat lot of good those little pebbles were going to do if you got caught up in a sandstorm, or were ambushed by predators, that part of him retorted. And let’s not even mention that you were supposed to be hunting for Avatre and yourself, and when was the last time you had hunted before that trip? You’d slung pebbles at lizards and the odd bird, hoping to bring something down to add to the scraps Khefti-the-Fat gave you. You’re two of a kind, you are. You see something that you want, really want, and you don’t let anything stand in the way of getting it, do you?

  He decided to ignore that little voice, as he rubbed Avatre down with sweet-scented oil-soaked polishing cloths. Let her be offended; she’d just have to get over it on her own. Besides, there were other things concerning him right now.

  Resolutely, he shoved Aket-ten out of his thoughts.

  With Avatre clean and oiled, he led her to the pen, where her dragon boy was waiting with her meal. She crooned with pleasure and set to, while the boy laughed at her eagerness. The boys assigned to the tame wing had long since learned what their charges were like, and most of them were hoping for tame dragons of their own one day.

  Well, it still might happen, he thought, as the boy moved fearlessly about the pen, casting fond glances at Avatre. There are swamp dragon eggs to steal, and one day, ours might well mate. That was far more likely since the babies had been playing together before they fledged. He had noticed an interesting difference in Avatre’s behavior, compared to any of the youngsters. She held herself aloof from the youngsters, as if she wasn’t aware that she was a dragon—whereas they were in and out of each other’s pens as soon as they were allowed to wander. They had learned the command to stay, once they were old enough to learn any commands at all, and they obeyed pretty well—but there was a great deal of fraternization among the eight over the course of a day, whereas Avatre greeted any interloper in her pen with a distinctly aloof and offended gaze.