Lord of the Changing Winds

by Rachel Neumeier

  Beneath her hands, the pulse that had been so rapid steadied and slowed.

  The king of the griffins moved his head and looked at her with eyes that were no longer blind, but clear and savage. The wounds were gone. When he rolled to crouch and then sit, his movements were fluid, effortless. When he struck at Kes with his savage eagle’s beak, he moved fast as light pouring across stone.

  Kes could never have ducked in time. But in fact she did not try to dodge the griffin’s beak at all. She knelt in the sun and stared into fierce golden eyes, stunned as a rabbit by the gaze of an eagle, as much by what she had done as by the unexpected violence, watching light glance savagely off that curved beak as it slashed toward her face.

  The gold-and-copper griffin interposed his own beak, blindingly quick, with a sound like bone striking bone. The king of the griffins turned his shoulder to the copper-traced one and stretched, muscles shifting powerfully under the tawny pelt of his haunches; he spread his great wings, shaking the feathers into place. They spread behind him, a tapestry of gold and bronze and black. He cried out, a hard high cry filled with something that seemed to Kes akin to joy, but not a human joy. Something stranger and harsher than any human emotion.

  Kairaithin had not moved, but he was smiling. The copper-traced griffin swept his head back and cried out, the same cry as the king, but pitched half a tone higher. The king swept his wings forward and then down, catching the hot breeze, and leapt suddenly into the air. The hot wind from his wings blew Kes’s hair around her face and drove up from the ground a whirling red dust that smelled of hot stone and fire. Flickering wisps of fire were stirred to life in the wind of those wings; the fiery sparks turned to gold as they scattered across the sand.

  The other griffin lingered a moment longer. I am Eskainiane Escaile Sehaikiu, he said to Kes, his voice flashing brilliantly around the edges of her mind. When you would set a name to burn against the dark, think of me, human woman. Then he said to Kairaithin, I acknowledge your claim; you were right to bring us to the country of men and right to seek a young human with her magecraft on the very edge of waking.

  Kairaithin inclined his head in acknowledgment and satisfaction.

  The coppery griffin spread wings like a blazing stroke of fire and swept into the sky, following the king. Kairaithin put his hand down to Kes. “There are other injured. I will show them to you.”

  Kes asked him shakily, “Will they all try to kill me?” She felt very strange, and not only because of the griffin king’s unexpected savagery. She felt light and warm, but it was not, somehow, a comforting kind of warmth. It seemed to her that if she stood up she might fall into the hot desert wind and blow away across the red sand; she felt as though she had become, in some essential manner, detached from the very earth. But she took Kairaithin’s hand and let him lift her to her feet.

  “Perhaps some.” The mage released her hand and tilted his head to look at her sidelong, a gesture curiously like that of a bird. He said after a slight pause, “Do not be offended, woman. These are not your own kind. Esterire Sehaikiu gave you his name, and he is not the least among us. Will you not then allow the king his pride? I will protect you if there is need. Will you come?” He offered her his hand again.

  Kes got slowly to her feet, though this time she did not take the mage’s offered hand. She looked at him wordlessly, meeting his eyes. She took a breath of hot desert air, tasting light like hot brass on her tongue. She thought of a red griffin with black eyes. Red wings heavily barred with black shifted across her sight. Kairaithin, she thought. Anasakuse Sipiike Kairaithin. His name beat in her blood like her own pulse.

  “No,” said the mage briefly, and moved his hand. A darkness fell across Kes’s sight like the shadow of a great wing, and the rhythm in her blood faded with the light. His shadow looked at her; its black eyes laughed. “You could be powerful,” Kairaithin said, that same harsh amusement in his voice. “But you are young. You would not be wise to challenge me, woman. Remember that I am not your enemy.”

  Kes looked at him. The black eyes met hers with absolute assurance. There was no trace of offense in his eyes, in his austere manner. She asked, her voice not quite steady, “Will you be my friend?”

  He smiled slowly, a hard expression that was not like a human smile.

  “Kairaithin,” she said, tasting the word.

  He shifted and glanced away, expression closing, and turned to show her the way he wanted her to go. “Come, woman. See the other injured.”

  Kes followed obediently. She wondered who in the world had had the temerity to attack griffins. With arrows of ice and ill intent. Had she not heard that, in Casmantium, some of the earth mages used a magecraft of cold and ice? And used it specifically against griffins, to keep them out of the lands of men? Such mages might, she supposed, make arrows of ice.

  But griffins had always dwelled in the desert north of Casmantium; why would Casmantian mages now attack the griffins? Had the griffins first come south and threatened the cities of men? She wanted to ask Kairaithin. But she did not ask. She only threaded her way between stark stones, following the griffin mage. The sun rode its punishing track above. The griffins ignored their mage, but they turned their heads to watch Kes pass. Their eyes were the fierce hot eyes of desert eagles, unreadable. The griffins were beautiful, but Kes did not have the nerve to meet their stares.

  The injured griffin Kairaithin brought Kes to was a slim dark creature, with feathers of rich dark brown only lightly barred with gold. The lion belly was cut across by a long terrible gash that had come near to disemboweling the griffin. Garnets lay strewn across the sand near it, some of them disturbingly large. The griffin lay half in the sun, half in the shade of a towering red rock shelf. Its beak was open as it panted; its eyes, dazed with pain and endurance, were half-lidded. It turned its head as Kairaithin stopped beside it, though, and looked at the mage, and then at Kes. Golden-brown eyes met hers. But this griffin did not seem savage. It seemed, more than anything, simply patient.

  “Opailikiita Sehanaka Kiistaike,” said Kairaithin.

  There was something in his tone, something strong, but nothing Kes recognized. When she moved cautiously past the mage to put a hand on the leonine side of the griffin, it only turned its head away. She did not know if it was acquiescent to her touch, or simply refused to acknowledge her. Or whether it felt something else that she recognized even less. She was not absolutely certain she could heal it. She did not understand what she had done to heal the first griffin. But she wanted to heal it. The thought of the savage wound across its belly was like the thought of broken legs on a foal.

  It was surprisingly hard to remember that the griffin was dangerous. That it would perhaps try to kill her. That she did not understand it. Her, she thought. She had not been paying particular attention, but she knew that this griffin was female. And young. Yes. The slimness of the haunches said this was a young griffin. She wondered if its composure was feminine in a griffin? Or was it part of just this griffin, an individual characteristic, like Jerreid’s friendliness and Nellis’s practicality and Tesme’s slightly flurried kindness? She did not let herself think of Tesme for longer than an instant. Opailikiita. Opailikiita Sehanaka Kiistaike. Dark and slim and quick and graceful. Opailikiita. Yes.

  Kes closed her eyes, then opened them, looking into the sunlight. The griffin’s name beat through Kes’s awareness. Through her blood. Kes stared into the dark, patient eyes, her own eyes blind with the fierce light of the sun, and groped for the memory of what she had done to heal the griffins’ king. She seemed, in just those few steps it had taken to come to this griffin, to have lost the trick of it. She felt much like a child learning to walk, who could not keep his balance and fell every few steps. Of course, a child could cling to the hand of his father. What could Kes cling to?

  She thought of fire and fiery arrows and put her hand out, blindly, to Kairaithin. His long angular fingers closed around hers, and again the half-familiar, not-quite-painful heat rushed up h
er arm. Her heart bloomed with fire.

  It demanded no effort to see the griffin the way she should be, rather than the way she was. Opailikiita Sehanaka Kiistaike. Slim and young and beautiful, undamaged by malice or injury. It was more difficult to gather light and heat in her hands, as though half her mind had realized by this time that what she was doing was impossible and this realization interfered with her heart.

  Kes blinked through the dazzle of heat, then closed her eyes and lifted a double handful of sand and gemstones. The sand was hot; the garnets rich even to the touch. Kes closed her hands around the grit, then opened her hands again, and looked down. Light pooled in her hands, molten and liquid, and she reached then to touch the injured griffin. And found, with no sense of surprise at all, that the griffin under her hands became whole.

  This griffin stretched slowly and rose, and stretched again, fastidious as a cat. She did not strike at Kes, however. She angled her head to the side and regarded Kes from an eye that was unreadable, but not violent. Kes smiled, finding that her face felt stiff, as though it had been a long time since she had last smiled. The griffin leaped up to the top of the red rock that had sheltered her, stretched out in the sun, and began to ruffle her feathers into proper order with her beak, for all the world like a common garden songbird.

  Kes looked at Kairaithin. He, too, was smiling. It was not a gentle expression on his harsh face, but he was clearly pleased. “Come,” he said, and moved a hand to show her the way.

  “She didn’t try to kill me,” Kes said tentatively.

  “She would not,” the griffin mage agreed without explanation. “This next one will try, I think. His name is Raihaisike Saipakale. He is quick in temper and embarrassed to have suffered injury. I will, however, protect you.”

  Kes believed he would. She followed the mage around broken rock and struggling parched grasses, thinking about wounds made with arrow and spear. Made with ice and steel. And ill intent… “Who makes such weapons?”

  The mage gave her a severe look from his black eyes. “Mages.”

  This was singularly uninformative. Kes asked tentatively, “Cold mages? Casmantian mages?”

  “Yes,” said Kairaithin, but he said nothing else.

  Kes wanted to ask him why the cold mages of Casmantium had done this, but she looked into Kairaithin’s hard, spare face, into his black eyes that held fire and power, into the fiery dark-eyed shadow that shifted restless wings at his back, and did not quite dare.

  Raihaisike Saipakale was lying in a patch of withered grass that had once been spring fed; Kes recognized the site, but the spring was dry. The mostly buried gray rock from which the water had seeped was cracked and broken, half-hidden by drifting sand. It was strange and disturbing to see a familiar place so altered; for a moment, Kes found herself wondering whether, if she went home now, she would find her home, too, half buried in desert sand, the bones of the horses wind-scoured, Tesme gone. This was a terrible image. Kes paused, horrified, unable to decide whether she thought it might be true.

  “You may attend to the injured. The places of men remain untouched by the desert,” Kairaithin said, watching her face. His black eyes held nothing she could recognize as sympathy, but neither did they hold deceit.

  Kes took a shaky breath of hot desert air and turned back to the wounded griffin.

  This griffin had dreadful injuries across his face and throat and chest; his blood had scattered garnets and carnelians generously through the dead grasses. Kes was surprised he was still alive. But she was confident, this time, that she could make him whole. She called light into her eyes and her blood; she poured light through her hands into the griffin and felt it shape itself into sinew and bone, into bronze feather and tawny pelt. His name ran through her mind, and an understanding of his fierce, quick temperament. She made him whole, unsurprised by the ferocious blaze of temper that accompanied his return to health.

  There were many injured griffins. The mage brought her to one and then another, and another. He gave her their names, and she made them whole. The names of the griffins melted across her tongue, tasting of ash and copper, and settled uneasily to the back of her mind. She thought she would be able to recognize every griffin she had healed for the rest of her life, to recall each one’s name like a line of poetry. Dazed with sun and the powerful names of griffins, she was startled to find at last that there were no others awaiting her touch and the healing light. She stood in the shadow of a red rock where Kairaithin had brought her and looked at him in mute bewilderment. The only griffin there was Opailikiita Sehanaka Kiistaike, and Kes knew the small brown griffin did not need further healing.

  “Rest, kereskiita,” Kairaithin suggested. Not gently, nor kindly. With something else in his tone. Not exactly sympathy, but perhaps… a strange kind of heedfulness.

  It seemed, at the moment, enough like kindness. Opailikiita shifted, half-opening a wing in a gesture that looked like welcome, or something similar. Come, she said, a smooth touch against the borders of Kes’s mind. The tone of her voice, too, suggested welcome.

  Kes had not known how desperately weary she had grown until the opportunity to rest was offered. She did not answer the slim brown griffin. She did not think she was capable of putting words together with any lucidity. But she went forward and sank down in the shade where the heat was marginally less oppressive, leaned her head against Opailikiita’s feathered foreleg when the griffin turned to offer her that pillow, and was instantly lost in fire-ridden darkness.

  CHAPTER 2

  On one particularly fine morning in late spring, Bertaud son of Boudan, Lord of the Delta, found himself standing in the courtyard of the king’s winter house in Tihannad, watching the king of Feierabiand tease apart the delicate roots of young lilies so that they might be most aesthetically arranged in their waiting box. The morning was very fair, and Bertaud would rather, perhaps, have been hunting or hawking or even shooting at targets in the courtyard with the queen and her ladies to look on and applaud. But Iaor Safiad, in perhaps an excess of affection for his young wife, wished instead to wander through the gardens of his winter house, bury his hands in warm dark earth, and play with flowers. Bertaud shifted his weight, trying not to sigh.

  The king finished with the lilies and washed his hands in a basin. Ignoring the towel Bertaud proffered, he shook his hands dry in the air and finally looked at Bertaud with a glint in his eyes. The king was not quite as tall as Bertaud and not quite as dark; though both men spent much time out of doors, the king’s skin went golden in the sun rather than brown, and his dark hair, untouched as yet by any gray, picked up sun-bleached streaks and became almost tawny. In looks, Iaor resembled his mother far more than his great black bull of a father. But when he gave Bertaud a sidelong glance and observed, “You’re bored,” the mocking edge to his tone was very like the old king’s.

  Bertaud lifted his eyebrows. “Bored? How could I be?”

  Iaor laughed—his own laugh. He was far less guarded in manner than his father had been, but with a wickedly sardonic edge to his humor, utterly unlike his mother.

  The king’s laugh pulled at uncomfortably deep places in Bertaud’s heart. He couldn’t help it; couldn’t help that he admired and honored—and, yes, loved—Iaor Safiad above any other man in Feierabiand. Bertaud would never have insulted Iaor by claiming to feel toward him as toward his father. But as toward an older brother… the best and most admirable of older brothers… He might have admitted to that.

  Bertaud could still remember how splendid and kind Iaor had seemed to him when he had first come to court from his own father’s huge cluttered house in the Delta, which had been always crowded and yet never companionable. He had been only ten; Iaor more than twice that. But Iaor had seen something in the awkward, silent boy Bertaud had been, and had made him his own page, holding him at court long past the time he had been due to return to his father’s house. Bertaud had tried to conceal his desperate fear of returning home, but Iaor had known it, of course. So he had kept
Bertaud at his side for eight years, until Bertaud’s father had suddenly died in a frenzy of rage and drink and Bertaud himself, though barely grown, inherited title to the broad, fertile lands of the Delta.

  But when, only a few years later, Iaor’s father too had suffered a stroke and died, it had been Bertaud whom Iaor Safiad had summoned to his side. And Bertaud had gladly left one of his many uncles to keep his own lands in order and returned to Iaor’s court. Lord of the Delta, Bertaud hated the Delta; he had a hundred cousins but cared for none of them; all that he valued lay in this court, and most of all, the friendship and trust of the king. But Iaor despised sycophancy, and Bertaud would never risk giving any such impression. Now he waited a moment, until he was certain his voice would show nothing he didn’t want it to show. Then he said, matching Iaor’s drily mocking tone, “How could I possibly desire anything other than what you desire, my king?”

  Iaor laughed again. “Of course!” he said. “And what I desire is to enjoy the last of the spring and think, for a moment, of nothing more complicated than lilies.” Straightening his back, the king stretched extravagantly and then turned and stood for a long moment, looking around at the gardens and his house in palpable satisfaction.

  The winter house of the king of Feierabiand nestled into the land at a place where three hills came together, where the little wavelets of Niambe Lake ran before the wind away from the rocky shore. A low, sprawling building built of the native stone, set against the winter gray of the lake, the king’s house seemed a part of the land. Like the hills, it might have simply grown there long ago. The Casmantian kings might build magnificent palaces to impress both their own people and travelers with their grandeur and their skill as builders; the Linularinan kings might raise delicate towers and airy balconies to the sky; but Iaor Safiad was a true king of Feierabiand, and the kings of Feierabiand wanted a warm and comfortable house, one with small rooms that could each be heated by a single fireplace, with thick walls and soft hangings to keep in the warmth during the long winters.