Lord of the Changing Winds

by Rachel Neumeier

  Bertaud sat down next to a pillar at the edge of the cliff, laced his fingers around his knee, and stared out into the air. There were no griffins in sight. Except the one with the girl. The girl… “You’re from Minas Ford?” It seemed very strange that a powerful mage should also be a timid little girl from a small mountain village.

  She nodded.

  “Who’s your friend? I presume it is your friend?”

  “Opailikiita Sehanaka Kiistaike. She is my friend.” The girl stroked the rich brown feathers of the griffin’s neck, and the griffin curved its head around and nibbled Kes’s hair gently.

  “And Kairaithin?”

  “Anasakuse Sipiike Kairaithin… is not my enemy.”

  “No?” He glanced at her sidelong. “You… do you speak their tongue, Kes?”

  The girl was seeming calmer at last. She came over and sat down near him, her back against the striated surface of the next pillar over. “I understand it a little. Opailikiita is teaching me. She says it is a good language for fire magecraft. Part of it is the language of fire.”

  “I didn’t know that human mages could be fire mages.”

  Neither had the girl, or so her quick downward glance seemed to suggest. She glanced up again, though, and said cautiously, “Kairaithin said I would have been an earth mage. Only he showed me fire instead. He said he could do that because the earth magecraft hadn’t woken in me yet. He was looking for someone like me, but he said he didn’t expect to find anyone. Only he found me, after all. He says I have both natures, now. I suppose… no.” She met his eyes. “I know that is true, lord. I feel it is true.”

  Bertaud nodded slowly. He thought he, too, could simply look at the girl and see it was true; he could see the fire in her eyes. “Well, Kes. So what should I tell my king?”

  “That they will do as they say,” the girl answered at once. “Or… as Kiibaile Esterire Airaikeliu says they will. Kairaithin says they would fly in all directions if their king did not choose their direction and call them all to ride the same wind. That’s why… I don’t know. I think that’s why he told me it was important to heal the king.”

  Yes, said the small griffin. Opailikiita. The people of fire follow the fire. The Lord of Fire and Air and the Lord of the Changing Wind guide the flight of the people of fire.

  “The Lord of the Changing Wind?”

  “Kairaithin,” explained the girl. “He is the only fire mage they have left. I think mages are as rare among the griffins as among men. And Kairaithin was always the strongest. So he is very important. I wish… I wish you had listened to him.” She added hastily, “But of course you would trust the mage you brought with you. Kairaithin told me earth mages can’t bear fire mages—I suppose he has trouble enduring the presence of earth mages, too, only he’s too proud to show it. But if your mage told you not to listen to the griffins, it’s not your fault.”

  It most certainly was. Bertaud did not say so. It was a truth that would return, he was certain, to whisper in his ear in the days to come. “Casmantian soldiers attacked the griffins in their desert and drove them across the mountains. Is that right?”

  Yes, said Opailikiita.

  “And that is why you have only one mage left?” Bertaud asked the griffin directly.

  Yes, she said. The Casmantian mages of cold earth were very strong. We did not know they came until they were upon us. Our fire mages stood against them to give the people time to fly. The halls broke behind us. The cliffs fell. The wind blew cold where our desert had once burned. She spoke with a simple directness that somehow evoked the terror and grief of that night… Bertaud could almost see it, in the dark behind his eyelids: red cliffs crumbling in a cold gale, griffins pitting the strength of their fire against the violent cold… He blinked, imagining men cloaked in black walking toward him across sand that froze beneath their feet, hurling darts tipped with ice at blazing griffin mages. Fires going out in the dark, one by one. He blinked again, shaking his head, and found both Kes and the griffin looking at him curiously.

  “But you will go back across the mountains,” he said to the griffin, not quite a question. “And face those cold mages. What is a cold mage? A kind of earth mage, isn’t that right?”

  Yes, said Opailiikita. Earth magecraft is always opposed to fire magecraft, and a human mage who truly sets himself against fire can turn cold. But we must strike fire through the cold, so Kairaithin says, or perish in the end. So we will do as we must. The griffin spoke very simply, though Bertaud only understood a little of what she said.

  Bertaud thought he recalled one or two glancing references he’d seen or heard to earth mages who specialized in a strange winter magic and drew power from the dormant earth. It had seemed strange to him at the time. But if an earth mage should happen to want to fight griffin magic, the specialty suddenly made sense. And if cold mages were so strong, he wondered at the griffin’s optimism. But he said only, “I will tell my king what you say.”

  “Tell him,” the girl said earnestly, “that we can spare the cattle. The griffins need to hunt. It’s part of… part of being a predator of fire.”

  “He’ll make good your loss.” Iaor would, in fact, feel bound to, for the sake of his royal honor, if he allowed the folk of this region to feed the griffins until next spring. If he did not decide instead that his pride could not bear them in his country even for so long. Which he might. It was his pride more than any that would be offended by the destruction of his soldiers. “I wish it had not come to battle!”

  It was a day for death, said the griffin, in a tone that suggested she meant this to be comforting.

  Both Bertaud and Kes looked at her. Kes said to him, “Sometimes I don’t understand them, either. Most of the time. Almost all the time.”

  Bertaud nodded.

  “But… she has a good heart.”

  He understood what the girl meant, and felt, strangely, that she was even right. But he was not sure why he thought so. He was uneasily aware that this feeling was akin to the impulse he had felt to go with Kairaithin during their first meeting. To trust a creature that he knew was not a man, was nothing like a man… a creature of fire, alien to the shape he wore. But then he had doubted all his impulses. And now… he doubted them more than ever.

  It would not be long until sunset, he thought, looking out into mountains that rose red and dusty in the near distance. He shut his eyes and leaned against a red pillar. And tried to keep images of blood and death from invading the darkness behind his eyes. But the images were persistent, so that eventually he gave up and opened his eyes again. “Why sunset?” he asked, not even knowing whether it was the griffin he asked or the girl, or why he thought either of them would know. Or care to answer.

  “Because the shadows are longest then,” Kes answered. Her soft voice sounded distracted. She was gazing out over the desert. “Because the wind dies in the evening. The direction of the wind is easiest to change when the air is still.”

  Bertaud studied her. “Come with me, Kes. Speak to the king yourself. You… I think you would be very persuasive.”

  The suggestion shocked her. Her eyes widened. “I could never… oh, no. No, lord. I am sorry. I could never… You must understand, lord,” she said earnestly, “I could never speak very… well.”

  And if she would change her mind, what would Kairaithin permit? Bertaud frowned at her and leaned back against his pillar. Before them, shadows stretched out across rock and sand. The lower slopes were already in darkness, though the mountains themselves still glowed with a red light, as though lit from within.

  Kairaithin returned to the hall on that thought. He came out of the lowering light: a griffin the color of glowing embers, face and wings black as char. The stroke of his wings across the empty desert sky drew fierce music from the wind, which seemed to rise to meet him.

  As the griffin mage came down, he dwindled. His wings beat one last stroke, wind singing like a bell through the open stone hall, and closed round him like a cloak. The wind he ha
d brought with him died, leaving behind a silence that felt like the silence after music. Kairaithin, black cloaked, turned his human face to them. His shadow stretched out long and low behind him, molten as a banked fire. Its eyes gleamed with fire-haunted darkness.

  The griffin mage’s own eyes were the same: black, secretive, opaque. Bertaud could see nothing in them. Yet he could meet them only with difficulty. He got slowly to his feet.

  Kes stood also, with a shy downward glance. Bertaud was shaken by the idea that a girl so fragile and timid should somehow own power. He could not imagine her defying Kairaithin or the griffin king; indeed, Bertaud could not imagine her defying anyone who so much as shouted at her. She would never be able to use her strength for Feierabiand. She would stay meekly in the griffins’ desert, and the griffins would rule her.

  He said urgently, “Kes. Please come with me to Tihannad. I swear to you, Iaor will be kind to you. We will need you so badly. Who else is there to explain the griffins to us? Please come.” He thought perhaps Kairaithin would say something to him then, or to her: a threat, a warning, a simple refusal.

  But the griffin mage said nothing. He turned his powerful gaze on the girl and lifted an ironic eyebrow.

  Kes only shook her head, leaning back against the dark bulk of her griffin friend.

  “She would not be comfortable to do as you ask,” Kairaithin said to him, matter-of-factly. And to the girl, “Would you, kereskiita? Would you go to the king of Feierabiand, as this lord suggests?”

  Kes shook her head, still not speaking.

  “You keep her here against her will. To act in your service, against her own people.” Bertaud tried to keep anger out of his tone, to speak as calmly as the griffin.

  “We refrain from hunting men here. So,” said Kairaithin, tone dry, while Kes looked steadfastly down at the stone where she sat, “do we establish partiality toward our kereskiita.” The mage held out his hand to Bertaud. It might have been a command, or an invitation. This time, there was no earth mage to warn him against griffin intentions. And nothing to do but yield to them, whatever warnings his own rationality might suggest. Bertaud slowly came forward and took the offered hand.

  Kairaithin’s thin mouth crooked in austere amusement, or approval, or… something else less recognizable. He closed a hand on Bertaud’s shoulder, his grip powerful as an eagle’s talons, and around them the world moved.

  Bertaud staggered. Only the mage’s grip on his shoulder kept him on his feet. The air was suddenly much colder; it smelled of moisture and growing things. Even though the sun was not quite below the horizon, it was much darker without the mountains to cast back the late sunlight. Loose water-rounded pebbles made treacherous footing. The gray waters of Niambe Lake washed over the pebbles, running nearly up to their feet, with a low murmur entirely different from any sound of the desert. The unguarded wall of Tihannad rose against the sky less than a bowshot from where they stood.

  Kairaithin let him go. Bertaud backed up involuntarily, realized what he was doing, and stood still with an effort. The mage tilted his head slightly. His expression was impossible to read. Bertaud thought that even if the sun had been full on his face, the griffin mage’s expression would have been impenetrable.

  “Will you think well of us, man?” asked the griffin. His tone, astonishingly, might almost have been wistful.

  Bertaud stared at him, taken utterly aback. “How can I?”

  “Try,” Kairaithin advised. He turned his head toward the west, looked into the last light of the sun, and was gone.

  CHAPTER 7

  The young lord stepped freely forward into Kairaithin’s grip, going to carry word of the griffins to his king. Kes admired him: He was, she thought, not really so many years older than she was. But he was brave. She knew he was afraid of Kairaithin and she thought that, in his place, she would not have been able to come forward with such courage.

  Though she understood that, she did not understand him.

  He would go to his king… her king, too, Kes supposed, but this was so strange an idea that she dismissed it almost at once. He would take to the king his memory of Tastairiane Apailika as well as Kairaithin, and the great Lord of Fire and Air… of her, even. And what image of her would he carry to his king? She wondered about that distant king—what was he like? Was he proud? Violent? Did he fear battle, or long for it? Was he clever, or wise? Or neither?

  What would this king say to the lord who came to him from this airy hall? Would the king even listen to a man whom he had sent here, who had lost all his companions and returned alone?

  And if he did listen, what would the lord tell him?

  If she had gone there, what would she have told the king? Kes sighed. If she had known what to say, perhaps she would have found the courage to go. If Kairaithin had permitted her to go. Kes stared out into the desert night. The wind smelled of hot stone and silence.

  Opailikiita’s voice slid into her awareness, oddly tentative. Are you well?

  “Yes,” said Kes, quite automatically. Then she asked herself the same question and did not know the answer. She sighed again and stroked the slim griffin’s neck, ruffling the feathers gently against the grain so that she could feel them settle back. In the darkness, Opailikiita was perceptible mainly as a stirring of heat, a puff of breath. “Would you take me home?” Kes asked her.

  Kairaithin has forbidden it.

  Kes hesitated. Yet, somehow… she did not feel that this statement, plain as it was, carried quite the force it might have. “Yes,” she said. “But would you do it anyway?”

  Opailikiita curled her neck around and touched Kes lightly on the cheek with the tip of her deadly beak; it was a caress, and Kes smiled and moved to lean against the griffin’s shoulder.

  Kairaithin is my siipikaile, said the griffin. But you are my sister, and I would not hold you here if you did not want to stay. But is the desert not your home? And is Kairaithin not your siipikaile as well?

  Kes shook her head, but not exactly in denial. Perhaps griffin mages never asked whether you were interested in becoming an apprentice, whether you wanted to learn how to make the fire and the rising wind part of your soul, whether you wanted to belong to the desert. Perhaps a griffin only saw that you could hold the power he needed even when you did not know it yourself, and made sure you would learn to use it according to his needs.

  Are you angry? Opailikiita sounded curious, but not disturbed by the prospect.

  Kes wasn’t angry. But longing rose in her, for the simple human house she had shared with Tesme, for the whicker of mares in the low pasture and the homey smells of cut hay and new bread instead of hot stone and dust. She shut her eyes against the heavy darkness and whispered, “I want to go home.”

  Then I will take you, said Opailikiita. As far as it is possible to go.

  Riding the griffin was not like sitting on a horse. There was no saddle, no stirrups, but the difference was more than that. The feathers under Kes’s knees were soft and fragile. Kes found herself afraid to hold the feathers of the griffin’s neck too tightly, lest she harm her.

  You may grip tightly, Opailikiita said, and leaped from the rock with a great leonine bound, sudden enough that Kes bit her tongue.

  It was not like riding a horse at all. The jarring lurch when the griffin opened her wings to the wind nearly threw Kes off. She swallowed a gasp and held tightly with hands and legs.

  The high pasture above the house had become desert. The trees that had been there were gone—not dead, but gone, as though they had never grown there. The grass had withered and blown away; even in the lower part of the hill pastures the grass had become sparse and thin. But on the other side of the creek that ran through the midlands pasture, the grass grew thick and green, as abrupt a change in the landscape as though the little creek separated countries that lay a thousand miles apart.

  Opailikiita did not cross the creek into that cooler country, but came down to the ground on its desert side. Kes swung her leg across the gr
iffin’s neck and slid off her back onto legs that seemed inclined not to hold her; she put an arm over Opailikiita’s neck for balance and support.

  Can you cross into the country of earth? asked the griffin.

  Kes looked at her without comprehension. She straightened gingerly away from Opailikiita’s support and walked carefully, then more quickly, to the creek; before she quite came to it, it occurred to her that Opailikiita was not with her, and she turned her head to look inquiringly over her shoulder.

  That was perhaps why, when she struck the barrier of cold air at the edge of the creek, it was so unexpected that it knocked her entirely off her feet. She sat, dazed, on parched ground at the edge of the desert and stared, mute with bewilderment, at the water lying inches from her feet.

  Kairaithin has put a binding on you, that you shall not leave the desert, said Opailikiita. She did not sound precisely sympathetic. Her tone held something more akin to the satisfaction of someone who has had a shrewd guess confirmed. You will be angry now. Do not fight him. You do not have the strength.

  Kes was not angry. But she wanted to weep in frustration and disappointment. Looking down the hill, she could see the lights in the windows of the house, small at this distance. She should have been able to walk to it in minutes. It was utterly out of reach. Kes stood up and put out a hand toward the creek. She found that she could not even reach out over the water. The barrier she could not see prevented her.

  I will take you to the heights, said Opailikiita. I will bear you so high you feel the starlight on your shoulders, so high the air shatters and fire comes down to scatter through your feathers. It is very beautiful.