It slowly occurred to Bertaud that all the men in this room were similarly blind; even the mages were blind. The younger was looking with growing dislike at the stranger who had come into their presence, but Bertaud saw no sign in his face that he understood what he saw or felt. Only Meriemne, for all she was truly sightless, turned her head toward the griffin with a slow awareness in her old face. She looked, as yet, less hostile than simply distressed.
Rising so sharply his chair fell backward onto the stone floor, Bertaud found himself standing between his king and the griffin mage with no clear memory of having moved and no notion at all what he would do if Kairaithin intended harm to Iaor, or to any of them.
“Son of Boudan,” Kairaithin said to him, pitiless amusement moving in his unhuman eyes. “So you have regained your place.”
“Anasakuse Sipiike Kairaithin,” Bertaud answered, and was surprised to find his own voice steady. “Why are you here out of yours?”
“Peace, man,” the griffin mage said, turning empty hands forward. “I followed the path you made for me to speak to your king, if he will hear me.”
Iaor had not risen, but his whole body had tightened. General Adries was on his feet, as were several of his officers. They were armed, and Bertaud could only hope they did not draw their swords and, with that, Kairaithin’s enmity.
“The path I…” Bertaud cut that startled question off short, and said instead, “Iaor, this is the greatest of the griffin mages come to speak to you. I would suggest—”
The young mage, his face twisted in an expression of fear and aversion, rose suddenly and flung a binding of stone and earth at Kairaithin.
Kairaithin, not even blinking, sent the binding awry in a shower of sparks. He said patiently to the king, ignoring the mage, “King of Feierabiand, I have come to this place to speak to you on a matter of importance to us both. If you are wise, you will hear me.”
Iaor gripped the arms of his chair hard. He was meeting Kairaithin’s eyes, and even if he did not see the griffin behind the man, he would have had to be dead not to feel the power rolling through the air around him. He drew breath to speak.
Before he could frame a word, Meriemne shut her sightless eyes and turned her frail hands palm up on the table. The full gathered weight of the earth fell down upon Kairaithin as irresistibly as a landslide.
The griffin, evidently taken by surprise, had only a fraction of a second to react, and it was not enough. Then the stolid power of the earth rolled over him and crushed him to the floor. Even his fiery shadow was pressed out; it went out like a snuffed candle. Helpless, bound by the power of stone and earth, his restless shadow quenched and his black eyes closed, Kairaithin had never looked more human.
“Meriemne?” the king inquired.
“That,” said the oldest mage, “is an unbearably dangerous creature, Iaor. Even from the esteemed Bertaud’s descriptions, I had no idea… Do you not perceive it?” Her voice was the husk of a voice, barely audible. She had turned her face toward Kairaithin as though she could see him.
“He only wished to speak to you!” Bertaud exclaimed.
Meriemne turned her blind gaze toward him. A line appeared between her brows; she tilted her head intently to one side. She whispered, “I would not wish to… Iaor, I might bind this creature. Then you might speak to him safely…” her voice trailed thinly off as though she had simply lost the strength to speak.
Iaor looked from the mage to him. “He may speak to me,” he answered at last. “Once he is bound. Bertaud—would you expect me to leave this powerful creature unbound in my presence? In this company? In this house? Will you say Meriemne was unwise to do as she did?”
“Not unwise,” whispered Bertaud, and added more strongly, almost despite himself, “but wrong.”
The king hesitated. “Do you trust your own judgment in this? Shall I trust it?”
Bertaud could not prevent a slight flinch that said as clearly as a shout that he did not know.
The king shifted his attention to Meriemne. “Will you release this creature from your hold without binding him? What is your advice?”
The mage opened a frail hand. “This creature is opposed to earth, Iaor. It cannot help but be opposed. I am afraid it would pull every stone of this hall down on every other stone, and burn your hall to ash. The stones want to fall just for its presence here. The very air wants to ignite. Can you not feel this?”
Her fragile voice held conviction. Bertaud shook his head. “That’s the aversion speaking—she can’t help but feel that way, Iaor—”
“Do you advise me from uncontrollable antagonism?” the king asked Meriemne. “Is your advice sound?”
The mage hesitated. “I think it is sound,” she whispered at last. “I think so, Iaor. I know this creature is horribly powerful—and unalterably opposed to earth. I know that.”
Bertaud stood wordless and helpless when his king looked deliberately back at him. What could he say? That the oldest and wisest mage in Feierabiand was wrong even in her certainty? What possible reason could he give Iaor to think so? He tried, nevertheless, to find words that might persuade him, persuade them all. None came to him.
The king looked back at Meriemne. “You can bind him?”
“Oh, yes,” the mage whispered. “I will make you a chain with the power of earth and of made things in it; it will not be broken by anything that is not of earth. It will bind fire and air and the changing wind. With that chain, you may hold this creature safely in your hand.”
The king nodded. “Make your chain.”
She made it. She shaped the chain link by link out of a sword one of the guardsmen gave her, and out of the stone table itself. She made a link out of a delicate porcelain cup and another from a copper bangle one of the soldiers gave her, and another from a string of polished wooden beads. Into each link she put a power of solidity, of holding, of weight.
The younger mage took the chain reverently from Meriemne’s hands when she was finished making it. It looked like an ordinary chain, but from the manner in which the young man lifted it, it contained the weight of the world. He fastened it around Kairaithin’s wrists and stood back.
With a tiny gesture of her hand, Meriemne released the griffin mage from her hold. Then she leaned back in her chair and tucked her hands in her lap, trembling in exhaustion or in the sudden chill that seemed to invade the room.
Kairaithin lifted his head and got his hands underneath his body, drawing himself slowly to his knees. He looked at the chain that bound his wrists without expression, almost as though he could not actually see it. But when he got to his feet, he moved as though he felt its weight dragging at him. His shadow was… gone. Though the lanterns threw light across the room, and all the rest of them cast shadows… Kairaithin’s shadow was not among the rest. Bertaud could not have said why he found this so deeply disturbing.
Kairaithin did not look at Bertaud. Nor did he look, even for an instant, at Meriemne. He turned his head slowly and looked straight at Iaor.
“If you have something to say to me,” said the king, “say it.”
Kairaithin’s mouth crooked in an expression that might have been humor. “Now? Now I have nothing to say.”
The king stared at him. “Griffin. Fire mage. Kairaithin—is that your name? What greeting was it you looked for from me?”
His answer was a slight lift of austere brows, and a dry, “You have there a man who has seen the heart of fire. You should listen to him.”
“Bertaud?”
Bertaud gave his king a helpless shrug, unable to find words to express his belief that his king had made a terrible mistake in his—surely perfectly reasonable—defense of his own person and his people. He could ask only, “Let me take the chain off, Iaor.”
He knew this was out of the question when he asked it, and was unsurprised by the judicious tilt of the king’s head, No. It might even have meant, I’m sorry, but no. But it did not offer any yielding.
Bertaud turned to Kaira
ithin instead. “If you came here to speak to the king, then speak! Is your pride worth sacrificing the chance?”
Kairaithin returned him only a blank, incredulous stare.
“Take him,” the king said to General Adries, “to the tower room; hold him there.” And to the griffin mage, he said, “When you would speak to me, I will hear you.”
Kairaithin stopped the general in his first step with merely his fierce stare. He said to the king, “Very soon you will have no choice but to hear me. But, I warn you, by then it will do you no good to listen.”
Iaor’s mouth tightened, and he waved sharply to Adries.
“Didn’t you hear him?” Bertaud cried in frustration and inexplicable terror.
“Yes,” the king said. “Tell me clearly what I should do to make him speak. Or do you truly believe I should release this dangerous creature in my hall? Everything he has said to me so far has had the tone of a threat.”
I don’t know! Bertaud wanted to shout.
He did not shout. He merely plucked the nearest soldier’s sword from the man’s hands, stepped forward, and brought the blade slashing down between Kairaithin’s wrists, where it cut the mage-wrought chain that bound him as though the links had been made of grass stems. They spilled away in all directions, shattering into bits of metal and stone and porcelain.
Kairaithin did not watch the descent of the blade, but had stood quite still and gazed at Bertaud instead. His eyes held an odd expression, as though he had, for once, been taken by surprise and was having difficulty deciding on a reaction to the experience.
It seemed to Bertaud that everything was happening very slowly: That it had taken an hour to lift the sword and step forward, that it had taken a day for the sword to fall and free the griffin mage, that it had taken a year for Kairaithin to lower his arms to his sides. The eyes of the griffin mage held his, so that his vision swam with fire, its black heat all he could see. It filled his mind: a fiery silence as perfectly free of thought or emotion as the sun.
Then Iaor shouted and that odd sense of timelessness was shattered: Meriemne bent slowly forward in her seat and rested her forehead against her fragile hands. She did not try to renew any attack on Kairaithin. Neither did the young mage; he stepped back, and back again, face white.
Adries drew his own sword and lunged forward to put his own body before that of the king. All the officers had their swords out. Bertaud shut his eyes for a moment, his mouth dry. He let the sword he held fall from fingers that had gone suddenly numb. It rang on the stone like the stroke of an iron warning bell, sending echoes all through the room.
“Stop,” the griffin mage advised them all, his tone not loud, but deadly serious. The general flung up his hand and all the movement of his officers halted, men stopping where they stood.
Iaor’s eyes were on Bertaud’s face. He did not speak. He looked far more astonished than angry.
For his own part, Bertaud did not think he could speak. He certainly could not think of anything to say.
“Ask me for protection,” Kairaithin advised Bertaud. “I will grant it, if you ask me.”
Bertaud moved his gaze from Iaor’s face and stared at the griffin.
“Ask,” said Kairaithin.
Bertaud swallowed. He looked again at Iaor. The king’s face had gone stony, impossible to read. He looked at Adries, and the general’s face was very easy to read. He shut his eyes, but nothing came to his mind save the desert and the brilliant sky.
“Yes,” he whispered.
And the world tilted and widened; the walls fell away to an immense distance, and the fierce living heat of the desert crashed down around him.
Heat beat up from the stone underfoot, into a darkness ornamented but not brightened by stars: A desert darkness that had nothing to do with the lantern-lit halls of men. Kairaithin’s strong hand caught Bertaud’s elbow when, disoriented, he staggered. The grip steadied Bertaud until he had regained his balance, then released him.
Kairaithin, disembodied in the powerful darkness, said quietly, “I have been surprised many times by the unpredictable actions of men; not least tonight.”
“Yes,” Bertaud said, his throat tight. “I, as well.” He wanted to weep, not for fear of the griffin, but for loss and grief. Iaor’s face came before him in the blind darkness, set and hard; but the king’s eyes were not angry, only astonished. Iaor had simply not believed Bertaud’s treachery.
For, though Bertaud had not thought of it that way in the moment—he could hardly have been said to be thinking at all, in that moment—how else could his actions be described, save as betrayal? Bertaud thought he might dream of that look in Iaor’s eyes for the rest of his life. He turned sharply away from the griffin, lifting his hand to his face to hide the shine of tears.
There was a short, tense silence. The griffin said finally, “I did not ask you to free me. I admit I expected you to speak for me to your king. I judged him by you and did not expect him to be a fool.”
“He is not.” Bertaud took a breath and tried to think past what he supposed, with some dispassionate part of his mind, to be shock. He said at last, “He did not trust you—your intentions, or your power. What man would?”
“You, evidently,” Kairaithin answered drily. “I find that curious.”
Bertaud said, “You’ve surely given no reason for trust. To Iaor, or to me.” He turned and walked blindly several paces, until a sense of space and shape he had not known he possessed told him suddenly that the stone before his feet fell away into emptiness. He could not even find room in his heart for wonder at this strange perception. He asked the night, not turning, knowing the griffin mage watched him patiently from the powerful darkness, “Why did you go there?”
Kairaithin said, “I would have told your king that Casmantium has come into his kingdom. The Arobern of Casmantium waits in the hills just there, above our desert.”
Bertaud, incredulous, turned. He took a step back toward the griffin. “What?”
“Brechen Glansent Arobern of Casmantium,” Kairaithin said patiently. “And five thousand soldiers. Just there.” He nodded to a point in the mountains, visible as a bulk against the stars. “It is as well the Safiad did not hold me, as I think he will have enough to trouble his days without my people striking as the mood takes them all through his lands, as Airaikeliu and Eskainiane would not be able to prevent them without my support. So you did well to free me, man.”
Bertaud took a deep breath, let it out in a slow trickle. Then, unable to contain himself, he drew a second breath and shouted, “And you did not tell him about Casmantium?”
The griffin did not answer. He was not visible in the darkness, and yet Bertaud knew where he stood, even knew the hard, pitiless look that would be in his eyes, if he had been able to look into them. Bertaud shut his own eyes. He whispered, “You did not even tell me?”
The quality of the silence changed in some indefinable way. “I should have come to you, perhaps, man, and asked you to speak for me to your king,” said Kairaithin. “That did not occur to me. And then your king offended me. I am sorry for that.”
“Sorry!”
“Yes,” said the griffin. “I am sorry for it, because my young kereskiita has gone into the cold hand of Casmantium, and I do not know now how I may get her out of it.”
It took Bertaud a long moment to understand this. He said at last, “Kes?”
“Kes. Yes,” said Kairaithin, and there was something in his voice that was not exactly grief, not precisely fear. “I did not know in time that she had come to the attention of the cold mages, and then it was too late. Now she is beyond my reach.” He came forward and stood near Bertaud at the edge of the cliff, gazing out into the dark and up at the bulk of the mountains that rose above the desert.
“What… will that mean?”
“I hardly care to guess what it may mean.” But the griffin’s voice was weary, shadowed by something that sounded very close to despair. There was a short pause, and then Kairaithin touc
hed Bertaud’s shoulder—a light touch, oddly tentative. “You are tired.” A low sound, not quite a laugh. “As are we all. Rest, then. Perhaps the light of the sun will bring clarity.”
Bertaud could only hope it would. He had little hope of it.
CHAPTER 9
Kes woke, confused and afraid, nestled into a bed of cushions, with shadows swinging dizzyingly around her as quiet-footed men took down the lanterns and carried them away. She had slept, she understood, though surely not for very many hours. But the tent was filled with daylight. It was also nearly empty of men: Her guard was there, and the king, sitting in a chair with his long legs thrust out before him and a scattering of papers across the table at his side. The door of the tent was open, light and cold air spilling in across the carpeted floor. The light was nothing like the hammering brilliance of the desert. Kes looked at it, feeling lost and somehow bereft.
The king looked up as Kes straightened in her nest of cushions. He smiled, shoved some of the papers out of the way, and held out a powerful hand to her, indicating a chair near his. “Come,” he said in Terheien.
The King of Casmantium looked younger in daylight, and yet somehow larger than ever, even though he was sitting down. He had clearly not slept himself, but energy radiated from him as heat from the sun: When he looked at Kes, his attention was powerful as a griffin’s.
He was no longer wearing mail. His shirt was a soft ivory color that made the blackness of his hair and beard more stark by contrast. His hair was very short, but his head was not, at least, shaved completely, as some of the Casmantian soldiers seemed to do. He was not wearing any kind of crown, but he had a thick-linked chain of gold about his throat. It seemed somehow to suit his heavy features.
Kes climbed stiffly to her feet, brushing wrinkles out of her clothing as well as she could with her hands. She wanted a bath, a comb, and a change of clothing. There was no sign that she was to be given any of these things, at least not immediately. But it seemed the King of Casmantium did mean to offer her breakfast. Kes looked at the platters of rolls and sliced fruit on the table without interest and settled gingerly into a chair a little farther from the king than the one he had clearly meant her to take. She folded her hands in her lap and looked at the table.
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