Everyone looked at him. He shrugged, looking half apologetic and half defiant.
“You’re a soldier,” the king said at last. “To be plain, a Casmantian soldier.”
“Not any longer.”
“No? Then where is your loyalty now?” the king asked him.
Jos grimaced, nothing that could be called a smile, though he might have intended it that way. He tilted his head toward Kes. “With her.”
“You were a spy,” said one of the men with the king, his expression neutral but his tone flat with distaste. The man turned a hand palm up when they looked at him, and shrugged. “Or so I surmise.” He seemed to consider this for a moment and then added to his king, with sudden urgency, “We need this man.”
Kes flung a worried glance up at Jos’s face and put a hand anxiously on his arm.
Jos looked down at her, touched her cheek with the tips of two fingers, and took his hand away in a gesture like a farewell.
“No,” said Kes.
He said, “It was a choice… to come here. It was for this I made that choice.”
“No!” said Kes, sure, if she was sure of nothing else, that she could not let Jos go into the hands of men who… men who… She did not know what soldiers might do to a captured spy, and she did not want to find out. Opailikiita, probably understanding nothing of the specific accusation, nevertheless understood that Kes was upset. She stood up, half lifting her great wings, fire limning the brown feathers with gold. Half the soldiers present lifted their bows, steel arrowheads flashing like ice in the sun.
The king flung out his hands in urgent command, compelling all to stillness; remarkably, all were still. Even Opailikiita.
It was to Kes the king spoke. “No one will harm him, you know—for your sake, if there were no other reason. Is it not his choice? Did he not make it when he suggested a plan against his own people?”
Kes, struck mute by her own words in this king’s mouth, could not find an answer.
Jos could. He stepped off the narrow line of desert Opailikiita had made for them, walked the few paces necessary to come to the king, gave him a brief nod, and turned toward the officer. He was pale. But no one could miss the deliberation of what he did.
“He is yours,” the king said to the officer.
Jos bowed his head and allowed the officer to lay a hand on his arm.
Opailikiita, perhaps baffled by these strong human emotions, or perhaps merely disliking the way the arrowheads caught the light, said, We should go back to the desert. Are you satisfied with the warning you have given, sister? Do you not desire to return to the heart of fire?
Kes blinked. She looked at the king, who gave her a brief bow and a murmur of gratitude. A brief worried glance at Jos saw him stolid and uncomplaining, with a stubborn look on his face that she knew was meant for her. She took a small step toward him, though she could not leave the desert. “But I don’t understand,” she whispered. “Why would you want to do this?”
Jos said gently, “Kes… you are still partially a creature of earth. But if this battle takes place as your friend describes, what will you do?”
Kes said helplessly, “You know I can’t let them die.”
“Which? Your people… or the griffins?”
Either. Both. Kes could not speak.
“If I help your king against mine, there is a chance… a poor one, yes, but a chance… that Feierabiand will be able to turn Casmantium back without the griffins coming in at all. That, even if the griffins come in, they will not need you to keep them in the battle. However poor, this is the one chance that the griffins will not after all carry you with them into their world. If you do not use fire, you will still have a way back to earth.”
Kes shook her head.
“A poor chance, I said. Can you see any other?”
They looked at each other, Kes tongue-tied and silent, Jos stubborn. He said at last, “Don’t use fire, Kes. Don’t let that Kairaithin force you to it. Don’t be drawn into this battle. It will burn out your humanity. You know that is true. This is the griffins’ battle, and a battle for men. It’s nothing for you.”
“I think—Jos, I think it’s not so simple—” Kes turned and put her hand almost blindly on Opailikiita’s shoulder. She thought of the exaltation of flight when the slim griffin carried her, the warmth of Opailikiita’s voice when she said sister. It occurred to Kes that she had ceased questioning the word. It was a truth, now. But she thought it could not be a truth unless she lost Tesme as a sister. Learning to love the desert would mean turning away, once and for all, from human love. And she realized she couldn’t bear to give up either her earth nature or her fire nature. “Maybe I can keep them both,” she whispered. “Can’t I just stay in between? Can’t I keep both worlds?”
Jos, his mouth set in a hard line, started to come back toward her.
“If you will all please wait,” cut in an austere voice that Kes knew instantly, and everyone turned hurriedly: Arrowheads and spear points flashed again, light striking off metal in quick, hard glints.
Kairaithin was there, in a little space that cleared about him instantly simply because of the barely leashed force that seemed to radiate outward from him like heat from the desert sun. He was in human form, but he had never looked less like a man. The harsh features of his human face barely hid the eagle’s fierce eyes and savage, predatory beak; his long hands might as well have been talons. His shadow was entirely that of the griffin: Insubstantial feathers ruffled in the wind, and the shadow stared out upon them all with fiery eyes.
The slim bar of sand and heat Opailikiita had made swept out in both directions to make a much wider extension of the desert; a hot wind carried red dust whispering across the earth. Kairaithin stood on sand; the wind stirred his clothing and whipped with sudden strength through his hair. It reached the king, and the king blinked and lifted a hand to shield his eyes against the dust; men all through the company were doing the same as the desert suddenly encompassed the land on which they all stood. The air smelled of hot metal and molten stone. Opailikiita shook herself, stretched, and lay down on the sand, looking much more comfortable. Kes understood how she felt. It seemed to her also as though the world itself had suddenly widened.
The old mage with the king shifted in her chair.
Kairaithin rounded on her instantly, small flames springing from the ground at his feet and ruffling his black hair. His power, grounded in the desert, thundered soundless and potent through the air; the very air tasted of fire. “Do not press me!” he snapped at her. “This is not the time. Fire and air, cannot you earth-mages rule your own inclinations?”
“Yes,” answered the woman without apparent offense. “If we have sensible reason to do so. I am not challenging you. Can you not tone your power down a little, griffin mage?”
The taut line of Kairaithin’s mouth did not ease, but the wind died slowly and the fire at his feet ebbed like water back into the sand. He turned his back to the woman and the king, came to Kes in three long strides, and took her by the shoulders. Some of the men shifted—Jos clearly wanted to come back to her side—but the king lifted a forbidding hand and none of them moved to interfere.
Kairaithin was, Kes understood, very angry. Very angry. She wanted to shrink away, and could not. She wanted to hide herself away in any small shadow that might offer sanctuary, and could not. She stared into the griffin’s fierce eyes and tried not to flinch visibly.
“You are everything,” the griffin told her harshly. “You are my hope of deliverance for all my people. And I find you here! Within the reach of powerful earth magic; within the reach of human kings! What would you have done if this earth mage had cut across your little strip of desert and trapped you here in the cold?”
Unable to speak, Kes only shook her head.
The tight line of Kairaithin’s mouth eased unexpectedly. He released her and shifted back a step, giving her a little space. She was shaking. He frowned at her and half turned, to take in the king as well.
But most of his attention was still for her. “If you would have men and griffins together lay an ambush for our common enemy, we shall do so. Do you understand me?”
“I had been told,” said the king warily, “that this was not your intention.” He, too, must have felt the barely contained rage that burned within the griffin, but he met his eyes steadily.
“Your man Bertaud son of Boudan persuaded me of the justice of your cause,” Kairaithin snapped. “Do not press me, king of men; I am not yours to rule. I will tell you what you will do: Go into the desert when the opportunity is offered, and the Lord of Fire and Air will make a pretense of battle; both your men and my people will bring the Arobern down into the desert and there destroy them, and them alone.”
The king studied him; one sun-streaked eyebrow lifted. “Is that how it will be?”
Kairaithin’s thin mouth tilted into a hard smile; he looked taut and dangerous and like nothing human. He said to Kes, “If you face Esterire Airaikeliu and tell him that you will make whole no injuries of griffin-kind, save if he and his protect and aid your people, he will have no choice but to do as you require or else give way before the armies of men. And he will not give way, nor would he long rule my people if he attempted it. Yours is indeed the will that may rule here, kereskiita. Our need for your goodwill is greater than your need for ours.”
Among the Feierabiand soldiers, Jos gave Kes a slow nod, meaning, Is that not what I said? Do you see now that you do in truth hold the sword in your own hand?
“But—” whispered Kes. “Tesme? And everyone?”
“The Lord of Fire and Air will be angry,” Kairaithin acknowledged, meeting her eyes. “His mate Esterikiu Anahaikuuanse will be angry; Tastairiane Apailika will be very angry. You must withstand all their anger, all their threats. I suspect that Eskainiane Escaile Sehaikiu will support you. But it does not matter. If they would carry out their threats, I will prevent them, and you must trust me for that. I promise you, no harm will come to your sister, nor to your little village of men. Will you trust me to do as I say?”
“Isn’t your need too great to allow you to be trustworthy?”
“You will have to decide whom you will trust.”
Kes nodded, slowly.
“You taxed me previously with unjustly withholding choice from you. I give it to you now. There is a cost. You will pay it either way. You will ride the fiery wind and be changed by it, and achieve triumph for us all. Or you will refuse to become fire, and your people will be crushed by the strength of Casmantium. You wished me to be clear with you. Am I clear?”
He had unbound her. Kes could feel the difference, as though her awareness of the desert had suddenly expanded and clarified. She whispered, “Yes.”
Among the men, Jos came half a step forward and then stopped as he met an officer’s forbidding hand. He said furiously, “No! How dare you steal her from earth, how dare you make her a fire mage and force her to do the work you ought to do—”
“If she will be a fire mage, it’s not in the way a griffin is a mage!” snapped Kairaithin. “I have no power to heal. It’s not your choice, man! Nor even mine.” Kairaithin turned his proud stare upon the king, who met it and did not even visibly flinch. “And you, king of men? You are the other one here to have a choice: to battle griffins in the desert, and then Casmantium when the Arobern comes down from the heights, or to trust my intentions and my skill and reserve your strength for Casmantium alone. Do you understand what it is I will do for you?”
“I think I do,” said the king. He looked deliberately at Kes. “Shall I trust this creature? What say you?”
Kes shook her head, found her voice, and whispered, “You should trust me.” She looked at Jos. “You… you told me that the… the sword was in my hand. I didn’t think so. But it is. You were right. I see that, now. I won’t let them harm you. But you know I will have to use fire. I will have to, Jos.”
He started to answer, to come back to her, but the king shook his head, and the officer stopped him with a hard grip. Then the king glanced at the woman in the chair. “Meriemne?”
The woman’s strange clouded eyes might be blind, but they still saw more, Kes thought, than the surface of men; she looked down, feeling exposed and very small.
“She has given her heart to the fire,” the woman said to the king, her fragile voice nevertheless perfectly clear in the quiet. “But she has not yet forgotten how to love the earth. She will try hard to do what she has said she will do.”
“And the griffin?”
“Ah.” Ruthless discipline struggled with dislike in those old eyes. “There I can’t well judge.”
“Wise,” Kairaithin said to her, at once harshly furious and amused. He looked at the king, waiting.
“I am inclined,” said the king, “to follow your script, griffin mage.”
“Wisdom is showered like fire across the earth!” exclaimed Kairaithin, with more bitterness than humor. And laid a hand on Kes’s shoulder, and moved them all, Kes and Opailikiita and himself, back into the heart of the desert.
CHAPTER 13
The Lord of Fire and Air was very angry. His anger beat through the air as though the sun itself raged across the desert. He was angry with Kes, but he was angrier still with Kairaithin.
This is your kiinukaile, he said to Kairaithin, his powerful voice slamming down around them like silent thunder. This is your little kitten. You set yourself against me—you set this little earth-creature before you and set yourself in its shadow!
Do you believe so? For this battle, Kairaithin had taken his true form. He matched the king glare for glare, but he sat poised and still, like a cat, ostentatiously unconcerned with any threat. He said, with a disdainful, contained fury of his own, Will you say that I keep to the shadow of any creature? Of earth or fire or both at once? Do you declare so?
Shall I? demanded the king.
Little flames licked up and down Kairaithin’s black wings. I declare your intention is ill-conceived. And will you nevertheless hold to it, in the face of the necessity I perceive?
Lord of the Changing Wind, will you claim to be Lord of Fire and Air?
There was a short pause. Kairaithin did not drop his gaze as a man would have before his king; he did not look away or bow himself down or make any gesture that recognized the griffin king’s threat or challenge or reprimand or whatever it had been. He merely said, No. Just that, flatly.
Having considered the direction of the wind, I decide how the People of Wind and Fire shall follow it, the king said, and the whole desert seemed to shudder with the force of that assertion.
Having found the direction of the wind unsustainable, I alter its direction, Kairaithin answered, still in that flat tone.
You are influenced by your little kiinukaile, said Tastairiane Apailika. The white griffin lounged in a pose that mimicked relaxation, but he was not relaxed. Kes heard the tension in his voice; it sang in the wind that ruffled the shining feathers around his fierce eagle’s head and neck and shoulders. When he shifted a forefoot, he tore deep gouges through the red stone with his eagle’s talons. He said contemptuously, Your kereskiita maintains attachment to its mud-people, and you are influenced by its attachment. There comes a wind of blood and fire; we may mount the heights to ride this storm. We have this chance to rid ourselves of both kinds of human creatures and claim this land. And you would change this wind, Sipiike Kairaithin?
It is an error to set trust or good regard into the keeping of any human, added Nehaistiane Esterikiu Anahaikuuanse, mantling her red-and-gold wings and glaring at Kes. You would distinguish between the human creatures here and those who came into our great desert to destroy us, but this is a false distinction. We had much better destroy them all. Have you not fashioned this human woman into a creature of fire for this exact purpose?
Kes, horrified, said, “I won’t!”
For a terrible moment, all the griffins stared at her. The combined ferocious power of their regard nearly drove her to cower awa
y from them. Kes closed her hands into fists, shut her eyes so she would not have to try to meet all those furious unhuman glares, and concentrated on standing up straight. She said again, “I won’t! You want to kill everyone? You say the—the Lord of the Changing Wind made me into a creature of fire to destroy all my people? Well, maybe I’ve learned to love fire, but I remember my people and it doesn’t matter what you do! I won’t ride any wind of death that comes against my people!” Then she had to open her eyes again, trying not to flinch.
Esterikiu Anahaikuuanse, glaring more ferociously than ever, began to answer.
Eskainiane Escaile Sehaikiu interrupted the red female. It’s a brave little kitten, he declared approvingly, and it knows its own mind and heart. He turned to the king. I watched this little one make you whole, my brother, when she was still almost entirely a human woman and hardly knew fire. Even then, that was nothing any of us could do, and who but her teacher might guess what she might have become since?
Exactly so, said the red female sharply. Thus—
She’s not of our kind, said Eskainiane, and turned to nudge Kes with the tip of his beak, a gesture that was not exactly friendly, but something very like. He said to the other griffins, If she was, what reason would Sipiike Kairaithin have had to seek her out? If she casts herself free of one wind for another, then if the wind changes, I might let slip the one wind from beneath my wings and ride the other.
There was a pause. Esterikiu Anahaikuuanse still looked furious, but the king now seemed more thoughtful than angry. It was his decision that mattered, and he did not speak.
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