And, last of all, they had found something they had not yet cleared: what they thought was an entrance to a great underground cavern, like that in Sanctuary, a place where one of the daughters of Great Mother River snaked her way through the cool shadows beneath the rock and sand. That was a discovery without price. If it did prove to be a water cavern, it would mean a very great difference in people’s lives.
The springs they had found were sufficient for the population they had now—but not for one with the herds and flocks and carefully irrigated plots of garden that a city like this must have to sustain all the people that had once lived here. Only access to a water source like that in Sanctuary could have permitted that many people to live and thrive.
When that source had been cut off, in less than a moon the city must have begun to die. Certainly in less than a year it had been abandoned by all but the most stubborn. And, probably within ten years, even they had given up. Certainly not much had been left behind, not even things that would survive such as stone tools or metal objects.
The discoveries had been a stark warning to all of them, he thought as he passed one of the dwellings that had still not been cleaned out, restored, and taken over. They had the example before them; this could happen again. What they would do if it happened, he did not know. So far, all anyone had done was to make sure that no place that people had claimed to live in had any fractures running through the rock. Perhaps that was all anyone could do. Or perhaps someone might have ideas of how things could be reinforced, how they could find ways to make sure the water sources were never cut off again.
A torch burned on either side of the door of the structure that had been claimed by the priests of Haras, and there was light shining through the doorway, though there was no one outside. The two enigmatic carvings on either side of the door stared out and up at the stars. Kiron mounted the three steps between them and entered.
He paused a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light, but was almost immediately approached by the boy who had come to wake him. There was a lot of light in here; torches and lamps burned everywhere, with the scent of incense and perfumed lamp oil that would have told a blind man he was in a temple of some god.
“Priest Them-noh-thet is waiting for you, Jouster Kiron,” the boy said, bobbing his head diffidently. “Please—” he gestured toward an inner room.
The places that had been chosen as temples were not much like the ones that Kiron and the others had taken as their own. Here, the ceiling was higher, to accommodate the enormous, stylized statue in the first of the rooms, identical to the ones on either side of the door, a statue that looked enough like a hawk-headed man to satisfy the Priests of Haras. As Kiron knew, the structure was carved three to four times farther back into the rock than the ordinary dwellings, and dividing walls had been built inside to separate the sanctuary from the rest of the temple.
The boy took him to one of those rooms, hardly more than a cubicle, that contained a single lamp, two stools, and a table. One of the stools was already occupied.
Kiron did not recognize the priest, but he was young and looked fit; he’d have had to be fit to make the rigorous crossing of the ground between Aerie and Sanctuary in the short time since the body had been discovered, reported, and investigated at Sanctuary. Only someone on one of the racing camels belonging to the Bedu could have made the trip so quickly, and then only under the careful guidance of one of the Blue People themselves. The racing camels were not noted for a comfortable ride.
“Jouster,” said the priest, nodding at the other chair. “I have come on behalf of Sanctuary to beg a favor of you.”
That was not what he had expected to hear. He sat down quickly. “Just me, or the Jousters as a whole?” he asked. “Though, of course, we are all at the service of the temples.”
“The Jousters as a whole, at least a few of them, but you specifically,” said the priest, both hands clasped together on the table in front of him. “You see, what we discovered when we attempted to trace the path of that unfortunate guard, was . . . nothing.”
Kiron blinked; that didn’t make a lot of sense. He was vaguely aware of a chant beginning out in the main room. The first rituals of morning must have just begun. This must be grave indeed for the priest to be here, and not out there, among his fellows. “Nothing? I am not sure that I grasp what you are saying.”
“We found no trace of his passage, nor of any links to any border stations. It is as if he had never existed. When we made the assumption that he had come from the nearest border outpost and we had the Far-Sighted examine the place, we also found—nothing.” The priest paused significantly. “It is empty. There are no guards, no animals, no one and nothing in the settlement that supports it. There is no trace that anyone ever lived there, not so much as a single sacred cat.”
Kiron’s mouth went dry. How was this possible?
“Now, we are not entirely certain that the Far-Sighted are Seeing this correctly,” the Priest went on. “It could be that someone with magic is interfering with them. The Mouth of the Gods has no guidance on the subject, and is as baffled as the rest of us. We would like you to take however many Jousters you think necessary and fly there to investigate.”
He nodded quickly; it seemed the only possible plan. Whatever was going on, this death could not be the result of a simple quarrel. “We can do that. We cannot get there in a single day, however—”
Them-noh-thet waved away Kiron’s cautionary words. “No one expects you to. But by dragon you can go there much faster than anyone else. And you and your senior riders have had some experience with Magi. I am to come with you if you have any dragons that can carry two. I am—” Kiron saw his jaw tense “—highly conversant with dark magics. I can protect you from them, and if there has been any such thing employed there, I may be able to detect the traces.”
“We’ll find a way to take you,” Kiron told him immediately. There was no question in his mind about that. “It will take a little time to organize matters so that things run smoothly here in our absence. We will leave as soon as possible.”
Them-noh-thet nodded. “Then I will hold myself in readiness.”
This did not seem the time for an exchange of pleasantries. “I will start now,” Kiron replied, standing up. “I will be seeing you very shortly, I think.”
The priest gave him the little bow of equals, and Kiron took himself out.
He felt his own jaw tensing as he made his way out of the sanctuary, pausing only long enough for the deep bow of respect to the image of the god. This was not good, not good at all. What could have happened to make an entire settlement vanish?
Wait—not an entire settlement, he reminded himself. One had escaped.
Now, more than ever before, he berated himself for not having had the foresight to send out riders on a regular basis to scan the desert for lone riders. It would have been an excellent exercise for the younger Jousters. If he had—
Never mind. Now they must try and make up for that neglect. And the sooner he got his riders in the air, the better.
Breakfast was . . . very interesting that morning in the Dragon Courts of Mefis. Peri-en-westet said nothing about Lord Kiron to Wingleader Aket-ten. She didn’t have to. The other young ladies were saying quite enough as it was, rather too much in fact, and Aket-ten was clearly getting very irritated about it. The more nice things they had to say about Lord Kiron, the deeper a frown line grew between Aket-ten’s brows. They seemed oblivious to the effect they were having.
Or perhaps they were enjoying it. Some of them had rather mischievous natures.
For Peri’s part there was something more going on, something she was afraid to tell anyone just yet.
She had spoken for quite some time to Lord Kiron last night. And until that conversation it would never have occurred to her that Lord Kiron, the leader of all of the new Jousters of the Two Lands, the friend of the Great King and Queen, could possibly be the same person as the missing son Kiron of her friend Letis-
hanet.
Even now the speculation seemed unlikely.
A logical person would say that there was not the least little chance in the world that something so impossible could be.
But—
Lord Kiron was a farmer’s son, from the borderlands between Tia and Alta, from lands taken by Tian troops.
The missing Kiron was from those same lands, and was about the same age as Lord Kiron.
Lord Kiron had been separated from his family as the lands were divided. Letis had lost her son almost immediately in one such division.
Lord Kiron had had at least one sister but was the only son. Letis, of course, still had one of her daughters with her, had lost others, and had had only one son.
Now, Kiron was a common Altan name. Kiron, son of Kiron, was not at all uncommon. Every village had at least one Kiron. But . . .
The more she looked at it, the more it seemed that there were too many points of similarity between the two. Kiron even looked rather like Letis; there was a great similarity in the eyes.
The complication was this: Letis had made it very, very clear that once her son was found, she was going to do everything in her power to make a match between her boy and Peri. And up until last night, Peri had always considered that idea to be the wildest of fantasies, somewhere between laughable and suitable only for the sort of thing one would amuse a child with.
Now . . .
If this was Letis’ son—
She left the rest of them teasing Aket-ten and went back to her baby dragon. No reason why she couldn’t continue to consider all this while she took care of the little one. Her hands could work undirected while she thought things through.
As she tended Sutema, tenderly oiling the baby’s delicate wing webs, feeding the little one until her stomach was round and full, then leading her to flop down on the hot sands in the sun to doze contentedly with the rest of the wing’s babies, she thought about Lord Kiron, and what it would mean, could mean, if he was her friend’s lost son.
He was a Jouster. He was Lord of the Jousters. And what better mate could there be for a Jouster than another Jouster?
Letis would heap scorn on her for having airs and presuming above her station for being part of this creation of Aket-ten’s under any other circumstances but this. If her own son was not only a Jouster, but Lord of all the Jousters of the Two Lands—to scorn that would be to scorn her own long-lost, longed-for son. She could say nothing to Peri, who would be the fittest bride there ever could be for such a man.
As for Kiron the man—
He was handsome, fit, young, but most of all, he was kind. If someone had come to Peri and said, “What are all of the things you could desire in a mate? Only say, and the gods will create such a man for you,” then Lord Kiron would have come very close to that ideal. She’d had moments, and many of them, when she had thought it likely she would never marry. And back when she was a serf, she had wondered if a mate would be forced on her, an old man, or someone cruel. Lord Kiron . . . Lord Kiron was like something out of the sort of story that a market storyteller would recite to charm the coins from pretty unmarried girls.
Well, it was worth thinking about this as at least a decent possibility. Why not? Even if Lord Kiron was not Letis’ son . . . now that Peri was herself a Jouster, was there any reason why she should not look on Lord Kiron as someone she might attract?
Not really. He was not of aristocratic blood. He was, in fact, as common as herself.
The only other possible rival—
Aket-ten.
As for the other young ladies—Peri thought she was on fairly safe ground there. Judging by the way that Kiron had spoken of the Tians in general last night, she thought he would never consider anything but another Altan. So her fellows of the new Queen’s Wing were easily dismissed. And they were priestesses, people with whom he had very little in common. It was one thing to pursue a pretty priestess or noble for light love, but Letis was right about one thing. When a man chose a woman for something permanent, he liked to have someone about who wouldn’t make him feel inferior, nor make him feel as if she was doing him a great favor by being with him.
Now, Aket-ten was, of course, the very first female Jouster. She and Kiron must have shared many adventures together, and Peri thought she might have heard some vague tale of how Kiron had rescued her from the earthshake that destroyed the capital city. Or maybe the story was that he had rescued her from the Magi. She, too, was Altan, and what with all that previous acquaintance, she was ahead of the game. But Peri had two advantages that Aket-ten did not have. She was of the same background, and the same rank, as Kiron. Aket-ten was nobly born, with all the unconscious arrogance of someone who never needed to think about whether or not her orders would be obeyed. This didn’t matter to someone who was already an underling, but at some point, that had to grate on a man.
And there was a third advantage, if Kiron really was who Peri thought he was. Peri already had Letis’ approval. Approval? Letis had essentially handpicked her as the mate for her son.
Aket-ten could never get that, try as she might. Letis did not at all approve of looking above one’s self for a mate; she did not at all approve of what she called the “presumption” of the “jumped up.” She had many things to say, none of them complimentary, about such liaisons. She would say them to her son’s face if he went, as she would put it, “chasing the hem of the skirts of a noble.” When Letis chose to use the weapon, she had a very, very sharp tongue. Mind, with the excitement of being reunited, it was likely that Kiron would be willing to agree to just about anything his mother asked of him, and Letis would never have to use that particular weapon.
But from the way that Aket-ten herself was acting, well . . . it did not look as if there was any interest there at all. Look at how she had portrayed Kiron to the others! And when he had been among them, she had given him very short shrift indeed. It was more as if Aket-ten considered Kiron a rival, and not a potential mate.
Perhaps that was precisely the case. She had been a priestess herself, after all. Priestesses were accustomed to power, and being merely one Jouster among an increasingly large number, with no chance that she would ever be given any leadership role, must have grated on her. But now she had the chance to make, not only a single wing of lady Jousters, but perhaps a force to equal or rival the males, if enough work could be found for them. But Kiron’s Jousters were essentially competition for her; at any point they could demand to be brought back here to the Dragon Courts, and there was no reason not to accede to that demand. Once they were here, what could the Queen’s Wing do that the male Jousters could not do as well or better? That, at least, would be what the naysayers would claim.
Surely that was the only explanation for the way that Aket-ten had made Lord Kiron out to be the worst possible sort of authoritarian and some sort of monster to boot, why she had insisted that he would immediately disapprove of each of them individually and the Queen’s Wing as a whole. Peri had expected someone large, rude, and angry, someone determined to put “the women” in their place, someone who would see nothing good and much evil in the very existence of the Queen’s Wing. And possibly someone old enough to be her grandsire.
She had certainly not expected the young, polite, affable and self-effacing young man who turned up at dinner. He had been good company, he had gone out of his way to make them all comfortable in his presence, and—above all—he had not made any of them feel as if he disapproved of them or what they were doing. Possibly that was all a deception, but if it was, he was a better fraud than Peri was able to detect.
But if Aket-ten saw him as a rival, as competition, it would certainly go a very long way toward explaining her attitude.
The one possible complication was this: in Peri’s admittedly limited experience, young men did not, as a rule, appreciate discovering that their mothers had picked out wives for them with no regard for what they wanted. Yes, in the first flush of the joy of finding each other, Kiron probably would
do just about anything his mother asked. But once that wore out, he might very well decide he could pick his own wife, thank you.
If, however, Peri could manage to become friends with Lord Kiron . . . if she could even gain more interest from him than that, then when Letis discovered the identity of her lost son and presented him with a putative bride . . . . . . a bride who was already someone he liked . . . and who was a Jouster herself . . .
Peri smiled to herself. That would be very good indeed.
So, now, all she needed to do was to find a way to get herself and Sutema moved to Aerie.
NINE
FOUR Jousters—Huras, Oset-re, Pe-atep, and Kiron himself—set off from Aerie at the best possible time for flying, when the sun was at zenith and the thermals were at their strongest. Huras’ big female, Tathulan, who had begun from the moment of hatching by being the largest of the lot of hand-raised Altan dragons, and had remained in that position, carried the priest Them-noh-thet as well as Huras. The priest had clearly been impressed by her when he had seen her, and rightly so. Not only was she the largest, she was the most striking, with her coloring being an indigo blue shading into purple, which in turn shaded into red at all of her extremities. She was a quiet and dignified dragon, and even as a baby had not been given to much in the way of absurd antics. Steady and unflappable, she was the best possible choice to carry a second rider, although they would all take it in turns to carry the priest once Tathulan started to show signs of fatigue.
The dragons were fully fed and would be carrying their midday meal. They would hunt this evening, before they stopped for the night. It was very likely that nothing would trouble them in the night—it would take a foolish predator to attempt to kill a single adult dragon, much less four—but even if something did attack them, these dragons, who had trained to fly at night, would hardly be daunted by darkness. They should be able to make short work of attackers.
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