Lord of the Changing Winds (11 page)

“She hates me,” Kes said shakily, and leaned gratefully against the hot solidity of Opailikiita’s shoulder. She stretched her arm as far as she could around the small griffin’s neck and pressed her face into the soft feathers. “Why isn’t it fitting? The name the king gave me?”

“It draws upon the name of Eskainiane, and upon one of my own names. Nehaistiane Esterikiu Anahaikuuanse objects to both, though especially to the former,” said Kairaithin. His tone was distracted; he did not look at Kes but stared after the departing griffins, into the red reaches of the desert. “She is the mate of the Lord of Fire and Air and also of Escaile Sehaikiu.”

“Both?”

“Both,” said Kairaithin, lifting an amused and impatient eyebrow at Kes’s surprise. “She was once wise. But she lost three
iskairianere
to the Casmantian assault and is in no mood to be patient with men.”

“Oh…” Kes pulled away from Opailikiita again to follow Kairaithin’s gaze. “I’m sorry…”

That was a night for grief
, said Opailikiita, and declared fiercely,
But on the night that comes, my sister, you will burn back the cold.

Kes wondered if she would.

Kairaithin turned the hard force of his attention back toward Kes at once. His shadow rippled with flame; its black eyes blazed with a fiery dark like the desert sky at night. He said forcefully, “You must learn the ways of fire. You will have days to do this. It will take days. Do you understand? Thus I hold you here in the country of fire.”

“If I do this for you,” Kes said slowly, meeting his eyes, “you will be my friend.”

“Assuredly not your enemy,” said Kairaithin, amused.

But Kes thought he also meant what he said. “You won’t harm my people. Or allow your people to harm them?”

“So long as you are my
kiinukaile
, I will see to it that neither your sister nor any of the people of your little town come to harm from fire.”

“Then I’ll stay,” Kes said, and found she felt both glad that she had an unshakable excuse to stop arguing and guilty for the very gladness. She knew she ought to want nothing but to escape the desert and the griffins’ dangerous attention. She knew she ought to want to go home—she knew Tesme must truly be desperately worried for her, that everyone would be desperately worried, that their worry would only grow worse if she stayed in the desert for days. But she remembered the strangely comfortable flame dancing in her palm, and there was nothing she wanted more than to stay in the desert and learn the ways of fire.

R
eports came in over the course of the next few days, some brought by couriers and some by ordinary folk: Griffins in the countryside around Minas Spring and Minas Ford; griffins settling all through those hills. Hundreds, some of the reports claimed. At least a thousand, asserted the most hysterical.

“Dozens,” said General Jasand. “Dozens, I will grant you. A hundred is unlikely. A thousand is beyond any possibility. I doubt there are so many griffins as that in all the world.”

The senior of Feierabiand’s three generals, Jasand was a tall, grizzled man, broad-built and powerful, twenty years older than Iaor. He was not a personal friend of the king—he had been a friend of Iaor’s father. These days, Jasand rarely took the field personally. But his whole career had been spent along the mountain border, and in his dealings with Casmantium he had picked up a good deal of griffin-lore. That was why Iaor had sent for him in particular.

Now the general tapped the table impatiently and added, “Not that we want even a few dozen griffins making themselves at home over by Minas Spring and Minas Ford. They’re dangerous creatures, and it’s said it takes years to recover decent land from the desert they make where they lie up.”

Though no one asked him, Bertaud agreed with Jasand that there could not be hundreds of griffins down at Minas. No one had made a clear count. It seemed that no one, villager or courier or even soldier, quite dared go far enough into the hills to try. But it was clearly unlikely that there should be more than a few dozen of the creatures. All the sweep of history recorded no such invasion. Griffins belonged not to Feierabiand but to the dry eastern slopes of the mountains, the desert north of Casmantium, where rain never fell. They were creatures of fire and air, not earth and certainly not water.

The court mage Diene, the other person Iaor had asked to be present, tented her thin fingers and looked thoughtfully down the length of the table at the king. “As Beremnan Anweierchen of Casmantium famously put it, ‘The desert is a garden that blooms with time and silence.’ Griffins tend that garden,” she observed. “Why have they left it and come to this side of the mountains? The west wind is filled with the smell of the sea: It must work against the wind they bring with them. They cannot be comfortable here.”

“Why ever they came, they must not be allowed to become comfortable,” the king said firmly. “Let us send them back to their desert. General?”

“A hundred men should suffice to send them off,” said Jasand. He sounded confident, as well he might: Those were
his
men, and he had every right to be confident of their capability after years of withstanding the Casmantian brigands that sometimes slipped across the mountains—defying their own king, or so they claimed—to test the defenses of Feierabiand.

“Bowmen,” said the general now. “With spears to use up close and swords we’ll hope they needn’t use at all. But it’s surely bow work against griffins. Keep them at a distance and they should hardly be worse than mountain cats or bulls.”

“They’ve magic of their own,” countered Diene, putting up a severe eyebrow at this confidence. “They are creatures of fire and air, rather than the good solid earth of men. You’ve never put your soldiers against such as that, Jasand, and you might find griffins a surprise to men used to fighting other men. Well-made steel-tipped arrows may be—should be—hard for griffins to turn. However, they are
not
mountain cats or bulls. Someone should go to them before Jasand’s men and ask them to withdraw.”

“
Ask
them,” said Bertaud, startled.

The mage turned her powerful gaze to him. Her eyes were the dark color of fresh-turned loam. Her strength was of the earth, to bring forth growing things and coax rich harvests from the land. She was old—the oldest of any of the king’s habitual councilors, though not quite the eldest of the mages in Tihannad. Iaor was the third king she had advised. She had taught him his love of flowers, and sometimes regarded Bertaud with disfavor because he had never cared much for her gardens. As a boy, Bertaud had been frightened of her acerbic turn of phrase and stern frown. It had taken him years to learn to see the humor hidden behind both.

She said now, “Griffins are foreign to the nature of men, but they have a wisdom of their own, and they are powerful. Yes, someone should go to them before a hundred young men with bows and spears set foot in their desert.”

The king folded his hands on the table and studied the mage. “Someone may indeed go to them. With a hundred young men with bows and spears at her back, to command respect from these creatures of fire and air. I ask you to go, esteemed Diene.”

“I?” the mage folded her hands upon the table and judiciously considered this request. She glanced up after a moment. “Men are not meant to intrude into the country of fire, Iaor. But it is said that earth mages find the desert particularly inimical.”

The king tapped his fingers restlessly on the table. But he responded at last, “Diene, I confess I had looked for you to bend your wisdom and knowledge to deal with these matters. You do not wish to go? Or you do not find it advisable to go?”

“On the contrary.” Diene half smiled. “I would be most interested to study the desert and associated phenomena. I am confident I will be able to endure the desert, however hostile an environment it may prove. I am at least certain that a visit to the country of fire will be a fascinating experience. But I am bound by duty to warn you, your majesty, of the reputed difficulties involved.”

Iaor waved a hand, dismissing this warning. “If you are willing to go, esteemed Diene, I wish you to go. One would expect a mage’s learning and power to be of particular use in this sort of matter. Or do you feel yourself likely to suffer physically from the task? Perhaps someone more, ah, vigorous might be less troubled by the difficulties to which you refer?”

Diene tilted her head, considering, and Bertaud knew she was telling over the tally of younger mages in Tihannad, and coming up short: Though many people were gifted in one way or another, very few possessed the potential for true magecraft, and of those, fewer still wished to spend years of their lives developing the deep understanding of magic that underlay that craft—and the scholar-mages of high Tiearanan did not accept even all of those for training. “A magical gift isn’t sufficient,” Diene had commented once to Bertaud. “Gifts are narrow things, though under the proper circumstances and with sufficient effort the right sort of gift may be, hmm,
stretched
, shall we say. But blind desire isn’t sufficient, and nor is dedication, though that’s important. Magecraft requires a most unusual
breadth
of power.”

Bertaud had not understood precisely what Diene meant, but what it came to in practical terms was a general lack of mages upon whom the king might call. There
were
a few young mages in Tihannad, but one was too young and one too rash and one too timid. The only mage more experienced and more powerful than Diene herself was also frail as a wisp of winter-dried barley, and blind besides. Diene frowned, and sighed. “Youthful vigor is all very well, Iaor, but I suspect mature wisdom will be more to the point. I have never encountered a griffin. I believe I would be interested to meet one now. And in any case, you would surely not wish to wait for a younger person to come down from Tiearanan. If it please you, your majesty, I will go.”

“Thank you.” The king gave a little nod. He turned to Jasand. “General. Select your men. Esteemed Diene, are you able to make yourself ready by the morning after tomorrow?” He accepted their nods and dismissed both general and mage, keeping Bertaud behind with a glance.

Bertaud leaned back in his chair and waited.

“The esteemed mage will go, to lend her learning and wisdom to the task, as I said,” Iaor said. “But considering her warning, it is you I would have go, to speak for me.”

Bertaud glanced down, then back up, hoping he had not visibly flushed. He turned a hand up on the table. “I am honored that you would send me, Iaor. But General Jasand is far more experienced than I.”

“He will guide your judgment. But it is your judgment I trust.” The king’s voice was grave, measured: This was not an impulsive decision. Even when Iaor decided quickly, his decisions were considered. “I don’t know what instruction to give you. So I must ask you to do as I would do, and speak my words to these creatures as I would speak them. Will you do this for me?”

Bertaud hesitated a bare instant longer, then answered, “It will be my honor to try.”

Iaor smiled briefly, his father’s ruthless smile. But it was also his own, with a quick warmth that the old king had never possessed. Both warmth and ruthlessness were quite real. That, Bertaud thought, was what made Iaor a good king. “Good. I will inform Jasand and Diene of my decision. Thus I will, as ever, take advantage of your loyalty, my friend.”

Bertaud answered lightly, but with truth behind the light tone, “That is not possible, my king.”

The broad road from Tihannad, paved with great flat stones, crossed a bridge where the little Sef flowed out of Niambe Lake. On the other side of the Sef, the road was merely packed earth, but it was still broad. Six men could walk comfortably abreast, or four men ride, or one man ride beside a carriage, not that there were any carriages in this company. All the men were mounted, though: General Jasand had selected his men carefully and almost a fifth of them had an affinity for horses. There was no chance, then, that the horses would refuse to go into the desert if Jasand decided that a mounted attack was best, or that they would shy or bolt under the shadow of griffins’ wings.

“I much doubt we’ll want to take the horses into the desert, but I like to keep plenty of options available,” Jasand had commented to Bertaud, and Bertaud had agreed and waited patiently for the general to sort out the men he thought best for this little foray. Three of the men had the much rarer affinities to eagles or falcons and carried birds on their shoulders or on perches behind their saddles. “Even better than dogs for scouting,” Jasand had said, and thoughtfully added a man with an affinity for crows because, he said, he wanted at least one bird with brains in the company.