Kiron took another glance at Nofret. If he was any good at reading expressions, she didn’t think Ari was looking for any excuses either.
“By no means,” said Kaleth, before anyone else could speak. “After all, there is time yet before so many people come to Sanctuary that we will
need
a King and Queen. Take whatever time you need. Unless Nofret objects?” he raised an eyebrow in her direction.
Nofret blushed a deeper crimson, but smiled. “What lady ever objects to being courted? Any who would must be mad.”
Baket-ke-aput looked as astonished as if a camel had spoken to him—but then, in Tia, while women were held in high regard,
young
women were accustomed to obeying fathers and elder brothers until the day they had a household of their own.
Baket-ke-aput might as well get used to this change in “the way things were.” Kiron knew very well what would happen when Tian girls saw how much freedom Altan girls enjoyed.
“Until then, however,” Kaleth continued. “You must needs be on this council. That,
I
require. I want your skills and your knowledge of your fellow countrymen. Sit, please, Ari.”
Ari did.
People obey him as if he were as old as Lord Ya-tiren.
Kaleth, it seemed, was acquiring a little something in the way of personal authority each time the gods spoke through him, and it wasn’t the sort of thing that wore off. “And now—let me beg of you all a little time.”
Kiron sensed an abrupt change in subject—and he wasn’t mistaken.
“Time,” Kaleth repeated, “and attention. I wish to spread before you the lines of the possible futures we face, as I have seen them.”
Kiron leaned forward at the words. That Kaleth had seen a future for this place—more than one, actually—was without a doubt. But he had not yet shared that vision with anyone.
Kaleth drew a deep breath and turned to the Tians. “Forgive me, Priests of Tia, if I repeat what you already know. Among our people, the ways of those who are Winged are not well known, and I must begin with an explanation.”
Baket-ke-aput nodded gravely. “Even among us, the Eye that sees ahead in time is rare. Please go on as you will.”
“The future is like Great Mother River entering the delta,” Kaleth said gravely, looking into the eyes of each of them in turn. “It is not a single straight path. It bends and curves, breaks into daughters, and each of the daughters wanders on. Some merge again, some fade to nothing. And I—I am a dragon flying above at dawn, and have only glimpses of what is below as the morning mist chooses to part, or clings stubbornly to land and water. The nearer we are in time to what I see, the clearer it is—but the nearer we are, the more difficult it is to find ways to change what I can See.”
“I have heard something similar from the priestesses who tend the Mirror of At-thera,” said Baket-ke-aput. “Save only that they have never, in my lifetime, Seen far enough ahead in time to do more than give warning.” He looked at Kaleth with increased respect.
Kaleth acknowledged the admiration with a nod. “We have come to a point where that branching begins, and I cannot always tell what decision will put us on a beneficial path—nor can I always control what will put us there. And I have seen many endings to our story.” His face darkened. “Some, I will not speak of. But there is one ending that I greatly desire, and in it, the Two Lands are—not one, but bound, as husband and wife are bound, partners in all respects. In that future, the King and Queen rule from a new city on the river, equally distant from Mefis and what you call Bato, and we call Alta City. Sanctuary is become the city of the Gods of Alta and Tia together in harmony, the symbol of the joining of the Two Lands, and the Jousters are its protectors. It serves also as the way point for a rich caravan route, bringing wealth to the gods from trade, and not from taking it out of the hands of the people. No longer at odds with one another, the task of Altan and Tian Jousters alike is to guard those who dwell in Sanctuary, to make the caravan route across the desert safe to travel, and to watch the borders.” Kaleth’s eyes shone with enthusiasm, and the reflection of his dream. “In that vision, all Priests of Alta and Tia come to Sanctuary to be trained, and the aged and most wise come here to impart their wisdom. Sanctuary is a place of peace, where enemies learn to become friends, and ways are found to heal old wounds and make new dreams grow.”
Kiron caught his breath at that vision, and he was not the only one. What a dream! If only it could come to pass. . . .
“That is the vision I desire you to hold in your hearts, and give to the people as a goal,” Kaleth went on. “Would I could tell you how it is that we will come to that place, but that is the end I hope you will strive for.” Now he looked deeply into Baket-ke-aput’s eyes.
This is the one he has to win over. The Senior Priest, perhaps the High Priest. He’s had power in his hands. When Tians come here, he’ll have it again. Will he barter some of that power to Kaleth for a piece of Kaleth’s vision?
“You have us, Mouth of the Gods,” Baket-ke-aput said, slowly, and then to Kiron’s complete astonishment, the priest bowed. Not the bow of equal to equal; he abased himself, as he would have at the altar of a god. The only thing he did not do was to lift up Kaleth’s foot and place it on his own head in token of complete abasement, and Kiron had the feeling he had actually considered doing even that. After a moment of shock, so did every single one of his followers bow, down to the acolytes who stopped hovering at the edges of things, trying to pretend they were busy so they could listen. They, too, dropped what they were doing to throw themselves on the ground.
Kaleth rose, paced slowly to where Baket-ke-aput was stretched out, and touched his shoulder. “I do not need minions, holy one of Tia,” he said quietly. “I need—
Sanctuary
needs—partners. Friends who share the work and the dream.”
Baket-ke-aput rose also, and once again, he and Kaleth clasped arms. “Those, you have. I swear it. For myself, and for these.”
“Then that is all I can ask.” With a radiant smile, Kaleth went back to his seat. “Now,” he continued, looking around again, “There is the little matter of where we are to put all of you. . . .”
SEVEN
THE
acolytes of the various Tian gods were surprisingly willing to help with the work on the new dragon pens. Not that acolytes of any sort weren’t used to working hard, but they were generally not accustomed to the kinds of labor that might be termed “common.” Nevertheless, they turned their hands to it, fitting stones into place, making cement to hold them together, although the task of trimming them to fit was left to Lord Ya-tiren’s experienced stonemason. But perhaps that was because the four buildings surrounding the original pen were destined to become temple quarters for them all once the Jousters moved; at the moment, the priests and acolytes of the entire Tian party were all crowded very closely together in Kaleth’s Temple to All Gods, sleeping with scarcely a place to put a foot between them, and it could not be comfortable for any of them. At any rate, with their help, and the help of some of Lord Ya-tiren’s people, the conversion occurred within a few days. The original doors—which fortunately had no lintels anymore, if they ever had possessed such a thing—were bricked halfway up, and the walls raised, so that a real sand wallow could be made deep enough for a dragon to dig him- or herself in.
Then, before the sand was brought in, a walkway was constructed around the periphery of each pen, just as the pens in Alta and Tia had been constructed, with a wider platform at the rear. Last of all, copying the pens in Alta so that the riders could live with their dragons, a single-roomed shelter was built on that platform at the back of the pen, and a water trough where a dragon could drink.
Since Kiron had been put in charge of the new Jousters, there was one thing he had made very clear. Everyone, including Ari, had agreed with him.
No Jouster would ever live apart from his dragon again.
Jousters were going to change; it was time for that change to begin. They would no longer live as lesser nobles, not that they’d be able to under the current conditions anyway! They would be housed in conditions no better, and no worse, than any officer in the Tian or Altan armies.
Jousters would still be like no one else, and part of that difference would be signaled by other ways in which they lived besides the bare fact of their housing.
It was no longer possible, with the bonded dragons, to treat a dragon like an inanimate thing, the chariot that one drove, the sword in one’s hand. It was no longer possible to shrug, walk away, and get another if one’s dragon was ill or injured, or worse, died. Not that anyone with a bonded dragon would be able to do anything like
that.
Look at the way every Jouster in Kiron’s wing fussed over their darlings, fretting over a bit of scuff on a scale, seeing that their dragons were fed, watered, and comfortable before they even considered their own needs!
They hadn’t much cared for having walls between them and their beloveds, but now that the new quarters were built, that would end. The new Jousters were partners with their dragons, and like the faithful hound that slept at the foot of his master’s bed and followed at his heels, the dragon would spend as much time as possible with his own Jouster. Which was, after all, the way that both dragon and Jouster wanted things. Kiron had not really slept easily without being able to wake in the night and hear Avatre’s breathing. . . .
Perhaps one day, when there were more resources, the quarters could be enlarged. For now, they were comfortable enough, and at least when the temperature dropped, as Kiron very well knew, they would be better than most.
The one thing they didn’t have to worry about out here was rain; any rain that fell in the desert was sporadic and wouldn’t turn a pen into sand soup the way it did in both Tia and Alta, so no awnings were going to be needed over the pits. A sturdy roof on the Jouster’s shelter to keep out the sun, however, was a must. Otherwise in summer, the heat would be a punishing thing, even for a dragon.
Once the construction was done, the biggest job, other than raising the walls and making the walkways, was in filling the pens with sand. Kiron had a hope that perhaps the gods would oblige with another sandstorm, but in the end, it was done by the simple, if more back-breaking means of having every single able-bodied person in Sanctuary get together to spend a single day helping to carry and dump sand into the waiting pens.
Then the Thet priests, with Heklatis watching closely, invoked their spell. It was the same magic used in Tia and Alta both that kept the sand in the pens at a temperature comfortable for the dragons. Without the need to impress, as Heklatis had shrewdly guessed, it was a much simpler affair than Kiron had observed when he spied on the ritual. What Heklatis had
not
realized, however, was that the little priestesses
were
actually needed and were not merely decorative.
In fact, in many ways, they were crucial.
Theirs, it seemed, was a passive power; Kiron suspected that if the Magi had guessed what it was they did for the priests, their names would have been first on that list of those who had been called to “serve” the advisers, and their status as priestesses would not have saved them.
They amplified the power of the spell, giving it, not merely strength, but reach, sending it far beyond the area in which it would normally operate. So the Thet priests were able to “steal” heat from somewhere far outside the walls of Sanctuary, and sink it into the sands. But they also created, at long last, one of the “cold” rooms where meat could be stored for days at a time at need, channeling the heat from that space into the pens as well. In the times when there was more game caught than the dragons could eat that day, it could be stored against greater need. The Thet priests were adept from long practice at finding good ways to channel the heat, but it was clever Heklatis who suggested one change that had never occurred to them—to move the heat through time as well as distance, taking heat from Sanctuary during the day to be used at night, keeping the buildings cool by day, as the Palace at Mefis was.
The mere concept made Kiron’s head spin, but apparently they worked out how to do that. It seemed so impossible that he finally decided to just pretend he hadn’t heard any such thing.
When they brought the dragons to the new Compound, there was not a moment of hesitation out of them on seeing their new quarters. The dragons had never been so happy since they had left Alta. They lofted over the walls and plunged into the hot sands with little squeals of glee, and every one of them, even Kashet, immediately buried him- or herself to the shoulders in the sand, leaving only the wide, leathery wings spread out across the hot surface.
The Thet priests, who back in Mefis had never actually stayed around long enough to see what the dragons made of their pens when the heating spells were renewed, watched them with spreading grins on their faces. By this time, they had all made the acquaintance of one or more of the dragons and had, predictably, been charmed by them. It was hard not to be charmed by indigo-colored Bethlan with her assumption that everyone she met was a friend, and by the gentle green Khaleph, and beautiful tricolored Tathulan who could excite admiration in the dullest of observers, but each of the others had their little coterie of admirers. All of the dragons liked people, even shy scarlet-and-sand Deoth. And why not? People had never hurt them, and people were the source of satisfying attention and even more satisfying scratches on the sensitive skin under the chin and around the eye ridges and the join of head to neck. In Tia, everyone had heard of Kashet, but few had seen him up close; dragons were to be admired from afar, but were dangerous, even deadly, up close. And of course, all that had once been true of the wild-caught,
tala-
controlled dragons. Although a dragon that killed a man would be put down, nevertheless, it was possible to be seriously hurt by one that was clever enough to know he could harm his handlers.