Alta (24 page)

Perhaps, especially given their suspicions about the long lives of the Great Ones, other young men would have been plotting the overthrow of the current Great Ones, not a peaceful transition. Not Toreth and Kaleth. “That would undermine everything—and probably get us caught and strangled,” Toreth confided to Kiron later that evening. “No. We will have the thrones legitimately, in our time. The only thing that anyone will ever be able to prove, even if someone betrays us, is that we wish to restore some of the power that the Magi took back to the priesthood. There is naught wrong with that—and much that would be considered pious.”

“Have the Magi tried to cultivate you?” Kiron asked, curiously. He could not imagine the Magi not trying so obvious a ploy with the next in line to the throne.

Toreth laughed aloud, and the others glanced up from the game of hounds and jackals they were playing. “What?” asked Can.

“Have the Magi tried to cultivate my brother and me?” Toreth asked aloud.

Oset-re snorted. “Like experienced old whores sidling up to drunken sailors!” he replied. Once again, he exercised his talent for imitation, somehow making himself look both haughty and oily at the same time.

“Has my Lord Toreth any need for my humble services?” he oozed. “A spell to catch a young lady’s attention, perhaps? A talisman for gambling luck, or one against drunkenness?” He flared his nostrils delicately. “Or perhaps you, my Lord Kaleth—I have some scrolls you might find of—interest.” He pretended to unfurl a scroll.

Toreth mock-gagged. “I tried to play the cocky—and none too bright—spoiled brat, who is so certain of himself that he mocks the very idea of needing any arcane help. I hope I didn’t overplay it. Kaleth simply looked myopic and horrified. He was horrified, and properly so—as erotic scrolls go, that one was singularly awful.”

 

Kiron managed to find time to visit Aket-ten twice more during the next half moon. He actually wanted to visit her more than that, but he was afraid that if he went too often, he would draw unwelcome attention to her.

As it was, he took care to pick a time when the rains were particularly heavy—heavy enough that he had the bridge
and
the streets to himself. Furthermore, he took the precaution of stopping in a very popular food and beer shop on the way. If anyone was following him, they’d be hard-put to distinguish which of the patrons of the place he was when he came out. As a Jouster, he was paid just like any other soldier, even if he hadn’t actually fought yet, so he had some money in his pouch. That allowed him to stay just long enough to have some duck sausage and hot wine, and when he left, it was at the same time as two other men.

Once again he presented himself at the door of the Temple of All Gods, but this time the slave took him into another part of the private quarters.

A library, of course.

Niches lined the walls, scrolls piled in them, and characters written on the wall beneath each niche told the category. Care for these precious objects was a constant battle between damp and fire, so there were no open windows or open flames here. All the lamps were carefully shielded, but the lack of windows meant that there had to be a great many of them.

The girl who was seated at a distant table, bent over a scroll, looked a lot more like the Aket-ten he knew, though the woolen gown was enough like the one she’d been wearing the last time to be its charcoal-colored sister, and it clung to her young body in a very interesting fashion. Again, as he watched her before she became aware of his presence, he had to think that she was not Orest’s “little” sister anymore.

The slave went to her and whispered in her ear; she looked up, and this time, both to his relief and his disappointment, she did not leap up and fling herself at him.

She took the weights off the scroll and let it roll itself back up, stored it in its niche, and only then did she rise to greet him.

She did hurry toward him, though, her face alight with pleasure at seeing him. And she seized both his hands and squeezed them as soon as she was in reach.

“Where’s the disguise?” he asked. She was wearing more makeup than usual, but not as much as the last time. He thought she looked very pretty this way.

“One of the Akkadian Healers, my friend Heklatis, is also a Magus,” she said. “He didn’t tell anyone about it until I arrived, though, because he didn’t like what our Magi were doing and he didn’t want to have to put up with them trying to get him to join them. He gave me an amulet that he says will make their spells slide off me, and he says that as long as I don’t leave the temple without a physical disguise, they won’t find me.” She made a face. “I don’t understand all of it; magic works differently from what a Winged One does. Father gave the Temple money to buy me a body slave and a fan bearer, so when I go out, I’m all wigged and painted and escorted. It’s such a bother that I only did it once.” She sighed. “Still, it’s not a loss. Kephru does wonderful massages, and Takit is useful running errands, so most of the time they’re working for the Healers.”

“Are you able to practice your skills?” he asked, knowing how strongly she felt about her abilities. The panic in her voice when she had described being temporarily without them made him think that not being able to use them would be very like being cut off from some essential part of her, or having her soul cut in half. “Is it safe?”

“Heklatis says it is,” she replied, and shrugged. “Certainly no one has come running here looking for me after I’ve used them—though I haven’t dared to try to See what the Magi are doing or to See the Temple of the Twins. I’m afraid that—” she bit her lip. “—I’m afraid that if another Winged One feels me Watching, the Magi will be told.”

Would the Winged Ones actually betray one of their own to the Magi? “You think it’s that bad?” he asked soberly.

“I don’t know,” she replied, looking profoundly unhappy. “I just don’t know.
Someone
is allowing them to take the Fledglings every day, and as far as I can tell, no one is objecting to it.” Her brows came together and she looked as if she was holding back tears. “And even if the reason they’re letting this happen is not that they’re on the Magis’ side but that they’re afraid of the Magi and what they can do, it doesn’t make much difference in the long run. People who are afraid would tell on me, too.”

Now it was his turn to squeeze her hands, as comfortingly as he could manage. There was hurt in her eyes as well as unhappiness and that lurking fear.
She’s been betrayed by the people she thought she could trust the most, and now she is not entirely sure what the truth is, or who she can trust.
And a little thought followed that.
But she trusts me . . . oh, gods, my thanks, she trusts me!

“I wish there was something I could say or do to help,” he said aloud. “I wish I could visit you more often—but Aket-ten, not only have I work I can’t neglect, but if I come here too often when I never did before, someone might take notice.”

She nodded, and smiled wanly. “And I haven’t sent for you for the same reason. I’m keeping busy. The library is where I spend a lot of time. I’ve mostly been helping the animal Healers though, and just trying to See that Father is all right. He
seems
all right. I don’t think they’ve done anything to him.”

“I’ll check on him myself on the way back,” he promised, and tried to move the conversation to a more cheerful note. “Well, this looks like a place after your own heart! You don’t seem so—unhappy as you were last time.”

She brightened, and looked more like her old self. “I’m not. The library here is wonderful; I haven’t run across more than a handful of scrolls that I’ve seen before. When I think of something I can do to help, I try to do it, and the rest of the time I stay out of the way. I’m learning what I can about the dragons.” Then her jaw jutted a little, stubbornly. “I still think I could be a Jouster. Think of how easily I talk to Avatre! I wish you and Father would have let me hide with Orest.”

He suppressed a snicker to avoid hurting her feelings. “Let’s find somewhere warm where I can dry off. I want to tell you something. Do you remember Prince Toreth?”

“I think so,” she said, leading him out of the library and back to her room. Someone had put up tightly woven reed screens up on the window, which darkened the room and cut off the view of the garden, but which also cut off the draft. Her brazier had made the place comfortably warm; she lit a splinter at it, then went around lighting all the lamps until the room was filled with a warm, golden glow. He hung up his rain cape to dry, then both of them took stools on either side of the brazier.

And he told her all about Prince Toreth and his plans. “And he spoke about you, actually,” he finished. “He said that he would much rather have you in his cadre than Orest, because Orest’s tongue is a bit too loose, but that you are sensible and intelligent, and he thinks it would be no bad thing to have a Far-Sighted Winged One who is not afraid to speak the truth to advise him.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, putting one hand to her lips in surprise. “I—I am not certain what to say!”

“At the moment, you’re supposed to be on a farm beyond the Seventh Canal, so you don’t
need
to say anything,” he reminded her. “There is no way you could know this if you were where you were supposed to be.”

“That’s true,” she admitted. “I want to think about this.” She paused. “Did you mean that—about my becoming a Healer for the dragons and going to the Jousters’ Compound once the Magi stop being interested in me?”

“As long as Lord Khumun and your father agree,” he replied. “We don’t need a Healer for the dragons much, but it would be very useful to have a Far-Sighted Winged One about. And it would be very useful to have someone who could talk to the dragons. You might get somewhere in soothing the wild-caught ones, now that we’ve got them to where they can actually be handled safely, and you can help us train the little ones.”

She frowned in thought. “I need to think about this,” she repeated.

He decided it was time to drop the subject, and instead went on to tell her about flying in the rain, and the sorties that the swamp dragon riders were doing.

“Their dragons are smaller than the desert dragons, and I think it’s the first time some of them have gotten a taste of victory,” he concluded. “If there were more of them, it would be all right, because two of them could take a rider on a desert dragon. But being outnumbered and riding smaller beasts makes things hard for them.”

“You’re making a real difference, then!” she exclaimed with pleasure. “Oh, how wonderful! I wish I was doing half as much.”

“And what is it you always told Orest when he started fretting about not being a soldier?” he asked her, with a raised eyebrow.

“ ‘The job of a student is to be a student,’ ” she sighed. “I suppose I’m a student all over again, then.”

“You might as well be,” he agreed. “But why don’t you tell me why it is that the Healers do not care for the Magi? Because, obviously, they don’t or you wouldn’t be safe here.”

She pursed her lips, and rested her chin on her fist. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I never thought to ask.”

“Then why don’t you ask?” he suggested. “I’d start with that Akkadian you talked about.”

“All right,” she agreed. “I will.”

The remainder of the visit was confined to inconsequential things, and he left her feeling much better about her situation than he had when he had seen her the first time. As he had promised, he looked in on her father on the way back, and with a few carefully chosen words and glances, Lord Ya-tiren indicated that he thought there was still a spy in his household, but that no further pressure had been brought to bear on him to produce his daughter.

The second time he went to visit Aket-ten, he had no news other than that, but she had enough information to make up for it.

“I’ve asked about,” she told him, “though I have tried to be—um—circumspect. And all I’ve gotten were hints as to the quarrel the Healers have with the Magi. Very mysterious hints, too, with a lot of anger in them. I did find out one thing, though. Partly it’s because the Magi are at least half responsible for the war with Tia, and you know how Healers feel about war.”

Actually, he didn’t know, but he could well guess. You could not be a Healer without feeling a desire to cure the sick and repair the injured so deep it often ran counter to self-preservation. So war must be entirely offensive to a Healer, at the same deep level.

Especially this war, which, the more he learned about it, seemed less understandable. As far as he could tell, it did not serve a purpose now for either side. The Tians could easily expand to the south, going up the Great Mother River instead of down, and the Altans did not seem to have any real interest in the land outside of that needed to support their city.

“How did you find that out?” he asked.

“I’ve been reading some of the personal commentaries and diaries that got stored in the library,” she replied. “I mean, at least they were more interesting than recipes for curing impotence and spots! I found an entire rack of them rolled up in jars at the back of the library, and it turned out that each jar held the personal accounts of each Chief Healer here for—oh, hundreds of years. And right in the middle of one of them was a long tirade against the Magi, because the Magi had managed to persuade the Great Ones to use some trivial border incident as an excuse for war!”

So—there it was. Part of the speculation that he and Toreth had made had been borne out. “Who was in the wrong?” he asked.

She shrugged. “There was no telling. It was in a border village, and by the time it was over, anybody who might have known was either dead or too frightened to talk. The Magi blew it up into a treacherous attack on one of our patrols, unprovoked of course, and the irony is that
they
must have been looking for an excuse, too, because their declaration of war was delivered to us about the same time as ours was to them. But it was quite clear from the tone of the scroll that the Chief Healer was
certain
that if the Magi hadn’t been egging on the Great Ones, it could all have been smoothed over.”