Alta (45 page)

If so, they had better start thinking of a way to predict earthshakes,
Kiron thought grimly, looking up at the Tower when his dragon boy brought him the word.
Because telling someone what you plan to do, and predicting what the elements are going to do, are two very different things. And while people might get annoyed by having their property spoiled by an unpredicted rainstorm, they are flatly terrified of unpredicted earthshakes. And rightly so since a rainstorm is only an annoyance; it is the earthshakes that can kill them.

Nevertheless, he went about taking care of the usual preparations for the start of the rains without any outward show that this announcement had set his heart racing. He and his dragon boy pulled the awning over Avatre’s pen, and over the pen that was currently Kaleth’s home as well. Anything that might be blown away was secured, anything that might be ruined by rain taken away and put in storage or under awnings. All over the compound, the same precautions and preparations for the rains were taking place, just as if this year was like last year, or the year before, or a hundred years ago.

But when Kiron came out of the vacant pen, he saw Aket-ten struggling with the heavy awning of Re-eth-ke’s pen, and he went to help her. She gave him a look of gratitude as he reached up with a rake and poked the place where it had stuck until it was freed, then helped her pull the canvas all the way across and secure it.

“I forgot you’d never done this before,” he said casually, and gave her a
look.

Tomorrow we go up,
that look said wordlessly. And she must have understood it, because her eyes narrowed, and she nodded.

“We ought to see if Vash and Letoth will fly in the worst of it,” she replied. “They’re the heaviest of the swamp dragons, the best-suited to storm riding, and it would be useful to know if we could put them up no matter what the conditions.”

Why, bless her, she thought of an excuse!
He had come up a blank, no matter how hard he had tried. It was a good excuse, too, because she was right. They knew that the swamp dragons would fly in rain, but would they fly in
storm?

“They won’t fly for their Jousters,” he said doubtfully, for the benefit of anyone who might be spying on them. “I’m fairly sure of that.”

There might not be anyone there, but there was no point in taking a chance. Heklatis had told them of a kind of magical spying that could be done, that not even his amulets could completely foil, using birds as the Magis’ eyes and ears. Since that time, during the day, under the open sky, they had been careful not to divulge anything that they didn’t
want
the Magi to know.

And there were a couple of rock doves perched up on the wall of Re-eth-ke’s pen. They’d fluttered up when the awning went by, but came right back down again. Spies? Or just birds who knew there was always some sort of food around the compound?

“They might not fly for their Jousters, but they will for me,” she said confidently. “I may not be good as a Winged Fledgling anymore, but I can still talk to beasts, and I can persuade even the dragons to do almost anything for me.”

“I’d rather you didn’t go up alone,” he said.

She gave him a fearsome glare, but replied, “I could fly Letoth, if you’re willing to try Vash. If you fly close, I’ll be able to speak to both of them and convince Vash to carry you.”

“I’ve flown Vash before,” he replied—an untruth, but the Magi wouldn’t know that. “She’s a lazy pig, but not so bad other than that; if you can get her up in the sky, I can control her. All right, we can try first thing in the morning. But if you aren’t ready to go when I am, you can forget it; I’ll tell Letoth’s boy, and Vash’s, too, you aren’t to go up alone.”

She made a rude face at him, which he ignored. “I’ll be up before you are,” she said, with just a touch of sharpness in her tone. “You just go get us permission to borrow them.”

If anyone was listening, they heard only that we’re going to try flying dragons in the storm. That can’t possibly be of any interest.
With that set up, he left her to ready Re-eth-ke’s pen for the rains on her own, and went off to report to Lord Khumun, to get permission for the borrowing from the two senior Jousters—and, as he had threatened, to tell Letoth and Vash’s dragon boys that they were not to allow Aket-ten to take a dragon out in the storm by herself. Aket-ten, for all of her bravado, would not dare to borrow a dragon without permission, for the senior Jousters might well take it into their heads to reward such impertinence with a thrashing. And it would not matter to them whose daughter she was; they had thrashed boys of higher rank than she was. They were technically her father’s equal in rank.

And they also knew that Lord Ya-tiren would punish his daughter himself for taking a dragon without permission. And so did Aket-ten. Indulged she might be, but she was not spoiled. Kiron had the distinct impression that Lord Ya-tiren had raised all of his children with a very clear set of rules, and the knowledge of what happened when you broke those rules.

She knew, of course, that she would get short shrift herself from the senior Jousters if she asked them—which was why she had told
him
to get the permission. They were still of the mindset that a girl of any rank was best employed in housekeeping and child rearing—or, if she happened to be a Winged One or a priestess or Healer, properly doing her job in the appropriate temple. Girls did not belong in the Jousters’ Compound, except as servants and entertainers. She had pushed the line by being a Healer for the dragons, but although that
pushed
the line, she had not quite crossed it.

But this business of flying a dragon had them looking at her narrowly. While they were grateful that she had stopped Re-eth-ke’s keening, and they grudgingly accepted that she had to fly the dragonet to keep it healthy and exercised, they were one and all adamant that a girl had no business thinking of herself as a Jouster. And only the carefully fostered illusion that Kiron and Heklatis were “in control of her” kept her from being snubbed, or worse.

So, it was Kiron, wingleader of his own wing, respected trainer and the boy who had worked out ways of making the smaller, lighter dragons able to challenge the larger desert dragons, who approached to ask permission to borrow Vash and Letoth. Kiron, the senior Jousters felt, had
earned
their respect. He was, if not quite one of them, certainly their equal.

“It would be damned useful to find out if we can get
anything
to fly in the worst of the muck,” said Vash’s rider thoughtfully, when Kiron approached him. “We might have an emergency where a dragon would be the fastest messenger, or need to fly a hit-and-run attack.”

Letoth’s Jouster said much the same, and added, “If you can get above the clouds, I’d bet you can teach that old sow it’s not so bad up there. You’ll have to go pretty high, though, and the winds will probably be fierce.
She
won’t mind, not while she’s working, but you might want to wrap up.”

“I’d thought about that,” Kiron replied, grateful beyond words that the Jouster had already outlined
exactly
what he planned to do. It made him feel better that someone with far more experience was warning him about things he’d thought of. Should anyone ask, in fact, he could say that he’d gotten advice from both senior Jousters. “I had one of the slaves copy the wool leg coverings and shirts that those amber-trading barbarians wear, and I got some sheepskins to wrap up in, too.”

The Jouster shuddered with the look of someone who did not care to find himself wrapped up in wool
at all.
“Better you than me, boy. Deflea yourself after, the gods only know where those sheepskins have been, or what they’ve collected.”

Kiron laughed, and promised, and went off to Lord Khumun to report what he and Aket-ten were going to do. And Lord Khumun gave him a look that asked,
Is this expedition concerning something I don’t want to know about?

Kiron gave a terse little nod, and went on with his explanation of what he and Aket-ten were going to wear to keep from turning blue with cold.

Lord Khumun gave his permission readily enough, and so the path was clear.

He could hardly sleep at all that night. He lay in the darkness, tossing and turning, trying to relax, and trying
not
to fly the whole plan in his mind, over and over and over—and especially trying not to think of all of the things that could go wrong.

Finally he managed to wear himself out so badly, that he fell asleep in spite of himself. Not that his dreams were any more tranquil, but at least they were dreams.

 

He woke, as he had last rain season, to the sound of thunder. The scent of rain pervaded everything, and over it, the odd, sharp smell that came when lightning struck nearby. Once again, he rolled out of his cot with the canvas of the awning over the pen glowing with continuous lightning.

This time, however, he pulled on a long-sleeved woolen tunic and a set of one-piece woolen leggings, and tied over them a couple of foot-shaped woolen bags to keep his feet warm. Wool, he had been told, stayed warm even when it was wet; if they managed to get above the storm, it would be freezing cold up there, and by the time they got there, they would be soaked. As it was, it was uncomfortably cold now, and the odd woolen clothing, heavy and clumsy as it made him feel, was rather comfortable.

He picked up a cape made of sheepskin, and padded past Avatre, awkward in the woolen foot bags. In the corridor outside, itself covered with an awning, there was no sign of life. That was odd; he would have expected to find Aket-ten dancing from foot to foot with impatience.

He went to Re-eth-ke’s pen and eased past the dragon to peek into Aket-ten’s sleeping chamber. The long lump under her blanket told him that she was still asleep. Very odd. He didn’t think she was faking it either.

He was dreadfully tempted then to leave her there and try to take up Vash alone—

But I told her it was too dangerous to go up alone under conditions like this,
he reminded himself.
She’ll never believe my cautions again if I turn around and go up by myself. Besides, without her, Vash probably won’t move.

He eased into the chamber, reached out a cautious hand and shook what he thought was her shoulder. It was hard to tell for certain; it was very dark in here, and apparently Aket-ten was one of those people who slept with the blanket pulled up over her head. There was a faint scent of flowers in the air; he thought it might be from the perfume cones she kept around. She seldom actually wore them on her hair or wigs as most noble ladies did; instead, she left them where the sun would shine on them, or where gentle heat from a brazier would release the perfume into the room.

As it happened, the thing he shook was her shoulder. And a grunt was her only response. He shook her again, harder this time. It was like trying to shake a rock outcropping.

“Mmph!”
she complained, without really moving much. “Wha—?” The blanket stirred a little.

“Aket-ten!” he said sharply, speaking loudly to be heard above the thunder, giving her a really hard shake. “Get up! The rains are beginning, and we need to take the dragons up in it!”

“Go ’way—” she mumbled, and pulled the blanket tighter around herself. She didn’t even react to his presence in her room.

He stood there, confused. She had been twice as eager as he to take on this task! What was her problem? He knew she couldn’t be sick. Had she changed her mind about going up? Surely not—

No, there had to be some other reason, and once again, he wondered why no one else seemed to find the terrible lightning storm overhead in the least disturbing.

It is thundering so hard I can scarcely hear myself think, yet everyone
but
me is sleeping through it, just like last time. I wonder—

It was beginning to look to him that the Magi had spread some sort of spell across the city to keep the sleepers in their beds until the rains were triggered by their magic. Could it be that the reason he was not still asleep was that he had not been born in Alta City? It was the only explanation that he could think of, though it was just as possible that he was unusually resistant to whatever magic they were doing. Some people were harder to drug than others; he supposed that some people were harder to cast spells upon.

It could well be, then, that the Magi were to blame for Aket-ten’s apparent sloth—but such idle speculations were not getting Aket-ten up.

He tried shaking her so hard he rattled the cot, with just about the same result. The harder he shook her, the tighter she curled up. Short of bringing a wall down on her, he didn’t think merely shaking her was going to do any good.

So with a sigh, he finally decided that he would have to resort to the unthinkably rude. Even serfs who had been worked to exhaustion and were more dead than asleep responded to what he was about to do.

He went out, got a pot full of cold water, came back to her chamber, pulled back the covers over her head, and dumped the contents of the pot over her face.

Then he jumped back and a good thing, too, because she came up with a yell, swinging wildly at the darkness around her. She was awake now, all right, angry, and spitting fury. And it was a good thing that she was still tangled up in her blanket, because she probably would have given him a bloody nose for his little trick.

But she was tangled up in her blanket, and the time it took her to struggle free was enough for him to protest and try to explain, with all the sincerity he could muster and from the other side of the chamber, “Aket-ten! I’m sorry! I swear I am sorry, and I will make it up to you! It was the only way I could wake you up, I swear to you, and I tried, I really tried!”

She stood there in the semidarkness, kicking free of the blanket, and he was terribly glad that it was semidarkness that filled the chamber because she wasn’t wearing anything at all beneath that blanket. All that wool suddenly felt very hot, and very prickly, as he flushed. Not that what she usually wore was much less revealing, but still—