Alta (53 page)

He gave her the signal to fly, and she leaped straight up from the pen, just as Kashet always had. He took her up over the compound and waited, circling on a thermal, while the rest finished their harnessing and joined him. They lined up in a V-shaped formation, with Avatre at the point, and headed for the practice grounds.

He was the target, since Avatre was the oldest and most experienced flyer. By now she could perform everything he remembered Kashet doing, which meant that she could outperform most, if not all, of the Tian dragons. The exercises they were all running now—which would be crucial very soon—were harassing maneuvers. Kiron had gone to the swamps and watched as the swamp dragons challenged each other and drove each other out of hunting territories. Then he had come home and taught the harassment techniques to the wing. Avatre hated this; what the others were doing spoke to her deepest instincts, and she wanted, badly, to turn on them. That she didn’t bespoke her deep bond of trust with Kiron; he only wished he could reward her patience as it deserved.

Tala
-drugged dragons would respond with irritation, but would continue to obey their riders. Undrugged dragons, or those for whom the
tala
was wearing off, would try to chase the interlopers out of their territory until they realized that the dragon was immature—he’d seen that, too, in the swamp. Then they would realize that there was a sky full of better targets and potential mates, and there were wretched little hairless baboons on their backs that should be gotten rid of before the proper business of draconic life could be taken up.

And that would be the end of the Jousters.

There was still one matter that he had not come up with a plan for—warning the Altan Jousters of what was to come. He wanted to do that; it didn’t seem at all fair not to. But there might be one or more among them who would tell the Magus, and he did not know what would happen then. . . .

But that was a week or more away, and he still had time to think of a plan, or so he hoped.

They arrived at the practice field, which was just on the inside of the Seventh Canal. On the other side were the great estates and small, unprotected villages. He was not particularly surprised to see that there was a crowd gathered to watch. At least, this was so far out that it was unlikely there were any Magi here to note that they were
not
practicing traditional Jousting. He set Avatre up; the others went higher; each of them would take it in turn to harass her. She hissed; she knew what was coming, and she hated it.

The wild-caught dragons would hate it even more. And when the battle was over, and all the dragons scattered, Kiron’s wing would fly due west until—well, probably until they picked up a guide at the edge of the desert. Kashet had found them once; presumably he would find them again. It was a more tenuous plan than Kiron liked, but it was a lot less fragile than it had been before Marit and Nofret had been forced to flee.

The search for them had begun—discreetly—two weeks after their actual escape, but it had not been kept quiet for long. Too many people knew, and more people were involved all the time as the search spread outward. Nothing had been found; their choice of collaborators had been perfect. Not that this had stopped the Magi’s plan; the “twin” Magi had simply been rebetrothed to another set of girl twins—only this was a pair of toddlers. The marriage would not be able to take place for another decade at best, though this was nothing more than a postponement.

Given their recent record, it was entirely possible that the spouses of some other set of royal female twins—including the current Heirs-apparent—might come to an unfortunate end. People would talk, but if nothing could be proved. . . .

Huras and his dragon came down first. Kiron ducked, as they few by close enough that Tathulan’s talons brushed his back. Avatre snapped; he didn’t bother to stop her reflexive action, because their enemies would do the same, and he wanted the youngsters to learn to avoid the deadly jaws. Tathulan dodged neatly out of the way with a squeal, and Huras side-slipped her out of the way.

It was all horribly depressing, and it made Kiron want to throw himself into a canal and drown sometimes. Only the promise of Kaleth’s visions kept him going, these days, for if things in the compound were bad, things in the city were worse.

It seemed as if every time he looked, someone else had been taken up for treason. The Temple of the Twins was actually closed; supposedly, because the Winged Ones were so important to Alta, they were husbanding their strength so that they could answer the Great Ones’ needs on the instant. Kiron knew the truth, though, and it was exactly as he and Aket-ten had feared.

The Magi had exhausted the Fledglings completely, leaving many of them without power anymore, and even some feebleminded or comatose. The Winged Ones, older and stronger and better trained, had resisted being burned out in that way, and now that the rains were over, they might be left alone to recover. But with no new Fledglings left to train to replace those who had failed—and another season of rains ahead—there was no telling what was going to happen. Certainly the people of Alta were now vulnerable to earthshakes in a way that they had not been for generations. And already there had been mutterings about “testing” the Healers to see if they could “aid” the Magi as well as the Winged Ones could.

Heklatis said that there was rebellion among the Healers, though; so much so that no Magi would be allowed to get near the Temple of All Gods, much less inside it. And if anyone tried—well, they would have to bring a force big enough to overpower all the Healers and all their servants, and there were weapons being improvised that would probably break any spells of coercion such as were apparently used on the Winged Ones. Heklatis said such things required the Magi’s concentration; they’d be hard put to concentrate after getting facefuls of vinegar or lemon juice—or having leeches drop from the ceiling on them. If the Healers felt savage—

Re-eth-ke and Menet-ka’s Bethlan came in together, one on either side of him, moving fast. Fast enough to knock Avatre down a few feet with the turbulence of their passing. Avatre was too busy trying to recover to notice that Orest’s blue Wastet was right behind them; he came in low enough to snatch one of the tear-away streamers from Avatre’s saddle with his foreclaws. Avatre was enraged, and gave chase; Kiron was thrilled. They could get an entire wing aroused with a single pass with moves like that!

And just as Avatre started to gain on the fleeing dragonets, they parted, going left, right, and straight up—and there, coming straight at them, was Oset-re and Apetma. Avatre yelped, and folded her wings to drop. Apetma passed right through the spot where she had been.

Poor Avatre had had enough. She went all the way to the ground, and Kiron had to spend a goodly amount of time soothing her hurt feelings while the others chased after each other to catch streamers in a general melee. She might have a ruffled temper, but he was extremely satisfied. The
tala
could run out tomorrow, and they would be ready.

Except for telling their own Jousters what was about to happen.

He still had no answer for that question.

When they got back to the compound, they all landed in the landing courtyard; not even Avatre was quite skilled enough yet to land in her own pen. Once down, he made sure to spend some time walking Avatre around to all the other dragons before they all went back to their pens, to make certain they were all friends again. Aket-ten went with him, “talking” to Avatre about it, and to the others as well.

“Does it do any good?” he asked her anxiously as they walked Avatre and Re-eth-ke back together. “Do they understand?”

“Actually, I think so, more each time we do this.

Avatre understands that this is part of training, and I
think
she understands that the others are harassing her because their riders are asking them to, not because this was their idea.” She smiled slightly. “I was going to say, ‘not because they want to,’ but I’m afraid they get a great deal of gleeful pleasure out of harassing her and getting away with it. But it’s like good-natured children being given permission to be naughty, not real aggression.”

“Good,” he said, with a sigh of relief. “The last thing we need is to have them start attacking each other right now.”

They parted then, with Aket-ten taking Re-eth-ke on back to her pen, and Kiron turning into Avatre’s. He and his dragon boy got her unharnessed and fed; once she had settled, he went to see Heklatis.

He found the Healer with one of the senior Jousters, splinting a broken arm. Kiron was shocked; a broken arm was not the only injury the man had sustained. His face was a mass of bruises, and so was the half of his body that had the broken arm.

“What happened?” he blurted.

The man grunted. “Strap saved my life. Tian had a lance with a wood core and a stone tip inside the papyrus. If I hadn’t been belted into the saddle, I’d be dead.” It was a little hard to understand him; his lips and jaw were so swollen that his words were slurred and muffled.

“They were following orders,” Heklatis said neutrally. “They were Jousting. However, no one told them that the Tians had new lances.”

“Bigger dragons to start with,
and
lances like that—we’ve not got a chance,” the Jouster growled. He might have said more, but at that moment, Lord Khumun, and what seemed like all of the senior Jousters in the compound descended on Heklatis’ quarters like a storm. All of them were shouting, or at least talking, at once, and all of them were angry. Heklatis shook his head at them; Kiron couldn’t make out more than a word or two either. Finally Lord Khumun held up a hand for silence.

Miraculously, he got it.

“What is this all about?” Heklatis asked, aghast.

“The Magus just gave orders that every senior Jouster is to fly
every
flight, no matter what!” shouted someone from the back. “He included everyone on the injured list
by name!
Even you, Ah-sheptah!”

“What?”
The injured man and Heklatis spoke—or rather bellowed—at the same time. The cacophony started again. Lord Khumun held up his hand, and it died.

But it was Kiron who spoke first. “My Lords,” he said, enunciating each word with such care that he was sure even the most stupid of them would understand that he meant something far more than he was saying. “I do believe that my wing and I can help you with some new strategy. Will you rouse your mounts and come with me to our practice field? Lord Khumun, I can take you, Heklatis, you should go with Aket-ten, and my Lord Ah-sheptah, I believe you ought to ride behind Huras, rather than flying just now. Will you come?”

They stared at him for a moment, as if he was a baboon that had somehow produced human speech. Then Lord Khumun said, “Jousters, I think this is a
very good idea.
We need to
practice
where no one will
interfere
with us—”

There were still looks of total bewilderment, but no one demurred. In fact, after the first few began taking hesitant steps toward their dragon pens, the rest followed. Kiron and Heklatis helped the injured Jouster to his feet, and made their way to the boys’ pens. Fortunately, he met them in the corridor just as they were about to go elsewhere.

“Get the dragons harnessed and up,” he ordered shortly, to their astonishment. “We need to go to the practice field. Aket-ten, you have Heklatis, Huras, you take this man. Fast! I want to get there and back before anyone notices!”

The wing understood, at any rate. And to his immense satisfaction, although they were the last to know, they were all the first into the air, even Huras, with the injured Jouster.

They led the way to their field, and landed there. The dragons had all just been fed (and drugged) and were sleepy—and while they were irritated at being forced to fly, they were inclined to lie right down on the warm grass in the sun and bask rather than quarrel or wander. Simply staking their reins down kept them in one place. The Jousters all gathered around Kiron and Lord Khumun, who both looked to Heklatis.

“Give me a moment,” the Healer muttered. He closed his eyes, and began to chant under his breath, and shortly he was sweating as if he was trying to shove a heavy stone up a ramp all by himself. He grew paler, too—and just when he began to sway a little with exhaustion, he stopped, opened his eyes—and sat down hard in the grass.

“They won’t find us, not for a while,” he said heavily. “And if they try to scry, what they’ll see is all of you practicing up there—” he pointed at the sky above.

“He’s a Magus, as well as a Healer,” Kiron explained to the baffled faces. “And—that’s where our story begins, I suppose.”

He explained everything; Toreth’s original plan, and why he had decided to make the Jousters into a force to make the Tians forge a real peace, their long discussions, the change in the plan after Toreth’s murder by the Magi, Kaleth’s visions—and finally, what they had done to the
tala.
“In a few days, you’ll be using the new stuff,” he told them. “And so will they. Once the dragons aren’t drugged anymore, we thought they would probably obey for a while out of habit, but we planned to go along on one last flight and—goad the Tian dragons into rage, so they’d throw their riders and escape. We were going to warn you so that you could ride your dragons down to the ground and turn them loose.”

Silence. Kiron began to sweat. Told out like this, to senior Jousters—it didn’t seem like such a good plan anymore.

“The Magi are trying to kill us anyway,” growled the injured man. “Isn’t that obvious? It’s better to be a live dog than a dead lion!”

After a moment, there was some muttering of agreement. “But why?” asked someone else in a bewildered voice. “That’s what I don’t understand!”

All eyes went back to Kiron, who was still in a cold sweat. “I don’t know,” he said finally, “but at practice today, I started to wonder something. What if they wanted to replace all of you with their own men? I mean—Heklatis thinks that the Eye can’t be used on cloudy days or at night, and it’s not really good enough to get one person—but a dragon and rider are. What if he wanted to replace all of you with men who would—follow orders, and if those orders were to use your dragons on Altans, would do it without question?”