Alta

TEN

“KIRON! Kiron!” The frantic shout from the pen ‘next to his startled Kiron out of a sound sleep, and it was only thanks to his “training” at the hands of Khefti-the-Fat that he came awake all at once. “Kiron!” the shout came again, and this time, amid the startled replies and complaints all around him, he knew where it had come from and who it was that had called him.
And he grinned, in spite of the panicked tone of Menet-ka’s voice. There was only one reason for that level of panic at this particular time, coming from Menet-ka.
The first egg was hatching.
Kiron had actually been expecting this for the past couple of days, and had advised Menet-ka to move a pallet down into the sand next to the egg so that if it began to move, he would know immediately. Not that this would make a great deal of difference to the hatching egg, but it would to Menet-ka, whose hair had begun to stand on end from the shy boy’s new habit of constantly and nervously running his fingers through it. So, like Avatre, these babies would be born amid thunder and rain. He considered that a good omen.
And another good thing—though not an omen—was that Menet-ka had begun to come out of his shell since the hatching was so near, to ask questions of Kiron without whispering or mumbling them.
He pulled on a wrap and kilt, ducked under the curtain of water pouring off his awning, went out into the corridor, and poked his head through the door to Menet-ka’s pen.
“So the youngsters will be born amid lightning, just like Avatre! That is a fine omen!” he said heartily.
Menet-ka just stared at him, as if he hadn’t any idea of what Kiron was talking about.
With a sigh, Kiron ducked through a second curtain of water and waded out into the sand to see Menet-ka hovering over the rocking egg, looking very much as if he was going to start pulling his hair out in handfuls next. It might be the middle of the night, but there was no problem seeing him or the egg; Menet-ka had surrounded the pit with lamps nestled into the sand.
“Besides being a good omen,” he added helpfully, when the other boy looked at him in doubt, “the one big problem with any kind of hatching egg is drying out in the middle of the process. And it certainly isn’t going to dry out in this weather!” He waved a hand at the water cascading down off the awning into the deep channels cut especially to drain it away from the hot sands. The sheeting rain glinted like fabric made from glass in the flickering lamplight. In fact, it looked almost as if he and Menet-ka and the egg were entirely enclosed in a room hedged in by water.
Why is it, I wonder, that babies of all sorts always choose to arrive in the middle of the night, in the middle of the worst weather possible?
This time, he had a hammer—something he had not had when Avatre hatched. He listened carefully to the egg, putting his ear down against the rocking shell, until he found the spot where the tapping was coming from inside.
“Here,” he said, handing the little stone hammer to Menet-ka, and tapping the spot with his index finger. “Use that here. Just tap, don’t hit. Remember what I told you, and how we practiced on ostrich eggs. You want to help him crack the shell; he’s trying to make an air hole.”
“But—!” Menet-ka wailed—but he took the hammer in a hand that shook like reeds in the wind, and he gave the shell a tap. Not too hard, and not too gently. Kiron was proud of him.
The tapping from inside stopped for a moment, then began again, with renewed vigor.
This was the problem with something as big as a dragon egg. In order to protect the dragonet growing inside, it had to be thick and hard. But when the time came for hatching, it was too thick and hard for the baby to break out unassisted. Dragon mothers helped their eggs to hatch, though no one had ever seen exactly how. They didn’t have beaks to hammer at the shell with, nor did they have hands that could hold a rock. But when Ari had spied on the nests of the wild ones, he had heard them working at the outside of the hatching eggs, so he had known that he would have to help Kashet when the time came.
Ari had in turn told the story any number of times to anyone who would listen. Foremost among the listeners had, of course, been his dragon boy—then called “Vetch,” now called by his proper name.
The moment when the egg actually cracked all the way through was marked by a sudden change in the tone of the hammer strike. “Stop!” Kiron said, holding up a hand, but Menet-ka had already stopped, and was watching the “soft” spot breathlessly.
A moment, and then the egg rocked violently, a little triangle of shell popped up, and the end of a snout poked out.
The lamplight was too dim to make out the color, but it was dark, so the dragonet was probably going to be dark, too. “Is he all right? Is he breathing?” Menet-ka asked, on fire with anxiety.
“He’s fine; he’s got his air hole now, he’ll take a rest for a little. Won’t you, my lad?” Kiron crooned. In the lamplight, the tiny nostrils flared and relaxed, flared and relaxed, as the dragonet took in his first lungfuls of air.
While the last of the night ebbed, and the sky gradually lightened to gray, Kiron directed Menet-ka in the hatching of his egg. Once the others were awake, they gathered around to watch, each of them knowing that when the time came, it would be he who hovered over the rocking egg with a hammer, listening intently to discover where the dragonet within was chipping now, and adding carefully measured hammer blows to the outside.
And at last, as Kiron had known it would, the egg rocked violently one last time, and broke into two uneven halves, and the new dragonet sprawled out of it and into the sand. Menet-ka gave a cry of joy, and Kiron plucked the hammer out of his hand as he flung himself at his new charge.
“Right,” he told the others, who were crowding closer for a look. “Out, all of you. This baby needs one mother, not nine, and he—” he took a look back over his shoulder and corrected himself, “—she won’t know who it is if you’re all shoving your faces at her. Don’t worry,” he added, as he herded them out before him. “You’ll get your chances soon enough. In fact—Gan, your egg isn’t that much younger than Menet-ka’s and I’d be surprised if yours didn’t start to hatch by tomorrow morning.”
That at least sent Gan scrambling back to his pen, and the rest of them realized that in the excitement they had all forgotten about breakfast.
The baby would be fine for a bit without food, and so would Menet-ka, even though the latter didn’t have a yolk sac to absorb. Kiron had his own leisurely breakfast, and went to check on Avatre, who was trying with all her might to find out what was going on in the next pen without shoving aside the awning and getting her head wet. He remembered how she had looked when she first hatched, like a heap of wet rubies and topaz. He had known then that she was going to be beautiful, and she was certainly fulfilling his every expectation.
She whined at Kiron as soon as she saw him. He grinned. “All right, my love. Come along, I’ll show you.” He put a hand on her shoulder—it was so ingrained in her never to leave the pen without him that he didn’t need to chain her—and led her to the pen next door. She didn’t like going through the dripping water—but then again, she wanted to see what was going next door so badly she put up with it.
Cautiously, she craned her head and neck around the door, and snorted with surprise at the sight of the baby. Menet-ka was oblivious; he had the dragonet’s head in his lap, and its wings spread out on either side of it atop the sand to dry, utterly absorbed in his new charge.
“So,” Kiron asked his own charge. “What do you think?”
He had been right; this baby was going to be one of the dark ones, an indigo-blue shading to purple on the extremities and in the wing webs. Avatre stretched her neck out a little farther, without going one step more into the pen, and snorted again, then turned her head to look at him.
“Oh, no!” he told her, smothering a laugh at the sight of her widened eyes. “That’s Menet-ka’s baby, not mine!”
She snorted a third time; then, evidently content and having seen enough, she pulled her head back and nuzzled his hair, relaxing all over. He patted her shoulder, and was momentarily nonplussed to realize just how much higher it seemed than the last time he’d patted it. Great good gods, she’s putting on another growth spurt! At this rate, she’ll be big enough to fly combat within a few moons! He didn’t recall the Tian wild-caught dragonets growing that fast. Perhaps tala did slow their growth.
But he put that thought aside, and led her back to her pen. “No fear, my love,” he told her, making a caress of his voice. “No one could ever take your place.”
She gave him a look of renewed confidence with a touch of arrogance, as if to say, “Well, of course not!” and flung herself back into the hot sand of her pen. He laughed, and went to get a bucket of finely chopped meat and bone for the baby’s first meal.
They all had dragon boys, of course—not that Kiron ever called on his very much—and the first order of the day was to show Menet-ka’s boy exactly how small to chop up the baby’s meal. “And make sure to get plenty of bone into it,” he advised, “and some hide and hair. Do you know why?”
The dragon boy shook his head, but looked attentive; that was a good sign, evidently Lord Khumun had made a point of picking out boys who were actually interested in the dragons, and not just taking this as another job.
“The baby needs bone to make bone of his own,” Kiron explained, “And the hide and hair help keep his insides clean.”
“Oh—like a falcon!” the dragon boy said, brightening. “And like the hunting cats eat grass.”
“Exactly.” Kiron beamed at him, and the boy flushed with pride at getting the correct answer. “You should also add clean organ meat, too. I know it’s a nasty job, but it has to be done. Avatre likes hearts especially,” he added as an afterthought.
“Falcons need organ meat too,” the boy said, nodding as he chopped the meat into the right-sized bits. “I used to take care of falcons. That is, I did the cleaning and feeding, I never got to handle them—”
“Well, I was a dragon boy, and my master was a dragon boy, so do your work well and one day there may be an egg for you, too,” Kiron said, and the boy’s face lit up. He carried the bucket of bloody bits off to Menet-ka with the air of one carrying a holy relic, and Kiron had to repress a smile.
“Lan-telek!” he called, gesturing to his dragon boy, who was waiting hesitantly just beside the door of the butchery. “Avatre’s putting on a growth spurt. I think we’ll need two barrows each today if she is. Chores don’t stop because there’s a new dragonet in the pens.”
“Yes, sir, Jouster Kiron, sir,” said the dragon boy, bobbing his head awkwardly, and trundled a barrow up to the butcher.
No, chores didn’t stop. Dragons were whining for their breakfast. And today there was one more than there had been yesterday.
A good omen.

Just before the rains ended, there were eight new dragonets in the pens. All of the eggs had hatched successfully. Menet-ka’s female was the indigo-purple, Orest ended up with a brilliant blue male the color of a beetle’s wings. Kalen got a brown-and-gold female, Pe-atep a scarlet-and-sand male. Gan found himself with a solid green male, Oset-re with a coppery female shading to red. Huras the baker’s son got the biggest and most striking dragonet of all, a blue-to-purple-to-scarlet female that weighed almost twice as much on hatching as the others—Jousters were still coming to have a look at her, for she was a real beauty, and no Altan had ever seen such a dragonet before. And Toreth got the quietest, another female, a blue-black shading to silver-blue, who, if she was not the largest or the most brightly colored, already showed a striking level of intelligence.
All of them were demanding. All of them were constantly hungry. Kiron was getting a good idea of how lucky he had been to get Avatre, who had been quiet and good compared to this lot. They certainly kept their “mothers” on the run.
Now the boys were finding out exactly how much work it was going to be to raise a dragonet.
There was not one complaint out of the lot of them. Not even a whisper of a complaint. Not even from Orest, who was now so busy that all of his “outside” friends never saw him anymore, unless they came to the compound—and even then, they found themselves playing a poor second to Orest’s beloved Wastet. Orest was as utterly besotted as Kiron had been, and it was his friends who were doing the complaining that Orest was “not amusing anymore” and “had no time for gossip.”
Toreth might have missed this new maturity, but his twin Kaleth—without the preoccupation of a dragonet—did not. So after the first moon, with no sign of lapsing on Orest’s part, not even when he was so tired by the time the sun went down that he was staggering, Orest became the last of Kiron’s Wing to be taken in and made privy to Toreth’s plans for the future.
For by then, the first growth spurt was over; with Avatre’s history in mind, and comparing all the dragonets, Kiron had the notion that this was the point where the first “failures” generally occurred in the wild. If parents couldn’t manage to bring enough to satisfy all of the dragonets during the point where they were the most vulnerable and needed one parent with them constantly, it would be the smallest and the youngest who failed to compete for food and died. That was perhaps why there had been so much whining and begging in the first moon—although they were not sharing the same nest, they could hear each other, and every time one started begging, it would set the rest off. It was competition to live, competition for the next mouthful, because things might thin out at any moment, and the dragonet that got the most food now was that much closer to making it to fledging.
Now, though, they all had put on enough weight that they had a small reserve, and the constant begging eased off, much to the relief of their riders and all those who had to come anywhere near the pens.
All nine human members of the wing gathered in Avatre’s pen—Avatre regarded them with a sleepy, indulgent gaze, too old now to be disturbed by voices and lamplight if she chose to sleep. They had discovered that although the rains were over, it was still necessary to keep the awnings up over the pens after dark, for every night, a great storm would sweep across the city, coming from the sea, speeding southward and growing in strength as it moved. These, Kiron had to presume, were the out-of-season storms that had so crippled the Tian Jousters; the Magi had, predictably, not troubled themselves to warn the Jousters of the little fact that the storms would be continuing after dark. It was just a good thing that everyone had felt the storms building and had rushed out to cover the pens before much rain came down. They were, however, relatively minor, coming as they did in the night, without the added energy that the heat of the day generated farther south. The Altan Jousters were hardly affected at all, except for needing to draw the awnings over the sand pits. Not so the Tians; Altan patrols found the storms raging over Tian territory vicious enough that they had to turn back at the border.
And not so the poor Fledglings. They were still being taken, but now it was under cover of darkness, rather than just after dawn. Kiron tried not to think about their plight too much. There wasn’t anything he could do for them—though Toreth had told him in confidence that Kaleth was going to try to find out, if not what was being done to them, at least how they were faring. But he couldn’t help thinking about them, even tonight when he was enjoying the company of the others, when the storms rolled overhead, moving for the south.
“Kiron,” said Gan, recapturing his attention, “when do you think the dragonets will fledge?”
He shoved his concerns to the back of his mind. “I think, given how fast the babies are growing, that you’ll be riding them when the kamiseen starts,” Kiron told them all. “They seem to be growing faster than Avatre did. I think it’s the amount of food they’re putting away.”
“They’re certainly doing that,” Huras said ruefully; his little one was eating half again as much as the others, and growing proportionately faster.
“Now, brother, you had better be glad of that,” Pe-atep said jovially, slapping him on the back. “You are no lightweight! It is a good thing that your little lady is going to be the biggest of the lot!”
“I may well be a lightweight before this is over and she is fully grown,” groaned Huras. “It seems all I do is run back and forth with her food!”
“Well,” Menet-ka said in his quiet voice, “according to Kiron, they’ll be doing more sleeping and be less demanding now. Since they’re bigger, they’ll be able to hold more food and can go longer between meals, I suppose.” He looked at Kiron, who nodded. “So we’ll have some freer time to read and plan what’s coming next?”
“More to the point, I think we need to begin Jousting training on the ground,” Kiron told them. “That was why I asked you to come here tonight. If the dragonets are up to flying by the time of the kamiseen, then once they get their skills, we must be ready to train them. You, Huras—there is something in particular I want you and Tathulan to train in—or to be more precise, there is a particular task I want you to train for.”
They way he said that got all of their attention. “Oh?” said Huras.
“You’re thinking of your mentor, Jouster Ari, and his Kashet, aren’t you,” said Toreth shrewdly. “You know we’re going to have to face him and I have the feeling that you don’t want him hurt.”
Kiron nodded. “Ari is honorable, and he has a conscience, and I know for a fact he has never harmed anyone who was not fighting him,” he replied. “And he is my friend. In fact—he is more than my friend.” He looked around the little group. “It is time that I told the true tale of my escape from Tia.”
As all of them hung upon his words, he softly related how Avatre had unexpectedly fledged, and how he had been pursued by Tian Jousters—how they managed to outdistance all but Ari—and how, seeing Ari, he had tried to fall to his death rather than be captured and see Avatre taken from him. It had been long enough now that all of them were as besotted with their dragonets as he was; he could see it in their faces that they understood when he told them that he would rather have died than lose her, and rather die than see her torn from him and given over into the care of someone who saw her only as another weapon of war.
He told them how Ari and Kashet caught and saved him—and then how Ari became the co-conspirator in his escape, even to giving his own Gold of Honor to the Bedu to pay for their help.
When he was done, he saw a change in their faces. Until today, even Jouster Ari had been just another faceless Tian enemy. Now, though they did not know Ari as he did, they did know that none of them could kill him.
“There was not a dragon alive that could best Kashet, until now,” he continued. “But Huras, when she’s full grown, your Tathulan can. She’ll outweigh Kashet for certain. I want to work out some way that we can drive Kashet to the ground and take Ari out of the combat without killing him.”
“All well and good,” said Toreth, “But then what?”
“If he’s grounded, it won’t matter,” Kiron said firmly. “And if, every time he flies to combat, he finds himself grounded, either he will stop flying combats and start doing something else, or the Captain of Jousters will find another job for him.” He shrugged. “The point is, he’s the equivalent of three Jousters; take him out, and we take out a third of a wing.”
Toreth nodded slowly. “I’d like to capture him, actually. If he’s as honorable as you say, we might be able to get him to swear to take himself and Kashet out of Tia altogether until the war is over.”
Kiron heaved a sigh of relief. “I was hoping you would suggest that,” he said. “I don’t want either of them to suffer.”
“Honestly, neither do I,” Toreth admitted with a smile. “I had much rather meet him, and one day learn from him. The first man to raise a tame dragon! I want to hear his story from his own lips.”
Kiron thought of Ari—how very lonely he had seemed to be, and how well he would fit in with this group. If only fate had not placed them on opposite sides of the conflict. It wasn’t fair.
Well, now, at least, he had the wing on his side. It would not be hard to persuade Lord Khumun that Huras should devote himself to taking the infamous Jouster Ari out of the sky. And after that—well, he very much doubted that the Lord of the Jousters would care what happened, so long as Ari and Kashet were no longer a factor in the fighting.
“The rest of us need to learn some new techniques, too,” he continued. “It seems to me that we ought to be able to outfly the Tians; I’m not entirely sure that we need to engage in close combat with them if we can find some other way of dealing with them. And it ought to be possible to train our dragons to put up with missiles going past their ears, too—Avatre has certainly learned.”
“You’re thinking of using bows?” Orest said, looking nervous.
He shook his head. “No. I was thinking of slings and clay pellets. Dragons have an instinct to snap at things going by their heads, and they tend to catch arrows in mid-flight—and the truth is, I would rather not interfere with that instinct. It might save our lives. But Avatre ignores clay pellets. You wouldn’t have to hit a man hard enough in the head to knock him out or kill him—all it would take would be a hit; he’d be distracted, or you might get a good hit on the arm and he’d lose his lance. Avatre learned to tolerate the sling whirling around quite quickly out in the desert. New techniques are going to make us ten times more effective than the Jousters who are not going to be ready for them.”
“For a while, at least,” Can said thoughtfully. “A Jouster being pelted could start to carry a shield. . . .”
“So you sting his dragon’s rump!” countered Oset-re. “No wild-caught dragon, no matter how much tala is in her, is going to react well to that!”
“As tough as their hide is, it would have to be a stone rather than a clay pellet,” mused Menet-ka. “Still. It’s a good idea, and it will nullify their numerical advantage faster than just getting equal numbers out there. Without the dragons giving the Tians the advantage, our casualty rate is going to drop, on the ground as well as in the sky.”
Toreth raised an eyebrow, and exchanged a significant look with Kiron. Kiron thought he knew what Toreth was thinking.
If the casualty rate drops, what happens to the Magi who are counting on a certain number of deaths to prolong their lives? Who will they allow to run short first? Themselves? Ha!
If the Great Ones were depending on magic to keep them going, and the magic ran out—well, they could very well die. And that could mean that Toreth and Kaleth would be on the Twin Thrones—and in a position to stop the war altogether—a lot faster than they had thought.
“That can only be good,” was all he said, and Toreth nodded.
The talk might have gone on long into the night if they had no one to think about but themselves—
—but of course, they didn’t.
“I have a hungry dragonet to feed in the morning,” Orest said, getting to his feet and stretching.
“As if the rest of us didn’t?” retorted Gan. “You’re right, though; morning is going to come far too quickly.”
The rest of them said their good nights and went back to their pens. All but Toreth, who lingered for a moment.
“Were you thinking about the Magi?” he asked, coming straight to the point.
Kiron nodded. “But don’t forget, they aren’t to be trusted,” he warned. “They could find some other means of gathering years. They haven’t resorted to outright, cold-blooded murder yet—”
“—that we know of—” corrected Toreth.
Kiron shivered involuntarily. “That we know of,” he agreed. “Still. If they were desperate—”
“Then we have to deal with them before they realize they are that desperate,” Toreth replied grimly. “Just so you know.”
And with that, he returned to his pen as well, leaving Kiron to put out his lamps and climb into his own cot.
His mind played host to some very disturbing thoughts before sleep finally claimed him.

“Father says they’ve taken the spy out of the household,” Aket-ten announced happily, the next time he came to visit her. “And the priest in charge of all of the Far-Sighted Winged Ones came to visit him right after.”
“Really?” he said. “I’ll tell you what, let’s take this into your garden. Just to be on the safe side.”
With the coming of good weather, it was possible to actually enjoy that courtyard with its latas pool that lay just outside her room. It was his considered opinion that she spent far too much time in the library, or otherwise indoors.
She nodded, and opened the door into the green space. It was a distinct improvement over being inside, especially on such a warm, pleasant day, with the scent of blooming latas in the air. The courtyard was covered in grass, not pavement, and the two of them were able to sprawl at their ease in the sunlight. Aket-ten brought a bread loaf out with her; it wasn’t long before she was breaking off crumbs to feed the fat carp that lazed in the pool.
“Now. This important priest came to see your father. Is that good or bad news?” Kiron asked warily.
“Good news,” she assured him with a laugh. “He told Father that none of the Winged Ones had sensed anything from me, and they were sure that if I still had my powers, I would have made every effort to Speak from afar with my teachers.” She giggled; he sensed it was because she was a little giddy with relief, rather than that she actually thought it was funny.
“So they don’t know that you don’t trust them anymore. Good,” he replied.
She nodded, and dusted the last of the crumbs from her hands. “He offered Father his condolences; Father said it made for an interesting conversation. It seemed as if—Father said—that he was disappointed and relieved, all at the same time.”
“Maybe he was,” Kiron said, thinking aloud. “If he’s really unhappy about the way that the Magi are using the Fledglings, he could be relieved that they aren’t going to be able to use you anymore. But on the other hand, since everyone thought you were going to be so strong in your powers, and now they think that you aren’t, he’s disappointed.”
“Well, he can just go on being disappointed,” she replied tartly—and resentfully. Not that he blamed her. He’d have been resentful and holding a grudge if he had been in her place. “And if he’s upset about the way the Fledglings are being used, why doesn’t he stop them? Anyway, Father thinks it’s safe for me to go back.”
Kiron sucked on his lower lip a moment. “It could be. But let’s think about how. I wouldn’t bet that the Magi are going to take the word of the Winged Ones as true. I don’t think the Magi trust anyone. I think that as soon as you are back in your home, they’ll send someone to have a look at you.”
“So?” she asked, hesitation creeping into her voice.
“So I think you ought to be ready to give them a show,” he told her, and he pushed himself up out of the grass. “Let’s go find that crafty Akkadian Healer of yours, and see what he thinks.”
The Akkadian—who was a short, bandy-legged fellow with a knowing look to him and a full, bushy head of silver-streaked, curly black hair—had plenty of ideas and was just as suspicious of the Magi as Kiron was.
“You’ll keep those amulets, of course,” he told Aket-ten, brusquely. “I don’t care how good those Magi are, my amulets will make them think you are a perfectly ordinary girl.”
It took them a little while to put the “show” together, but when they were through, even the suspicious Akkadian was satisfied that it was going to hold up to scrutiny. Furthermore, he agreed to be there the next time that Lord Ya-tiren came to visit, in order to add his weight of authority and experience to Aket-ten’s pleas for caution. Kiron went back to the compound feeling that Aket-ten’s safety was in capable hands.
Kiron was not there at Lord Ya-tiren’s villa when the cart from the country brought Aket-ten “back home” again, but as it happened, by purest chance he was visiting Aket-ten a day later, sitting with her in her courtyard, when a servant came and requested her presence in her father’s chamber. “My Lord said to tell you that there is a distinguished visitor to see you.”
Kiron and Aket-ten exchanged a glance; they both knew that “distinguished visitor” meant that one of the Magi had, as Kiron had predicted, decided to come to see for himself if Aket-ten really had lost her powers. “Tell my father that I will be there shortly,” she said.
“I’d like to come along,” said Kiron when they were alone in the courtyard again. “I’ve never seen a Magus. And Lord Ya-tiren didn’t say that you were to come alone.”
“No,” she admitted thoughtfully. “He didn’t. And he knows you’re here. I think that’s a good idea, and I have the feeling that he would like you to be there.”
So when a rather different version of Aket-ten emerged from her chamber, he got a chance to see what his suggestions and the Akkadian’s looked like in practice.
If he hadn’t known what was going on, he’d have been shocked to his toes by how wretched she looked.
Firstly, Aket-ten looked shrunken and unnaturally thin—which was the effect of wearing a gown that was two sizes too big for her, with a belt to match. That had been the Akkadian’s idea, to make it appear that she had lost an enormous amount of weight and might still be weak and sickly. Her hair was dull, lank and stringy (a bit of oil combed through it and dirt dusted in afterward). There were dark shadows under her eyes (a touch of kohl smudged beneath them) and her skin looked sallow (effective use of a very expensive bit of saffron rubbed into the skin to make it yellowed). The Akkadian had coached her on how to move; Kiron hadn’t seen that part of the preparations, but the clever Healer had evidently done a fine job of teaching her, for she looked timid, uncertain, and lacking in all self-confidence. He escorted her to her father’s private audience chamber, and had the satisfaction of seeing a startled look on the face of the stranger who was waiting there.
As he had said, he had never seen one of the Magi before; somehow he had gotten the image of a wizened, oily, unpleasant little sneak.
The stranger was indeed unpleasant, but it was because he oozed arrogance. Some might have considered him a handsome man, save for that. He was neither oily nor wizened, and gave no impression of being a sneak. Rather, he was out of the same mold as the most obnoxiously proud and self-assured Tian Jousters that Kiron had known.
He thinks that whether or not we know it, he knows that he is the master here. He knows that he can take whatever he wants, whenever he wants it, and there is nothing that we can do about it.
The man’s attitude put his back up, but Kiron controlled his reactions and his temper. The last thing he wanted the Magus to know was that he had the measure of the man.
He assumes I’m just a foolish boy, like Orest used to be. I want him to go on assuming that!
Aket-ten stood before the visitor with her head bowed, her shoulders hunched. The Magus looked down at her with a dissatisfied expression, but his words were pleasant enough.
“I am told that your powers have faded, young Fledgling?” he said, in a voice that would have sounded kindly if you hadn’t been aware of the anger beneath it.
“Yes, my Lord,” Aket-ten whispered. “I am sorry. All that I have left is the Speech of Beasts. I tried and tried, but—after that morning when—when the Magi came—to test us, they said—it was gone, all gone—” she shook her head, and her shoulders shook. The Magus hopefully took that for silent sobs, but Kiron had a feeling that she was shaking with rage. “I was so sick, after. . . .”
“I hope,” the Magus said, accusation in his voice, “that you are not implying that the Magus who came to test you somehow stole your powers from you.”
“Oh, no!” she whimpered. “No, I never intended that! No, it was something else—woman’s troubles—my own weakness—”
“A pity,” the man said, and his lip curled with contempt. It was just a momentary lapse, but Lord Ya-tiren saw it as well as Kiron, and although his lordship kept his face impassive, Kiron saw one hand curl involuntarily into a fist before Lord Ya-tiren relaxed it. “A pity indeed. Those who flower early often fade quickly, it is said. Too bad.” His voice held not only contempt, but anger, and perhaps a hint of irritation. “Well, the Speech of Beasts is hardly going to be of much use to your people and your country, girl. I suggest you get yourself a husband, then. This boy, perhaps, would do, if he is a friend of yours.” His eyes flickered over to Kiron, passing over him with no interest. “Pass your powers on to your children, and if the gods favor you, they’ll have more staying power than you did.”
Kiron found his jaw dropping at such cold, calculated rudeness, and even Lord Ya-tiren gasped with anger. But the Magus was turning away. “My thanks, and my condolences, my Lord,” he called over his shoulder. “I can find my own way out.”
Kiron held his breath; Aket-ten remained with her head bowed for a very long time—then, finally, raised it with a face full of mischief. “It’s all right,” she said, with some of her old merriness. “He’s gone, the arrogant pig!”
“For half a debek I would follow after him and beat him like a thieving slave!” Lord Ya-tiren snarled. “The nerve! To so insult my own daughter. In front of me, and in my own house!”
“You have your revenge in that you’ve successfully stolen what he wanted right from under his nose, my Lord,” Kiron reminded him. “And in fact, he has given you and your daughter every excuse you need to send her to the Jousters’ Compound. No one will think twice that she seeks to use the last of her Gifts there, and most will believe it is because she wishes also to have my company, and that you are not opposed to this.”
The moment the words were out of his mouth, he flushed. Not that he would have taken them back—
But Aket-ten gave him a significant look, and her father a speculative one, and when Aket-ten murmured, “And who is to say that I do not?” her father’s look of speculation turned to a sly smile. Kiron felt a wave of heat pass over his entire body, and the fact that he knew he was blushing only made him flush the more.
“That is a good plan,” was all that Lord Ya-tiren said, however—for which he was very grateful. “It takes her far from the Temple of the Twin Gods, so that there is little chance our ruse will be detected as she hones her powers in secret. The Magi visit the Jousters’ Compound so seldom that it is unlikely she will ever be forced to endure the company of one again. And she will be with her brother and her—friends. I will call upon Lord Khumun this very afternoon and arrange it.”
“Her help will be very much appreciated, I promise you, my Lord,” Kiron said hastily. “And with that in mind, perhaps I should return—tell the others—make preparations—” He knew he was babbling, but he couldn’t seem to stop his mouth from spouting nonsense. “She’ll be—we’ll be—good morning, then, to you both—I’ll take my leave—”
And with that, he turned and fled, and was only grateful not to hear Aket-ten’s giggles joining her father’s amused laughter.

When he got back to the compound, he found it in an uproar, but since virtually everyone was smiling, or even laughing, any alarm he had felt at the noise faded to nothing. And, eventually, he found out what the cause was.
Menet-ka’s imperious little indigo-purple dragon, living up to her royal colors, was not inclined to wait patiently for anything she felt she was entitled to. And when Menet-ka had not appeared the moment she bleated for her afternoon meat, she had elected to go and find it—and him—for herself. She had wandered the whole of the compound before she was through, sticking her nose into pens and demanding her “mother” and her food of whoever or whatever was in there. The wild-caught dragons all knew what a baby was, and even the swamp dragons began bellowing on her behalf for her mother, for although no dragon would tend the offspring of another unless its own young had died, all dragons protected and defended any dragonet. This in turn brought the dragon boys and anyone else within hearing, but since not one of them was “mother,” Bethlan ignored them. And they all wanted to see what she would do next. So Bethlan toddled up and down the pens, leaving noise and confusion in her wake, until, at long last, she found her “mother” Menet-ka in the butchery, helping his dragon boy chop up her meal. By this time she was so tired that Menet-ka and the boy had to load her up into a barrow and trundle her back to her pen. She was very tired, and a little cold, but no worse for wear, fortunately.
“If she’d gotten too cold, I think she would have joined an adult dragon in its pen,” Menet-ka told Kiron, still scarlet with chagrin.
“I think you’re probably right. She had the wit to come looking for you, I think she would have had the wit to go lie down somewhere warm,” Kiron agreed, covering his mirth. “I’m not sure I want to go putting barriers across the doors, though, just yet. Let’s wait and see if she does it again, before we think about doing that.”
“She won’t,” Menet-ka said firmly, ears still red. “I won’t let her get hungry again.”
In stark contrast to imperious little Bethulan, Pe-atep’s scarlet-and-sand Deoth was the shyest dragon Kiron had ever seen. When all the fuss had died down, and he checked on all the little ones to make sure they were in their pens, he found Pe-atep in the farthest corner of his, crooning over Deoth, who was shivering with fear and hiding his head in Pe-atep’s tunic.
“What’s wrong with him?” Kiron asked, but very, very quietly; he didn’t want to upset the little one more than he already was.
“Nothing really,” Pe-atep said, with far more calm than Kiron would have felt, it this had been Avatre. “He’s high-strung and sensitive, and I am glad it’s me that has him and not Menet-ka.”
“Why?” Kiron asked. Pe-atep raised his eyebrows.
“Well, the shyest rider with the shyest dragon? Think about it! We’d never get them off the ground!” Pe-atep ran his hands down the baby’s sides. “Poor little fellow. This happens in cats, sometimes; lions mostly, but sometimes cheetahs. One is born that just jumps at everything. You just have to coax them, and make sure that they never fail badly enough at anything to frighten them off it.” He chuckled, as the dragonet relaxed and stopped shivering. “There now, you see? It’s all right. Nothing bad happened, little one. I’ll want you lot to start coming into the pen at odd times, and bring a nice little tidbit with you every time you do. He has to start learning that new things can be nice things. It’s the only way to get him through this stage. But once we do, he’ll be as brave as a lioness, won’t you, my handsome fellow?”
“I’ll pass the word,” Kiron promised, and walked out softly but confidently.
As he told the others what Pe-atep had requested, he reflected that here, if he wanted it, was another omen. So far, it seemed that the dragonet was matched perfectly to the boy who had gotten it. Menet-ka had the boldest—who was pulling him into the center of attention, which was good for the boy. And Pe-atep, experienced handler of big hunting cats, had the shyest—he who was best equipped to handle such a problem baby out of his own vast experience.
So Toreth has the quietest but the smartest, I’ve seen that, too, already. And for someone who doesn’t particularly want to draw attention to himself right now, that is the ideal combination. I wonder if that means that Oset-re’s Apetma is going to shred his best tunics and kilts so that he loses some of that vanity? He already knew what Gan’s dragon meant to him—Gan, who had never taken anything seriously before his dragon hatched, was utterly, completely, wholeheartedly besotted. He was just as in love with the gentle Khaleph as Khaleph was with him. And as for Orest—well, Orest’s Wastet was, next to Bethulan, the most demanding of the lot. Everything had to be just so for Wastet—his meat chopped to a certain size, his pen cleaned at once, his water absolutely pure and fresh. There was no longer room in Orest’s world for “close enough.”
As for Huras—that was a perfect match, too. The huge Tathulen was so good-natured that the perfectionist was learning to slow down and relax a little. Huras was coming to understand that sometimes “close enough” was good enough.
Wiry little Kalen had brought all of his experience as a falconer to taking care of Se-atmen, who repaid his impeccable care with an outpouring of single-hearted love—which you just did not get from a bird of prey. So even Kalen, who Kiron had thought was probably the perfect candidate for taking care of a tame dragon without having to be taught anything, was learning something. . . .
And I am learning something from all of them, he thought, as he stood in the doorway of Avatre’s pen, and listened to the little sounds coming from all of the pens. Indeed I am. Now as long as I can keep a little ahead of all of them, we’ll be all right!