Alta

FOURTEEN

TORETH went white. “No—” he said, aghast. “Surely not—”
But Kiron saw by his expression that he really didn’t need to repeat his assertion; Toreth’s reply was not an indication that he didn’t believe his wingleader, it was more that the very idea of leaving the city defenseless against its worst threat was so unthinkable and appalling.
“I—” Toreth said, staring blankly into space for a moment. “This is evil hearing,” he said at last. “I would not have thought any creature of this city, be he never so base, would have put his own desires ahead of the safety of all.”
Kiron had had plenty of time to think about this before he took Toreth aside after dinner and told him what he’d seen. Several things had occurred to him.
Now, although he had been perfectly willing to accept as a given that the Magi were stealing the years of soldiers slain in battle to prolong their own lives, it had occurred to him that to the others, this was just idle speculation, a kind of ghost story. It was horrible to contemplate, and deep down inside, they didn’t truly believe it. And he could hardly blame them for their skepticism, for none of them had seen the blank-faced Fledglings being led away, nor the look of stark terror on Aket-ten’s face when she fled the Magi.
But if it was really true, then the victories of the Altan troops must have been maddening to them. Victorious armies do not take as many casualties as those that are losing. If they had come to depend on those stolen years, they must have been growing desperate. Desperate enough to take away a primary protection for the city and steal its power?
Desperate enough to take that protection away in the hopes of making up the falling number of available deaths?
Kiron thought it more than likely.
“Consider that our thought was right: they may have been battening on the deaths of Altan soldiers to prolong their own lives,” Kiron said bluntly. “Is it so short a step from stealing the years of dead soldiers to stealing the years of children crushed beneath a falling wall?”
“May the gods save us, if that be so,” Toreth said softly. “I find it hard to countenance—”
He doesn’t know how ruthless the very ruthless can be.
It made him sick, it made him angry. Here he had faced down Tian tyranny only to find it in the place where he had thought to find his sanctuary. He had thought that only the Tians were the evil ones in this war. He had been wrong. Evil flourished on both sides.
Active evil, and passive, in the shape of the Great Ones, who were supposed to protect their people and guard them, and who were happy to leave the real responsibility in the hands of others that they might have only the pleasure of the office, and not the duty. . . .
“Here is another prediction, then,” Kiron retorted, who had seen the fear on the faces of the Magi facing the mob. Men like that did not like being made to feel fear. When they got to safety, their first thought would be of revenge. “And if it comes to pass, then you may take it that the Magi are capable of every bit of that and more. The Eye of Light—”
“What of it?” Toreth replied, absently, still contemplating with horror the idea that anyone in authority could deliberately choose something that would cause so much death and devastation, purely so that he and his could profit from it.
“I believe the Magi will demonstrate it tomorrow,” said Kiron, his voice hard with anger. “Or the next day. Soon, at any rate. When they were set upon by common folk, it would hardly have pleased them, and they are going to want both revenge and a way to make the commoners fear them too much to interfere with them ever again. I believe that they will find some excuse—that there is a plague of rats there, or some other specious reason—to destroy the ruins in the neighborhood of the beer shop across the avenue from the Temple of the Twins. And I shouldn’t be at all surprised if perfectly repairable homes and businesses are turned to glass in the process.”
Toreth looked up sharply. “Why?” he demanded.
Kiron shrugged. “The Magi are men to whom little matters but their own good,” he said. “Like my old master Khefti. When anything bad happened to Khefti, as soon as he was over his first fright, he looked for revenge. I believe they will, too. If they have grown so great in their own minds as to place their power above the welfare of the folk of the city, they will have grown great enough to believe that whatever they want is also right and proper.”
“Ah, gods.” Toreth buried his face in his hands. “The rot goes deep,” he said, his voice muffled.
Kiron thought it best to leave him alone at that point. He had a lot to think about. In some ways, Toreth and Kaleth, raised amid the endless political infighting among the royal families, had been anything but sheltered. Still, there were other ways in which they had been very sheltered indeed. They had never seen evil, amoral men under conditions in which their evil was recognizable. They were so used to petty evil that they had a great deal of difficulty in believing in great evil. And they had not made the intuitive leap that those who practiced petty evil were perfectly capable of undertaking great evil, and lacked only the perceived need and the opportunity to do so. Kiron felt oddly sorry for him. He had once been certain that there were things in his world he could be certain of. Not anymore.
He stood in the corridor—still only partly cleaned up, and with fewer than a third of the lamps replaced—and debated telling Aket-ten what he had seen and heard. On the one hand, it could make her more angry, more fearful, or both. On the other—it might serve to warn her.
Not tonight, he decided at last. Not until things are closer to normal. Unless, of course, she insists on going where the Magi can find her.
As he turned into his own door, something struck him so forcibly that he stopped dead in his tracks. When he had first come here, he had only been afraid that he would not be accepted. It had never occurred to him that he would find Khefti’s form of evil writ larger among his own people. The rot went deep. Just how deep? Could it be cut out, or was it too deep to cut out without killing the tree? He had once told Ari and the Bedu that if he did not like Alta, or was mistreated there, he and Avatre would just leave. That was still an option—
But not before I make a stab at standing and fighting.
There was no such rot among the Jousters; he was fairly sure of that. Yet the Jousters were a tool, and the weakness of any tool is that it may be used all unwittingly. And there was the war to consider—the Tians would not cease from pressing their attack, no matter what was going on in Alta, nor would they stop committing atrocities on Altan villagers. Toreth’s plan called for negating the Tian advantage so that a real truce could be pressed for, by drastically increasing the number of Jousters.
But what if the Jousters could be eliminated altogether, from both sides?
The armies will have to square off man-to-man, and there will be very little that the Magi can do that will make any appreciable difference. Would that mean a change in their status?
Probably not. He sighed, and went straight to Avatre who was sitting up in her sand. Waiting for him, patient as a statue made of rubies and gold, but far warmer and infinitely more desirable.
He went to her and sat down in the sand beside her. No matter how bad things got, at least he had Avatre, and she had him.
He only hoped that Toreth got the same measure of comfort from Re-eth-katen, because tonight, he sorely needed it.

By morning there were rumors of the confrontation with the Magi “somewhere” on the Second Ring, but nothing was confirmed. Kiron kept his mouth shut, even around the boys, but Toreth looked very unhappy to hear Kiron’s story confirmed.
There were more rumors flying when he went out for the second day in a row to help on the Fourth and Fifth Rings. And this time, Menet-ka, Orest, and Oset-re took a turn in going to see their families. They let Huras go out for the second day in a row, because he was, indeed, helping his father to bake for the entire area—but he was not going to be restricted to walking. He was flying Tathulan; the heat from the ovens would keep her happy.
Kiron, however, was walking. He decided to make a detour across the Second Ring—considerably out of his way, but he wanted to see if there was any sign of yesterday’s near-riot. When he passed the Temple of the Twins, he saw that it was shut up tight, which was a very new thing indeed. There was some damage around the Second Ring, as he had seen yesterday, but with the exception of a few places like beer shops and markets, it was minimal. There was no sign of yesterday’s disturbance.
To say that things were in a state of chaos was a profound understatement, and the contrast between the Second and Third Rings, where rescue, cleanup, and even rebuilding were organized and well underway, was profound. No one was rebuilding in the Fourth and Fifth Rings. In fact, no one was really cleaning up. There was no organization, except as people organized the members of their own families into work parties. And if there was only one survivor left—well, that one person worked alone, moving the rubble, usually with bare hands.
The shake did not seem to have struck everywhere in the Rings with the same force. In some places, damage was minimal; in others, shocked and bewildered people sat outside the piles of broken bricks and cracked timbers that had been their homes, unable to comprehend what had happened to them, or were slowly and methodically moving over the piles, removing them brick by brick, hoping to find something to save—or someone. You could easily tell the latter. They were the ones working with tears cutting channels through the caked dirt and dust on their faces. They were the ones Kiron tried to help first.
Even when all he could do was to help move bricks. “Where did you see him last?” he would ask. “Where was she sleeping?” And the survivor, so choked with grief that he or she was unable to speak, would point instead. And Kiron would start, trying to pick a “safe” spot to pitch the rubble to, because he did not want to discover that the survivor had been wrong, and he had, all unwittingly, been piling more debris atop someone already buried. Yesterday had been bad after the first rescues were done, because the people he found were sometimes still alive, but one look told him that not even the finest Healer could save them. Today, at least as he worked, he knew that he was only going to recover the bodies so that the ghosts would not wander. Once he uncovered a hand, and once, a foot, and the survivor shoved him aside, weeping, to do the rest of the work. That was when he left, with his part over.
He was in the middle of what had been someone’s sleeping-chamber, when the cries and shouting began.
He’d had his back to the Central Island, so he didn’t see what everyone was shouting about directly—but suddenly, he had a shadow stretching out stark and black in front of him. Filled with a sense of dread, he turned.
Before he had half-completed the turn, he had to squint against the brightness. The slender reed of light cutting down from the Tower of Wisdom was too bright to look at, brighter than lightning, a painful blue-white rod that began at the tip of the Tower, and ended somewhere down in the Second Ring. He thought it was moving, although at the angle he was, it was difficult to tell. But there was no doubt at all that it was touching, and torching, something in the Second Ring.
Just as he had predicted.
Then, with no warning, it was gone, leaving behind an afterimage that crossed his field of vision in a dazzle of purple, and a burning, acrid scent in the air. Then as the after-image faded, he saw that there were fires in the Second Ring where there had been none before.
All around him, work had stopped as people stared, slack-jawed, at the fires and the place where the Eye of Light had cut across the Second Ring. There was absolute silence for a very long time, a silence heavy, and appalled, as if no one could quite believe what they had seen.
Then, into the ponderous silence, the sound of a single brick falling.
That broke the spell, and hesitantly, fearfully, people went back to work.
The rumors began to fly almost immediately. Most absurd, of course, was that the Magi had discovered a nest of subversive Tian priests—ones that had actually caused the earthshake—and had used the Eye to burn them out. Most prevalent, and most accurate, was that the only things that had been burned belonged to those folk on Second Ring who had confronted the Magi the night before. No one really bought into the first rumor, but there was no doubt that, whatever people might say, deep down inside the one that they believed was the second.
Kiron kept his mouth shut, volunteering nothing. Knowing the Magi, he would not doubt that there were spies about—or at least, people who would report what was said back to the Tower of Wisdom for a reward. Fortunately, no one knew he had actually been there when the confrontation took place, so no one asked him any questions. Once in a while, some of those he was helping asked him what he was and where he belonged, and he answered, truthfully, that he was one of the new young Jousters with the baby dragons. And for a moment, tragic gazes would soften, and perhaps, someone would say, “Ah. The pretty ones . . . but why are you here?”
“Because you need help,” he would tell them.
Shortly before noon, an official-looking fellow in an absurdly clean kilt showed up, took up a stance in the middle of what had been the street, and began shouting.
“All hear!” he cried. “All hear! Hear the words of the Great Ones to the people of Alta!”
Some folk dropped what they were doing to gather around him, but most simply went on with their work, keeping an ear and half of their attention on him. If this bothered him, it didn’t show. He looked bored with the entire proceedings, and a bit impatient, as if he wanted to get this business over with and get back to something important.
He was thin and energetic, with the look of a scribe and the lungs of a military commander. He wore a yellow-and-white sash running from his right shoulder to his left hip, and a matching striped headcloth.
“Who is that?” Kiron muttered to the man he was helping, in an undertone.
“Royal Herald,” the man muttered back, without taking his attention off the pile of rubble they were moving.
The man continued to shout his summoning call until he either grew tired of it, or figured he had gathered around all the people he was going to get.
“The Gods have unfolded to the Great Ones that the mighty earthshake was caused by the false Tian Priests!” the Herald proclaimed. “So subtle their work, and so wrapped in dark magic, that there was no foretelling that it would strike.”
“Bollocks,” the man with Kiron muttered. “If they were that good, they’d have flattened the Central Island.”
“When the damage to the First, Second, and Third Rings has been cleared, the army will send men and tools here.”
The man snorted. “By that time, we’ll have cleared it with our hands alone.” The back of his neck was red with anger as he turned away from Kiron, and he flung the piece of beam he had picked up with great force onto the pile of trash.
“The hiding places of foul spies of the false Tian Priests, the stores where they have secreted poisons and weapons, have been discovered on the Second Ring. In their wisdom, the Magi of the Tower have sent forth the Eye of Light to cleanse these places.” Kiron risked a glance at the Herald, and saw that the man was watching him and the house owner with narrowed gaze. “As more such hiding places are discovered, they will be cleansed, so fear not to see the Eye Opened, but rejoice that the Magi watch over all of Alta.”
Having delivered his message to this part of the Ring, the Herald did not wait for questioning, but strode on and outward.
The man with Kiron spat. “Bastards. ‘Poisons and weapons and spies,’ my ass! Places where people are asking questions is more like! Pockets of people wanting to know why the Winged Ones didn’t warn us!”
Another man in what was left of the next house over straightened and looked warningly at him. “I’d be careful about what I say, Atef-ka,” the neighbor said. “I’m not saying you aren’t right—but if you are, well—you saw their answer.”
Atef-ka looked bleakly at his neighbor. “Too right,” was all he replied, but both of them looked sick.
Well, for all that he had predicted just this action, Kiron felt sick, too. Sick, and angry.
He had to return to the compound to feed and exercise Avatre, and to do so, because once again bridges were closed except for certain “privileged” folk, he had to go to the Second Ring to get to the Third, and pass right by the site where the Eye had touched.
There was nothing there but a slab of glasslike, fused earth, still hot. Fires smoldered around the perimeter. And the silent, white faces of those whose duties kept them here said it all.
But when he got back to the compound, there was someone waiting for him, in his chamber, along with Aket-ten. Someone he had not expected to see there.
“Healer Heklatis!” he said in surprise. “But what—”
“The Temple of All Gods is no longer a safe haven for me,” the Akkadian said grimly. There was no smile in his eyes at all. “Or at least for my magic. I suspect a spy has been planted in the Temple of All Gods, and since the Magi are looking very, very hard for a mythical Tian Priest-Mage on the Second Ring, I deemed it wise to come assign myself to the military on Third Ring.”
“That is an ugly thought, Healer,” Kiron replied. “Though—maybe a wise one.”
“There is an uglier scar on the Second Ring, provoked by no more than a demand for truth, Jouster,” said Heklatis grimly. “And truth and trust are the means by which civilization holds off barbarism. When those in power intend to abuse that power, they look to an outside enemy in order to trick their people into pressing the means to their own abuse into the hands of the abusers. If an enemy does not exist, it will be manufactured, and all manner of horrors attributed to it, so that anyone who demands truth and accountability is set upon as being unpatriotic. And so that, when someone said to be an enemy is found, there will be few questions asked about guilt or innocence, and many faces averted when he is taken away.”
Kiron thought about his own experience in the Fourth Ring, and nodded.
“Now,” continued Heklatis, “I could remain in the Temple of All Gods and take my chances on being discovered as a clandestine Magus—and knowing that the Magi of the Tower are bent on finding a foreign enemy Magus, I think we can both see where that would take me. Since I do not desire to be cast into a dungeon to rot, or killed, or tormented to reveal what I allegedly know, I have come to offer my services to the military—the Jousters, to be specific, because I also have no wish to see the war from close at hand.”
“You have not come to me, I hope!” Kiron replied. “I have no power to engage you—”
“No, to Lord Khumun, of course, who has accepted me and my skills with thanks,” Heklatis responded. “Although he has told me to assign myself to the welfare of those on the Fourth and Fifth Ring during the current crisis. I confess that I am pleasantly surprised. I had not expected to find someone with a title who understands the responsibilities that should come with that title.”
“And does he know that you are a Magus?” Kiron asked sharply.
Heklatis shrugged. “I told him nothing but the truth; that Healers learn their trade differently in Akkad, which he already knew, and I feared that, being a foreigner, I might become a target for ill-will, which he quickly understood. If he asks, I will admit to him that I am also a Magus. If he does not, my silence is his best defense should I be traced here by your Magi.”
Kiron, who had been about to open his mouth to rebuke the Healer for not telling the whole truth, shut it again. Heklatis was right. “I hope you are going to be discreet, then,” he said.
Heklatis snorted, and favored him with a look of withering scorn. “I believe,” he replied, “that I am aware of the dangers. Especially as I was close enough to the lash of the Eye today to have cooked my dinner in its fires.”
“They gave no warning?” Kiron said, aghast. He had assumed that the Magi would at least have warned people that the punishment was coming! Even a moment or two would have been enough!
“None. And while I have not heard of any that died there, well, the question is, would I?” Heklatis asked. “After claiming first that they had found a plague spot, and when that was not believed, that they had uncovered a nest of traitors, would anyone come forward and say, ‘You incinerated my poor, innocent cousin without warning?’ I think it unlikely.”
Aket-ten had been silent throughout this conversation. Finally, she said, in a very small voice, “How can the Great Ones be unaware of this?”
“If they are unaware,” Heklatis said bitterly, “they must be complete idiots, and I had never heard that of them. Oh, they know. They just do not care—so long as what they wish is done. The Magi are too useful to them, for some reason, and they count the lives of mere Altan citizens of no account, I suspect. But they will never admit that they know what the Magi are doing, because then people would say that they did not care about untruth and injustice. And they will not welcome anyone who tries to enlighten them as to true conditions.”
“Oh—oh, no—” Aket-ten said in dismay.
“What?” both Heklatis and Kiron said sharply.
“Toreth—Toreth has gone to the Palace, to demand audience of the Great Ones by right of being the Heir,” she said, and clapped her hand over her mouth. “When the Eye was opened, he said that you had predicted this, and that the Great Ones must be told what the Magi have done!”
“The poor fool.” Heklatis slumped where he sat. “I only pray he has not signed his own death warrant.”
“But you fear he has,” Kiron said heavily. The Healer nodded, as Aket-ten looked from one to the other in horror.
“Surely not,” stammered Aket-ten. “He and Kaleth are the Heirs!”
But there are other Heirs, Kiron thought, and saw the same thought in Heklatis’ eyes.
“Well,” the Healer said, too heartily. “He and his brother are favored of the gods. Surely.”
“Surely,” said Kiron, who did not believe it at all.

Toreth did not return in time to feed his dragonet; they could not leave the poor thing alone, so Aket-ten did it for him, then brought in Wastet to play with her until they were both tired. At that point, Kiron decided that he had to tell the other boys of the wing just where Toreth had gone, and why.
Gan and Orest were the only ones who were truly concerned. The rest of them looked anxious for a moment, then Oset-re said, “Ah, he’s God-watched, that one! He can fall in the marsh and come up clean, with latas in either hand!” And the rest of the laughed, and each recounted some tale of how Toreth had always had the luck of ten men, and for most of them, their concern melted away.
Not for Kiron—and not for Gan and Orest either. He saw it in their faces and, no doubt, they saw it in his.
But Toreth did not return in time for dinner, and by that time, Kiron decided to go to Lord Khumun.
He did not tell Lord Khumun about their speculation—that the Magi were prolonging their own lives, and possibly the lives of the Great Ones, at the expense of others. He did tell Lord Khumun what he had seen—first the Fledglings, then the Winged Ones, being taken off by the Magi and returned looking drained. He spoke of the confrontation, the accusations, of telling Toreth about it, and his own prediction that the Magi would take revenge for the affront by using the Eye on those who had insulted them so gravely. And he repeated what Aket-ten had told him about Toreth. His Lordship heard him out, his face a mask, then shook his head. “The Magi are high in the councils of the Great Ones. I do not think you or Toreth truly understand their power. You should know I can do nothing against them,” he said heavily, with the sound of defeat in his words. “The Great Ones will hear no word against them.”
“And there are other possible Heirs,” Kiron replied, voice flat and dead, nausea rising in the back of his throat. His worst fears were confirmed—and despite what Lord Khumun thought, he understood only too well that the Magi were far more powerful than Toreth had believed.
Lord Khumun nodded, then mustered a smile. “But Toreth is a young man, a boy, even, and the hot words of boys are without meaning. I cannot imagine the Great Ones taking him seriously. They are probably administering a lecture to him about meddling in things he does not understand at this very moment.” His own words seemed to hearten the Lord of the Jousters, and he sounded more sure of himself. “He will be in disgrace for a time—but they cannot take him from the Jousters, and they cannot take his companions from him, and the gods know his heart is true. Go wait in his quarters for him, for he will probably be in need of his friends.”
Kiron bowed, and left, feeling himself divided by his emotions. On the one hand, he was very angry with Lord Khumun for not standing up for Toreth. On the other—he understood, only too well, that Lord Khumun’s hands were tied. And surely Lord Khumun was right; if anyone should know the way of things, Lord Khumun would. His fears must be unfounded. The Magi couldn’t take the words of even a young prince as a threat.
But— he thought, his mind darkening. Think how long they live, how far in advance they must plan. He is only a prince now, but even with magic, one day the Great Ones must die. And now they know that Toreth will never be won over.
So he did as he had been told; he went back to the pens, and waited, but as the time crept on, he felt his heart sinking. And his hope faded of ever seeing Toreth again. Little Re-eth-katen was unwontedly silent, and curled into her sands like a blue-and-silver shadow, ignoring him.
They will imprison him. They will have him exiled. No. No, he knows too much, and while he lives, he and Kaleth are still the Heirs. They dare not leave him alive. . . . He remained in Toreth’s pen, but with no hope.
So when the prince himself stumbled into the pen, near to dawn, Kiron at first thought he was a ghost.
He certainly could have been. He was as pale as if he had been drained completely of blood, his eyes were bloodshot and swollen, as red as the eyes of demons. And he stared at Kiron with no sign of recognition.
“Toreth?” Kiron gasped, “Prince?”
Toreth shook himself all over, like a dog. “They would not listen,” he said dully. “I never got past the first words. They told me not to meddle in things I could not understand. They treated me like a boy who has come to complain that a war chariot on the way to battle has broken his toy.”
“So—” Kiron dared to hope. “The Magi don’t know that you know what they are doing?”
Toreth shook his head. “No. Yes. I don’t know,” he said, finally. “I didn’t tell them. I hardly got more than a word or two in. I am disgraced, you see. They brought in my father, and lectured me in front of him. Then they brought in my betrothed, Nofret, and did the same. They cannot take my dragon, or my place in the Jousters, but they have made it clear that a dog in the street will have more chance for advancement from the ranks than I. I am not—quite—being declared a traitor. But I am being held up as an example of how dissension aids the enemy. They cannot cut me from the succession, but—oh, Kiron!—I had not seen them, close up, in more than two years, and now they looked no older than thirty! And the Magi are the same! I did not see a single gray hair among them all!”
So. They have another way to solve this. They can, and will, outlive us.
“At this rate, you will die of old age, and they will still be sitting on the Twin Thrones,” Kiron replied, a cold numbness spreading over him.
Toreth’s head sagged. “We are defeated,” he said. “And I am disgraced and friendless.”
“Ah,” said Gan, putting his head around the doorway, his hair all tousled from sleeping. “So I am no friend, then?”
Toreth started; clearly, he had been so sunk in his misery that he had not heard Gan come behind him. “No!” he protested. “But—surely your parents will not wish you to associate yourself with a known traitor—”
“My parents can take themselves off on a scenic tour of hell before they tell me who my friends will be,” Gan said pleasantly. “And I suspect every lad in the wing will say the same.”
“Besides, most of them won’t have to defy their parents,” Kiron pointed out. “Certainly Lord Ya-tiren has no love for the Magi. Enough of us are commoners that their parents will not care. We followed you before; nothing has changed that I can see.”
Toreth looked like a man who has suddenly been reprieved. “Do you mean that?” he pleaded.
“Of course he means it,” said Oset-re with irritation. “Didn’t we all stay up most of the night to greet you when you returned? Kiron is right, nothing has changed, except the opinions of a few stupid people whose parties you wouldn’t have wanted to attend anyway! Now go to bed, Toreth. We’ll discuss all of this later.”
He withdrew; Gan did the same. Toreth stared at Kiron as if he could not believe what had just happened.
“Go to sleep, Toreth,” Kiron said. “Oset-re is right.”
“But—” Toreth began.
“Go to sleep.”
Toreth stumbled into his chamber at the back of the pen, but at least now he looked less like a walking corpse. Kiron went back to his own pen, tiptoed around Avatre, and settled back into his cot for a little more precious time before he had to get up.
But he had trouble finding sleep again. Too many thoughts were buzzing in his head. Finally he got up, and went to see if Aket-ten might be awake at this early hour. She had always been used to going to the Temple for Dawn Rites—was she still waking that early anyway?
She was.

He found her in the courtyard of her chambers, and with her, Heklatis.
“Toreth came back,” he said as they looked up, and gave them the gist what the prince had said.
Heklatis heaved a sigh of relief. “They looked at him and saw a handsome, muscle-bound fool,” the Healer replied. “Good!”
Aket-ten looked almost faint with relief.
Kiron felt a stab of that same emotion he’d gotten at the thought of anyone else riding Avatre. This time he knew it for what it was.
Jealousy. He was jealous that Aket-ten should be that concerned for Toreth. It shocked and surprised him to the core.
He covered it by going in and sitting down. “I don’t think he’s safe—” he began.
“Neither do I!” Heklatis said firmly. “I will be doing what work I can to safeguard him. This is not over; the Great Ones could still die. There are always accidents, illnesses. Now that they know that he knows—he is not safe. Fortunately, it only takes a little magic, properly used, to defeat greater magic.” He grinned mirthlessly, showing a great many teeth. “And I have the advantage over them. I know how they are schooled; they do not know how I am.”
Kiron took a deep breath. “I came here to ask if the two of you can do something. I want to find a way to remove the Jousters from both armies.”
They both looked at him, as if wondering where in the world that idea came from, and why he would ask them to help with it.
“Both armies? That is no small task you set us,” Heklatis admitted reluctantly, “But I believe I see what your point is. Remove the Jousters, and it is army against army, in which we are equal. Remove the Jousters, and you remove the reason to send storms—which, unless they can concoct some better spell to use against the Tians, also removes the overt reason for the support of the Magi.”
Leaving only the stolen years, which even the Great Ones dare not admit to. If that is not forbidden magic, it is perilous close.
“It was Toreth’s idea that, eventually we could negate the Tian Jousters,” said Kiron. “But I fear that we may not have the time, now. If the Magi dare to use the Eye against dissenters—”
“Then they have grown too powerful, and we should look for other ways to take some of that power from them.” Heklatis nodded. “Well, we can do that. We can also look for ways to armor the Winged Ones against being used. And we can look for allies.” He raised one eyebrow. “The Bedu, do you think?”
Kiron had to shrug. “I do not know. I do not know that anyone knows the Bedu well enough to guess what they will think or do.”
“But they have a use for gold, and they might well feel threatened by our Magi,” Heklatis persisted. “Yes?”
Kiron nodded after a moment. “Yes to both, I think. They have their own magics, and the Magi cannot help but see that as a rivalry, if not a danger.”
“Then Aket-ten and I will pursue the first path together, and I—and eventually you—will pursue the second. Agreed?” asked Heklatis.
Oh, yes, the Magi should be shivering in their beds, Kiron thought cynically. A half-trained Jouster, a Winged Fledgling, and a foreign Healer. We shall defeat them and send them packing and still have time for breakfast!
But, “Agreed,” he said anyway. Because it was that—or despair. And he was not yet ready for despair.