Baket-ke-aput let out his breath in a sigh. “I will carve those names with my own hands,” he said heavily. “I would do so with my fingernails, if that was the only tool I had. Thank you.”
“They are not the first to die at the hands of the Magi,” Kaleth told him, and the restrained anger in his voice penetrated even Baket-ke-aput’s rage and grief. “Nor will they be the last. Listen now to who these abominations are, and what they have wrought in Alta.”
He rose to his feet, and stood, as if he was about to officiate over a ceremony. Kiron thought that he had never seen Kaleth look so full of authority; this young man who was not a great deal older than Kiron himself was standing among men much his senior in age and authority, and yet they were listening to him with as much deference as if he had Lord Khumun’s years and experience. As the torchlight flickered, the shadows moved across his face, and the larger shadow he cast behind him stretched up the wall like a kind of guardian spirit. Briefly, and succinctly, Kaleth told the Tians what the Magi of Alta were, the weapons they had created, how they had consolidated their power for decades, and how they had finally moved to take Alta into their hands. “It is the Winged—the god-touched—who give them the most power, but power, and years, can be stolen from any living human, we think.”
The Thet priest nodded. “So we have been told, in the scrolls of the forbidden magics. Though it takes the deaths of many to equal the power of a single god-touched victim.”
“So, as they exhaust those with the holy powers, they turn to the common man,” Kaleth continued, and raised his eyebrow. “Do you see now why they should be so very interested in this war, and the indefinite prolonging of it?”
Baket-ke-aput closed his eyes, while some of the others behind him exclaimed, as if thunderstruck that they had not thought of this before. “To my shame,” said Pta-hetop, “That had not occurred to me. I thought only to take the rest of us out of their reach—”
“Wisely,” Lord Khumun put in with emphasis, speaking for the first time since they had all sat down. “You could not do any good by allowing yourselves to be taken! You have removed one arrow from their quiver. That was well done.”
“And the trek across the desert is not well-suited to taking thought for anything but the journey,” said Lord Ya-tiren with sympathy. “As we who lately took that trek know too well.”
“That is why we meddled with the tala, we young Jousters and Heklatis,” Kiron put in. “We knew we could not hope to stop the war, but we thought we could at least put it on the footing of soldier against soldier, without the dragons adding to the slaughter. But—” he added, feeling sick again, “—I never thought that the Magi would take themselves to Tia and infect it with their evil.”
“Well, we can all play the I never thought game until we are so bowed down with grief and guilt that we cannot move,” Heklatis said sharply, cutting through an atmosphere that was increasingly loaded with just that. “Now we know. Kaleth has the guidance of the gods themselves, as well as the Eye that sees into the futures. We have dragons. Kaleth tells us that we will have more flocking to our banner, and we have the best minds in both Kingdoms to deal with this. We have traded what we know, found it appalling, and have joined forces. And this is enough for one night, don’t you think?”
Words so blunt they were the equivalent of clubs left everyone sitting in stunned silence.
Then, after a long—a very long—moment, in which Kiron fully expected someone among the Tians to take offense at the Akkadian’s rudeness—the silence was broken.
By laughter.
It was laughter with an edge of bitterness and grief to it, but it was laughter all the same. And it was coming from Baket-ke-aput, who bowed his head as his shoulders shook, and finally sat straight up again and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
“By the gods, Akkadian, your tongue alone is sharper than twenty swords,” he said, and Kiron thought there was just a touch of admiration in his voice. “If ever I need a goad, I will come to you, direct. I wonder that you are still alive; in Tia, you’d have been challenged a hundred times by now.”
Heklatis shrugged, looking smug. “In Akkadia, I was. Why do you think I am here? But in Alta-that-was, a man who cannot fight with his wits has no right to challenge one who can to a battle with swords. Especially when that one is in the right. And you know that I am.”
“I do. I do. Just keep that tongue of yours to a goad, and do not turn it to a flayer’s whip to take the hide off those you would help. You are right. There is nothing we can do this moment—but simply by exchanging these words, we have done much already.” Baket-ke-aput looked back over his shoulder, and seeing no disagreement among his own folk, looked each of those in the circle in the face. “If you will have us, have our skills, have us at your side—we are your brothers, from this day.”
Lord Khumun stood up, as did Baket-ke-aput, and the two men clasped arms as equals; Kaleth put his hand over both of theirs. “Welcome to Sanctuary, brothers,” Khumun said fiercely, then softened the ferocity with a smile. “And as your brother—I advise you to rest. Tomorrow begins the real work. Tonight—may the gods give you dreams of a future we can be proud to build.”
SIX
KIRON went to sleep feeling as if he had just been through an earthshake, and woke up in much the same mood. And he had thought that he would have some time to get used to the situation before anyone rang in new changes on him.
He was, however, mistaken.
He had not been back from the morning hunt longer than it took to unharness Avatre and give her a sand buffing and oiling, when Menet-ka came looking for him.
“Ho! Kiron!” he called from above the pen. Kiron looked up, but before he could ask anything, Menet-ka answered his questioning look. “You’re wanted,” he said shortly. “In that little temple of Kaleth’s. Kaleth sent me to get you.”
Avatre was ill-pleased by the interruption, and she snorted at Menet-ka, her golden eyes flashing her displeasure. Kiron patted her shoulder, where the scales shone like armor made of rubies. “For what?” he asked. “I was going to go work on the new pens—”
Menet-ka shrugged. “They didn’t tell me, but I expect they want you as the wingleader. Anyone who’s like to be in charge of anything is there right now. I suppose they’re forming that council Kaleth was talking about, and they want you for something having to do with it.”
Well, he could see why they would be doing that now—while people were still in shock and feeling sympathetic to the Tians, it was best to make them a fundamental part of Sanctuary. Especially if more Tians were likely to be coming.
Only the priests of the temples at Mefis had reached here so far, though according to what Kiron had heard rumored this morning, warning was spreading out to the farthest-flung temples like the ripples after a rock has been thrown into a still pool. Soon every priest in every temple in Tia would know what had happened in Mefis, and if they had any sense at all, they would realize it was only a matter of time before the hands of those “advisers” stretched out for them. Or at least, any of them that had extraordinary powers.
After that, anyone Winged (or “god-touched” as the Tians put it) who had any measure of common sense and self-preservation would be fleeing. Some might choose other directions than into the desert, but some would follow the priests of Mefis. And many who were not god-touched might also choose to escape.
Then the rumors would begin to fly as priests and some of their servants and slaves vanished, the story about the dead children would eventually surface and although it might be embellished or changed out of all recognition, fingers would begin pointing in the right direction. The Magi in Tia did not have an Eye, the terrible means of enforcing their will and controlling the populace at large that the Magi of Alta did. The King’s soldiers could punish and arrest, but they could not strike from the sky—ordinary Tians might begin to look askance at the Great King’s new advisers, wonder if the rumors were true, and think about a retreat across the desert themselves.