Mercedes Lackey - Sanctuary

As a matter of fact, he had hoped for something of the sort, but it appeared that his hopes were in vain.

“As he told us this morning, Kaleth says that we are soon to see our population increase,” Ari said. “And then—well, he has a plan, and I will let him explain it to everyone when the time is right.”

“But part of that is that we’re going to have dragonets again, and new Jousters to train, is that it? And this will be soon?” Kiron persisted.

“Absolutely,” Kaleth replied. He looked so sure of himself that any doubts Kiron might have had faded away.

“But we haven’t any dragons other than Kashet who are of breeding age,” he pointed out. “If we’re going to be hatching our own and raising them from the egg—”

“It is safe to transport an egg when it is first laid, before it has begun true incubation,” Ari observed. “I wouldn’t do it by cart, or transport it for more than half a day, but in a sling between two camels—it would probably be fine.”

“By the time the wild dragons are laying their eggs, Heklatis will have perfected the magic that makes the sands hot, and we will be able to incubate the eggs,” Kaleth said, with his eyes looking off into the distance. “After that you will train new wings and—” he broke off what he was saying. “One step at a time. We will make these workshops into new pens, the old temple into a place where dragons can wait out a storm or shelter from the cold, and the cattle pen into a nursery for eggs and dragonets. And meanwhile, other things will be happening. And for that, we need a council and official leaders.”

Well, that was new. “A council?” Kiron asked. “Leaders? But—”

“All in good time,” Ari cautioned. “But it is best to have the plan in place before you need it.”

“Does Lord—” Kiron began.

“Lord Khumun knows and approves,” said Kaleth, and that seemed to be that. After all, if Lord Khumun, who had been the de facto leader of the refugees since they had all arrived here, had no difficulty with these plans, who was Kiron to object?

“Oh, yes,” Heklatis said, when Kiron came to talk to him. “A good deal of what your priests did to bring heat to the sands was mummery. Mind, it is a good thing to have the blessing of the gods when you decide to work a bit of magic! But there was no need for all the chanting and incense and pretty priestesses in mist linen.” He chuckled. “Except, of course, that the old priests probably liked looking at pretty priestesses in mist linen.” He raised an eyebrow at Kiron. “Mind, mist linen is a very good choice for adorning a fine body, don’t you think?”

The Akkadian Healer—who was also a Magus, according to his own people’s way of magic—was a short, bandy-legged fellow with a knowing eye and a head of curly, silver-streaked hair. Wiry and agile rather than slim and graceful like the Altans, he stood out among the refugees physically for more than just his Akkadian tunics and his wild halo of hair.

He also was not in the least interested in priestesses in mist linen. Which Kiron knew very well.

Kiron felt his ears growing hot, and gave himself a moment to think by looking around Heklatis’ quarters—which did not differ substantially from the ones he had in the Jousters’ Compound in Alta. Everything he remembered from there was here; the Akkadian statues of gods, the mix of Akkadian and Altan furnishings, the case of scrolls, the odd metal lamps that Heklatis favored.

Then again, Heklatis had been able to take virtually everything he owned with him. Unlike the Jousters, he hadn’t had to abandon anything, because he and Lord Khumun had smuggled themselves out disguised as an aged husband and wife leaving for the country. A wagon full of belongings made a useful foil.

“But—” he began, deciding to quickly change the subject, “Kaleth seems to think we’re going to be needing everything the kamiseen uncovered and more! I thought Sanctuary was pretty much just for the Jousters and people that the Magi were determined to do away with! Just how many people are going to be turning up here?”

Heklatis turned sober. “More than either of us think, I suspect,” he replied. “I have the feeling that things are not going at all well back in Alta. Kaleth has been very close-mouthed about what he has Seen. I believe he is waiting for this next lot to arrive to confirm with their own words what he knows, rather than risk our incredulity—because I think he knows that the skep-tics among us will take it all more seriously with eyewitnesses.”

Kiron felt his heart sinking. “It won’t be good,” he replied, shaking his head. “I didn’t want to think about it as long as we were all right, but . . . well, he won’t have to have eyewitnesses to convince me.”

“Nor me,” Heklatis sighed, scratching his head absently.

The Magi had certainly begun their covert takeover of Alta long before Kiron had arrived, but shortly after he had joined the Jousters of Alta, they had moved from covert to overt. Once, they had relied only on their own strength, like the priest-mages of Tia, and their magic had been used to defend Alta. Now, however, their power was stolen from others, and their magic was used to help them in a bid for control of the people and the land. Kiron had discovered that they were stealing whatever it was that enabled the Winged Ones to see into the future and predict earthshakes, and to see at a distance to predict the movements of Tian troops—leaving Alta vulnerable. Worse, they were draining enough of it that the Winged Ones were dying of it. And they had begun moving to drain the same resource from those with other abilities.

Like the Healers.

Once, the Eye they had created was a potent weapon that lashed the earth with fire and had been Alta’s last-ditch defense. Now it was used to keep the people of Alta in fear, lashing out whenever anyone challenged the authority of the Magi, incinerating the very people and places it was supposed to protect.

Whoever, whatever, had started the war between Tia and Alta was lost in the past and a hundred thousand recriminations. But now (so Kiron and others believed) the war was being prolonged because death, and all the magic inherent in the years that might have been lived, gave the Magi the power they could no longer live without and could not raise for themselves without harm to others. They had used up as much of their own power as they were willing to part with, they were using up the Winged Ones, and there was every indication—or had been, when the Jousters had fled—that the Magi had learned how to profit from the sacrifice of others.

And now that they had found this new source of power, he and Heklatis and the few others who suspected it had no doubt that they would exploit it as ruthlessly as they had every other source. It gave them stolen youth, it gave them the power to control the Eye, and Kiron could not even begin to guess what else they had planned.

One thing he did know; it had given them supreme secular power, or at least, it had put the Twin Thrones of Alta within their grasp.

Of course, in order to get access to the Twin Thrones, and to set themselves up as the heirs apparent, they had needed to be rid of the then-current heirs. The murder of one, the disgrace of the other—the fabrication of a twin-bloodline—and the deed was done.

The murdered heir had been Toreth, a Jouster, and Kaleth’s twin. He was not, by any means, the only one they had killed, but this was the death that had shown the Jousters, all of them, just what the Magi had become. And subsequent subtle persecution of the Jousters had proved to them that the Magi were determined to be rid of the one group that resisted their takeover.

When Kiron and the rest had fled Alta, it had been with the knowledge that the Magi were going to destroy the Jousters as the last obstacle that stood between them and their control of the entire country. The trouble was that the Jousters of Alta were all that stood between the people of Alta and the depredations of the Jousters of Tia, who were responsible for some true horrors.