Mercedes Lackey - Sanctuary

“I would leave nothing for those monsters in their Tower to use against us either,” Lord Ya-tiren said, his face darkening; his wife put a comforting hand on his arm. “Nor would I leave anything or anyone behind to suffer their wrath.”

“Not that we believe the Magi have so much as a clue that we have fled,” added a young man who looked very like Orest, but who was wearing what looked to Kiron like the robes of some sort of priest. “We left behind a great deal of misdirection. They should think that we left for the remote estates, well past the bounds of the city, and they should believe that it is because we fear the earthshakes.”

This must be the brother that’s a Te-oth priest. Kiron had not had the chance to meet all of the brothers—or even Aket-ten’s mother, except in passing. He tried not to feel too overwhelmed by this sudden avalanche of brothers, but he couldn’t help but wonder if they were eying him.

Were they looking at him and wondering how he felt about Aket-ten? Did they wonder how she felt about him?

But there were eight other young Jousters, and if they didn’t know—

He resolved to put the worry out of his mind for the moment. “How did you manage that?” he asked.

“A great deal of carefully placed gossip,” said yet another brother; this one must be the eldest, the one who had been Lord Ya-tiren’s steward; he looked like an older and taller version of Orest. “We have been dropping hints, acting terribly worried about the earthshakes, for—well, ever since Father let us know that we might need to take ourselves out of reach of the Magi. We aren’t the only ones either. There are those who really are making for property as far away from Alta as possible.”

“The Akkadians are leaving,” said yet another brother, somberly.

“Am I properly holding back my shock?” asked Heklatis, dryly. “Greetings, my Lord. I am exceedingly pleased to see all of you.”

“And I am exceedingly pleased to see you, Healer,” Lord Ya-tiren said. “We have more of your colleagues with us, though not as many as we would have liked. And we are, to be frank, very weary.”

“My old friend, we anticipated that.” Lord Khumun eased his way into the group, and he and Lord Ya-Tiren clasped forearms in greeting. “Our friends the Bedu have been helping us prepare temporary places for you; they will do until you can shape what the desert uncovered for your use to your own liking. Now come, and we will show you.”

With a sigh of relief, Kiron eased out of the way and let Lord Khumun take over the shepherding of the entire group. It was with a feeling of shock that he realized that this one group was going to more than double the population of Sanctuary.

As soon as we move out of our quarters, I suspect some of those that are not of Lord Ya-tiren’s household will move into them!

It was just as well that it wouldn’t take much to turn those empty workshops into the combination of pen and living quarters that they all had enjoyed in Alta.

We have a lot to do. And so did everyone else. Well, one step at a time. Tonight—

Tonight he would let Aket-ten and Orest enjoy being with their family again. Tonight was for celebration. Leave the work for tomorrow.

FOUR

“MYheart is glad for Aket-ten and Orest,” Menet-ka said, quietly joining Kiron as the latter slipped off to go back to the Jousters’ quarters, taking advantage of the crowd and the deepening darkness. “But I have no stomach for much celebration.”

Kiron glanced aside at him and they locked eyes for a moment The moon just coming up and the last of the twilight showed Menet-ka’s melancholy expression with painful clarity. “My own family is still in Alta, and not likely to escape any time soon,” Menet-ka elaborated quietly.

Kiron winced. Poor Menet-ka! Though the young Jouster had come a long way from the shy fellow who scarcely raised his voice above a polite murmur, he was still so good at concealing his feelings that Kiron hadn’t quite realized until this moment that Menet-ka was at least as lonely and concerned about his family as the more vocal Aket-ten and Orest. And here Kiron had been feeling sorry for himself, when everyone else in the wing with the exception of Ari was virtually in the same position as Menet-ka. Not everyone had the resources that Lord Ya-tiren had. How would Huras’ family manage to get enough money together to get the beasts they would need to bring them across the desert? Everything they had was tied up in their bakery, and if they tried to sell that, even if they could find a buyer, it would raise suspicions. The rest were scarcely in a better case, even those who had wealthy or noble families. First, how to persuade them that the son they likely thought had been killed when the dragons shook off the last effects of the tala was actually still alive? Then, how to convince them that it made more sense to flee into the desert and the unknown than remain under the heel of the Magi? The choice seemed very simple out here; back there, it meant leaving everything one had ever known, sometimes leaving a home that had been in the family for generations, leaving friends, a business, fortune, status . . . disposing of things that might have been in the family for generations, paring everything down to what could be carried away and going off into a completely unknown future. No matter how bad things got in Alta, at least you were home. For most people, abandoning everything they had or had fought to gain was not worth the possibilities on the other side of escape.

Huras eeled his way through the crowd to join them, then Gan, Pe-atep, and Kalen let the crowd follow Lord Ya-tiren and his caravan of refugees, and separated themselves by the simple expedient of standing still while the crowd moved off.

“Hu!” Gan said, scratching his head and looking after them. “I knew my lord was ranked, and highly so, but I never knew that household was so cursed big.” But his kohl-rimmed eyes were bright with interest as two of Lord Ya-tiren’s pretty servants looked back over their shoulders at him, whispered something to each other, and giggled. He didn’t see Oset-re behind him, making doe eyes at both of them.

“There’s more of it than he brought with him if you count all the people on all the estates he owns,” Menet-ka observed wistfully. “He just brought the people he couldn’t leave on his most remote estates, I suspect, and those the Magi would think to use as hostages.”

Kiron tried, for a moment, to think like one of the Magi, then like Lord Ya-tiren, to work out what the Lord might himself have done. “The Magi wouldn’t look at anyone without rank,” he said, after a moment. “So anyone like servants or slaves—less than an Overseer, say—is probably safe enough, even if they’re in my Lord’s household and kinship line. They don’t trust their servants or underlings with anything, so they wouldn’t think Lord Ya-tiren would either.”

“Speaking from personal experience, to those of a certain mind, anyone less than an Overseer is invisible,” Gan observed. “Simply not worth troubling your mind about.”

Oset-re nodded. “Scarcely more than a living abshati, if it comes down to it.”

Gan shrugged. “And if I were Lord Ya-tiren, I’d feel safe enough in leaving some of those behind so long as I got them out of Alta City. Out of sight, and out of immediate reach, is pretty much out of mind.”

“Something about the Magi is worth thinking about,” Menet-ka added after a moment. “They don’t travel outside the Third Ring. Ever. I’m not sure the remote estates really exist to them, except as an abstract concept. So . . . if we needed to, we might be able to use those estates to help funnel people out of the city, or to hide people on, because the Magi might not think to look there.”