Mercedes Lackey: Alta

Now, faced with the prospect of crossing into the land he had once thought of as his goal, he knew that no matter what his dreams had been, they could not possibly replicate what he would encounter.

Those dreams might be better than what he actually found, or they might be worse. But they would probably be different, and that alone was a reason for fear.

But this was as far as the talismans that the Veiled Ones had provided as a series of guides would take him. Tomorrow, one of them would personally take him to within sight of the Altan border, the lands where the desert ended and the swampy delta began, and leave him there.

Tonight, unlike previous evenings, he was not alone at his fire. He shared it with one of the Mouths of the Bedu nomads, an enigmatic and apparently sexless creature covered from head to toe in one of their characteristic, belted blue robes and over-vest, dyed with indigo. As with all of the others, the Mouth was veiled by a drape of cloth that showed only the eyes. Both sexes wore the veils; a practical consideration when one lived in a land where the wind never stopped, and neither did the dust. He had never heard of any of the Bedu going without their veils, but then, he had never heard of the Bedu going outside the desert. That the costume made the Veiled Ones even more enigmatic to outsiders was, he was sure at this point, a source of endless amusement to them.

He still could not tell whether these Mouths were male or female. Perhaps they were neither; it was altogether possible that they were a kind of eunuch. He didn’t find that idea as discomfiting as he might have once; if the Mouths were a sort of eunuch, it was not something that had happened against their will. And certainly there were priests of certain obscure gods even among his own people who volunteered for such a sacrifice. Some believed that those who had done so obtained the special favor of their god; others that to remove sex from one’s life opened one to visions, or granted great magical power. For some, such a sacrifice was worth the gain.

This particular Mouth was regarding Vetch from the other side of a smaller fire than the one that had heated Avatre’s rocks, watching with a direct and clear-eyed gaze over the veil. The Mouth had asked Vetch to tell his tale in full, and had been simply regarding him quietly for some time now, but Vetch hadn’t made any effort to ask why. The Mouth would tell him—or not—in good time. Vetch still wasn’t entirely certain what role the Mouths played in the lives of the Veiled Ones; they didn’t seem to be priests, quite. They weren’t exactly magicians, either, although they did work magic, the magic that created the talismans that guided him from clan to clan, for instance. They certainly were the only ones who spoke to outsiders, but they weren’t precisely interpreters, nor were they ambassadors. All bargaining with outsiders was conducted by them, yet they were not traders. And they weren’t leaders of their people either.

In fact, if he could have guessed anything at this point, it would have been that they were, literally, the voices of their clans, that somehow they knew what everyone in the clan thought, or wanted, with regard to an outsider, and they were the tool through which these wants, thoughts, and needs were expressed.

But they certainly had their own personalities, for every single one he had encountered so far was as different from the last as any two individuals could be. Some had barely spoken at all and held themselves coldly aloof from him; others had been positively garrulous, interested to hear whatever of his own story he cared to impart, and forthcoming with news of the world outside the desert, if not of details of their own lives and customs. Some had been terrified of Avatre, others treated her like a kind of giant falcon—with the respect that talons and teeth deserved, but no fear at all.

This one was somewhere in between, but operating on the “helpful” side of the accounting. The Mouth had been wary of Avatre and inclined to keep Vetch and his charge far away from the Bedu camp, but otherwise friendly enough. The Mouth had asked careful questions about Vetch’s life as a serf as well as his treatment by the Tian Jousters—Ari in particular—and about the journey that had brought them here. Perhaps Avatre’s gift of meat had paved the way for that. And this Mouth sat at Vetch’s fire now as if wishing to be there, and not as if mounting guard over the “outsider.”

“You call yourself Kiron, son of Kiron,” the Mouth said abruptly, although the voice did not break the silence so much as insinuate itself into the silence and part it. “So you have asked us to address you. And yet, you do not think of yourself as that person.”

How does the Mouth know that? It was something that Vetch himself had not realized until the moment it was pointed out.

Vetch considered that statement in silence without retorting immediately, giving himself time to analyze the thought. He had, over the course of these travels, also learned to keep his mouth shut and think about what a Mouth said before he responded to it, having shoved his foot rather neatly into his own mouth a time or two in the early part of his journey. “I have been Vetch, the serf, far longer than I have been Kiron, the keeper of Avatre and dragon rider,” he said at last.

“And yet, if you enter into your native land thinking of yourself as Vetch, your own people will treat you thuswise,” said the Mouth, with a touch of warning in the tone. “Vetch the serf is a person of no worth and no account, deserving of no consideration or special treatment.”

He felt a kind of stillness settle into his gut. This was important. He wasn’t certain why it was important, but it felt important. Once again, Vetch considered the words. Carefully. What was the Mouth trying to say to him? “And?” he ventured.

“And, perhaps, they will try to take the dragon from you.”

“She won’t go,” Vetch replied, with some heat, and yet sure of himself. She wouldn’t, of course, and this was absolutely the one thing he had no fear of. Unlike the dragons that were captured as fledglings and tamed, he had raised Avatre from the egg. She was as bonded to him as any creature could be—as no other dragon, save one, had ever been bonded to another human.

That one, and that other human, were perhaps the most important part of his past that there was. Kashet, and his former Master, the Jouster Ari. They flew in the service of the Great King of Tia. Both of them were his enemies in name, now, and yet were his friends in fact. It was Ari who had engineered his escape when Avatre had made her First Flight with him clinging to her back, all hope of concealing her existence anymore gone off on the kamiseen winds.

Ari and Kashet lay behind him somewhere, in the lands claimed by the High King of Tia. He could not think of them without gratitude, and yet it was a gratitude tinged with pain. If he could have, he would have never left them. And yet—

And yet they were Tians, and he was Altan, and if they ever met again, they would probably have to fight each other, and possibly to the death.

Still, Kashet would permit no other to ride him but Ari—and Avatre would be the same with Vetch. He had absolutely no doubt of that, for Avatre had actually tried to face down Kashet—who was many times her size—when she thought the great blue was threatening Vetch.

“Nevertheless,” persisted the Mouth, “they will try. They may starve her until she eats tala -treated meat, and is drugged into submission. Unless you make yourself into Kiron, son of Kiron, Altan Jouster. Unless you come to believe that you are that person. Then, no one will presume to doubt that you are entitled to ride her.”