Mercedes Lackey - Alta

He peered in the direction of the Third Canal; although the air was much hazier here than in Tia, he thought he saw a dragon in the distance. He gave Avatre the signal to send her in that direction—which was, in any case, a safer one than allowing her to head in the one she wanted, which was to try the thermals and updrafts of Royal Hill. He had an idea that overflying the Palace of the Great Ones might get him in a spot of trouble.

How she read the air, he could not guess, but she seemed to be able to see thermals somehow. She spiraled up the one she was in, then began a long glide down over the Third Canal, and caught another on the opposite side. And just as Kiron had guessed, down below were the barracks of the army, the shops and cook shops and drink shops that catered to them, the homes of those who ran and served in those shops, and the whole support structure of armories and stables, forges and supply warehouses, Healers and training grounds and practice fields that an army needed.

And here, too, were the temples of those gods that loved soldiers, and that soldiers loved, and the pens of animals waiting to be sacrificed.

And, as he had expected, the Jousters’ Compound.

It looked very like its Tian counterpart, with some differences. Three fourths of the pens had hot water wallows, not sand pits. And in those pens that had wallows, the dragons were a little smaller than those he was used to, their colors darker. They looked up as soon as they spotted him, of course, their heads weaving back and forth on their long necks. The familiar sounds of slightly irritated dragons drifted up to him from below.

Well, he didn’t want to make any trouble for anyone, especially not the dragon boys who might have to calm their charges if they got any more restless, so he angled Avatre away, curious though she was to look at these odd and unfamiliar relatives.

The Third Ring did not have a hill; whether this was by accident or chance, Kiron could not tell. It might merely have been that the Third Ring covered so much area that the ground that had been dug to make the Fourth Canal was barely enough to raise it all above flood level. Then again, since the Third Ring was devoted entirely to Alta’s military, it could be that no one had felt the need to be physically higher than anyone else.

Beyond the Fourth Canal it was quite clear that the land had been given over to farming, and Kiron had no real interest in seeing what lay there. He knew that three more canals lay beyond the Fourth, probably settled as farmers prospered and their sons desired farms of their own, and continued what had now become habit and custom, of building up farmland by digging out a canal that was as much for drainage as for protection. The canals were all linked by subchannels that cut across the rings like the spokes of a wheel; more spokes were formed by the bridges that linked the roads of the Rings. It was unexpectedly beautiful, and when he thought about all of the labor that had gone into creating the city, his head just swam.

Other than the dragons of the Jousters’ Compound, no one looked up when the shadow of a flying dragon passed over them. Avatre soared from thermal to thermal above the Third Ring to her heart’s content. There were boats out in the canals; little fishing boats, larger barges. Some were hauling cargo from the outer to the inner rings; some were clearly pleasure boats, or the boats carrying officials about on their duties. As he watched, he even saw a species of small boat that seemed to be coming in to land whenever someone on shore hailed it. After a moment, it came to him that these boats must be for hire, to take people wherever in the Rings they wished to go, like hired litters or chariots. That would be much faster than walking, though he doubted that it would be faster than driving a chariot.

The sound of a gong below him startled him, and he looked straight down to discover that he was directly above one of the temples, where a ritual was just beginning, the gong being the signal for the worshipers to gather. And that reminded him that he had an appointment of his own to keep; more lessons. He sent Avatre angling back the way she had come, crossed the Third Canal, and soon spotted Lord Ya-tiren’s manor, with Orest watching anxiously down in one of the minor courtyards. A servant was just arriving with a barrowload of meat, and seeing that, Avatre was not at all loath to land.

Nor, truth to tell, was Kiron; flying required a great deal of the rider, as he shifted his weight and balance to help his dragon. Between that exertion and the exercises of the morning, he was sore.

On the whole, he was going to welcome these lessons, if it meant he might sit at his leisure and merely listen.

Orest hurried to help him take off Avatre’s harness; all of her attention was on that barrow, and when Kiron wheeled it close enough to her that she could reach it, she dove in. He knew that when she was sated, she would want to sleep, so she would not miss him for the rest of the afternoon.

“I was beginning to wonder if you’d decided to fly off again, after seeing all the lessons you were going to have to do,” Orest said, only half teasing, as they made their way out of the manor again, this time going toward the temple next door.

“Why, because you would have?” Kiron teased.

Orest made a face. “Well, yes, actually. We’re going to the temple where my sister is a Nestling; they hold lectures on philosophy and history in the courtyards there. Which do you want first?”

Kiron shrugged as much as he could without further jarring his rib cage. “It’s all one to me; you pick.”

Orest sighed. “History, then. Philosophers go on forever unless it’s close to dinnertime.”

Kiron laughed, and followed his friend in through the gates of the temple, which featured a pair of rainbow-colored wings supporting a slender golden flame. Despite Orest’s glum face, he had a notion that this was going to be interesting. He was beginning to have the impression that Orest was not, and never would be interested in anything that required exercise of his mind, but Kiron felt rather like a sponge that had been dry all of its life and had suddenly been put into water. Let Orest sigh and look gloomy; he was going to enjoy all this “tutoring.”

SIX

KIRONremained as still as a hungry crocodile lying in wait, as Lord Khumun-thetus surveyed the group of youngsters before him in the antechamber to the Jousters’ Compound. He did not yet want to draw attention to himself. Soon enough, these boys, some of whom were actually older than he, would discover that he, Kiron-son-of-unknown-Kiron, was to be, in essence, their trainer, their Overseer, and ultimately, the one who would pass judgment on their ability to raise a dragonet. Or not. That was going to cause some resentment, he feared, but it couldn’t be helped. In all of Alta City there was only one person who knew how to raise a dragon from the egg, and that person was not going to entrust a precious dragonet to careless hands.

It was a mixed lot, drawn from every possible class. There were several boys who had been animal handlers—Kiron had high hopes for the one who had been tending to lions and cheetahs, and the one who had been taking care of some high-ranking noble’s hawks. There were, of course, quite a few nobly born youngsters, of whom one was Orest.

And there was a prince.

Or at least, Toreth-aket was a prince as Kiron understood the term. Toreth and his brother had been frequent visitors to Orest, for Toreth had been Orest’s friend long before Ya-tiren’s son had the lodestone of a dragon in his courtyard. Kiron had been astonished when he learned just who and what Orest’s friend was.