Alta

They all jumped. Kiron leaped to his feet and turned. The light from the lamps on either side of the door fell on Lord Khumun’s face illuminating features that were unwontedly bleak with weariness. “My Lord—what have you heard—”

“From the time that young Kaleth began to prophesy,” Lord Khumun said heavily. “And you have awakened both my fears and my hopes. Something must change in Alta, or Alta as we know it will cease to be, and soon—and I should not like to live in the society that will take its place. When the power is in the hands of those who stand in the shadows, shadows come to fall over everything. Young Toreth’s murder was only the first, I fear, of many. And to tell the truth, I am not altogether certain it was even the first. Too many of those who have been taken up as ‘agents of the enemy’ have never been heard of again. And no one knows exactly who might have fallen under the Eye.”

Kiron shivered to hear the words spoken aloud. Young Toreth’s murder. So Lord Khumun knew the death for what it was.

At least we aren’t alone. . . .

“You may have wondered why I have kept you of Kiron’s wing from being sent to the fighting,” Lord Khumun continued in what seemed to be an abrupt change of subject. “It is because since Toreth’s death, the Jousters are being flung to the enemy like tidbits to jackals. You have not seen it; I have kept the knowledge from you, deliberately, for I was not sure what you would make of it.”

He looked at them gravely.

“My Lord, I think we are not surprised,” said Orest after a moment. “Toreth’s death taught us that the Magi will not tolerate rivals, and in their way, the Jousters are rivals for power.”

Lord Khumun nodded. “So I believe. What they did not anticipate, I think, is that these new war games and tactics of yours are keeping my Jousters alive.”

He looked straight at Kiron, who felt himself flush with pleasure.

“And there, the subject comes back to you lot. I have kept the knowledge of the true situation from you, lest you feel you must fling yourselves into the fray.” The Lord of the Jousters smiled kindly upon them, and somehow managed to keep from looking patronizing. “I knew that if you felt strongly enough, you would disobey even my orders. Now, not even the Magi truly believe that you lot are ready for war, and they know that ordering mere boys to the fighting will make even their supporters look askance at them, so as long as you were not volunteering, and so long as we were having fewer casualties than before, I could keep you safe.”

“But the senior Jousters—” Huras said worriedly.

“Exactly. Meanwhile—we go out, day after day, and we are becoming exhausted. At some point, not even your clever new tactics will save us.” Lord Khumun grimaced. “There is no doubt that you are right; the Magi will permit no rival for their power to exist. They have been trying very hard to eliminate us. And I had rather see the dragons gone than watch my men die for no good reason.”

Kiron let out the breath he had been holding. “Then, my Lord, the best thing for you is this. If you can, if you have thieves that can get into the Tian Jousters’ Compound, send men to seize as much tala as you can. It is better for us to have it than the Tians, and the more of the old, untainted tala we have, the better for us. And then, let us do this thing that we have spoken of without your knowledge, for what we do without your knowledge you cannot be held accountable for.”

Lord Khumun looked as if he was about to protest, then stopped. “From the mouths of babes comes wisdom,” he muttered, then turned and vanished into the darkness.

“So, tell us,” Kiron continued, turning to Aket-ten.

“It is a disease, which puts no outward sign upon the plant, save only a bit of bloom upon the berry when it is still unripe, which is gone when it is dried. Heklatis used his magic to find it, and his knowledge of Healing and herbs swiftly told him what it did. The disease spreads by a dust made from the bloom itself, and we can use magic to make much, much more of it from the bit that we have.” She looked rather pleased with herself. Kiron didn’t blame her. “What is more, I thought of a way to spread it, quickly. When the rains begin, a dragon or two can climb above the clouds with baskets of the dust, and let them loose upon the winds. The dust will be carried into Tia, and brought down to earth with the rains.”

“And the Magi, who have made the winds to be so much greater than they used to be, will be the ones to carry the blight!” Gan slapped his leg with glee. “By all the gods, Aket-ten, this is choice!”

She smiled with grim pleasure. “We, who have truly tame dragons, will be the only ones whose dragons still behave, and I will leave it to you to think how that can be useful. But I believe that the wild-caught dragons will actually obey for some time out of habit—and at any rate, if we successfully take a stockpile of undiseased Tian tala, we will be able to keep our dragons under control longer.”

“We should reckon on not getting any,” Kiron warned. “Unless we can seize raw berries before they get to the Tian compound, I doubt that we will be able to get any. If Lord Khumun has agents who are also thieves, maybe—it is not at all guarded—but the odds are long.”

“Then our tala and theirs will run out about the same time.” She sighed. “Still. Our Jousters will know that their dragons are going to go wild, but the Tians will not, and they may miss the signs. So perhaps our task should be to sting the Tian dragons into their own rebellion on the very day when the last of the tala is gone from their bodies. And with foreknowledge that it will happen, our Jousters can release their dragons, or allow them to slip their chains, or something of the sort. Or even take them out, and when they begin to get restive, land them behind our lines and turn them loose.” She shrugged. “The Magi will contribute nothing to the war once the Jousters are gone, unless they create another Eye of Light that can be taken to the enemy.”

“I do not think they can,” Heklatis said broodingly. “Which is just as well for all of us, of course.”

Recalling the carnage that the Eye had caused, Kiron shuddered. “More than just as well,” he replied. “I am not so sure but that it would not be better for Alta if the thing were destroyed.”

“There are those on the Second Ring who would agree with you,” said Heklatis, and left it at that.

There really was not much else to be said after that. Heklatis and Aket-ten reckoned that it would take until the start of the rains to produce a sufficiency of the dust to infect the tala plants.

And then Aket-ten produced another little surprise for them. “I will borrow a swamp dragon and take her up to release the dust in the clouds above the storms—” she began, casually.

“Hoi!” he said sharply. “What do you mean, you will borrow a swamp dragon? You’ve never flown any dragon but Re-eth-ke!”

“I can control any dragon in the compound,” she retorted. “Re-eth-ke is too young to take into a storm, and at any rate, she would hate flying in rain and storm, but there isn’t a dragon in this compound who won’t fly for me. I’ll take one of the oldest and canniest.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” he replied hotly. “If anybody goes flying with that dust of yours, it will be me.”

“On what dragon?” she shot back. “Not even Avatre will fly in the kind of hell the Magi have been creating on the first day of the rains, and rightly. The swamp dragons know storms. They can read them the way desert dragons read thermals! But they won’t fly for you, not into a storm they won’t. On a day of ordinary rains, yes, but not into a Magus-bred storm.”

“She has you there,” Heklatis said, with what Kiron considered to be an annoying level of calm detachment.

“And just what would Lord Ya-tiren have to say to me if I allowed you—” he began, and the moment the words were out of his mouth, he knew that they were a mistake, but it was too late to call them back.

“If you allowed?” she snarled, getting to her feet, her eyes blazing fury at him. “If you allowed? Just who and what are you, Wingleader Kiron, to say what I shall and shall not be allowed to do? I am responsible to no one but myself for my actions and—”

“And Lord Ya-tiren would certainly hold Kiron responsible should any accident take place, regardless of that, Aket-ten,” Heklatis said reasonably. “And while it is true that Avatre would balk at carrying him above the heart of the storm, and that none of the swamp dragons would carry him on their own either, if you were to talk to one of them, you could persuade it to accompany you and your mount. Couldn’t you?”

The Healer looked into both their angry faces and smiled. “I suggest a compromise. Two swamp dragons, to