Sanctuary

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.

Kiron and the others decided they could not make their own escape until they had nullified that threat, so they had done their best to even the stakes between Alta and Tia by destroying what had kept the wild-caught dragons under control, the drug called tala. The Jousters of Tia had been overwhelming in their number and the strength of their larger desert-born dragons. But with the tala gone and the wild-born dragons no longer controllable, at least the conflict came down to equal numbers and equal armies.

The only dragons left under human control now were those that had been raised from the egg by their Jousters—the eight dragons born in Alta and raised by Kiron’s wing, and the two born in Tia and raised by Kiron and Ari.

These were now the dragons and Jousters of Sanctuary, who served and protected those who were pledged to end the war, though they had no idea yet how they could do that. There was only one thing that any of them knew for certain. Ending the war began with ending the power of the Magi, because the Magi were the ones prolonging the conflict, and the only ones who benefited from it.

So now the question in Kiron’s mind was, how badly had things deteriorated in Alta since Kiron and the rest had fled the city? He could not imagine that they would have improved.

“Have you heard anything from the Healers?” he asked Heklatis. The Akkadian shook his head.

“Not that I expected to,” Heklatis added. “I think that whatever information comes to us will come in with these newcomers that we are expecting.”

“How much do you think Kaleth already knows?” Kiron asked, with a growing sense of unease that was not directed at their enemies—but at the one who was supposed to be guiding them. It was one thing for Kaleth to be the mere mouthpiece for the gods, but another entirely for him to be withholding vital information if he had it. Was Kaleth already keeping secrets—as the Magi had?

“Not nearly as much as you think he does,” Heklatis said immediately, as if he were able to read Kiron’s thoughts, and he gave Kiron a reassuring nod. “The Magi are able to block my scrying and the attempts by the Bedu to overlook the city. I think they can probably even cloud whatever ability the gods gave Kaleth as well. My bet would be that Kaleth knows just enough to make him sure he hasn’t got sufficient information to give good advice, much less base decisions on.”

Kiron shook his head, for that made no sense at all. “How can men block the power of the gods?” he protested.

Heklatis gave an exasperated snort. “Oh, do think, will you? There are gods of the light, and are there also not gods of darkness? Oh, yes, I know, among you Altans and Tians every god has some aspects of both—but are there not gods that are mostly of the darkness, as Haras and Iris and Siris are mostly of the light?”

“Well,” Kiron admitted, slowly, “Ye-es.”

“And did those gods of light and darkness not go to war against each other in the distant and legended past?” Heklatis persisted.

“Not war, precisely, but—”

“And do you not think that the Magi of Alta are, even now, giving those dark gods what they most crave? And in return, for those gifts, those dark gods are preventing the servants of the light from seeing what they do?” Heklatis looked at him as if he were a particularly dense apprentice.

Kiron shivered. It was bad enough, thinking that the Magi alone were working against them—but to think that gods might be getting into it—

How could they ever hope to prevail against gods?

“The good thing is that gods seldom intervene directly,” Heklatis went on, with an arched brow as he noted Kiron’s shivering. “Probably because, having warred with each other in the long past, they are loath to begin such a war again. I do not believe we need fear divine or infernal retribution. Interference, perhaps—but that, my young friend, can go both ways. Do not grant the darkness more power than it already has by giving in to your fears. And remember that if this is the case, and they have allies, well, so do we.”

Anything else that the Healer might have added had to be left unsaid, for their conversation was interrupted by Huras, who diffidently rapped at the door-post of Heklatis’ dwelling. Heklatis almost never closed his door except during a kamiseen, saying that a Healer must always be available to those who needed him.

“Kiron, Healer, I wouldn’t interrupt you,” the stocky young man said, as Kiron saw immediately by the excitement in his eyes that he must have some news. “But one of the Bedu guides has just come in with word. The people Kaleth has been expecting are not more than half a day behind him, and you will be most glad to hear who they are!”

The weary caravan of refugees arrived at Sanctuary in the last gleam of twilight, as the full moon rose over the desert. Weary they might have been, but they arrived in good order; which was only to be expected, since their leader was Lord Ya-tiren—the father of Orest and Aket-ten.

And with him was his entire household. Wife, sons, servants, and every other relative and their households that wished to escape. Every bit of movable property, every scrap of food they could buy or harvest, every animal that could take the desert trek; all of it. They formed an irregular blot against the pale desert sand as they approached, a blot that brought its own dust cloud and heralded its approach by the bleating and calling of the animals with them.

Small wonder that Kaleth had said that without the sandstorm uncovering the new parts of the city, they would be crowded.

There were others with Lord Ya-tiren as well, but no other Great Houses intact and entire. Some Healers, most notably those who had the special gift of Healing by touch, and a few—a very, very few—of the priestly caste.

Aket-ten and Orest were beside themselves with relief and joy, and could not wait until the caravan arrived; they flew out to meet it on their dragons, and arrived back leading the refugees from the air, so Kiron did not witness how they greeted their father. Not that he needed to; he knew that the greeting would have been full of tears and pleasure, and he also knew that while he was very happy that his best friends had their mother and father safely with them, there would have been a small part of him eaten up with envy. His father, after all, was dead beyond a shadow of a doubt; his mother and his sisters, if they weren’t also dead, were worse off than slaves. He couldn’t begrudge Aket-ten and Orest this meeting, but he was glad he didn’t have to see it.

Instead, he was able to wait by the side of Kaleth and Lord Khumun with all the rest of the Jousters to welcome the refugees to their new home. He would not even have put himself forward as the Lord was greeted by Khumun as an equal, and himself gave Kaleth the bow of deep respect—but Lord Ya-tiren caught sight of him and greeted him with an enthusiasm he hadn’t expected.

“And there you are!” Lord Ya-tiren exclaimed, embracing him as he might have one of his own sons. Kiron felt himself flushing with a mingling of embarrassment, pleasure, and affection. He had not realized just how much he liked Lord Ya-tiren until that moment. He had known how much he respected the man, but not that he had come to think of the Lord and his family as a kind of second family of his own. “Kiron, it is good to see you again!”

“My lord, I am happy beyond telling that you have come safely here,” Kiron managed to say, with only a little stammer of confusion. “And with your entire household!”

“We should have been here sooner, but he would not leave anyone behind,” said Iris-aten, Aket-ten’s mother, with a warm smile for her husband. She didn’t look much like Aket-ten; where her daughter was flexible and tough,