Sanctuary

never been anything more than a simple farmer ’s son. Granted, the nobles weren’t lords of anything right now, but they had the blood and—

And he could make himself crazy with thoughts like that in a very short time.

So between one thing and another, he was coming to the end of his patience with Ari’s fretting.

“Nofret says she’s fine. Aket-ten says Coresan has accepted her as another dragon,” he snapped. “There is never a time when someone with a dragon isn’t in the air around here to make sure nothing can get at her or Coresan—not that I think anything could show up here that Coresan couldn’t or wouldn’t handle on her own. Enough, Ari, she knows what she’s doing, we know what we’re doing, so give us all a little credit for caution and good sense, will you?”

Ari looked taken aback by Kiron’s tone. “I just—worry,” he said.

“Well, it’s stupid to worry for no reason.” Kiron set his chin. “If you have to worry, worry about something we’ve got reasons to worry about. There’s plenty of those.”

Ari said nothing, but he had the grace to look chastised. And he did stop fretting, at least for the rest of that afternoon, which proceeded as it always did. They hunted, going out in turn, while Aket-ten went back to Sanctuary and brought back sacrificed animals—sheep, today; it was Hamun’s turn to be sacrificed to, and in the interest of encouraging harmony, the priests of both Alta and Tia presided over and attended the sacrifices for both sets of gods.

In the interest of harmony. . . .

Kaleth had some ideas on that score. “If both sets of priests preside now, well, it won’t be long before they’re agreeing on a fixed set of rites, and the two sets of gods merge into one.” It certainly seemed to be working.

If only other problems could be solved so easily.

As the sun-disk neared the horizon, Ari collected Nofret—Kashet was still the biggest, strongest dragon in the wing, and it was much easier for him to carry double. Maybe snapping at Ari had done some good; at least outwardly he didn’t act as anxious when he got Nofret, and she seemed more relaxed as they all headed back home, flying high to get the advantage of the cooler air.

Odd, though, how quickly he, at least, had gotten used to the desert. The heat just didn’t seem to bother him as much anymore.

He had no idea how prophetic those words about “worrying over things we have reason to worry about” would be.

Because as they arrived back at Sanctuary and started dropping down toward the buildings, they could see that the place was like an overturned beehive, with people milling about and forming little knots of tense conversation. One of Lord Khumun’s men was waiting for them as they approached their pens, standing on top of the dividing wall, waving frantically at them.

That’s not good. . . .

“Council chamber,” was all he shouted up at them, eyes shielded against the wind of the dragon’s wingbeats as it kicked up sand. “It’s an emergency!”

“You go!” Aket-ten called over to him and Ari and Nofret. “Land there, and send the dragons back! I’ll take care of them and rejoin you when I’m done!”

Kiron didn’t have to be told twice; he signaled to Avatre to abort her landing; with a grunt of effort, she rowed for height, and after a moment of confusion and hesitation as he resolved the conflict between habit and Ari’s new direction, Kashet followed her.

They landed in the street outside the council chamber—the building now serving only the dual purpose of being the place for meetings and Kaleth and Marit’s home, rather than as a full temple as well. Ari and Nofret were out of the saddle and on the ground as soon as the dragons furled their wings, and running through the doorway before Kiron had even thrown his leg over Avatre’s back. He slid down her shoulder, then turned and slapped Avatre on the foreleg, and called “Home!” and she shoved off from the ground without hesitation. He felt a momentary burst of pride at that; it had taken a long time to train her to follow an order without him on her back, but it was more than worth the effort at times like this one. Kashet, however, looked momentarily confused.

Kiron whistled and got the big male’s attention. “Kashet,” he said firmly, and making the “up” gesture with both hands. “Fly! Pen!” Kashet didn’t know the word “home”—which to Avatre meant two things; both Sanctuary itself, and any pen in which she had spent more than a couple of nights. But he did know “pen,” and “fly” as separate concepts—he just didn’t know what “fly” meant if Ari wasn’t on his back.

Kiron had done a lot more training to make Avatre autonomous from the beginning than Ari had ever done with Kashet. He’d had to; on their trek to Alta, he’d needed to be able to direct Avatre in hunting from some other place than in her saddle, because sometimes he needed to drive the game into Avatre’s waiting talons. Kashet, on the other hand, had never had to meet that challenge. The dragon looked at him with his head to one side, as if he was hearing some strange sound he didn’t recognize at all.

“Pen,” Kiron repeated, putting as much emphasis as he could on the simple word. Kashet knew what it meant, and he’d just seen Avatre fly off in that direction—surely he could reason out that he was meant to go there, too. . . .

Kashet blew out his breath in a puff, then turned away, but instead of flying as Avatre had, he stalked off through the streets afoot. People scrambled to get out of his way, not with any sign of fear, but only because the streets of Sanctuary were very narrow, and there wasn’t really room for a dragon and even a small person to pass side by side in them. He was going in the right direction.

Maybe he remembers walking all those corridors in the Jousters’ Compound, Kiron thought, He was used to walking in the Compound, rather than flying. Well, as long as it gets him there on his own, he can walk or fly as he chooses!

He turned to enter the chamber himself, reasonably sure that Kashet would get himself to where he belonged, because even if he got confused, by now one of the other Jousters would have heard he was stalking through the streets and come to guide him back. Or else Aket-ten would send someone to get him.

Or both, Kiron thought, as he slipped in through the doorway, and started to edge around the walls to get to his spot among the other councilors.

He saw that there was a woman in the gown of a priestess—a compromise between the tightly-pleated mist linen of the Tian priestesses, and the loosely-draped, heavier linen of the Altans, this was mist linen for coolness and comfort, but without pleating, and held in place by twin shoulder pins and a belt. Most other women of Sanctuary wore purely Altan gowns, since most women here were Altans.

“. . . and every one of them has confirmed it,” the speaker was Tir-ama-ten, the Priestess of Beshet of the Far-Seeing eye. She looked very unhappy. “I do not know how it is that those whose Gift is to see forward did not warn us about this!”

“Because, Great Lady, their gaze was confused and befogged,” Kaleth said soothingly. “As my gaze has been increasingly confused and befogged. We have known this was happening, as the Magi make the future more uncertain. There is no responsibility to be laid on you or on them; rather, allow me to thank you for always having the eyes of one of your Far-Seeing Priestesses keep watch over the Winged Ones of Alta. Your duty is to the people of Tia, not of Alta, and yet you have been bending your eyes to my folk. If you had not, we would never have known they were besieged until it was too late.”

“Besieged?” Kiron said—though it was not really a question. “The Magi, of course.”

“And every armed man of their private guard they can put around the Temple of the Twins,” Kaleth confirmed. “I think they would have used the army to break down the doors, except that they knew the army would not obey them in such a task.”

“I wonder how they get even their private guard to attack priests,” Lord Khumun said, looking grim. “To raise hands against the servants of the gods—”

“They grow bold, these Magi,” said Pta-hetop the Tian Thet priest. “First they move to take our acolytes, and now your priests. I wonder that they do not use your army.”

“I do not think they could gain obedience from the army to move against the servants of the gods,” Haraket said. “Oh, yes, it has happened in the past—the far past—of our land, but only when the priests themselves were corrupt, so corrupt that the people wept beneath their heels.”

“I think you are right,” Kaleth nodded. “We had two warnings it was happening today; one from the acolytes of Beshet, the other a cry for help that I heard from those trapped within the