Aerie

arms. Her hair was half-scorched on the left side of her face, and there were burns on her hands. Ari, of course, was going to be black and blue from head to toe. He groaned once, then opened his eyes and smiled, and she burst into tears.

“If—if you ever—do that again—” Whatever she was going to say vanished in incoherent sobs and kisses. A little embarrassed, Kiron looked away—

And saw, with a shock of recognition, the crumpled body of Rakaten-te, Chosen of Seft.

And a shadow-enshrouded form that held that body in His arms.

Kiron, who had been struggling to his feet, instinctively bent the knee.

The shadow gently laid Rakaten-te down, and passed a hand over his face. The bandages that had always covered his eyes melted away and Lord Seft flowed to his—feet? It wasn’t possible to tell, but Kiron got the impression of someone standing, someone with furled wings, or a cloak like wings, brooding down on him.

I am the god of difficult choices, said a voice that came from everywhere and nowhere. Never forget that. He knew that, my Chosen did, and he knew that we must share that choice. And now—

He turned toward the place where Tamat’s army had been. Kiron stood, slowly and looked in that direction.

The army was fleeing, in disorder, in panic. No one pursued them; most of the defenders on the cliffs had been flattened when Seft and Tamat collided. As for the Jousters—like Kiron, Nofret, and Ari, they and their dragons were picking themselves up from whatever place they had been flung.

It matters not. They cannot cross the Anvil of the Sun twice unprovisioned and live. Oh, a handful will survive. And they will carry back the tale—the tale of how their goddess was immolated, how Tia and Alta are one now . . . and how that land is defended.

A kind of fierce, dark exaltation infused those last words. And Kiron shivered to hear them.

My remaining time is short. Kiron saw, as the shadowed god turned, that He had His diadem in his hands. My Chosen has crossed the Bridge of Stars, and I am in need of a new avatar.

For one moment of unbearable horror, Kiron feared that Seft was going to—

No! No! Never again! Never—

But the god turned away from him, and toward the trio that stood a little ways away, the first to have gotten to their feet.

I am in need of a Chosen One, Kaleth, Mouth of the Gods. I am the god of difficult choices. Will you make the choice to serve Me?

“You are a difficult master,” Kaleth replied, regarding the form of shadow gravely.

And yet you have served Me already, as you have served all the gods. Will you serve Me alone? A pause. The choice that Rakaten-te assented to is not one that is asked often of My Chosen. But it is one that they must be ready to make. Could you make it?

Kaleth took a slow, deep breath and looked the God fearlessly in the face. “Aye,” he said, as, to Kiron’s wide-eyed astonishment, Marit nodded gravely in agreement. “For the sake of the Two Kingdoms, aye. And for their sake, I will be your Chosen,” said Kaleth, the Mouth of the Gods.

Then this is yours. The diadem of Seft floated across the space between them, and down into Kaleth’s waiting hands. Keep it safe, against need, my Chosen.

But then the shadow turned toward Marit. The gods will need another Speaker, faithful one. And Prophecy, and standing between Life and Death, Light and Shadow, has ever been the providence of Nebt. Will you take your mate’s place as the Mouth of the Gods?

Marit nodded, and the diadem of Nebt rose from the box where it had been left. As it neared her outstretched hands, for a moment, it took on a soft, metallic glow.

All unnoticed, Aket-ten had landed Re-eth-ke and come to stand beside Kiron. The god merely glanced in their direction but said nothing.

Nofret had helped Ari to his feet again, and the god turned back to them. Make the Two Kingdoms into One. Guard your borders, yet do not expel the stranger. Be vigilant, but not despotic. Remember that the difficult choice is almost always the right one. And now I go.

With those words, the god vanished, leaving no trace of Himself behind.

The last trace of the Nameless Ones was gone from the desert outside the cliff walls of Aerie. From where Kiron and Aket- ten had stood on the cliffs in the early morning light, you could not tell there had even been a battle.

Since the casualties had been relatively few on the Altian side—“Altia” being the name that Nofret and Ari had jointly decreed was to be the new name of their combined Kingdoms—in some ways the war had created a windfall for the desert city. Those horses that had died became dragon food. Those that lived had already been taken off to be traded for more useful asses, donkeys, and camels. The chariots and some of the weapons were already being converted into furniture and hardware, tools and other useful objects. So useful was the detritus of war, in fact, that scavengers from Aerie tracked the fleeing army well into the Anvil of the Sun to loot the fallen.

And there were a great many fallen.

And that was where the last mystery had occurred, in regard to all those fallen.

That first night, one of the things that the weary council that Ari convened tried to consider was what to do with the hundreds, thousands of corpses right on their doorstep. They were dangerous there; besides the stench that would start to arise when they began to decay, there was the disease, the flies, and all that to consider.

“We can’t burn them,” Ari had said helplessly. “There is not enough wood in all of Aerie to burn a tenth of them. We can’t bury them, we haven’t enough hands . . . .”

And just as he said that, there came the unearthly howl of a jackal cutting across the quiet night air. “Unearthly,” because it hadn’t come from the desert.

It had come from everywhere. And nowhere.

They all froze, then had looked at one another cautiously. Anbenis, the god of the dead, had the head of a jackal. . . .

The howl came again, filling Kiron’s upper room where they all sat on mats, like so many scribes, because Kiron didn’t have chairs.

“Perhaps we should sleep on a decision,” Ari said after a moment.

And in the morning, the bodies were simply gone. Not as in “dragged off by jackals” gone either. As in “vanished, leaving even their clothing and armor behind” gone.

That, thankfully, was the last manifestation of the hands of the gods.

Kiron had felt very uneasy about stooping to the level of looting the dead so as to make use of that discarded clothing, but others were not so squeamish. After a thorough washing, there were plenty of folk walking about on this day sporting Heyksin tunics. Aside from the garish colors, which would soon fade, they were not so unlike Altian tunics.

So he and Aket-ten sat on the carved window ledge of his uppermost room, and watched the unaccustomed splotches of bright crimson, eye-searing blue, and acidic yellow moving purposefully beneath them. There were too many weighty matters to be discussed, and they wanted to discuss none of them.

So, instead, they talked about furniture, of which there was very little here. It was a relief, a relief to speak of commonplaces, to debate the type of table, the style of lamp. It meant they did not yet need to think about what all this meant . . . or could mean.

Or what it had been like to play host to a god.

“I should like a proper bed,” Aket-ten said at last, speaking aloud. “Raised off the floor, with a real mattress. There are enough rags now to stuff mattresses for every person in Aerie twice over.”

Kiron decided to say nothing of his misgivings about sleeping on dead men’s clothing; instead, he suggested, “Don’t you think grass would be more comfortable?”

“Well, so would goose-down,” she said, giving him a dubious look, but I don’t see any parades of geese in Aerie—nor fields of grass either—”

“Perhaps the Lord of the Jousters can ask for a mattress to be brought,” suggested Marit from the stair. “Ari and Nofret are off safely, which is just as well, considering that it would not be wise for her to be flying soon.”

“Ah, goo—” The implications of that last sentence brought Kiron’s thoughts to a crashing halt. “What?”