Lord of the Changing Winds (10 page)

Kairaithin held out his hand to her, his eyes brilliant with dark fire. “I will show you the desert. I will show you the paths that fire traces through the air. Few are the creatures of earth who ever become truly aware of fire. I will show you its swift beauty. Will you come?”

All her earlier longing for her home seemed… not gone, but somehow distant. Flames rose all around the edges of Kes’s mind, but this was not actually disagreeable. It even felt… welcoming.

Kes took a step forward without thinking, caught herself, drew back. “I’m
not
your student,” she declared. Or she
meant
to declare it. But the statement came out less firmly than she’d intended. Not exactly like a plea, but almost like a question. She said, trying again for forcefulness and this time managing at least to sound like she meant it, “My sister will be worried about me—”

“She will endure your absence,” Kairaithin said indifferently. “Are you so young you require your sister’s leave to come and go?”

“No! But she’ll be
worried
!”

“She will endure. It will be better so. A scattering of hours, a cycle of days. Can you not absent yourself so long?” Kairaithin continued to hold out his hand. “You are become my student, and so you must be for yet some little time. Your sister will wait for you. Will you come?”

“Well…” Kes could not make her own way home. And if she had to depend on the griffin mage to take her home, then she didn’t want to offend him. And if she had to stay in the desert for a little while anyway, she might as easily let him show her its wonders. Wasn’t that so?

She was aware that she wanted to think of justifications for that decision. But
wasn’t
it so?

Come
, whispered Opailikiita around the edges of her mind.
We will show you what it means to be a mage of fire.

Kes did not feel like any sort of mage. But she took the necessary step forward and let Kairaithin take her hand.

The griffin mage did not smile. But the expression in his eyes was like a smile. His strange, hot fingers closed hard around her hand, and the world tilted out from under them.

The desert at night was black and a strange madder-tinted silver; the sky was black, and the great contorted cliffs, and the vast expanses of sand that stretched out in all directions. But the red moon cast a pale, crimson-tinged luminescence over everything, and far above the stars were glittering points of silver fire. Now and again, in the distance, a coruscation of golden sparks scattered across the dark, and Kes knew a griffin had taken to the air.

Kes sat above the world, high atop stone, under the innumerable stars. Kairaithin, wearing the shape of a man as he might have worn a mask, stood at the very edge of the cliff, gazing out into the blackness. From time to time, he glanced momentarily toward Kes and Opailikiita, but he always turned again to look outward. Like a sentinel. But Kes could not decide whether he seemed to be waiting for a signal from a friend—though she wondered whether griffins exactly
had
friends—or from an enemy. She knew very well griffins had
those
.

Kairaithin’s arms were crossed over his chest, and now and again when he glanced her way, he smiled slightly—not a human smile. It was even less a human smile, Kes had decided, than his shadow was a human shadow. But she could not decide exactly where the difference lay.

Kes was sitting cross-legged on the stone, leaning back against Opailikiita’s feathered shoulder. The young griffin was teaching Kes how to summon fire into the palm of her hand, and how to let it sink down into her blood.
Fire will run like poetry through your blood
, Kairaithin had said to Kes, and she now understood, at least a little, what the griffin-mage had meant. She called the fire out of her body again, set it dancing once more in her hand, and grinned swiftly up at Opailikiita.

Good
, said the young griffin, bending her head down to look at the little flame. She clicked her beak gently in satisfaction or pleasure or approval—something at least akin to those things.
Fire becomes part of your nature.

“Yes, I suppose,” agreed Kes. The little flame in her hand was a pleasant warmth. It felt oddly familiar, as though she had spent her life holding fire in her hands—it felt as comfortable as holding an egg, only more lively. More like holding a kitten, maybe. Something small and alive. Something that might scratch, but not seriously. She closed her hand carefully around the flame. For a moment it flickered at her past the cage of her fingers. Then it was gone.

Could you call it back?
Opailikiita asked.

Kes looked up at the slim griffin, then down at her closed fist. She opened her hand again, palm up, and drew fire from Opailikiita, from the stone, from the desert air. The flame bloomed again in her palm. “It’s not even hard,” Kes said, smiling.

It is always easy to follow your nature
, agreed Opailikiita.

“I never knew…”

Opailikiita began to answer, but Kairaithin said first, “Every man, and every griffin, believes he possesses a fixed and singular nature. But sometimes our distinctive self proves more mutable than we might suppose possible.” He was not smiling now, but Kes did not understand the expression she saw in his eyes. But she did not have time to wonder about it, for then he straightened away from the pillar he’d leaned against and glanced away, toward the east. “The sun rises,” he said.

It did. There was nothing of the pearl-gray and lavender dawn Kes might have watched from her window at home. Here, the return of the sun seemed altogether a wilder and fiercer phenomenon. First the merest edge of gold touched the sky over the tips of the mountains, and then the sunrise piled up behind the black teeth of the mountains in towering gold and purple, and then the burning sun itself seemed somehow almost to leap away from the mountains and into the desert sky, fiercer and larger here than it ever seemed in the gentler country of men.

The light was probably gentle and warm in the cold heights, but there was nothing gentle about the sunlight that poured heavily across the desert. Kes thought she could almost
hear
it come, as she might have heard flood-waters roar down from the mountain heights. Heat, thick as honey, filled the air. It was not exactly unpleasant, but it was very powerful. Kes swayed under its force, let the fire she held flicker out, and put her hands over her face to shield her eyes. She blinked hard, expecting her eyes to water in the brilliance, but there were no tears.

“Opailikiita,” said Kairaithin in edged reproof, “that is not entirely a creature of fire.”

Yes
, answered the young griffin, though in a faintly uncertain tone. She stretched out a wing to shelter Kes from the fierceness of the sun. Light glowed through the feathers above Kes’s head, but the brilliance was much attenuated.

“Useful as a momentary solution. However, as a permanent resolution of the difficulty, it lacks elegance,” Kairaithin said drily. He put out a hand, and stone shuddered around them. A hot wind came up, driving sand whirling about the plateau where they stood exposed to the sky. Opailikiita reached out hastily with her other wing, enclosing Kes entirely in a sweep of rich brown and gold.

Then the wind died. Opailikiita drew her wings away, and Kes, blinking around, saw that tall twisting pillars now stood all around the edge of the flat top of the cliff, crowned with a slab of red stone. The rough hall that was thus formed was nothing at all like anything men would have built. She had not exactly understood before that
making
was truly a thing of men. But this hall—rough, but blatantly powerful—was, she realized, probably as close to making or building as griffins ever came.

She had no time to think about this, however, for into the stone hall, riding on the wind and the light, came Kiibaile Esterire Airaikeliu, Lord of Fire and Air. His name beat like poetry or fire through Kes’s blood, overwhelming as the desert sun itself. He seemed huge, much bigger than she remembered; his wings seemed to close out half the sky. The wind roared through his wings; his talons flashed like polished bronze; his eyes were gold as the sun.

To the king’s left flew the copper-and-gold griffin, Eskainiane Escaile Sehaikiu, who had told Kes,
When you would set a name to burn against the dark, think of me
.
Escaile Sehaikiu would burn against the dark like a conflagration
, Kes thought; he blazed with such brilliance that he might almost have been feathered in fire even now. To the king’s right flew a female griffin—whose name Kes did not know, as she had never healed her—her red wings heavily barred with gold, lion body gold as the pure metal.

The king came down at the edge of the cliff, tucking his wings in close to fit between the narrow stone pillars and stalking forward with lion grace. He turned his head one way to stare at Kairaithin, then as his companions came under the roof after him, he turned that fierce golden stare on Kes.

His gaze, she found, was less readable than even the regard of an eagle or a lion. Kes wanted to cower down like a rabbit before that proud, incomprehensible stare. But Opailikiita nudged her gently in the back and said softly, her voice creeping delicately around the outermost edge of Kes’s mind,
Remember you are Kairaithin’s
kiinukaile
and my
iskarianere,
and remember your pride.

Kes had no idea what
iskarianere
meant—except she did, in a way, even though Opailikiita had not exactly explained it to her. When the slim brown griffin said it to her, something of the sense of the word unfolded like a spark blooming into a flame. Kes put a hand out almost blindly, burying her fingers in the fine feathers of Opailikiita’s throat and whispering, “Sister.” And though it might not be exactly true in familiar human terms, though she did not really understand what the griffin meant by the word or what it encompassed, Kes was comforted and found the courage to stand up straight.

Human woman
, said the Lord of Fire and Air. The king’s voice slammed down across Kes’s mind like a blow, so that she staggered under it and had to brace herself against Opailikiita’s shoulder. The king’s voice did not exactly hurt her—not exactly—but it came down on her with the heavy power of the desert sun. He said implacably,
Human mage. And will you become a mage of fire?

Kes had no idea how to answer.

It seems a small creature
, the king said to Kairaithin.

“Esterire Airaikeliu, it will grow,” Kairaithin answered, sounding drily amused.

The king mantled his wings restlessly.
Perhaps. But soon enough?

She made you whole
, Eskainiane Escaile Sehaikiu reminded the king.
She found your name in the light and perceived you insistently whole. She is not so small as that
.

The coppery griffin’s voice was not at all like the king’s: It rang all around Kes’s mind as though a brazen gong had been struck, singing with vivid joy. Kes understood that Escaile Sehaikiu had expected the king to die and was passionately glad Kes had saved him—but she thought the copper-and-gold griffin was also by nature expansively joyful.

She will never stand against the cold mages, when they come
, said the red-and-gold female griffin. Her voice was swift and hot and bitterly angry, so that Kes stopped herself only with difficulty from taking a step backward.

“
I
will stand against the Casmantian mages,” Kairaithin said flatly. His black gaze passed without pity or fear across the red female and met the king’s. “This young
kiinukaile
of mine need merely call into her mind and heart the names of our people and see them whole and uninjured. This she will do, as she has already done.”

You will do this
, the king said to Kes. It was not a question.

“Yes,” Kes said softly. But she was surprised by the certainty she felt. “Yes, lord. If the cold mages come with their arrows. I would not want… I would not let them injure your people. Kairaithin says he has no power to heal. I would heal your people.”

Indeed
.
Not so
very
small
, said the king, bending low to gaze hard into Kes’s face.

Kes longed to back away, but instead she pressed her hand hard against Opailikiita’s shoulder and stayed exactly where she was, staring back into those fiery golden eyes.

Your name is Kes?
said the king.
That is what they call you, among men? It is too small a name.

“Kereskiita,” said Kairaithin, sounding amused.

For her familiar name? That will do.

Eskainiane Escaile Sehaikiu said, fierce laughter edging his voice,
Kereskiita Keskainiane Raikaisipiike.

That is not fitting!
said the red-and-gold female griffin, with no laughter at all in her voice. She glared at Kes, so fiercely that it almost seemed her stare could scorch the very air.

The king did not exactly say anything to this, but a forceful, if silent, blow seemed to shake the whole cliff—maybe the whole desert. The female griffin crouched down, snapping her razor beak shut with a deadly sound. But she did not say anything else.

It will do
, said the king, and to Kes,
Keskainiane Raikaisipiike.
He flung himself back and away off the cliff, his great wings snapping open to catch the desert wind. Little flames scattered from his wings, sparks that glittered into delicate fragments of gold and settled to the sand far below. The other two griffins followed him, Eskainiane Escaile Sehaikiu blazing with glorious abandon and the red female furiously silent.