Lord of the Changing Winds (24 page)

Kairaithin did not watch the descent of the blade, but had stood quite still and gazed at Bertaud instead. His eyes held an odd expression, as though he had, for once, been taken by surprise and was having difficulty deciding on a reaction to the experience.

It seemed to Bertaud that everything was happening very slowly: That it had taken an hour to lift the sword and step forward, that it had taken a day for the sword to fall and free the griffin mage, that it had taken a year for Kairaithin to lower his arms to his sides. The eyes of the griffin mage held his, so that his vision swam with fire, its black heat all he could see. It filled his mind: a fiery silence as perfectly free of thought or emotion as the sun.

Then Iaor shouted and that odd sense of timelessness was shattered: Meriemne bent slowly forward in her seat and rested her forehead against her fragile hands. She did not try to renew any attack on Kairaithin. Neither did the young mage; he stepped back, and back again, face white.

Adries drew his own sword and lunged forward to put his own body before that of the king. All the officers had their swords out. Bertaud shut his eyes for a moment, his mouth dry. He let the sword he held fall from fingers that had gone suddenly numb. It rang on the stone like the stroke of an iron warning bell, sending echoes all through the room.

“Stop,” the griffin mage advised them all, his tone not loud, but deadly serious. The general flung up his hand and all the movement of his officers halted, men stopping where they stood.

Iaor’s eyes were on Bertaud’s face. He did not speak. He looked far more astonished than angry.

For his own part, Bertaud did not think he
could
speak. He certainly could not think of anything to say.

“Ask me for protection,” Kairaithin advised Bertaud. “I will grant it, if you ask me.”

Bertaud moved his gaze from Iaor’s face and stared at the griffin.

“Ask,”
said Kairaithin.

Bertaud swallowed. He looked again at Iaor. The king’s face had gone stony, impossible to read. He looked at Adries, and the general’s face was very easy to read. He shut his eyes, but nothing came to his mind save the desert and the brilliant sky.

“Yes,” he whispered.

And the world tilted and widened; the walls fell away to an immense distance, and the fierce living heat of the desert crashed down around him.

Heat beat up from the stone underfoot, into a darkness ornamented but not brightened by stars: A desert darkness that had nothing to do with the lantern-lit halls of men. Kairaithin’s strong hand caught Bertaud’s elbow when, disoriented, he staggered. The grip steadied Bertaud until he had regained his balance, then released him.

Kairaithin, disembodied in the powerful darkness, said quietly, “I have been surprised many times by the unpredictable actions of men; not least tonight.”

“Yes,” Bertaud said, his throat tight. “I, as well.” He wanted to weep, not for fear of the griffin, but for loss and grief. Iaor’s face came before him in the blind darkness, set and hard; but the king’s eyes were not angry, only astonished. Iaor had simply not believed Bertaud’s treachery.

For, though Bertaud had not thought of it that way in the moment—he could hardly have been said to be thinking at all, in that moment—how else could his actions be described, save as betrayal? Bertaud thought he might dream of that look in Iaor’s eyes for the rest of his life. He turned sharply away from the griffin, lifting his hand to his face to hide the shine of tears.

There was a short, tense silence. The griffin said finally, “I did not ask you to free me. I admit I expected you to speak for me to your king. I judged him by you and did not expect him to be a fool.”

“He is not.” Bertaud took a breath and tried to think past what he supposed, with some dispassionate part of his mind, to be shock. He said at last, “He did not trust you—your intentions, or your power. What man would?”

“You, evidently,” Kairaithin answered drily. “I find that curious.”

Bertaud said, “You’ve surely given no reason for trust. To Iaor, or to me.” He turned and walked blindly several paces, until a sense of space and shape he had not known he possessed told him suddenly that the stone before his feet fell away into emptiness. He could not even find room in his heart for wonder at this strange perception. He asked the night, not turning, knowing the griffin mage watched him patiently from the powerful darkness, “Why did you go there?”

Kairaithin said, “I would have told your king that Casmantium has come into his kingdom. The Arobern of Casmantium waits in the hills just there, above our desert.”

Bertaud, incredulous, turned. He took a step back toward the griffin. “What?”

“Brechen Glansent Arobern of Casmantium,” Kairaithin said patiently. “And five thousand soldiers. Just there.” He nodded to a point in the mountains, visible as a bulk against the stars. “It is as well the Safiad did not hold me, as I think he will have enough to trouble his days without my people striking as the mood takes them all through his lands, as Airaikeliu and Eskainiane would not be able to prevent them without my support. So you did well to free me, man.”

Bertaud took a deep breath, let it out in a slow trickle. Then, unable to contain himself, he drew a second breath and shouted, “And you did not
tell
him about Casmantium?”

The griffin did not answer. He was not visible in the darkness, and yet Bertaud knew where he stood, even knew the hard, pitiless look that would be in his eyes, if he had been able to look into them. Bertaud shut his own eyes. He whispered, “You did not even tell me?”

The quality of the silence changed in some indefinable way. “I should have come to you, perhaps, man, and asked you to speak for me to your king,” said Kairaithin. “That did not occur to me. And then your king offended me. I am sorry for that.”

“Sorry!”

“Yes,” said the griffin. “I am sorry for it, because my young
kereskiita
has gone into the cold hand of Casmantium, and I do not know now how I may get her out of it.”

It took Bertaud a long moment to understand this. He said at last, “Kes?”

“Kes. Yes,” said Kairaithin, and there was something in his voice that was not exactly grief, not precisely fear. “I did not know in time that she had come to the attention of the cold mages, and then it was too late. Now she is beyond my reach.” He came forward and stood near Bertaud at the edge of the cliff, gazing out into the dark and up at the bulk of the mountains that rose above the desert.

“What… will that mean?”

“I hardly care to guess what it may mean.” But the griffin’s voice was weary, shadowed by something that sounded very close to despair. There was a short pause, and then Kairaithin touched Bertaud’s shoulder—a light touch, oddly tentative. “You are tired.” A low sound, not quite a laugh. “As are we all. Rest, then. Perhaps the light of the sun will bring clarity.”

Bertaud could only hope it would. He had little hope of it.

K
es woke, confused and afraid, nestled into a bed of cushions, with shadows swinging dizzyingly around her as quiet-footed men took down the lanterns and carried them away. She had slept, she understood, though surely not for very many hours. But the tent was filled with daylight. It was also nearly empty of men: Her guard was there, and the king, sitting in a chair with his long legs thrust out before him and a scattering of papers across the table at his side. The door of the tent was open, light and cold air spilling in across the carpeted floor. The light was nothing like the hammering brilliance of the desert. Kes looked at it, feeling lost and somehow bereft.

The king looked up as Kes straightened in her nest of cushions. He smiled, shoved some of the papers out of the way, and held out a powerful hand to her, indicating a chair near his. “Come,” he said in Terheien.

The King of Casmantium looked younger in daylight, and yet somehow larger than ever, even though he was sitting down. He had clearly not slept himself, but energy radiated from him as heat from the sun: When he looked at Kes, his attention was powerful as a griffin’s.

He was no longer wearing mail. His shirt was a soft ivory color that made the blackness of his hair and beard more stark by contrast. His hair was very short, but his head was not, at least, shaved completely, as some of the Casmantian soldiers seemed to do. He was not wearing any kind of crown, but he had a thick-linked chain of gold about his throat. It seemed somehow to suit his heavy features.

Kes climbed stiffly to her feet, brushing wrinkles out of her clothing as well as she could with her hands. She wanted a bath, a comb, and a change of clothing. There was no sign that she was to be given any of these things, at least not immediately. But it seemed the King of Casmantium did mean to offer her breakfast. Kes looked at the platters of rolls and sliced fruit on the table without interest and settled gingerly into a chair a little farther from the king than the one he had clearly meant her to take. She folded her hands in her lap and looked at the table.

“Kes,” the king said affably. His voice was still harsh and guttural, but he could not help that, and he seemed to want to be kind. “Where is your home?”

Kes found her voice after a moment and whispered, “Minas Ford.”

“You are fifteen, Festellech Anweiechen informs me?”

She nodded.

The king grunted and shoved a platter of rolls her way. “You look twelve,” he said bluntly. “It is the shy way about you, I suppose. My mage Beguchren Teshrichten says you are becoming a fire mage. He says you are half fire now. I suppose that is true.”

Kes supposed it was.

“Eat,” ordered the king, frowning at her. “You are all bone. That makes you look young also.”

Kes obediently took a roll, nibbling it without appetite.

The king took one also and ate it in two bites, continuing to frown. He asked abruptly, “Why were you alone in the desert?”

Kes had no easy answer for this. But she was afraid not to answer. She said, ashamed of the timidity of her voice, “I… I was walking. And… and thinking.”

“Walking and thinking,” repeated the king. His eyebrows had gone up a little, but he did not seem to find this answer incomprehensible. “Humph. Minas Ford… are there king’s men at Minas Ford? Feierabianden soldiers? I hear there was a battle and many soldiers of Feierabiand were killed, yes? Did any survive, do you know? Or did some stay in Minas Ford, or others come after?”

Kes blinked at him and shook her head.

“Humph.” The king continued to study her. “Is Iaor Safiad content to have
malacteir
in his land, then? Griffins, yes?”

Kes did not know what to say, or whether she should say anything at all. It seemed best perhaps to say nothing, but she was afraid silence would make the king angry. Besides, he looked at her so expectantly and so forcefully that she felt she had to find some kind of answer. At last she answered cautiously, “There… there was a battle. Yes. I saw the place, after. It was… it was horrible. I suppose there might be more soldiers there now. I don’t know.”

The king’s eyebrows went up again. “Huh.” He did not say anything more for a little while, gesturing instead for Kes to eat.

Kes was not hungry. She made herself eat part of the roll, to make the king happy, and a small slice of white cheese. She did not want even that. Because the king did not seem unfriendly, she nerved herself to ask, “What… what is it that you want… in Feierabiand… lord?”

“A port city with a good harbor,” he answered promptly, taking Kes utterly by surprise. “And if I can win one, perhaps a new province for Casmantium, hah? Terabiand has a good harbor. Your kings have always charged very high to use it. And the tolls on the mountain road are, ah, an insult, you know? Always the tolls go up, and the road is not even good.”

Kes stared at him. “You can’t… you can’t just
take
Terabiand.”

“I think I can,” said the king mildly, or as mildly as his heavy voice would allow him to say anything. “And all that country between Terabiand and Casmantium, maybe all the way up to Bered and Talend. That would make a very good province. It would rival Meridanium, which my great-grandfather won, hah? You, well, you may be a problem, yes.”

Kes looked down at the table, at the bread she had been slowly pulling to pieces with her fingers.