Lord of the Changing Winds (35 page)

“Yes,” answered the woman without apparent offense. “If we have sensible reason to do so. I am not challenging you. Can you not tone
your
power down a little, griffin mage?”

The taut line of Kairaithin’s mouth did not ease, but the wind died slowly and the fire at his feet ebbed like water back into the sand. He turned his back to the woman and the king, came to Kes in three long strides, and took her by the shoulders. Some of the men shifted—Jos clearly wanted to come back to her side—but the king lifted a forbidding hand and none of them moved to interfere.

Kairaithin was, Kes understood, very angry. Very angry. She wanted to shrink away, and could not. She wanted to hide herself away in any small shadow that might offer sanctuary, and could not. She stared into the griffin’s fierce eyes and tried not to flinch visibly.

“You are everything,” the griffin told her harshly. “You are my hope of deliverance for all my people. And I find you here! Within the reach of powerful earth magic; within the reach of human kings! What would you have done if this earth mage had cut across your little strip of desert and trapped you here in the cold?”

Unable to speak, Kes only shook her head.

The tight line of Kairaithin’s mouth eased unexpectedly. He released her and shifted back a step, giving her a little space. She was shaking. He frowned at her and half turned, to take in the king as well. But most of his attention was still for her. “If you would have men and griffins together lay an ambush for our common enemy, we shall do so. Do you understand me?”

“I had been told,” said the king warily, “that this was not your intention.” He, too, must have felt the barely contained rage that burned within the griffin, but he met his eyes steadily.

“Your man Bertaud son of Boudan persuaded me of the justice of your cause,” Kairaithin snapped. “Do
not
press me, king of men; I am not yours to rule. I will tell you what you will do: Go into the desert when the opportunity is offered, and the Lord of Fire and Air will make a pretense of battle; both your men and my people will bring the Arobern down into the desert and there destroy them, and them alone.”

The king studied him; one sun-streaked eyebrow lifted. “Is that how it will be?”

Kairaithin’s thin mouth tilted into a hard smile; he looked taut and dangerous and like nothing human. He said to Kes, “If you face Esterire Airaikeliu and tell him that you will make whole no injuries of griffin-kind, save if he and his protect and aid your people, he will have no choice but to do as you require or else give way before the armies of men. And he will not give way, nor would he long rule my people if he attempted it. Yours is indeed the will that may rule here,
kereskiita
. Our need for your goodwill is greater than your need for ours.”

Among the Feierabiand soldiers, Jos gave Kes a slow nod, meaning,
Is that not what I said? Do you see now that you do in truth hold the sword in your own hand?

“But—” whispered Kes. “Tesme? And everyone?”

“The Lord of Fire and Air will be angry,” Kairaithin acknowledged, meeting her eyes. “His mate Esterikiu Anahaikuuanse will be angry; Tastairiane Apailika will be very angry. You must withstand all their anger, all their threats. I suspect that Eskainiane Escaile Sehaikiu will support you. But it does not matter. If they would carry out their threats,
I
will prevent them, and you must trust me for that. I promise you, no harm will come to your sister, nor to your little village of men. Will you trust me to do as I say?”

“Isn’t your need too great to allow you to be trustworthy?”

“You will have to decide whom you will trust.”

Kes nodded, slowly.

“You taxed me previously with unjustly withholding choice from you. I give it to you now. There is a cost. You will pay it either way. You will ride the fiery wind and be changed by it, and achieve triumph for us all. Or you will refuse to become fire, and your people will be crushed by the strength of Casmantium. You wished me to be clear with you. Am I clear?”

He had unbound her. Kes could feel the difference, as though her awareness of the desert had suddenly expanded and clarified. She whispered, “Yes.”

Among the men, Jos came half a step forward and then stopped as he met an officer’s forbidding hand. He said furiously, “No! How dare you steal her from earth, how dare you make her a fire mage and force her to do the work
you
ought to do—”

“If she will be a fire mage, it’s not in the way a griffin is a mage!” snapped Kairaithin. “
I
have no power to heal. It’s not your choice, man! Nor even mine.” Kairaithin turned his proud stare upon the king, who met it and did not even visibly flinch. “And you, king of men? You are the other one here to have a choice: to battle griffins in the desert, and then Casmantium when the Arobern comes down from the heights, or to trust my intentions and my skill and reserve your strength for Casmantium alone. Do you understand what it is I will do for you?”

“I think I do,” said the king. He looked deliberately at Kes. “Shall I trust this creature? What say you?”

Kes shook her head, found her voice, and whispered, “You should trust me.” She looked at Jos. “You… you told me that the… the sword was in my hand. I didn’t think so. But it is. You were right. I see that, now. I won’t let them harm you. But you know I will have to use fire. I will have to, Jos.”

He started to answer, to come back to her, but the king shook his head, and the officer stopped him with a hard grip. Then the king glanced at the woman in the chair. “Meriemne?”

The woman’s strange clouded eyes might be blind, but they still saw more, Kes thought, than the surface of men; she looked down, feeling exposed and very small.

“She has given her heart to the fire,” the woman said to the king, her fragile voice nevertheless perfectly clear in the quiet. “But she has not yet forgotten how to love the earth. She will try hard to do what she has said she will do.”

“And the griffin?”

“Ah.” Ruthless discipline struggled with dislike in those old eyes. “There I can’t well judge.”

“Wise,” Kairaithin said to her, at once harshly furious and amused. He looked at the king, waiting.

“I am inclined,” said the king, “to follow your script, griffin mage.”

“Wisdom is showered like fire across the earth!” exclaimed Kairaithin, with more bitterness than humor. And laid a hand on Kes’s shoulder, and moved them all, Kes and Opailikiita and himself, back into the heart of the desert.

T
he Lord of Fire and Air was very angry. His anger beat through the air as though the sun itself raged across the desert. He was angry with Kes, but he was angrier still with Kairaithin.

This is your
kiinukaile, he said to Kairaithin, his powerful voice slamming down around them like silent thunder.
This is
your
little kitten. You set yourself against me—you set this little earth-creature before you and set yourself in its shadow!

Do you believe so?
For this battle, Kairaithin had taken his true form. He matched the king glare for glare, but he sat poised and still, like a cat, ostentatiously unconcerned with any threat. He said, with a disdainful, contained fury of his own,
Will you say that I keep to the shadow of any creature? Of earth or fire or both at once? Do you declare so?

Shall I?
demanded the king.

Little flames licked up and down Kairaithin’s black wings.
I declare your intention is ill-conceived. And will you nevertheless hold to it, in the face of the necessity I perceive?

Lord of the Changing Wind, will you claim to be Lord of Fire and Air?

There was a short pause. Kairaithin did not drop his gaze as a man would have before his king; he did not look away or bow himself down or make any gesture that recognized the griffin king’s threat or challenge or reprimand or whatever it had been. He merely said,
No.
Just that, flatly.

Having considered the direction of the wind,
I
decide how the People of Wind and Fire shall follow it,
the king said, and the whole desert seemed to shudder with the force of that assertion.

Having found the direction of the wind unsustainable, I alter its direction
, Kairaithin answered, still in that flat tone.

You are influenced by your little
kiinukaile, said Tastairiane Apailika. The white griffin lounged in a pose that mimicked relaxation, but he was not relaxed. Kes heard the tension in his voice; it sang in the wind that ruffled the shining feathers around his fierce eagle’s head and neck and shoulders. When he shifted a forefoot, he tore deep gouges through the red stone with his eagle’s talons. He said contemptuously,
Your
kereskiita
maintains attachment to its mud-people, and you are influenced by its attachment. There comes a wind of blood and fire; we may mount the heights to ride this storm. We have this chance to rid ourselves of both kinds of human creatures and claim this land. And you would
change
this wind, Sipiike Kairaithin?

It is an error to set trust or good regard into the keeping of any human
, added Nehaistiane Esterikiu Anahaikuuanse, mantling her red-and-gold wings and glaring at Kes.
You would distinguish between the human creatures here and those who came into our great desert to destroy us, but this is a false distinction. We had much better destroy them all. Have you not fashioned this human woman into a creature of fire for this exact purpose?

Kes, horrified, said, “I won’t!”

For a terrible moment, all the griffins stared at her. The combined ferocious power of their regard nearly drove her to cower away from them. Kes closed her hands into fists, shut her eyes so she would not have to try to meet all those furious unhuman glares, and concentrated on standing up straight. She said again, “I won’t! You want to
kill
everyone? You say the—the Lord of the Changing Wind made me into a creature of fire to
destroy all my people
? Well, maybe I’ve learned to love fire, but I remember my people and it doesn’t matter what you do! I won’t ride
any
wind of death that comes against my people!” Then she had to open her eyes again, trying not to flinch.

Esterikiu Anahaikuuanse, glaring more ferociously than ever, began to answer.

Eskainiane Escaile Sehaikiu interrupted the red female.
It’s a brave little kitten
, he declared approvingly,
and it knows its own mind and heart
. He turned to the king.
I watched this little one make you whole, my brother, when she was still almost entirely a human woman and hardly knew fire. Even then, that was nothing any of us could do, and who but her teacher might guess what she might have become since?

Exactly so
, said the red female sharply.
Thus—

She’s not of our kind
, said Eskainiane, and turned to nudge Kes with the tip of his beak, a gesture that was not
exactly
friendly, but something very like. He said to the other griffins,
If she was, what reason would Sipiike Kairaithin have had to seek her out? If she casts herself free of one wind for another, then if the wind changes,
I
might let slip the one wind from beneath my wings and ride the other.

There was a pause. Esterikiu Anahaikuuanse still looked furious, but the king now seemed more thoughtful than angry. It was his decision that mattered, and he did not speak.

She is determined on her course
, Kairaithin said in a hard voice.
She is adamant. She will yield to no threat.

If you would begin to
carry out
the threats you have made so liberally, she would cower at your feet,
Tastairiane Apailika said, his voice whipping through Kes’ mind like a thrown knife.

I am satisfied you are mistaken
, said Kairaithin.
And who perceives the hearts of men more clearly, you or I?

The white griffin had no answer for that.

And if you are wrong
, said Kairaithin,
and no threat nor punishment will move her, and we lose her gift and her skill, then what will we do when at last a more powerful Casmantium settles its strength and strikes against us? As it will. Do not mistake the Arobern’s intention: He will not suffer a desert to exist in the midst of his new lands. And Feierabiand, though weakened and angry, will in the end join with Casmantium against us, for all human peoples are natural allies when fire strikes against earth. You believe that with my
kiinukaile’s
skill and gift, we can destroy anything of humankind that comes against us, but the strength of earth is far less exhaustible than you imagine. And who would know better than I?