Lord of the Changing Winds (44 page)

“Yes,” Kes said. But she did not step forward.

“Kes?”

“Yes,” said Kes patiently.

“You look… so different.”

“Do I?” Kes thought about this. She thought she did feel different, within herself. But it was hard to think about what she had been like, before. When she reached after memories of herself, she could find nothing but fading echoes of a person who seemed only vaguely familiar. A shy but laughing child, a shyer and more silent girl… loves and sorrows and memories that seemed, now, to have little to do with her. The person she remembered had been a creature of earth, a person whose needs and desires and emotions she could not now readily understand. When she reached after memories of Tesme… those memories carried regret, even something like grief, though she did not really understand why they should. “I think I am different.”

“Can you… can you… change back?”

“No.”

Jos, watching them both, asked, “Do you want to change back to what you were before?”

Kes glanced at him, surprised. “No.”

Tesme bowed her head a little.

“I’m sorry if you are hurt,” Kes told her. “I do remember you. I haven’t forgotten anything. It’s just… it’s different when I think about things now. I remember you. But it’s like remembering a language I used to speak and have forgotten: What I remember doesn’t feel… real. I’m sorry,” she added, because an expression of regret seemed somehow appropriate.

Tesme’s tears were real, and fell like drops of rain to the sand. She said in a low voice, “Jos told me. But I didn’t understand what he said.”

“I’m glad he brought you to see me,” Kes said. “I see now I should have come to see you. I didn’t think of it.”

“I see you didn’t,” Tesme answered. Her head was still bowed, her shoulders rounded.

“You should probably go back to your own kind.”

“Yes,” Tesme whispered. She came forward suddenly and reached out, quickly at first but then more tentatively, to take Kes by the shoulders. She folded her into an embrace, fierce and longing and sorrowful all at once. After the first startled moment, Kes returned the embrace, bending her head against Tesme’s shoulder as she had when she was a child needing comfort; it felt very strange.

“Are you happy?” Tesme asked. She eased back so that she could look into Kes’s face.

This was not the sort of question a griffin would ask. Kes had to think about the answer. But she said at last, “Yes. I am happy. I don’t think there was any other choice to make. But it was a right choice, all the same.”

“I love you. But you’ll never come home again.”

“I will be glad to remember you. But the desert is my home now.”

Tesme nodded, and let her go. She was trying to smile. “I know you’re not alone. I hear you have a new sister.”

“Opailikiita.”

“I hear she’s very beautiful. Does she love you?”

Kes could not even think about the question in those terms. But she said, “We are
iskarianere—
I think that is like love, for a griffin.”

“You aren’t a griffin, Kes.”

“But I’m like a griffin now,” Kes said, trying to make her tone kind, trying to remember exactly what kindness was, so that she might be kind to this human woman who had been her sister. She remembered that men valued kindness, that once she herself had needed people to be kind to her.

Tesme looked searchingly into her eyes. “Are you? Are you?”

“Yes.”

Tesme’s shoulders slumped again, and then squared as her head came up. “All right,” she said. She might have meant to speak firmly—her attitude was firm—but the words came out in a thread of sound. “Be well, Kes. Wherever you go, into whatever strange country. Be happy.”

“I will be,” said Kes, and watched the woman who had been her sister walk away. Tesme looked back once. Then she turned her face forward and disappeared into the darkness.

“You did not ask how
she
was,” Jos commented.

It had not occurred to Kes to do so. She looked at him wordlessly.

“She went to Nehoen’s house. Everyone from Minas Ford did, except the badly injured. His house and most of his lands are still outside the desert, you know.”

Kes did know this, when she thought of it. She knew where the boundary of the desert lay, and though everything beyond that boundary seemed dim and distant, her memory of the land told her where Nehoen’s property lay.

“He has been courting her. Ever since you… left. I think he had her in his eye before that. He’s been a great oak for her to lean on, this summer. I imagine that when everyone else leaves his house, she will stay.”

“Oh,” said Kes. She was glad, in a distant sort of way. She thought she had once liked Nehoen. He seemed old for Tesme. But then… perhaps Tesme was not so young as all that, really. “Good.”

“You should be pleased.” Jos regarded her with an expression she could not read. “The match will be good for both of them. Especially Tesme. She wore herself out with worry about you. Nehoen is the romantic sort. He’ll be just what she needs now.”

Kes had no feel for such matters, but she presumed he was right.

“They won’t stay around here, you know,” Jos added. “Tesme… well, Tesme hates the very sight of the desert. She was talking about Sihannas. That’s good country for horses, and she and Nehoen will easily be able to afford the move, what with the king directing a good chunk of the indemnity to the folk of Minas Ford.”

Sihannas. Sihannas, at the edge of the Delta. Kes had never even dreamed of going so far from home. And now she had gone so much farther, even standing in this high pasture so near the ruined village. She smiled slightly, feeling the desert wind tug at the edges of her soul.

“You don’t mind that she will go so far?”

Kes blinked, recalled to the moment. “Everything in the country of earth is far, for me.” Then she asked, the question slowly welling up in her mind, “But where will you go?”

Jos regarded her with an odd, intent expression. He said at last, “Not to Sihannas. The Safiad wants me either under his eye or out of his country, and who can blame him? Not to Casmantium: How could I face the Arobern? Not to Linularinum: I hate all the sly maneuvering that’s lifeblood to everyone on that side of the river.”

It had not occurred to Kes that Jos, of them all, faced the greatest dislocation. For her, there was the desert; for the folk of Minas Ford, all of Feierabiand; everyone else could hope to return eventually to their homes and their people. But she could not imagine where Jos would go.

“I thought,” he said, his eyes on her face, “that I might go with you, Kes. That I might remind you, from time to time, what it means to be human.”

Kes did not understand him. “There is no place in the desert for a creature of earth.”

“There are places where earth borders fire, Kes. Where the mountains meet the desert, north of Casmantium… there are places there a man might live. Or—” and he took a deep breath—“for you it was different, I know. But maybe your friend Kairaithin might find a way to make an ordinary man into a creature of fire.”

Kes stared at him, taken utterly by surprise. “Why would you want to do that?”

Jos took a step toward her, took a breath, started to speak, and stopped. Then he said, with careful restraint, “What is there for me in any of the countries of men? Hear me out, Kes. You may no longer be human, but among the griffins you will still be alone; you are not one of them, either. Think of that. You may learn to take the shape of a griffin, but you won’t ever really be one, any more than Kairaithin is a man when he takes the form of a man. Will you endure a lifetime of loneliness? Of being one alone among many?” His voice had quickened as he continued, until his words tumbled over one another at the last and choked him silent; he was still, then, his eyes on her face.

Kes said slowly, “I would have been an earth mage. Kairaithin redirected what I should have been and made me a creature of fire. You are not a mage of any kind.”

“He’ll find a way. Or you will. If you want to.”

Kes took a step forward and lifted her hand to touch his face. She found she was smiling. She did not know what a creature of earth would feel at such a moment. But what
she
felt was a kind of fierce possessive pleasure, something like the
iskairianaika
she shared with Opailikiita, but not the same. She was pleased Jos had made this unanticipated offer. Loneliness was not something she feared; she feared very little, now. But even so… “Yes,” she said. “I would like your company in the country of fire. I think I would like that. Yes, I would. Yes.” And she folded both of them into a sweep of shifting time and silence and took Jos away with her into the heart of the desert.

Rachel Neumeier
started writing fiction to relax when she was a graduate student and needed a hobby unrelated to her research. Prior to selling her first fantasy novel, she had published only a few articles in venues such as
The American Journal of Botany
. However, finding that her interests did not lie in research, Rachel left academia and began to let her hobbies take over her life instead. She now raises and shows Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, gardens, cooks, and occasionally finds time to read. She works part time for a tutoring program, though she tutors far more students in math and chemistry than in English composition. Find out more about Rachel Neumeier at
www.rachelneumeier.com
.

Have you always known that you wanted to write novels?

I always made up stories in boring classes—as far back as I can remember. (Doesn’t everybody?) And I was never interested in short stories. Novel length is the only length that works for me. Or longer! It was
hard
to learn to write
short
novels.

After a hard day of writing, is there anything you like to do in your free time?

It would be nice if I could read, which has always been one of my favorite things. But when I’m actually involved in writing a book of my own, I read very little fiction. I read nonfiction, or cook, or work in the garden, or take the dogs for a walk, or if I have a show or obedience trial coming up I might work on, say, teaching one of my dogs to stand beautifully or heel backing up or something. Of course, if I work with one dog, they all want in on the fun, so training sessions can take a while.

Do you have any particularly favorite authors who have influenced your work?

Certainly! I love Patricia McKillip and Robin McKinley. And Patricia Wrede, Diana Wynne Jones, CJ Cherryh, and Lois McMaster Bujold, in no particular order, and I’m sure I’ve missed a couple of my favorites. But I have to say that I can only hope Patricia McKillip has influenced my writing; I think she writes the most perfect stories, in the most beautiful language.

The connection between the desert and griffins is a unique take on griffin mythology. Where did you draw your inspiration from?

Nowhere. It just happened. I didn’t have that connection in mind at all. I like griffins and wanted to do something with them, but I had no idea there was going to be a connection between griffins and fire. Then I wrote the very first paragraph, and boom, there it was, right out of a, so to speak, clear sky.

Do you harbor a secret preference for any one griffin?

Actually, yes, not that it’s secret. Eskainiane, the griffin who at the end—well, that would be giving too much away, I suppose. But to me, Eskainiane really exemplifies what the ideal griffin should be—generous, joyful, passionate, courageous, even exuberant. We don’t see too much of him, but he’s the sort of griffin who would make you think, Hey, being a griffin might be pretty neat.

The subtle, earth-based magic is seamlessly woven into the fabric of Kes and Bertaud’s world. Was this an idea you had from the outset or did it develop over time?

It was a necessary part of the structure of the world as soon as griffins became connected to fire. I immediately saw that fire should be intrinsically opposed to, or at least foreign to, something else, something human. The something else became earth. The exact nature of human magic developed and changed a lot over time, though, and is actually still changing now as I finish book two and think about book three.