Authors: Mercedes Lackey

Tags: #Fantasy, #Adult, #Science Fiction

Sanctuary (5 page)

BOOK: Sanctuary

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“But we can’t take the dragons down there,” Aket-ten observed. “It will be too cold for them.”

He nodded. “We’ll move them in there—the winter quarters.” He pointed at the end building of their court, which might have been a stable, or something of the sort. They’d decided that would be the winter “cave” once things got too cold. Heklatis had not yet worked out how the Ghed priests transferred heat into the Tian dragon pens, although he was certain that between them, he and Ari could puzzle the magic out. At least the dragons would actually fit into this building, and it could probably be heated conventionally.

“I don’t want to leave Re-eth-ke,” she replied after a moment.

“I don’t think any of us plan on leaving our dragons,” he said truthfully. “They’ll probably be all right, but you never know. So it won’t be as comfortable as being down by the river, and we might have our hands full if they get restive or frightened.”

“I can think of too many bad things that could happen if we leave them alone,” she told him.

At just that moment, the rest of the wing started to straggle in. Pe-atep and scarlet-and-sand Deoth were the first of the lot, with Deoth looking more nervous than usual. “I think he senses something,” Pe-atep called in his booming voice as Deoth landed on the sand, and immediately went to a sheltered corner. Kiron nodded; having been a keeper of hunting cats, even lions, before becoming a Jouster, tall Pe-atep was perhaps the most sensitive of any of them to his dragon’s moods except, perhaps, the former falcon trainer Kalen.

“Kaleth’s prediction is holding true, then.” Kiron did not even bother to voice the question of whether the scarlet-and-sand dragon was picking up his nerves from his rider. Pe-atep was not only more sensitive to his dragon’s moods, he was outstanding at dealing with them. He knew better than anyone in the wing except perhaps Kalen how to keep his own nerves from being communicated to his dragon.

“I think he knows it’s something he’s never seen, too,” Pe-atep dismounted, but didn’t bother to take off Deoth’s burdens. The dragon craned his neck around, showing the sand-colored throat. “I’m going to take him straight into the shelter; no point in letting his nerves get any more worked up.”

“I’ll come with you,” Aket-ten said instantly. “It’ll leave more room in the court for the others, and Re-eth-ke’s starting to fidget, too.”

“So’re Wastet and Apetma,” Orest called down from above.

Ari leaned over the edge. “The only two dragons that aren’t fussing are Kashet and Avatre—and they’ve both lived in the desert. I expect all of your Altan-born dragons that have never seen a real sandstorm, much less a midnight
kamiseen,
are going to be restless and on edge; they sense something coming, their instincts tell them that it’s dangerous, but they don’t know what it is. Getting them into the shelter now is a good idea.”

Aket-ten made a little face, but said nothing, she only led Re-eth-ke behind Deoth as they took the staircase to the building roof. On the other side would be a matching stair to bring them to the street side of the shelter. Orest led Wastet out of sight, presumably to take the dragon down to the street as well. Ari raised an eyebrow at Kiron, who shrugged.

“She’s seen everything but a midnight
kamiseen,
so she probably is thinking it’s just another sandstorm. I think she’s more interested in getting groomed, so I’ll finish oiling her before I take her in.” Kiron looked up, as Gan and his green dragon Khaleph winged in to a landing.

Gan threw his leg over the saddle and slid down from Khaleph’s back with a flourish. But then, Gan did everything with a flourish. “I saw the others going inside as we came down; Khaleph isn’t too bad, but I might as well take him below anyway. He’ll help the others calm down.” Gan was the oldest of Kiron’s wing; despite his theatrical nature, he’d be something of a calming influence himself. And if that wasn’t enough, his exceedingly sharp wit would have them laughing.

Huras and the heart-stoppingly beautiful Tathulan swooped in, a blue-purple-and-scarlet blur coming to a dead stop in the pit by using the sand itself as a brake. “It’s coming,” said Huras shortly. His eyes were wide and it was clear from his expression that he was alarmed. But even though he was “only” a baker ’s son and had never even been off his ring in Alta before becoming a Jouster, he was intelligent and steady, as steady by nature as his big dragon, the largest of the hatch. She trusted him, and he trusted in Ari and Kiron’s knowledge of the desert; they wouldn’t panic unless it was clear that panic was called for. “We were at the edge of our range, and saw it when we got height. She caught breakfast, but has anyone got a spare for her second meal?”

“I do,” Ari volunteered, as Kalen and brown-and-gold Se-atmen and Menet-ka and indigo-purple Bethlan landed on opposite buildings at almost the same moment. “Huras saw it coming!” he called, as they dismounted. “Don’t bother to unharness, just get into the shelter!”

By the time Kiron and Avatre got up to the rooftop themselves, it was clear that everyone else in Sanctuary was under cover and probably had been as soon as morning chores were done. The very few windows were already covered with wooden shutters, and the city might as well have been as empty as when they had arrived.

Avatre seemed perfectly calm, even now, but when Kiron looked to the east, he saw a brownish haze just at the horizon that made him hurry his steps. Ari was right behind him, with Kashet on his heels.

When the double doors of the stable were shut and barred behind them both, Kiron turned to look the situation over.

This was not the most ideal place for the dragons. The largest of them had to crouch to keep from knocking their heads on the ceiling. In the bars of light that filtered in through the closed shutters, it was barely possible to see, and the air seemed a bit stuffy.

It was also quite crowded. Mealtime for the dragons was going to be interesting.

Outside, there was a sound——a high-pitched whine at first, then a deep rumble, like the sound of hundreds of chariots approaching and then—

Then the light vanished, and the walls and shutters shook as the midnight
kamiseen
struck Sanctuary.

The wind—the wind did not howl. It roared, it thundered, it tore angrily at the walls and shutters. It made the walls vibrate. It filled the air with a dust as fine as flour. In that moment when the light was gone, Kiron felt himself groping for Avatre’s comforting presence.

This storm felt like a living thing, like a great beast— like a lion, that roared defiance of all the world, that seized entire buildings in its jaws and shook them until their contents rattled like seeds in a dry
latas
pod. Yet there was nothing inimical in this fury. It didn’t care if the building was empty or full of people and dragons. There was nothing malicious there—not like the storms the Magi had created.

That didn’t stop Kiron from feeling like a mouse sitting in a hole with a hawk in the air above him—but at least he knew that the hawk had no plans to torture him if it caught him.

Thanks to Kaleth’s warning, they had planned ahead; no sooner had the light gone, than someone near the back held up a lit oil lamp. The flame wavered and flickered in the conflicting air currents. Whoever it was quickly sheltered the flame with his hand, and a moment later, others clustered around him with lamps of their own.

It wasn’t stuffy anymore; wind whined through all the cracks in the shutters and around the door that a moment ago had let in light. Wind wasn’t the only thing coming in. So was the sand. It was some measure of the force of the wind that the sand was spraying in through cracks hardly wider than a hair.

All the dragons, Avatre and Kashet included, inched toward the back wall until they were huddled together. Their pupils were as wide as they could go, making their eyes look like black plates rimmed with ruby or gold, and every time an especially fierce blast shook one or another of the shutters, all their heads swiveled as one to face the source of the noise.

“I doubt they’re going to panic,” Ari said over the scream of the wind. “And if we all settle down and act normally, they’ll relax.”

Gan cleared his throat, then tossed his head as if dismissing the storm as a trivial inconvenience. “These walls and shutters have withstood centuries of storms, and
this
one has nothing of magic in it. I doubt they’re going to fail now. So, who’s for a game of hounds and hares?”

They had made the stable ready long before the storm arrived, and at Gan’s prompting, the others unpacked game boards, jackstones and dice. Kiron arranged a couple of flat cushions next to Avatre and Aket-ten brought over her gameboard. They settled in, Kiron to learn the game and Aket-ten to teach it, within the circle of light cast by an alabaster oil lamp found here in the ruins. Shaped like
latas
buds, one of its three cups was broken, but the other two cast a fine light, sheltered from the weird breezes whipping through the stable. Gradually, as nothing worse happened than drifts of sand forming at the windows and door, and the howls of the wind shaking the shutters, the dragons relaxed. Eventually, they put their heads down on their forelegs, or draped head and neck over a neighbor ’s back. They still showed no signs of relaxing their vigilance enough to nap, but they weren’t ready to bolt at the first alarm anymore.

There was no way to gauge the passage of time, but the Altans had known that would be the case. The artificial darkness was a lot like the darkness cast by the storms the Magi conjured in order to drive the Tian Jousters out of the sky, and they were as used to such conditions as anyone could be.

However. . . .

“I think we should feed the dragons at the first sign of hunger,” Kiron said, looking up from a game at which he was (predictably) losing. “If we wait until they get really hungry, there might be fights.”

“I can keep track of that,” said Aket-ten. He nodded; with her Gift of Silent Speech with animals, she should have plenty of warning when they began to complain.

When the first dragons began getting hunger pangs, she alerted their riders. As the meat was distributed, there was some minor squabbling, but not much, and quickly sorted out before it escalated beyond a nip and a hiss. This could never have been done with the wild-caught dragons; there would have been bloody fights over the food in no time, and woe betide any human who got in the way.

The storm continued to howl long after sunset, only dying around the middle of the night. By that time, as the oil lamps burned out one by one, everyone had gone to sleep; Kiron only woke because a beam of moonlight penetrated the shutter and shone directly into his eyes.

He got up and opened the door. He expected a flood of sand to pour into the room, but instead, it appeared that the storm had scoured the street clean. There was no real sign that such fury had lately raged out here; the air was still, cold, and calm, and the streets peaceful. He wondered what the storm had buried—or revealed.

But that would have to wait until morning.

THREE

THE
dragons woke early that morning, and wanted
out!
They jostled each other and whined with impatience, once they were fully awake, and if it had seemed crowded before, with the dragons fussing, it was like being in the middle of a cattle pen that had been crammed too full. No one could sleep with the fidgeting, impatient snapping, and noise. It was obvious that it was time to go. As soon as the stable doors were opened wide, they crowded through, shoving and squabbling, in a hurry to get to their saddling stations. It was time to fly, time to eat, and most of all, time to be outside of walls.

Whatever those walls were made of, it was remarkable stuff. There was not so much as a gouge or a scratch on them after half a day of being abraded by wind-blasted sand.

But a cracked water jar that had been left carelessly beside the door was now little more than a sand-smoothed lump of baked clay.

Laden with saddle and guiding reins, Kiron climbed the stairs to get to the rooftop; too impatient to climb, Avatre spread her wings and flew up. He had to smile at that. She was not only maturing, she was showing more initiative. He’d begun teaching her to come at his whistle some time ago, thinking it would be a useful trick if they were parted; now she obeyed him as eagerly as any dog, and the others had begun teaching their dragons to do the same.

Aket-ten and some of the others were already up there, staring out to the west. When he joined them, it was clear what they were staring at. The sandstorm had uncovered more of the city beneath the dunes; this time there was a temple-sized building, and a vast complex a great deal like a Great Lord’s house. These were a mix of the familiar structures of the sort they all lived in now, and a carefully laid-out area of roofless courts divided by walls next to the temple that bore a striking resemblance to the dragon pens.

“We could use that temple for the dragons, instead of this building,” said Pe-atep speculatively as he tapped a toe on the roof of the stable they had just used, then glanced down at Aket-ten from his superior height, and added, “if the gods allow.”

“I shouldn’t think they’d mind,” she replied, rubbing her ear. “But I’m not the one to ask.”

“I think,” called a cheerful voice from below, “that they will not mind at all, seeing as that building has the sign of Haras upon it.”

BOOK: Sanctuary

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