Might be panic? There most certainly would be. And rightly. It could happen again, and at the moment, they had no means of preventing it.
There were no answers to why it had happened, only more questions.
He nodded. There was great wisdom in this edict, but there was certainly more to come.
“You are further asked to go, not to Aerie but to Mefis, where the Great King wishes to speak with you at length,” the boy continued. “A courier will be sent to Aerie with your instructions for the Jousters.”
He thought carefully. A courier . . . there wasn’t a great deal that he needed to actually give in the way of instructions. Perhaps if the others were all untrained—but in fact, there were people at Aerie who were far better schooled in the management of dragons and their Jousters than he was. “You can send something from temple to temple, yes? Very nearly as swift as thought?”
The boy nodded.
“Then tell them that they are to continue as I left them.” His wing of wingleaders was more than competent enough to continue as they had been. Until the bandits changed their strategy, which was not likely for some time, there was no real need for him to be there, and even then— well, there were men with the Jousters now who all had more combat experience than he, the “old” Jousters, who surely, surely would be able to deal with such problems. All the administrative nonsense could be handed by Haraket. . . .
He felt a distant relief and a little guilt. Haraket had not wanted it.
But Haraket was good at it. As the Overseer for the Dragon Courts of Tia, he had handled all these things before: disputes over quarters, getting supplies, finding ways and means of doing just about everything. The circumstances had changed, but . . .
Well, perhaps Ari could come up with a way to sweeten the circumstances. And he was certainly now in a position to make such a request. Lord Haraket, with his own villa and land . . . not a bad thought.
Meanwhile it seemed he was needed elsewhere, and he had better put all possible speed into it.
Avatre finished the last chunk of meat and raised her neck to look at the sky, spreading her wings slightly. She was impatient to be gone, and she turned her head gracefully, to look at him as if prompting him.
“You are to make all speed, Lord Kiron,” the boy said, echoing his thoughts.
“We will,” he replied, and before he had finished the second word, Avatre, responding to his shift in weight, gave a tremendous leap and upward thrust of her wings and sent them both aloft.
They landed to the kind of reception that Kiron remembered from the old days of the Dragon Courts here; servants, rather than dragon boys, but otherwise it was a taste of the old days, except he had never been on the receiving end of the attention back then. It was a little disorienting, actually, to see the swarm and have the reaction that he should be down among them. He had scarcely unbuckled his straps and slid out of his saddle when there was a servant there unbuckling the harness, another with a barrow of meat for Avatre, a third filling her water trough. She looked surprised for a moment, then hunger overcame surprise and she dove into her meal.
Kiron, for his part, was taken away by yet a fourth servant, moving at a run toward the Palace. And if he had not felt the urgency of his situation so strongly, he would have been stunned at the mere sight of the huge building that crowned the avenue that the servant led him onto.
For all that his duties sometimes brought him here, this was the first time he had been in the Palace, and it simply did not compare to anything he had yet seen. The Dragon Courts and the temple attached to them were large, yes, and indeed the temple was fully large enough for a dragon, even several dragons, to walk about in comfortably. But he had gotten used to the low ceilings, the long, dark rooms of Aerie, the squat, sturdy buildings of Sanctuary. That was what his mind measured things by,
He had forgotten—if indeed he had ever truly realized—that the Great King’s Palace in Mefis was intended to impress to the point of intimidation.
He found himself approaching a building that was at least as tall as the cliff walls of Aerie were—except that the dwellings of Aerie were carved from something natural, and this was entirely built by man. Fat, carved and painted pillars made to look like palm trees rose up three tall stories to support the roof, and the front of the Palace was so wide that forty chariots could have lined up in front of it. The front door, of beaten plates of bronze, would have admitted Avatre or even Kashet without requiring them to bend their necks or tuck in their wings.
Inside, the first room looked like the sanctuary of a temple, with more rows of carved and painted columns upholding the ceiling, which was so far above Kiron’s head that Avatre could probably have flown in here, had the columns permitted it. And there must have been fifty torches illuminating the place.
From the dais and the two thrones at the far end, this must be the audience chamber. But the thrones were empty and the servant was hurrying on.
They passed through another chamber like the first, but smaller; presumably this one was for smaller gatherings of more important people. There were larger-than-life-sized murals here, of tribute being offered and captive enemies, and on the wall behind the thrones, there was an almost-life-sized dragon, wings spread protectively above the thrones themselves. Just as many torches burned here as in the previous room.
The servant hurried on, leading him into a chamber of about the same size, but clearly one made for a very different purpose.
This was a room full of scribes’ desks with rolls of papyrus paper in baskets beside them, ink and reed pens on them, and on one or two, works still being written and held down with scroll weights. Four doors led into this room, and, through them, he glimpsed servants coming around to light torches and lamps. There were a few, a very few lamps lit here, but not many. Work here was done for the day, unless the Great King or Queen would call for a scribe.
The servant led him through the right-hand door, taking him now toward the south, for the palace itself faced east. The next two chambers seemed to be places for officials to do business; the decorations here were paintings of the god Teth, who oversaw such things, and the furnishings were desks, chairs, and baskets of scrolls.
A wafting scent of roast duck tickled Kiron’s nose as they moved through the second of these rooms, and made his stomach growl. He hadn’t had duck or fish or goose, or anything that lived on or in the water, since leaving Alta. Well, fish. But they were dried. Nothing like the glorious roast fish he used to enjoy as an Altan Jouster. He turned his thoughts resolutely from food. He needed to concentrate on what, if anything, Ari might be asking him.
They passed into and out of a huge courtyard with a latas-pool fully big enough for swimming, rimmed with palm trees. There were piles of cushions, palm-leaf fans in baskets, and other things that gave him the impression that this was a spot used for lounging. But by whom? He did not know enough about court life to even venture a guess. From there, they passed into another part of the Palace where the ceilings were still high, but only a bit above “normal” height.
So far, every area they’d been through had been graced with stunning wall paintings appropriate to the room. In the scribes’ and officials’ chambers, it had been paintings of the god of writing and of diligent workers. Here, where he supposed these rooms were for entertaining, the murals were of dancers and flute girls, or of hunting scenes, or of the gods giving gifts of life and health to the Great King. The pillars were all painted to look like latas flowers, with the pillar being the green stem and close-furled leaves, the capital the blue-petaled flower spreading out to press against the ceiling. Here were low couches, more piles of cushions, and small tables holding objects it was too dim to make out. The effect was opulent beyond his dreams.