The rest of the court is afraid to go anywhere near him; even if they don’t believe the Magi, they’re afraid to risk their anger.”
Kiron looked around at the others, who nodded or shrugged. “He’s our friend, too,” said Gan defiantly. “He should not only stay here as long as he wants, I think we ought to figure out something he can do to be part of the wing.”
“He can help me,” said Heklatis, coming out of the door with the empty potion cup in one hand. He hesitated a moment, the continued, “It is well known among the Magi of the Akkadians that great stress and turmoil can awaken things that slumbered within us and might otherwise not have been awakened.” He licked his lips. “And—there is another thought among my people, that in some ways twins are not only bound in mystical ways, but that in a sense they are one extraordinary person, and that if one dies, the other is given all that the other had. The two of them might not have individually had much in the way of magic, but now that his twin is gone—” Heklatis shook his head. “To make the story short, I sense that he might be a newly awakened Magus or Winged One. And of all things, I do not want the Magi to learn this. I can protect him until he knows enough to protect himself, but not if he is living elsewhere, out of my immediate reach.”
“It’s settled, then.” Kiron nodded. “And—” He hesitated; but there was something prompting the next words, which came out of his mouth without any notion of his that he was going to say them. “—we all know that he didn’t look much like his brother? Well, I say he should be someone else while he’s here.”
“Kaleth’s a common enough name,” offered Oset-re. “Or call him Kaleth-ke, which is even commoner.”
“Kaleth-ke, my apprentice Healer.” Heklatis nodded. “I’ll set this straight with Lord Khumun, and make this offer to Kaleth after he awakens. I do not believe that he will argue with the plan.”
“Me either,” Kiron said quietly, remembering the look that had been on Kaleth’s face before he made his offer of sanctuary. “Not in the least.”
From the very moment when Kaleth joined the wing, although conditions outside their little group grew harder and bleaker with every passing day, within the group, something had changed for the better. Within the group, there was a sense that they had become more than a team; that they had become something of a family—with Heklatis standing in as “father,” perhaps, and a family in which there was little quarreling. It was just as well that this was so, because outside the compound, things were not going so well.
As the winter progressed, the physical damage done by the earthshake was finally all repaired—but the mental and emotional damage only worsened. Kiron felt it every moment he was outside the compound, and he wasn’t even a Winged One. He could hardly imagine how difficult it must be for those who were sensitive to such things.
The people of Alta were afraid.
They were afraid that the next earthshake would also come without warning, and they were right to be afraid, because the Magi were still raiding the Temple of the Twins and the Winged Ones for their victims, and even (so the rumor went) casting speculative eyes on the Temple of All Gods and the Healers. All over the city, people were trying to concoct ways to protect themselves when the next shake came. Some solutions were better, some worse, but all of them had one thing in common. They were expensive.
So, the choice was, far too often, between protecting your family from earthshake, or eating. And even if you had made the choice for the former, there was no telling if your solution would work until the next shake came. So the fear never really left anyone. It was worse at night, when children cried as they were put to bed, for fear that the walls would come down on them in the darkness. Even adults stayed wakeful, with the result that a good proportion of the population went about their daily business looking tired, with dark-circled eyes.
They were afraid of the Magi, though the Eye of Light (thank the gods!) did not open a second time on the Rings. Still, the lesson had been clear and was still visible—challenge the Magi and pay, obstruct the Magi and pay,