before he responded to it, having shoved his foot rather neatly into his own mouth a time or two in the early part of his journey. “I have been Vetch, the serf, far longer than I have been Kiron, the keeper of Avatre and dragon rider,” he said at last.
“And yet, if you enter into your native land thinking of yourself as Vetch, your own people will treat you thuswise,” said the Mouth, with a touch of warning in the tone. “Vetch the serf is a person of no worth and no account, deserving of no consideration or special treatment.”
He felt a kind of stillness settle into his gut. This was important. He wasn’t certain why it was important, but it felt important. Once again, Vetch considered the words. Carefully. What was the Mouth trying to say to him? “And?” he ventured.
“And, perhaps, they will try to take the dragon from you.”
“She won’t go,” Vetch replied, with some heat, and yet sure of himself. She wouldn’t, of course, and this was absolutely the one thing he had no fear of. Unlike the dragons that were captured as fledglings and tamed, he had raised Avatre from the egg. She was as bonded to him as any creature could be—as no other dragon, save one, had ever been bonded to another human.
That one, and that other human, were perhaps the most important part of his past that there was. Kashet, and his former Master, the Jouster Ari. They flew in the service of the Great King of Tia. Both of them were his enemies in name, now, and yet were his friends in fact. It was Ari who had engineered his escape when Avatre had made her First Flight with him clinging to her back, all hope of concealing her existence anymore gone off on the kamiseen winds.
Ari and Kashet lay behind him somewhere, in the lands claimed by the High King of Tia. He could not think of them without gratitude, and yet it was a gratitude tinged with pain. If he could have, he would have never left them. And yet—
And yet they were Tians, and he was Altan, and if they ever met again, they would probably have to fight each other, and possibly to the death.
Still, Kashet would permit no other to ride him but Ari—and Avatre would be the same with Vetch. He had absolutely no doubt of that, for Avatre had actually tried to face down Kashet—who was many times her size—when she thought the great blue was threatening Vetch.
“Nevertheless,” persisted the Mouth, “they will try. They may starve her until she eats tala-treated meat, and is drugged into submission. Unless you make yourself into Kiron, son of Kiron, Altan Jouster. Unless you come to believe that you are that person. Then, no one will presume to doubt that you are entitled to ride her.”
Vetch closed his eyes for a moment. A Mouth never, ever said something as an idle observation. And along with all of the passage-rights that Ari had purchased for him with his Gold of Honor, had come another—the right to be instructed in whatever any Mouth thought might be useful. Some of the Mouths had honored this more in the breach than the observance, but this one seemed to be offering sound advice. “Can you teach me to believe?” he asked finally, opening his eyes.
The Mouth regarded him with solemn dark eyes above the veil. “Perhaps. I can, at least, give you a guide to teach yourself. First—among our people we have a saying. ‘Assume the attitude of prayer, and in time, the attitude will become the prayer.’ I put this to you. Already you are aware of how you hold yourself, for this tells your dragon much, and instructs her on what she should be thinking about what is around her.”
Vetch nodded; that was plain enough. Dragons were supremely sensitive to the language of body and posture.
“So—mind, now, Kiron, son of Kiron. Put yourself in the attitude of a freeborn man, or even one of wealth or noble birth. Recall how the masters of your master held themselves, and hold yourself in like manner. Behave in all ways as the Jouster-in-training of Tia would, and within Alta you will be taken as one who has authority by right. Behave in all ways in that manner, and as this becomes second nature, your spirit will come to believe what your body tells it.” A pause, as those dark, enigmatic eyes gazed at