farmers and villagers. The mud brick used for their homes could not stand against rising waters; people would return after the waters had receded only to find that their houses had melted away in the flood. This was going to cause a lot of hardship and it wouldn’t be to the people who were waging this war, it would be to the poor farmers and craftsmen who just wanted to get on quietly with their lives and didn’t give a toss about where the border was. In fact, it would impact the poor serfs on captured Altan land the most—their Tian overlords could escape the flooding, but they would have nowhere to go.
It seemed a very unfair way to wage a war, when the people who were responsible for it were not the people paying the price.
And he knew very well what others would say about that—it was too bad for all those farmers and serfs, but that was the way that war went. And maybe it was, but it still seemed very unfair to him.
It had seemed a fine thing when the Jousters of Tia were grounded by storms that hadn’t affected anyone else so much—but this war on those who weren’t even part of the fighting was just—wrong.
In fact, everything he had learned about the Magi in the last three days had that same faint aura of wrongness about it.
Not that he had been able to learn much.
The Magi kept pretty much to themselves, up there in their “Palace of Wisdom” or whatever they called it. As if they were the only people in all of Alta to have a true grasp of wisdom. That seemed a case of monumental hubris to him. But you didn’t see a Magus out beyond the First Canal very much; people said they were doing important things, too important to leave their stronghold. Kiron had the feeling, though, that it was because they didn’t care to mix with those they felt were beneath them. It also seemed to him that they cultivated mystery and secrecy to the same extent that the Winged Ones eschewed it.
There was one time and place where he was seeing them though. Every morning, in the predawn, collecting Winged Fledglings. Every morning, the Fledglings lined up like a column of ants and marched silently out into the rain under the guidance of four Magi. By midmorning, they were returned, only they looked—drained. Blank-faced, pale, and stumbling with exhaustion. Kiron had a notion that this was exactly what they were—drained, that is. Hadn’t there been a tale going around the Jousters’ Compound in Tia that the sea witches had found a way to combine their power to send those new and powerful storms down on Tia? Well, it looked to him as if the Magi had indeed done just that. With one small addition to the story; it didn’t look to him as if they were troubling themselves with the small detail of cooperation and willing partnership.
If the returned Fledglings felt as bad as they looked—if this was what had happened to Aket-ten—well, he didn’t blame her one tiny bit for not wanting to be taken away a second time.
As he crossed the bridge from the Third Ring to the Second, he had the road mostly to himself. No one wanted to be out during the rains—except perhaps the swamp dragons. He wondered what being drained day after day was going to do to these Fledglings. It might make them stronger, but somehow he doubted it. It was far more likely to make them weaker, or burn them out altogether. Perhaps it was ungenerous of him, but nevertheless he had the feeling that such an outcome was not going to displease the Magi one bit. If the Magi had any real rivals for power and influence at all, it was the Winged Ones. Weakening the Winged Ones would only make the Magi stronger.
As for the rest, the only way to really find out anything was to get into the Magi’s stronghold—
As if I am likely to be able to get away with something like that! he scoffed at himself, hunching his back against a gust of cold, rain-filled wind. No, Lord Ya-tiren is right. Silver and gold will loosen tongues and I don’t have much of either.
What he did have, however, was a reason to go see Lord Ya-tiren. Not overtly to find out about Lord Ya-tiren’s daughter, but to report on his son’s excellent progress. Although he made