Lord of the Changing Winds Read online

  “There’s something… Is there something wrong?”

  Kes could find no words to describe the magnificence of bronze wings in the sun. She would have tried, for Tesme. But the mere thought of trying to explain the griffins, the hard heat they had brought with them, the strange look of the sky when they crossed it in their brilliant flight… She shook her head, mute.

  Tesme frowned at her. “No one has been, well, bothering you, have they?”

  For a long moment, Kes didn’t understand what her sister meant. Then, taken aback, she blushed fiercely and shook her head again.

  Tesme had come to a full halt. She reached out as though to touch Kes on the arm, but then her hand fell. “Some of the boys can be, well, boys. And you’re so quiet. Sometimes that can encourage them. And besides the boys…” She hesitated. Then she said, “I like Jos, and he’s a wonderful help around the farm, but Kes, if he bothers you, you surely know I’ll send him away immediately.”

  Kes said, startled, “Jos?”

  “I know you wouldn’t encourage him, Kes, but lately I’ve thought sometimes that he might be, well, watching you.”

  “Jos doesn’t bother me,” Kes said, and was startled by the vehemence of her tone. She moderated it. “I like Jos. He wouldn’t… he isn’t… and he’s too old, anyway!”

  “Oh, well, Kes! He’s not that old, and he’s not blind, and you’re growing up and getting pretty, and if he notices you too much, there are other places he could get work.” But Tesme looked somewhat reassured. She started walking again, if not as quickly.

  Kes hurried the few steps necessary to catch up. “I like Jos,” she said again. She did, she realized. His quiet, his calm, the competent way he handled the horses. The way he never pressed her to speak, or seemed to expect her to fit into some unexplained pattern of behavior she couldn’t even recognize. He was comfortable to be around, as so few people were. He had been at the farm for… nearly half her life, Kes thought. She could not imagine it without him. “He doesn’t bother me, Tesme. Really, he doesn’t. Don’t send him away.”

  “All right…” Tesme said doubtfully, and began to walk a little more quickly. “But let me know if you change your mind.”

  It was easier to nod than protest again.

  They walked a little farther. But then Tesme gave Kes a sideways look and added, “Now, if there’s a boy you do like, you’d let me know, Kes, wouldn’t you? I remember what I was like at your age, and shy as you are, you are getting to be pretty. You know you don’t need to slip off silently to meet somebody, don’t you? If you want to walk out with Kanne or Sef or somebody, that’s different, but you would tell me, wouldn’t you? There’s a world of trouble for a girl who’s too secretive, believe me.”

  Kes felt her face heat. “I don’t like anyone!” she protested.

  “That changes,” Tesme said, her tone wry. “If it changes for you, Kes…”

  “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you,” Kes said hastily, hoping to sound so firmly reassuring that Tesme would let the subject die. It was true anyway. Kanne? She suppressed an urge to roll her eyes, not wanting her sister to reopen the subject—but Kanne? Kanne was a baby, and too interested in himself to even notice a girl. Sef was almost as bad, all but welded to the smithy where he was apprenticed. Kes couldn’t imagine either of them, or any other of the village boys, ever choosing to simply walk out across the hills and listen to the wind and the silence.

  “All right…” Tesme said. She did sound somewhat reassured. “It’s true you’re not much like I was. On the whole, that’s probably just as well.” She glanced at Kes, half smiling and half worried.

  Kes had no idea what to say to this, and so said nothing.

  “You’re yourself, that’s all,” Tesme concluded at last, smiling. She patted Kes on the shoulder and lengthened her stride once more.

  The inn, set by the road near the river, right at the edge of the village, was all white stone and dark wooden beams. It had a dozen pretty little tables in its wide, walled courtyard, across from its stables, which were screened from the inn by small trees and beds of flowers. Jerreid and his wife, Edlin, and their daughters ran the inn, which was widely acknowledged to be the best of all the little country inns along the western river road that ran from Niambe Lake all the way down to Terabiand. The inn was not overlarge, but it was pleasant and very clean, and every window looked out onto one flower garden or another. And the food was good.

  Many ordinary folk and even nobles broke their journey in Minas Ford as they traveled from the little jewel-pretty cities of the high north to the sprawling coastal town of Terabiand in the south—the Ford of the town’s name had long ago been replaced by the best bridge anywhere along the river—and, as the saying went, everyone and everything passed along the coast at some time. And so a good proportion of everyone and everything traveled up from Terabiand and through Minas Ford eventually, and since Minas Ford was conveniently a long day’s journey from Bered to the south and an easy day’s journey from Riamne to the north, many travelers looked forward to a stay at Jerreid’s pretty little inn.

  Every upstairs room had a window, shutters open in this fine weather; every table, outdoors or in, was graced by a slender vase of flowers. Edlin made the vases of fine white clay, glazing them with translucent glazes in blue and pink and white. She made them to keep cut flowers, and she had the gift of making in her hands: It was common knowledge that flowers stayed fresh in one of Edlin’s vases twice as long as they lasted in an old cracked mug.

  Edlin also made tableware that was both pretty and very hard to break. She sold bowls and plates and platters from a shop behind the inn, leaving the running of the inn almost entirely to her husband and their three daughters. Edlin grew the flowers herself, though, and picked them fresh every week to arrange in the vases. That was, famously, as close to the work of the inn as she would come. Jerreid, fortunately, seemed perfectly happy to leave his wife to her dishes and glazes and gardens.

  “Tesme!” Jerreid said, as they came into the yard. He was a big, bluff, genial man with a talent for making his inn feel homey and all his visitors feel welcome. He’d been leaning against one of the outdoor tables, chatting with what looked like half the folk of the village—a big crowd for the middle of the day. There were no travelers present at the moment, although some would probably stop later in the day. But Chiad and his wife had torn themselves away from their farm to visit the inn, along with a dozen children and cousins and nephews. And Heste had abandoned her bakery for the moment—well, the morning bread was long out of the ovens, and perhaps she had a little time before she would start the pies and honey cakes for the evening. But Nehoen was also present, which was less usual. His big house with its sprawling lands lay well outside the village, and he did not usually come to the inn except on market day. And Caris had for some reason left her weaving to visit the inn, as well as Kanes and his apprentice Sef the smithy.

  Kes looked at them all uneasily, wondering nervously whether she might guess what had drawn them all away from their ordinary business. She hoped she did not blush when she glanced at Kanne or Sef. How could Tesme possibly think—? Was Kanne even fourteen yet? And Sef! She looked hastily away from the smith’s apprentice, aware that she probably was blushing, now.

  “You seem happy,” Jerreid was saying to Tesme. His smile, at least, seemed ordinarily cheerful. “How is your mare? River, wasn’t it? She must have done well by you, yes?”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Tesme came across the yard, leaving Kes to follow more slowly. She took Jerreid’s hands in hers and smiled at him. “A filly, healthy and big, and River’s fine. We’re celebrating. Have you any blackberry wine left, or did you drink it all yourself?”

  “We’ve plenty—”

  “But you might want to hold off on the celebrations,” said Chiad. Dark as the earth he worked, serious by nature and not given to celebrations at even the best of times, he looked at the moment even more somber than usual. He slapped the table with one broa
d hand for emphasis as he spoke.

  “Give the woman a chance to catch her breath!” exclaimed Jerreid, shaking his head in mild disapproval.

  Chiad gave him a blink of incomprehension and instantly transferred his attention back to Tesme. “You’ve got your young foals down by the house, haven’t you, Tesme? Do you know what Kanne saw this morning?” Kanne was Chiad’s son, and he now sat up straight in his chair and looked important.

  Kes knew. She heard it in Chiad’s voice. She saw it in Kanne’s eyes.

  Tesme arched her eyebrows, still smiling, if a little less certainly. “If it wasn’t someone underselling me with Delta-bred stock for cheap, I don’t think I’ll mind, whatever it was.”

  “You will,” said Chiad, heavily, with a somber shake of his head. “Tell her, boy.”

  Kanne laid his hands down flat on the table and sat up even straighter, looking proud and important. “Griffins!” he said.

  This had not been what Tesme expected, and she looked blank.

  “Griffins!” Chiad said. He slapped the table, shaking his head again in heavy disapproval. “Of all things! Half lion, half eagle, and all killer! My barley is likely safe enough, but you’d best look after your stock, Tesme!”

  Tesme still looked blank. She said after a moment, “Kanne, are you sure they weren’t just eagles?”

  “Now, that’s what I said,” Jerreid agreed, nodding.

  “Sure, I’m sure,” Kanne said importantly. “I am sure! I know what eagles look like, Jerreid! These weren’t eagles or vultures or any bird!”

  “Griffins never leave their desert,” said Heste, frowning. Her attitude suggested that she had said this before, repeatedly.

  “They do,” said Nehoen, so patiently it was clear he’d said this before as well. “Griffins in the spring mean a hard summer.” Nehoen was not sitting at the table. He had gotten to his feet when Tesme and Kes had entered the courtyard. Now he moved restlessly, leaning his hip against one of the tables and crossing his arms over his chest. He was old, nearly fifty, but he was one of the few gentlemen of the village and thus showed his age far less than a farmer or smith.

  “What?” said Tesme, blinking at him.

  Nehoen smiled at her. He owned all the land out on the west side of the village near the river, and he could not only read, but owned far more books than all the rest of Minas Ford put together. His grandmother had been an educated woman of the Delta, and had put great store by books and written learning. He explained now, “Griffins in the fall mean an easy winter, griffins in the spring a hard summer. They say that in Casmantium. There wouldn’t be a saying about it if the griffins never left their country of fire to come into the country of earth.”

  “But why would they?” Tesme asked. “And why come so far? Not just so far south, either, but all the way across the mountains into Feierabiand?”

  “Well, that I don’t know. The mages of Casmantium keep them out of Casmantian lands—that’s what their cold mages are for, isn’t it?—so maybe if the griffins wanted to move, they had to cross the mountains. But why they left their own desert in the first place?” Nehoen shrugged. “Who can guess why such creatures do anything?”

  “Griffins are bad for fire,” said Kanes. The smith’s deep voice rumbled, and everyone hushed to listen to him. “That’s what I know. They’re made of fire, and fire falls from the wind their wings stirs up. That’s what smiths say. They’re bad creatures to have about.”

  Smiths knew fire. Everyone was silent for a moment, thinking about that.

  “Griffins,” said Jerreid at last, shaking his head.

  “Griffins,” agreed Nehoen. He began a rough sketch on a sheet of paper somebody had given him.

  Chiad’s wife said, practically, as she was always practical, “Saying Kanne is right, as I think he is, then what? Fire and hard summers, maybe—and then maybe not. But it stands to reason a creature with eagle talons and lion claws will hunt.”

  “Surely—” Tesme began, and stopped, looking worried. “You don’t think they would eat our horses, really?”

  “Nellis stops wolves from eating livestock,” said Chiad, laying a broad hand on his wife’s hand.

  She nodded to him and went on herself, “Jenned stops mountain cats. Perren stops hawks from coming after chicks.” Perren was a falconer as well as a farmer, and gentled hawks and falcons for the hunt. Chiad’s wife added, “I can keep foxes off the hens, and my little Seb stops weasels and stoats. But I don’t know who’s going to stop griffins eating your foals or my sheep, if that’s what they want. What we need is a cold mage. I wonder why our mages in Feierabiand never thought to train up a youngster or two in cold magic?”

  “We’ve never needed cold magecraft before,” Chiad answered his wife, but not as though he found this argument persuasive.

  His wife lifted her shoulders in a scornful shrug. “Well, and we don’t need ice cellars until the summer heat, or a second lot of seed grain until a wet spring rots the first sowing; that’s why we plan ahead, isn’t it? They should have thought ahead, up there in Tihannad—”

  “Now, now.” Jerreid shook his head at Chiad’s wife in mild reproof. “Summer we have every year, and wet springs often enough, but if griffins have ever come across the mountains before, it was so long ago none of our fathers or grandfathers remember it. Be fair, Nellis.”

  “Whoever thought or didn’t think, it’s my horses that are going to be eaten by griffins,” said Tesme, sitting down rather abruptly at the table in the chair Nehoen had abandoned.

  “They wouldn’t eat them,” Nehoen said, patting her shoulder. “Griffins don’t eat. They may look part eagle and part lion, but they’re wholly creatures of fire. They hunt to kill, but they don’t eat what they bring down.”

  “That’s even worse!” Tesme exclaimed, and rubbed her forehead.

  Kes watched her sister work through the idea of griffins coming down on her horses. It clearly took her a moment. She wasn’t used to thinking of the danger a big predator might pose if no one in the village could speak to it or control it.

  In every country there were folk with each of the three common gifts. But just as Casmantian folk were famously dark and big-boned and stocky, Casmantian makers and builders were famously the best. There were makers everywhere, but more and better makers in Casmantium; to find makers with the strongest gifts and the deepest dedication to their craft, to find builders who could construct the strongest walls and best roads and tallest palaces, one went to Casmantium.

  In the same way, one could recognize Linularinan people because they commonly had hair the color of light ale and narrow, secretive eyes, but also because they were clever and loved poetry. Everyone in Linularinum could write, they said, so probably it wasn’t surprising that Linularinum had the cleverest legists. There were legists in Feierabiand, at least in the cities, but if you wanted a really unbreakable contract that would do exactly what you wanted, you hired a Linularinan legist to write it for you.

  But everyone knew that if you needed someone with a really strong affinity for a particular sort of animal, you came to Feierabiand. As Tesme held an affinity to horses, others held affinities to crows or mice or deer or dogs. In Feierabiand, every town and village and tiny hamlet had one or two people who could call wolves and mountain cats—and more important, send them away. But griffins were creatures of fire, not earth. No matter how dangerous or destructive they might prove, no one, even in Feierabiand, would be able to send the griffins back across the mountains.

  Tesme was looking more and more unhappy. “Maybe you and Edlin would let us borrow the use of your lower pasture for a while?” she said to Jerreid. “Mine isn’t big enough for all the horses. Will I have to move all the horses, do you think? How big are griffins? How many did you see, Kanne?”

  “Dozens,” the boy said. He sounded pleased about it. “Big.”

  Nehoen silently held out a sketch he’d drawn. It showed an animal with a savage look: a creature half feathered and half furred, wit
h the cruel hooked beak and talons of an eagle and the haunches of a cat. Everyone crowded forward to look. Kes, peering over Kanes’s shoulder, winced a little. The monster in the drawing was a crude misshapen thing, neither bird nor beast; it looked clumsy and vicious.

  “Yes,” said Kanne triumphantly. “Griffins!”

  Kanes nodded heavily. “We need king’s soldiers. That’s what we need. Clean the creatures out before they settle in to stay.”

  Kes continued to study the drawing for a moment longer, not listening as everyone else spoke at once. It was all wrong. And what she found, though she didn’t understand why it mattered to her, was that she couldn’t bear to have everyone believe Nehoen’s drawing showed the truth. So she silently took the paper from Nehoen’s hand and picked up the piece of charcoal he had used for his drawing. Nehoen looked startled, but he let her have the charcoal. Nellis stood up, giving Kes her place at the table, and waved for Kanne to move, too.

  Kes turned the paper over to the blank side and sat down. She had already forgotten her audience. She was thinking of griffins. Her eyes filled with fire and beauty. She turned the charcoal over in her fingers and set it to the paper. The creature she drew was not like the one Nehoen had sketched. She had a surer hand with the charcoal than Nehoen, but that was not the difference. The difference was that she knew what she was drawing.

  The griffin flowed out of the charcoal, out of Kes’s eyes. It was eagle and lion, but not mismade, not wrong, as Nehoen’s griffin had been wrong. She gave this griffin the beauty she had seen. She had seen griffins flying, but the one she drew was sitting, posed neatly like a cat. It was curled around a little, its head tilted at an inquisitive angle. It was fierce, but not vicious. The feathers around its eyes gave it a keen, hard look. Its sharp-edged beak was a smooth curve, exactly right for its eagle head. The feathers flowed down its forequarters and melted smoothly into a powerfully muscled lion rear. Its wings, half opened, poured through the sketch with the clean purity of flame.