But what he saw in Bertaud, when the lord let his gaze cross the griffin’s, was something he did not recognize at all.
She has become wholly a creature of fire, the lord had said. Jos looked at him for another moment and then answered slowly, “Well, lord, yes, I fear so. She has forgotten her past, or I expect she remembers it like a dream, maybe. She’s a mage now. The most powerful fire mage in the desert, I imagine—excepting Sipiike Kairaithin.” He gave Kairaithin a little nod.
“I see.” Bertaud was looking at Jos now. His tone had become almost painfully neutral.
Jos tried not to wince. He kept his own tone matter-of-fact. “Tastairiane Apailika is her iskarianere now. She’s listening to him, I guess, and she’s trying to break the Wall from the far side. And she will, too, eventually, if she keeps prying at those cracks.”
“Tastairiane,” said King Iaor. “That white griffin. The savage one.”
“Yes,” said Jos, not adding that all griffins were savage. Anyway, the king was, in every way that mattered, right about Tastairiane.
“Little Kes has become that one’s friend?”
“Friend” was not precisely correct, and though Kes was far from large, no one who met her now would say “little Kes” in anything like that tone. But Jos merely said, “Yes,” again, because this, too, was enough like the truth to serve. He added, “She and Tastairiane Apailika are alike in their ambition to see the desert grow, I think, and alike in their scorn for all the country of earth. The Wall was well and wisely made”—and how he wished he’d been there himself to watch that spectacular making!—“but now it’s started cracking, it won’t hold long, not with fire magic striking through against the earth magic on the other side. Do we know what caused the cracks in the first place?”
King Iaor looked at Bertaud, who looked at Kairaithin. The griffin said nothing, only the feathers behind his head ruffled a little and then flattened again. Bertaud glanced uneasily away and said, “We’ve discussed this. We have an earth mage in our company, though under strict orders to keep hold of himself. But his first thought is to wonder whether the wild magic of these mountains, allied to ordinary earth magic but not of it, might possibly work against the magecraft set in that wall.” He cleared his throat and added to Kairaithin, “You might discuss this with him, if both of you can bear to, well, speak to one another.” He cleared his throat again, ducked his head a little, and finished, “We did send a message to Casmantium. To the Arobern, and his mages, and most particularly to Tehre Amnachudran Tanshan.”
Lady Tehre was the Casmantian maker who, along with the last remaining cold mages of Casmantium, had been responsible for raising the Wall. Jos had got a brief sketch of those events from Kairaithin, but only a rough one. From the significant glance Bertaud gave the griffin mage, Kairaithin might have left out a good many details.
Of course you have, the griffin said, without any inflection in the smooth, dangerous voice that slid around the edges of their minds. I will speak to the earth mage, as he is here and perhaps may understand the southern side of the Wall. But if this making does not stand—he meant the Great Wall, of course—it is difficult to imagine what more Casmantian strength can do.
This was hard to argue, and for a long moment they all stood in silence.
“Well,” said King Iaor, glancing around at them all and then looking away, down toward the Great Wall and the rising billows of steam where the magic of earth met inimical fire, “at least we are here, where all these events are unrolling before us. We must be grateful for fair warning and a chance to prepare, or else we would all be standing in the south with no idea what might be coming down on us and no opportunity to influence events at all.” He looked at Kairaithin. “We are grateful for that. And for any other assistance you might see your way to offering.”
The griffin said nothing.
After an awkward moment, the king added to Jos, “If you would be so good, I think we would welcome a chance to speak further—of Kes, and Tastairiane Apailika”—he stumbled only a little over the name, awkward for a human tongue—“and of what you think might happen if that Wall breaks.”
“Yes,” said Jos, without enthusiasm. He had no idea what would happen if the Great Wall shattered, or what they would be able to do about it in the event. But he said, “I have little. But there is a fire, at least, and if Kairaithin would be good enough to take the shape of a man, we may all be able to fit under my roof.” If they could get the goat out from under the bed, they would also be more comfortable, he did not add. And wondered whether he might be able to send a couple of the king’s men to find the scattered hens.