Law of the Broken Earth(99)

“No!” snapped Bertaud.

Jos opened his eyes.

The griffin mage had stopped, his hand only half raised. He was looking at Bertaud.

“He won’t speak of it.” Bertaud did not look at Jos, only at Kairaithin. “It’s not his fault he realized. We were careless—I was careless. But he’s accomplished at keeping secrets, and he’ll tell no one. Whom would he tell, and to what purpose?”

“He will cry it from the rooftops of your human town; to everyone and in every direction of the wind he will call it out. He will do it to compel you to act.”

“Events will compel me to act! Unless we find another choice! Another wind to ride, not one that rises from anything that has yet happened!”

“Great secrets are always safest if no one knows them—as anyone accustomed to secrets is well aware!”

Jos couldn’t quite keep from flinching. For a long moment they all stood in silence. Jos did not move. He tried not even to breathe. But Lord Bertaud and the griffin mage were glaring at each other; for the moment they both seemed to have forgotten him.

He found himself turning over this new and shocking revelation in his mind—Lord Bertaud could call griffins, so he could command them to cease their attack, only he did not want to command them. Because—and if Jos had not been so closely acquainted with griffins over the past year, he would never have understood this—because they could never accept being commanded. The knowledge that they could be called to heel by a man would destroy them—in fact, if they knew that it was possible for a man to command them, they would probably become even more determined to kill everyone and tear down all the country of earth.

Several odd comments he had not quite understood, from both Bertaud and Kairaithin, suddenly fell into place.

He said suddenly, without truly knowing beforehand that he was going to speak at all, “What if you get Tastairiane by himself? What if you demonstrate to him what power you hold? No, better, not merely a demonstration and a warning; what if you simply command him to turn away from this wind, to bid Kes leave be the Wall, to keep his people in their desert?”

Both Lord Bertaud and Kairaithin turned to stare at him. Jos tried not to flinch—he had not exactly meant to make himself the renewed focus of their common attention, only the idea had occurred to him—likely he had not understood properly—there was probably some very good reason that wouldn’t work—

Bertaud said at last, “Kairaithin?”

“A dangerous wind,” the griffin mage said, not looking at him. He was looking at Jos, but now with something like his accustomed fierce power in his fiery black gaze. “As goes the Lord of Fire and Air, so go the People of Fire and Air. If Tastairiane Apailika is filled with fury and despair, then fury and despair will burn through the country of fire. But…”

Bertaud said nothing. Jos thought he was probably trying not to exclaim, Well, that’s all right, then! Though perhaps not. Jos had lived in Feierabiand for many years, more than long enough to know how violently a man who could call an animal hated to do anything to harm that animal. How much more intense would that revulsion of feeling be if you could command not animals, but a fierce and beautiful people? A people who would surely die if they knew they were constrained, either in violent resistance or simply in outraged bursts of fire and sand?

“But no king is eternal,” said Kairaithin, continuing his earlier thought. “At some time in the future, Tastairiane Apailika will no longer be the Lord of Fire and Air, and at that time, so long as the People of Fire and Air remain, another king might set a new and better direction.” His eyes were on Bertaud’s. He said, “I do not know how I may come at Tastairiane Apailika, or how I may bring him alone to you. But I will try. If you give me leave.”

Lord Bertaud said flatly, “Go.”

Kairaithin blurred away into the air and the cold sunlight, and was gone.

Bertaud stood rigid for a moment, looking at nothing; at the slant of the cold light across the lake, perhaps. Then he shuddered and rubbed his hands across his face, and looked up at last at Jos.

Jos did not speak. He did not know what to say.

“Your suggestion might prove a good one,” Bertaud said at last. “I thank you. I certainly bear you no ill will. But I don’t know whether I should have stopped him. You understand the price of forbearance? You must never even imply that there is a shadow of a chance that you might ever tell anyone—you must swear to me you will never—”

“I understand,” Jos assured him fervently. “I promise you, lord.” He hesitated. Then he said, “You know I don’t hate them? I’m afraid of them, but I don’t hate them and I don’t want them destroyed, and I don’t know how many other men could swear to that, but I can. I do. I’ll tell no one, lord. I do swear it. I’m sorry I ever guessed, except as it may let Kairaithin take down that bastard Tastairiane. I wouldn’t be sorry if he were destroyed.”