Alta

Kiron stared blankly at his friend; if he hadn’t known that Orest wasn’t any good at deception, he would have expected this to be some sort of joke. “Nothing can do that!” he objected. “I’ve never heard of anything that can do that!”

“Well, then, nothing melted the earth right where you can go and look at it yourself,” Orest snapped, nettled. “I can tell you this—it’s the reason why no one crosses a Magus! Once every few years, they decide to put on a show with the Eye, just to make sure that everyone remembers it, and let everyone know it still works. And that’s why, when you deal with a Magus, you are very, very polite. If they can do that, what else can they do?”

Kiron licked his lips, picturing to himself a beam of light moving across the earth, burning everything in its path—or across the sky—“Can it be moved up?”

“Can it cut a dragon and a Jouster out of the sky, you mean?” Orest asked. “If they don’t get out of its way, I should think so!”

Kiron thought about the dragons, ranked in their wings, and a light beam sweeping across the sky. Well. No wonder no one in Alta City was afraid of invasion. And no wonder the Magi were, in their way, the silent rulers of this land. He had to wonder if anyone in Tia knew about this thing. Surely they did—with all the spies and agents they had, with the Altans demonstrating it very publicly every few years, surely they knew about it!

It was very strange, though, that in all of the time he had been in Tia, he had not heard even a rumor of such a thing. So—why not? Why was it that the thing that had terrified people most was only that the Magi could send storms down on them?

Maybe because the Great King and his advisers know that as long as they stay on the other side of the Seventh Canal, the Eye can’t reach them—so unless they find a way to get rid of the Eye, or the Magi, they won’t march on Alta City. And maybe the reason the storms scared them was that if the Magi could send storms, maybe they could reach past the Seventh Canal after all?

Not that it mattered what they thought; at least, not to him. Except that he had a very uneasy sensation in the pit of his stomach, knowing that the Eye could reach anywhere inside Alta City. . . .

“They’ve been trying to make another Eye for years, one they could put on a wagon or something and carry around,” Orest went on, “Or the Great Ones have asked them to, so they say. I mean, obviously, if we could put another Eye out there, maybe even with the army, it would change things completely. But for some reason they haven’t been able to.” He shrugged. “You should ask Aket-ten; she’ll know ten times more about it than I do. I should think there isn’t a scroll in that temple she hasn’t read twice, and she’s not shy about asking to read any piece of papyrus that crosses her path. Besides that, she’s very good at not being noticed; she’s sat in the same room with dozens of important people around, listening to things she had no business listening to, and no one ever noticed she was there even though she was in plain sight.” He sounded rather cross about that; Kiron guessed, with some amusement, that his little sister had more than once been listening in on him in that way. And of course, she had also found her secret listening post as well, not that Orest was doing any lounging about these days! Still, this business of the Eye . . . he got the feeling that Orest went through life not listening to much, where as Aket-ten listened to everything. So she might well be the person to ask.

“Perhaps I will,” he said slowly. He still found the mere idea hard to believe—and yet there was physical proof that the thing existed, and what it could do.

It gave him cold chills to think about; this was like one of the weapons of the gods! And there were plenty of tales about what happened when ordinary men got their hands on those . . . most of those tales ended badly.

Even more chilling was the thought that the Magi had made sure to demonstrate the thing within the limits of the Seven Canals, proving it could be used on chosen targets inside the city as well as against invaders. A potent means of silencing troublemakers who might want to know why the Magi had so much influence . . . a reminder that such a thing was possible.

Yes, he rather thought he would have a word or two with Aket-ten as soon as he got the chance.

The chance came sooner than he thought.

It was the beginning of the season of the rains; the welcome relief from the kamiseen.