Whatever those walls were made of, it was remarkable stuff. There was not so much as a gouge or a scratch on them after half a day of being abraded by wind-blasted sand.
Whereas a cracked water-jar that had been left carelessly beside the door was now little more than a sand-smoothed lump of baked clay.
Laden with saddle and guide-straps, Kiron climbed the stairs to get to the rooftop; too impatient to climb, Avatre spread her wings and flew up. He had to smile at that. She was not only maturing, she was showing more initiative. He’d begun teaching her to come at his whistle some time ago, thinking it would be a useful trick if they were parted; now she obeyed him as eagerly as any dog, and the others had begun teaching their dragons to do the same.
Aket-ten and some of the others were already up there, staring out to the west. When he joined them, it was clear what they were staring at. The sandstorm had uncovered more of the city beneath the dunes; this time there was a temple-sized building, and a vast complex a great deal like a Great Lord’s house. These were a mix of the familiar structures of they sort they all lived in now, and a carefully laid-out area of roofless courts divided by walls next to the temple that bore a striking resemblance to the dragon pens.
“We could use that temple for the dragons, instead of this building” said Pe-atep speculatively as he tapped a toe on the roof of the stable they had just used, then glanced down at Aket-ten from his superior height, and added, “If the gods allow.”
“I shouldn’t think they’d mind,” she replied, rubbing her ear. “But I’m not the one to ask.”
“I think,” called a cheerful voice from below, “That they will not mind at all, seeing as that building has the sign of Haras upon it.”
Kiron looked down at Kaleth, who grinned up at him, teeth very white in the tanned skin of his face. His spotlessly white headcloth nearly matched them. Kaleth had been thriving out here, and anyone who was under the impression that someone serving as the literal spokesperson for the gods would be frail and ascetic would have a great shock when confronted with the lean, hard, athletic Kaleth. He was one of the few who had adopted the Tian custom of shaving the head out here in the heat, and generally appeared in public in headcloths, as Ari did. His appearance was a curious mixture of Tian and Altan dress, and Kiron was quite certain that this was a deliberate affectation on his part. “You look like you’ve been up for ages,” Aket-ten called down. “I have. I’ve been inspecting,” he replied, his mild eyes sparkling. “The gods provide, you see. We’ll be getting another caravan of Altan refugees soon, and we’d have been a bit crowded without some help.”
Another caravan of refugees? Well, if anyone would know, it would be Kaleth, god-touched, Winged One of the Far-seeing Eye. If anyone had asked Kiron long ago what he thought a god-touched person would look like, he probably would not have described someone like Kaleth. Except when the gods spoke through him, there was nothing about him at first glance that was uncanny; he could have been one of Kiron’s wing. Stronger, browner, and more vigorous than he had been when he was merely Toreth’s scholarly twin, and with him, the heir to the Twin Thrones, the power of a Winged One sat lightly on him. But it was there, oh yes, those with the eyes to see it knew very well that the gods had set their mark on him. It was in his eyes, the straightness of his back, and the very way he moved, as if always conscious of the lingering presence of something greater than himself at every moment.
“While you were inspecting, I don’t suppose you came across a cache of enchanted, sleeping wenches, did you?” asked Gan, wistfully. “They wouldn’t have to be princesses or anything of the sort, just something old enough to have cut their youth-locks and young enough to still have all their teeth.” Kiron bit his lip to keep from laughing, though he knew that half of what Gan said was for effect. If anyone was to have taken a vote as to which of the Jousters was the best looking, Gan would have swept the tally-boards, and while he certainly was (understandably) vain to a certain degree, and took full advantage of the effect of his beautiful body and features on women, he also enjoyed mocking himself and the teasing of his friends.
Kaleth laughed. “Ah, poor Gan, you have certainly suffered more than any of us here, with no one to admire your handsome face except Heklatis!” Gan grimaced. “Believe me, I tell you in all sincerity that by now even that scrawny old Healer is beginning to have his charms!”
Oset-re feigned alarm and edged away from him. The rest laughed, and Kaleth spread his hands wide. “Well, the gods have heeded your suffering. Cheer up! That problem will be taken care of before very long, I promise you!”
Shy Bethlan whined, and uncharacteristically shoved Menet-ka with his indigo-blue nose. He didn’t give a toss about new buildings or newcomers. He was hungry, and right now! Avatre wasn’t as demanding, but she made it known with little anxious bobbings of her head as Kiron glanced at her that she was uncomfortably empty herself.
“I’ve already allotted the big building and its courts to you!” Kaleth told them. “It’s much more suited to the dragons than this make-shift anyway.”
“We’ll come look when we get back!” Kiron promised, and turned to saddling Avatre so they could get out of there. As they leapt into the air, the pattern of the newly-uncovered buildings came clear. There were two distinct sections. One looked exactly like a Great Lord’s city-manor, with the Great House and all the attendant outbuildings. The other was that very large building, in seemingly excellent repair and preservation with a ring of roofless, walled courtyards all around three sides of it, looking for all the world exactly like dragon-pens. . . .
Well, even if that wasn’t what they were, if they could be made to work as pens, he and the others would be taking them over. And, he reflected, as Avatre banked away from the city, this meant he and the others could build in their own separate rooms within those pens, exactly as they’d enjoyed in Alta. It would be a relief to have separate quarters again.
It wasn’t that he minded sharing his living-space with the others, it was mostly that there never seemed to be any place to be private. For all that he had been a serf, Kiron had been accustomed, most of his life, to being alone, for his lowly status had meant that not even Khefti-the-fat’s slaves had been willing to share a room with him. Even when he had been Ari’s dragon-boy, that status had made it necessary to accommodate him in Kashet’s pen rather than the quarters of the rest of the Tian dragon-boys. But now, crowded up into a single house with all the of the riders but Aket-ten, he had been very aware of the presence of others all around him and it had felt exceedingly uncomfortable. Sometimes it was only sheer exhaustion that allowed him to sleep.
“So, it looks as if we’ll be alone again, at last!” he said cheerfully to the back of Avatre’s head. She was listening, he could tell by the way she glanced back at him, but she wasn’t giving him a lot of attention. She was colder than usual in the morning, and that made her hungry; her concentration was on the hunt.
She’d get her fill of it today. With no sandstorm coming, and with yesterday’s storm confining the human hunters within walls, today would be one of those days when he and Avatre would be doing the new work of a Jouster—helping to keep the people of Sanctuary fed. Hunting was not just for the dragons. Hunting was for the people, too. He slapped her shoulder. “The sooner we get game, the sooner I can see what we can make of this gift from the gods! Let’s try that watering hole where the thorn-trees are. After that storm, I bet a lot of the game is thirsty.” #
A pity there had been no one to take that bet. When they returned, with two small gazelles, and Avatre full and ready to sleep the afternoon away, he found that they were the last to make it back. As they flew in above the roofs of Sanctuary, he could see figures prowling the newly-uncovered buildings, and recognized Ari (by his striped headcloth) and Aket-ten among them. He unharnessed Avatre, and as he was putting her saddle up, Hurok-eb, the Provisioner, turned up. The Provisioner, a solemn-faced old fellow with a sturdy, compact body who was naturally bald without needing to shave his head had been appointed by Kaleth to take charge of the common treasury and to make sure everyone got a fair share of the food that came in. Eventually, Kiron supposed, this would stop. Sooner or later people would be, if not raising their own food, certainly finding ways to make money to buy it, rather than depending on what was brought in, paid for by the treasures that were turning up in the city. Or, at some point, those treasures would stop turning up, and only what was brought in by the dragons would be available to distribute. At that point, things would be as they were in every other city. But that was for another day, and hardly Kiron’s concern. The Provisioner was certainly happy with the morning’s catch, and made his usual point of thanking both Kiron and Avatre for their work before he carried off the bounty. He gave Avatre a quick sand-buffing, but she didn’t seem to want an oiling and definitely did want to nap, so left her to doze in the hot sand of the pen while he went out to join the rest of the wing in exploring what the storm had uncovered.
Of course, the first place he went was that big building with the surrounding pen-like structures. It naturally drew the eye and the attention, since the tall building loomed over the surrounding structures by a full story. He followed the sound of voices when he got there, straight to one of the “pens,” where all the rest had gathered.
“. . . workshops,” Ari was saying judiciously, as he kicked through bits of rubble embedded in the sand. Kaleth nodded. “I would guess the same,” he said. “As we have been looking through the ruins, I’ve found broken tools, half-finished projects. I agree that these were all temple workshops, and you know what that means. This was a great temple at one time, one that had many workshops making statues of the gods, and offerings. These workshops must have had roofs of palm-leaf thatch, so when the sand overwhelmed this place, what little was left of the roofs crumbled away to nothing.”
Kiron joined them, noting that Ari’s prodding toe had turned up a half-finished statue of the god Haras in his falcon-form. It seemed Kaleth’s guess was correct.
“Which suggests to me that at one point there was a palm-oasis here, too,” Ari replied, stooping to pick up the statue and turn it over in his strong hands. “What was here once, we can build again. And meanwhile, if you are sure the god Haras will not begrudge us living-room—”
“Very sure,” Kaleth replied, with a nod. “As sure as I have ever been of anything. These workshops can be made into pens, as you have been suggesting, and that big enclosure that was probably a corral for sacrificial cattle can be made into a nursery for little ones.”
“Little ones?” Kiron felt it was time to make his presence known. Kaleth favored Kiron with a half smile, though the smile didn’t reach his eyes this time. “You don’t think the Magi are going to leave us alone forever, do you? One day, we will need Jousters to fly to defend Sanctuary, I fear.” As a matter of fact, he had hoped for something of the sort, but it appeared that his hopes were in vain. “As he told us this morning, Kaleth says that we are soon to see our population increase,” Ari said. “And then—well, he has a plan, and I will let him explain it to everyone when the time is right.”
“But part of that is that we’re going to have dragonets again, and new Jousters to train, is that it? And this will be soon?” Kiron persisted.
“Absolutely,” Kaleth replied. He looked so sure of himself that any doubts Kiron might have had faded away.
“But we haven’t any dragons other than Kashet who are of breeding age,” he pointed out. “If we’re going to be hatching our own and raising them from the egg—“
“It is safe to transport an egg when it is first laid, before it has begun true incubation,” Ari observed. “I wouldn’t do it by cart, or transport it for more than half a day, but in a sling between two camels—it would probably be fine.”
“By the time the wild dragons are laying their eggs, Heklatis will have perfected the magic that makes the sands hot, and we will be able to incubate the eggs,” Kaleth said, with his eyes looking off into the distance. “After that you will train new wings and—” he broke off what he was saying. “One step at a time. We will make these workshops into new pens, the old temple into a place where dragons can wait out a storm or shelter from the cold, and the cattle pen into a nursery for eggs and dragonets. And meanwhile, other things will be happening. And for that, we need a Council and official leaders.” Well, that was new. “A Council?” Kiron asked. “Leaders? But—” “All in good time,” Ari cautioned. “But it is best to have the plan in place before you need it.” “Does Lord—” Kiron began.
“Lord Khumun knows and approves,” said Kaleth, and that seemed to be that. After all, if Lord Khumun, who had been the defacto leader of the refugees since they had all arrived here, had no difficulty with these plans, who was Kiron to object? #
“Oh yes,” Heklatis said, when Kiron came to talk to him. “A good deal of what your priests did to bring heat to the sands was mummery. Mind, it is a good thing to have the blessing of the gods when you decide to work a bit of magic! But there was no need for all the chanting and incense and pretty priestesses in mist-linen.” He chuckled. “Except, of course, that the old priests probably liked looking at pretty priestesses in mist-linen.” He raised an eyebrow at Kiron. “Mind, mist-linen is a very good choice for adorning a fine body, don’t you think?”
The Akkadian Healer—who was also a Magus, according to his own peoples’ way of magic—was a short, bandy-legged fellow with a knowing eye and a head of curly, silver-streaked hair. Wiry and agile rather than slim and graceful like the Altans, he stood out among the refugees physically for more than just his Akkadian tunics and his wild halo of hair. He also was not in the least interested in priestesses in mist-linen. Which Kiron knew very well.
Kiron felt his ears growing hot, and gave himself a moment to think by looking around Heklatis’s quarters—which did not differ substantially from the ones he had in the Jousters’ Compound in Alta. Everything he remembered from there was here; the Akkadian statues of gods, the mix of Akkadian and Altan furnishings, the case of scrolls, the odd metal lamps that Heklatis favored.
Then again, Heklatis had been able to take virtually everything he owned with him. Unlike the Jousters, he hadn’t had to abandon anything, because he and Lord Khumun had smuggled themselves out disguised as an aged husband and wife leaving for the country. A wagon full of belongings made a useful foil.
“But—” he began, deciding to quickly change the subject, “Kaleth seems to think we’re going to be needing everything the Khamiseen uncovered and more! I thought Sanctuary was pretty much just for the Jousters and people that the Magi were determined to do away with! Just how many people are going to be turning up here?”
Heklatis turned sober. “More than either of us think, I suspect,” he replied. “I have the feeling that things are not at going all well back in Alta. Kaleth has been very close-mouthed about what he has Seen. I believe he is waiting for this next lot to arrive to confirm with their own words what he knows, rather than risk our incredulity—because I think he knows that the skeptics among us will take it all more seriously with eyewitnesses.”
Kiron felt his heart sinking. “It won’t be good,” he replied, shaking his head. “I didn’t want to think about it as long as we were all right but. . . well, he won’t have to have eyewitnesses to convince me.”
“Nor me,” Heklatis sighed, scratching his head absently. The Magi had certainly begun their covert takeover of Alta long before Kiron had arrived, but shortly after he had joined the Jousters of Alta, they had moved from covert to overt. Once, they had relied only on their own strength, like the priest-mages of Tia, and their magic had been used to defend Alta. Now, however, their power was stolen from others, and their magic was used to help them in a bid for control of the people and the land. Kiron had discovered that they were stealing whatever it was that enabled the Winged Ones to see into the future and predict earth-shakes, and to see at a distance to predict the movements of Tian troops—leaving Alta vulnerable. Worse, they were draining enough of it that the Winged Ones were dying of it. And they had begun moving to drain the same resource from those with other abilities. Like the Healers.
Once, the Eye they had created was a potent weapon that lashed the earth with fire had been Alta’s last-ditch defense. Now it was used to keep the people of Alta in fear, lashing out whenever anyone challenged the authority of the Magi, incinerating the very people and places it was supposed to protect.
Whoever, whatever had started the war between Tia and Alta was lost in the past and a hundred thousand recriminations. But now (so Kiron and others believed) the war was being prolonged because death, and all the magic inherent in the years that might have been lived, gave the Magi the power they could no longer live without and could not raise for themselves without harm to others. They had used up as much of their own power as they were willing to part with, they were using up the Winged Ones, and there was every indication—or had been, when the Jousters had fled—that the Magi had learned how to profit from the sacrifice of others.
And now that they had found this new source of power, he and Heklatis and the few others who suspected it had no doubt that they would exploit it as ruthlessly as they had every other source. It gave them stolen youth, it gave them the power to control the Eye, and Kiron could not even begin to guess what else they had planned.
One thing he did know, it had given them supreme secular power, or at least, it had put the Twin Thrones of Alta within their grasp.
Of course, in order to get access to the Twin Thrones, and to set themselves up as the heirs-apparent, they had needed to be rid of the then-current heirs. The murder of one, the disgrace of the other—the fabrication of a twin-bloodline—and the deed was done.
The murdered heir had been Toreth, a Jouster, and Kaleth’s twin. He was not, by any means, the only one they had killed, but this was the death that had shown the Jousters, all of them, just what the Magi had become. And subsequent subtle persecution of the Jousters had proved to them that the Magi were determined to be rid of the one group that resisted their takeover.
When Kiron and the rest had fled Alta, it had been with the knowledge that the Magi were going to destroy the Jousters as the last obstacle that stood between them and their control of the entire country. The trouble was, the Jousters of Alta were all that stood between the people of Alta and the depredations of the Jousters of Tia, who were responsible for some true horrors.
Kiron and the others decided they could not make their own escape until they had nullified that threat, so they had done their best to even the stakes between Alta and Tia by destroying what had kept the wild-caught dragons under control, the drug called tala. The Jousters of Tia had been overwhelming in their number and the strength of their larger desert-born dragons. But with the tala gone, the wild-born dragons no longer controllable, at least the conflict came down to equal numbers and equal armies.
The only dragons left under human control now were those that had been raised from the egg by their Jousters—the eight dragons born in Alta and raised by Kiron’s wing, and the two born in Tia and raised by Kiron and Ari.
These were now the dragons and Jousters of Sanctuary, who served and protected those who were pledged to end the war, though they had no idea yet how they could do that. There was only one thing that any of them knew for certain. Ending the war began with ending the power of the Magi, because the Magi were the ones prolonging the conflict, and the only ones who benefited from it.
So now the question in Kiron’s mind was, how badly had things deteriorated in Alta since Kiron and the rest had fled the city? He could not imagine that they would have improved.
“Have you heard anything from the Healers?” he asked Heklatis. The Akkadian shook his head.
“Not that I expected to,” Heklatis added to that. “I think that whatever information comes to us will come in with these newcomers that we are expecting.”
“How much do you think Kaleth already knows?” Kiron asked, with a growing sense of unease that was not directed at their enemies—but at the one who was supposed to be guiding them. It was one thing for Kaleth to be the mere mouthpiece for the gods, but another entirely for him to be withholding vital information if he had it. Was Kaleth already keeping secrets—as the Magi had?
“Not nearly as much as you think he does,” Heklatis said immediately, as if he were able to read Kiron’s thoughts, and he gave Kiron a reassuring nod. “The Magi are able to block my scrying and the attempts by the Bedu to overlook the city. I think they can probably even cloud whatever ability the gods gave Kaleth as well. My bet would be that Kaleth knows just enough to make him sure he hasn’t got sufficient information to give good advice, much less base decisions on.”
Kiron shook his head, for that made no sense at all. “How can men block the power of the gods?” he protested.
Heklatis gave an exasperated snort. “Oh do think, will you? There are gods of the Light, and are there also not gods of Darkness? Oh yes, I know, among you Altans and Tians every god has some aspects of both—but are there not gods that are mostly of the darkness, as Haras and Iris and Siris are mostly of the light?”
“Well,” Kiron admitted, slowly, “Ye-es.”
“And did those gods of light and darkness not go to war against each other in the distant and legended past?” Heklatis persisted.
“Not war, precisely, but—”
“And do you not think that the Magi of Alta are, even now, giving those dark gods what they most crave? And in return, for those gifts, those dark gods are preventing the servants of the light from seeing what they do?” Heklatis looked at him as if he was a particularly dense apprentice.
Kiron shivered. It was bad enough, thinking that the Magi alone were working against them—but to think that gods might be getting into it—
How could they ever hope to prevail against gods?
“The good thing is that gods seldom intervene directly,” Heklatis went on, with an arched brow as he noted Kiron’s shivering. “Probably because, having warred with each other in the long past, they are loathe to begin such a war again. I do not believe we need fear divine or infernal retribution. Interference, perhaps—but that, my young friend, can go both ways. Do not grant the darkness more power than it already has by giving in to your fears. And remember that if this is the case, and they have allies, well, so do we.”
Anything else that the Healer might have added had to be left unsaid, for their conversation was interrupted by Huras, who diffidently rapped at the doorpost of Heklatis’s dwelling—Heklatis almost never closed his door except during a khamiseen, saying that a Healer must always be available to those who needed him.
“Kiron, Healer, I wouldn’t interrupt you,” the stocky young man said, as Kiron saw immediately by the excitement in his eyes that he must have some news. “But one of the Bedu guides has come in, with word. The people Kaleth has been expecting are not more than half a day behind him, and you will be most glad to hear who they are!”
#
The weary caravan of refugees arrived at Sanctuary in the last gleam of twilight, as the full moon rose over the desert. Weary they might have been, but they arrived in good order; which was only to be expected, since their leader was Lord Ya-tires—the father of Orest and Aket-ten.
And with him was his entire household. Wife, sons, servants, and every other relative and their households that wished to escape. Every bit of moveable property, every scrap of food they could buy or harvest, every animal that could take the desert trek; all of it. They formed an irregular blot against the pale desert sand as they approached, a blot that brought with it its own dust-cloud and heralded its approach by the bleating and calling of the animals with them.
Small wonder that Kaleth had said that without the sandstorm uncovering the new parts of the city, they would be crowded.
There were others with Lord Ya-tires as well, but no other Great Households intact and entire. Some Healers, most notably those who had the special gift of Healing by touch, and a few—a very, very few—of the Priestly caste.
Aket-ten and Orest were beside themselves with relief and joy, and could not wait until the caravan arrived; they flew out to meet it on their dragons, and arrived back leading the refugees from the air, so Kiron did not witness how they greeted their father. Not that he needed to; he knew that the greeting would have been full of tears and pleasure, and he also knew that while he was very happy that his best friends had their mother and father safely with them, there would have been a small part of him eaten up with envy. His father, after all, was dead beyond a shadow of a doubt; his mother, and his sisters, if they weren’t also dead, were worse off than slaves. He couldn’t begrudge Aket-ten and Orest this meeting, but he was glad he didn’t have to see it.
Instead, he was able to wait at the side of Kaleth and Lord Khumun with all the rest of the Jousters to welcome the refugees to their new home. He would not even have put himself forward as the Lord was greeted by Khumun as an equal, and himself gave Kaleth the bow of deep respect—but Lord Ya-tires caught sight of him and greeted him with an enthusiasm he hadn’t expected.
“And there you are!” Lord Ya-tires exclaimed, embracing him as he might have one of his own sons. Kiron felt himself flushing with a mingling of embarrassment, pleasure, and affection. He had not realized just how much he liked Lord Ya-tires until that moment. He had known how much he respected the man, but not that he had come to think of the Lord and his family as a kind of second family of his own. “Kiron, it is good to see you again!”
“My Lord, I am happy beyond telling that you have come safely here,” Kiron managed to say, with only a little stammer of confusion. “And with your entire household!”
“We should have been here sooner, but he would not leave anyone behind,” said Iris-aten, Aket-ten’s mother, with a warm smile for her husband. She didn’t look much like Aket-ten; where her daughter was flexible and tough, she was willowy and gracile. If Aket-ten was a bit like a cheetah, Iris-aten was a pampered temple cat. Nevertheless, she had made the trek, and evidently without a word of complaint. “Not that I didn’t agree with him; I will leave nothing for those wretches to seize in their greed. Not the least servant, nor the youngest kid-goat!”
“I would leave nothing for those monsters in their Tower to use against us either,” Lord Ya-tires said, his face darkening; his wife put a comforting hand on his arm. “Nor would I leave anything or anyone behind to suffer their wrath.”
“Not that we believe the Magi have so much as a clue that we have fled,” added a young man who looked very like Orest, but who was wearing what looked to Kiron like the robes of some sort of priest. “We left behind a great deal of misdirection. They should think that we left for the remote estates, well past the bounds of the city, and they should believe that it is because we fear the earth-shaking.”
This must be the brother that’s a Teoth-priest. Kiron had not had the chance to meet all of the brothers—or even Aket-ten’s mother, except in passing. He tried not to feel too overwhelmed by this sudden avalanche of brothers, but he couldn’t help but wonder if they were eying him.
Were they looking at him and wondering how he felt about Aket-ten? Did they wonder how she felt about him?
But there were eight other young Jousters, and if they didn’t know—
He resolved to put the worry out of his mind for the moment. “How did you manage that?” he asked.
“A great deal of carefully placed gossip,” said yet another brother; this one must be the eldest, the one who had been Lord Ya-tires’ steward; he looked like an older and taller version of Orest. “We have been dropping hints, acting terribly worried about the earth-shakes, for—well, ever since Father let us know that we might need to take ourselves out of reach of the Magi. We aren’t the only ones, either. There are those who really are making for property as far away from Alta as possible.”
“The Akkadians are leaving,” said yet another brother, somberly.
“Am I properly holding back my shock?” asked Heklatis, dryly. “Greetings, my Lord. I am exceedingly pleased to see all of you.”
“And I am exceedingly pleased to see you, Healer,” Lord Ya-tires said. “We have more of your colleagues with us, though not as many as we would have liked. And we are, to be frank, very weary.”
“My old friend, we anticipated that.” Lord Khumun eased his way into the group, and he and Lord Ya-Tires clasped forearms in greeting. “Our friends the Bedu have been helping us prepare temporary places for you; they will do until you can shape what the desert uncovered for your use to your own liking. Now come, and we will show you.”
With a sigh of relief, Kiron eased out of the way and let Lord Khumun take over the shepherding of the entire group. It was with a feeling of shock that he realized that this one group was going to more than double the population of Sanctuary.
As soon as we move out of our quarters, I suspect some of those that are not of Lord Ya-tires’ household will move into them!
It was just as well that it wouldn’t take much to turn those empty workshops into the kinds of pen-and-living-quarters combinations that they all had enjoyed in Alta.
We have a lot to do. And so did everyone else. Well, one step at a time. Tonight—
Tonight he would let Aket-ten and Orest enjoy being with their family again. Tonight was for celebration. Leave the work for tomorrow.