Heklatis nodded. “I have looked back into the records and I can find no accounts of the Eye being used at night, or even on a cloudy day. No, it is always bright sunshine, and usually on or around noon. I think that the main part of the Eye is a lens, and the rest is perhaps some magical or mechanical way of gathering and concentrating a great deal more sunlight than just a simple lens could account for. A simple lens would not be able to reach very far, for instance. But I expect it would be as much a mechanical contraption as it is magical.”

“Which explains why they have not made a smaller Eye?” Kiron hazarded. “A smaller Eye would not be nearly as powerful?”

Heklatis nodded. “Such an apparatus would not be very portable either—and I suspect that there is some source of power there, in or under the Tower, and only there. That would account for the beam of light.”

“So if we were to go and try to wreck the Eye at night, or on a cloudy day, they would not be able to use it against us?” Kiron said, in sudden speculation.

“So I believe.” Heklatis nodded. “And the best way to get to it would be to come at it from above.”

They exchanged a look. “Dragons,” breathed Kiron. “And that is why the Magi dislike the Jousters!”

“Dislike? I would have said that they fear the Jousters, as they would any force that can take that special weapon from them. It seems logical,” agreed Heklatis. “And I would go further than that. I believe that the stronger they grow in their power, the more they come to hate and fear the Jousters rather than less, and the more they wish to destroy them if they can.”

“You know,” Kiron said, after a long pause, “That is not the most comforting thing you have ever said to me.”

Heklatis did not smile.

SEVENTEEN

SEVENTEEN

SOMETIMES Kiron had thought there would not be enough time before the rains began; others that the awaited day could not come quickly enough.

Meanwhile, the dragonets—swiftly and daily growing so large that they really needed to be called “dragons” now—continued to grow in more ways than just size.

Take little Re-eth-ke, for instance; she might be small, but she was as quick as a thought, and exquisitely sensitive to emotions. It wasn’t hard to tell how Aket-ten was feeling; all you had to do was look at Re-eth-ke. When Aket-ten was happy, the blue-and-silver dragon would bounce everywhere, and flit through the sky like a bit of thistledown. When she was depressed, Re-eth-ke became a shadow. And when Aket-ten was angry—well, it was best not to get in Re-eth-ke’s way.