THE acolytes of the various Tian gods were surprisingly willing to help with the work on the new dragon pens. Not that acolytes of any sort weren’t used to working hard, but they were generally not accustomed to the kinds of labor that might be termed “common.” Nevertheless, they turned their hands to it, fitting stones into place, making cement to hold them together, although the task of trimming them to fit was left to Lord Ya-tiren’s experienced stonemason. But perhaps that was because the four buildings surrounding the original pen were destined to become temple quarters for them all once the Jousters moved; at the moment, the priests and acolytes of the entire Tian party were all crowded very closely together in Kaleth’s Temple to All Gods, sleeping with scarcely a place to put a foot between them, and it could not be comfortable for any of them. At any rate, with their help, and the help of some of Lord Ya-tiren’s people, the conversion occurred within a few days. The original doors—which fortunately had no lintels anymore, if they ever had possessed such a thing—were bricked halfway up, and the walls raised, so that a real sand wallow could be made deep enough for a dragon to dig him- or herself in.

Then, before the sand was brought in, a walkway was constructed around the periphery of each pen, just as the pens in Alta and Tia had been constructed, with a wider platform at the rear. Last of all, copying the pens in Alta so that the riders could live with their dragons, a single-roomed shelter was built on that platform at the back of the pen, and a water trough where a dragon could drink.

Since Kiron had been put in charge of the new Jousters, there was one thing he had made very clear. Everyone, including Ari, had agreed with him.

No Jouster would ever live apart from his dragon again.

Jousters were going to change; it was time for that change to begin. They would no longer live as lesser nobles, not that they’d be able to under the current conditions anyway! They would be housed in conditions no better, and no worse, than any officer in the Tian or Altan armies.

Jousters would still be like no one else, and part of that difference would be signaled by other ways in which they lived besides the bare fact of their housing.