Theirs, it seemed, was a passive power; Kiron suspected that if the Magi had guessed what it was they did for the priests, their names would have been first on that list of those who had been called to “serve” the advisers, and their status as priestesses would not have saved them.

They amplified the power of the spell, giving it, not merely strength, but reach, sending it far beyond the area in which it would normally operate. So the Thet priests were able to “steal” heat from somewhere far outside the walls of Sanctuary, and sink it into the sands. But they also created, at long last, one of the “cold” rooms where meat could be stored for days at a time at need, channeling the heat from that space into the pens as well. In the times when there was more game caught than the dragons could eat that day, it could be stored against greater need. The Thet priests were adept from long practice at finding good ways to channel the heat, but it was clever Heklatis who suggested one change that had never occurred to them—to move the heat through time as well as distance, taking heat from Sanctuary during the day to be used at night, keeping the buildings cool by day, as the Palace at Mefis was.

The mere concept made Kiron’s head spin, but apparently they worked out how to do that. It seemed so impossible that he finally decided to just pretend he hadn’t heard any such thing.

When they brought the dragons to the new Compound, there was not a moment of hesitation out of them on seeing their new quarters. The dragons had never been so happy since they had left Alta. They lofted over the walls and plunged into the hot sands with little squeals of glee, and every one of them, even Kashet, immediately buried him- or herself to the shoulders in the sand, leaving only the wide, leathery wings spread out across the hot surface.