Cast in Wisdom

by Michelle Sagara

  “What is he doing?” the Dragon asked, voice sharper.

  “I’m not entirely sure—but I’d guess he’s about to breathe on part of the wall.”

  “I don’t consider that wise.”

  Kaylin shrugged. “He’s annoyed and frustrated, but he’s not worried.”

  Hope squawked loudly before he stopped in front of one section of that wall. Hovering there, he inhaled. When he exhaled, it was the silver stream of smoke that seemed to terrify Barrani when it was aimed in their direction.

  The smoke touched the wall as if the familiar was exhaling liquid; the liquid splashed against the stone and then dripped toward the floor, melting stone as it did—but not all of the stone. Some solid parts remained, and they formed a recognizable shape; Kaylin had seen it through Hope’s wing. Severn had seen it through Kaylin’s eyes. It was the figure that Severn thought he recognized.

  Bellusdeo’s breath was slower but sharper. “Yes,” she finally said. “This could be one of two or three missing children reported to Missing Persons. I’m sorry, but the Hawk’s artist’s rendition is not as precise as this statue.”

  “This boy was reported missing at the Halls of Law?”

  It was Severn who said, “I believe so. Robin Perse. Twelve years of age.”

  “Missing from where?”

  “Outside of the west warrens. Assumed missing in the warrens. The Barrani Hawks searched, but he couldn’t be found, dead or alive.”

  “What is he doing here?”

  “That would be the question.”

  Bellusdeo frowned. “There are others like this boy in the wall?”

  Kaylin could no longer see anything. “There were.”

  “How many?”

  “I didn’t count. At least a dozen. Probably more.”

  “Probably?”

  “They weren’t completely distinct. It was like looking at a crowd made of stone.”

  “Were they all human?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “All, or almost all,” Severn said at about the same time. “There may have been Barrani, but they were at the back of the crowd, not the forefront.”

  The familiar returned to Kaylin’s shoulder, where he wrapped himself around her neck like a limp shawl. When she poked him, he swiveled one eye balefully in her direction. “Sorry, buddy, but—the wing would be helpful.”

  He pushed himself into his relaxed seated position and lifted his wing. He didn’t even hit her with it first.

  She then began a slower examination of the wall. “What do you think the wall is?”

  Severn shrugged. “At the very least, a convenient way to get rid of people.”

  “If it’s just that, it seems like a big outlay of magic and planning.”

  “Corpses breed questions. Questions get the Halls of Law involved. Enough deaths, enough questions, and the Imperial Mages might be called. There. Stop there.”

  She did. She looked through Hope’s wing.

  “Barrani,” she said. “I don’t recognize him.”

  “No. You don’t have to recognize him. I believe there’s another—the farthest one back. The figure is small, but the features appear distinct, even given the size.”

  * * *

  “How many of those missing persons reports involved people from the warrens?” Kaylin asked the Dragon, the closest thing to Records on hand.

  “Not many people who live in the warrens visit the Halls of Law,” the Dragon replied. “I begin to understand why Mandoran is so foolish in his desire to give his name—and the power that implies—to you. I find it intensely frustrating not to be able to see what you’re seeing; you are clearly making decisions based on it.”

  “Do not give me the name I didn’t take when it was clear to me. I like my head more or less where it is.”

  This annoyed Bellusdeo, which wasn’t Kaylin’s intent, but the subtext—that the Emperor would be angry and that Kaylin wished to avoid this—was clear. The Dragon exhaled smoke.

  “People have been reported as missing from the warrens. If I can’t see what you can see—and I don’t suggest that your familiar attempt to breathe upon the entire wall—I can’t tell you if any of them are here.”

  Kaylin nodded. “I think the two Barrani might be significant.”

  “More so than the mortals?”

  “To Candallar, yes. And probably to the High Court, as well. We need to go back to the Halls.”

  Bellusdeo nodded. “One small problem, however.”

  “Yeah. Which way is out?”

  * * *

  That question became the only relevant question an hour later. It had edged past normal lunch hour, and while street duties could get in the way of timely meals, Kaylin’s stomach didn’t care much about duty. It made noise.

  The building appeared to consist of one large room—the room with the wall—but it also had two rooms to either side of the major one. Kaylin assumed that they would be rectangles, roughly the length of the main room—a room that appeared to be featureless and empty without the visual aid provided by Hope.

  Bellusdeo checked out the doors, assessing their possibly magical consequences before she allowed them to be touched or opened. Severn, accustomed to the Dragon, allowed this. Kaylin was almost certain that if he said No, Bellusdeo would step back, something she would never do for Kaylin.

  “The marks on your arms aren’t glowing,” the Dragon said. “And your general whining hasn’t increased. I think we’re safe from magical difficulties for the moment.”

  She was right. The door—a small door better suited to a mudroom or a closet—opened into a long room. Unlike the first room, it appeared to be a study of some sort; two desks were flush against the far wall. There was no paper, no writing implements, nothing that implied that the desks had been used.

  Kaylin exhaled and glanced at Hope. She attempted to open one of the drawers. It was locked. The knob felt oddly greasy, given the almost sterile room. “The other door?”

  Severn nodded.

  The second room was not a room; the door led to a hall with doorless walls that ended in stairs.

  “Why do they always have to go down?”

  Severn started into the hall. “There’s no other door,” he said. “And it’s possible that the entrance and exit are underground.”

  “In Candallar?”

  “If we’re lucky.”

  * * *

  This was not the first time they had entered an unexpected basement. Given her general luck, it probably wouldn’t be the last, but the statue of a boy Bellusdeo thought had gone missing remained firmly fixed in mind. She couldn’t be certain that people hadn’t just been sucked into the wall when they touched it; couldn’t be certain that they hadn’t found their way into this place the same way she had. Giant eyeballs on the side of buildings would have been cause for gossip or worry—but not if no one who’d seen them made their way back.

  And to be fair, if they had, they weren’t likely to be believed by anyone who didn’t live on the edge of the fiefs. Strange things happened in the border zone. It was both a whisper and a fear, and the only thing that could drive the desperate across the borders were the hunting Ferals. If the Ferals were on your heels, you knew what death awaited. The unknown was definitely worth the risk.

  Hope squawked. “Hush. I’m counting steps.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve encountered giant eyeballs in your former career,” Bellusdeo asked Severn.

  “I’ve encountered worse. There are forty-eight,” he added.

  Kaylin turned to look back at the stairs. They remained solid, slightly worn stone. There were no magical runes, no sign of the sigils that implied that Arcanists or mages had been at work. There were no torches or other forms of light; if light came here, it was carried by the visitor—and most visitors, like, say, the missin
g boy, didn’t carry light with them.

  Hope lifted his head. He squawked.

  “This is going to be trouble,” Kaylin said out loud.

  Bellusdeo didn’t argue. She did push past Kaylin but allowed Severn to continue on point. Clearly, she hadn’t fully absorbed the fact that Kaylin was also a corporal now.

  “What trouble are you expecting?” Bellusdeo demanded.

  “I think this might be a sentient building.”

  “What?”

  “I think there’s a chance that the building itself is sentient, like Helen or the Hallionne.”

  “Sentient buildings seldom eat people.”

  “I didn’t say its personality was either Helen or Hallionne. I didn’t know about Helen until I went to apply as a tenant. I did know the Towers existed, but I didn’t understand how they worked.”

  Bellusdeo said nothing.

  “This might be something like Helen.”

  “Your reasoning?”

  “There’s some magic here—but I think most of it is yours. The light, the scan you’re doing to detect other magic. The eye on the external wall is the type of magic I’d associate with buildings that can play god within their own perimeters.” She shrugged, uneasy. “Mostly, it’s the portal.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Portals make me ill most of the time.” Literally. “I didn’t feel any discomfort at the transition at all. And that happens mostly inside of sentient buildings.”

  “Can you sense any sentience?”

  Hope squawked.

  “Say that so I can understand it.”

  If you insist, although I am already fatigued. I do not dispute your logic, but I do not sense an overarching control. Helen is noticeable immediately, as are the Hallionne.

  “You think I’m wrong.”

  No. I think you may be correct—but something is off in that case. He squawked again, this time in a short burst.

  “How could there be a sentient building in the border zone?”

  It was Severn who answered. “If it was built before the fall of Ravellon, its existence in the border zone would be poor luck on the part of the building. You can ask Helen; she might have more information. Or perhaps you can visit the High Halls and see if you can speak with Spike.”

  “Once we get out.”

  “Once we get out.”

  * * *

  If this was a building that was, in some fashion, like Helen, it was sleeping. The hall that the stairs led to was dark, the ceilings short and distinctly basement-like. Nothing about the building except the wall of statues that could only be seen through Hope’s wing implied that they were in a space defined—and rearranged at will—by any sentience other than a carpenter and stonemason.

  If the eyeball on the external wall didn’t count.

  Bellusdeo’s light brightened; the long corridor resolved itself into a wall with a door on each side, and a door at the end. These doors, like the side doors in the great room above, were better suited to closets. Or, to be fair, to Kaylin’s first apartment.

  The doors to the left and right, like the doors above, were locked. There were no door wards, nor was there Kaylin-detectable magic on either the knobs or the locks.

  Severn continued past them to the door at the end of this basement hallway.

  “It had better not be another set of stairs.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t. It was a hall like the one they were standing in. In fact, it appeared to be identical to the one they were standing in. There were doors to the left and right, both locked, and a door at the end.

  The third such hall caused a small spate of Leontine. Kaylin drew a dagger and scored the right door; it was wood, but it was normal wood. Sadly, it was a harder grade of wood. Bellusdeo chose to end Kaylin’s attempt to etch an X across the door’s surface.

  She breathed on it instead.

  Given that they were half-afraid that the building was sentient, Kaylin didn’t think this wise. But it was certainly faster, and the Dragon’s flame was controlled enough that she didn’t turn the door into ash. The mark was, of course, on the door in the next hall.

  They were walking in a circle, an iterative loop. It was a defensive design; thieves or intruders couldn’t leave should they somehow manage to get in. They couldn’t return to the large room, either; the forty-eight steps that had brought them to this hall had vanished. Going back the way they’d come meant they were moving in the opposite direction through a series of connected halls that looked the same—because they were.

  “Do you think it’s the same hall behind the side doors?” Bellusdeo asked.

  Hope squawked.

  “That would be inconvenient.” The Dragon was standing before the door she’d already blackened. “I am going to open this door.”

  “That’s not a use of the word open that would pass legal muster.”

  “A pity that Imperial property laws do not apply in the fiefs.” She exhaled flame in a cone that was large enough to catch the edge of stone walls around the frame. When she stopped, there was a large hole where the locked door had been standing.

  She insisted on going through first. Given the color of the stone around the former door frame’s edges, Kaylin didn’t argue. Fire didn’t hurt Dragons. It would do nothing good for their clothing, though.

  The door didn’t open into a hall. Kaylin allowed herself to feel a tiny bit of relief, but the room it did open into had a door on the opposite wall. There was a bed here, and a table that might serve as a desk if someone needed a flat surface; there was a single chair. There were books on a shelf that didn’t look very stable; there was no dust. No cobwebs. The bed itself was made; it didn’t look as if it had ever been slept in.

  Kaylin exhaled and approached the door on the far wall.

  This one wasn’t locked, and it opened into a closet.

  * * *

  The same room existed on the opposite side of the hall. The same rooms, absent doors, existed in the long tunnel that they’d been walking for some time. There was no going back and no going forward. Even the door which Bellusdeo had destroyed remained destroyed as they reached the end of the hall, opened the door, and entered...the same hall.

  The bookshelves of unsteadiness had now been thoroughly searched; the books themselves had been taken down and skimmed. Reading, at least for Kaylin, was impossible; the books weren’t written in Barrani or Elantran. She didn’t recognize the writing at all.

  “I don’t believe it’s actual language,” Bellusdeo finally said.

  “You think it’s random squiggles?”

  “I think it’s as real as the hall and the room in which we found the books, yes. But I doubt that the information we require to leave this place can be found on those pages.”

  * * *

  There was nothing written on the ceilings; there were no magical sigils, either. The floor and walls were featureless; the floor was likewise mundane. Nothing felt like magic, although the door opening into the same hall was a dead giveaway. Kaylin cursed.

  “I don’t recall that phrase. It’s Aerian, yes?”

  “I’d appreciate it if you never repeated it where anyone Aerian can hear it. Or anyone who understands Aerian. The only magic I feel here is yours.” Kaylin had tucked a book from either room under her arm; she had, in fact, taken them one at a time to see if taking a book through the door at the end of the hall would make any difference. It hadn’t. No combination of books achieved different results, either.

  “Remind me to put a dagger through that damn eyeball the next time we’re here.”

  “It’s stone; you’ll ruin the knife.”

  “I’ll feel better.”

  The Dragon snorted. “I would suggest that we not return if we manage to escape.”

  “As if we could ever be that lucky.”

  �
��The escape?”

  “The not having to return.” Kaylin paused, tucked the two volumes under one arm, took a step until she was standing in the door frame itself and closed her eyes. “I’m going to try something.”

  Chapter 5

  The marks of the Chosen had remained invisible; they hadn’t started to glow and hadn’t pulled themselves up through the rest of her clothing to circle her arms or any other part of her.

  Kaylin was accustomed to reacting to the marks. Experience had given her the ability to do so intelligently, mostly. But she’d waited for those marks to reveal themselves. She had always considered the glow or the separation from her skin to be their attempt to communicate with her.

  Bellusdeo’s attempt to use magic on the door through which they continually passed had gone nowhere. Kaylin’s attempt to do the same would be even less successful. But she had the marks of the Chosen, and the marks of the Chosen didn’t obey Sanabalis’s rules of magic.

  She didn’t know how to use the marks. She didn’t consciously invoke them when she healed people. She focused only on the patient and the connection between them; only on the desired result, not the mechanics of achieving it.

  The doorway would never be considered a patient, which was beside the point.

  Her use of the marks, the ink-black words that resided on the skin over half of her body, had always been reactive. She had no idea if, when healing, they glowed or rose from her arms; there was no one she could ask. People didn’t see the marks the same way she did.

  No, Chosen; they are yours. It was Hope.

  Mine, and I don’t know how to use them?

  Even so.

  She opened the cuff of her left sleeve and began to roll the cloth back from the skin it hid.

  Hope snorted by her ear, but kept the words that snort implied to himself. It wasn’t Hope that she heard, however. It was Sanabalis, in memory. Words or gestures as part of invocation are crutches. They are irrelevant to the use of magic itself.